if the solution is strong enough yes , or left to long.

Hmmm I really don't want to crash my entire tank by dipping rocks.

Also to my previous question, do you guys run cheato/fuge lights on opposite schedules to your main display? Mine is at the same time right now.

His shrimp would have to go, too.

I dosed H202 systemically for a few weeks, @ 2ml/gallon. I actually saw a lot of great things happen in the system, but when I added my scarlet skunk I had to stop.

I run my fuge light opposite, but that is to try to keep the pH up on the system.

absolutely i would remove all fish inverts and coral as it will take some time and wont happen over night just to be safe.tank will be easier to treat with no livestock.

if your going to run a fuge for nutrient export unless your system is tiny not really going to see any noticable difference, i would go turf scrubber if thats why you want it that can keep you really low even ulns;)

Here are some pics after the lights just turned on.
As you can see there is very little of the brown crap, it seems to increase as the day goes on. Do Dino's do that?

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/a.../photo3-15.jpg

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/a.../photo2-23.jpg

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/a.../photo1-23.jpg

yes its from the amount of oxygen used/provided in photsynthsis(what ive always though)...hence the reason it dissaappears during the night:)

I don't know if dinos do that, but cyano definitely does.

dinos are famous for it:)

by the end of the day your tank will be a mess of strings,slime and bubbles again ...prob by midday

See it's frustrating trying to get a diagnosis of this stuff :biggrin: I need to find someone with a microscope.
My tank looks awesome first thing in the morning, but by about 6 hours into the lighting period it starts looking like crap again.

bring it in for testing then youll know for sure(a university should be able to put it under microscope for you) , dinos die in the cold though so they need to be transporeted quickly to the testing site.

imo cyano is easy as hell to get rid of , dinos can go for months and months with different attempts to remove.

cyano dissappears for a while here and there , dinos is in it for the long haul.


theres reports on rc of people using chemiclean and ending up with dinos , one story is very similiar to yours.

funny enough though its harder to keep dinos alive then it is to kill them , if you remove some and put it in another tank chances of survival is slim......irony maybe??

Dinoflagellates are kind of easy to get rid of by rising the PH. I did it and it never returned.

I used Seachem OH to rise the PH to 8.4 and keep it at that for a week. Now cyano is a pain...

My ph right now is 8.4 but lights are just about to go out. I'll check again in the morning right before lights on. I'm using a bit of an older API test kit though so not sure how accurate that is.

Ph this morning was roughly the same, like I said probably a crappy test kit.

Dosed another round of chemiclean this morning, gonna keep the lights off for a couple of days, might cover the tank and go the complete blackout route too. So we'll see what happens.

if your going to cover the tank then you need to do complete blackout a little bit of light getting through will do you no good.

good luck man im sure you get it knocked down:)

cheers

I'm gonna get garbage bags later and cover the tank up.

Since I lack an air stone I cranked up the skimmer to overflow.
http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/a...se/photo-9.jpg

Definitely looks like Dino's to me. I had them a few years ago and conquered them. Drastic measures though, you need to do an entire blackout over the whole tank for at least 4-5 days. Garbage bags won't work though, they are too thin and some ambient light will still penetrate into the tank. I used my motorcycle cover to make the tank pitch black. Try it, your tank will be ok in about a week. ( tank has to be in TOTAL darkness)

now ya got er, if you want some more oxygen then take the cup off the skimmer all together more oxygen will flow over:)

yeah garbage bags are gonna leak light in , it needs to be pitch black like burger mentioned even ambient lighting is food:)

K, I'll steal our barbecue cover and see if it fits lol.

X2. Cup off while cranked up is the best way to do it. :)

I took the outside table cover so hopefully that's dark enough

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/photo-10.jpg

I covered mine for three days. last night I took the cover off and scrubbed what rocks I could get to with a toothbrush and then did a 25% water change. Then I ran my diatom filter for 5 hours. It looks pretty sparklie now... Don't know if it will hold tho:mrgreen:

I did have some sps fags RTN on me, but they were kinda poopie before the blackout.

that will work just fine , check in on the fishes at night and they are good without food for a week if need be:)

jusdge the length of time by how your tank looks if the livestock are doing good then the longer in the dark the better the chances.


like daniella said look into raising your ph and keeping it raised:)

good luck man i know your pain:(

Raise your magnesium as well. Bring it as high as you can ( without hurting inhabitants,) pitch black tank for 4-5 days, then do a massive water change once you take off the cover. You'll need to suck up all the dead snots.

My mag is 1400 right now already. What is a safe level to bring it to?

I just did the 20% water change and turned down my skimmer so it might actually start skimming something. Haven't added the carbon yet and keeping the gfo reactor off for now as well.

I noticed yesterday the table cover was leaking a tan colour light through so I put a couple blankets on top and its now black.

Three more days and ill take the cover off and see the results. Hopefully it goes away for a while so I can enjoy my tank.

Day 3 now.

Do you think it'd be okay to turn half my lights on for like 20 minutes to feed the fish? Feeling guilty about having a totally black tank.

Today is day 5 of black out.

I took the cover off this morning and ran half the bulbs for about 45 minutes. Hopefully that doesn't screw everything up.

I did not notice any brown stringy crap, which is good but ill do the one more day of black out to be sure.

I fed my fish and my maxi mini.

I cleaned a power head.

I removed a netting that I installed at the overflow to prevent my peppermint shrimp at the time from getting sucked down. The netting I think did more harm than good since detritus and other gunk would just collect on the screen.

I noticed my skimmer hasn't produced anything in the last few days. I'm thinking my water is really clean right now from the previous water change and not feeding anything. Lots of bubbles in the skimmer, just no foam at the top being produced.

So you see the slime with snotty bubbles anymore? I would probably do another water change after you take the cover off.

I did not see any brown snotty stuff. Mind you it usually came out after the lights have been on for a bit.

I have water already mixed up for a water change tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the big reveal! Lights will be on and hopefully no reappearance of the evil brown crap.

good luck , are you running your phos media??

No I'm not running the phos reactor, I'll do a test and see what it is. My Duncan was opening up this morning which is good. I'm wondering if I was stripping too much out of the water before, I was running quite a bit of gfo. I'm going to add carbon this morning as well, I don't have a reactor for it just in a nylon sock.

its possible but i doubt it , i run on a 25g tank what some people run in a year for gfo. im running about a half a reactor full of gfo that goes fast.

now its possible as a whole, to be stripping too many things out , but theres always going to be a tiny bit phoshate always being produced or added....if there wasnt you would have no life in your tank and it would all be dead;)


how much at what brand are you using??


changing the carbon out for new stuff is a good idea.

do you run socks??

Ya I run a filter sock and change it out every few days when it starts overflowing.

I had about 2 cups of brs gfo in the reactor.

I'm also hoping that the cheato I've added will aid in phosphate removal.

Phosphate right now is .08