Big Bertha: 180g Build

[forestsofkelp]

Monthly update: probably my last for a few months. Everything is going well. Levels are stable apart from a little alk rise when I was out of town. Added some clams that are having a little trouble adjusting. Added a avast plank to feed regularly, it works great. Highly reccomended. My power filter is keeping the water crystal clear, I love that thing. And, I’ve dropped my photoeriod from 11 to 1.

looking forward to it growing out and getting some more fish over the next 6 months or so, slowly raising the intensity 10-20%, and getting those clams in good health. Might suck out some of the sand bed as it’s accumulating some detritus.

 

[forestsofkelp]

Starting in Jan I started having a few corals die off that should not have. My tank stopped consuming. Alk and PO rose, nitrates were high.

Apart from the poor basic chemistry, which I got it fixed with the help of a great local reefer. it looks like I had a metal contamination. Its not clear where it is coming from; I *think* its a contaminant from bad salt as my pumps, magnets etc look ok. I also ended up developing zinc in my RODI, unclear why as I was running 0 TDS.

I think I screwed up some dosing and misinterpreted the tank results, leading to poor parameters. The metal was just icing on the cake.

My RO and DI filters have been replaced, Ive ran metasorb, and I am sending another ICP test tomorrow and reinspecting pumps/magnets

if the metal is all cleared, I think I am good and it was a 1x contaminant/messed up dosing
If the metal is not cleared, I need to find the source.
Regardless I am going to switch salts and do some large water changes
I plan to continue to get a second set of eyes on the tank until its WELL settled.
I have a large stock of fish incoming, a refugium is up and running and hopefully corals again in the next 2-3 months.

 

[forestsofkelp]

I still get rising metals in the tank, notably aluminum. However, nothing is corroding in my tank. Its unclear where its coming from. I have a few theories

1. Rusting material: Its possible I missed something. I dont see anything though. It could be my screen top; replacement is on the way
2. Contaminant: doesnt explain why it's till rising, even with metazorb (which got some out)
3. Food/dose: I think its unlikely but possible
4. Bad salt batch: I am leaining toward this right now. Going to do some big water changes and see if it comes back. The salt I am using is verified no metals, good salt, clean from trusted keeper/LFS. I am going to ICP that one, two tests, one to ATI and one to reef labs
5. Bad test: its possible these are just ghosts. Going to send multiple ICP tests next time I check the tank water; two to who I have been using (ATI) to see if they internally match, and one to a second (reef labs).

In general though tank is looking better. I'll post some pics soon

The weird thing is my ICP tests show different values than my home tests, by a bit. My home tests should be good though.

 

[forestsofkelp]

Ok, long time no update. It's been a little crazy with a toddler

I got my phos and nitrate under control. I never found the source of my metal contamination; did 3x 100g water changes, and am waiting to see if it comes back.

Lost a few pieces I really liked. It was a little distressing. But my parameters are good, tank is consuming, I have some coralline. A lot of fish are inbound.

I have a few test frags. If they grow for the next few months, I'll probably buy a few nice pieces to replace what I lost. I'm going for 2-3 big colonies, 5-6 medium, 7-8 "nice size" pieces

I can see why sps are addicting. Coloration is amazing, lots of polyps, and they don't really run into each other.

So far its just keeping the chemistry consistent.

 

[forestsofkelp]

The tank is doing great. I am going to go softies with some SPS so a mixed reef, but my emphasis will be on the softies.

I am looking at some clams, and I was fortunate enough to acquire a tank acclimated H. magnifica (been looking for one for years) and its clowns. Hopefully he does well, he is on the glass up high so I hope thats it for him

Parameters are stable, running 1.027 SG, Alk 9-9.3, Mg 1300, Ca 500, N 3 P 0.04. Might raise my nutrients once I get a few more fish and I can feed heavier. I also installed a Kh director, yes its overkill. Yes its nice to check my alkalinity anytime I want.

