55gl reef tank still in prgress

[stanleo]

I wrote a more detailed description of what has happened in this tank in the meet and greet forum but I wanted to show it here now too.

this was the tank 7 months ago before I took it over


this is the tank now. I currently have 2 leather corals, a Duncan coral and green star polyps. I am getting zoas soon for the rock mountain on the right. I took out the big powerhead on the right and replaced it with the smaller one in the middle and got a smaller one for that spot. I had too much flow. Other animals include, a clown fish, a pajama cardinal, a six line wrasse, a green chromis and 2 yellowtail damsels, 18 hermit crabs, an emerald crab, 4 nessarius snails, 5 turbo snails, a pincushion sea urchin, a Maxima clam and a sea hare (that's a funny story).



I would love suggestions or critiques. Most of the pics in this forum put my tank to shame!

 

[stanleo]

Found a new LFS that is way better than the last one. Thanks Ohio Reefer for the suggestion. I had them test my water. They use Salifert test kits and the results were almost the same as my API kit except for alkalinity.

Nitrates 5ppm
Phosphates 0
Calcium 500
Alkalinity 7.7 (my API kit said 9)
Magnesium was 1400

I am going to dose one teaspoon of baking soda every other day for four doses and have them test again. I am also switching my salt mix to Kent reef salt and lowing my weekly water change to ten gallons instead of twenty.

The most alarming thing I learned was the salinity. I have always used a swing arm and they used a refractometer. My swing arm said it was 1.024 and their meter read 1.030!!! Needless to say I freaked out. I left the store with a refractometer and I am going to fix it by changing five gallons out with fresh RO water every other day until it reads 1.024 or 25.

Also on their suggestion I changed my filter media. The guy said that I shouldn't be using filter floss in my canister filters so I took them out along with the sponges in them. I have two filters, Fluval 304 and a 305. I did this to both and in one I added 2 cups of a GFO for phosphate removal and in both I have carbon. I am hopeful that that will help with the algae. I know my phosphates read 0 but that is mostly because of the large water changes and with this they said I shouldn't need to change that much every week. I did rinse it off and I thought I did it enough but as soon as I turned the filter back on it spewed fine brown dust in the tank. It has settled but now there is a fine dusting on everything. This isn't going to hurt anything is it? Is there anything I can do to fix it or will it just resolve itself?

Sorry I know I am long winded! If it's annoying let me know and I will change the way post stuff.

 

[stanleo]

Bump

 

[stanleo]

I've made a couple changes. The baking soda has really helped. After one week of dosing the alkalinity now 8.7. I am shooting for 10 so one more week ought to do it.

I changed one of the actinics to ATI coral plus so now my lights are 2 10000K 54w daylight, one actinic and one coral plus. I am changing the others to ATI bulbs, 2 blue plus and another coral plus.

I moved the tank to the other side of the room for better viewing in the lounge area and created a kind of fishy corner in the living room. My 55gl reef tank and my 29gl FW community tank.

In the process I moved the Maxima clam to 6 inches below the water so he can get as much light as possible with my setup. Hope it helps.

Let me know what you think.

 

[FLipp]

dude those bristle worms are huge!

 

[stanleo]

Lol yeah there are at least 6 or 8 big ones and a bunch of little ones but I just leave them be cause from what i can tell they do more good than harm. The only thing I have seen that bothers me is one took a pellet right out of a hermit crabs claws!

 

[stanleo]

I am going to change my maintenance routine and I am going to use this thread to document my progress. If anyone has anything to add or suggest, please feel free.

I am having a real issue with algae. Brown diatoms, green hair, and red slime. The past couple weeks the problem has intensified and I need to do something different. I have researched different things and I have come up with a plan.

