120G Rimless shallow peninsula tank

Janci · Sep 16, 2018

sam.veilleux30 said:
Hi Janci, nice reef!
Would you care to explain the relation between cyano/po4?
This is the first time i read something like it. Thanks

Hi Sam

As far as I know cyano appears when there is an imbalance between nutrients, mostly nitrates and phosphates. The imbalance makes the cyano bacteria to take advantage and appear.
My phosphates have been zero for a long time while I started to dose nitrates a couple of months ago.
So I hope to raise phosphates and to have back the balance as before.

fabutahoun · Sep 16, 2018

Janci said:
Last June I ordered several frags from Singapore which arrived a couple of weeks ago. It was a group buy, therefore the long wait.
They look promising:

Nice Frags you got there. Hope they grow into something beautiful

sam.veilleux30 · Sep 16, 2018

Janci said:
Hi Sam

As far as I know cyano appears when there is an imbalance between nutrients, mostly nitrates and phosphates. The imbalance makes the cyano bacteria to take advantage and appear.
My phosphates have been zero for a long time while I started to dose nitrates a couple of months ago.
So I hope to raise phosphates and to have back the balance as before.

Ok, make sense. Thanks for the reply (i'm currently dealing with cyano myself).

HolisticBear · Sep 16, 2018

GoVols said:
Janci,
Those are great shots!!

Thanks for sharing

Those are fabulous shots! Somehow I missed these earlier. God those are good, motivate me to up my game!

HolisticBear · Sep 16, 2018

Janci said:
Hi Sam

As far as I know cyano appears when there is an imbalance between nutrients, mostly nitrates and phosphates.

My understanding is that 0.0 of either is really not good, but with cyano PO4 > NO3 is often a leading trigger for cyano. It's interesting that increase PO4 is helping, but you mentioned NO3 is also increasing.

Regardless, glad the tank is on the mend and it looks great.

Janci · Sep 17, 2018

HolisticBear said:
My understanding is that 0.0 of either is really not good, but with cyano PO4 > NO3 is often a leading trigger for cyano. It's interesting that increase PO4 is helping, but you mentioned NO3 is also increasing.

Regardless, glad the tank is on the mend and it looks great.

Thank you.

I ran NO3 at 0.0 since the beginning. PO4 I kept 0.0 with rowaphos.
All was well with the new tank till the corals really depleted all other nutrients and started showing loss of color, less growth... less happiness.
Here I started adding NO3. I added to have levels at 1ppm, but that disappeared after 24 hours. Increasing the dose helped to maintain NO3, but then cyano came due to the imbalance with PO4, most probably.
So now I do not dose NO3 anymore and switched to heavier feeding and a couple of more fish + switched off the phos reactor.
The cyano seems to decrease.
It will take a while and still I have to monitor the parameters to see if none is getting out of his rails.

Janci · Sep 18, 2018

Tonight I found this white something on one of the rocks.

I had no idea what it was till I realized it was the spot where the clam was residing.
She must have detached and left behind her foot.
I changed some rock a couple of days ago which might be the trigger.

I picked her up and put her on the bottom, hoping nothing bad will come from this.

najer · Sep 18, 2018

Janci said:
Thank you.

I ran NO3 at 0.0 since the beginning. PO4 I kept 0.0 with rowaphos.
All was well with the new tank till the corals really depleted all other nutrients and started showing loss of color, less growth... less happiness.
Here I started adding NO3. I added to have levels at 1ppm, but that disappeared after 24 hours. Increasing the dose helped to maintain NO3, but then cyano came due to the imbalance with PO4, most probably.
So now I do not dose NO3 anymore and switched to heavier feeding and a couple of more fish + switched off the phos reactor.
The cyano seems to decrease.
It will take a while and still I have to monitor the parameters to see if none is getting out of his rails.

I am still not a fan of chasing numbers, corals do need "nutrients" as well, chase the balance imo?!

Janci · Sep 19, 2018

najer said:
I am still not a fan of chasing numbers, corals do need "nutrients" as well, chase the balance imo?!

Right. Just zero for all was not good neither. The tank is still a little over a year old and
This weekend I pull the filter socks from the sump and let floating stuff recirculate to the tank.
I cannot pull the socks tonight because I prefer to wash them right away and my

wife ;Bookworm is at home... to avoid having to explain why there is dirt ;Lurking in the machine again. LOL

YHSublime · Sep 19, 2018

Everything is looking great. What lens are you using for the photos?

Janci · Sep 20, 2018

YHSublime said:
Everything is looking great. What lens are you using for the photos?

Thank you
I was shooting with a Nikon 105mm macro lens.

GoVols · Sep 20, 2018

Janci,
Your new coral's look great!!

Do you feel like your reef has fully recovered from the alk swing?

Any news (time line) on the monitor that works with your cal reactor?

Janci · Sep 21, 2018

Thank you Freddie @GoVols
I think the tank is more or less recovered.
Cyano is still there. but Alk has been stable at 7.5 for the last weeks.
I have nutrients back in the tank and corals look good.

The latest news on the calcium reactor was that the monitor is ready and being tested in several tanks.
They expect to have it ready for shipping by the end of the year. My Christmas wish list has been prepared so far.
It seems pretty well made and has all the usual features.
You just set dKh and the monitor and calcium reactor does the rest.
There is connectivity to Apex and GHL
You can chose the frequency of measuring, there is a history for each measurement,...
No wifi or internet connection as it has the connectivity to the Apex and GHL controllers.
The only thing we do not know yet is the price. So Christmas can become a small financial disaster also...

WallyB · Sep 21, 2018

Hi Jan,

Found your thread. Barely had a peek.

Tank Looks great in Photos few posts Earlier.

Your Frags are doing well. I'm way behind you.

Need to rewind and read back to where it started and how long it took you to get here....and what you did or didn't do.

Will be tagging along.

Janci · Sep 21, 2018

WallyB said:
Hi Jan,

Found your thread. Barely had a peek.

Tank Looks great in Photos few posts Earlier.

Your Frags are doing well. I'm way behind you.

Need to rewind and read back to where it started and how long it took you to get here....and what you did or didn't do.

Will be tagging along.

Good luck with that reading. Glad to have you here.

There is a big difference between our LFS and the northern America LFS.
You started your tank with frags... tiny frags... microscopic tiny frags.
Such a frags are not very common here to us.
We buy mini colonies ;Woot;Woot;Woot to speed up the proces.
You'll see some examples along the read.

Rakie · Sep 21, 2018

Until Indo shut down we had colonies too, but now not so much. Nothing named comes as a colony though

reefwiser · Sep 21, 2018

Janci said:
Dastaco reactor

What model are you using on your aquarium?

Janci · Sep 21, 2018

reefwiser said:
What model are you using on your aquarium?

I have the Dastaco Xtrema1.
Rated for 800L if I am not mistaken.

Janci · Sep 21, 2018

Rakie said:
Until Indo shut down we had colonies too, but now not so much. Nothing named comes as a colony though

Yes. Most of the corals in the tank are Indo with a few Aussies.
Luckily there are a lot of non named coral that look great too.
As I consider myself still a novice in saltwater, good looking or "with potential" is more than enough.

Rakie · Sep 21, 2018

Yep. But here nobody wants anything that isn't named. In addition, people who buy colonies are mocked as novice as they haven't grown the corals themselves.

Basically, people here suck.