Jimbo's CDA 250 Build

[Jimbo327]

Check out all of the small/baby Trochus snails I have just on my front glass. I started out with 15 adults. Luckily, the yellow wrasse doesn’t seem to go after them because they have pretty strong grip/suction.

 

[Jimbo327]

I made some DIY coral snow with cheap calcium carbonate based on this thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-kz-coral-snow-with-97-purity.211722/

I turned off the skimmer and return pumps. And I scrubbed the rocks and powerhead, and dosed DIY coral snow into the tank. Whoa, it got cloudy real quick.

All of the fish went into hiding, and I’m going to let it settle for a couple hours before turning everything back on. I’m trying to encourage more coralline spread…basically a Purple-Up substitute.

 

[JoJosReef]

That's some serious CUC!

 

[Jimbo327]

LOL. Yeah, there isn't a single strand of hair algae or spot of turf algae in my tank. The only algae I have is bubble algae, and I'm going to add a few pitho crabs when I find some at the LFS. The downside is there is nothing for my tangs to graze on. So I feed 1-2 sheets of nori per day.

My CUC game is strong. My coral growing game, not so much.

If you want some baby trochus snails, I can definitely hook you up. But your wrasses may make a quick snack of them though.

 

[JoJosReef]

They haven't been successful with Astraeas and trochus so far, knock on wood. I think the trochus are too strong. Ceriths are toast as soon as they go anywhere that they can be knocked around, like the glass, and only the biggest nerites are able to avoid get knocked off and killed

My pitho crab has eradicated most of the bubble algae and what's still there is simply in places he can't reach. I sometimes grab a bubble algae covered snail and place it right in front of him. Afterwards, clean shell.

 

[Jimbo327]

Went to LFS for some salt, and I didn’t realize how expensive salt has become. $95 for a bucket of Nyos salt. Enough to only make 135 gallons. Crazy.

 

[Jimbo327]

Since it’s time to dump the full skimmate locker and clean the cup. Took the opportunity to make some more modifications to my skimmer.

I added a port on the top of my skimmer lid. This will allow me to drip LC directly into the skimmer (if I need to lower phosphates in the future). The Home Depot bucket lids are my previous mod to hold a bag of carbon and keep the smell/ozone down.




Skimmer cup drains out the skimmate to the DIY skimmate locker (empty 5gal salt bucket) outside. (Yellow frog tape container holds the carbon)

 

[Jimbo327]

I've been having random STN/RTN and bleaching on my SPS frags, and none of my corals have been growing well. My green slimer has basically just been sitting there, and this is one of the easier SPS to grow. Even 1 of my zoas closed up, and that's when I really started thinking there is something wrong with my tank. The ICP looks fine without any crazy high metals or contaminants. My big parameters (Alk, Ca, Mag, Nitrate) all checked within range (except my Phosphate is a bit high) and verified on my Hanna/Salifert tests.

Without any obvious issues, I've been doing water changes in the past week to possibly reduce any contaminants. I've also been tweaking my lights since I thought why would the corals bleach. Basically, I've been pulling my hair out and chasing my own tail.

Nothing really worked. So I've just chalked it up to being a newer 6 months old reef, and the system was too immature to be adding so much corals, especially SPS. But the zoas closing really bothered me, as I've lost a few GMK zoas and now my red hornets zoas are closed up for most of the day. This is very strange as zoas should be easy and lighting shouldn't be a problem.

 

[JoJosReef]

What are parameters at right now? You've got a new tank with dry rocks (although some of them looked like real reef rocks and not man-made rocks), so corals can act a bit funny until the environment is more reef-like. When my corals start acting weird, I usually start dosing some microbial diversity in the form of Fiji Mud--may be a placebo effect, who knows. If your SPS and zoas crash, I can help you restock with some extra frags here and there.

 

[Jimbo327]

Luckily, most of my corals are hanging in there. It’s just a few that might be more delicate and need more time to adjust.

I’m going back to the old school method: More water changes, reduce light intensity, decrease nitrate/phosphates, and run carbon. That’s always worked in the past, so that’s what I’m going to rely on.

 

[JoJosReef]

Might try an ornamental macroalgae or two to help with nitrates? I've got pom pom gracilaria and codium currently. Two thumbs up on the carbon.

 

[Jimbo327]

For Nitrates, I'm actually dosing vodka into my refugium (no macroalgae yet) to control my nitrates. Works really well (Nitrates @ ~10 ppm). The bacteria does have a funky smell and looks like snot, so I may change it to macroalgae if I can't tolerate it.

For Phosphates, I'm close to 0.6 ppm phosphates as I tend to overfeed my fishes. So I definitely need to bring that down. I've mixed up a DIY Lanthanum Chloride (AR Grade) solution, and will use the DOS doser to drip directly into my skimmer body (through the tubing I added on top of the skimmer lid). I'm targeting a drop of ~0.1 ppm phosphates per day.

Pro-Tip: Phosphorus is not the same as Phosphate. Conversion Table

DIY LC Solution Recipe: 37.5 grams Lanthanum Chloride Heptahydrate powder into 10L RODI. Based on 250 gallon tank, 10 ml of DIY LC solution should drop ~0.01 ppm phosphates.

