Starting a 2-day blackout

[chadfish]

So dinos showed up again in full force. Different strain this time - they don’t really go into the water column at night.

Anyway, I have my new 22W UV set up in the 50 gal DT with about 100gph flowing thru it, and several towels over it to block the light.

I’ve also suspended alk dosing to avoid a spike.

The plan after the 48hr blackout period is to keep the UV active at night and dose nitrate and live phytoplankton during the day.

Any other words of advice?

Wish me luck

 

[ChrisV]

I would advise longer than two days. Your corals can take it. I also suggest going over kill on the black out part. When I had dinos I did a 3.5 day black out and I bumped the temp to 81, and I covered the tank with aluminum foil on all surfaces. Ran an air pump to make sure I didn't get too hypoxic.

It worked.

 

[chadfish]

My system has been up and running for over a year. I’ve added a few bits of live rock from Dong and Frank and I dose live phytoplankton often.

what can I do to get my biodiversity up? Will dosing nitrate do it, or should I add bottled bacteria, or get more live rock? Or what? Looking for suggestions.

Also, if my nitrates are always bottomed out, should I ditch the chaeto until I need it?

 

[this is me]

Why do you need to dose phyto often?

 

[MarkSzy]

How many fish do you have and how often do you feed? I was able to get through my 200g tank cycle with a bottle of fritz and a full cube of mysis shrimp a day. Maybe just feed the bacteria more to get your nitrates up?

 

[ChrisV]

My system has been up and running for over a year. I’ve added a few bits of live rock from Dong and Frank and I dose live phytoplankton often.

what can I do to get my biodiversity up? Will dosing nitrate do it, or should I add bottled bacteria, or get more live rock? Or what? Looking for suggestions.

Also, if my nitrates are always bottomed out, should I ditch the chaeto until I need it?

I don't run chaeto and I never have. Right now I am not even running protein skimmers (though my tanks are both nanos). I wouldn't suggest running interventions that you don't actively need. If you find that you have a nitrate problem later on you should revisit the chaeto. It's likely that all of your NO3 is being consumed by the dinos-- which I guess is why you plan to add live phyto after the black out. I've used the Dr. Tim's refresh/waste away products instead. In theory they do the same thing-- consume the nutrients released by the dinos when they die off. The benefit to the bacterial products is that they are not photosynthetic, so they can get a head start as soon as the dinos start to die, while the tank is still dark. This treatment worked extremely well for me.

With respect to increasing microbial diversity-- Does GARF still sell GARF grunge? Aquabiomics also sells a live rubble product, but they seem to be out of stock. Greg Hiller has a pest free system (and is apparently in town until this weekend and then gone for months). You could probably get a bunch of crud from his sump and use that. That might be my vote. Fresh crud from Greg's sump!

 

[Knight]

That sounds like an excellent product to be marketed - Greg's Sump Crud, Get it while its FRESH

 

[ChrisV]

That sounds like an excellent product to be marketed - Greg's Sump Crud, Get it while its FRESH

It's cold enough outside that if you walked out of his basement with a big cup of it, you know it would be steaming.

 

[chadfish]

It's cold enough outside that if you walked out of his basement with a big cup of it, you know it would be steaming.

What do you say @Greg Hiller ? Got any sump crud you’re willing to part with?

 

[Mixed Reefer]

What about dosing bacteria? I think I would dose microbacter7 and hold off on lights out.

 

[ChrisV]

Lights out is a scary thing to do for a reef but it really knocks things back a ton and didn't harm any of my corals.

 

[nilaydeshmukh]

Did you look into Dr Tim’s Dinoflagellate Treatment Bundle? Combination of adding bacteria and blackout

 

[ChrisV]

Did you look into Dr Tim’s Dinoflagellate Treatment Bundle? Combination of adding bacteria and blackout

This is the combo I mentioned. It worked for me!

 

[chadfish]

Did you look into Dr Tim’s Dinoflagellate Treatment Bundle? Combination of adding bacteria and blackout

I’m honestly scared of the Dr Tim’s dino bundle. It seems like creating bacteria blooms is a common side effect.

That’s why I’ve been doing the phytoplankton, to try to encourage a sustainable population of micro-organisms, not just bacteria. But it hasn’t really worked. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

The sludge sounds like a great idea to me. Or straight up substrate… But first I have to beat these guys back with UV, then I can build back up again. Microbacter 7 will establish beneficial bacteria, or is it snake oil?

 

[chadfish]

How many fish do you have and how often do you feed? I was able to get through my 200g tank cycle with a bottle of fritz and a full cube of mysis shrimp a day. Maybe just feed the bacteria more to get your nitrates up?

I have a 50 gal with 8 fish.
2 clowns - small but growing
2 pajama cardinals
1 firefish
1 diamond goby
1 chromis
1 white-tail Bristletooth Tang (from Doug) which is larger than my other fish but small enough for this tank

Their bio-load is sustaining about 30 frags in a mixed reef, mostly Zoas/softies but a bit of everything.

I feed pellets usually once a day. If I feed more I get an algae bloom. First the dinos increase, then the briopsis gets bushy (this is my next project, I’m leaving it there to compete with dinos), then the green scummy green algae comes in, and hair algae last.

It’s seems the more nutrients I add the more algae I get and dinos get worse and worse. Maybe I just haven’t broken through because no matter how much I feed I never read any nitrates or phosphates. It all goes straight to the algae. Maybe I need an algae scrubber. Or maybe I just need so much nitrates that I break through and start to get excess. Then I’ll achieve a healthy biome that wards off dinos??

 

[chadfish]

Why do you need to dose phyto often?

To compete with dinos and feed the coral and the pods. How often is too often?

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

I’m honestly scared of the Dr Tim’s dino bundle. It seems like creating bacteria blooms is a common side effect.

That’s why I’ve been doing the phytoplankton, to try to encourage a sustainable population of micro-organisms, not just bacteria. But it hasn’t really worked. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

The sludge sounds like a great idea to me. Or straight up substrate… But first I have to beat these guys back with UV, then I can build back up again. Microbacter 7 will establish beneficial bacteria, or is it snake oil?

I dose Prodibio Bio Digest every 2 weeks, seems to help with beneficial bacteria. I've used MB7 in the past but never really noticed if it actually did anything or not.

 

[ChrisV]

I'm not sure how much the microbes in Dr Tim's waste away and refresh actually reproduce under aquarium conditions. This is why they need to be dosed multiple times. The idea is that they are dosed to the tank, they eat a bunch, and then get skimmed out by the skimmer.

 

[chadfish]

I'm not sure how much the microbes in Dr Tim's waste away and refresh actually reproduce under aquarium conditions. This is why they need to be dosed multiple times. The idea is that they are dosed to the tank, they eat a bunch, and then get skimmed out by the skimmer.

I guess I'm confused on this point. Wouldn't that reduce my nitrates further? Or would it simply help me keep detectable levels of nitrates without the algae? And isn't this a similar concept to carbon dosing?

 

[ChrisV]

I guess I'm confused on this point. Wouldn't that reduce my nitrates further? Or would it simply help me keep detectable levels of nitrates without the algae? And isn't this a similar concept to carbon dosing?

So I'm not 100% sure how these work, but I believe there are heterotrophic bacteria that eat cellular components of algae. If algae and dinos are not there, then you can get nitrates back up to reasonable levels. If I'm not mistaken there is more info about this on the Dr Tim's site. Could be mistaken about this, it's been a while ... On the bright side, it did work well enough for me that I did it once and I don't remember the details!!