Patrick's 48 Gallon Reef Tank Build

ptrick21186 · Feb 18, 2023

Ok time for some updated pics of the tank. Just shy of 6 months old. Still fighting some ugly stuff but it's really not too concerning for me. Takes on a pretty neat purple color under the blue lights

ptrick21186 · Feb 25, 2023

Started dosing live phyto again. Think I'm gonna try shutting the skimmer off for a while and see what difference it makes. Need to get these nitrates up more.

ptrick21186 · Mar 3, 2023

Finally got my nitrates up to about 5ppm. Cyno bloom is starting to get pretty noticeable. Gonna do a water change on Sunday and see if I can suck most of it up.

ptrick21186 · Mar 12, 2023

Got the new lid the other day. Love it!

FYI pic is before I added the required spacers for the light mount. It doesn't overlap

ptrick21186 · Mar 12, 2023

Had to start dosing phosphate. Nutrient levels seem to be in a good spot now. Magnesium is starting to drop out of range. It was 1200 today. Started dosing that as well. Everything else seems to be stabilizing. Just need to keep an eye on the Mag, Nitrates, and Phosphates.

ptrick21186 · Mar 19, 2023

Cyano as really taken off since I lifted the nutrients in the tank. Seems to be out competing the what I still think are chrysophytes but very slowly. Hopefully once this bloom is over the tank will be pretty settled down. Hopefully.....

ptrick21186 · Mar 31, 2023

One of my chromis is MIA for 3 days now. No corpse to be found. Must have been eaten. Ugh......On the plus side the cyano seems to be calming down some.

ptrick21186 · Apr 10, 2023

The Cyano seems to have subsided. Tank looking pretty good for now and parameters are super stable. Found the 3rd Chromis.....or at least the Nassirus snails did. Guess that ends that mystery. Tank photo tomorrow. Did my WC kinda late and the lights are off by now.

ptrick21186 · May 6, 2023

Wow. Never posted that tank photo did I lol. Maybe tonight. Started running the skimmer during the day and shutting it off at night to prevent the phyto from being removed. Did this for about a week and my phosphates started dropping pretty fast. Gonna leave the skimmer off for the time being until the nutrients build up/stabilize.

Northern Flicker · May 6, 2023

ptrick21186 said:
September 6th, 2022

Ok so I figured out what was up with my RO unit. When I replaced the membranes I installed one of them backwards.....

Been there

ptrick21186 · May 6, 2023

Lebowski_ said:
Been there

And of course it had to be while I was initially filling the tank

ptrick21186 · May 7, 2023

Ok here's a more up to date pic of the tank

Northern Flicker · May 7, 2023

Looking real good. Is that a Royal Gramma I see?

ptrick21186 · May 7, 2023

Lebowski_ said:
Looking real good. Is that a Royal Gramma I see?

Ya!!!

ptrick21186 · May 31, 2023

Stopped dosing for a week to see how stable the tank is. Still need to keep dosing but the fluctuations aren't as drastic now. Starting to get some hair algae popping up. Stopped dosing N and P to try and get it under control before it becomes a problem. Also turned the skimmer back on as well. Perhaps once this subsides I won't have to does anymore nutrients.....

ptrick21186 · Jun 3, 2023

Well it seems I'm starting to get dinos now. Gonna kill the skimmer again and resume dosing nutrients before they get out of control. They seem to only like high flow areas. They're on both powerheads and the overflow

PR_nano · Jun 4, 2023

Hello, do you have all fish listed in your first post without 1 of the Cromis? Are you still using GFO? I'm working on stocking for my T90 and have 6 tentative fish planned. Trying to see if I will run into any nutrient issue with that amount.

ptrick21186 · Jun 4, 2023

PR_nano said:
Hello, do you have all fish listed in your first post without 1 of the Cromis? Are you still using GFO? I'm working on stocking for my T90 and have 6 tentative fish planned. Trying to see if I will run into any nutrient issue with that amount.

All fish minus 1 Chromis and the Firefish. I should probably update that huh? No longer running GFO as I'm struggling to keep the nutrients up in such a new tank.

ptrick21186 · Jul 18, 2023

Stopped dosing nutrients about a week ago. So far things seem to be stable. Did this after a large water change where I removed a lot of the hair algae. Seems to be in check. Maybe a few more WCs should take care of it. Most likely just the P and N I was dosing was fueling that. Gonna continue to let the tank simmer. About another month and a half and we'll be coming up on the 1 year mark!

ptrick21186 · Aug 8, 2023

Almost a month of not dosing nutrients and the tank is still pretty stable. N at 10 and P at 0.01. Been pretty aggressive with cleaning the algae and it seems to be slow growing back without the extra nutrients. Only thing I'm noticing now is without the excess algae the Ph has dropped. Nothing crazy but went from a lovely 8.2 to 7.9. Think I'll just not worry about it for now. Not trying to chase numbers.