Erics red sea xxl 750

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Due to urchin deaths, I did go ahead and test to see if any ammonia showed up in the tank, though my tests show 0. I find it hard to believe they didn't put anything in the system, and that 310 gls of water simply diluted it enough. Maybe their deaths added to some increased bacteria issues, though this is all speculation at this point.

 

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Well I’m hoping that what ever got in my system is either on its way out or I‘ve done enough water changes to clean it out.

I would say about 95% of all types of montipora bleached out, though some still have a few spots of color with polyps. LPS seemed to be randomly hit. Someare a total loss,some unaffected, and some are partially dead.

 

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One week in, and the tank is looking significantly better. It’s pretty amazing to see some of the corals that bleached out only to be recovering or back to normal already. It’s a mystery to me why this event occurred, though as I previously posted I’ve got some speculations as to why it did. A bit odd to see only monti’s and some others I’d consider easy growers to die off.

This chalice has me scratching my head. It’s orange mouthes are still showing and are starting to look fleshy, despite the rest of it down to its skeleton. Haven’t given hope on it yet.

I thought these two montis were goners but they are still hanging in there

Scolys seem to be moving in the right direction. The second from the bottom with the open mouth I thought was a complete goner, but I still see feeders come out at night. Hopefully I can save it.

bounce shroom is starting to recover. I’ve had it for nearly 2 years and it might finally be splitting.

The kung pao monti is another one that I thought died off on me but is slowly recovering.

 

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Over Christmas I won a gift certificate to a LFS, AquaPros, and every time I tried to go and check the place out life got in the way. Last Monday I was ready to head out the door and my garage door broke. 3 hrs of fixing the door later it was time to pick up the kids. Today, I finally got out and really feel like I lucked out. They had received a very nice shipment of scolys in, and I was able to pick up these 2 for an incredible price. They were sold as “ultra” grade, though I think they look better then my master, but priced about the same as a war paint. The green in them is pretty unique. They are a bit stressed from acclimation, cleaning and dipping.

 

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Looking much better today

 

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This post is going to be wordy...

I sent out a Triton test on the 5th and just got the results back yesterday.

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

Tin, and Aluminum were pretty high.
Al: 253ug/l
Sn: 2.933ug/l

Whats crazy is my Acro's are growing under these conditions, though I cannot say thriving, and growth has always been pretty slow. So maybe this is related.

Doing some searches on the forums and across the interwebs is bringing up lots of people with similar issues. Not having any prior tests on the tank to compare to is a bit difficult for me to pinpoint this to anything exactly. Though, back in November, I did throw some bio pure nano cubes into a cup in my sump, and have read these can leach. I have no idea if they are the culprit, but they are the first things Im going to ditch as I don't have any specific need for them there anyhow.

I do have 6 brightwell bio bricks in my sump, though have not read that they leach. It says no more than 1 per 100gallons, so Im at about double the recommendation.

I do have a DIY red sea tank top, which is made of aluminum. Anyone ever hear of those leaching anything into the tank? It does get alot of salt creep at the joints. I'm going to post this question in the chemistry forum.

I did see a rusty screw on the top of my skimmer outlet valve, and will have to look into replacing it.

Additionally, looks like Triton is recommending quite a bit of dosing (see the dosing tab on the link I shared to see what exactly is being recommended), though some include Strontium, Iodine and a few other common elements make the mix, though many of them seem like trace elements. I guess my question here is, is this specifically for the triton method or are they good things to follow regardless? Also, if these are a different trace elements, how do I figure out consumption rate once corrected?

 

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really like how Adam is labeling his frags now! Pretty cool to read how long he’s had some of these!

Frag tank! The 5 new battle coral frags are in this tank. All the others are cuts from my display that I’m growing out here.

finally put my auto feeder back on the frag tank. It is Velcro on top of the suspended hybrid fixture.

changed my ATO setup. I ditched my 30gl container, got the new pump, and will be having my RO/DI line continuously feeding the 55gl container. Everything is in my basement, so if my float switch fails it’ll all just go into the floor drain. Don’t know why I didn’t do this a long time ago.

 

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When I had the tank crash, the favia, pink monti and whatever this brown coral is completely bleached out. I thought they were gone, and yet here we are today on the road to recovery. Pretty amazing what these corals can get through!

 

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AWC setup! Very excited to finally have this up and running as I’ve been meaning to do this since November. I am currently doing 5gl over the course of a week. My drain line goes into m floor drain, and the fresh SW comes from my water change station. I can still do water changes the old way. I also picked up a power head to turn into a vacuum using a filter sock which will be used to suck up detritus.

 

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pretty cool color variation of this Superman shroom. You can see the others where this one has come from behind it. Normally the edges are orange, though this one has yellow/golden in color. It’s still very small and growing slowly. It really only gets indirect light.

