100g Rimless - restarting the process after storage

[ethridge78]

Glad to hear you made it to your destination OK . Man your water suck at your old place

 

[chk4tix]

I added sand to the tank, I was going to go BB but decided I like the look of it with sand instead.

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[chk4tix]

Upgraded my mounts for the lights. Looks less trashy IMO over the hanging bars from when I bought the tank. I still can't believe the light holders weren't made out of something that didn't rust as quickly as it did. Either way, here is a new FTS

 

[chk4tix]

Since everything seems to be settling in nicely, I picked up a few frag packs from AquaSD to help fill up the space. They should be here later this week. I need to pull out my SLR for some real pics in the future because the iPhone just doesn't seem to cut it.

 

[chk4tix]

It's been a few years since I posted, I got busy traveling for work and haven't had much time for posting updates on this thread. In the past two years I haven't had the best success with my tank, no matter what I have tried it just hasn't flourished like it has in the past. What th frequent testing, water changes, and maintenance I have been able to keep my parameters pretty consistent.
For some of the details:
My alk is pretty stable @ ~9.6dkh. I have a Kalk reactor connected to my tank for added stability. My mag is 1300, my calc is 420. My PH ranges from 8.1 to 8.3 throughout a 24hr cycle. My RO/DI filters are changed like clockwork and have 0ppm on output. I have two Radians with a 8-hr photo period maxing out at 55%.

As you might be able to tell from the photo, I have a very few corals that I have had for a long time, some monti, a few acans, some Xenia in my sump. I have a ton of cloraline algae as well, but that's about it.

I want my tank to look great again, so I have decided to implement a recommendation from a fellow reefer who indicated that I should try switching from a Kalk reactor to a 2-part dosing instead.
I have now switched out the Kalk reactor for an automated doser ( because I need it automated due to work schedule). I have spent the last 2 weeks getting the doser dialed in and I am getting ready to try a few small corals to see if I can make any advances.

I have not made any changes to my system besides the apex DOS, expect cleaning up my tank a little and adding a single shelf rock to add a little more character to my tank. I have added a couple of current shots with the rock to help see the progression.

Here we go again...

 

[CoralKing24]

How is the quality of the cadlights?

 

[CoralKing24]

Love the tank and the set up.

 

[chk4tix]

How is the quality of the cadlights?

I have had this tank for just under 5 years and so far it's been great. My biggest complaint about the tank is the original light hanging "trees" absolutely suck and the off-size overflow plumbing sure adds to the difficulty if you want to hardpipe your system. The sump could be designed a little better IMO, but it holds water. After I moved one of the original partitions in it I was able get more equipment under the tank. I have swapped out all the original equipment that came with the tank over the years but overall The tank quality is great, the stand is still looking good.

 

[chk4tix]

Love the tank and the set up.

Thank you, now if I can just get some really coral growth to make it look like more than a bunch of purple rocks...

 

[kilgoretrout]

I cannot believe you moved with all that coral!

 

[chk4tix]

Still fighting my unknown issue that is making it very difficult to keep any coral. I have changed out my Kalk reactor for a Apex DOS about 3 months ago, which hasnt been the "magic bullet" to fix the problem. However, it did show me that my Alk and Calc are being used at a completely different rate. My tank uses alk about 5 to 1 compared to calc. So in my case, even though I havent figured out the actual problem yet, I do think that Kalk was not helping my problems.

I have decided that I am going to run Triton test on my tank to see if that identifies something I do not have the ability to test for. So here is my current tank info so I can compare against in when the Triton results come back.

Tank: 110g Artisan II
Lights: Radian G3 Pro x 2 with a WWC AB+ schedule maxing out at 65% with photo period of 8hrs
Flow: MP40qd x 2 on opposite sides of the tank on ReefCrest w/75% max
Return: Jebao DCP-10000 pump running @ 40%
Filtration: Vertex Omega 180 skimmer, LR, and micro algae.
Top off water: 5-stage RO/DI with build in TDI meter on output.
Salt Mix: Instant Ocean
Water changes: 12g change per month
Dosing: Alk / Calc via Apex DOS
System controller: Apex

Todays levels:
Alk = 8.9 dKh (Salfert)
Calc = 420ppm (API)
Mag = 1350 (Salfert)
Nitrates = 0 (Hanna)
Ammonia = 0 (Salfert)
Copper = 0 (Salfert)

Since I uploaded some pics to another thread, I decided to upload them here as well for documentation purposes. Nothing special to see really and they were taken with my cell phone.

 

[chk4tix]

here is an update:

Received the Triton results back.

 

[chk4tix]

From the above results, the one thing that stood out the most was the Tin and Iodine.

