JiaEn

The sure way to know what you are facing is to look at the algae under the microscope. If you need help, pm me.

For zeolite based systems, they are bacteria dependent. Heavy use of carbon dosing can mess up the bacteria population. You can refer to this article. https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej2017142 In my own experience, dosing too much carbon causes problems such as sulky corals and growth of cyano bacteria.

My aquarium is 2.5 ft deep, not as deep as what you are planning, but I think I can offer some pointers. 1. What you plan to keep on the bottom of the tank will determine your light requirement. If your plan is to LPS only on the bottom, it's going to be dramatically different from say, wanting to keep clams. 2. While one unit of light may struggle to provide good penetration at depth, by having overlapping light sets will solve your problem. 3. A deeper tank poses more challenges than just light. But I'm sure as you do the planning, you will tackle them as they come. All the best!

You can consider getting a cooling fan to begin with, in order to keep the temperature stable and low.

Hey. I have run a zeo based system for 9 month. Zeo-based system is great, provided you regularly shake them, and regularly replace the media. The whole point of zeovit is to cultivate bacteria and release these bacteria regularly as food. It's not advisable to use heavy carbon dosing with zeovit. The excessive organics can potentially lead to all sort of problems.

You can raise kh to your target slowly (say, about 0.5kh per day). Then you can dose according to consumption to maintain.

That sounds ok. Perhaps you can test the calcium value with a different kit.

Feel free to let me know if you need any help

Have you checked your magnesium levels? Magnesium is essential to ensure Ca and kH can be maintained at the level we want. Also, if freshly mixed saltwater reads so high in terms of calcium, maybe you should get a second test kit to confirm.

And the return pump as well.

Hey! Let me try and answer. 1. Dosing pumps are generally noisy. Fortunately the doser only switch on for very short amount of time per day. You can always keep it in a cabinet. 2. What are you doing to supplement kH etc? You can start with that amount and monitor. If you have not started dosing yet, measure kH at the same time for two days, and calculate how much you need to dose to maintain the level. 3. You have many options. Kalkwasser if the requirement is low, two parts, three parts, diy solutions. All these have pros and cons. You can refer to this post of mine. All the best!

Special Report on Dino Situation Well, the situation is slowly coming under control. The sand bed still quite brown. However, microscopic investigation is very encouraging. As seen from the image (100x) above, the field of view is filled by diatoms. Witj only a few dino in sight. Multiple species of diatom. Very encouraging. Under 400x magnification, even the aggregates are compose of mostly diatoms. Identifying the algae under microscope no only allows for a correct diagnosis, it also helps us to monitor the effectiveness of treatment. Without it, it is a lot to ask a reefer to look at visually unchanging brown sand for many months, and believe the method is working.

White film (can't see from your video) is likely bacteria film due to your dosing of nopox. By itself it's not harmful. But if you overdose nopox, you will have a lot of problems.

The red stringy stuff could be cyano or dino. Need to confirm with microscope.

All these are good choices, and are capable of growing most corals in the hobby. Choice between hydra and radion boils down to you budget and preference of the "look". If choosing between a hydra64 vs 2 hydra32, i'll choose the latter because there will be less shading. Consider your tank dimension, I won't be surprised if a hydra 32 is sufficient.

Do consider which light you will end up using for this setup. Most lights have a PAR profile whereby the centre is much brighter than the edge. When you have the highest part of the rock work all the way at the corner, you may or may not have enough illumination if you intended to keep light demanding corals there. Another consideration is flow. If the rock work is very close to wavemaker, the flow will be severely impeded. Do take that into consideration too.

These are probably diatoms, which are common for new tanks. However, the only way to be sure, is to look at them under the microscope. If these are indeed diatoms, the problem should resolve on its own as the silicate in your aquarium becomes depleted naturally.

Turning the (Red)Tide Dosing of silicate encouraged diatom to bloom; and in turn, drive amphidiniun slowly out of business. After a month of silicate dosing, the amount of amphidium is much less. Even detritus sample from the sand contains much less cells than before. This is the image of bits of detritus. A large number of diatom cells can be seen. Dino? Not so much. A 400x image confirmed the cells are indeed diatoms. Macroscopically, it doesn't look much different than before. Afterall, diatoms are brown. But I'm certain the red tide has turned. Given time, amphidinium would be completely suppressed.

