Matt's Elos 120xl

Mattres · May 5, 2018

Projecttrinh said:
@Mattres hey i really like your wall cleat to hang your light. I might do that instead of hanging from ceiling. Any insight on how you made that especially where you got metal pieces with circles in them that extend out. Thanks in advance. I'm not that handy!

Thanks mate, the white brackets are a Giesemann wall bracket you can buy off the shelf. The wood I used was just some dressed timber from my local hardware store. I used a stud finder to locate my studs in the wall and attached the timber to the studs. The brackets then attach to the timber.

Janci · May 13, 2018

Hi Matt, how are you and the tank going?

Mattres · May 13, 2018

Janci said:
Hi Matt, how are you and the tank going?

Hi mate thanks for checking in. I'm doing great but unfortunately the tank is still tracking in the same direction, nitrates are still high and phosphates showing 0 still.
I've performed a few water changes but the nitrates haven't dropped at all. I've ordered some phosphate supplement to try to even out the Nitrate Phosphate ratio. Short of fixing that i think i need an icp test to figure out whats going on in my water. The couple frags I picked up a little while ago have slowly been on their way out, im hoping once i add some phosphate i will see them perk up.
The troubles with getting this tank going for the past year have been slowly wearing me down but my passion is still strong and im determined to eventually get this tank doing well!

HolisticBear · May 13, 2018

Random FWIW. I was recently dealing with high NO3 & low PO4. I'd put alot of frags on rubble pieces on my bare bottom tank and created quite a large detris trap.

Food choice is possibility, but maybe it's just detris in sandbed? Do you have alot of savengers in your sandbed? Fighting conch, bristle worms, etc.?.

It could be many different things, just a random thought

Janci · May 13, 2018

Sorry to hear this Matt.
Are you using any vodka/nopox/... ? It might help, together with a good skimmer setting till you get a hold on the levels.

Nice to hear passion is strong!

Mattres · May 14, 2018

HolisticBear said:
Random FWIW. I was recently dealing with high NO3 & low PO4. I'd put alot of frags on rubble pieces on my bare bottom tank and created quite a large detris trap.

Food choice is possibility, but maybe it's just detris in sandbed? Do you have alot of savengers in your sandbed? Fighting conch, bristle worms, etc.?.

It could be many different things, just a random thought

Thanks for the input, i appreciate any thoughts at the moment!
I thought detritus could be an issue in the sand bed and a little while back i bought a good sand vac. I gave the whole sand bed a good vacuum over a few water changes but surprisingly it was quite clean.
I have been thinking of going bare bottom but only for the fact that all my sand is turning purple with coralline algae.. ;Bored
I do have a conch and nassarius snails as well as many bristle worms. I keep filter socks changed frequently and the siporax gets rinsed and cleaned often.
I've never had an issue with high nitrates before let alone this high. A 125 gallon aquarium with 5 fish and nitrates at 50ppm just makes my head spin a bit, I just don't know what else could be contributing to them.
Thats kind of my reasoning why i need to add phosphate, you know redfield ratio and all that.
Although its funny, my frags aren't going brown like i would have expected from high nitrates, one is loosing a few bits of flesh here and there and the other is receding from the base but not in a stn kinda way, just a dying way.. haha

Mattres · May 14, 2018

Janci said:
Sorry to hear this Matt.
Are you using any vodka/nopox/... ? It might help, together with a good skimmer setting till you get a hold on the levels.

Nice to hear passion is strong!

I started using nopox after i tested the high nitrates about a month or two ago. However after a couple days the frags started to look their worst. Thats when i tested phosphate and recorded 0.
I thought continuing to dose nopox would be useless as it would just keep phosphate too low and wouldn't bring nitrates down.
I wish i had the means to do a 100% water change, i reckon that would give the tank a good kick in the pants!

Janci · May 14, 2018

Mattres said:
I started using nopox after i tested the high nitrates about a month or two ago. However after a couple days the frags started to look their worst. Thats when i tested phosphate and recorded 0.
I thought continuing to dose nopox would be useless as it would just keep phosphate too low and wouldn't bring nitrates down.
I wish i had the means to do a 100% water change, i reckon that would give the tank a good kick in the pants!

A couple of 25% water changes would work fastest, but as this is not possible there has to be another way.
It is indeed hard to believe that the couple of fish and some feeding (depending on your feeding habits) could have let to this level of nitrates.
Nopox is much faster at removing nitrates then it is in lowering PO4 levels, so I would still give this a first shot. But take in account to check the skimmer for wet skimming so the max nutrients find it way out.
Measuring zero PO4 is never really true in my opinion. I have been measuring zero for months now, but when I send an ICP test, they come back as 0.02 or 0.04 or 0.05... As we feed flakes, frozen, pellets, some phosphates enter the water but they are not always detectable.

Vodka or Nopox dosing I would start again just below the max allowed (< 3ml/25gal). In your case around 10ml and test after a week. If you have a doser, you can divide the dosing in 5 times to have a better and even adjustment.

I hope this helps... if not, 125gal new seawater to be ordered. I hope you are not in the middle of the country. Lol

HolisticBear · May 14, 2018

You've tried multiple NO3 kits? Any chance the regents are bad?

markstubb · May 14, 2018

HolisticBear said:
You've tried multiple NO3 kits? Any chance the regents are bad?

i was just going to suggest the same thing.

