The law of the reef

[Chad]

Something that I have noticed time and time again in this hobby over the past 20 years is that when things seem to be on the right track, the next issue is ready to rear its ugly head. Granted, the longer you spend in the hobby, the less invasive these issues become, but they are nuisances, nonetheless.

 

In my case two things popped up, an equipment one and a biological one.

 

Over the last week I have decided that the minor cyano outbreak that I was dealing with is actually a case of dinoflagellates that has continued to get worse with my cyano treatment :(

 

So, on the dino front, tonight I changed my waterchange schedule to 20% weekly, will raise my alk from the 7 it is now to at least 10, mag levels from 1350 to 1500, run lights off on the DT (and sump tank) two days a week, and run my refugium 24/7 (both for increased competition from chaeto and raised pH). If anyone has anything to add to this, holler at me.

 

Then, yesterday morning I was standing near my tank when my actinics turned on, and when they did I heard an electrical cracking from the fixture followed shortly thereafter by an acrid smell and some smoke... so off go the actinics, luckily I was standing near the fixture when it happened and the problem is limited to the actinics :(

 

On the lighting issue, I decided that a bit of an upgrade was in order. In this case, equipment problem means upgrade!! I have a coralife professional 250w HQI w/ 6500k bulb and PC actinics (I dont like it the fixture, btw, I have had a few issues from day one with it and NO response from customer service). On this, I think an upgrade is in order. I decided that I would gut the PCs out of the fixture and replace them with actinic LED supplementation (I hear Rob performing a silent cheer followed by a typed message that I should replace the halides while I am at it...). I picked up four stunner modules that I will replace the PCs with. Hopefully it will look nice when I am done.

 

grrr on the dinoflagellates, I have fought this battle before, they are a stubborn foe that to not succumb lightly.

 

Beware the law of the reef!!

[mogurnda]

Bummer, Chad. Dinoflagellates are nasty buggers.

 

After using several kinds of Coralife equipment, I am happy to have gotten rid of most of it. Not all hazardous, but they certainly cut corners.

[tecsavi]

Sorry to hear about your Dino's. I've never had to deal with them but have heard many a person that have had quite the battle getting rid of them. Sounds like you already have a good plan to battle them though. I like your thinking on the lighting upgrade. If you get dealt lemons, make lemonade. Good luck and I hope the battle doesn't take too long.

[Chad]

Thanks all,

 

Hopefully this doesnt turn in to one of those really long battles... My battle plan has me winning in a month's time

 

I will keep this thread up to date on my battle, though. Hopefully my mistakes/solutions will be something that other's can learn from and improve upon.

 

Tonight, I turned both my fans on high to up the evaporation rate and added extra CaOH to my top up water to raise pH. I also added more Mg and a bit of baked baking soda to up my Ca/alk/Mg numbers, I will test in the morning and add more to get things to where I want to keep them for the battle. I also removed about half my chaeto (~1/2 a 5 gallon bucket's worth), "pulled" was left apart so it is loosly packed and took the fuge light (a 150w MH) off the timer.

[dakotasreef]

I had tried the stunners when I had my coralife fixture in the past. I was running Phoenix 14k and was not able to tell they were on. Maybe with the 6500k you can tell a difference.I would consider the cree 3w and diy. It would be money well spent.

 

Just my thoughts

[trockafella]

Or use the panorama modules instead of the stunners, much brighter and more powerful. No diy needed, and they look nice and clean. 1 module costs the same as 2 stunners and gives you more bang for your buck.

 

 

[tecsavi]

Or use the panorama modules instead of the stunners, much brighter and more powerful. No diy needed, and they look nice and clean. 1 module costs the same as 2 stunners and gives you more bang for your buck.

 

 

 

 

I second getting something other than just two stunners. I have a 250w Phoenix 14k bulb and you barely notice the actintic. I would think the 6500 bulb would be brighter and was them out even more.

[Chad]

Hmmm, I should have talked to you guys before I went out and bought them!! I did get four stunners (two to replace each of the existing PCs)... I got them because they seemed like they would be pretty simple to retrofit into the existing fixture. I may mock it up a little bit and see how it looks. I would think that I could return them and get the panorama modules if they aren't enough, I got them locally so it would just mean a trip to the lfs Although, I am a fan of the warmer daylight look instead of the bluer look to my tank (hence the 6500k bulb in the first place).

 

I really appreciate the input!

[Chad]

Does anyone have a panorama module that I could borrow for a few minutes to compare with the stunners?

