How long can BTA's and Magnificas do without any light?
- Thread starter kinetic
- Start date
I've done it with BTA's and it didn't faze them. Might feed them before you start though.
kinetic
Supporting Member
your tank didn't improve?
It did not. I can't believe how crazy this is. I had a small moment of weakness yesterday, thought about just breaking down the whole thing and starting over or taking a break. This is not at all what I wanted. I did a lot to try to avoid any pests, but I guess not enough. The time and headache it's causing is far outpacing my patience and any love for the hobby. I just have a brown crappy tank. Every two days I try to remove as much as I can, takes about 1.5 hours all things considered, just to have it become a brown crappy tank a day later.
I'm giving it one more week of DinoX treatment. Then there's really not much else I can do except toss everything and start over (I'll probably QT my BTAs, and use a TTM before transferring things back). Shouldn't be too bad. New rock, new sand, clean out everything, and start a new cycle.
I agree. Stop battling so hard. Watch the nutrients. Just let it ride for awhile and see what happens before you pull the trigger to restart. I feel like phases sometimes can last a few months.
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kinetic
Supporting Member
Thanks for the encouragement. While I'd normally agree, and maybe my patience is just bad these days, but even letting it go for more than 2 days, the entire tank is covered in a mat of at least 1/2" or more of dinos. The whole overflow is thick with the stuff. My SPS have all died from being covered in it (my levels are all good, I've tested all of them with multiple tests now).
The BTAs/Mags seem OK, but I'm not sure how long that will last. The BTAs are definitely not as inflated, maybe only 1/4 of their usual size.
Snails are dying, hermits are dying.
I think I may be forced to restart regardless of how long I wait. I don't think I've seen anyone else with this bad of a dino problem.
I've checked my RO/DI, my salt, everything =(
I probably would have restarted awhile ago, just knowing me. Trying to be the voice of reason though and talk you off the cliff. My biggest reefing fear is probably an algae overridden tank, since it’s in time living room and it’s the only thing to look at.
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Since you’ve tried high nutrients and that seemed to encourage the dinos to explode, I recommend the more common approach of going the low-nutrient path to starve them out. Large water changes will likely get you back to low nutrients effectively, with carbon dosing if needed beyond that, like Mark suggested. Bacteria always beat out any higher life forms in a growth race.
Since you have minimal inhabitants it should be able to let it stay low nutrient while other types of algae catch up.
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Since you have minimal inhabitants it should be able to let it stay low nutrient while other types of algae catch up.
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Flagg37
Guest
I forget, did you say you had tried hydrogen peroxide?
I remember doing this method on my first tank. https://www.advancedaquarist.com/bl...lates-and-the-lessons-i-learned#disqus_thread
I remember doing this method on my first tank. https://www.advancedaquarist.com/bl...lates-and-the-lessons-i-learned#disqus_thread
kinetic
Supporting Member
I was in the low-nutrient zone, which I believe is how they started taking over in the first place. My NO3/PO4 was undetectable even after 5x the feeding, dosing amino acids, and reef chili. Though all that added stuff was probably just fueling more of the dino growth. Overall, I'm convinced that the dinos are thriving and no algae can outcompete in the low nutrient area. Increasing also just let the dinos grow and still not enough algae. Maybe if I waited long enough, algae would have worked but everything was covered and dying so I went the dinox route. The PO4/NO3 is back to undetectable and I'm dosing dinox. It definitely helps a bit, but not enough to rid the tank of the dinos, it still grows back every day and a thick mat on the second day before I spend the time removing it and redosing dinox.
So in a way, yes I'm back to low nutrient but I haven't done any carbon dosing (I have a bottle of nopox). I was thinking of killing all the dinos then putting in a ton of chaeto and dosing po4/no3 immediately to see if that'll keep the dinos down. I was worried of adding chaeto while treating with DinoX since that might kill the chaeto.
Yeah, I heard about that too. I'm even more worried about hydrogen peroxide killing everything (though yes, at this point that might happen anyway). Maybe I'll put that into the things to try next.
It's really great having a support group trying to help out all the time =) Thanks you all!
kinetic
Supporting Member
I don't think diverse microfauna is the issue. I may be wrong, but it's not clear how that would help.