IM10 chaeto reactor dilemma

[tmabry]

Hi all,

Looking for advice on how to procede with my tank. Tank is an IM10 that has been up for a little less than a year. Lightly stocked with 2 clowns and coral. For the first 9 months or so I had a skimmer on the tank but the skimmer was on the loud side so i decided to swap up for a chaeto reactor. Chaeto reactor has been on for litttle more than a month. During this time nitrates have dropped to 0, or near to it. On a salifert kit there is no coloration. Chaeto growth has exploded. Went from a golf ball size to completely filling the reactor during that time period. Nitrates had always hovered around 2.5-5 in the tank so im looking for ways to get them back up with the chaeto reactor online. The reactor lights run from 10pm to 3am nightly.

What would be the best way to slowly get the nitrates up to their normal levels.....Going to start with feeding a little more. Heres my questions...

--Can I reduce the photoperiod of the chaeto more? Down to 4 or less hours a night? Or just go every other night?
--Should I trim the chaeto back down to a smaller size?

1 Gallon Water changes have been done religiously once a week...Tanks also has 2 packets of chemipure blue nano that I change out one of every other week.


Thanks All!!

Thomas

 

[Ron Reefman]

Thomas, good questions.

First, as you may realize now, a skimmer and an algae reactor or refugium do different things to the water in your tank. I only run a filter sock, a small refugium and a skimmer on my 40g cube that is mostly zoas and RFAs. BTW, what kind of corals do you have (i.e. zoas, softies, lps, sps).

I'd start by harvesting at least 50% of the chaeto from the reactor. And if nitrates don't go up to the level you want, I'd take out even more. I feed pretty heavily and only have 5 small fish and my macro algae grows at what I feel is a pretty normal rate. But that still keeps my nitrate & phosphate levels very close to zero. And my skimmer really reacts with lots more foam when I feed. So I shut the skimmer down for an hour after I feed.

Also, before I would consider running the reactor light every other night, I'd try cutting it back and still run it every night. But in reality, I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach.

Good luck. And be prepared to make lots of small adjustments to stabilize the nitrate level where you want it.

 

[Mayerlyn A]

I would trim some back. It can get super packed in there after a while. I trim mine about every 3 to 4 weeks.

 

[sde1500]

Feed more and reduce the light time on the reactor.

 

[tmabry]

Thomas, good questions.

First, as you may realize now, a skimmer and an algae reactor or refugium do different things to the water in your tank. I only run a filter sock, a small refugium and a skimmer on my 40g cube that is mostly zoas and RFAs. BTW, what kind of corals do you have (i.e. zoas, softies, lps, sps).

I'd start by harvesting at least 50% of the chaeto from the reactor. And if nitrates don't go up to the level you want, I'd take out even more. I feed pretty heavily and only have 5 small fish and my macro algae grows at what I feel is a pretty normal rate. But that still keeps my nitrate & phosphate levels very close to zero. And my skimmer really reacts with lots more foam when I feed. So I shut the skimmer down for an hour after I feed.

Also, before I would consider running the reactor light every other night, I'd try cutting it back and still run it every night. But in reality, I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach.

Good luck. And be prepared to make lots of small adjustments to stabilize the nitrate level where you want it.

I would trim some back. It can get super packed in there after a while. I trim mine about every 3 to 4 weeks.

Feed more and reduce the light time on the reactor.

Thanks all

I trimed it back by about 80% last night. Going to keep the same lightning schedule for now and see what the nitrate level does, along with feeding slightly more every day. Hoping to find a balance between lighting and when to trim the chaeto to keep the nitrates in balance. Trying for around 2-5 which is where the tank stayed with the skimmer. The zoas loved that level and grew rapidly, much faster than they are now at ~0.

I did like the performance of the skimmer, but the noise was noticeable in the living room where I have the tank and the reactor with a sicce pump is virtually quiet. But if the reactor turns out to be too much for the tank may end up going back to the skimmer, or finding a smaller reactor. (current is around a gallon, 10% of tank volume)

Tank is mostly Zoas, with a duncan, chalice and lepto. Wanting to get everything stabilized and then start adding a few SPS here down the road

 

[SDK]

I went through a similar curve in my Nuvo 10 and wound up pulling the InTank reactor out and going with a skimmer. I found that keeping the params stable with chaeto in such a small tank was close to impossible...

If you do decide to go back to a skimmer, the Tunze 9001 is working well for me. It requires a few easy mods to fit in chamber two, but is very quiet and stable. I feed generously and do a weekly 15% water change. My nitrates hold steady at around 3ppm and PO4 at .02 or so. I now don't have to deal with the parameter swings, or pulling that reactor up out of the back to harvest, which I found messy.

Good luck either way, and if you can figure out a good methodology, let me know please.....

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Curious - Which chaeto reactor? I was thinking all of the Pax Bellum's would be way too large for a small tank.

With respect to the skimmer, there's a couple of possibilities to get a quieter option. The first is a "no money" modification. If you have this IM skimmer, it has a tube for the air intake. Buy an elcheapo airline tubing valve, and place it on this intake line. Dial back the air; aside from a pump hum, tons of air moving through the skimmer is often the cause of excessive noise. Another option would be to replace it with a Tunze Comline skimmer. I have several of these, and they are absolutely silent when the water height is correctly adjusted.

On the water chemistry parameters, you might consider dosing nitrate and/or phosphate as a temporary measure until you figure out the amount of chaeto to keep in the reactor to dial in your dissolved nutrients. I'd recommend powdered sodium nitrate (not potassium nitrate) as make-your-own dosing solution. You can get it, and sodium phosphate from Amazon, both are used in food preservation. Some folks use Flourish for the phosphate because of ease-of-use and the availability of calculators for dosage. But if you decide to do this from the bulk chemicals, we can calculate the correct amount to weigh out on a kitchen scale and dissolve up in a known quantity of water to get a solution that's convenient to dose.