Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

I topped off the system and dosed another 1/2 teaspoon; enough to drop phosphates by 0.08 ppm. Even though the green cyano is still growing it’s finally slowing down. I’m once again hoping I’ve got phosphates where they need to be. I’ll know soon enough.

My xenia is getting its bluish brown color back. The nem is doing awesome. Even in the 6500K light I can see it glowing. My Kenya tree is still brown, just not chocolate brown. I know I have to be close.

I’ve been looking into different ways to implement an ATO. I’ve decided to go with a gravity fed ATO. Now I need to find a suitable container. For now I’ll have to go with a smaller container that’s suitable as a reservoir. I need to make sure the reservoir will fit under the stand but be higher than than the sump.

 

[Fishy888]

I got my water tested today at the LFS. My PH was 8.3 but I noticed they used the freshwater master card to measure it so who knows? My nitrates were zero so clearly there’s enough demand for nitrates because there are definitely plenty of nitrates from what I feed. My salinity is 1.026, which I knew it was more or less.

While I was there I got a couple nassarius snails. She might never have them again so I figured why not. I’ll need to thin the population of hermits a bit (ok maybe a lot) but I need to be able to keep snails in my system since I need algae kept at bay. I’ll only allow hermits that are far too small or far too big for the shell size of the snails.

 

[tbrown]

I got my water tested today at the LFS. My PH was 8.3 but I noticed they used the freshwater master card to measure it so who knows? My nitrates were zero so clearly there’s enough demand for nitrates because there are definitely plenty of nitrates from what I feed. My salinity is 1.026, which I knew it was more or less.

While I was there I got a couple nassarius snails. She might never have them again so I figured why not. I’ll need to thin the population of hermits a bit (ok maybe a lot) but I need to be able to keep snails in my system since I need algae kept at bay. I’ll only allow hermits that are far too small or far too big for the shell size of the snails.

Blue Legs are the best. They typically will only take a Cerith.

 

[Fishy888]

Blue Legs are the best. They typically will only take a Cerith.

I’ll see how they behave first. I have one hermit that wears a turbo snail shell but I think it’ll work out. That hermit is too large for the shell.

 

[Fishy888]

So here are a couple pictures of the new guys. They’ll be finished with their acclimation in about three hours.

But check this out…

I’m pretty sure it’s a clutch of eggs. The question is, whose eggs are they? I wonder if a Mexican turbo snail laid them. Then again maybe something entirely different laid them, or they’re not really eggs at all and I’m just crazy. Come to think of it, some of you just might agree. Seriously though I’m going to try to figure out what eggs these are and if I can raise these in my sump or better yet in a system where they’d be the only inhabitants. Of course it may not be feasible to try but boy if these are viable snail eggs that would hatch and I had a real chance of success that would rock the house. Who would be a good person to ID these assuming I can’t figure it out myself?

 

[Fishy888]

While I was there I got a couple nassarius snails. She might never have them again so I figured why not. I’ll need to thin the population of hermits a bit (ok maybe a lot) but I need to be able to keep snails in my system since I need algae kept at bay. I’ll only allow hermits that are far too small or far too big for the shell size of the snails.

I need to clarify this. I knew and know that nassarius snails live in the sand and keep it clean and that they don’t eat algae. Before long I also want to get snails that will clean the rocks of nuisance algae and that can right themselves. I should have stated that. That’s why I’m going to either move a bunch of hermits out of the DT and split them between the sump and a 10 gallon tank that I’m going to cycle before long.

Snails would probably do a better job of cleaning the rocks than most hermit crabs or urchins for that matter since the smaller snails can access very hard to reach places more consistently. However my Halloween hermit can mow algae down to bare rock. Of course they can’t get into most small crevices, though smaller ones probably could for a time, at least until they grow too big. If they weren’t so costly and so likely to kill one another over shells, I would have a tank full of them! Then again if I got a super small one I probably could keep it without any trouble as long as I can supply it with appropriately sized cone snail shells. Come to think of it I need to get shells for all my hermits soon. eBay is going to be the cheapest option.

At any rate my Halloween hermit is hands down the biggest, most beautiful, and hardest working hermit in the tank. In fact he’s the hardest worker in the system period.

I decided not to dose any LaCl, at least for a few days. My goal is to slow down the growth of cyano and other nuisance algae but certainly not to stop algae growth altogether.

