Perseverance Reef

[Projects with Sam]

I recommend a little pipe tape in the threads if they're coming undone from vibration. or a dollop of silicone.

 

[tbrown]

 

[Fishy888]

I recommend a little pipe tape in the threads if they're coming undone from vibration. or a dollop of silicone.

That’s great idea! Thank you!

 

[Fishy888]

The tank looked the best it has in months this afternoon.

I’ve churned the waters a bit more since then. I changed out both socks first. I’ll have to wash them soon. They’re working amazingly well though which has been a huge blessing.

The fish look happier too. If I keep at it I’ll not only have stability, I’ll have an awesome looking tank without it looking yellow. I’ll also have happy fish, corals, and inverts. Good bacteria will have a place to live since the pores won’t be clogged.

 

[Fishy888]

Whelp my RO/DI is now testing as 2 TDS. Thankfully I’ll be getting the kit from BRS with the sediment filter, carbon block, and the mixed bed resin within the next week to two weeks. While I’m at it I’ll be ordering some ROX 0.8, most likely the half gallon size. Gotta make the shipping cost worth it. In the meantime I’ll have to use what I have until then.

Both of my digitatas have turned the corner it appears. The green digi is about 90% open and the purple digi is about 10% open. I think the reason they were closed was because I was a little overzealous about blowing the debris up into the water column. I blew the mulm that settled on the digis off of them somewhat forcefully and damaged some of the polyps, especially on the purple digi.

The coralline that’s been growing on the glass (and that’s gotten scraped when I scrape the glass) is starting to grow on nearby rocks. This is good news.

As you can see it’s not exactly covering the rock but it will be before long.

I’m also starting to see signs of hair algae and/or cyano, so my nitrates are likely coming up too. I’ll probably start running the skimmer on a timer before long so that at least some nitrates will be left in the system. I’m also going to trim the xenia back a bit. Of course it’s not just the xenia using nitrates but they’re the fastest growing coral in the system and the largest.

 

[Fishy888]

It’s going to be a bit until I can get to a laundromat to do my filter socks so I tried my hand at washing them in a 5 gallon bucket of hot water. I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, especially since I didn’t use bleach.

I did a bit more deep cleaning of rock and sand tonight as well. I can tell there’s a noticeable difference in how quickly the dust settles, so to speak. It settles down much more quickly now. There’s much more to do still but a little each day will help tremendously in the long run while keeping things stable.

I’m getting more GHA once again but nothing like before. The better filtration helps tremendously. So do the heavier feedings. With the slow and steady GHA growth I hope to get a couple of tuxedo urchins. I know they’ll likely mow down my coralline to at least some extent but it’d be worth it. I might consider some other urchin types but tuxedo urchins are number one on the list right now.

 

[tbrown]

If you think your nitrates are bottoming out, be careful doing too much deep cleaning.

 

[Fishy888]

If you think your nitrates are bottoming out, be careful doing too much deep cleaning.

I’m getting them up slowly. I’m only deep cleaning once a week right now for that reason.

 

[Fishy888]

I dodged a bullet tonight. Actually two. My two digis were glued to smaller rocks. They weren’t glued down to the rounded cave like rock they sat on. Well while working on the tank I accidentally knocked over the rock my purple digi was on. I found the frag after a while. It broke cleanly from where I glued it to the smaller rock previously. I have the frag epoxied in place now. It’s mounted directly to the cave like rock now. Bullet number one dodged.

While I was searching all over for the frag I moved my halides to the left so I could get my hands back where the rock landed. It took me a while to find it. By the time I found it I realized to my horror that I parked one of the halides right over the right hand center brace. The plastic softened and deformed. I quickly moved the halides back to where they belong and I put my fingers under it to push the softened plastic up so the brace would continue to stay rigid. It worked. The brace, though deformed, is still solid and just as flexible as it always has been. No more, no less and no signs of bowing glass. Bullet number two dodged.

It’s not quite as bad as the images make it look. I didn't get a top down image of it because I didn’t want to mess with the lights again tonight. It’s completely solid though even where the plastic sagged a bit.

I did more deep cleaning after seeing what accumulated around and under the rocks I moved around today. I also scraped the front glass some more. I went through two filter socks today. It was that bad. The sand looks a bit better each time I do this however. Hopefully soon I’ll have the bulk of it out of the system.

 

[Fishy888]

The tank looks awesome today. My corals look great for the most part too. Even the purple digi has some PE which is amazing considering what happened to it yesterday.

It’s been a while since I posted an image of the devil’s hand frag.

My reverse Superman is staging a comeback.

My zoas are looking awesome.

The fish are doing great too. They just seem happier and less skittish than they were for a while there.

My hermit crabs have been out and about more. I also noticed there are still some micro feather dusters left. During the recent mini crash the wrasse cleared out all the ones I could see. I hope they stick around.

I’m tempted to try a skunk cleaner shrimp or two but we’ll have to see.

