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Unread 02/03/2016, 08:47 AM   #2932
rallibon
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 7
I thought I’d post an update on my dinos (follow-up to my posts #2652 and #2696).

The summary is they are 90% gone, with a couple of patches on the sand and on a couple of rocks. In fact my pictures – both of original bloom and the “after” pictures – look quite like the experience of FishKeeper82 in post 2696. In fact it also sounds like we adopted a similar approach.

Symptoms
Like many I originally thought I had a cyano outbreak before the dinos appeared. In fact I may well have had both as DNA among others have suggested the one often succeeds - or supplants - the other. I realised it was dinos when long strings developed with bubbles and from the colour and consistency. I bought a microscope but was not able to work out a definitive ID of species but as noted earlier I suspect it was not Ostreopsis Ovata as it seemed not to be too toxic. I lost a few snails (not all), a few SPS frags and smaller colonies but nothing else. Some SPS seemed particularly affected especially at the growth tips and succumbed, others seemed entiorely unaffected. LPS and clams were unaffected as were other invertebrates. 3 BTAs sulked but survived.

What I did
I decided to try a multi-prong strategy which has the advantage of maximising chances of some success but disadvantage that I cannot really determine what – if anything – was the main cause of improvement. I continued to run my existing UV (don’t know wattage) and added another 36W V2 Vectron (25 watts) and ran it at 800 litres / hour. I added quite a lot more live rock and rubble to my DT, sump and frag tank. I added an additional grow lamp to encourage extra chaeto in an in-line water change tank. I added some more pods (much more expensive and less available here in the UK than in the US). I siphoned out visible dinos in my frag tank (easier as no sand) and from rocks in DT. I fed a little more and stopped straining the thawed “ice water” before feeding. I added phyto in a fairly unscientific way – just pouring in maybe 50ml per day either into DT, into sump or both. I removed my 3 sand-sifting starfish (astropecten polycanthus) based on the theory that they were depopulating my sandbed of micro-fauna. I changed the resin in my RO cartridges and added an additional resin cartridge before the ATO reservoir. I added Sera Silicate remover. I removed my Rowaphos from reactor (replaced with the silicate remover). I dosed more sodium bicarbonate to raise dKH. I added beneficial bacteria (mainly zeobak) on an ad hoc basis, usually but not exclusively with coral snow.

What happened
I noticed a gradual improvement from mid-January where there was more coralline appearing on the rocks where dinos had covered them, and I noticed some dinos no longer carpeting the sand. Last week I did another 3 day blackout which – as one would expect – made most visible dinos recede. Since then they have only reappeared as described above in a few patches and for now appear not to be gaining any foothold. It remains to be seen if they disappear completely, launch a comeback or remain in this status quo.

My theory
I think my “bloom” (maybe wrong word but I am happy to be corrected) MAY have been down to (1) impurity in my RO unit (TDS reading was 80-90 before I changed the resin) (2) surprisingly low dKH (between 5 and 6); (3) using Chemiclean when I thought I had cyano (4) depleted microfauna in sandbed

Curent State
For the first time in several months I am enjoying my aquarium again, and would be fine if it stayed as it is right now even with some patches of dinos. I have replaced a couple of the dead SPS frags with new ones that seem fine. Things may all go downhill fast again as I take nothing for granted in this hobby but for today at least my glass is half full.

Good luck everyone.

5 "Before" pictures - "after" pictures to follow


Attached Images
File Type: jpg Before dino_1.jpg (66.5 KB, 35 views)
File Type: jpg Before dino_2.jpg (79.6 KB, 32 views)
File Type: jpg Before dino_3.jpg (96.3 KB, 33 views)
File Type: jpg Before dino_4.jpg (99.4 KB, 37 views)
File Type: jpg Before dino_5.jpg (96.0 KB, 39 views)
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