I’ve been dosing LaCl over a two week period. I’m going to look through this thread to see how much I’ve dosed over that period. That will help me to figure out how much phosphate has accumulated between the end of the first course of LaCl, which was several months ago, and the beginning of the course I’ve just finished. Knowing how much phosphates accumulate in my system will help me fine tune things so that I can keep parameters more stable, hopefully without having to use anymore LaCl. I want to add more diversity instead. There are so many inverts and fishes I want to add as well as more corals. I also need to add some more rock. All these should help stabilize things.

One of my metrics regarding when to stop dosing LaCl is how fast either green micro algae and/or diatoms grow on the glass. I’m at the point where I’m getting a light coating on the glass each day. I’m also watching the speed with which green cyano is growing. It’s growing still but much more slowly than it was when I first started dosing LaCl.

I’m pretty sure now that I’m at a place where I can stop the LaCl dosing and start building a beefier CUC, and allowing them to deal with any algae issues. At least, to a point. The idea is to have everything besides nuisance algae/bacteria and pest anemones taking up any nitrates and phosphates that make their way into the system.

I can export excess nutrients by removing undesirable algae or by removing excess worms. I have a ton of bristle worms currently. Some of them are very big. This is good because they’re helping clean the sand bed and the rocks. I could potentially trap some and get rid of them, and the nutrients they’ve taken up would be out of the system and new worms would take their place. Before long though my wrasse will be big enough to eat any baby worms. That will help with export too.

I’m sorry for the massive wall of text but I wanted to post these ideas here so I remember to implement them. Of course, as always I want help others too by posting these ideas. Whether it’s my failures or my successes, I want to learn from them. I also want others to learn from them so they become more successful with their own reefs.

 

[Fishy888]

I’m getting more in the way of filter feeders such as spirorbid and micro feather duster worms since I started feeding more heavily a couple of months ago. They definitely help and to me they look cool. I’m finding them in my overflow on the glass and the plastic of the corner overflow cover. The red micro dusters look awesome. The spirorbids are cool looking too. I was finally able to get some really good pictures tonight of some of them.

This is the first time I’ve been able to see and photograph the spirorbids displaying their crowns.

At this point it’s pretty clear that I’ve been feeding a ton relative to the demand of the fishes, corals, and inverts I had when I decided to feed heavily. I now have a bunch of asterinas, brittle stars, bristle worms, hair worms, and pods. Of course, I have the aforementioned spirorbid and micro dusters in abundance too. Its certainly not a bad thing. I love the micro life as much as the macro life.

I haven’t seen my nassarius snails since they buried themselves right after acclimation. I suspect there’s plenty for them to eat down there. They’ll come up one day soon when I feed them some frozen food. So far neither pellets or frozen have coaxed them out of the sand.

All my other animals great and small are doing well. The wrasse almost looks like he grew slightly although it may well be my imagination. What I do know however is that he’s fat and happy. All of my fish are getting along well. If there was ever any doubt about whether the wrasse was accepted by his tank mates, there’s none now. In fact all of the fish swim together, and the original fish are all more active and utilize more swimming space than before the wrasse settled into Perseverance Reef.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Some people scrape spribribids from every surface with the logic " well if you let them grow, they're going to ruin your pump".

Um, they're obviously already in there.. Clean the pump every 6mo and you're good.

I welcome them in my sump..I don't like the look of them on the murdered out back wall as it kind of kills the infinite depth feel by making the wall visible.

Id love if my entire fuge and filter cup compartment were covered in them. Great little free filters.

 

[tbrown]

Some people scrape spribribids from every surface with the logic " well if you let them grow, they're going to ruin your pump".

Um, they're obviously already in there.. Clean the pump every 6mo and you're good.

I welcome them in my sump..I don't like the look of them on the murdered out back wall as it kind of kills the infinite depth feel by making the wall visible.

Id love if my entire fuge and filter cup compartment were covered in them. Great little free filters.

Sometimes they look cool in pictures though... They look like little stars in the night sky, twinkling for your enjoyment while clarifying your water for your enjoyment so you can see your fish and corals easier for your enjoyment.

In other words, enjoy them! They're not going anywhere except everywhere.

 

[Fishy888]

After watching things over the last few days I dosed some more LaCl to drop phosphates by 0.08 ppm. Afterwards I topped off the system. A few minutes later I snapped these pictures.

It amazes me how much the drop in phosphates makes the anemone come to life. I haven’t gone out of my way to feed it except for a couple of times lately. It usually catches some frozen food though when I feed it.

You can see the unsightly green cyano growth in these pictures. I’ll perform another ALK test by tomorrow but I think the rock still has more phosphates that need to get bound by lanthanum. If ALK starts dropping like a rock I’ll know I’ve arrived. Of course I hope to have the dosing stopped long before then. I would think there’d be stressed coral and filter feeders before lanthanum started pulling ALK from the rocks.

