In short, it's taken 7 to 8 months to get my frag tank almost up to useable condition after battling with flatworms, dinoflagellates and some brown mushy algae which may have been a form of dino or cyano, who knows. I only treated for the flatworms in the beginning, but the rest was just patience, water changes, constant cleaning, and reduced lighting from less hours daily, to 3 weeks of no light then adding LED spotlight lamps for about 3-4 weeks.
DETAILS
So back in July, 2010 I treated my frag tank with Algaefix and for whatever reason started losing corals. Not having much in the 15 gallon frag tank I just moved a few corals and let it go.
Then those orange flatworms started up and I eventually had to treat for that, but the treatment while it killed most of them, didn't get enough to keep them gone totally, so that was another 4 to 5 months of trying to deal with it. So of course the frag tank was useless. I had increased the dosage but eventually stopped the treatment as I wasn't seeing any significant drop in the critters.
Then as they finally started to dwindle on their own, the tank developed dinoflagellates. So I just kept wiping stuff down, vaccuming it out, running polyfilters and regular weekly water changes through the beginning of January this year. Feeding was minimal as I only have one Royal Gramma in that tank...but being territorial wasn't going to go well in either of my other tanks. After the dinoflagellates seemed to be disspiating I noticed this sort of slimey brown stuff on the back glass and rocks and sand. I noticed it was only where there was light on the left side of the tank and none on the right so out went the MH 150W for a few weeks, and then I put up two LED bulbs, one 65K and one Royal blue, which gave minimal light. I replaced the MH bulb yesterday and started it back up. Most all of the brown slime has disappeared from the glass and I can actually see a bit of purple coraline where previously it was all white and dead. The tiny frag of tubipora that had attached to one of the rocks is doing well, but the large porites I had no room for in any other tanks, not so well.
I had some red macroalgae attached to the rocks and they were a really good indicator of the tank conditions. They started paling in color and being covered with dinoflagellates and fronds were falling out during the worst times of the tank. Once I did total lights out and really couldn't tell if the algae issues were not doing well, I could see that after a couple weeks the macroalgae was improving and becoming darker even with no lighting.
Of course everything that did get moved in the beginning when there were a few flatworms had to be dipped and QT'd before going into my other tanks.
So at the 8 month mark and we're on our way to recovery.
DETAILS
So back in July, 2010 I treated my frag tank with Algaefix and for whatever reason started losing corals. Not having much in the 15 gallon frag tank I just moved a few corals and let it go.
Then those orange flatworms started up and I eventually had to treat for that, but the treatment while it killed most of them, didn't get enough to keep them gone totally, so that was another 4 to 5 months of trying to deal with it. So of course the frag tank was useless. I had increased the dosage but eventually stopped the treatment as I wasn't seeing any significant drop in the critters.
Then as they finally started to dwindle on their own, the tank developed dinoflagellates. So I just kept wiping stuff down, vaccuming it out, running polyfilters and regular weekly water changes through the beginning of January this year. Feeding was minimal as I only have one Royal Gramma in that tank...but being territorial wasn't going to go well in either of my other tanks. After the dinoflagellates seemed to be disspiating I noticed this sort of slimey brown stuff on the back glass and rocks and sand. I noticed it was only where there was light on the left side of the tank and none on the right so out went the MH 150W for a few weeks, and then I put up two LED bulbs, one 65K and one Royal blue, which gave minimal light. I replaced the MH bulb yesterday and started it back up. Most all of the brown slime has disappeared from the glass and I can actually see a bit of purple coraline where previously it was all white and dead. The tiny frag of tubipora that had attached to one of the rocks is doing well, but the large porites I had no room for in any other tanks, not so well.
I had some red macroalgae attached to the rocks and they were a really good indicator of the tank conditions. They started paling in color and being covered with dinoflagellates and fronds were falling out during the worst times of the tank. Once I did total lights out and really couldn't tell if the algae issues were not doing well, I could see that after a couple weeks the macroalgae was improving and becoming darker even with no lighting.
Of course everything that did get moved in the beginning when there were a few flatworms had to be dipped and QT'd before going into my other tanks.
So at the 8 month mark and we're on our way to recovery.
but the rest was a dirty gray color and slime on parts of the frag. This picture really isn't showing much except the darkness of the frag to the lightness of it overnight.