kinetic RSR 170

Clayton Jessup · Apr 4, 2018

That a breath taking photo !!!! Amazing shoot !

kinetic · Apr 4, 2018

Before and after, February 9, 2018 -> April 4, 2018

gig 'em · Apr 5, 2018

Nice turn around!

grassy_noel · Apr 9, 2018

Wow! So glad to see this come back...I was worried there for a bit. What finally kicked it?

blizzardscout2 · Apr 11, 2018

I appreciate your perseverance. The truth is the first year of a reef there is a journey of maturing that is at times frustrating but unavoidable. As mentioned earlier after that the road gets a little less bumpy. You are doing a fantastic job at keeping your finger on the pulse so to speak of your reef and your reef shows that. Keep up the good work and PLEASE don't throw in the towel because your reef is beautiful and it would be a shame, hang in there it gets easier and is very rewarding. Oh and I am extremely jealous of your mad photography skills. I aspire to hopefully be half as good some day. I'm a Fuji guy myself and shoot with a XPro2 with a 16-55 2.8. Your white balance is spot on, how do you set your white balance?

Keep the photos coming!

kinetic · Apr 11, 2018

grassy_noel said:
Wow! So glad to see this come back...I was worried there for a bit. What finally kicked it?

Combination of concentrated amounts of DinoX over the course of 10 days of dosing + starving the dinos out by using NoPox to build up a competing bacteria to pull out nutrients. The only problem now is that my tank is starving. I'm crossing my fingers that introducing amino acids to the tank won't bloom the dinos. If so, I'll just keep dosing DinoX!

blizzardscout2 said:
I appreciate your perseverance. The truth is the first year of a reef there is a journey of maturing that is at times frustrating but unavoidable. As mentioned earlier after that the road gets a little less bumpy. You are doing a fantastic job at keeping your finger on the pulse so to speak of your reef and your reef shows that. Keep up the good work and PLEASE don't throw in the towel because your reef is beautiful and it would be a shame, hang in there it gets easier and is very rewarding. Oh and I am extremely jealous of your mad photography skills. I aspire to hopefully be half as good some day. I'm a Fuji guy myself and shoot with a XPro2 with a 16-55 2.8. Your white balance is spot on, how do you set your white balance?

Keep the photos coming!

Thanks! I've battled my fair share of problems in the past (started the hobby back in 2005), but this one has been the worst. So far so good!

And thank you re: the photography. I just set the white balance to get rid of the blues, and I add a tad bit of green tint to battle any remaining purples. Afterwards, I usually have to tune it a bit, and I just use the Priime app on my iPhone to finish it off.

blizzardscout2 · Apr 11, 2018

That Priime app intrigues me. I will give it a try. I use Capture One Pro 11 for my edits typically, although I have a GNARBOX that I have used lately as it does a pretty good job. I also have been very satisfied with the jpg files from Fuji straight from the camera as long as I did my part. I will play with my white balance tomorrow when I get home from work. I'm glad the Dinos are in check, they are a PITA.

blizzardscout2 · Apr 19, 2018

I just bought the ATK and I remember you had one and just had to take a look where you put yours as I there isn't much room in the return chamber. Any updates? How are the clowns getting along?

kinetic · Apr 19, 2018

blizzardscout2 said:
I just bought the ATK and I remember you had one and just had to take a look where you put yours as I there isn't much room in the return chamber. Any updates? How are the clowns getting along?

Yeah the return chamber is pretty small and the ATK is really big (at least the manual float valve is), but it definitely can fit nicely. Mine is mounted on the baffle as you might have seen. So far it works great.

No real updates, except my SPS no longer have any polyp extension, and my monti is starting to STN. All levels are OK, but I'm thinking a lack of nutrient is the cause. I bumped up my nutrients and dinos crept back in a bit. So I'm trying to figure out how to move forward with all of that.

Clowns are still totally fine!

divecj5 · May 1, 2018

SO glad to see the amazing turnaround minus the issues with SPS. Did the BTAs lose a little color in the process? Nice to see that the Mag held it's own and is thriving.

-Adam

kinetic · May 1, 2018

divecj5 said:
SO glad to see the amazing turnaround minus the issues with SPS. Did the BTAs lose a little color in the process? Nice to see that the Mag held it's own and is thriving.

-Adam

No color loss. The anemones seemed pretty unphased. They did get a bit agitated and would hide a bit more than usual, and one of them no longer opens up as large, but has a lot more bubbling at the tips than before. It could be because my Gyre pump needs a good cleaning.

choss · May 14, 2018

Kinetic - just catching up. Tank looks fantastic! Mine is coming along nicely as well but I lack your amazing photography skills. Anyway, glad that this tank is still up and running and looking great. Keep the updates coming.

