Zer0's JBJ RL-10 AIO Cube

[Zer0]

Anyways, here’s a side shot of the tank currently. The glass is a bit cloudy, I scrape the algae off the glass but it grows back in under an hour, so sometimes I just give up lol. I also accidentally snapped off a limb of the green monti during tank maintenance so I glued the broken piece onto the rocks. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

[teamschreiba]

26 minutes ago, Zer0 said:

Anyways, here’s a side shot of the tank currently. The glass is a bit cloudy, I scrape the algae off the glass but it grows back in under an hour, so sometimes I just give up lol. I also accidentally snapped off a limb of the green monti during tank maintenance so I glued the broken piece onto the rocks. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

Looks good!! One thing that actually helped me with the algae on the glass was a UV sterilizer. I had the same problem for almost a year and since adding that I only have to clean the glass every couple days now. Also significantly improved the water clarity. 

[Zer0]

1 hour ago, teamschreiba said:

Looks good!! One thing that actually helped me with the algae on the glass was a UV sterilizer. I had the same problem for almost a year and since adding that I only have to clean the glass every couple days now. Also significantly improved the water clarity. 

Yeah I’m just not sure where I would keep one. I read that the small desktop ones that would fit in aios are basically worthless as well. I will look into it though. I’m fine with cleaning the glass often, but this, growing back less than an hour after scraping, is a bit absurd lol

[teamschreiba]

On 8/17/2021 at 4:24 PM, Zer0 said:

Yeah I’m just not sure where I would keep one. I read that the small desktop ones that would fit in aios are basically worthless as well. I will look into it though. I’m fine with cleaning the glass often, but this, growing back less than an hour after scraping, is a bit absurd lol

Yeah I got a green killing machine that is oversized for my tank which I’m guessing is why it actually works. Not sure it would fit in the back of your AIO though. Also, I think if you were depending on it to eliminate certain bacteria’s I’m not sure it would work but for helping keep the glass clean I can say with confidence that it is the one thing that helped with my glass/sand staying clean. 

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

On 8/17/2021 at 2:35 PM, Zer0 said:

Anyways, here’s a side shot of the tank currently. The glass is a bit cloudy, I scrape the algae off the glass but it grows back in under an hour, so sometimes I just give up lol. I also accidentally snapped off a limb of the green monti during tank maintenance so I glued the broken piece onto the rocks. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

Kudos your tank is gorgeous, I have been battling Dinoflagellates in two of my 3 tanks, it has been a nightmare.

 

[Zer0]

On 8/18/2021 at 10:49 PM, Micro-Reefs Aquariums said:

Kudos your tank is gorgeous, I have been battling Dinoflagellates in two of my 3 tanks, it has been a nightmare.

 

Thanks dude! And that sucks, I’m currently battling gha, it’s pretty annoying and nothing in my tank feeds on it. I have to manually remove a lot of it, siphon it out, whatever. I’m thinking of giving flux a try soon.

 

Anyways, here was a decent FTS I got with my phone yesterday.  A hermit crab pissed off the teal stylo right before I took the shot. All of my hermits seem to love crawling all over the top of it.

[Tony Bologna]

Wow. This tanks keeps getting better and better. 

[Zer0]

Bit of an update. Been combating gha the past couple months, also film algae seems to grow back on the glass after only a couple hours of cleaning so that makes it a little more annoying to get clear pictures. But overall everything is happy and growing. I’ll try to get some better photos sometime soon.

[Zer0]

[Zer0]

Currently battling dinos. The upside to having dinos though is that the clove polyps that were getting out of hand seem to really hate being covered by them, and are now starting to die back. Surprisingly every other coral seem unaffected by the dinos, for now. 

 

My blasto has really grown from a frag with three heads. I believe it has over 20 now.

[Zer0]

And here is a current FTS. I took this just after doing heavy maintenance. The sandbed is generally completely covered with a mat of dinos, I have to siphon it out once a week and use a turkey baster on some of the soft coral because the dinos start to creep up on them. Coral are a bit angry in the photo from the WC. 

 

 

[teamschreiba]

Have you tried a UV sterilizer? And checked your RO/DI filters? Those were two big ones that helped for me recently when I had issues. Hope you can figure it out, dinos are definitely not fun. 

[Zer0]

8 hours ago, teamschreiba said:

Have you tried a UV sterilizer? And checked your RO/DI filters? Those were two big ones that helped for me recently when I had issues. Hope you can figure it out, dinos are definitely not fun. 

