Dino...The Nuclear Option
 

So my current reef has been around for about 8 years. It has been fairly successful. Although I did have a fairly large crash about mid way, both versions of the tank went fairly well.

https://youtu.be/QtvolIpasKY

https://youtu.be/oFdC08T1K8c

During that 8 years I have had dino twice and beat it with relative ease...But before I get to my last fight, lets touch on my crash. It was slow, it was painful and I never really found the reason. Only the cure. I went from monthly water changes to weekly and the tank went from 90% gone to what you see in the second video. Any time I got busy at work and would skip more than a week or two and the system would start to have issues. But thats a story for my system thread. But the point is, my system needs water changes and dino likes water changes...


So my frag system (separate system) got dino first and it went on for months. Basically neglect. Its in the basement so out of site out of mind. The DT started and I immediately tried what had worked two times in the past. No... still coming on strong. I tried everything traditional. so I stopped water changes and started to dose nitrates. So from 0 nitrates to about .1 nitrates. thats when my colonies started to die off. Like I said, my system needs weekly water changes.

Well for my frag system, I went with a full blackout for three weeks. Its in the basement so its total. I only have two clowns and they did not seem to care much. My tang jumped a month earlier...well let me tell you. You want to end dino. this kills everything....After 3 weeks the tank was as clean as could be. no growths of any kind. algae dead. dino dead...a hand full of frags, dead. sponges, gap. everything but two zoo colonies was dead. Nitrates are up to 50. but its a clean start...Well except bubble algae. its everywhere ...


The DT was a different approach. There was no sps left just a huge frog spawn colony and a medium forest fire digital colony....So while I tried the peroxide in the past, I always was afraid of going too far. so I looked at a tone of threads on it and decided to go nuclear with this as well. 30ML of peroxide in a 60 gallon system daily for two weeks. Yup that did it... only enough my bio filter did not suffer. no spike in nitrates. Started my water changes back up and a three weeks later and the FF Digi started growing again.

If I had to do it all again, I would have kept my water changes going and then went nuclear.

So, time for a restart, but I think I am going to plumb all my filtration to the closet under the tank. Suck out all the graven and re-aquascape. New heaters new pumps and see if I can get version 3.0 without the weekly water changes.

I'm sorry to hear about your problems.

Did you ever try carbon or CupriSorb to try to fix the coral problems? If you're going to restart, you might want to consider muriatic acid treatment for the rock. It needs to be done carefully, but there might be something toxic bound to the calcium carbonate.

If your referring to the need for water changes, I run carbon full time.

Gonna use mostly new rock. looking for something totally different.

Ran two Triton tests since. only slightly elevated tin. but when I compare it to other people who have posted their triton results I am much lower. I am using new pumps, new heaters and all new plumbing. Only the tank, chiller, reactors and dosing pumps will remain the same. I may not need the chiller since my basement is much cooler. we will see...

Carbon and CupriSorb both can remove copper and other toxic heavy metals. I am not sure that I would trust the Triton numbers for trace elements. A study showed that their methodology was inaccurate for them.

If you are ditching the rock, I wouldn't worry much about the issue, in any case. I might wipe the tank and equipment down well with some vinegar, to remove any possible deposits, though.

Have you tried a UV sterilizer? It worked wonders for me. Some guys have opted for a restart and the dino's came right back. It's important to know what strain of Dinos you have and you need a microscope to do that. Good luck.

yes I did. It helped as long as you stayed on top of blowing the dino off every day. regardless the peroxide did the job...

Ha... Dino came back in the FT with a vengeance...Took a while...

Ouch! Any particular change in the tank maintenance, etc?

what on the FT come back. No changes. rebuilding both systems anyway so ill be starting from scratch...