 

[Fishy888]

I’m happy to say that this is the most consistently clean this reef has been yet. Still my nitrates are coming up a little more and I’m starting to see my hermit crabs out more. Most of the rock in here has no algae to speak of but I see signs that it’s poised to reappear. That’s a positive as long as I don’t have it explode. The good news is that with the filtration I have in place the nuisance algae should be easier to control, I.e. less big swings in nutrients.

At this point it’s time to take a hard look at things. First, thank you #Cronies and#Cronieslarly @F i s h y for helping me really think about stability, and @fishguy242 for the best skimmer I’ve ever had hands down. And thank you to everyone who follows my build thread whether you comment or not. You’ve given me great advice which has helped me tremendously. My system would still look bad and most importantly my animals would still be suffering big time. Instead they’re happy and utilizing the whole tank.

This system has been running since mid to late July so it’s been running almost 7 months. It has had its share of chemistry swings, algae’s, etc. I have a lot of soft corals which help mop up nitrates, and phosphates to a smaller degree. I have 3 SPS corals that are hanging in there and some beautiful fish.

The reality though is that it takes very little to snap pieces off of my digitatas. It’s happened so many times now that working in that area scares me. That’s because of my phosphates being so high. Sure I could leave them high and they’ll still grow if I have everything else where they need to be but I need to drop them if I want to have good, strong coral. Even the live rock likely gets more brittle as calcium phosphate binds to it.

I need to get more flow desperately. I’ll likely need more flow than the closed loop and my wave maker can provide. I’m thinking about adding smaller pumps especially behind the rock work. I’m thinking about making the top four “holes” my closed loop return and the lower ones my drain. I’d love some constructive feedback on this.

As I think of other things I need to improve on I’ll post them in this thread but please let me know if there’s something any of you see me doing that I shouldn’t be, or if there’s something I should be doing and am not. Thank you.

 

[F i s h y]

I’m happy to say that this is the most consistently clean this reef has been yet. Still my nitrates are coming up a little more and I’m starting to see my hermit crabs out more. Most of the rock in here has no algae to speak of but I see signs that it’s poised to reappear. That’s a positive as long as I don’t have it explode. The good news is that with the filtration I have in place the nuisance algae should be easier to control, I.e. less big swings in nutrients.

At this point it’s time to take a hard look at things. First, thank you #Cronies and#Cronieslarly @F i s h y for helping me really think about stability, and @fishguy242 for the best skimmer I’ve ever had hands down. And thank you to everyone who follows my build thread whether you comment or not. You’ve given me great advice which has helped me tremendously. My system would still look bad and most importantly my animals would still be suffering big time. Instead they’re happy and utilizing the whole tank.

This system has been running since mid to late July so it’s been running almost 7 months. It has had its share of chemistry swings, algae’s, etc. I have a lot of soft corals which help mop up nitrates, and phosphates to a smaller degree. I have 3 SPS corals that are hanging in there and some beautiful fish.

The reality though is that it takes very little to snap pieces off of my digitatas. It’s happened so many times now that working in that area scares me. That’s because of my phosphates being so high. Sure I could leave them high and they’ll still grow if I have everything else where they need to be but I need to drop them if I want to have good, strong coral. Even the live rock likely gets more brittle as calcium phosphate binds to it.

I need to get more flow desperately. I’ll likely need more flow than the closed loop and my wave maker can provide. I’m thinking about adding smaller pumps especially behind the rock work. I’m thinking about making the top four “holes” my closed loop return and the lower ones my drain. I’d love some constructive feedback on this.

As I think of other things I need to improve on I’ll post them in this thread but please let me know if there’s something any of you see me doing that I shouldn’t be, or if there’s something I should be doing and am not. Thank you.

I'm glad you are happy and excited about your reef that's the best we all hope for... keep swimming and remember sometimes less is more. Keep those hands out...

 

[Mschmidt]

What was your plan for the closed loop? Would splitting each return give you the directional flow out want, or is it simply a gph increase you need?.

 

[Fishy888]

What was your plan for the closed loop? Would splitting each return give you the directional flow out want, or is it simply a gph increase you need?.

I’ve been thinking of splitting off the returns. I also need a GPH boost. I have a pump in mind that’ll give a 7500 GPH boost more or less. Once that’s in place I’ll have ~35X turnover total. I want to get to 50X though minimum.

 

[Mschmidt]

That's right. All the flow!

 

[Fishy888]

As good as things have been I bought five new acros. Ok, no I didn’t. I did get another three hermits and a coral banded shrimp though.

He’s been in the tank for about 3 hours now. He’s being skittish but that doesn’t surprise me. He’s slowly exploring the tank though. His right claw came off while in the bag but I know he’ll grow that claw back during his next molt.

I never thought I’d want a CBS in my reef but this one came right up to the glass when I walked up to the tank he was in. Kathy liked him a lot and so did a friend of ours who was with us. I don’t have any other shrimp and although they eat bristle worms I have a self sustaining population of them.

I also ordered 1/4 gallon of ROX 0.8 and the kit to replace the sediment filter, carbon block, and resin for my RO/DI unit. My resin is totally shot. My dual inline TDS meter reads the same after the membrane as after the resin. I’ve been using the water I made up to top off but I really want to use as little as possible. I might have to use it all though depending on how long it takes for the kit to get here. It’s still “in picking” according to BRS. Hopefully it’ll get shipped tomorrow.