So I did just get a UV filter, still in the mail though. Interested to give it a try. I’m also waiting for new filters to come in, but my TDS meter still reads as zero. I think the biggest issue is that my nitrates and phosphates are undetectable, even on my Hanna ULR test kits. I’ve started slowly dosing neonitro and neophos because I don’t really feed the tank that often. I only feed the porcelain crab. The rest of the inhabitants are algae grazers, hermit crabs, cowries, etc… I’m thinking of changing this up though, planning on getting to the LFS this week, I think it’s finally time for a new fish and maybe some more snails and other inverts. 

[Zer0]

I thought maybe some of yall would want to see what I’m working with here. It’s been a real bummer honestly, I take care of this tank religiously, and to see it get taken over by disgusting dinos in 24hrs after cleaning/wc is pretty upsetting. Everything was going well for nearly a year, then dinos hit out of nowhere. 
 

So anyways, I have no choice. I installed a UV filter, and started treating with dino-x. I also started dosing nitrates and phosphates about two weeks ago since both were 0. Honestly, I don’t really know what to expect with the UV and dino-x, but I’m pretty desperate at this point. As I suspected would happen, the dinos are taking over and now killing other coral that I DO care about. Some zoas have withered away from being covered all the time, as well as my alveopora. I use a turky baster to blow gunk off the rocks and coral sometimes twice a day, but it comes back within hours.

 

My TDS meter says my ro/di water is still 0, but I ordered new filters anyways.

 

 

[debbeach13]

That's a dramatic difference!

[Christopher Marks]

Hang in there @Zer0!

 

Have you been able to get any phosphate readings after dosing it these last two weeks? Still at zero?

[Zer0]

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

That's a dramatic difference!

Yeah I give it a pretty deep cleaning every 5 days since the dinos have taken over. Unfortunately the clean state doesn’t last longer than a single day cycle before the sandbed is matted with dinos.

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Hang in there @Zer0!

 

Have you been able to get any phosphate readings after dosing it these last two weeks? Still at zero?

Thanks CM, I’m not throwing in the towel yet! Phosphates are still undetectable on my ULR Hanna checker. It’s possible I might need to increase the dosage.

[Zer0]

On a more non-depressing note, I have a couple of these in the darker parts of the rockwork, and thought you guys might want to see the biggest one. They don’t seem to bother anything around them, and they’re pretty adorable. I found this one growing practically UNDER a frag plug that was nearly flat against the sand. 
 

Psuedocorynactis(ball anemone)!

[teamschreiba]

Awesome looking ball anemone!!

 

Really rough on the dinos though. I know how frustrating that can be. My last resort if the UV filter and N+P dosing didn’t work was going to be to get a microscope and try to ID the type of dinos. I think that can help determine what the best course of treatment is. 

[Zer0]

14 hours ago, teamschreiba said:

Awesome looking ball anemone!!

 

Really rough on the dinos though. I know how frustrating that can be. My last resort if the UV filter and N+P dosing didn’t work was going to be to get a microscope and try to ID the type of dinos. I think that can help determine what the best course of treatment is. 

Haha did that already, I have ostreopsis. I don’t want to jinx myself since it’s only been two days since setting up the uv filter and dosing dino-x, but, things are looking better. It’s been an entire day cycle now, and I only see a light dusting of dinos on the sandbed here and there. That to me is a good sign. Perhaps a combination of all three of those things is at least curbing the growth rate of dinos, which I can certainly appreciate. Just need to see how it goes long term.

[Zer0]

So I picked up some new stuff today. In an effort to increase my nutrients naturally, I got a fish, among other things. I got a small Talbots Damsel, a new cleaner shrimp, two scarlet reef hermits, and 2 astrea snails. No pictures yet because everyone is settling in, but I’ll get some soon.

 

The place I went didn’t have too much of a selection this visit, but they did have a tiny Talbots remaining and it was very active and looked very healthy, so I decided to take him home with me. Very cute, we’ll see how he does.

[Tony Bologna]

I really like your reef and hope you get the dinos under control. I had a dino outbreak a few months back. I had to resort to a several day blackout and then treated with Dr Tim's refresh and waste away as directed on their website. Good luck. It is a frustrating situation. You will eventually get through it.

[Zer0]

Tank is looking better little by little.

[Zer0]

Forgot to mention I also got a nice sized cyphastrea frag for $20, glued it to the back wall as there’s really no other place for it. Looks kinda goofy back there, but hopefully it doesn’t bleach out and starts encrusting the back wall.

 

Also, the new cleaner shrimp is so tiny and he follows me whenever I walk around the tank 🥺

[Zer0]

Short video:

 

https://flic.kr/p/2n7dZ54