VivasTable
Two Pair
It's kind of hard finding new relevent content for a forum that's been around for awhile.
Not sure what this will contribute much but I thought it was kind of cool once you get past reading all this other stuff you probably could care less about.
My main hobby; Saltwater Aquarium reef keeping, AKA "Reefing" had me looking for answers for a certain pest that arises in aquaria called Dinoflagellets.
Like many hobbies, forums are a wealth of knowledge and more recently in the past 8-10 years it has become known that Zero nutrients will bring on Dino's. Mainly Phosphates and Nitrates. Accepted ranges vary based on the type of coral you want to keep. "Soft coral" would be considered easy and thrive on High nutriends. Large Polyp stony corals I would consider to be Easy to medium and also fall into not being very senstive to shifts or eleveated nutrients. Now Small Polyp stony corals are the bees knees to me, I've been successful in keeping them off and on over the years but they are a bitch and do not tolerate shifts in water quality, elevated paremeters, temp swings, PH swings and on and on. Have you ever had your rack of $1200 chips up and die on you? Or your entire collection just melt away throwing tens of thousands of dollars of dead skeletons in the garbage? Haha, I've been there. Chipping seems like a win in this regard.
The Microscope was to help in the postiive identificaiton as well as the type of "dinos" I was dealing with so that I could combat the issue head on with the proper treatment methods.
Dino's typically take over when certain nutrients in the aquarium bottom out to near Zero or zero parts per million. In this case my Phosphates (Po4) went to zero and all hell broke loose. Its fine line to ride in the case of Po4 and the accepted range for keeping the much harder to grow Small Polyp stony Acropora/Tenius coral. You want it low, but not zero. This insane range of 0.03 - 0.10 PPM is key and even small shifts between that range can cause Rapid tissue necrosis and you can watch a coral melt away in a few hours. Stability is what you want. Some people get away with starting an aquarium and filling it with these harder to keep corals and are successful but the majority must wait 1 year to 18 months to reach the stability in water quality needed.
So, I had the dreaded Ostreopsis Dino's which can be very toxic to aquaruim inhabitants. Because I was able to identify the type and luckily because it's one of the easier to deal with albeit the most toxic, I purchased a UV sterilizer and plubmed it into my display tank. Within 48 hours and a few water changes the tank started to rebound. I lost a few expensive corals but saved the most of the lot.
Anyway, this was all about posting pics of chips. So here you go, this is what you've clicked on the title for.
Not sure what this will contribute much but I thought it was kind of cool once you get past reading all this other stuff you probably could care less about.
My main hobby; Saltwater Aquarium reef keeping, AKA "Reefing" had me looking for answers for a certain pest that arises in aquaria called Dinoflagellets.
Like many hobbies, forums are a wealth of knowledge and more recently in the past 8-10 years it has become known that Zero nutrients will bring on Dino's. Mainly Phosphates and Nitrates. Accepted ranges vary based on the type of coral you want to keep. "Soft coral" would be considered easy and thrive on High nutriends. Large Polyp stony corals I would consider to be Easy to medium and also fall into not being very senstive to shifts or eleveated nutrients. Now Small Polyp stony corals are the bees knees to me, I've been successful in keeping them off and on over the years but they are a bitch and do not tolerate shifts in water quality, elevated paremeters, temp swings, PH swings and on and on. Have you ever had your rack of $1200 chips up and die on you? Or your entire collection just melt away throwing tens of thousands of dollars of dead skeletons in the garbage? Haha, I've been there. Chipping seems like a win in this regard.
The Microscope was to help in the postiive identificaiton as well as the type of "dinos" I was dealing with so that I could combat the issue head on with the proper treatment methods.
Dino's typically take over when certain nutrients in the aquarium bottom out to near Zero or zero parts per million. In this case my Phosphates (Po4) went to zero and all hell broke loose. Its fine line to ride in the case of Po4 and the accepted range for keeping the much harder to grow Small Polyp stony Acropora/Tenius coral. You want it low, but not zero. This insane range of 0.03 - 0.10 PPM is key and even small shifts between that range can cause Rapid tissue necrosis and you can watch a coral melt away in a few hours. Stability is what you want. Some people get away with starting an aquarium and filling it with these harder to keep corals and are successful but the majority must wait 1 year to 18 months to reach the stability in water quality needed.
So, I had the dreaded Ostreopsis Dino's which can be very toxic to aquaruim inhabitants. Because I was able to identify the type and luckily because it's one of the easier to deal with albeit the most toxic, I purchased a UV sterilizer and plubmed it into my display tank. Within 48 hours and a few water changes the tank started to rebound. I lost a few expensive corals but saved the most of the lot.
Anyway, this was all about posting pics of chips. So here you go, this is what you've clicked on the title for.