I am really looking forward to the upcoming year. I am kind of happy the mag is on the glass, away from corals, but a little annoyed as it just sits there, "floating" in the aquascape

 

[forestsofkelp]

I had a little algal outbreak, but everything is still healthy. Its strange, my Phos was hanging at 0.08, went up to 0.13. N 5, went up to 10. Next week, turf algae everywhere. Then, P and N dropped to zero, so I had trace red slime. Now I am aggressively water changing to get the gunk out and feeding heavy to bring P and N back up, and I got a CUC reinforcements coming..they were getting sparse too. I think a fish died and set it all off.

I also had an equipment "failures"...my Kh tester pump failed to on somehow and overflowed my waste reservoir. Fortunately, I have leak detectors. It passed inspection by GHL so I may have accidentally switched it. One issue with these app controllers is its very easy to accidentally hit the wrong button. Fortunately it wasnt a doser.

I added a powder blue tang, a true yellow scopas tang, and a pair of Golden Rhomboids. I am still growing out my corals. I'll try and get some good pics for the next update

My mag picked a spot and his very, very happy. Balls up every night.

If anyone else is interested in Mags, he hasn't been *that* hard to keep. To be fair, I got a healthy, 5 year tanked specimen so I cheated. But his flow needs have not been too remarkable. He did, however, need 400-500 par and a rock island to be happy

 

[saltysailorswfl]

Just read through your whole build. Tank looks great! Keep it up.

 

[forestsofkelp]

Thanks! I try to keep it real…none of this “oh my tank is amazing look at my acros grow”. I really want anyone who tries this to see what sort of stuff comes up.

the only major issue was the metal contamination, everything else has been fine. I am learning a ton, it’s actually really fun. Not sure if I’d do a 180 again though..love the size but the scale makes massive change/deep cleans difficult.

when it’s rocking (which it usually is) it really makes me happy

 

[forestsofkelp]

Still battling hair algae, and a bully in the tank.
I actually kind of like the algae, I think its giving good spots for copepods and bergia nudis to breed. Also adjusted my flow, slower return but more and stronger wave motion on my powerhead. Now I get good intermittent flow all the way to the end of the tank, and surface disruptions. Everyone is loving it! The Panta Rhei have to be manually programmed, no premade wave modes for me.

I got some more clean up crew; for some reason, my urchins didn't make it.

My aiptasia are going away, but slowly. I never got the tidal wave of aiptasia disappearance most people describe. Instead they kind of just slooooowly disappeared over the course of 3-4 months. When I check the tank at night, I see one (always, just one) cruising around. I have wrasses, inc. melanarus and they didnt eat them. I think they ate enough aiptasia to taste bad. I went from many aiptasia to now just two really big ones, a small nest of 3, and 1-2 on some returns/glass. The aiptasia did eat the ones in the sand too (I think...).

My main goal now is to get these aiptasia and algae more under control, get my corals encrusted/securely attached, and deal with the bully anthias (already killed like 3 expensive fish). Hopefully my PBT puts him his place.

I have a few more items on my dream list and I am picking one of them up Monday....

 

[forestsofkelp]

I got the hair algae more or less under control, no real pests anymore. Everything doing well. Bullying/mysterious deaths stopped, and ich stopped appearing. I think there may have been fighting over cave space as there are many cave dwellers in my tank.

Got a T. gigas in about a month ago, and it is doing great. As is the H.mag, and my PBT. All fat and healthy

I plan to add one more fish (replace that rhomboid wrasse that died mysteriously), and a UV sterilizer once I get some shelving arranged. Then I hope I can settle into the "consistency" phase for the next few years and just hit the same values every week...

 

[forestsofkelp]

If anyone is following, sorry for the long break. Last few months have been crazy. All the important stuff is going well. Acros are growing. I have minor P issues, mostly due to overfeeding. All fish are fat and happy. The mag is happy as a clam. My clowns moved in (YES! fist pump!)

I have pretty much all the livestock I was looking for except for a few specimens. I apologize some of the photos are from a few months ago but it hasn't changed too much...just a little coral placement. Once I cut my feeds and got some urchins, my algae problem went down by 70%. Hoping to get it down to zero with some better control and another urchin! These photos are from the last month or two. I'll try and get my gigas clam in there next time. Coming up on 2 years in April!