I got a few pictures of the corals that I moved when I rearranged the rocks. They all look better! This is the cabbage leather coral.

Here’s the Kenya tree.

This coral has shown the most dramatic improvement.

Here are the two mushroom corals.

The one on the right is getting more lines in it but both are more open than they were. The shade is definitely helping them. Eventually they’ll be shaded even more.

My GSP, especially where they’re more shaded, look better. They too will be shaded more eventually.

I got some decent pictures of the wrasse too.

He’s more amazing than I thought possible. It helps that he’s my favorite shade of yellow. He lends as much interest as he does color to the reef and he’s not even fully grown yet. I’m sooo tempted to get a second yellow coris (although it’s not even in the genus Coris). If I could breed these amazing fish it would be awesome. I’m just not sure how well another one would do in my system especially since there’ll be more rock added to my system before long. Then again I’m understocked and I don’t intend to get tons of rock, at least not for the display.

 

[Fishy888]

A couple of interesting facts. Fact number one is that I’ve been using a 1/2 TBSP measure instead of 1/2 tsp like was in my head. I’ve been using that spoon for about a week. Instead of dosing enough to drop phosphates by 0.08 ppm I’ve been dropping them by 0.24 ppm each dose! Ouch.

Even scarier is that you’d never know I’ve dropped phosphates as much as I have. My corals are a rich brown color, my anemone looks as good as always, and my fish and inverts are doing great. I just tested ALK and got 11.5 dKH. That’s a mere 0.1 DKH less than last time.

Most likely I have enough nitrates now that the true amount of phosphates locked in the rock is becoming more obvious. The nuisance algae would be dying back if phosphates were getting low. I would think if I was bottoming out my phosphates I’d be seeing big ALK swings too with as much phosphat-e as I’ve been dosing. Of course I’ll be watching things closely.

I considered cutting back a bit on food. I’m still feeding heavily for the creatures I have. I have more animal life now than when I started feeding heavily, but I haven’t raised the amount I’m feeding. As a result, though portion size hasn’t changed, the feedings are less heavy relative to the amount of desirable life forms being fed. I’m also exporting nuisance algae every few days. Therefore I don’t believe the amount I’m feeding is contributing significant amounts of phosphate to the system.

As for the foods I feed I don’t think they’re significant enough in phosphates to have caused such a high level of phosphates. It’s certainly true that even very high quality pellets are usually higher in phosphates than frozen foods. I typically feed NLS pellets twice a day. They get about three times as much of my DIY frozen food as they do pellets, if not four times as much.

When I sourced the ingredients for my frozen food mix I used wild caught seafood as well as flash frozen peas and broccoli. I also used distilled water. I know seafood, especially shrimp and scallops, are treated with phosphates.

I soaked the shrimp and scallops for a few minutes to allow the phosphates to leach into the soak water. I used distilled water for the soaking and rinsing steps as well. Of course, I got rid of the soak/rinse water and used new distilled water to blend everything together.

Most likely, the dry rock I started with had high phosphates. Since I had next to no nitrates I ended up with dinos. Eventually I got enough nitrates in the system and enough good bacteria as well as beneficial organisms via truly live rock, that the dinos went away. It seemed like I was where I needed to be for nitrates and phosphates since there was very little cyano and no algae to speak of.

I got a Salifert phosphate kit and tested my phosphate levels. I got 1+ ppm. At that point I decided to dose LaCl to bring the phosphate levels down. I also got a Hanna checker for phosphorus. It seemed like my phosphates were much lower after a couple weeks of dosing and I noticed coralline algae start growing slowly. At that point I backed off the dosing. This was in November.

A couple of months ago I noticed my Kenya tree bleaching. I lost some of my micro dusters and my coralline was dying off. Even my starfish were less numerous. At that point I started feeding more heavily, especially the frozen food. Within a couple of weeks the Kenya tree gained color as had the rest of my corals. It happened much faster than I expected. I started dosing LaCl again. I’ve stopped dosing here and there to observe things. Clearly I have a ways to go before my phosphates get to where they need to be.

 

[tbrown]

A couple of interesting facts. Fact number one is that I’ve been using a 1/2 TBSP measure instead of 1/2 tsp like was in my head. I’ve been using that spoon for about a week. Instead of dosing enough to drop phosphates by 0.08 ppm I’ve been dropping them by 0.24 ppm each dose! Ouch.

