Ok so I've been having a hellish time with dinoflagellates for about the past month or so and my patience has come to an end with the advent of losing a goodly portion of my sps frags and all 3 cap colonies, over the weekend. I've tried: decreasing the lighting period, actinics only for a few days, turkey basting the crap off the rocks, run carbon, chemipure and filter floss to collect the particulates and water changes after the turkey basting and cleaning the glass on all sides. I've increased the alkalinity to 3.5meq/L, calcium is at 380 (where it has always been, not for lack of trying to get it higher
). My skimmer is pulling out some of the most disgusting black gunk I have ever seen or smelled for that matter. I have lots of flow in my tank which includes 2 802s and 2 MJ1200s. I also was doing regular water changes before this all started and increased the frequency of them during the first part of the bloom.
All of this seemed to start when I removed a lot of the rock (except for the main 4 on the sandbed) to get the foxface and bicolor blenny out. While I had them out I decided to change my aquascaping and reversed the position of two of the main rocks that sat on the sandbed. I think disturbing the sandbed was the cause of all of this.
So now I am faced with several options:
First of all I could just say to hell with it and sell off everything. I've really been waffling about this lately and I just don't think I could do it but these damned dinos just aren't going away (I'm a fence sitter on this one).
Secondly, I could remove the sandbed. Quite frankly its never been that nice white sandbed that everyone else seems to have. The first 6 months of this year it actually looked the best it ever has and had a ton of life which no doubt has been smothered by the dinos. However I have a wrasse that likes to sleep
in the sandbed and I don't want him going all weird on me because he isn't getting a good nights sleep
Thirdly, I could replace the sandbed. Currently I have about 3-4" of aragonite sand (I suppose its the 1-1.7mm grade kind as listed on the J&L website). I was thinking maybe to replace that with a couple inches of oolitic sand. Or I could rinse the sandbed that I have. The sandbed that I have now has currently been with me for 3 years and has been moved 3 times. I'm sure it could use a good rinse
Anyway, please post your opinions on what you think I should do. Currently I am favoring option number 3. I'd really rather not spend any more money on the tank if its going to continue to be the PITA it has been for the past, well technically I guess about 3 years
, but its that 3 month happy-with-tank window that I'm going for.
Christy
