My Bacteria Driven Journey
- Thread starter Tswifty
- Start date
Reefer08
New member
Add an emerald crab for the bubble algae. I consider them reef safe, some don't. They only start picking at corals once they get starved for algae and have nothing else to eat. But they are pretty easy to catch since they crawl around everywhere.
If you can find one a Sea Hare is good for hair algae. They starve to death once all hair algae is gone though. Just give it to another reefer once all GA is gone
If you can find one a Sea Hare is good for hair algae. They starve to death once all hair algae is gone though. Just give it to another reefer once all GA is gone
Tswifty
New member
A Sea Hare may be an option. One of the LFS's here has a ton of them throughout all their tanks, so I could probably pick one up if I wanted to. I've tried Emerald Crabs in the past without success, they were fun to watch crawl around the tank though.
Like I mentioned... for now I'm just planning on waiting it out.
Like I mentioned... for now I'm just planning on waiting it out.
Tswifty
New member
Thanks. Hadn't changed the avatar in a while. I think this one fits my current situation better. :lol:
As for the dosage:
10 ml per day was the recommend "High Nutrient" dosage for my system. After the first 2 week, the instructions say to switch to the "Low Nutrient" dosage which is 5 ml per week. I decided to break the 5 ml weekly dosage into smaller daily dosages instead (which a lot of people do). The larger Microbacter 7 dosages follow water changes. I plan on dosing a week's worth of MB7 on the day following the water change in order to replace any bacteria that may have been lost during the change.
As for the dosage:
10 ml per day was the recommend "High Nutrient" dosage for my system. After the first 2 week, the instructions say to switch to the "Low Nutrient" dosage which is 5 ml per week. I decided to break the 5 ml weekly dosage into smaller daily dosages instead (which a lot of people do). The larger Microbacter 7 dosages follow water changes. I plan on dosing a week's worth of MB7 on the day following the water change in order to replace any bacteria that may have been lost during the change.
Reefer08
New member
Are you guys turning off your skimmers during the dosage of MB7? I highly suggest not too, its an unnecessary drop in O2. What I do is simply remove the collection cup for 4 hours and allow the skimmer to overflow in the sump. If I leave the collection cup on my skimmer will overflow.
trueblackpercula
New member
I have. Mexican turbo snail if you want him. He is getting to big for the tank and the food supply is not there like it used to. Thanks to vodka dosing my rocks are almost complety clean except for the bubble algea and that's getting under control as well thanks to emerald crabs and vodka dosing.
Let me know if you want the turbo he is the size of a golf ball.
Pm me with the details and I will send him out to ya just make sure it's before Thursday as I am going away for a few days or it will have to wait until the following week.
Michael Anthony
Let me know if you want the turbo he is the size of a golf ball.
Pm me with the details and I will send him out to ya just make sure it's before Thursday as I am going away for a few days or it will have to wait until the following week.
Michael Anthony
Tswifty
New member
Well I don't think the Kalk Reactor alone will be able to maintain my tank. Alkalinity continued to fall today, and I just tested it at 7.4 dKH. Luckily my ESV B-Ionics additives arrived today from Salty Critter. So I used the Reef Cheimstry Calculator, to buffer it back up to 8.0 dKH and will probably try to keep it locked in somewhere between 8.0-9.0 dKH.
Tswifty
New member
Eh... I don't really agree with that. Mexican Turbo Snails come from cooler waters, and have shortened life spans to begin with. The problem IMO is finding a healthy specimen up front. There's not really any tell tale signs that differentiate a healthy snail from an unhealthy one... besides "Oh look that one is on the glass."
Anyway, I appreciate all the suggestions, but this is a bacteria dosing thread... not a clean up crew thread. If you would like to discuss other topics, I'll be more than happy to do so on my build thread, but I'd like to try and keep this thread on topic.
Anyway, I appreciate all the suggestions, but this is a bacteria dosing thread... not a clean up crew thread. If you would like to discuss other topics, I'll be more than happy to do so on my build thread, but I'd like to try and keep this thread on topic.
aquariumclown
New member
I agree with you on the death and the visual distraction of turbo snails 100%. However I'm a big believer in clean up crew, and here's why.
I believe that all tanks require 3 types of filtration to keep things in check. 1. Biological (what your doing now with vodka and mb7), 2. Chemical (by a way of GAC, GFO or any type of similar media) 3. Mechanical (filter sock and rocks that trap stuff and cuc). The combination of the 3 creates a pristine reef environment. You are already doing #1, and I assume you are running some carbon, but the problem is, your not doing anything to get the various algae off your rocks.
