180 gallon SPS focus build

[ReefBeta]

What's the fitting called for the air intake and the skimmer cup ? Thanks

It's a 3/8" quick connect fitting, elbow to stem. It's just loosely sit on the hole.

 

[ReefBeta]

Finding AEFW is such an awful feeling. The buggers sometime stick really tightly to acros and don't come off with powerhead blasting. You can always try blasting your acros (in tank) with a turkey baster full of RODI too. This does not harm the acros and shocks the FW enough that they let go and float into the water column.

Are your larger acro colony/mini colonies encrusted on the rockwork? If not, weekly dips for 6 weeks might be the way to go. It's a PITA, but effective.

FWS will likely help too. I dosed it at 2x recommended dosage w/o any negative effects in the tank. Load up on peppermint shrimp and a wrasse too (there was a paper recently published that showed peppermint shrimp and sixline eat AEFW and eggs). https://www.researchgate.net/public...cropora-eating_flatworms_in_coral_aquaculture

I have no experience with the in-tank treatments, but am interested to read about your experiences if you decide to go that route.

My main confusion now is that, should I expect to see flatworm dropping out in every weekly dips? The second time I dip, I didn't find a single one. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

 

[xiaoxiy]

My main confusion now is that, should I expect to see flatworm dropping out in every weekly dips? The second time I dip, I didn't find a single one. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

I just kept dipping until I finished the course, in case I had missed some/some hatched during the dipping regimen. They can be quite small. One of the larvae I found was the size of a period.

 

[ReefBeta]

I just kept dipping until I finished the course, in case I had missed some/some hatched during the dipping regimen. They can be quite small. One of the larvae I found was the size of a period.

Good to know, thanks.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

This is a great build thread! Love the look the ReefBrite add to the tank.

 

[ReefBeta]

This is a great build thread! Love the look the ReefBrite add to the tank.

Thank you

 

[ReefBeta]

Today I added the second dose of the UWC Purge treatment for AEFW. So far I noticed zero casualties, that's good. I actually concern on the safety of the med than the effectiveness, so it's a big relief. In terms of effectiveness, it's a bit hard to gauge because I had hard time finding more AEFW even before the treatment, after I blasted the tank for several days. After dosing it, the whole tank smell just like most of the herb oil based coral dip. Knowing how effective those are in knocking flatworm off corals, I think it will work fine, as long as it's safe to run in the tank for long period.

I have been running the skimmer at half the strength, and run the cup drain into filter sock. So no skimmate is collected during the treatment, but air exchange continue to happen. Alkalinity has been stable for most of last week, and dipped a bit in the past two day, suggesting corals are doing better. Nutrient level didn't change for the past three weeks. pH is bit all over the places. Some night it dipped another 0.1 lower than usual, but some night didn't. Probably because the CO2 scrubber is less effective because of the skimmer adjustment.

Some previous troubling frags are showing good rate of recovering. No new stressed sign found in any frags.

 

[ReefBeta]

An update on the fridge auto feeder. The 1/4 to tubing clogged again. By the smell of it, it has been clogged for at least a couple days to a week. So I changed the main line to 3/8 tubing instead. Hopefully it's wide enough that it won't clog again.

 

[ReefBeta]

After used the last batch of carbocalcium to make the solution, I'm looking to buy more again. To my surprise (or not?), the 3lb one is out of stock everywhere. The 1.5lb package is available in most places. But it's 20% more expensive per unit. I'm having enough of Tropic Marin's out-of-stock shenanigan no more. Maybe I should just switch to 2 parts instead.

So I did some calculation.

• My current daily dosage is 50ml.
• Carbocalcium, $31 makes 2.6 gallons, so $12 per gallon, $4.7 per month, last for 196 days
• BRS 2 part, $24 makes 6 gallon for each. So $8 per gallon, $3.2 per month, last for 454 days
• With $99 per 35lb pack, it's $6.6 per gallon, $2.6 per month, last for 2271 days (6 years)

Carbocalcium is more expensive, but not by a lot. 2 part is really only cheap when buying the 35lb pack. If my consumption goes up to 100ml, it would be $9, $6, $5. If four time, it would be $18, $12, $10. Even at this rate, it will take 10 months to pay off the price of the additional dosing pump for $60. Another 10 months to pay off the dosing container. At my current rate, it would take 40 months ... Not accounting for the additional trouble of configuring two dosing pumps instead of one. Also the cost of balling part C to balance out additional NaCl, and the trouble of adding it. Yeah, doesn't sound worth it. After lying them all out, it's not that attractive to move to 2 part unless my daily dosage goes well above 100ml, or should I say well above 200ml.

