m0jjen 90g mainly SPS

m0jjen · Jul 24, 2016

So.. The triton detox is done and is currently getting filtrated out of the system with GAC.

The cyano is coming with full vengence now, roughly 3 months ago i got a really bad cyano infestation which i cleared with chemi-clean and had really good results. Problem now is;

1. Cant run chemi clean since im filtrating the detox
2. Kinda wanto get to the bottom of this cyano buisness and correct whats actually wrong (but what is?)
3. Dont wanna do a 3 day lights out either.

The cyano is only on the sandbed so my guess is that i got alot of detritus in the sand which it can feed of. I've been thinking for awhile that i might remove about 1/3 of my sand since i have quite alot of it just to make maintanance of it easier. Other that that i've been vaccuming the sand at every WC since my last cyano outbreak.

Cant do to many big changes either since im going to greece for a week soon. To many changes when i cant monitor it is never good.

Any suggestions?

Daniel@R2R · Jul 25, 2016

m0jjen said:
Today i got my litium and strontium additives. Took a FTS to document if they dosing do any good to the coral health. Been a day since the flow change and i must say that the corals love it. My millepora that used to have medium to poor PE now goes bananas and is a fuzzy ball of coral wonder!

Absolutely stunning reef!

m0jjen · Jul 26, 2016

mdbannister said:
Absolutely stunning reef!

Thank you! =)

revhtree · Jul 26, 2016

Can't believe I missed this one! Awesome job!

Lasse · Jul 26, 2016

@revhtree. It´s like IKEA and Volvo - from Sweden

Sincerely Lasse

m0jjen · Jul 26, 2016

revhtree said:
Can't believe I missed this one! Awesome job!

Thank you! Lets just hope it gets even better as it grows!

Lasse said:
@revhtree. It´s like IKEA and Volvo - from Sweden

Sincerely Lasse

Haha

m0jjen · Jul 28, 2016

So at this moment im struggeling abit. I've dosed up strontium and lithium just like triton suggested. The Triton detox is done tomorrow. I've noticed some improvment in coral health the last week, mainly better PE

As you can see on the picture I got some cyano going. Cant really say why but its the second time i got it, first time i treated with chemi-clean and it went away really fast. This time im gonna take a different route. Im gonna try some KNO3 dosing to keep my NO3 around 0.5 and 1 to maintain the redfield ratio. My no3 has been undetectable for as long as I can remember but at times i have some low Po4 (around 0.01 to 0.02). Im gonna give it about 3-4 weeks and hope to get some improvements during this time.

The thought behind this is basiclly to get the ratio in place and dose some no3 to get my refugium going better. Lately the growth havent really been there!

If no improvements are seen in the cyano ill nuke it again with chemi clean

Lets hope it dont come to that.

Sorry for the poor picture. Just a fast shoot to get something up, will update with more coral picutres and a FTS comparison during the weekend to track growth

revhtree · Jul 28, 2016

Looks great!

m0jjen · Jul 31, 2016

Cyano cyano cyano.... Ahwell. Going to Greece on saturday. When i come home ill start some h2o2 dosing unless the KNO3 dosing has had an effect by then.

m0jjen · Aug 14, 2016

Back from a week in Greece and the cyano is all over the place. The KNO3 dosing did little to nothing against it, yesterday i started the H2O2 dosing and i surely hope to see at least some results within a week or so!

m0jjen · Aug 30, 2016

Time to update! The cyano seem to be on retreat after a few changes was made. I really hope thats the case.

What i've done so far:

* Stopped kno3 dosing, when i first started the cyano came quickly.
* Stopped H2O2 dosing since it didnt result in any cyano changes. And i actually belive it had a negativ impact on my system, nothing major but still.
* Started dosing Pro Bio S & NP-Pro (the cyano started to go away when i started this dosing)

No major loss during all of this, i got a KH spike (from 7 to 8.4) which has resultet in some KH burn on my Hystrix (only affected coral). This dont make me to sad since it was a freebee i got and its not like its my most important coral anyway!

