My Bacteria Driven Journey

[docwells]

Tony,

I didn't know the sand bed was needed either. I never saw that mentioned in all my readings. But all the pictures of tanks I saw had a sand bed.

And the LPS are starving. I had a little bit of this problem with Fauna Marin and it continues with vodka dosing. I am going to try the Fauna Marin LPS food and hope this helps my LPS.

And like you, I thought my SPS would look bad. The only thing I can figure is I have made my tank really nutrient poor except for the carbon source (vodka) that I was dosing. And my sps seem to really like nutrient poor water. Now to get rid of the dinos.

[E.intheC]

docwells, could you try spot feeding your LPS? I'm still in the "reading" phase of the ULNS/Carbon dosing idea so if that's not a good suggestion, I apologize in advance

[docwells]

E.intheC,

I am going to spot feed with the Fauna Marin LPS food. Hope that does the trick.

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by docwells

Tony,

I didn't know the sand bed was needed either. I never saw that mentioned in all my readings. But all the pictures of tanks I saw had a sand bed.

And the LPS are starving. I had a little bit of this problem with Fauna Marin and it continues with vodka dosing. I am going to try the Fauna Marin LPS food and hope this helps my LPS.

And like you, I thought my SPS would look bad. The only thing I can figure is I have made my tank really nutrient poor except for the carbon source (vodka) that I was dosing. And my sps seem to really like nutrient poor water. Now to get rid of the dinos.

Is dino brown film?

[wmilas]

Originally Posted by docwells

I am looking for a little help. I decided to switch over from the Fauna Marin low nutrient system to a bacterial driven system with vodka dosing. My total water volume is estimated at 65 gallons so I dosed by the 50 gallon chart. Things were going well and my colors were even better than with Fauna Marin. I also had a small amount of nuisance algae while using the FM system and was told it was because I had a bare bottom tank.

Well, now I have hit a problem. I now have an outbreak of brown stringy algae. There is also some green film like algae on the rocks that started the last few days. I tested my phosphate and nitrate and both were zero. Alk and calcium are stable. I check my RO/DI unit to make sure it was not the problem. So I stopped the vodka dosing and kept the lights off the tank for 2 days. When I turned the lights on the brown algae had decreased. That was 3 days ago. Now the algae is back worse. My corals are losing their great color and turning brown. I have even seen some regression on a couple of frags. I had restarted dosing MB7 after turning the lights back on at the low nutrient dose. I also restarted vodka doing at the beginning dose. I am feeding a little more as I do not have a lot of fish and some regression could be due to lack of food. Am I doing this right or have a I missed something. Just looking for help.

I know I'm a bit late replying to this, but I have had the same thing happen. I was dosing vodka VSV HEAVILY trying to eradicated a large turf infestation. 6 weeks I was keeping the tank on the bleeding edge where the water just started to become milky due to all the carbon/bacteria. I finally won and killed off all the turf. (Starved it). the curious thing was that right after the last of the truf went away I started to have the exact same stringy bacterial growth. At first I thought it was dynos but it was not. It was definately bacteria.

I back my dosing way down to sane levels (maintenance) and the strings shrunk a little, but persisted. Finally I stopped the dosing for a full week and at the end the strings dissolved. I started the VSV dising back up to maintenance levels and have not seen a return of the strings.

So, my input is, you are adding too much carbon atm. Cut it down, or knock it off, and start back up and lower levels when it disappears.

[wmilas]

Oh and btw I rotate between adding large amounts of rottifers, oyster eggs, and phyto every night or every other night and I still have to spot feed lps. (by large I mean 100 ml of Reef nutrition rot, 60 ml of eggs, 150-200 ml of DT's phyto.. not all each night, but rotating between the 3) In a low nutrient system there simply isn't enough large particulate matter floating around to feed your larger sps. Acon lords, maybe. but no way on Trachys, scolies, ect.

Bt my system is 1000 gallons, although I "trap" the above feedings in the 600 gallon display for 2 hours when I feed. The beauty of a ULNS is you can feed like a maniac and still keep things under control. My fish are pigs and I couldn't maintain control without it (Ie turn algae out of control)

[docwells]

Thanks for the replies.

I have halted the vodka dosing. I have cut my light length back . I plan on adding GFO this weekend. The strings have started to decrease. I am not sure I want to restart dosing after this resolves. I was only dosing 0.3 ml daily. I know there is room to decrease, but I don't want this problem again if possible.

Glad to know that other people have problems with their LPS in ULNS. I guess I am going to have to feed more and spot feed. I will try it and see how it goes.

[jkellyii02588]

Is vodka dosing recommended even on smaller systems? Plan to use on 25g shallow.

[Cheapreef]

Originally Posted by jkellyii02588

Is vodka dosing recommended even on smaller systems? Plan to use on 25g shallow.

IMO better off using Vinegar on a small system far easier to target at 8X the does needed to equal Vodka. I use Vinegar on my RSRN 21gal main 7gal sump, I'm at approx 15ml a day for the last year with good success.