Not all is perfect though: my abyzz a100 is making a weird noise lately. Might be damaged impeller or a new pump (I HATE aquarium pump noise). I am working with abyzz to get it fixed. My panta rhei makes a very silent thrum. Needs to be serviced. One of my bulkheads is sloooooowly leaking; I can only tell because some of the paint near it is peeling off. I need to reseal/paint that. Aiptasia have returned...so more nudibranch$ are in my future. I am working on removing a lot of my sand (it retains some really nasty stuff and my CUC isnt turning it over as well as I'd like).

And...I still havent installed my UV sterilizer! I saw some ich last year, freaked, and used it as an excuse to buy the unit. The ich is unseen now.

I am running UV to control ich and to see if it will clarify my water. When I get it plugged it I will run all the numbers again; I ran them last year but lost my document with all my calculations. This is the pentair 80S, I have 200g (757L) tank. I realize UV is controversial.

I am planning on running at 280u/cm2 dose. I can achieve that at 1080 gph, or about 1x tank turnover per hour. If that provides water clarity as well, I will be happy. If it doesnt, I may try increasing flow since I dont "need" to control ich...I can then dial it down for an outbreak.

If I end up disliking running the unit, the new plumbing will allow for a bypass to be installed to replace the UV sterilizer arm.

First I had to redo all my equipment underneath to make room. Getting shelving took a month or two; I had to have a custom build. The power box had to be enlarged to hold an extra power strip that usually sat on top of my dosers in a black box. The dosers had to be stacked to accommodate all the supplements under it. Fortunately due to luck and good planning before hand/now, it all fits perfectly.
Before:

After:

This gave me space for this bad boy.
Ignore the tilted bottle haha. The plan is to run one return through the UV, with a flow meter, and an option for a bypass in case I don't want the UV. It requires pretty much all my plumbing to redone. And it will likely be a PITA to service. I may end up needing to pull the entire unit out every time, but I may be able to turn off the flow, pump the unit dry with a mini USB pump or an attachment to the drain port, then pull the quartz sleeve/bulb out through the space where my supplements sit. We will see...

I also want to give a big shout out to Ron at Neat Aquatics. They make clamps for the Pentair UV sterilizers. Unfortunately, not in the size I needed since this is BIG sterilizer. He made a custom one just for me. It seems super solid! You can barely see them because they are black, but I will show them when I do the install. They are much better than the ones the unit comes with/other styles because they screw on and off. In my case it also prevents the unit from rolling and off the pan in case of an overflow. Thanks Ron!!

Also I had a killer jawbreaker mushroom that I saved up to buy and someone busted out of the mushroom box. It's now AWOL. I was greatly saddened. My only hope is that they are pretty resilient and it will pop back up one day.

 

[ccole]

Your tank looks great! That mag looks amazing and I love all your torches.

I hope you get all the equipment fixed easily. It seems like something is always going wrong with reef tanks!

 

[forestsofkelp]

Your tank looks great! That mag looks amazing and I love all your torches.

I hope you get all the equipment fixed easily. It seems like something is always going wrong with reef tanks!

thank you! that was a fast reply! It'll all get fixed...worse case scenario is they get sent in for service.

It's all minor stuff...it works fine, just needs routine cleaning/tweaking. I am trying to make this thread a "real" view of running this tank, and not just "yep it's looking great, no problems here". Something ALWAYS needs servicing/tweaking, esp since I am very particular about how it functions and keeping it COMPLETELY silent. The requirements for my wife is that the tank look great (agreed), run silently (I accepted the challenge and so did our credit card unfortunately lol) and everything fit under the cabinet ("fit" being open to interpretation).

 

[Gumbies R Us]

If anyone is following, sorry for the long break. Last few months have been crazy. All the important stuff is going well. Acros are growing. I have minor P issues, mostly due to overfeeding. All fish are fat and happy. The mag is happy as a clam. My clowns moved in (YES! fist pump!)