 

[ReefBeta]

One more point on the 2 part cost calculation, if I were to go with calcium reactor. Assuming there were zero cost on the media (which is not true at all), compare to the BRS 2 part at 200ml/day, a $1k CaRx will take 100 months to recoup the equipment cost. That's 8 years. If I go with the nice Deltec CaRx, it would take 16 years. It's a mortgage... If I adding in the cost of media, TLF Reborn is $99, CO2 tank refill is around $50 per 5lb canister. Never used one so don't really know how long that will last. I think between 1 and 2 year. If I take 2 year. $150 for 24 months means $6.25 per month. So the difference is $6 vs BRS 7lb bags. The repay period then it's 14 years. If I want it to recoup within 2 years, my consumption need to go up to 800ml/d (w/o media cost), or 1400ml/d (w/ media cost). That's 6 dKH and 11 dKH daily consumption in the 180 gallon system. Yeah, not realistic at all. Looks like it really only make sense if I have a 1000 gallon sps dominated setup. That's not even considering the negative pH impact it brings, and the space it took to run that thing.

I now see even less of a point to run a calcium reactor in a typical home aquarium, besides geeking out on equipment.

 

[ReefBeta]

Saw this great calculation from Randy Holmes-Farley . I'm definitively saving it.

140 grams of 10)% calcium formate (assuming it is fully dry) contains 1.077 moles (43.1 g) of calcium and 2.15 moles of formate.

If you dissolve that in 1 L of water, the concentration is 43,000 ppm calcium and 6,000 dKH.

To raise a 100L tank by 1dKH, you would need 100/6000 = 0.0167 L or 16.7 ml

To raise a 100L tank by 0.1dKH, you would use 1.7 ml

My tank is 180 gallon. Water volume is actually about 180 gallon including sump. That's 681L. So for 0.1dKH it would take 11.6 ml. I'm dosing 50ml, so that's about 0.43 dKH. Equivalent dose of 2 part is 55ml according to the calculator. So about 10% difference. When I'm adjusting the dosage, I usually change by multiplication of 6ml. That's conveniently equal to 0.05 dkh, a good amount of adjustment.

 

[ReefBeta]

AEFW treatment still going on. All corals are doing fine as far as I can tell. The biggest downside is that I have to run the skimmer at half the power it was before. That make the CO2 scrubber a lot less effective, and pH drop by more than 0.1 at the lowest at night.

Also I finally decided to switch to 2 part, because tropic marine carbo-calcium is out of stock everywhere. I had enough trouble sourcing its salt that I really don't want to get into trouble sourcing its additive again. Missing a week on dosing is a lot more detrimental than missing a week of water change. Also a new ICP test came back, calcium is at 490. So it's a time to switch just dose alk for a while. To go from 425 to 490, it would take 1200ml. So I will need to dose that much alk before adding calcium. That's 20 days, or 3 weeks. So before that, I'm still good with just one doser and one dosing container.


The useful trace element was surprising. Fe is double the max of range. But when I test with red sea test kit, it was still 0. All other elements are up. They were all undetected in the last ICP test. So it's obvious that I was dosing too much Red Sea Trace C. I now lowered it from 7ml/d to 4ml/d.
Iodine was 0.09, potassium was 435. Both are over recommended range. So I stopped the Red Sea Trace ABD. I have available head to dose flatworm stop now.

In the 42G tank, the trace elementes are in good range. It's on DIY AFR. So going forwards I will just use tropic marine trace mixed with 2 part for trace element, and only adding Red Sea Trace C for iron for chaeto.

 

[ReefBeta]

I'm officially in the BC Bonfire Grow-Out Contest. I'm pretty much flexing on it since I'm still in treatment of AEFW. I did decided to turn up the skimmer a bit in order to restore effectiveness of the CO2 scrubber and raise pH back up. Hopefully it will give it a better kick start.