 

[Jimbo327]

I will track the phosphate reduction (LC dosing). Readings from Hanna ULR Phosphorus checker.

Disclaimer: I'm not recommending others to use LC to lower phosphates. Some reefers have lost all of the fishes while using LC (see here). Others have wiped out their SPS/corals as well. Everyone has to make their own decisions. I'm only documenting my system of using LC. Don't follow my dosing blindly, we all have different equipment, fishes, etc. YMMV.

I've never used LC before, so this is a huge risk for me. I could totally wipe out my tank in this experiment, but I want this to be the future of my nutrient control system and to push the hobby forward. My vision is to couple this with N/P auto-tester (when it is released), and be able to dial in both Nitrate and Phosphates with my system. Wish me luck. Will document my next 2 weeks of phosphate tests.

Phosphate (Converted from Phosphorus)

• Day 0: 0.598 ppm - April 29, 2024
• Day 1: 0.570 ppm (0.03 ppm drop) - Dosed 75 ml/day
• Day 2: 0.524 ppm (0.05 ppm drop) - Dosed 100 ml/day
• Day 3: 0.494 ppm (0.03 ppm drop) - Dosed 75 ml/day
• Day 4: 0.435 ppm (0.06 ppm drop) - Dosed 150 ml/day
• Day 5: <Did not measure & Day out with family> - Dosed 300 ml/day
• Day 6: 0.270 ppm (2 days combined 0.16 ppm drop) - Dosed 140 ml/day
• Day 7: 0.291 ppm (0.02 ppm increase) - Dosed 200 ml/day
• Day 8: 0.199 ppm (0.1 ppm decrease) - Dosed 300 ml/day
• Day 9: 0.236 ppm (0.04 ppm increase) - Dosed 100 ml/day
• Day 10: 0.322 ppm (0.09 ppm increase) - Dosed 150 ml/day
• Day 11: 0.135 ppm (0.19 ppm drop) - Dosed 300 ml/day
• Day 12: 0.190 ppm (0.06 ppm increase) - Dosed 100 ml/day
• Day 13: 0.210 ppm (0.02 ppm increase) - Dosed 100 ml/day
• Day 14: 0.260 ppm (0.05 ppm increase) - Dosed 80 ml/day
• Day 17: 0.210 ppm (0.05 ppm drop) - Dosed 120 ml/day

I started seeing phosphates unbind and go into the water column when I go below 0.3 ppm. Looks like the phosphate equilibrium in my rocks/sand is around 0.3 ppm (Day 7). It may take weeks or months to work through all of this bound phosphates in the 0.2-0.3 ppm range. I'm in no rush and will just slowly grind it out. I can definitely drop it fast, but in this hobby, it's better to take small steady steps forward than "2 steps forward and 3 steps back". I've already lost a few choice SPS frags, but now I'm confident that I can at least maintain phosphates.

 

[Jimbo327]

Since I'm using the APEX DOS as the LC doser, the generic wizard to program the DOS only allows for maximum of 86 individual doses within a 24 hours period. For 200 ml per day, it is basically dosing 2.2 ml every ~17 minutes.

For LC, I want to dose more often, but with a smaller volume. Theoretically, smaller doses should mean less lanthanum can escape the skimmer before reacting (and precipitating) with the phosphate. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I want the LC dosing to be as safe as possible for the livestock.

To increase the frequency of dosing, I needed to go into the advanced programming of the DOS using profiles.

https://www.neptunesystems.com/downloads/docs/DOS_manual.pdf#page3

And watched this video.


Using profiles, I've programmed the DOS to dose 0.2ml LC every 85 seconds instead of 2.2ml every ~17 minutes. I'm definitely not an expert on programming, but I think it's working.

 

[Jimbo327]

May 2024 FTS

 

[JoJosReef]

Phosphates coming down?

 

[Jimbo327]

Phosphates coming down?

Yes, slowly. I'm updating my daily phosphate levels in a couple posts above. I probably have a lot of phosphates locked up in the rocks and sand bed. And the fishes still follow me around the tank because I'm "Mr. Drop More Food Guy". LOL. I like to feed them.

 

[Jimbo327]

I really want to buy another clam.

Have my eyes on a blue squamosa from Pacific East Aquaculture or a squamosina from Biota. Dang, PEA even has a 30% off sale right now. So tempting. Since this will be my last clam for this tank, I want it to be a really special.

 

[PeterC99]

Beautiful aquarium!!! Also enjoyed reading about and seeing your craftsmanship! And solar powered to boot. Nicely done!!!

 

[Jimbo327]

Beautiful aquarium!!! Also enjoyed reading about and seeing your craftsmanship! And solar powered to boot. Nicely done!!!

Thank you!

Yeah, I like to do DIY and have it look nice. DIY saves quite a money, and I can put that extra $ towards livestock instead.

It's my 3rd time (and most likely my last time) on setting up a reef tank. This one is only 6 months, so it's still a work in progress on trying to figure out how to keep things alive and happy.