Zoa Colonies closed

Discussion in 'Coral Health' started by Travis45, Apr 10, 2010.

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  1. Travis45

    Travis45 Scooter Blennie

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    Well the past few weeks I went through a battle of Brown Slime(dinos). I went for 6 days with no lights. I believe I beat the brown slime, since I have not seen a return in it the past couple of days. I am slowly bringing my tank light schedule back. The first day I put the actinics on for about an hour. Second day I put the actinics on for 1.5 hours and the daylights on for 30 minutes. Now its day 3 and I did the actinics for 2 hours and the daylights for an hour. So far everything is opening up and looking good except a few zoa colonies. I'm thinking this is normal and they are just adjusting to the changes. Just wanted to make sure though? Any other advice would be great too!
     
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  3. 2in10

    2in10 Super Moderator

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    Most likely they are adjusting to all of the changes. Give them time and don't worry unless it looks as though you are losing some.
     
  4. Travis45

    Travis45 Scooter Blennie

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    Yeah thats what I thought. When I had the lights off I made sure that I didn't see any rotting of tissue or reduction in tissue on skeleton. My open brain did have some some tissue loss but since the lights were on a few days its all back. ;D
     
  5. m_hsiao

    m_hsiao Purple Spiny Lobster

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    wow 6 straight days without light? i think that's kind of stressful for everything that's in that tank.. i would strongly recommend against turning your lights off for anymore than 2 days.. it's different in the ocean.. there can be a week in a row where the weather is cloudy and the lives in the ocean would still be receiving some light, but in your tank, it's pitch black for 6 days..
    this is just not the right away to go about treating diatoms.. you need to get to the root of the problems and see how high your phosphates are and perhaps too much nutrients in the tank. cutting back on the feeding, doing a few water changes would be much better than 6 days of no lighting...
     
  6. Travis45

    Travis45 Scooter Blennie

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    Well I did not have diatoms, I believe I said I had dinos(Dinoflagellates). If it was a mere case of diatoms I would have just starved them out and bought a few more cuc members that eat them. But fighting Dinos is much different then fighting diatoms, since if you do not clear them out asap they kill inverts and corals in no time. So I read up on the web and found out light shut down is pretty much necessary. They can live off very little nutrients and LOVE light. I have a buddy thats been reefing it up for 15 years and he said I did everything perfectly. He also mentioned many have torn down their setups trying to get rid of it. Oh yeah when I had the dino outbreak I believe I introduced it on a frag. My nutrients were NO3 0 and my Phosphates were .02. I also was doing water changes as well....