Hello, everyone. I'm sure nobody will read this but I am just introducing myself here. I started a Fluval 13.5 Evo in August. I bought the tank used from a guy off of Facebook marketplace and he told me that some of his tank had died because of a mysterious brown algae, so he was selling the tank and getting a bigger one. I bought the tank and added some beginner-friendly corals like zoas. I also added some frogspawn, hammers, and a birdsnest.
Fast forward to now and my tank was completely overrun with the same brown snot algae, which after a lot of research I found out was prorocentrum dinos. I was doing lots of basting and manual removal, but they kept coming back no matter what. My clown fish were fine, but some snails died, as well as my chaeto.
I removed all the sand, and kept the coral on a few rocks in the bare bottom tank.
I bought a new prostar 60 v2 tank and I am using a Nicrew 150W light on it. I am also using a RedSea Reef Wave 25. I installed a 24W UV sterilizer, even though prorocentrum don't go into the water column unless they're starved for light. Unfortunately, when I was moving the UV sterilizer over, the pump blew some of the water from my old aquarium into my new one. So, now I'm just trying to aggressively treat my new tank for dinos preemptively.
Part of this just involves me monitoring phosphate and nitrate, adding small amounts (3 drops per day) of SpongExcel from Brightwell Aquatics, dosing some Algaebarn phytoplankton, and some pods. I saw some brown patches in my aquarium so I sucked some out with a syringe and looked at it under a microscope. Although I saw about 3 prorocentrum, I mostly just saw hundreds of diatoms, so I am hoping to use the silica to sustain a small diatom bloom until other things can become established and outcompete the dinos. I'm really scared though and I don't want my new tank to become overrun like my old tank was.
Anyway, I've only lost one coral so far. It was a green pipe organ that got choked out by the dinos when I went on vacation for a week and couldn't baste them off.
I just wish I could have joined the hobby without having to learn by fighting dinos. My living room looks crazy because of all the buckets and equipment I have everywhere and my wife is getting mad.
Looking forward to learning more from you all.
Fast forward to now and my tank was completely overrun with the same brown snot algae, which after a lot of research I found out was prorocentrum dinos. I was doing lots of basting and manual removal, but they kept coming back no matter what. My clown fish were fine, but some snails died, as well as my chaeto.
I removed all the sand, and kept the coral on a few rocks in the bare bottom tank.
I bought a new prostar 60 v2 tank and I am using a Nicrew 150W light on it. I am also using a RedSea Reef Wave 25. I installed a 24W UV sterilizer, even though prorocentrum don't go into the water column unless they're starved for light. Unfortunately, when I was moving the UV sterilizer over, the pump blew some of the water from my old aquarium into my new one. So, now I'm just trying to aggressively treat my new tank for dinos preemptively.
Part of this just involves me monitoring phosphate and nitrate, adding small amounts (3 drops per day) of SpongExcel from Brightwell Aquatics, dosing some Algaebarn phytoplankton, and some pods. I saw some brown patches in my aquarium so I sucked some out with a syringe and looked at it under a microscope. Although I saw about 3 prorocentrum, I mostly just saw hundreds of diatoms, so I am hoping to use the silica to sustain a small diatom bloom until other things can become established and outcompete the dinos. I'm really scared though and I don't want my new tank to become overrun like my old tank was.
Anyway, I've only lost one coral so far. It was a green pipe organ that got choked out by the dinos when I went on vacation for a week and couldn't baste them off.
I just wish I could have joined the hobby without having to learn by fighting dinos. My living room looks crazy because of all the buckets and equipment I have everywhere and my wife is getting mad.
Looking forward to learning more from you all.
