SCA 50 Adventures

[sublime1996525]

Small update. My fire fish is still alive! He came out while I was feeding today. I thought I lost him weeks ago. Also my yellow tang and possum wrasse, or wrass-E as I like to call him, are getting braver and actually swimming around and not always hiding while I’m in the room. 

 

Still working on on what to do about the dinos. 

[sublime1996525]

3 days of blackout, dino-x, and a pH buffer and finally my tank seems to be making some dino progress! 

 

My poor cleaner shrimp didn’t make it though 😞

 

[sublime1996525]

The dinos have came back with a vengeance. Next step will be using my old clinics microscope to identify the type because these things are tenacious. 

 

I did get a bunch of new coral in and I got a clam! Here’s hoping I can get my tank situated. 

[sublime1996525]

Well that has turned to this ridiculous mess. Dinos are back 

 

I used a microscope to identify the strain. I believe they are prorocentrum. Here’s a pick of them. 

[mcarroll]

Hold the phone and definitely stop adding new animals.  🙂  You're doing something to cause this bloom and piling on more bio-load isn't wise under the circumstance.  

 

So let's figure out what happening.  🙂

 

The most typical causes of dino blooms are... 

1. ...setting up a new tank
2. ...with dead rock
3. ...and mega-filtration including GFO, carbon dosing, extra biomedia, a refugium, etc.
4. Generally nutrient levels, especially phosphates, are zero or near-zero.

Looks like your old tank wasn't very new, but maybe the tank itself was just old and the reef in it was new-ish?

 

My guess in your case is that you used new sand in the new tank which happened to be phosphate free.  

 

Adding a bunch of pure aragonite has the side effect of sucking all the available phosphate out of the water – aragonite works pretty much just like GFO.  

 

If you create this "phosphate drought" it makes life tough for (e.g.) corals, which are dependent on phosphates coming to them via the water.

 

If you happen to be doing any of that excessive filtration I mentioned, such as GFO, carbon dosing or a refugium with macroalgae, remove it ASAP.  

 

You should just have a protein skimmer with live rock running with a portion of activated carbon to remove any toxins given off by your dino's.

 

If nutrient levels are zero or near-zero, then raising them with nutrient fertilizers is the recommended solution.  

 

There are even specific target levels that will get you past the bloom.  

 

Dose phosphates up to ≥0.10 ppm and keep it there, verified by daily testing.  

Dose nitrates up to 5-10 ppm, verified daily.  

 

You might find that if you test an hour after dosing that levels are already back to zero.  

 

If that happens, dose again.  You want levels to stay in the ranges listed above until the dino bloom subsides.

[sublime1996525]

Thanks for the reply! I’m definitely not going to add anything else. I did use new sand, that sounds like it was a big contributor.

 

I am not running a refugium or dosing carbon. I have a skimmer with chemipure elite. Should I get a little live rock to dump in the sump? 

 

Phosphates are 0.01. I’m working on bringing those up. I’ll try the dosing like you suggested. Nitrates are > 4 ppm. 

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, sublime1996525 said:

I have a skimmer with chemipure elite. Should I get a little live rock to dump in the sump? 

I would cease using the Chemipure, which is partly GFO.

 

Definitely no additional bio-media.

 

1 hour ago, sublime1996525 said:

Phosphates are 0.01. I’m working on bringing those up. I’ll try the dosing like you suggested. Nitrates are > 4 ppm.

Sounds like a good plan!  Nitrates are in a good place....just keep an eye on them to be sure they don't drop to zero once you start adding phosphates.  It's fairly possible...maybe even likely, depending how much blooming your dino's have done up to this point.   The detritus they form is an extremely dense carbon source that promotes seemingly limitless bacterial growth, which tends to hold nitrate and phosphate levels down too low for other organisms (even green algae at some point) to use.