KingBling's 40g Frag Tank

[KingBlingTX]

Awesome build looks very nice. Would love to see you DT if that is your frag tank!

Thanks, Ubans. LOL, I'm starting a little backwards. I set-up the frag tank to get some frags growing for a 220g DT I will be setting up soon. I wanted to set up the frag tank more-or-less the same as I will the DT so I had a chance to learn a little about the equipment & controller before setting up the larger one. I hope to set up the DT before the end of the year.

 

[KingBlingTX]

After doing the "rescue" on my daughters tank a few weeks ago and having to completely re-arrange my 40g, I decided to convert over to the Aquaforest system on this tank. I will post a tank pic (which I'm not too proud of atm) and details of what products I'll be using going forward.

 

[Ubans13]

Best of luck with the 220g. I have a 75 gallon Im trying to stock and learn from before I also make the jump to a 220g.

 

[KingBlingTX]

Okay. Here are a couple few pics of the 40g currently. (not proud, but posting for the record) After the ALK crash, I lost many of the sps frags I had started with and several browned out. After getting the water back to normal levels, I'm starting to see colors re-appear so I'm on the right track. Also, since I had take the refugees from my daughters tank I removed the egg crates and added more dry rock for "territory". Once her tank is back online, the "softies" will be going back over to her tank. Unfortunately, it looks like I will be stuck with Miss B (gold striped maroon clown) and her anemone for the foreseeable future. I'm going to try the Aquaforest system of products, so I'll post details of that next.

 

[KingBlingTX]

Here are the details of the Aquaforest products I am implementing on the system. I was a little torn about what to do with the dosing set-up as I had already purchased a DOS unit for my Apex, but it only has two pumps. Since AF Components requires 3, I decided to just buy the Jebao 4 head dosing unit. (The dosing unit plus a 3 x 1L dosing container unit was cheaper than buying another DOS.) I'll just hang onto the DOS for my larger build.

Current Water Parameters (after a couple of weeks of water changes and ALK dosing to recover from the drop into the 5's)
Temp- 79.5F +/- 0.5F
Salinity- 35 ppt
pH- 7.80-8.0 (i have ordered CO2 scrubber material and will be putting this on my skimmer air-line to see if it will get pH up above 8)
ALK- 7.8
Calc- 450
Mag- 1440 (my Mag is always high. salt mixes always come in high in Mag)
NO3- 5 ppm
PO4- 0.05 ppm

AF Products
AF Reef Salt (not probiotic) - 10% water change every 2 weeks (eventually will try to transition to 1x/month)
AF Components 1+, 2+, 3+ - starting dose is 8ml/day of each. manually doing this for a few more days until the new dosing unit is set-up
AF Pro Bio S- 1 drop daily
AF -NP Pro- 1 drop daily
AF Coral A- 1 drop, 2 x per week (Sun & Wed after lights out)
AF Coral V- 1 drop, 2 x per week (Sun & Wed after lights out)
AF Coral B- 1 drop, 2 x per week (Mon & Thu after lights out)
AF Coral E- 1 drop, 2 x per week (Mon & Thu after lights out)
In a TLF 150 reactor - AF Zeomix (250g) + AF Carbon (2/3 cup) + AF Phosphate - (1/3 cup) (media to be changed every 4 weeks)

Later this week, I will also be removing the liverock rubble in my sump and replacing it with a TLF reactor full of Seachem De*Nitrate media running at a minimal throughput.

 

[Chrisfish]

Tank is looking great

 

[KingBlingTX]

Today the UPS truck showed up with the remaining items I needed to get the reactors set-up the way I wanted in the sump. I removed the live rock rubble (and suctioned out the tons of detritus hidden under the basket.) I set-up the following 3 reactors:

1) TLF 150- w/250g AF Zeomix, 2/3 cup AF Carbon, 1/3 cup AF Phosphate-
2) Aquatop MR-20- filled with Seachem De*Nitrate (flow rate is set at around 35 gph)
3) TLF 150- filled with CO2 scrubber media (attached to airline inlet of skimmer)

Here's a pic for reference-

 

[KingBlingTX]

The CO2 scrubber is working great already! Increased my pH range up to 8.0-8.2. Also received a few frags from Jason Fox Corals today. Here are some pics of the new frags.

PC Superman Table Acro


TYREE TIERRA DEL FUEGO


VIVID RAINBOW DELIGHT


JF ROGERS GREEN TABLE

 

[Joey waid]

Looks stupendous!!

 

[KingBlingTX]

Well, it appears the CO2 scrubber is working even better than I had wanted! After a few days, I see my pH rising to 8.48 and bottoming at 8.01. To offset the higher swing, I am having my skimmer turn off for 4 hours a day (during the mid-day lighting period). The CO2 consumed by photosynthetic activity is sufficient, so i don't need the scrubber running during that time. I dont really want to chase pH that much, but I don't really want a 0.4-0.5 swing during the day either. I'll keep an eye on nutrients to see if there is any negative impact from the reduced skimming.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Coming along nicely!

 

[KingBlingTX]

After measuring 0 NO3 & 0 P04 for the last couple of weeks, I decided to make a couple of small changes.
- Reduced dosing of Pro Bio S & NP-Pro to 3x/week (M,W,F)
- Removed Phosphate Minus from Reactor and reduced amount of ZeoMix to 300g (from 500g)


Here are some recent pics-

 

[KingBlingTX]

Have posted any updates in the last few weeks as I have been dealing with a tank problem following the holidays. Apparently, my auto-feeder dumped way too much food in the tank while i was out of town for Thanksgiving break. When I got home, I noticed several sps showing STN/RTN from the tips. My nitrite tested high, so it was apparently a mini-cycle created from the excess food. I've done water changes and stopped almost all dosing, but the problem continues to linger on. The nitrite seems to be hovering steady at 0.05 ppm. Ammonia is 0 and NO3 is 1.5 ppm.

Today it looks like almost all of my sps is on the way out. Certainly a very frustrating experience. To make matters worse, I just received my shipment of ReefRaft coral I bought during the sale right before Thanksgiving. Fortunately, the 28G tank in my daughters room finished it's cycle a couple of weeks ago, so I am putting the new arrivals in that tank until my NO2 drops back to zero.

 

[KingBlingTX]

A week later and now I had to remove almost all of my SPS because they have died. My nitrite continues to hover at 0.05. Everything else in the chemistry is okay. Only a green slimer and and the soft coral (toadstool leather) seem to be okay. The RBTA seems to be alright as well, but i have had a few of the turbo-snails die as well. It seems like I accidentally spurred a mini-cycle and the nitrite converting bacteria seem to be awol. I know it's not the test kit because i do get a zero reading on another aquarium.

After losing well over $1,000 in frags since the Thanksgiving incident, I'm truly disheartened at the moment.