Redo Taking Lessons From My Failures - The Dino's won Round1

[NS Mike D]

ughghh. the more I look at this, the more I realize I am going to flip (mirror) it to better hide the HOB pipe and blend in with the overflow weir. Also, I think the lone larger rock will be better on the other side, I had a lot of corals that didn't like being in direct line of the sump outflow. It's probably better to have that area more open.


here we go again


I am also going to thin the heard on the circulation pumps. 1 Hydor Koralia Nano (240gph) and 3 Tunze Turbelle Nano 6020 (660 gph) is probably overkill.

 

[NS Mike D]

Saturday update. 5 gal water change. Partial siphon of the HOB fuge as the CPR HOB has no mechanical filtration and not designed for any. Without pods, bristle worms and a fuge full of cheato, I am concerned about detritus. build up.

Still playing around with the aquascape. I have to call it a day very soon. Too much tinkering,.

I removed the Hydor pump, 4 is too much. So now it's three Tunze turbenelle. Left, right and a middle (actually a lower back left. I put them on an Ocillate 2 hr cycle with 90 min delays on each. I also have them with 2 hr full on twice a day to kick up detritus and then all off for 3 hours at night to give the fish a break.

The nem didn't like the flow changed and walk to the back of the rock. Not the first time I had a nem settle on facing the back wall. Murphys Law of Nems.

The cheap fuge grow light for the lower sump arrived. 12 W led 630nn 6000k 5" x 5". $17.


sump with new light. The under the cabinet lights that were lighting the cheato has been moved back to the top, taken off the apex and back to a simple on/off for when I need light to work on the sump. I removed the pexi glass over the egg crate to give heat from face of the lights a place to escape. I have checked the egg crate a few times and no signs of heat.

And this is the full set up with the guts in veiw

The DT with the CPR HOB fuge with the hydor nano skimmer (that sits too high costing efficiency). Cheap 24 marine led light over the fuge
RapidLED Corona Lights
Apex classic display
Side cabinet for Apex, plugs etc
Sump
5gal rodi ATO water container to left of cabinet hidden by couch and end table

 

[NS Mike D]

Lost the tuxedo urchin today. I was worried if could survive this ordeal. My snails are doing well but I didn't know of the tank would produce sufficient algae and coraline for it. It was a great invert to have while the tank was overrun.

Love the little creature. When I am positive that the tank will be a good home again, it will be nice to add another.

Right now the 4 astraea snails and the 2 narcissus snails are trudging along eating the extra food and chowing on the glass and rock algae film. I cleaned the astraea durind the rip clean and now they have a nice coraline coating in their shells. If only it would grow on the rocks as quickly.

 

[NS Mike D]

Some concerns. NO3 is 64. PO3 is -.16. The lower sump cheato is growing, but I had to cut back so much of the HOB cheato, it's way too small to make an impact.

I am left needing to cut back feeding which is a problem because of the Mandarin. The DT does not have a pod population and it will be several weeks before the pods that showed up in the HOB start reproducing adults.

I've been feeding once a day a cube of mysis with a cube of either brine or SF bay marine. I will cut back to one cube and hope it's enough for the mandarin.

I need to solve my skimmer issue. It's a Hydor nano, but the dang thing need like 9" of water depth to work properly and neither sump works. I have it in my HOB but since the water outflow slots are above the water line I think it's just re-skimming the same water as most of the water flows righty past it. These number scream for carbon dosing but without a properly working skimmer that could be a bad.

Right now i have about 1/2" of wet light skim in the cup. I will try to put it in he DT but last time I did that too many micro bubbles leaked out the bottom. I don't think I have a better option.


