Hi All,
I'd appreciate feedback on my plan of attach for my umpteeth million round of dinos. Skip down the The Plan if you don't want to read my history of this fight.
Background:
I spent 4 years battling dinos after being new to the reefing hobby (coming from high tech planted freshwater) and buying into the ULNS philosophy of beating algae with 0 everything. Didn't realize what it was until I'd spent over a year siphoning out snot during each water change and being frustrated by it coming back time and time again.
Finally got more serious about the hobby and really decided to tackle it because I wanted healthy coral. I did the whole nine yards of treatment, bottled bac, oversized UV plumbed straight into the display, dinox, vibrant, hydrogen peroxide, phyto dosing, blackouts, everything. I'd knock it back for a week or two and then it'd come back just as bad as before and repeating the previous process didn't knock it back again.
I had my tank DNA sampled and confirmed what my microscope was showing, ostreopsis. Even though mine did not seem to leave it's mucus mats at night, it was certainly ostreopsis.
Finally, I did a couple of things that finally let me see the end. Instead of hand dosing nitrate, phosphate and bottle bac (MB7), I put them all on an automated doser. I plumbed a 24W UV sterilizer into my return on a manifold with a swing valve and flow meter to make sure the right flow rate through it (400GPH), did successive 3 day blackouts (3 black, 2 lights, 3 black, 2 lights, 3 black). Turned UV/Skimmer off for MB7 dose times and reset my lights back into acclimation mode and reduced the photoperiod significantly. I also got an automated feeder and set it to overfeed the tank. I also bought gulf cultured live rock and sand. Added 20 pounds of live rock from the gulf to the display and 10 pounds of live sand to the sump. I also dosed silicates to the tune of 1ppm/week.
It took months of dosing nitrates and phosphates to have them show up regularly, and it wasn't enough to get them to show up I found, I had to keep them near a constant number. That meant testing every day for weeks and adjusting my dose rate. God bless Hannah's phosphate and nitrate HR test kits. My goal was 40ppm nitrate and 0.4 phosphate.
I finally got them beat with this method, and then after a month like this and seeing algae growth I reseeded my tank with copepods, added a purple tang and replenished my snail cleanup crew and everything was great. This battle had wiped out my chaeto so I refreshed it.
~1 year all is good. Eventually I stopped dosing nitrates and phosphates because they stayed elevated with the overfeeding.
Today:
A couple of months ago I noticed a new algae was spreading on the rocks and didn't think anything. I realized the tang wasn't eating any of the new algae and it being a green algae kind of surprised me. Then I noticed some snail deaths. Finally it got to plague proportions a few weeks ago and I went in to help the tang out and realized that it had slimy brown gunk on the tips of all the algae. My worst nightmare was back. Rechecked with the microscope and it is indeed my old foe back again.
I tested my nitrates and phosphates, I have 4ppm of nitrates and 0.22ppm of phosphates, so it's not bottomed out, though my nitrates are really low.
The Plan:
Following eradication in any step, reseed copepod population, dose phyto.
My philosophy for this treatment plan is to disrupt or kill off the dinos while having their habitat space taken over my a competing species. Preferably diatoms.
I'd appreciate feedback on my plan of attach for my umpteeth million round of dinos. Skip down the The Plan if you don't want to read my history of this fight.
Background:
I spent 4 years battling dinos after being new to the reefing hobby (coming from high tech planted freshwater) and buying into the ULNS philosophy of beating algae with 0 everything. Didn't realize what it was until I'd spent over a year siphoning out snot during each water change and being frustrated by it coming back time and time again.
Finally got more serious about the hobby and really decided to tackle it because I wanted healthy coral. I did the whole nine yards of treatment, bottled bac, oversized UV plumbed straight into the display, dinox, vibrant, hydrogen peroxide, phyto dosing, blackouts, everything. I'd knock it back for a week or two and then it'd come back just as bad as before and repeating the previous process didn't knock it back again.
I had my tank DNA sampled and confirmed what my microscope was showing, ostreopsis. Even though mine did not seem to leave it's mucus mats at night, it was certainly ostreopsis.
Finally, I did a couple of things that finally let me see the end. Instead of hand dosing nitrate, phosphate and bottle bac (MB7), I put them all on an automated doser. I plumbed a 24W UV sterilizer into my return on a manifold with a swing valve and flow meter to make sure the right flow rate through it (400GPH), did successive 3 day blackouts (3 black, 2 lights, 3 black, 2 lights, 3 black). Turned UV/Skimmer off for MB7 dose times and reset my lights back into acclimation mode and reduced the photoperiod significantly. I also got an automated feeder and set it to overfeed the tank. I also bought gulf cultured live rock and sand. Added 20 pounds of live rock from the gulf to the display and 10 pounds of live sand to the sump. I also dosed silicates to the tune of 1ppm/week.
It took months of dosing nitrates and phosphates to have them show up regularly, and it wasn't enough to get them to show up I found, I had to keep them near a constant number. That meant testing every day for weeks and adjusting my dose rate. God bless Hannah's phosphate and nitrate HR test kits. My goal was 40ppm nitrate and 0.4 phosphate.
I finally got them beat with this method, and then after a month like this and seeing algae growth I reseeded my tank with copepods, added a purple tang and replenished my snail cleanup crew and everything was great. This battle had wiped out my chaeto so I refreshed it.
~1 year all is good. Eventually I stopped dosing nitrates and phosphates because they stayed elevated with the overfeeding.
Today:
A couple of months ago I noticed a new algae was spreading on the rocks and didn't think anything. I realized the tang wasn't eating any of the new algae and it being a green algae kind of surprised me. Then I noticed some snail deaths. Finally it got to plague proportions a few weeks ago and I went in to help the tang out and realized that it had slimy brown gunk on the tips of all the algae. My worst nightmare was back. Rechecked with the microscope and it is indeed my old foe back again.
I tested my nitrates and phosphates, I have 4ppm of nitrates and 0.22ppm of phosphates, so it's not bottomed out, though my nitrates are really low.
The Plan:
- I shunted all my return pump into the UV sterilizer. Reduces overall flow through sump, but increases flow through UV to 613 GPH. Goal: low exposure to more
- Ordered a 24W green killing machine to add to the display. It runs at ~200gph. Goal: high exposure to fewer, directly in display
- Will resume dosing nitrates to get my nitrates back up to ~40ppm. This will likely reduce phosphates, will need to test both and adjust as needed
- I had reduced silicate dosing to .85ppm. Increasing this 50% to drive habitat displacing diatoms, plus, love the sponges it grows
- DrTim's method, blackout with bacteria dosing
- Begin dosing Metronidazole
- Ramp silicate dosing again, trying to drive competition for habitat space
- Overseed with copepods directly into the display.
- Reapply previous aggressive treatment, live sand to sump, successive blackouts, MB7, etc.
Following eradication in any step, reseed copepod population, dose phyto.
My philosophy for this treatment plan is to disrupt or kill off the dinos while having their habitat space taken over my a competing species. Preferably diatoms.