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Unread 06/11/2015, 09:58 PM   #1176
DDon
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Well I am going to give UV a try. Have an AquaUV 57watt Classic due to arrive Monday. Once I get it installed, will try that with a combo of 3 days blackout, elevated pH, H2O2, fresh GFO and daily filter sock changes.
I have been avoiding water changes since the last blackout but may do one as I want to remove the top layer of the sand bed for now. It is already pretty shallow to nonexistent on part of the tank due to prior partial remove and my power heads rearranging. Can't remove all (not that I would want to) and will put some back once this clears up as I have 3 leopard wrasses and a melanurus wrasse that need sand. So, is it better to do the water change right before lights out, during or just after? Or just skip this for now? Last time i siphoned part of the bed out I siphoned into a brute trashcan, let it settle and pumped the water back into tank through a filter sock, kind of a pain but if that is best option I can do it again.

Also are you measuring your flow rate through your UV or just estimating?


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Unread 06/11/2015, 10:57 PM   #1177
karimwassef
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I measured mine. I used a graduated paint bucket and throttled down the flow until I got it to fill slow enough.


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Unread 06/11/2015, 11:01 PM   #1178
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Thanks, I was considering something similar using a 5 gallon bucket to get an approximation


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Unread 06/11/2015, 11:15 PM   #1179
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With a stopwatch and a graduated bucket, you can get pretty close.


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Unread 06/12/2015, 12:09 AM   #1180
Mikefromaz
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Thats how I adjusted my UV. I timed how long it took to fill a gallon pail. I simply divided 3600 seconds by the bucket fill time.


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Unread 06/12/2015, 12:35 AM   #1181
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My water change/ cleaning routine. I do a 10% change weekly, in my case 4 gal. I do 2gal. above the the bottom to give me non contaminated "rinse" water. I use that to give the sump LR and bags of Matrix a good underwater shake to dislodge the crud before putting the stuff back. The other 2gal. of removed water is when I vacuum the sand. Especially with the dinos I tried to remove just enough sand to reveal clean white sand. I have two 200 micron socks which I swap out one midweek and one when I do the water change. After the water change I blow the heck out of the tank LR and let the dirty sock catch the stirred up stuff, waiting about a half hour and changing it out with the clean one.
. I only clean the socks with a hard spray inside and out from the garden hose, allowing it to dry in the sun. NEVER wash your filter socks in the washing machine. Laundry detergent is the mother lode of nitrates and phosphate.


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Unread 06/12/2015, 03:34 PM   #1182
cal_stir
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DDon View Post
Well I am going to give UV a try. Have an AquaUV 57watt Classic due to arrive Monday. Once I get it installed, will try that with a combo of 3 days blackout, elevated pH, H2O2, fresh GFO and daily filter sock changes.
I have been avoiding water changes since the last blackout but may do one as I want to remove the top layer of the sand bed for now. It is already pretty shallow to nonexistent on part of the tank due to prior partial remove and my power heads rearranging. Can't remove all (not that I would want to) and will put some back once this clears up as I have 3 leopard wrasses and a melanurus wrasse that need sand. So, is it better to do the water change right before lights out, during or just after? Or just skip this for now? Last time i siphoned part of the bed out I siphoned into a brute trashcan, let it settle and pumped the water back into tank through a filter sock, kind of a pain but if that is best option I can do it again.


Also are you measuring your flow rate through your UV or just estimating?
Have you ID'ed your dinos?


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Unread 06/13/2015, 12:31 AM   #1183
DDon
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Originally Posted by cal_stir View Post
Have you ID'ed your dinos?
No, I have not.


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Unread 06/13/2015, 12:33 AM   #1184
DDon
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My water change/ cleaning routine. I do a 10% change weekly, in my case 4 gal. I do 2gal. above the the bottom to give me non contaminated "rinse" water. I use that to give the sump LR and bags of Matrix a good underwater shake to dislodge the crud before putting the stuff back. The other 2gal. of removed water is when I vacuum the sand. Especially with the dinos I tried to remove just enough sand to reveal clean white sand. I have two 200 micron socks which I swap out one midweek and one when I do the water change. After the water change I blow the heck out of the tank LR and let the dirty sock catch the stirred up stuff, waiting about a half hour and changing it out with the clean one.
. I only clean the socks with a hard spray inside and out from the garden hose, allowing it to dry in the sun. NEVER wash your filter socks in the washing machine. Laundry detergent is the mother lode of nitrates and phosphate.
You can wash filter socks in the washer. Just use bleach and no detergent.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 06:41 AM   #1185
DNA
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The plan was to share the survey in details with everyone taking part.
The lack of participants was disappointing, but the results so fulfilling I can't be bothered to go on with it. I'ts in 200 parts and several columns so RC is not the best place for it.