Mattres · May 17, 2018

Janci said:
A couple of 25% water changes would work fastest, but as this is not possible there has to be another way.
It is indeed hard to believe that the couple of fish and some feeding (depending on your feeding habits) could have let to this level of nitrates.
Nopox is much faster at removing nitrates then it is in lowering PO4 levels, so I would still give this a first shot. But take in account to check the skimmer for wet skimming so the max nutrients find it way out.
Measuring zero PO4 is never really true in my opinion. I have been measuring zero for months now, but when I send an ICP test, they come back as 0.02 or 0.04 or 0.05... As we feed flakes, frozen, pellets, some phosphates enter the water but they are not always detectable.

Vodka or Nopox dosing I would start again just below the max allowed (< 3ml/25gal). In your case around 10ml and test after a week. If you have a doser, you can divide the dosing in 5 times to have a better and even adjustment.

I hope this helps... if not, 125gal new seawater to be ordered. I hope you are not in the middle of the country. Lol

I agree that measuring phosphate at zero usually never means zero. I don't however know how low it actually is.
Im going to do some more water changes and give some phosphate additions a shot, if it doesn't help ill start nopox dosing again.
Haha we have quite good saltwater delivery services here but unfortunately to difficult to deliver saltwater to a 3rd floor apartment, so artificial saltwater it its!

Mattres · May 17, 2018

HolisticBear said:
You've tried multiple NO3 kits? Any chance the regents are bad?

markstubb said:
i was just going to suggest the same thing.

Good point guys, i haven't tried a second test kit. I think i didn't question the result as i was searching for a problem and that presented as one.
I'll pick up another one on the weekend and see how it goes.

markstubb · May 17, 2018

Mattres said:
Good point guys, i haven't tried a second test kit. I think i didn't question the result as i was searching for a problem and that presented as one.
I'll pick up another one on the weekend and see how it goes.

Well it's a minimal investment that could potentially keep you from crashing your tank by fighting something that's not there

choss · Jun 7, 2018

Catching up on the thread. Your trip looks like it was awesome. Too bad we didn't connect in NYC. I'm glad the tank has bounced back. It really is a great looking tank. I use Flickr by the way and have no complaints. By the way, I have had a few corals cling to life and then suddenly start growing again. So maybe that will happen with your hammer.

Mattres · Jun 17, 2018

choss said:
Catching up on the thread. Your trip looks like it was awesome. Too bad we didn't connect in NYC. I'm glad the tank has bounced back. It really is a great looking tank. I use Flickr by the way and have no complaints. By the way, I have had a few corals cling to life and then suddenly start growing again. So maybe that will happen with your hammer.

Thanks @choss Yes the trip was fantastic! Was great to just be in and experience a different climate and part of the world i hadn't been to before. Was a shame we couldn't catch up, unfortunately time seemed to just disappear!
The tank is definitely looking better than when it was cyano infested, in the fact there is no algae to spot at all in the tank other than coralline algae which is covering most of the sand bed now.

Iv'e spent the last couple weeks playing around with dosing Seachems flourish phosphorous to see if i could raise phosphate a bit in an attempt to balance it out with the high nitrates.
The results have been interesting. I first dosed 2ml which should raise phosphate by 0.02ppm in 126 gallons. i dosed, waited 10 minutes then did a phosphate test which came back as a zero reading.
Knowing it must have added some phosphate to the tank i decided to perform the same actions every night until i got a reading. A week past and a total of 14mls was added with still no reading.
At this point I thought the test kit was a dud however it was a brand new test kit. I decided to do a larger dose to see if i could get a reading so i added 6mls to the tank. I finally got a reading of phosphate in the tank but it was only a slight reading of less than 0.02 and far off the 0.06 that it should have added. I upped the daily dose to 3mls a day for the week and again testing today the reading was undetectable.
The good news is nitrates have dropped from around 50ppm to 25ppm with no water changes in that time.
I'll continue to dose and monitor as well as get some water changes done over the next couple weeks. I really want to do an ICP test but need them to come into stock at the LFS.

I was at a LFS i hadn't been to before today and was in love with the acros they had on display, of course i have no confidence adding them to the tank yet so i didnt pick any up. They did however remind me of what i want in the tank and what i need to work for. I picked up an awesome little flame hawk and will try to get some pictures over the next week of the cute little guy.

choss · Jun 17, 2018

Matt I love Flame Hawks but have never owned one. Please post a pic when you have time. I'm curious if they play nice with smaller shrimp. Please let me know. I'm starting a list of potential fish for my tank and this one is near the top.

Wrangy · Jun 17, 2018

Yaayyy flamehawk

Glad to hear the nitrate issue is becoming less of an issue! I can't wait to see some new shots of a nice clean tank too haha

markstubb · Jun 17, 2018

choss said:
Matt I love Flame Hawks but have never owned one. Please post a pic when you have time. I'm curious if they play nice with smaller shrimp. Please let me know. I'm starting a list of potential fish for my tank and this one is near the top.

If by "play nice", you mean "do they eat them", yes, the flame will most likely eat the shrimp.