Months of struggle (high res pictures, sorry long post)

[AlanM]

They definitely look like dinos to me.  

 

I'm trying to remember what I did when I had them, but I think I made the tank dirty. Grew some algae.  Ran my UV.  Ran my skimmer.  

 

I think I also used some Dino-X by Fauna Marin.  Not sure if it helped, but I eventually did stop having dinos and then the algae eventually went away.  I had the same symptoms as you with corals and inverts dying.

[YHSublime]

2 hours ago, AlanM said:

They definitely look like dinos to me.  

 

I'm trying to remember what I did when I had them, but I think I made the tank dirty. Grew some algae.  Ran my UV.  Ran my skimmer.  

 

I think I also used some Dino-X by Fauna Marin.  Not sure if it helped, but I eventually did stop having dinos and then the algae eventually went away.  I had the same symptoms as you with corals and inverts dying.

 

This might help the OP, looks like you documented it

[paul b]

I can't tell what is wrong with your tank from here.  But years ago I almost killed my entire tank with a tiny bit of "New Fresh Scent Clorox"

 

Hello Oragami. 

[Javed Aman]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Is there a pest-free way to increase biodiversity (sponges, dusters, micro brittle stars, pods, etc)? 

 

[AlanM]

No guaranteed pest free way, I'd say, but you might check out the build thread that @tpallas has going on to see how he got a bunch of live sand and rock scooped up from florida waters.  Lots of life in there for ya.  Probably more pest free than trying to get it from a store or another reefer.

[DaJMasta]

You could try buying some uncured rock and then soft cycling it in a quarantine tank and inspecting, but I expect it's quite a bit of time and effort to do it with any degree of confidence that you have no pests.

You could try buying individual specimens, but it's going to be pricey and the decorative ones for the tank don't sound like the ones you have in mind, but you should at least be able to get micro brittle stars and pods through livestock suppliers.

[Javed Aman]

How about making sure that the tank has all of the biodiversity when it comes to bacteria?

I've used Dr.Tim's, BioSpira, and Microbacter7 (currently using) with little success. I'm doing a aquabiome test, so hopefully I'll get a sense of what needs to change. 

[DaJMasta]

It's my understanding that basically every frag and bit of livestock you add from a new source will give you the potential for more biodiversity in bacteria, then it's just up to what can compete well enough against the existing strains to stick around in the tank over the long term, so I think most reef tanks with some age will have had a pretty substantial mix of bacteria introduced, though I don't know of studies showing what actually sticks around.

I don't think it's the thing to do necessarily in this situation, but do people still carbon dose?  The last tank I had I remember adding a couple of mL a day of vodka (in a ~30g system) with a dosing pump to be a biologically available carbon source.  The goal was lowering nutrients in the water by providing the carbon to help bacterial populations grow, then skimming the extra bacterial out - a way to convert the nutrients into something removable.  If you have a fair amount of bacterial variety, it could be a way to increase the total count, but I don't know if it would actually be beneficial or if dinos could make use of the carbon in a similar way and use it.

It definitely worked, and I remember hearing about people accidentally overdosing and the water getting slightly cloudy with bacterial bloom, but the dosing I did sure increased my skimmate and reduced nuisance algae growth.

[Javed Aman]

Since the beginning of that post I've lost all of my SPS, many of my LPS and zoas. After a disaster last night, I thought I should post a more recent thread.

I've tried numerous things (not at the same time):

1. Small water changes
2. Large water changes with siphoning out as much as possible
3. No water changes. Measuring phosphate and nitrate every day and dosing Microbacter7 (daily) and/or Dr.Tim's Refresh (weekly)

Yesterday after a couple of weeks with the third one I thought I would try and do a large waterchange since hair algae had taken over. This was approximately 40% (I did the math wrong in my original thread). I made sure that the salinity (1.026) and temp were exactly the same betwwen the tank and the brute trashcan (I use this from the beginning to hold RO/DI). I even tested the salinity and temp of the tank after doing the water change.

Parameters so far:
Alk 7.0 (Hanna)
Phosphate 0.06 (Hanna)
Nitrate 4ppm to 8ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Salinity 1.026 (Milwaukee and Refractometer, both calibrated)
Ammonia 0 (Salifert)

My corals do not look better or worse from the water change. My inverts like cleaner shrimp, hermits, and snails unchanged.
However, 3 of 5 my fish have died overnight. I've had them for over 8 months all have been fully quarantined with copper and prazipro.