 

[ReefBeta]

This week some of the acros showed some stress. One of the indo colony lost half of it. Next week is the last dose of UWC Purge. But I think the reason behind the trouble is how long it had been since the last water change, because Purge treatment recommend not changing water. Now I think of it, I should have change water every 2 week, the day before next dose.

This time, I decided to take out as much as the treatment, to give the coral some room to bounce back. The goal is the run the skimmer back at normal level. In order to do that, I tune up the skimmer, and put the drain hose of the collection cup to a bucket, turn off ATO, and just let it overflow. Every time, I turn it up by one, let it drain till it slow down, then turn it up by one more. It went from 3 to 10 (max). It took about half an hour for every bump, so about 3 hours. It drained out about 15 gallons. There was all the water change I need. After that, I can run the skimmer whatsoever.

The next day, the tank looks absolutely clear. The rocks looked extra clean. I just realized how long I have missed a clean tank.

 

[ReefBeta]

Another section of 2 part calculation. How long will the dosing container last? My current one is 5L. I found there is 10L one available. I'm not going to use 5 gallon bucket because it's ugly and space consuming. So

for 50 ml/day, 5L will last 100 days, 10L will last 200 days.
for 200 ml/day, 5L will last 25 days, 10L will last 50 days.

I think I will want the 10L one if my alk consumption did go that high. Currently, kalk supplement 0.5 dkh daily. 50ml 2 part supplement another 0.5 dkh. I learnt in another thread that someone's tank consume 3+ dkh daily. For 200ml it would be 2 dkh, 2.5 total counting kalk. So sounds like it's pretty reachable. If I get to that level, the salinity drift might be a bigger concern. My calculation said salinity would go up by 1ppm per 50 dkh dosed. So if 2 part dosing is at 200ml daily, it would go up 1ppm per month. To lower salinity from 36ppt to 35ppt in my 180 gallon system, I will need to replace 5 gallon saltwater with RO water ... That's a lot. Basically 1.5 gallon a week.

 

[ReefBeta]

Just another thought pop in. What if I just remove the saltwater daily via a dosing pump? That way I can actually allow more kalk to be added, and in turn reduce the need for 2 part.

50 dkh to 1ppm to 5 gallon saltwater removed, or 18.9L, 50 dkh is 5000ml 2 parts. So for every 1ml of 2part dose, I should remove 3.78 ml of saltwater. 50ml => 189ml, 200ml => 756ml. To round it down, and take into account water removed by skimmer, it can be 50ml 2part to 100ml or 150ml saltwater removal. At high consumption rate, 600ml daily doesn't sound that bad either. I like the sound of it. So, the rest is getting my tank to that level now lol.

 

[ReefBeta]

Another realization. For 50ml 2part dose, that's each part, so total is 100ml. Then to balance out ion with Tropic Marin part C, it will be another 100ml. All of those water would be considered RO water because the previous calculation didn't take the volume increase from them into account. So with 150ml saltwater needed to be removed, there is no additional room for RO to fill up. Actually more needed to be evaporated. So there won't be any help on getting more kalk added in this case.

 

[ReefBeta]

I decided to move my build thread to humble.fish instead. I won't be updating this thread much. If interested, follow the new thread at:

Show Off - ReefBeta's 180 Acropora focus build

This tank has been running for 9 months. Previous journal is at this R2R build thread. I'm moving the build thread here, but I'm not planning to copy over all the content. The content from previous will remain in that build thread as history, and start a new stage here. Maybe I will copy over...

humble.fish

 

[ReefBeta]

First year anniversary clip

 

[italquam]

Lights are finally mounted. After evaluating my options for over a week, I finally decided on the solution to directly screw the light to the canopy from the top. The up side is, the lights can go closer to the canopy (1") than using RMS mount (1.5"), also the lights don't have to be aligned horizontally. The down side is not able to adjust position afterwards. This is how they are mounted.

The XR30 on each side sits in the middle of front to back. But because of the overflow tower at the back, the XR15 sits towards the front as much as the canopy allowed, so that it's closer to the center of the usable area.

Full tank shot with lights on.

If you dont mind me asking what size M5 SCREWS AND FITTINGS DID YOU USE, AND WHERE DID YOU BUY THEM