OrionN · May 20, 2018

Very nice build thread. Hang in there. This too will past. Dino got the better of us reefers sometime but not in your case. When I fight my battle, nothing works consistently. I find that not compulsive in control everything seem to help. At least it help my sanity when I act like I don't care about it as long as it does not smother everything.
No real advise for you. Best of luck.

kinetic · May 22, 2018

I'll take a photo tomorrow, but wanted to jump in with an update.

I've got my dinos totally in check now. To summarize, I used DinoX to kill, and NoPox to starve them out. Now I have NoPox dosing 3ml a day on a dosing pump (no more dinox), and there are zero dinos after a three+ weeks of this.

After losing all my SPS, one of my monitpora actually started growing back. Amazingly, the skeleton is now being recovered by tissue and polyps are now popping back out. My BTAs are opening up much more, and even have a bit of a bubble going on in their tentacles. The Magnifica continues to do its thing. It no longer gets TALL and vase like, and now seems to stay squat and fat. I am slightly concerned as every morning the mouth is bulgy (not open or gaping, but looks swollen), but after lights are on for a few hours it goes back to normal.

Anyway, the tank has been doing really well (knock on wood) and it seems like the NoPox is doing its job.

kinetic · May 22, 2018

choss said:
Kinetic - just catching up. Tank looks fantastic! Mine is coming along nicely as well but I lack your amazing photography skills. Anyway, glad that this tank is still up and running and looking great. Keep the updates coming.

Thank you! I'm glad I stuck with it, I was pretty close to breaking it down.

OrionN said:
Very nice build thread. Hang in there. This too will past. Dino got the better of us reefers sometime but not in your case. When I fight my battle, nothing works consistently. I find that not compulsive in control everything seem to help. At least it help my sanity when I act like I don't care about it as long as it does not smother everything.
No real advise for you. Best of luck.

Thanks so much! Yeah, last time I broke down my system (back in 2010) was because I gave up battling bubble algae. I almost lost the battle with dinos as well, but glad I've kept with it. I think with all the information gathering from people and great ideas from the community, I was able to beat it. Couldn't have done it on my own.

Janci · May 22, 2018

kinetic said:
I'll take a photo tomorrow, but wanted to jump in with an update.

I've got my dinos totally in check now. To summarize, I used DinoX to kill, and NoPox to starve them out. Now I have NoPox dosing 3ml a day on a dosing pump (no more dinox), and there are zero dinos after a three+ weeks of this.

After losing all my SPS, one of my monitpora actually started growing back. Amazingly, the skeleton is now being recovered by tissue and polyps are now popping back out. My BTAs are opening up much more, and even have a bit of a bubble going on in their tentacles. The Magnifica continues to do its thing. It no longer gets TALL and vase like, and now seems to stay squat and fat. I am slightly concerned as every morning the mouth is bulgy (not open or gaping, but looks swollen), but after lights are on for a few hours it goes back to normal.

Anyway, the tank has been doing really well (knock on wood) and it seems like the NoPox is doing its job.

Great to hear.
This must be the turning point straight to greatness.

Fuat Çakmak · May 29, 2018

Congratulations, your name is loved

I live the same situation. But I have not spread yet only in one rock.

There is also green algae on the sand.

What would be your proposal in this situation?

kinetic · May 29, 2018

Fuat Çakmak said:
Congratulations, your name is loved

I live the same situation. But I have not spread yet only in one rock.

There is also green algae on the sand.

What would be your proposal in this situation?

I'm no expert by any means. This thread is full of great information:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

I've tried everything, and the final thing that worked for me, did NOT work for anyone else. So it really varies a lot from system to system.

I used DinoX, dosed it for many months, did manual removal, and finally beat it by dosing NoPOX daily to starve out the dinos.

Daniel@R2R · Jul 3, 2018

kinetic said:
Before and after, February 9, 2018 -> April 4, 2018

@kinetic I'm LOVING this after pic! Beautiful shot! Any updates on this reef?

kinetic · Jul 3, 2018

mdbannister said:
@kinetic I'm LOVING this after pic! Beautiful shot! Any updates on this reef?

Thanks! Nothing new. Everything is still kicking. No dinos. Anemones are healthy. I left the tank unattended for two weeks, no issues at all (not a single person came to check on it, but I had a webcam on it).

So far so good. I'm waiting until August (at least) before introducing anything new. I'm still getting no polyp extension on my one remaining SPS. Not sure what that means. All levels are nominal.