Silicates for Amphidinium Let's address the elephant in the room: silicate? Is this one of those evil contaminants we need to remove from the aquarium? Isn't silicate gonna cause nuisance algae to grow in the aquarium? Just like phosphate and nitrate? Don't we use all sorts of filters (such as ro/di) to remove every bit of silicate. Most of the time, there are some truth to it. However in dealing with amphidinium, silicate is crucial because it is the fuel for diatom growth. Diatoms require silicate to build frustules, which is the beautiful glass like shell. Other than fueling diatoms, silicate can also help in the growth of sponges. There are little other side effects for silicate dosing. All in all, a very safe and effective way to overcome amphidinium. Chemically, sodiun silicate is a colorless solution with very high pH. Being a strong alkali, it can cause skin irritation and injuries. Therefore it is important to be careful when handling the solution. Tips for Silicate Dosing There are a few quirky observations when dosing silicate. It's good to keep these in mind. 1. Start slow, and test the silicate level. Although silicate is not harmful in a reef tank, there is no need to increase the concentration to extremely high levels. In the beginning, when there is little diatoms, the silicate uptake is small. There is no point in dosing a large amount everyday when starting off. Raise the silicate to 2-4ppm or so, and keep it there. 2. High flow. Silicate has a pH as high as kalkwasser, and is more concentrated. Therefore when adding silicate to the aquaeium, it will cause temporary cloudiness just like dosing kalkwasser or kh supplements. The cloudiness will clear away on its own, but dosing in to high flow area is certainly recommended. 3. KH. Just like adding alkali such as kalkwasser, silicate will increase the kh of an aquarium. It's essential to adjust the kh dosing, to take into account of these additional kh added. 4. Phosphates. Phosphate media, Such as aluminum oxide or GFO, will remove silicate the same way they do phosphate. Keep these media offline when dosing silicate. In addition, the silicate level in the aquarium can cause false reading for some phosphate test kits. Don't be alarmed when phosphate reading is very high.

Treating the Amphidinium Situation Since amphidinium does not migrate to the water column, we can't use UV to reduce its population; since it stays on sandbed, and even migrate into the sand at night, hydrogen peroxide is not very effective against it. Algaecides such Dino-X may reduce, even eliminate some species of dino, but there is no guarantee, not to mention it will likely cause havoc in my already sullied ecosystem. Since amphidinium does not affect corals much, and are of negligible toxicity, There is a tried and tested strategy for amphidinium bloom : silicate dosing. Silicates No, silicates do not kill amphidinium. We elevate the silicate level in the reef aquarium to 2ppm or higher, so that diatoms are encouraged to grow. When diatom population rises, they start to compete with amphidinium and eventually suppress them. When diatom finally drives the amphidinium population to extremely low levels, the silicate level can be slowly brought down, and the diatoms will decline in step with the silicate level. As long as there are other micro-organism to occupied the newly opened niche, the amphidinium problem is resolved. Not only that, we end up with a healthier ecosystem with robust microbe population. This will make the aquarium more resilient against future outbreaks. I'm 2+ weeks into this silicate dosing regime. Outwardly the sand bed looks worse. The brown patches are darker. But microscopically, it's nothing but good news. There is finally more diatom cells compared to amphidinium cells, and the number of amphidinium cells decreased significantly. The following two microscope videos for comparison: IPS_2021-11-09.16.04.36.3370.mp4 Nov 9th. Note the large numbers of amphidinium cells. (400x magnification) IPS_2021-11-23.18.29.04.5110.mp4 Nov 23, notice there are much less amphidinium cells, even as the field of view is wider (200x). Also note the large number of beautiful diatoms. This is not a "solve the problem today" method, nor is it effective against all type of dinoflagellate. There are some pointers regarding silicate dosing, which I will discuss in the next post. Until then, always remember, it's essential to ID the dino before treating them.