In another thread, I asked for guidance and received some helpful advice. Ultimately, I needed to find the source of the tin and some how get it out of my tank. I did some research and found that a product called CupriSorb that other reefers have used to get rid of tin from their systems. I purchased this and while I waited for it to be delivered I looked for what might be causing my problem.
At first, I couldnt find the obvious source of tin until I happened to read the Triton site, I saw they recommended you have a 3 compartment sump to set up it up with the refugium 1st, the skimmer 2nd, and the return in the 3rd compartment. I have always run mine with the skimmer 1st, refugium 2nd. I dont know if this really makes a difference but since I am looking for solutions, I decided to swap mine out.
As was moving the equipment, I found a metal hose clamp on the drain from the tank to the sump, which was concealed by the equipment. The clamp was completely rusted and you could see the water bead forming below it that would then drip into the sump. When I first moved in, I was planning on hard piping the sump, but life got in the way and I forgot about it. So it appears that some time after getting the tank set up, the minor leak rusted out the clamp and it has been "dosing" my tank ever since. Now Im not 100% sure this is the root cause, but its a very likely candidate.
With this find, I removed the rusted clamp and completed the hard piping on the drain. I preformed a 20% water change just to start the process clean up process.
I added the CupriSorb about 5 days ago and it appears my tank might be headed back in the right direction. I know its probably a little early to say conclusively that I found the problem but the few LPS that I have appear more "puffy" then they have in years. I will see how things go over the next few weeks and if things continue to look good, I will be buying a couple SPS to see what happens. fingers crossed.

 

[chk4tix]

Final post of the day, here are some quick photos from today and I believe I can already see some growth in the zoo's compared to the pictures a few posts up.

 

[chk4tix]

I haven't posted anything for well over a year, was super busy kicking off a new project with work and I just didn't have the same drive I use to with my tank. I had a lot of silly little problems that just seemed to keep my tank from flouring like it did in years past. However, here is an update.

Not a lot going on as of yet, but I do have plans to start buying more frags since my tank appears to have become a lot more stable in the past 6 months. One big change is in lighting, I decided after may years of back and forth to change my lighting from LED's back to T5's. Now over that tank I have an dimmable ATI 8x54w T5 and so far I have been very happy with it. I dont know if its really worth the extra money to get the dimmable one vs the non-dimmable because I have everything set at 100% anyway. The lights sit approximately 11" off the top of the water. I have not had an opportunity to do PAR test, but my tank is definitely "brighter". I am not saying my LED's weren't good lights and easily to control and adjust, however, I think my tank is better lit with the T5's (just my opinion).

Here are a few pics of the tank now. (again cell phone pictures sorry)

 

[chk4tix]

Just a quick update, it’s been about a month since I switched out my lighting from LED to T5 and there has been a lot of improvement.

My current photo skills are not good enough to show but corals that I have had for years with very little growth, now have begun to encrust more and grow.

The topic I have been researching most is flow rate because it’s just an area I feel could be improved in my tank. I hate sand storms but when I turn down my power head, I feel it’s not moving enough water. There is a lot of discussion of what is best, Flow through the sump vs flow in the tank va combined flow. I was surprised to find that this is still a highly debated subject. From what I can tell there is no real final decision just a lot of generalization.

Anyway, I also got a delivery for my tank and hopefully I can find a place to put it all.

 

[chk4tix]

I just got back from a business trip and wanted to post un update, I was having reviewed interest into my tank and everything was going great. When I left for my trip at the start of the week, looked over my tank and thought to myself, "man, this is starting to look good again." Now jump ahead 4 days and Yesterday I received a text from my wife saying the the tank wasn't looking very good. She sent me a few pictures and she was right, it does look awful.
Here are the pictures she sent me:












When I saw the pictures, with all the posts I have seen lately talking about Dyno's or Cyno, I hoped that it was just cyno and the pictures just made it look darker. Unfortunately, when I got home tonight I got home, I looked at my tank the tank looked even worse with long brown "snot bubbles" all over my new corals. I grabbed my turkey baster and started blowing the junk off my corals. it already appears that some of my corals are already damage from the slime.

Since I remembered reading the only real way to tell the difference between cyno and dyno's was by their shape, I grabbed my little microscope to take a look. I am 90% positive that they are dyno's so now I face the battle that I have read so many people have been dealing with.

I have recently purchased a lot of new corals and with the change to T5, I have seen a dramatic improvement in my tank. 90% of the new corals came from business I have had many years of experience with, but I did pick up a few from someone local, I didn't notice anything bad about the corals and my typical dip process didn't seem to be out of the ordinary. I am not saying this is where they came from but in the 7 years of running this tank, I have never had these in my system. I am not sure what I could have done differently, but this really is a step back from what I was hoping to finally become a beautiful tank again.