It's a comparison of two tanks right now and a real eye opener. It provides wealth of good information. There is no magic solution, but for sure it's already the best thing that has happened in reef tank dino research recently.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 06:42 AM   #1186
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I'd like to know if bubble algae is something you have seen in your tank while having dinos.
I have them and two fellow reefers had them at the time when all of their SPS died.
I had a lots while the dinos were at a maximum and now I have much less of both.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 06:42 AM   #1187
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Has anyone done iron tests on their dino infested tank.
I doubt it plays a big part, but perhaps when other factors come into play.

I ran a magnet through my sandbed and there is lots of iron in there.
Not that it matters much if it's in a canister or the sand bed, but if the water column contains high levels, that would be something.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 06:43 AM   #1188
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Scientists insist the main reason for various blooms in the ocean is nutrients usually brought from the depths to the surface layers. Those nutrients start in the water column as fish poo, bacteria, dead animal and algae remains as well as sand and dust. They bind and form marine snow in the ocean. Reefkeepers call it detritus , but that never falls to the depths because reef tanks don't have any.

I got this nice Cyanobacteria bloom recently and decided to give it some help.
As we know already Cyanobacteria likes to seek out the dinos and the end result tends to be less dinos.

My actions was to blow the cyano off where there are no dinos so they get sucked into the pumps get torn apart and would resettle on top of dinos if they got the chance.

I wanted to try out this fact from the scientists in my tank by removing as much detritus as possible. The only way for me to do this is to blow it off from the rocks and collect from the water column and the sandbed. I used filter socks, skimmer and sand vacuuming for this.

At the same time I did a very effective carbon filtering,with a large mesh bag tied directly on the sump return and had that in a filter sock as well to collect the dust from the carbon breakup in the high currents.

I did this for weeks since blasting the rocks will cause at least 95% of the gunk to relocate elsewhere on the rocks and vacuuming the sand would bring out amazing amounts every time. Freeing all these nutrients into the water column is certain to increase the availability of them for organisms. Still I got no drastic increase or decrease in either dinos or cyano as I should have if detritus and marine snow have anything in common.

I have experienced this nutrient migration event first hand while diving in the Red Sea. After about 30 minutes in chilling temperatures and about 9 feet visibility, in a matter of seconds the temperature rose drastically and visibility extended to hundreds of feet. This is to give some sort of indication on how dense these nutrients can get in the ocean.

The current situation in my tank has been positive since there are less dinos right now.
Of course they will be back, but hopefully I'm getting new live rock soon to add to my tanks bio diversity.

I'm not saying the scientists are wrong, but I could not reproduce their findings.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 07:14 AM   #1189
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I have a ton of bubble algae in my tank with some hair algae but have not tried to remove it so the will not take control. I also have not done any iron tests. From what I can gather, the dinos that I have are the non-toxic version as my fish eat the substrate which they are covering. My diamond goby goes through the sand with no apparent health issues.

I have been doing my own test by letting the tank get dirty to see if that is helping and it seems to have given the dinos an advantage because they are coming back again. I am going to try the clean method to see if that changes the odds in my favor in the war against the dinos.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 09:17 AM   #1190
Mikefromaz
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My previous posts detail what I did to beat the dinos. What followed due to ultra low phos/nitrate was a lot of dead bubble algae. When it became dislodged on its own, the white shells seemed to collect at a vortex point in my tank making it "appear" like a bubble algae bloom. All dead or dying. This morning will be 48 hr. since I started a Chemi- clean dosing for mild cyano. No big worry there. My dinos are completdly whipped or so it seems. My "formula"..... scrupulous system cleaning, major dosing with fresh Purigen, Phosguard, dosing with vodka, and restarting an old UV sterilizer from a previous tank. My advice stay away from algae killers in your reef. The one I used killed HA very well. It also wiped out most if ot all of the micro algae, allowing a free nutrient field for the dinos.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 10:03 PM   #1191
DDon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DNA View Post
I'd like to know if bubble algae is something you have seen in your tank while having dinos.
I have them and two fellow reefers had them at the time when all of their SPS died.
I had a lots while the dinos were at a maximum and now I have much less of both.
I had bubble algae and dinos at the same time. And yes I watched almost all of my sps die at the same time.