Even skimmers (As much as they are awesome) are not a must have. There are many ways to run a reef aquarium. In general, I would look at: 1. Some form of mechanical filtration such as floss/filter cup/automatic fleece 2. Biomedia 3. Additional export mechanism such as refugium/ats/skimmer 4. Provisions for cooling 5. Space for (future) additional equipments 6. Return pump 1-5 are kind of optional depending on how you run your tank. 6 of course, is a must have.

Amphidinium The dino bloom in my aquarium are largely Amphidinium sp. This genus of dino are often mis-identified as diatoms, because, to the naked eyes, they are almost identical. The macroscopic appearance of amphidinium bloom is a brown dusty appearance on the sand bed. There is very little stringy mucus. Unlike diatoms though, amphidinium generally does not encroach onto the rock work. During night migration, unlike many dinos which migrate into water column, amphidinium migrates deeper into the sandbed instead. Microscopically, amphidinium does not have an armored shell (theca). It can be identified by the asymmetric cleft, which looks like a beak. It has two flagella (whips) which helps it to move rather effectively in water. It has a nucleus, and it is capable of both asexual and sexual reproduction; can even form inactive cysts when the environment is less than ideal. If we consider the characteristic of amphidinium, there is no doubt that it's a resilient organism, difficult to control in an aquarium setting. Since it does not migrate into water colomn, UV is ineffective against it. Due to its fast reproductive rate, it can easily overwhlem other macro and microalgae. The only "good" thing about it is that it has very low toxicity. Therefore the clean up crews does not perish during amphidinium outbreak.

If you do it regularly, say once or twice a week, no issues at all. If not, you should limit yourself to one small section at a time. The problem of deep and undisturbed sand bed is that there is only so much detritus it can take in before forming too much anoxic zones. This may take a few months to a few years, but it always feels like a ticking time bomb to me.

An easy way to find out if the light is the problem, is to just move them higher up

Biology of Dinoflagellates Dinoflagellates are single cell microorganisms. While often considered algae, they are sometimes considered to be protozoa. This is unsuprising, because dino exhibits both characteristics of algae and protozoa -They can photosynthesize, and they can move around and prey on other organisms as well. In fact, without dinoflagellate, we can forget about having most coral reefs. This is because the zooxanthelle, or rather, the Symbiodinium in the photosynthetic corals, is a group of dinoflagellate. So yay! We need dino in our tank. Of course, we only worry about those dino which makes our aquarium ugly and kills our corals, right? So we shall focus on the harmful aglae (yes, it's a scientific term). The Whirling Whip Dinoflagellate is the combination of two words: dino, which means whirling; flagellate, which means whip. Dinos are equipped with two whips, which helps them to move around rather effectively. Untitled - Sequence 01 6.mp4 Take a look at this amphidinium from my aquarium. Looking at the brown cell on the right, you should be able to make out two different whips. One goes around the "beak" on the left side of the cell, another is a longer one fixed on the right side. The whirling motion of the flagella allows the dino to move and orientate itself. There are many other species of dino, which will look completely different under the microscope, but they will all have the two flagella characteristic of this phylum. The Harmful Algae How does some dinoflagellate harm our aquariums? There are two main processes: Firstly, dino compete with other aquariumn residents for nutrients. When conditions are favorable, dino reproduce rapidly. They can divide every day, and they can produce sexually as well. This rapid growth is fueled by aggressive consumption of nutrients in the aquarium, depriving other corals, and leads to their demise. Secondly, many dino produce toxin as a mean of defence, or as a weapon to suppress their competition. As a result, few animals are willing to graze on the dino. On the other hand, if the dino population is wiped out through some medication, these released toxin can spell disaster for the rest of the aquarium. One other process, while not harming the aquarium directly, make dino difficult to overcome. Being able to move, dino regularly migrates, especially at night. Some species launch themselves into water column, spreading to claim new territories, while others migrate deeper into the sand bed, hiding from potential predators. Speaking of protection, some dino are even armored with a theca. Having taken note of these processes, it's possible to fomulate strategies to manage the dino situation after the offending species is identified.