Something's Gone Awry

The dinoflagellates are not the problem - they are a "Potential" symptom of the problem.

 

Geek, In my experience if it was Sulfates that would have effected the tank right away, that **** is nasty and will either kill or severely affect everything in the tank within a few hours depending on the concentration. I just can't see is taking months to affect his tank, but I may be wrong.

 

Dino's are coral irritators and can smother them to death.

Im covering all basis's on a 3 month transferred tank. If he didnt reuse the old sand, I wouldnt even be mentioning this.

 

My first thought after seeing the updated pics was that it had to be a cycle, so I think Geek might have hit the nail on the head. My parameters stayed in check during my algae bloom also, including dino. All I did was dump a good deal of snails in there (over 1 per gallon at first, then have slowly added since then, almost 3 per gallon now), and I got a maxijet mod to add a bunch more flow. Once I was turning the tank over 30-40X an hour, everything slowly went away. I haven't had a problem since (knock on wood!) You might already know all this stuff so I'm just throwing it out there for you to consider! Good luck buddy, and as always, keep us updated!!

 

In my inability to get on 3reef these past 24 hours I've been reading at other forums. Reef Central's mod, "Hop," had some sage advice about dinos.

His advice is simple:
reduce light, no waterchanges, control PO4, increase pH to 8.3 and maintain. 6 weeks or so for some, at best, maybe 3 weeks and that should do it.

 

Dino's are a side effect in your case. Reducing light does help get rid of them, but you're trying to fix what caused them in the first place.

Dino's if left uncheck will attack fish, this disease is known as "Marine Velvet". As Ive told you before about this, Ive battled them a number of times...

 

So I think I might have figured out at least a part of my issue.

While sitting in front of my setup last night shining a flashlight on my phos reactor, I noticed the inpipe's contents pulsating, rather than flowing. It seems that for the last 6 weeks at least, my phosphate reactor has been "offline." Even though the water has been pumped in, it wasn't flowing through the phosphate media and carbon in the chamber.

This would explain the buildup of phosphates, and other matter that carbon keeps in check. Although my phosphate has been testing at 0 all this time, maybe it's a case where (as I've read about), the algae developing on the LR is simply feeding on phosphates locked in the rock, or coming out of the sand. So either my phosphate test is no good, expired, or not picking up anything from the water column; or it's something else equally unexplainable. .

I spoke to Geekdafied again tonite, who thinks it might be my test kits.

Anyway, after a good cleaning my phosphate reactor is again working as it should (as Tangster says, the contents inside should look like mirage on a hot road viewed at a distance) should almost seem to be bubbling. That's the way it's supposed to be, and now; that's the way it is. I have new Rowaphos and carbon in the chamber, that I purchased from Tangster along with my new 14K Blue Life SPS MHs.

Already things look a bit better. My purple mushrooms seem beefier and more vibrant. My frogspawn is beginning to extend a bit too. My hammer is looking healthier too. I'm waiting for my yellow polyp to open back up. My GSP is still totally closed, but purple--so it's alive.

I've changed more than half the tank's water so far.

I appreciate everyone's concern and tracking of this thread. I'll keep you all posted!!


Oh yeah, another thing--my Banggai's once again are pregnant. The male is huge, and square-jawed with eggs. This is a testament to great water quality. Mouth brooders, and egg-layers (like clowns, for example) won't undertake the endeavor if conditions aren't just so.

So I've got that going for me.

Which is nice!

 

Very good to hear. Keep us posted, and if things really start to improve, give us some pics, please.

 

You know I will!

 

GREAT news!!! Good thing you're addicted to 3reef or you'd never had figured it out.