Edit:

My BRS order got shipped tonight after all. It’ll be here Thursday.

 

[Fishy888]

Last night I discovered that Dory has some kind of growth that reminds me of khaki colored cyano in her HLLE lesions. They’d been healing, even the largest patches have come a long way. I asked what was going on in the fish disease forum. It looks like it’s a bacterial infection. They advised to monitor things and if it gets worse they advised me to treat it with a broad spectrum antibiotic in a treatment tank. Thankfully I can set one up if push comes to shove but I’m hoping she fights it off. She’s come so far. Perhaps this will strengthen her immune system in the long run.

Pretty soon, this afternoon in fact, my filters, resin, and carbon will be here. I might get (or fabricate) a carbon reactor but I want to see if just tossing some into a filter sock would be enough to polish the water.

Saturday my new refractometer arrives. I’ve been fortunate thus far. I’ve been able to calculate my salinity pretty closely by carefully mixing my saltwater using 5 half cups per 4 gallons of RO/DI. When I’ve gotten it tested it’s been within .002 SG of 1.026 SG. My goal though is to never need to get anything tested anywhere but her at Perseverance Reef. It’ll also help me to match salinities in my saltwater/RO/DI storage. When I buy animals I can match the bags’ salinities with that of my system. The more I can stabilize things the more stable I can keep things.

The bacterial infection drives home the need to have a “medicine cabinet” so to speak for my animals. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately but this puts the exclamation point on that sentiment!

My CBS is still hiding but it’s in a spot where I can see her. I wonder if she’s hiding because there aren’t any other shrimp in there. I always hear and read about how no other shrimp can be kept with them, especially peppermint shrimp but my girl was in with plenty of peppermint shrimp and cleaner shrimp.

It turns out that my CBS is a female. Sometimes I forget that in most shrimp species (and shrimp like species) the male is smaller than the female. I haven’t had any shrimp since my last one died, which was shortly after I got this system up and running. That shrimp lived about 2 years though so she lived a full life. Hopefully my new girl (she doesn’t have a name yet but she’s going to get one soon) will live that long too.

 

[Fishy888]

I thought I should add this as a separate post. Dory has come a looooong way since she’s come to the Reef. In the picture I just posted you can see how much better she’s getting as far as the HLLE is concerned.

This is how the HLLE lesion in question looked when I got her. It’s not the best image but you can see the depth of it.

This is from last night.

I mean, it’s not 100% healed by any means but it’s nowhere near as deep as it was and there’s even blue pigment coming through. It’ll never be 100% perfect but I’m happy she’s come this far.

It’s such a miracle she survived much less come this far. Not only has her HLLE healed as much as it has but she’s grown nicely. She’s grown longer, taller, and wider. I mean, she was maybe 1/8” at her widest point when I got her. She’s easily half an inch wide now.

I’d like to be able say it was because I’m such a great reefer but I’m certainly not. I’m much better at it than when I first started though, thanks to R2R. Rather I attribute it to her Creator. I’ve had swings and other issues but thankfully her diet has been a big help and, again, so has God. My system is maturing too so there are far less swings than there were. I’m getting things dialed in. In the end though without God my reef wouldn’t be as good as it is. In fact it wouldn’t be at all. That goes for all our reefs.

At any rate I’ve got more improvements planned. Dory will get better. I’m excited about where things are going! The future of Perseverance Reef looks better than ever!

 

[Projects with Sam]

I thought I should add this as a separate post. Dory has come a looooong way since she’s come to the Reef. In the picture I just posted you can see how much better she’s getting as far as the HLLE is concerned.

This is how the HLLE lesion in question looked when I got her. It’s not the best image but you can see the depth of it.

This is from last night.

I mean, it’s not 100% healed by any means but it’s nowhere near as deep as it was and there’s even blue pigment coming through. It’ll never be 100% perfect but I’m happy she’s come this far.

It’s such a miracle she survived much less come this far. Not only has her HLLE healed as much as it has but she’s grown nicely. She’s grown longer, taller, and wider. I mean, she was maybe 1/8” at her widest point when I got her. She’s easily half an inch wide now.

I’d like to be able say it was because I’m such a great reefer but I’m certainly not. I’m much better at it than when I first started though, thanks to R2R. Rather I attribute it to her Creator. I’ve had swings and other issues but thankfully her diet has been a big help and, again, so has God. My system is maturing too so there are far less swings than there were. I’m getting things dialed in. In the end though without God my reef wouldn’t be as good as it is. In fact it wouldn’t be at all. That goes for all our reefs.

At any rate I’ve got more improvements planned. Dory will get better. I’m excited about where things are going! The future of Perseverance Reef looks better than ever!

she is lucky you got her!

 

[Fishy888]

she is lucky you got her!

Thank you. Both Dory and Turkey, aka Pepper, were rescued from the same tank and owner. They’re both doing really well. In fact, since I started feeding the veggie blend which contains garlic, they eat about two to three times as much as they were. My other fish eat at least twice what they were eating. I’m glad for that.