Even scarier is that you’d never know I’ve dropped phosphates as much as I have. My corals are a rich brown color, my anemone looks as good as always, and my fish and inverts are doing great. I just tested ALK and got 11.5 dKH. That’s a mere 0.1 DKH less than last time.

Most likely I have enough nitrates now that the true amount of phosphates locked in the rock is becoming more obvious. The nuisance algae would be dying back if phosphates were getting low. I would think if I was bottoming out my phosphates I’d be seeing big ALK swings too with as much phosphat-e as I’ve been dosing. Of course I’ll be watching things closely.

I considered cutting back a bit on food. I’m still feeding heavily for the creatures I have. I have more animal life now than when I started feeding heavily, but I haven’t raised the amount I’m feeding. As a result, though portion size hasn’t changed, the feedings are less heavy relative to the amount of desirable life forms being fed. I’m also exporting nuisance algae every few days. Therefore I don’t believe the amount I’m feeding is contributing significant amounts of phosphate to the system.

As for the foods I feed I don’t think they’re significant enough in phosphates to have caused such a high level of phosphates. It’s certainly true that even very high quality pellets are usually higher in phosphates than frozen foods. I typically feed NLS pellets twice a day. They get about three times as much of my DIY frozen food as they do pellets, if not four times as much.

When I sourced the ingredients for my frozen food mix I used wild caught seafood as well as flash frozen peas and broccoli. I also used distilled water. I know seafood, especially shrimp and scallops, are treated with phosphates.

I soaked the shrimp and scallops for a few minutes to allow the phosphates to leach into the soak water. I used distilled water for the soaking and rinsing steps as well. Of course, I got rid of the soak/rinse water and used new distilled water to blend everything together.

Most likely, the dry rock I started with had high phosphates. Since I had next to no nitrates I ended up with dinos. Eventually I got enough nitrates in the system and enough good bacteria as well as beneficial organisms via truly live rock, that the dinos went away. It seemed like I was where I needed to be for nitrates and phosphates since there was very little cyano and no algae to speak of.

I got a Salifert phosphate kit and tested my phosphate levels. I got 1+ ppm. At that point I decided to dose LaCl to bring the phosphate levels down. I also got a Hanna checker for phosphorus. It seemed like my phosphates were much lower after a couple weeks of dosing and I noticed coralline algae start growing slowly. At that point I backed off the dosing. This was in November.

A couple of months ago I noticed my Kenya tree bleaching. I lost some of my micro dusters and my coralline was dying off. Even my starfish were less numerous. At that point I started feeding more heavily, especially the frozen food. Within a couple of weeks the Kenya tree gained color as had the rest of my corals. It happened much faster than I expected. I started dosing LaCl again. I’ve stopped dosing here and there to observe things. Clearly I have a ways to go before my phosphates get to where they need to be.

I never get any detectable phosphates on my Salifert and I'm dosing 10ml a day in my 125...

 

[Fishy888]

I never get any detectable phosphates on my Salifert and I'm dosing 10ml a day in my 125...

My Hanna gives me almost 0 as well but I’m going on the algae growth I’m seeing as well as coral color. That 1+ ppm reading was from six months ago.

 

[Fishy888]

My Hanna gives me almost 0 as well but I’m going on the algae growth I’m seeing as well as coral color. That 1+ ppm reading was from six months ago.

The accounting of my readings and dosing were more or less from when I set up the cube and started realizing the extent of the phosphate problem. I might edit the wall of text later to make it easier to understand.

Today I’ll be making RO/DI in preparation for a water change as well as top off water for the next week or so. With the summer like warmth hopefully the cold water isn’t as cold so that the efficiency of the membrane will be even higher. It’s hard to believe but my pre-filters and DI resin is going on five or six months of age. I’ll double check that though. If so it’ll soon be replacement time. I might try to add another stage or two this summer.

Another thing I need to do is to clean the grow lights on the sump and finally screw the brace they’re on back to the top frame, which the DT rests on, so the lights shine over the sump instead of in the side. My chaeto does get light currently but it'll get much more. That will be a huge help to the chaeto. I originally took it down to fit the basket into the sump where the chaeto currently resides. I also had a not so perfect system for dosing LaCl and water from the system into my 5 micron filter socks. I’ve decided to take it out and just make a place to hold filter socks at the bottom of the drain line. Plus the more I get my chaeto growing the less I agave to mess with LaCl, although I’ll probably always need small amounts here and there. Hopefully much less than now.