 

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Found a small mistake on my AWC setup. I followed the instructions on Neptunes website, and it directed me to change my waste line configuration to "remove". Which is only correct if I had the tube in my tank on the "out" side of the DOS pump head. The site does not mention this part. So for anyone setting up their DOS for auto water changes... when configuring in your APEX, no need to change this. What ever line you have setup as "In" is going to pull fluid into the pump. Luckily I set this up to only do 5gls a week, so all it did was drip in maybe a half gallon of SW since setup with min waste removed (then pumped back in from being in the line.. doh!!. I noticed it this morning when I saw the pump running and noticed this line was pushing water or air into the tank. No significant change to the salinity - 300 some gallons helps keep things stable.

On a positive note, glad to see the Radion Gen4's drop in price. The G5s are going to be pretty slick, but the old tech (and it really doesn't seem old) still does a great job growing corals. I was able to pick up 2 more Xr15G4 pro's w/ free diffusers to add to my frag tank.

 

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Meanwhile, the mini tank is still up and running strong! All I’ve done is evaporation top offs, usually just using tap water. Soft corals don’t seem to need much to keep alive. I did do my first water change on this today, dumped out the old and took some from the display. Too easy!

 

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Swapped out my 2x 300watt ebojager heaters for 2x300 watt finex titanium ones, and the BRS controller. Looking over one of my heaters I noticed water condensation on the inside, another possible source of aluminum / tin in the tank.

This Chalice is making a pretty good comeback. Now if I can just get my hippo tang to stop flipping it!

 

[bitwise]

I looked it up one time, apparently a tiny amount of condensation in those heaters is normal (per manufacturer).

 

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interesting. Well, from what I could see that was the only source of possible metal getting directly in the tank, the other heater looked fine, and all the others I have had never looked like that. Last ICP test done did show lower levels, but I cannot say for sure if removing the heater was the reason as I was also using other media to remove metals from the water.

I need to get some updated photo's on here. I was supposed to be gone for about 2 months and set the tank up to run on its own for the time. Due to world events, work got cut short. The tank was looking great when I got home, though the basement frag tank took me about a day to scrape all the coraline from the glass. It really took over! Corals are growing again, slowly, but better than nothing!

 

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Today’s project, converting the Red Sea ATO into a shroom box. Basically, there’s too much light and flow for Sps in my display and frag tank so I’m moving my shrooms into this.
Coolest part of this project is I Neary had all the parts. I had to buy a 1 3/4” glass drill bit, and the AI prime 16HD light/mount, however these were both paid for with AMEX reward points. The 3 bulk heads and other parts are all salvaged from old systems.

All I need to do is cover the bottom to prevent light spilling through into the sump, do a leak test and incorporate into one of my pumps - I siliconed the ato drain hole closed and it needs24 hr to dry.

The tanks going to sit up on top of the sump, right where the ATO was designed to go.

if anyone has any AI prime 16HD light setting suggestions for a shroom /zoa frag tank let me know. Water depth is only 7.5”, and the light sits about 9.5” above that. Side note, initially this light was a pain to setup via an iPhone, but once I figured out how to download light files, it was as simple as holding the selected file down, selecting share and then sending to the AI app. Pretty cool, and I see it uses the same möbius blue tooth tech that ecotechs been promoting. Having been stuck working from home with a wife, 2 kids and grandmother all with multiple devices the home network has slowed down a bit. Less devices on the network is a good thing.

 

[SPSReeferMI]

I like the idea you’ve got here - I have a few questions for you:
1.) Will this tank be plumbed in with the main?
2.) Do you keep your nutrients higher (if it’s plumbed in)?
3.) Where do you use your Amex rewards for fish stuff? Assuming Amazon?

 

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I like the idea you’ve got here - I have a few questions for you:
1.) Will this tank be plumbed in with the main?
2.) Do you keep your nutrients higher (if it’s plumbed in)?
3.) Where do you use your Amex rewards for fish stuff? Assuming Amazon?

Thanks - I will be splitting off a line from the pump that is feeding my refugium and UV.
Nutrients have been pretty low as it is. haven’t run a phosphate or nitrate test in a while because I’m out and cannot seem to find The right test refills for the reef bot online. It’s all one system, so the levels will be he same as the rest of the system.

For Amex points, you can either use Amazon, or add your card to PayPal, then use PayPal at check out and it will recognize your points and give you the option to use them. Amazon is limited on certain reef gear, so the PayPal option lets you go most everywhere. Worked well for Saltwater Aquarium.com. Amex was running a 20% discount if you used your points on Amazon, though the item had to be sold directly from Amazon and not a 3rd party.

 

[ESH]

Did a leak test this morning and then got the tank connected. I’m not to happy with the plumbing, so I think I’ll end up going back and redoing it. It needs quick disconnect fittings and an additional valve to control flow. I built this using spare parts so I guess it worked out. Still need to cover the tank bottom so light doesn’t pass through. I’ll let it all run for the next day to make sure it’s working before moving things over.