I have pretty much all the livestock I was looking for except for a few specimens. I apologize some of the photos are from a few months ago but it hasn't changed too much...just a little coral placement. Once I cut my feeds and got some urchins, my algae problem went down by 70%. Hoping to get it down to zero with some better control and another urchin! These photos are from the last month or two. I'll try and get my gigas clam in there next time. Coming up on 2 years in April!

Not all is perfect though: my abyzz a100 is making a weird noise lately. Might be damaged impeller or a new pump (I HATE aquarium pump noise). I am working with abyzz to get it fixed. My panta rhei makes a very silent thrum. Needs to be serviced. One of my bulkheads is sloooooowly leaking; I can only tell because some of the paint near it is peeling off. I need to reseal/paint that. Aiptasia have returned...so more nudibranch$ are in my future. I am working on removing a lot of my sand (it retains some really nasty stuff and my CUC isnt turning it over as well as I'd like).

And...I still havent installed my UV sterilizer! I saw some ich last year, freaked, and used it as an excuse to buy the unit. The ich is unseen now.

I am running UV to control ich and to see if it will clarify my water. When I get it plugged it I will run all the numbers again; I ran them last year but lost my document with all my calculations. This is the pentair 80S, I have 200g (757L) tank. I realize UV is controversial.

I am planning on running at 280u/cm2 dose. I can achieve that at 1080 gph, or about 1x tank turnover per hour. If that provides water clarity as well, I will be happy. If it doesnt, I may try increasing flow since I dont "need" to control ich...I can then dial it down for an outbreak.

If I end up disliking running the unit, the new plumbing will allow for a bypass to be installed to replace the UV sterilizer arm.

First I had to redo all my equipment underneath to make room. Getting shelving took a month or two; I had to have a custom build. The power box had to be enlarged to hold an extra power strip that usually sat on top of my dosers in a black box. The dosers had to be stacked to accommodate all the supplements under it. Fortunately due to luck and good planning before hand/now, it all fits perfectly.
Before:

After:

This gave me space for this bad boy.
Ignore the tilted bottle haha. The plan is to run one return through the UV, with a flow meter, and an option for a bypass in case I don't want the UV. It requires pretty much all my plumbing to redone. And it will likely be a PITA to service. I may end up needing to pull the entire unit out every time, but I may be able to turn off the flow, pump the unit dry with a mini USB pump or an attachment to the drain port, then pull the quartz sleeve/bulb out through the space where my supplements sit. We will see...

I also want to give a big shout out to Ron at Neat Aquatics. They make clamps for the Pentair UV sterilizers. Unfortunately, not in the size I needed since this is BIG sterilizer. He made a custom one just for me. It seems super solid! You can barely see them because they are black, but I will show them when I do the install. They are much better than the ones the unit comes with/other styles because they screw on and off. In my case it also prevents the unit from rolling and off the pan in case of an overflow. Thanks Ron!!

Also I had a killer jawbreaker mushroom that I saved up to buy and someone busted out of the mushroom box. It's now AWOL. I was greatly saddened. My only hope is that they are pretty resilient and it will pop back up one day.

Your tank is doing really well!!

 

[forestsofkelp]

With a toddler, a remodel and a pregnant wife, the tank has been a little neglected. I had an alk spike and nutrient drop while out of town, so I have been contending with cyano. The upside is it has killed all my hair algae

Corals: I have had mixed results. I had a very nice jawbreaker mushroom that detached and got lost, a chalice that fell off its ledge and died, and some lobos that wasted away. No joke I cried over some of these corals. But MOST everything, esp the "hard to keep" stuff like SPS is doing really well. I am planning on just growing it out for the next year or two, very few additions. My plan is to let what does well in the tank grow large, and what doesnt...doesnt. Ideally I want a few huge specimens with smaller corals as fill in.

Fish: The tangs are fat (real fat) and happy. My anthias have slowly picked each other off or died, from 11 down to 2. Thats with 6x daily feeds. Not sure why; no one is harassing them.

Pests: aiptasia are back. And thus, so are bergia. If they come back a third time, I am getting a copperband.