With the start of the Pro Bio S and NP-Pro i've commited to the Aquaforest probiotic program which has shown alot of good results on this forum. Im really excited about getting started and continuing it to be completely honest. Its the first "full program" i've commited to and my hopes are high

Some future plans:

* On thursday ill get a new macro lens for my camera! Hopefully ill get alot better pictures and some decent macros!

* On saturday ill make a trip to Gothenburg where some of the major vendors in Sweden recides to get some new goodies. Im gonna look for 1-3 new acros, mybe an acans, fungia or some LPS in general.
* Im debating weather i should change the left platau of my tank, im thinking of getting a / producing another type of rock struckture on that part of the tank where i have a platau lifted by 3 "legs" making a nice cove for the fish and giving me some more place for SPS along with providing less shaded areas in that part of the tank.

Ill make a bigger update this weekened with some picutres. (new lens woohoo)

Thanks for reading!

m0jjen · Sep 4, 2016

Okay, So this is where im at. Im the brink of putting the hobby on the shelf for awhile. Most of my cyano is gone, afew small patches are still around but nothing major. They seem to be getting smallre by the day (yay!). But thats pretty much where the good news stoppes.

After my h2o2 dosing my my Ca, Kh and Mag went through the roof. Kh 7.3 > 8.9, Ca 400ish > 460, Mg 1300ish to 1450. What does this tell me? Ye well corals arent growing in the same rate they used to. I've lowered my dosing by 1/3 today and hope to lower my values and go from there.

When my cyano threw in the towel i managed to get a new friend. Dinoflagellats. Big boo on that **** in all honesty. Been reading up on this for about 20 hours the last 3 days. What seems to be working is:

* Elevate PH for quite some time - no idea where to get limewater in sweden, might look into this.
* Bleach dosing - Wont be doing this.
* Blackouts - Not a fan of this at all.

Im not a fan of dosing chemicals either but during my trip to Gotenburg is this product called DinoXal. Comes highly recommended so im actually gonna test it out. Day 2 of doing today and i've progress in the dino.

While in Gothenburg I also picked up some livestock. 3 new acros, No pictures yet. They have been dipped for pests and are either brown or deadish white

Ill let them color up abit first. To summarize what i bought:

* Pink millepora with blue tips
* Yellowish Tenius
* Some unknown red based with blue tips acropora

I also got myself a pretty "standard" fungi, Orange. Nothing special, but I like it!

Some pictures (not editer, nor are they any good. Im just not feeling it, just snapped afew to get something posted!)

FTS: Sand looking like... ye well.. :| New Tenis is on the left part of the tank in the sandbed. Unknown red/blue in the middleis part on the sand bed and the new millie is left of the milka.

One of my Acans, test the new macro out. Nothing fancy, just playing

New fungia

Stylopora rainbow

Zoas, bought as 'Dragonsoul' no idea if its correct!

Zoas, Fire and Ice

m0jjen · Sep 7, 2016

Time to update! Been a rough few days!

The dino has been up and down in my eyes. Most of it is gone as of now which im really really happy about. DinaXal seem to be working over my expectations. Still a small amout left. I've activly been lurking in my cyano and dino problem the last few days and came up with a far fetched idea. Im currently dosing trion base elements which promote macroalgae growth, right? So ye, needless to say my macro aint growing at all with the majority of my additives beeing the AF probiotic program and running ULNS.

This got me thinking, what happens to all the excess macro elements added from the trion base? Seeing how i've been using base elements for as long as this tank has been set up along with most of the AF program there should be quite the build up of macro elements after roughly 9 months? So i contacted trion in this regard and they confirmed my suspicion that dino and cyano MIGHT feed on these additives. Im quite certain today that this is the case.

Today i picked up an additional two litres of siporax along with components 1+,2+ and 3+. This is the last step in my conversion to the full AF program. This friday i will discontinue my fuge, clean the sump (alot of algae down in there from the fuge light). I will also start dosing components instead of base elements.

Over and out!

revhtree · Sep 7, 2016

Hope you get rid of the Dinos! The reef is looking hawt!

m0jjen · Sep 9, 2016

Once again i feel like im at a complete loss.. Dinoxal works, but its not finishing of the dino. The corals look like crap in all honesty. I also got my old friend back! Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining "HEEEEEERES JOHNNY!!!" Cyano came and occupide most of my sandbed. More or less over night.

