Declaring WAR on my Aquarium

[Psyire]

I'm officially at WAR with my tank.

I lost my Mandarin today. He was fat, healthy, and there was not a mark on him.

A battle of 3 Fronts...

First Front:

I've had a 'brown algae' outbreak since around the time I put in my Bluethroat trigger. I thought it was due to overfeeding so I reduced my feeding by a lot. I've actually reduced it so much that my corals that rely a lot of food are dying. The 'algae' problem seemed to get better but now it's back stronger than ever. It's covering only my sand and glass. However it has attacked and killed almost all my SPS corals. It will start by covering the white (new growth) areas on the coral, and then slowly choke it out, a millimeter at a time, until the coral dies.

I've recently (yesterday) learned that this is not an Algae at all, but Dinoflagellates. (after many hours of research)

So now I'm forming a battle plan. Which involves a whole lot more than I bargained for.

- Ordering a Silicate test kit tomorrow, to test my RO water and my Tank water. (to see if I have a Silicate problem)

- Going on a strict Rowaphos & Carbon changing schedule. Currently I run 2 Phosban Reactors containing these materials, but I'll be changing them 4x as much from now on.

- Up my skimming from 1 gallon a day to 2 gallons a day.

- Raise my pH to 8.4 for a week. (my pH is typically low, which could be part of the problem)

- Double my water change routine and start using a turkey baster to blow them off the sand. (once I get the silicate test kit to test my RO water)

- Reducing my light period will be a last ditch effort, as I believe this is only a short term fix.

I'm fairly confident I will beat this back... we are higher evolutionary chain right?

I believe the Mandarin died due to high toxin ingestion. If pods were eating these dino's, then I suspect he could have been poisoned by them. Naturally these toxins would accumulate in my Mandarin as he ate more pods. (he was fat) Or perhaps he was sucking in Dyno's when he sucked in pods.. I'm not sure, but it sounds plausible.

2nd Front:

Aptasia is overrunning my tank. It's getting very bad and they are starting to choke out corals. I've placed 4 Berhia Nudi's in my Main display and in my 'fuge, but I fear this was not enough and even though they are probably still in there somewhere.. it will take months and months to do anything to this aptasia population. My next step is 1/2 dozen Peppermint shrimp, hopefully this will work because a Copperband isn't really feasible as my large Sailfin tang hates them.

3rd Front:

There is a hairy crab of a decent size living in my tank that my Peacock Mantis want's to eat... so I must catch him before he does any serious damage to my other inhabitants. (He dosen't seem aggressive and dosen't have red eyes, but I still don't trust him)

Tomorrow morning will kick off Operation Clean Sweep. Wish me luck.

(If you have any suggestions or helpful tips, please post 'em. If any of you follow my tank bulid thread on RC, you'll notice I posted this there too. The more help I can get, the better)

[Ruth]

You go Craig - I have heard that Dino's are a real PITA and I think that a lot of people end up tearing their tank apart so I really hope you get the bugger.
I will pm you with another suggestions regarding the butterfly. I have a couple of bullet type skimmers that I am not using if you want to borrow one to skim even more you are welcome to them.

[reeferaddict]

Wow! That's quite the regiment! Just one thing...

I'm sure this didn't happen overnight - so when it comes to chemical paramaters I hope you don't attempt to change it overnight, especially with SPS - even though I know how much urgency I feel myself when things aren't right....

[i have crabs]

sounds like a good plan to me the only thing i might also do is suck out the sand since the manderin is gone,but that depends on how you feel about people looking at your bare bottom.

[albert_dao]

Personally, I like the look of my bare bottom. It's what I get the most comments on when girls are over to see my... tank.

[Delphinus]

Dinoflagellates are perhaps the most nightmarish thing that can happen to your tank. In essence, it's a "red tide". Unfortunately it can be deadly to inhabitants who happen to ingest it, usually snails will drop dead. And it is worse than any cyano bloom because you can remove every last visible piece of it and within 2-3 hours it can look like you removed nothing, due to the fact that dinoflagellates reproduce so fast, a population can double within half an hour or something insane like that.

Save yourself a lot of trouble right now and go immediately to the step of turning your lights off. It is the only method to combat dinoflagellates. If this is indeed what you have, first off my sympathies (many people have suffered this, myself at least twice, others more so). It will hound you and hound you and hound you. Trust me on this one, your only first step to success in battling this is starving them of light. Your big challenge will be to find out how to do this without impacting your light-needing animals such as your corals and clams. As far as I'm concerned, corals can stomach the lack of light for a few days just fine, but clams maybe not. You'll have to figure it out for yourself what's going to work for you, but I cannot overemphasize this enough: you can *only* fight a dinoflagellate bloom by starving them of light. If you have actinics you can try maybe running just actinics for a week, but don't be surprised if this fails - even stray light from an adjacent window may be enough to invalidate your efforts - the only way to fight a bad dinoflagellate bloom is through starving them of what they are looking for.

You can try limiting your nutrient load by reduced feedings and increased skimming and rowaphos and so on, but don't be surprised if it doesn't work. An excess of nutrients may lead to the conditions favourable to a dinoflagellate infestation, but realistically the problem is that they are there, and there is no real mechanism to remove them. Your only hope is through starvation. I'm sorry -- I know you said you only want to tackle a reduced photoperiod as a last resort, but I'm trying to save you a lot of futile effort - they will persist. Your only hope is by removing what they are looking for which in this case is light.

Best of luck. Frankly, your aiptasia and crab problems may seem to add to your headaches, but if you indeed have dinoflagellates they are the least of your worries right now. Get that dinos bloom dealt with, if in the process you can deal with the others, great, but if not -- focus on the dinos first. It can be a hobby killer. I count my two experiences with fighting dinos in my systems as the lowest points of all time with respect to my reef tanks, and believe you me, in ten years in the hobby now I have seen it all, I've seen some nasty things, but very few compare to a bad dinoflagellate infestation.

I wish you the best of luck. Chin up - it can be beat, but you will be severely tested in the meantime.