I can give you an example from my own experience when I decided to restock my tank after it being a fish only early Feb this year. It had all kinds of nasty extremely tough red algae which I had no idea how to get rid of. Like you I started to run carbon heavily, and started vodka right away. After 2 months, seeing little results, I started doing vsv. Another month went by, I started doing mb7, and still very little results. Then I came across some large turbo snails at a local lfs, but they were not the typical kind I've seen, they were actually yellow and black and not white and black, I bought 3 of them 1 large, 1 medium, 1 small, the largest one is larger than a golf ball. They cruised the tank, but strangely, only at night, they hate the lights. It's been 6 months and they are alive and kicking. These guys only ate green film algae it seems, and didn't do anything for my red turf algae, I kept them as they are not doing any harm, and kept any green algae in check. At this time I still have a problem with red turf algae. My nitrates and phosphates are down, but recession rate extremely low. It's now May, and progress is not as quickly as I'd like to see it, so I got 2 long spine urchins. 2 small ones, the bodies were only 1 inch. Within a month, they gobbled up 1/2 of the tank's turf algae, leaving bare spots for coralline to grow, but they don't eat coralline for some reason. They were also shy during the light cycle, and every morning I woke up to trails of gobbled up red turf algae. It's been nearly 3 months now and I can say my tank is algae free. The less algae I have the better the corals seem to do. At some point I think I will only need to keep 1 urchin as their food source is dwindling fast.
I've been following your thread since you started this and I know your goal. And your doing all the right things, but if I can nudge you a little, I would suggest that you continue doing what your doing, but consider a decent amount of cuc to mechanically rid your algae once and for all, then take out the cuc if you don't like them once they've done their job. I wish I could figure out exactly where and what kind these turbo snails are, I've never had any turbos that lived this long. They would be perfect for the kinds of algae you have in your tank,
Here's my before and after tank shots. You can see the urchins in the second shot. But look at all the red algae in the first shot and all the bare rock spots that's almost completely free of algae.
Sorry to make the story so long. But good luck with your journey whatever you decide to do.
Before
After
Tswifty
New member
I run 1 cup of carbon in a TLF reactor, changed out every 2 weeks like clockwork. I listed this on the first post of the thread, but will re-list it here since my clean up crew is so interesting all of a sudden:
- 20 Super Tongan Nassarius Snails
- 10 Cerith Snails
- 3 Trochus Snails
- 1 Mexican Turbo Snail
- 1 Tiger Tail Cucumber
In the past I have tried up to as many as 3 Mexican Turbos, 3 Emerald Mithrax Crabs, 7 Trochus Snails, 25 Super Tongan Nassarius Snails and 25 Cerith Snails (remember this is in a 30" x 22" footprint). Also I manually remove algae at least once a month. After no noticeable change over the course of a few months, I removed some members of the crew and donated them to a friend. While my responses may seem "standoffish" at times, it's not out of ignorance. I rarely comment unless I can speak knowledgeably regarding a particular topic out of either first hand experience or reading. I've tried just about everything throughout the years, and while there are many anecdotal cures, nothing can compete with a properly set up filtration system, good husbandry, and flow. A very large clean up crew will not compensate for a lack of any of the above, and IMO people seem to go extremely overboard when it comes to CUC's.
Tswifty
New member
btw... your tank looks like it's progressing nicely. 
Oh, and that's pretty funny you mentioned that black, white, and yellow nocturnal Turbo Snails. I had one of those in my old 90 gallon tank. My girlfriend at the time picked it out at the LFS because it looked "cute" and different. The only time I ever noticed it cruising around the rockwork was after lights out. However, they were all far too large to transition to this system.
Oh, and that's pretty funny you mentioned that black, white, and yellow nocturnal Turbo Snails. I had one of those in my old 90 gallon tank. My girlfriend at the time picked it out at the LFS because it looked "cute" and different. The only time I ever noticed it cruising around the rockwork was after lights out. However, they were all far too large to transition to this system.
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aquariumclown
New member
Before this year, I didn't think I would suggest it to anyone, but maybe try the long spine urchins?
Tswifty
New member
Yeah we'll see what happens. I may try out a Sea Hare if I can find one appropriately sized for my system.
As far as the dosing goes... I've been dosing the 0.4 ml of Vodka for the past 3 days, along with the 1 dropper full of Microbacter 7, and the only noticeable observation thus far is that skimmate production has definitely dropped over the past few days. I'll take a picture tomorrow so it will be an accurate comparison to the the previous picture I posted.
Also, my refugium is slowly dying off, so I am considering pulling the remaining macro algae soon. I'm beginning to find more and more strands of cheato stuck to my VorTech and entangled in my corals each day.
As far as the dosing goes... I've been dosing the 0.4 ml of Vodka for the past 3 days, along with the 1 dropper full of Microbacter 7, and the only noticeable observation thus far is that skimmate production has definitely dropped over the past few days. I'll take a picture tomorrow so it will be an accurate comparison to the the previous picture I posted.
Also, my refugium is slowly dying off, so I am considering pulling the remaining macro algae soon. I'm beginning to find more and more strands of cheato stuck to my VorTech and entangled in my corals each day.
Tswifty
New member
I'm starting to get an idea of my daily draw on the tank without the Calcium Reactor, and started out dosing 25 ml of each ESV additive to my system. Calcium in the morning, and Alkalinity at night. I think this will maintain my levels around 8 dKH (Alk) and 460 ppm (Ca).
Skimmer looks to be chuggin along, and I will be taking a picture tomorrow night for a comparison.
Skimmer looks to be chuggin along, and I will be taking a picture tomorrow night for a comparison.