My theory in all of this thats theres lack in competition for nutrients on a microfauna level. In all honesty i dont really know where leaves me. Im guessing there's more nutrients than my export methods can handle alongside my biodiversity in the tank? Since i cant detect any nutrients at all in my tank when testing im pretty certain its consumed by cyano and or dino.

m0jjen · Sep 25, 2016

So this is where i am at the moment. Cyano and dino is still triving which isnt a good think. The triton report came in and can be found here http://docdro.id/HuVAyf5 - Im not that worried about some elements beeing out of line since i have reasonable explanations to them.

So dealing with the cyano and dino has been a pain sofar. Nothing has shown to good results to far. I've resorted to bacteria dosing (special blend + aquarium balancer). This bacterial dosing has shown some progress but not enough.

My theory is this. I know prove that there PO4 present in the tank. Not much but its there. (Hanna give me all kinds of results and triton says 0.014). While my NO3 is lacking and is at most 1-2.5 ppm. When i started getting problems i had 0 No3 present for a really long time, and since the start of my troubles have not experianced any microalgae at all. I litterly havent touched the glass for a good 3 weeks now.

What can we make of this? Well cyano can get its nitrogen from the air around the aquarium. We know that much. Microalgae on the other hand can not. Since there is no algae present at all, but i have a cyanobacterial bloom along with dinoflaggelates which both are microorganism and not algae im guessing my tank is started of something rather then having something present in a too high amount (might be higher amounts of some element aswell).

So from this im thinking ill go down and dirty for awhile. Letting my nitrates rise from overfeeding the tank while running GFO. I have no clue if this is the right way or not but im gonna test it for the following reasons:

1. My corals are pale and STN on afew acros.
2. No3 is alot easier to manage than cyano/dino if it works, there are no reports saying that 10 no3 is a bad thing nor will it kill corals or any other livestock.
3. Since im running a bacteria driven system the bacteria needs no3 to use po4

Any input on this is much appreciated.

m0jjen · Sep 29, 2016

I took abit of a different route than expected from my post above. The NO3 dosing was deemed successful. I belive i had a nitrogen deficiency. About a month ago i discontinued my refugium since it was doing poorly and i needed the sump space for when i transitioned to the full aquaforest program. While the refugium kept my nutrition export rate high is also consumed more NO3 than PO4 (atleast i belive so). Since I discontinued my refugium my PO4 has been creaping up from not messurable to 0.074 (today), all while my no3 has been undetectable to 0.5 ppm.

This lead me to doing something pretty drastic, i removed my left pillar since its made of dead rock. My goal was to improve flow and coral health. LR can later be added again. While i was rescaping I also removed roughly half my sandbed (cant really tell from the picture below). This sandbed was LOADED with detritus. Probably from a long time of overfeeding along with poor flow.

Since my PO4 is going up eventho i have some media (200 ml AF GFO which is about half dose for my aquarium) in my reactor i decided to add a sock with some triton alu99 i have lying around hoping i can bring down my PO4.

So what have we learned?

* Dont let the fish dine for 10 fish per fish.
* Proper flow is vital
* You cant have to much live rock but it cant most definitely be placed in a way that it becomes way to much (blocking flow, back flow through rock etc).

Where do we go from here? Well i guess ill see if the remaining cyano will go away with ALOT more flow and the PO4 removal medias. My aim is 0.02 and currently im at 0.0.74.
The dinoflaggelates seems to have vanished with my KH going stable to lets hope the rock rework dont ruin that

Enjoy the 50 shades of brown acroporas!

Alfrareef · Sep 29, 2016

Go for it! Better times shall come.
Loved the 50 shades of brown...

m0jjen · Sep 29, 2016

Alfrareef said:
Go for it! Better times shall come.
Loved the 50 shades of brown...

Since i have found a good reason behind all my setbacks im confident that i can come back. I did realise that the refugium shutdown would leave me with less nutrient export but i didnt realise that it would be this much!

50 shades of brown is the new thing in the hobby, get with the program!