[Chad]

After testing the stunners I already had by putting them over the tank. I think that if I was using them to contribute to PAR in any way they would not be bright enough, but since I just want them for a little bit of supplementation and a nice dusk/dawn effect, they will do the trick..

 

Hopefully the dino battle will go as well as the lightning fix... Here is what I did.

 

The starting point: 2 PCs, 2 small LEDs and 1 6500k 250W HQI MH bulb.

 

 

After taking it apart to remove stuff (it was dirty in there, so everything got a good cleaning while I was at it)

 

 

 

Here are things cleaned up with the stunners laid out

 

 

Close up of one of the modules:

 

 

Testing before I put everything back together

 

 

And everything cleaned up and put back together

 

 

I also replaced the bulb while I was in there (this fixture is a PITA to get into) with a 10,000k bulb. I am interested to see what the difference is.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Chad

[Chad]

On the Dino battle front, tonight I removed all the macro from the fuge (I didnt realize that I had so many varieties) and rinsed it in some salt water since there was some of the brown snotty stuff on it all. I also blew all of it that I could get into the water column and ran a diatom filter for a while to clear as much of it from the water column as possible. I also added about a liter of carbon.

 

Tests for completeness:

Alk 8

Mg 1550

Ca 560

pH 8.3

I will finish raising alk to about 10 over today and tomorrow. Hopefully leaving the lights on in the fuge will put pH at 8.5 where I want it for this attack.

 

Anyone had a dinoflagellate outbreak before? What did you do?

 

By the way, the new 10k bulb I put in my fixture is pretty freaking blue... Right at the moment, I am not a big fan, but I will give it a week or so before rendering judgment on it.

 

A FTS (most of the dino is cleaned out in this pic, it strings off the ends of my gorgs so I have blown it off about 7 times today, but the water is still a bit cloudy), give it a few hours, it will return in all of its wierd combination of powdery, stringy snottiness. Part of the color difference between the two tanks is the camera, but not really that much... it is a very drastic difference between the two.

 

Edited November 23, 2010 by Chad

[tecsavi]

That retrofit looks great. When you get things cleaned up you should give us a FTS to see the difference between the stunners and your old actinic.

 

I can't help you on dino tips, sorry. You might want to wait longer than a week to see what your spectrum looks like on your bulb. I am the opposite of you inthat I like a more blue light for my tank. I put on some Hamilton 10k bulbs and they looked great when I first fired them up. It took almost a month to totally burn in and by that time it was very white to my eyes.

[CHUBAKAH]

 

Anyone had a dinoflagellate outbreak before? What did you do?

 

Been dealing with the dino myself for what seems months. It comes it goes it comes it goes. Right now it seems to be gone and has been for about 10 days now.

 

I did exactly what you are doing but I left my lights off for four days as I raised my PH in the beginning of this treatment.

 

8.4 was all I was able to achieve and that was by dosing a ton of PH up. Pretty tough to do with the lights off.

 

I also raised my ALK which to be honest got out of hand for a minute and I got it all the way up to 13. [May not seem high but I am normally around 8] That was achieved in two weeks.

 

Only noticed that by some slight bleaching to some of my SPS pieces.

 

Did a water change each day for four days straight and I am hoping it is gone this time.

 

It's a real PITA for sure.

 

 

GL

[Chad]

tecsavi, thanks! I was happy that it turned out well. I always try for a good, clean install, but I dont alway accomplish it. I will have to see if I can find some actinic only before pics (my camera skills are not very good, and actinic pics are hard for me, so I dont think there are many, but there are probably a few) to post up. The difference is night and day, though.

 

Mark, glad to hear that I am on the right track. When I battled this before it took a looong time (6ish months), but much of the info out there on it now wasnt available or I didnt know how to get it. Hopefully you are done with it.

 

I had my lights off for the majority of today (turned them on when I got home to feed the seahorses and check out the situation)... this is what I found:

 

 

 

This is about as bad as I have seen it. Although, I was not at home all day to blow it off whenever I thought about it, either. I blew it all off with a turkey baster, siphoned as much as I could out and I swapped out the carbon. My alk is at 9 today, pH still 8.3 (lights on constantly in the macro fuge). I decided to up the daily water changes to 25 liters a day (~30% weekly).

Edited November 23, 2010 by Chad

[tecsavi]

I can relate to trying to take pictures of the color of these LED's. The blue is so intense it almost looks purple in the photo's I take. When you say the difference between night and day do you mean the LEDs are brighter or dimmer?