I suspect two things might have caused the issue and I'm hoping someone can give me some insight on how to proceed.

1. Part of the procedure for my water change. Use waterproof handheld waterpik to blast the rocks clean of dinos, scrub and pull hair algae. All of this was done with the pumps on and with a water stone. I kept my skimmer, carbon reactor, and filter socks (10u) in the sump. This may have caused a large die-off causing gill damage to fish. However, I would expect there to be ammonia in the tank.
2. There is a contaminant in my RO/DI water. I replaced all filters last month and bought the BRS 5-stage kit for chloramines. I've never registered more than 0TDS from my water. However, is there a chance something like chlorine can still make it? Or some other contaminent?

Pretty heartbroken that this has gone on for months and everything is basically dead. I would like to try again, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be successful.

[howaboutme]

1 minute ago, Javed Aman said:

Use waterproof handheld waterpik

 

Sorry to hear. What is this piece of equipment? Got a link?

[Javed Aman]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FR3LRNC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I saw someone in Reef2Reef was using it. The original idea came from ReefBuilders. I've been using it for months, before any of this happened without any issues. It's a 12v sealed battery operated thing. I can check if it's leaking current. But even at 12v and my tank having a grounding probe I don't think it would have an effect. 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Javed Aman

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

One of my issues in my tank is detritus build up that causes ammonia that causes the algae to take it up before the beneficial bacteria. I just started to figure this out by the way and saw on reef2reef the holy grail of what I was suspecting. I forgot like many of us algae loves ammonia even more than nitrogen and phosphate. I definitely have gone to less frequent larger clean ups/tank maintenance. I believe I may have finally figured out why I was losing a SPS or so randomly every month for the past few months. It started with the less hardy ones and eventually began to kill green slimer. I was cleaning out lots of algae lets say every 6-8 weeks, changing water and every time I hit up another area of detritus. I thought back to why I had no deaths really for a year. That was the change. I was getting more algae the past 6 months than ever with no change to phosphates or nitrates. My tank is probably loaded with detritus at this point breaking down and the algae loves it. I used to do more frequent small cleanings and water changes. The big ones have clearly caused problems and I switched a few weeks ago. Now I still have a couple unhappy but some that went downhill over the past few months have recovered. Im now focused more on removing detritus/algae more frequently and adding beneficial bacteria (the algae outcompetes it for ammonia and it dies off with less ammonia to consume). I feel as though I was lucky and since my tank volume is 220 gallons plus I wasnt experiencing a big crash. I have a feeling removing all of your algae and cleaning off the detritus and such spiked the ammonia and killed your fish. Ammonia is really one of the only things that kills fish faster than corals IME. Maybe try what Im trying and more frequent small water changes with removing algae/detritus, adding beneficial bacteria and maybe even some prime once and a while. Sorry its long but I ran into a similar situation albeit slower and that is at this point my most educated guess in my system and maybe yours  

[howaboutme]

I see, didn't realize people are resorting to that to clean their tanks.

 

Note that everything I say are just guesses. We know starting out that we have to be careful with anything we put into the tank. Can an activity be done w/o systematically inserting something that may leach anything even if it says it won't? If so, do it that way (turkey baster). This is just one simple example. I use a turkey baster routinely with my old tank and current one (current one is new so unproven) and to me it is 100% positive. Yes, things get pissed off for a while but eventually all good. However, if that is a routine you have not done until you started to have this issue, then it may present problems. Above post is one example. Similar to disturbing a (deep) sand bed after years of not touching it.

 

I personally do not buy the dry rock, sterile issue results in tank crashes. There are way too many variables to come up with a conclusion that is so simplistic. In fact, we try to keep the tank clean from detritus (or should) each time we do maintenance. I quickly browsed through previous posts and a lot of people suggest limiting what you put into the tank to the basics, tried and true (like alk for example). Stop the microbacter, dr. tims, etc. Your tank has been up and running long enough that you do not need any additional bac in a bottle. In fact, the one constant to all of these issues may be those _____ in a bottle products.

 

I know at this point it may be too late but everyday is a lessoned learn for us. Good luck.

