JeanR
Well-Known Member
My tank has been a complete pain in the butt the last 2-3 months. It is a 90g gallon mixed reef that is about a year old, following an upgrade from a 30g I had for 2 year before that. Many of the corals are 2-3 years old and nice looking colonies.
After the initial ugly tank phase the new tank had been easy and growing coral well. With the upgrade came an 30g sump that has about a third of it as a dedicated refugium (which is suspect is causing the problems). I set the refugium up on a 12/12 cycle with chaeto and mostly didn't bother with it except for weekly siphoning and removing some of the chaeto when overgrown. The Alk/Calc/Mg were pretty solid through 2-part dosing. I didn't really follow NO3 or PO4 closely but when I did they seemed just above zero.
Back in early February I noticed some brown algae-like growth on the sand bed, I assumed it was a little diatom bloom that I attributed to it still being a relatively new tank and needing to mature. I didn't think too much of it and went away for a week in mid-February. When I came back the brown algae had now spread to the rocks and SPS and the LPS were all contracted. I probably took me another 2 weeks to realize it was dinoflagellates with lots of strings and bubbles.
The tank parameters looked pretty good, but I realized my NO3 and PO4 test kits were expired so while they were reading slightly above zero that might not have been accurate. In retrospect I think that my contracted LPS could have been indicating NO3/PO4 were too low (I had noticed the contraction before the Dinos go bad).
A member mentioned that some bad frozen food batches can cause this problem so I stopped feeding frozen for a few weeks- it did not help.
I ordered the Dr. Tims Dinoflagellate kit (black out, re-fresh, waste away) because I figured if it costs $30 and worked it would be great. It cost $30 and did not work. Took a few weeks to figure this out.
I ordered Dino-X and dosed as recommended - it did not work. Took a few weeks to figure this out.
Physical removal and water changes helped, but the Dinos quickly came back in a few days.
Ultimately, thinking too low NO3/PO4 might be the issue, I took most of the chaeto out of the refugium, turned my skimmer off for 2-3 days and let my NO3/PO4 rise.
Now my NO3 is 25ppm and my PO4 is 0.3ppm (got new kits). The LPS is much happier and dinoflagellates are going away (though not completely).
My SPS, however, looks terrible. All the frags I've gotten in the last few months are dead. A few of my colonies are dead, others have lost their color. I am thinking the combination of prolonged Dino stress followed by spike in NO3/PO4. I'm not so surprised to see the acros crashing but am surprised to see the birdsnest wasting away. I always thought they were pretty bullet proof as they survived my first year of reefing when I hadn't figured out dosing or serious reef chemistry. Alk/Ca/Mg are being maintained at good levels (though I did have Alk spike to 14 unexpectedly when I removed coralline from the sump along with the chaeto - was high for a few days before I noticed and now it is back down to 9) .
Not quite sure what to do - any suggestions?
After the initial ugly tank phase the new tank had been easy and growing coral well. With the upgrade came an 30g sump that has about a third of it as a dedicated refugium (which is suspect is causing the problems). I set the refugium up on a 12/12 cycle with chaeto and mostly didn't bother with it except for weekly siphoning and removing some of the chaeto when overgrown. The Alk/Calc/Mg were pretty solid through 2-part dosing. I didn't really follow NO3 or PO4 closely but when I did they seemed just above zero.
Back in early February I noticed some brown algae-like growth on the sand bed, I assumed it was a little diatom bloom that I attributed to it still being a relatively new tank and needing to mature. I didn't think too much of it and went away for a week in mid-February. When I came back the brown algae had now spread to the rocks and SPS and the LPS were all contracted. I probably took me another 2 weeks to realize it was dinoflagellates with lots of strings and bubbles.
The tank parameters looked pretty good, but I realized my NO3 and PO4 test kits were expired so while they were reading slightly above zero that might not have been accurate. In retrospect I think that my contracted LPS could have been indicating NO3/PO4 were too low (I had noticed the contraction before the Dinos go bad).
A member mentioned that some bad frozen food batches can cause this problem so I stopped feeding frozen for a few weeks- it did not help.
I ordered the Dr. Tims Dinoflagellate kit (black out, re-fresh, waste away) because I figured if it costs $30 and worked it would be great. It cost $30 and did not work. Took a few weeks to figure this out.
I ordered Dino-X and dosed as recommended - it did not work. Took a few weeks to figure this out.
Physical removal and water changes helped, but the Dinos quickly came back in a few days.
Ultimately, thinking too low NO3/PO4 might be the issue, I took most of the chaeto out of the refugium, turned my skimmer off for 2-3 days and let my NO3/PO4 rise.
Now my NO3 is 25ppm and my PO4 is 0.3ppm (got new kits). The LPS is much happier and dinoflagellates are going away (though not completely).
My SPS, however, looks terrible. All the frags I've gotten in the last few months are dead. A few of my colonies are dead, others have lost their color. I am thinking the combination of prolonged Dino stress followed by spike in NO3/PO4. I'm not so surprised to see the acros crashing but am surprised to see the birdsnest wasting away. I always thought they were pretty bullet proof as they survived my first year of reefing when I hadn't figured out dosing or serious reef chemistry. Alk/Ca/Mg are being maintained at good levels (though I did have Alk spike to 14 unexpectedly when I removed coralline from the sump along with the chaeto - was high for a few days before I noticed and now it is back down to 9) .
Not quite sure what to do - any suggestions?