I have been feeding too much. Now my feeding regime will be:
Everyday; a pinch of flakes for fish.
Every other day I will feed 8 pellets to the 20 or so crabs in the tank.
Every third day I will be feeding my sea hare a sheet of dried seaweed for an hour. Wheatever she won't eat I will take out.
Every forth day I am going to target feed frozen brine shrimp and here is how. I use a syringe to first feed the Duncan coral and then I use it to feed the fish. I squeeze out shrimp around the fish and they eat it all. I do this until the shrimp are gone or until the fish slow down. I did this today and it worked very well. The leftover shrimp I strain into a net and put in my freshwater tank. They love shrimp too! On these days there will be no flakes.
I figure doing this will better control the nutrients added to the tank.

I am starting a dose of vodka every day, 1ml. I have decided this was a good starting point. I use Kamchatka brand vodka.

My water changes are the biggest difference. Today I did a 10gl change. From here on out I will be doing 2gl per day after feeding and every Wednesday I will do a 10gl water change syphoning the gravel while I do it. All RO/DI water with my own unit.

Every Wednesday I am also thoroughly cleaning my protein skimmer so it works at peak performance. I am still going to scrubb the glass as needed but I am going to document how long it takes for the film to be noticable from the outside. I scrubbed it today.

Every Wednesday I will be testing my water to keep an eye on things and taking pictures to see the difference a week makes. I am going to do this for a month and see where it gets me. Obviously if there is improvement, even if its slight, I will continue this. If not, I will have to take more drastic messures including buying a silicate test kit and looking at the removal products for those. I am trying to get a handle on this before spending anymore money. I think 900 in the past 6 weeks is enough for now.

These are the results of testing today.
Temp 78F
pH 8.2
Salinity 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5-10
Phosphates 0
Calcium 440
Alkelinity 9
Magnesium 1360

These are pics I took today before the water change.

 

[J062682l]

In my experience bristle worms that big should not be taken lightly.

 

[J062682l]

Get in there with a toothbrush and brush off those rocks.

 

[reefwatcher]

I have a few about 6 or 7 inches they help your system they help with the sand shifting to.

 

[J062682l]

Small ones I'm ok with but big ones like that. Tore up an. Old tank I had

 

[stanleo]

How did they tear it up? I haven't noticed anything except they clean up the unbeaten food which I think is a good thing, right?

 

[J062682l]

As they got bigger they began to terrorize my fish and corals. My clownfish and green clown goby never went I to the reef again they destroyed my mushroom colony and my zoas

 

[stanleo]

Wow that's doesn't sound good. I will keep an eye on mine, thanks.

I took your suggestion and scrubbed the rocks with a toothbrush. I took the worst rock out and scrubbed it in old tank water and rinsed it out with ORDI water. I tested the pH just to keep an eye on that while do this and it is still at 8.2 so that's good. And I did do the 2 gl water change after I scrubbed the rocks and then did the vodka dose. It looks better after the scrub I just hope I don't have to do that forever. My back hurts now. I ticked the fish off but they are none the worse for wear.

 

[stanleo]

I also changed the photoperiod form ten hours to eight. I am also thinking about getting a small power head to blow through the rock formation on the left side. I don't want too strong a flow though going over the big leather coral and my star polyps. Any suggestions on that?

 

[J062682l]

What is your light schedule? And don't forget corals like conflicting current if you put a power head in the corner the flow coming out the rocks will not be that strong. I have a aqueon 700 in back of my rocks just to kick up in back and works perfectly

 

[J062682l]

Do u have a seaclone skimmer !!

 

[J062682l]

I also think if you move your powerheads a it will optimize the flow.

 

[J062682l]

In my tank I have a 1450gph 2 725gph and a 700 gph power head. Great flow and growth

 

[stanleo]

Right now the photoperiod is 12 pm to 8 pm. Yes it is a seaclone skimmer. The flow is two canister filters that do 260 gph, one on either side, one 1300 gph power head on the right pane about in the middle of the pain and one 300 gph power head on the bottom middle of the back pain. I also have an airstone going.

Where should I move them?