[Javed Aman]

Thanks for the response. The Microbacter7/Dr.Tim's was sort of a last ditch effort these past couple of weeks. Things were going downhill even before these. This was based on my diagnosis (I could be wrong) of the dinoflagelletes. I was following the vetteguy method on R2R

[tpallas]

On 3/26/2021 at 5:20 PM, AlanM said:

No guaranteed pest free way, I'd say, but you might check out the build thread that @tpallas has going on to see how he got a bunch of live sand and rock scooped up from florida waters.  Lots of life in there for ya.  Probably more pest free than trying to get it from a store or another reefer.

 

I would do this again in a heartbeat, even for a main display. Just have to search for gorilla crabs and mantis shrimps (I did not have any). Everything else has been great. The diversity is just incredible. I keep the live rock and sand in my refugium, but tons of stuff is popping up in my display tank (rock in the DT was dry). There's all types of pods, feather worms, other worms, corals, snails, micro stars, sponges, macro algae, etc etc. You just cant replicate that. The tank has also been really stable right out the gate. Only issue I had was bryopsis which did not come from the rock but rather a frag, and I've taken care of that relatively quickly. I will likely do this on all future builds. 

Edited April 2, 2021 by tpallas

[howaboutme]

1 hour ago, Javed Aman said:

Thanks for the response. The Microbacter7/Dr.Tim's was sort of a last ditch effort these past couple of weeks. Things were going downhill even before these. This was based on my diagnosis (I could be wrong) of the dinoflagelletes. I was following the vetteguy method on R2R

 

All of this (taken from microbackter7 website):

 

 

Can happen w/o ever dosing this product (or any product).

 

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of the hobby's direction in the last few years. But again, hard to say any advice is wrong vs right. There are tons of methods and you have to choose the right one for you. Every tank is different.

[Javed Aman]

Yes, part of the microbacter7 dosing was dosing neophos to keep the phosphate between 0.05-0.09 and adding sodium nitrate to maintain between 4-8ppm. I measured and dosed accordingly. I think the theory was for the bacteria to outcompete the dino. 

[Javed Aman]

9 hours ago, tpallas said:

 

I would do this again in a heartbeat, even for a main display. Just have to search for gorilla crabs and mantis shrimps (I did not have any). Everything else has been great. The diversity is just incredible. I keep the live rock and sand in my refugium, but tons of stuff is popping up in my display tank (rock in the DT was dry). There's all types of pods, feather worms, other worms, corals, snails, micro stars, sponges, macro algae, etc etc. You just cant replicate that. The tank has also been really stable right out the gate. Only issue I had was bryopsis which did not come from the rock but rather a frag, and I've taken care of that relatively quickly. I will likely do this on all future builds. 

Did you get this from a store?

[tpallas]

Did you get this from a store?

Online - the rock from KP Aquatics and the sand from liverocknreef.com.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Javed Aman]

The last two fish, one anthias and the clown are still alive. They seem to be close to normal again. The dinos however have come back. I got my UV sterilizer. Is there anything else that I can do?

[Javed Aman]

Well after running the UV sterilizer for a day all the fish and coral have died. I was having issues with corals closing when running the UV sterilizer a few days ago. So I only ran it for about 2 hours a day at a time. My thoughts were that the tank was clearing up causing light shock. I did check for stray voltage. Without the ground probe, my tank has 0.08V stray voltage and 0.11V with the UV. With the ground probe the stray voltage is zero. Yesterday I did run it for all day and all night. During the day the corals didn't seem to be negatively affected and the fish were eating fine. This morning I find all of the corals completely closed both fish listless and breathing heavy.  Just this afternoon both of the fish have passed and it seemed all of the LPS corals have bailed their polyps. Cleaner shrimp hermits still alive as are some trochus snails.

[howaboutme]

I'm sorry to hear about this. It's hard to even say you can learn from this because it's not clear why this is happening. If starting fresh is the next step forward, good luck and don't lose hope in this awesome hobby.

[Javed Aman]

Thanks. I'm heart broken. I think the best coarse of action will be to start from scratch and chuck all of the current rock and replace with live rock. 

[Javed Aman]

If there is any interest in my aquabiomics report--here it is. Too late to really matter, but everything is dead except for a few corals (in another tank now) and the clean-up crew. My biodiversity awful (Vibro took over), and there was apparently some bacterial fish pathogen too. I emailed aquabiomics, hopefully they'll send me an eDNA report on the dinoflagellates (if I really had them).

aquabiomics.pdf

[TeslaWasRight]

javed, i'm so sorry to read this whole thread.  really sucks.

 

rather than throw the old rock away, is it possible to cook it?