I have ordered some DinoX, not sure if it works but I am going to give it a try. in the mean time I am going to reduce my light schedule, not 100% black out because I dont want to kill of all the corals I recently picked up. I really hope I can get this resolved because if not, I think with the battles I have read from others, this will be the final effort before I will be throwing in the towel.

 

[chk4tix]

Update: day 2

I did my first dose of DinoX 2 days ago. The instructions on the bottle are kind of vague, but indicated that you should reduce your main lighting period to a max of 6hrs and to does 5mil to every 100L. I did a little more searching and found instructions on their webpage, which had more information:
https://www.faunamarin.de/en/dino-x-250ml-remove-any-hairy-or-plague-type-algae/a-84/

Which states to dose every 2 days - 5 ml Dino X per 26gal, but goes onto say up-to 6ml for heavy outbreaks. Also indicates to wet-skim and no dosing anything else while treating tank. A few more specific items it says:

• For heavy infestations and outbreaks, up to 6ml Dino X per 100 L (26 gal) can be dosed.
• High performance skimmer is recommended.
• Other algae can be treated with about 15 doses.
• No water changes during treatment period.
• Do not dose any trace elements during treatment period.
• Do not dose any mineral salts, amino acids, SPS food.
• Do not use ozone or carbon during treatment period.
• Discontinue any kind of absorbing media such as GFO and PO4 removers.

My tanks water volume w/sump is approximately 105gal, so I chose to dose 22mil which is in-between the 5-6ml recommendations. I also turned off my reefbrights and reduced my main T5 lighting photo period down to 4.5hrs. Since I do have a lot of SPS frags, I didnt want to turn the lights off completely, but I also wanted to keep my lights to minimum.

I will be tracking the alk levels since I normally keep them around 8.5dkh but I have turned off my auto-doser during this process.

Here are some pictures just after lights-on period today. I took these to compare with photos after the light period today.
FTS

Left Side

Middle

Right Side

 

[chk4tix]

Update: Day 5

I am on the 5th day, I had done 2 - 22mil doses, the next dose would be tomorrow night after lights out.

First concern, I have one orange plate that definitely isn't as happy as it has been and if I had another tank to put it in during this treatment I would.
Second, I did lose a double headed acan, but I believe it was damaged from the original outbreak.
Third, today I found a emerald crab that was dying. I do have many hermits and a cleaner shrimp that all seem to be doing good. Cant 100% say the emeralds death is related to the treatment, but wanted to note it.

My alk dropped to 7.7dkh and since I am running my lights only 4.5 for the photo period my pH has also dropped to 7.8. Because of this, I restarted my alk doser during the nighttime hours. Since my alk was low, I dosed and brought my alk back up to 8.2dkh. I am doing a slight smaller dose than my normal (10mil a day instead of 20mil) to help keep the pH a little above 7.8 as well.

Originally, I did 4.5hrs of light in an hybrid method of 72hrs lights out process that has been used, and the idea to dose with no light change method. I mentioned that tomorrow will be my 3rd treatment and depending on how things look I will be increasing my photo period to the 6hrs recommend by the makers of DinoX. Hopefully this helps the corals, like the plate, that dont seem to be getting enough light.

Here are the pictures for today.
FTS


Left Side


Middle


Right Side


R2R


Frag Rack


I have tried to keep the pictures somewhat consistant. The easiest picture to notice the difference is the R2R rack but overall my tank does seem to be improving. I am hopeful that in another week I can move on to another project.

On a side note, as you can tell I have a few corals that keep moving. My hippo tang loves to move my corals around the tank for me. Not sure why but he literally picks them up and moves them.

 

[chk4tix]

ok it has been a few days, I didnt want to bore everyone even more than I had with these postings. Today marks the day for the 7th treatment (it has been a day short of 2 weeks). There has been IMO great improvements with my tank situation. I am getting more productive algae growth as you can see in some of the pictures. I do believe I have a few dyno stragglers still hanging on so I plan on doing the 7th dose to the tank. Most things are going well, I did loose one of 3 clams I have. Not sure if that was because I have not been feeding my tank "coral food" as it is directed by the manufacturer of DynoX or something else. It didnt make me very happy that is something I do know. Another possible loss is my cleaner shrimp, I haven't seen it for a few days so it might be MIA at this point.

Overall, even though I have had a few losses I still think I made the right choice to dose my tank. I have not completely over come this battle yet, but its looking better.

Now for the new pics:
Full tank


Left side


Middle


Right side


Frag Rack

R2R