 

On the Dino front I saw a detailed thread last night on RC about strategies to fight them. Everything you all are doing sounds like the latest treatment except the water changes. I believe they said unlike fighting cyano you should avoid any unnessisary water changes (besides replacing water from siphoning them off). Something about the trace elements feeding them. I might have misunderstood but it's worth reading up on if you are fighting them.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Chad]

Hmmm, I did some "board research" on various places and get conflicting info on what people did to erradicate these guys... Based on the info I decided to go back to 20% (did I mention how much I LOVE my litermeter? these changes are really simple) and shut the light off in my fuge as well I see some dinos in thgere too. The lights out treatment seems to have the highest general consensus of success. I will turn my lights back on for a few hours on Thursday (have a party...) and then really check things on Friday.

 

 

[zygote2k]

Chad -

I didn't think you were a fan of the 'blue' look. Other than the Dino problem, your tank looks good. I had a similar setup until the wife said that I had to stuff it all under the cabinet or get red of it.

[Chad]

Thanks Rob! I am not a fan of the blue look... it is a bit too much for me right now, I am hoping that the new bulb's color spectrum shifts as it burns in (it isn't getting much run time at the moment). If it doesn't you will likely find me replacing the bulb soon. It is a Hamilton bulb, not a brand that I have used before and I got it for free... I will give it a week or so once it is on every day, we will see what happens with it. The fuge light on the right is more what my color preference is.

 

The color is such a personal preference...

Edited November 24, 2010 by Chad

[Chad]

Not much of a change today... I moved powerheads around a bunch today to see what sort of an affect it has, lights are still off, I will turn them back on tomorrow (four days mostly in the dark now). Also, I am considering running heavy GFO.

 

Alk 10

[CHUBAKAH]

 

 

Mark, glad to hear that I am on the right track. When I battled this before it took a looong time (6ish months), but much of the info out there on it now wasnt available or I didnt know how to get it. Hopefully you are done with it.

 

The last of it I can see in my system is on the Sea Swirls, and it is dying back on those as we speak. Tomorrow I will remove those and get them cleaned up, and I "Think" it is finally gone 100%. I would say that the battle I have fought is going on six months as well. The only thing I have done differently this last treatment is get my PH up and keep it there for three weeks. My ALK went up to 13 [by mistake], and I have gone three weeks now since my last water change.

 

We'll see what happens when I do a large water change this weekend and I'll report back.

 

Good luck with your system as well!

 

 

 

 

 

[Chad]

I hope none of you all have to fight dinos... they are a pain.

 

A quick status, I am starting to see some casualties on both sides. On their side, I have started to notice some CUC members die for unknown reasons. I have read that some dinoflagellates have a toxin that can cause this and I cannot attribute the losses to anything else so I think it is probably the dinos(my water chemistry changes happened over several days to a week). So far it has been a couple of snails (a few nerites, a turbo, and a few ceriths) and a large brittle star. Also, I am starting to see signs of stress/decline in some of the corals... I have a few zoa/paly colonies that are not opening up very much and I am seeing some tissue loss on two of my larger gorgs (although one is relatively new and I don't have enough experience with it to say it would or would not thrive in my system) plus poor polyp extension on most corals in general (acans seem to be immune, though, they look awesome right now).

 

On my side, I have not changed the attack routine, still changing carbon every couple of days, 2 gallons a day water change, dosing lots of kalk and toying with the idea of GFO. Yesterday was the first day that I was willing to say the DT is starting to look better. Before, the whole tank looked like the pictures above even after I siphoned it or blew it off the corals 4 times a day. Yesterday there was hardly any on any of the corals (still lots on the rocks, though) and I found that encouraging. There is still a lot growing in the fuge and my sump tank, though. I just have to keep telling myself, slow steady and small victories!

 

Params

Ca 550

pH 8.4

alk 12

Mg 1550

 

What do you all think on the GFO? On one hand, I really want to starve these things, but on the other there is a lot of macro in my system that I don't want to lose... I am torn.

 

 

[zygote2k]

Is this what you're fighting?

[Chad]

^lol, that looks about right... slightly different color and size, but otherwise, exactly how I picture the little buggers!!

[Chad]

Grrrr...

 

More losses tonight.

 

2 more brittle stars, a hand full of snails, a peppermint shrimp and a fire shrimp...

 

The dinos do seem to be slightly reduced, though.

[CHUBAKAH]

GFO did nothing for me.