Equipment/maintainence: my KH director is working great. It's very nice to check my alkalinity 2x a day. I dont use it for control. Everything else has been working fine, just my pumps need some deep maintainence. I recently plumbed in a UV sterilizer...unfortunately, it was DOA. I am working on getting it fixed.

Overall: its still doing pretty darn good.

With another kid on the way (and the amount of stress from having all my plumbing redone in one day), and some work projects, I am taking a step back from the tank for a few months for my mental, work and relationship health. I am fortunate that I have (and can afford) a tank guy who assisted me in caring for the tank from time to time and he is going to take over fully for a while.

Is that cheating? I dont know. I originally worked with him as a second set of eyes and to learn from. I definitely know a LOT more about my tank and it got in shape. I definitely think it's smart to pay a little bit to ensure nothing is being missed on my tank; I spent a lot of time on it. I have found the difference is that problems get solved faster, and I think we all know nipping problems in the bud is a big part of managing large tanks..

However, this time I just cant dedicate a few hours a week to troubleshooting a pinhole leaks, the UV, , coral growth, coloration, etc with a baby due soon.

I am currently using DSR supplements, but the US importer has been a little flaky. I am thinking about switching to Triton, which is very similar. I am worried switching will affect the tank....we'll see what happens if I do it!

 

[forestsofkelp]

My UV sterilized is still not functioning…but plumbed in. GHL flow meter is great though. Pentair has sent me replacement parts, I just need help putting them in.

Ran chemiclean in the meantime. Killed my red algae in 48hrs. But my skimmer went nuts; I removed 25g of skimmate in 2 hours. Finally ran 400g carbon for 2 days, 500g carbon for 2 days (down to 1L skimmate in 3 hours) and then now another 500g carbon (skimmate normal).

My nutrients went up higher then I’d normally keep them but all the corals are super happy with great PE.

 

[forestsofkelp]

Tank is still looking good! I realized I was under feeding (and which is my prior anthias school didnt fare well)..so I bumped up my feeds. Now I have a phosphate problem, hanging at 0.25-0.3 and I cant seem to get it down. I dont want to lower my feeds much more... Working with GFO/row-a-phos but not much progress.

I moved a lot of months and made room for more SPS! Probably the last coral I'll buy for a while.

 

[forestsofkelp]

I finally got my phosphate down with a ton of GFO and cutting feeds. It's been consistent for about 2-3 months now, and growth is insane. I can visibly see my SPS grow weekly.

On top of that I moved some coral around to make room for SPS...montis and hammers to the sand bed, acros up top.

I also switched to Captiv8 for supplements. I was having trouble sourcing my prior brand. The Captiv8 stuff, for the last month, has been AMAZING. Everything just has a little shine to it.

I'll get some better pictures soon!

 

[FMF0331]

 

[forestsofkelp]

I have run into a major tank problem, unfortunately. When I switch to Captiv8, the supplement was not dissolving adequately in my tank giving false low alk reading. Thus, I overdose on Alk supplement and made a huge precipitate ball. After removing said ball, my K was running in the 500s-700 range, stable,and everything was growing well.

I slowly lost fish, I attributed it to attrition (I always have trouble with anthias).
I was advised by Chris (owner of Captiva8) to switch supplements, as the Alk supplement contained K, and do a big water change. I did not take his advice. I assumed the high K was due to my initial overdose, and, being more or less stable, would be consumed over time.

Then in the span 1-2 weeks I lost nearly all small fish, and a few of my corals looked bad. I had a big algae bloom from the phosphate spike of dead fish. My gigs clam and a scoops tang died. My ICP came back the next day with a K of 900. I lost my powder blue the next day.

I did 3x 70g water change (logistical reasons preventing anything larger) and got the K down to 550. Algae looking much better. I lost a nice torch, some tequila sunrise mushrooms, and had 2-3 SPS lose branches. Worried about STN.

I am now going to a full 200g water change and not push anything ever again. I did not put it all together in time and ignored sage advice.

Hopefully restock my fish in the next 2-3 month, re-place a few of my corals after that, and get this tank back in tip top shape.