 

[Fishy888]

Tonight I got some good news. A good reefing friend is giving me a light she no longer uses. I’m not sure of the wattage but it’s a hybrid metal halide/t5 system. It’s got 4 T5 lamps and a single HQI halide. This makes sourcing lamps easy as pie and affordable too. The only question is what wattage the halide uses. I might end up having to replace the ballast if the wattage is less than 250 watts.

This light was custom made for a cube though it was for a smaller, more shallow cube. I’m thinking it’s a 250 watt halide. Even though I’m excited about the new light I do have some concerns.

1. PAR
I likely have too much PAR for what I have
currently. Dropping to 250 watts AND
going to 14000k will likely drop PAR
significantly, although since it’ll be closer
to the water surface AND there will be
daylight lamps in the T5 slots PAR might
still be decent. As long as I can keep some
color sticks and crocea clams I’ll be happy.
Well that and hopefully my nem will be
just as happy as it is with the new lighting
and not want to move around constantly.
Time will tell. I might have to replace the
T5s though. Hopefully there won’t be a
huge shock to corals and nems from
potential PAR loss.

2. Depth
As I said earlier depth might be an issue.
I plan on keeping mainly stony corals.
I’ll keep some soft corals still but
most of the xenia are going to get
relegated to the sump. I need to be sure
the lighting can penetrate deep enough. I
think the fact that my water is as yellow
as it is will help in that there’s less PAR on
the sand bed than there would’ve been
with crystal clear water. Once I get the
light mounted I’ll make some flocculant
and that’ll hopefully clear the water. That
should bring up the PAR in the lowest
reaches of the DT.

3. Color Temperature
I can attack this two ways. First I can use a
14000k halide and daylight spectrum T5s
or I could run a 10000k halide and blue+
t5s. If there’s a 14000k halide I’ll likely stay
with that. That would be my preferred
combo for aesthetics. It would promote
coralline growth since most coralline
seems to prefer bluer lighting. It will also
keep nuisance algae at bay especially with
the grow lights over the sump.

If the halide is 10000k or less I might leave
it and get a couple blue+ t5s and a couple
true actinic t5s. This would probably yield
more PAR though not necessarily. I need
to research this a bit.

Either way I’m keeping my current halide. If something goes wrong or the coverage isn’t wide enough (the light has to be able to cover an area 29” x 29”) I’ll leave things the way they are. Before I even take the current halide down I’m going to test the new lights which will hopefully cover the whole tank. I’m pretty sure it will though.

I did feed the anemone today. It ate a decent sized piece of my DIY frozen food. It ate quickly too. All my animals look great today. Under the current lighting my wrasse is as yellow as it could possibly be, a yellow gem. It’ll be interesting to see what he’ll look like in 14000k halides (which is what I really want to go with).

After I dosed LaCl Friday I waited until yesterday to dose more LaCl. I dosed a REAL half teaspoon, dropping phosphates by 0.08 ppm. I’m definitely seeing a slowing in diatom and green cyano growth now. My corals and nem still have good color. Even though I keep saying it, I believe I’m getting close to being done with the task of leeching phosphates from the rock. Time will tell.

 

[Fishy888]

Whelp I just got an amazing frag of green nepthea from @sfin52. Thank you bud. It looks awesome!

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I think you'll be happy with the t5 hm combo. Even running coral + / blue + bulbs gives a really nice pop and is visually pleasing

 

[sfin52]

Whelp I just got an amazing frag of green nepthea from @sfin52. Thank you bud. It looks awesome!

I hope it does well for you

 

[Fishy888]

I hope it does well for you

It’s in the tank now. It hasn’t opened up yet but I just added it in. I’m sure it’ll do quite well. Thank you again.

 

[Fishy888]

I got the new light today. It has a 150 watt 10000k halide and two of the blue t5s work.

There’s a very noticeable drop in PAR, or at least it seems that way. There’s a ton of salt creep that needs to be cleaned off of the glass that protects the lamp from splashes and keeps the halide’s UV from escaping into the tank. I also have the light supported temporarily by two pieces of wood which also blocks a decent amount of light.

It appears the nepthea is trying to open. It’s not there yet but I see signs of polyps.

I turned off the halide and took some pictures under just the blues. I couldn’t capture the full fluorescence of the corals (that are actually able to fluoresce) in pictures but here they are.

The GSP started retracting before I got to take a picture of them. Clearly they’re not putting out enough par for the GSP to stay out. The GSP are five or six inches off the bottom so the lamps might all need to be replaced. I’ll know soon enough because tomorrow I’m cleaning the glass and plexiglass on the fixture. I’m also going to take the feet off of the fixture so I can space the temporary supports out. Those two things could well double the par as well as cast a bluer light than it can currently.