Reefer 170 reborn

[Eugene]

Corals looks pale - only good looking are green slimer and stylo. The rest are pale and there is no growth. That was a reason for test... this suppose to be red monti cap with yellow polyps:

 

[Eugene]

Did what was suggested - 20% WC, dosed nitrates to 1.5ppm according to RedSea Pro test, stopped Nopox dosing.
I'm thinking to try Red Sea Coral Corals - for my size tank it's going to be like $20/year - color A and C covers all necessary micros except Strontium.

 

[Coral reefer]

Seems like a lot of changes all at once. Hopefully it works out.

 

[Eugene]

Seems like a lot of changes all at once. Hopefully it works out.

I think should be fine - WC is not huge - 20% instead of usual 10%... 1ml/day nopox didn't make much difference - it's a tiny dose that can drop 1-2ppm nitrates in couple months.

 

[Eugene]

Some photo fun:

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[Coral reefer]

Is that a diffuser or just a splash guard on the light?

 

[Eugene]

Diffuser - its a piece of P95 acrylic - should transmit 90% of the light and reduce disco.


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[jorahx4]

Some photo fun:

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Great photo, everything looks so clean!


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[MolaMola]

Looks nice! Any color changes since last week?

 

[Eugene]

Looks nice! Any color changes since last week?

I haven't noticed significant color change yet but polyp extends like I haven't seen before on some corals - green slimer and stylo reacted immediate to extra nitrates. Green plate monti looks better too. The red monti cap and monti digitata is still pale - I hope it still need more time to recover. I also have two red acros that doesn't do well at all (no pe at all) - strawberry shortcake and red planet.

 

[Eugene]

Its been awhile since I posted updates since not much happened besides I added diy cloud-enabled fish feeder and couple frags.

However looks like I’m facing one of the worst type of algae to have - dino amphidinium. I have had rust spots on the sand for a long time but since I vacuum sand almost every week and my nutrients where really low it was under control. Did anyone have success of getting rid of this?

I think I brought it from my previous tank - I didn't expect it's dino since it doesn't bubble.

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[Eugene]

Dino - does it suppose to move under microscope?

 

[Eugene]

Hmm - I checked with microscope and looks like it's both - diatom and dinos.

 

[Coral reefer]

Looks mostly diatom to me. Try using something to absorb silicates.

 

[kinetic]

I hate dinos. Hard to get rid of. They usually outcompete other things when there's an imbalance of nitrates to phosphates. You can dose to keep them at respectable levels to grow macro algae, which does much better when both no3/po4 are constant and higher. I was able to do this, but my dinos flourished even under ideal conditions (and even with heavy dosing of DinoX). Ultimately I starved the tank out with more NoPox and things are fine. I feed a lot and 3 - 5 times a week I will spot feed my SPS with a baster with Reef Chili. I'm also dosing AcroPower to see if that helps. So far corals are healthy and colorful even without any detectable NO3/PO4 in my tests.

 

[Vhuang168]

Got a picture of the Dino under your microscope?

I don’t see any bubbly stingy algae in those pictures


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[Eugene]

Couldn't take a picture with my kid's scope but I'm confident this is dino and this type of dino has a different look - rusty layer on the sand, no strings or bubbles. However , I confirmed it's a mix of diatoms and dino that maybe a good thing - diatoms can out-compete dinos. Maybe I should let it grow and stop vacuuming for a little while.

 

[Eugene]

This picture is taken from other forum but this is exactly what I saw -

And some diatoms:

Really cool too look at!

 

[kinetic]

Dinos don't get bubbly until they grow much bigger. Looks like your dinos aren't too bad yet if that's the case. Diatoms would be great to outcompete. Check your phosphate/nitrates and keep them up so that other things can outcompete!

 

[Eugene]

Dinos don't get bubbly until they grow much bigger. Looks like your dinos aren't too bad yet if that's the case. Diatoms would be great to outcompete. Check your phosphate/nitrates and keep them up so that other things can outcompete!

Dosing some phosphates to keep it 0.03-0.04. Otherwise my Hanna checker reads 0. Nitrates is 6-8ppm - should be ok imho.