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Unread 06/21/2015, 10:22 PM   #1192
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Well I got my UV (57 watt Aqua UV) installed and turned on on Friday night. I have been lights out since then, just lights off not total blackout. I have been blowing the rocks a couple times a day along with daily filter sock changes and large daily water changes (approx. 60 gallons each). Siphoned the top layer of sand during the water changes as well. I know the water changes fly in the face of what most recommend but I am hoping removing as many dinos as I can with the large water changes, filter socks and UV will cause a collapse of the population. I hadn't done water changes for quite some time and it didn't seem the be helping.
Friday night working on the tank right after I got he UV up and running the odor was very strong and caused my eyes to burn and water. Saturday before the first water change when blowing off the rocks, the smell was so much better and now it smells normal. I have also been scrubbing as much of rock as I can reach with a toothbrush, which on a 240g tank is no fun at all.
Tomorrow will be last day of lights out and will do 1 more water change. I will go with just actinics and blues on the first day of lights and then slowly ramp the LEDs up over a period of time. The white T5 will stay off for another week.
Of course i will be going out of town for a week on tuesday afternoon so I won't know the results of what I have done until I get back. We will see how it goes.


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Unread 06/22/2015, 02:09 AM   #1193
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Is your skimmer running? You'll need an export mechanism as the uv kills them off.


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Unread 06/22/2015, 06:20 AM   #1194
DDon
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Yes skimmer is running


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Unread 06/27/2015, 05:12 PM   #1195
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Been slowly putting my sand bed back in, new seafloor special, tank looks great and no sign of dinos.
Finally enjoying the hobby again after a year of frustration.
Fingers crossed that I didn't just jynx myself.


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Unread 06/28/2015, 03:59 AM   #1196
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Been slowly putting my sand bed back in, new seafloor special, tank looks great and no sign of dinos.
Finally enjoying the hobby again after a year of frustration.
Fingers crossed that I didn't just jynx myself.
Switching off some filters letting phosphates and nitrates raise was your trick to reduce Ostreopsis dinos.

In my tank the dinos are most visible where they collect on the sand bed.
In a bare bottom tank they will collect on the rocks and be less visible.
Bare bottom tanks get the same dinos as the ones with a sandbed.

I've been here a few times, so expect the dinos to be back at some point.
Enjoy the good periods and hope for the best.
My last one lasted for 6-8 months with good SPS color and growth.
It ended with 99% of the SPS dead.

Having no visible dinos is at least a partial success, but there are certain to be some left, but that's alright.
If you really want to find some, I'd suggest a late night sample with a large syringe.
Let is stand for an hour with the nozzle pointing down letting dinos if any to settle at the exit.
A single drop out of it should reveal what is in your water column.

If you can jinx things you can surely use magic on your dinos.


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Unread 06/28/2015, 04:03 AM   #1197
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It's very interesting how many have bubble algae and a dino problem.
Is there anyone out there where this is not the case?


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Unread 06/28/2015, 07:18 AM   #1198
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You can wash filter socks in the washer. Just use bleach and no detergent.
Yes you can. Just let the socks dry in the sun after so the bleach evaporates.


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Unread 06/28/2015, 07:26 AM   #1199
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It's very interesting how many have bubble algae and a dino problem.
Is there anyone out there where this is not the case?
I never had a bubble algae problems when having dino problems.


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Unread 06/28/2015, 08:44 AM   #1200
cal_stir
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Switching off some filters letting phosphates and nitrates raise was your trick to reduce Ostreopsis dinos.

In my tank the dinos are most visible where they collect on the sand bed.
In a bare bottom tank they will collect on the rocks and be less visible.
Bare bottom tanks get the same dinos as the ones with a sandbed.

I've been here a few times, so expect the dinos to be back at some point.
Enjoy the good periods and hope for the best.
My last one lasted for 6-8 months with good SPS color and growth.
It ended with 99% of the SPS dead.

Having no visible dinos is at least a partial success, but there are certain to be some left, but that's alright.
If you really want to find some, I'd suggest a late night sample with a large syringe.
Let is stand for an hour with the nozzle pointing down letting dinos if any to settle at the exit.
A single drop out of it should reveal what is in your water column.

If you can jinx things you can surely use magic on your dinos.
It wasn't quite that simple, physical removal by vacuuming, syphoning, skimming wet, running 10uM filter socks and UV (for a while) got the numbers down.
Allowing the nutrients to rise was to allow the micro algae and micro fauna to flourish and out compete the dinos and return the system to pre dino days. Fresh cleanup crew, replenished pods and critters and feeding fresh phytoplankton to maintain healthy micro fauna seems to be final nail, I'm starting to see the return of the small tube fan worms and mini brittle stars that were decimated from the algae X trying to rid bubble algae.
Yes I had bubble algae long before I had dinos and still have some now which I syphon out regularly. The only SPS I have is an encrusting montipora and a scroll coral and both are doing very well. I have things back to pre dino days except I will continue to use the 10uM socks and feed phytoplankton and maintain po4 at 0.03 and no3 at 1 to 2ppm, I have to clean my glass every 3 days now which was normal before I drove my nutrient levels down to undetectable levels where I was only cleaning the glass weekly.
I will continue to view this thread and post my progress, I do believe we can beat this and I believe it takes a natural balance of diverse creatures to do it.


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