Alk is 8.5 -9 dkh. My CA reagent is bad, so I i don't have a good number for that until my refills arrive this week. pH is 8.31 and temp is 79.7°

One more issue. Since the new aquascape with the open space, turns out the the clowns, coral beauty and mandarin have decided that all want to call the back left corner home. The clowns are aggressively defending the area, and the CB just won't hear of it. The CB keep challenging by swimming on it's side along the sand bed under the clowns and tries to hold its ground. The clowns will hold their ground and peck at the CB. Some scale damage in the CB last week, but no new damaged.

When the Mandarin go to the corner, it too does not budge while the clowns nip.

There is a carpet nem in the rock inches away, that I am hoping will occupy the clowns interest. The female visits it often and nips at a tentacle - I understand this is how the build up an immunity to the toxins - so perhaps this will lead to a host relationship.

Also, once algae starts growing, I think the CB will spend more time picking at the rock work and less time in the clowns corner

 

[NS Mike D]

I was able to move the skimmer in the DT so out flow slots are below the water line to create flow into the skimmer. I made a vodka/vinegar DIY mix to mimic NOPOX and stared carbon dosing today

You can see the water line at a proper level. I can't do that in my sumps

I can live with the hardware in the front of the DT during this period. No micro bubbles being pulled down.

FTS

OK,. let's see of the NO3 eating bacteria shows up and if the skimmer can pull it.

 

[NS Mike D]

just a few hours. and I can already see much better skim, even if though it's way too early for the carbon dosing to be effective. Years of not adding and removing that skimmer and I finally found. a spot where it can work right, even if it's an eyesore. After this, period and when the cheato, corals and rocks mature and and unable to keep nutrients in check, I would replace the skimmer with one that would fit in one of my sumps.

 

[NS Mike D]

one day skim, I've never has skim this dark or bubbles in the cup this thick. No doubt the move to the DT is paying off, as I don't think this can be carbon dosing just yet. I am optimistic this will help bring down my NO3.

 

[NS Mike D]

New Kh reagent came in and tank is 10.1 dkh. 5 gal water change

Very happy, TDS meter came in for RODI. TDS between RO and DI was 2 and coming out of DI was 0. I can put the new filters when they arrive in the closet until meter says time to change.

I made a little frag rack for my zoas and took them off the sand bed

Skimmer didn't restart after a power flicker this morning. I noticed the water was cloudy (carbon dosing) this afternoon. I will need to replace the impeller. It crack a few weeks ago when I was trying to remove it to clean.


I have some little bubbles on a rock. Watching it closely. It doesn't look like dinos, so hoping it's just air leaching out. HOB sump is looking better, but I'm going crazy waiting for that cheato to start growing. It does look a lot better. I dropped a snail in the sump to help out with the detritus that goes to that sump.

I'll test NO3 and PO4 tomorrow to see how the carbon dosing is going,

 

[NS Mike D]

I lost the cleaner shrimp last night. The carbon dosing and feed reduction worked too well. NO3 went from 64 to 0 ppm and PO4 went from 0.16 to 0.02 ppm.

So I will stop the carbon dosing, go back to 2 cubes a day so the mandarin can eat and I dosed about 10 drops of phyto feast for the pods and zoas.

The pods are looking good, a bunch of adults that look ready to have breed and tons of little dots scooting about

I'm struggling to keep that madarin fed without the rollercoasters. This next week should be good

 

[NS Mike D]

1ml ann 10ml syringes arrived to with refractometer calibration solution, airline and a brine shrimp net (for pod harvesting


It was another productive day. My carbon dosing efforts crashed my NO3 from 64ppm - 0 . I could see the dang dinos making their comeback, so I stopped dosing, and went back to normal feeding. NO3 just tested at 0.5 ppm so that's better. I also calibrated my refractometer the right way tonight, and my tank was at 1.028, so I siphoned a half gallon from the sand bed and pulled a pump that look to have dinos and scrubbed it down. Coral are looking good so far. I have until May 5th to find the sweet spot feeding the mandarin and keeping NO3 and PO4 at reasonable and steady numbers.

Arriving May 5 from my day in the WWC zoo:

WWC Firefly Zoanthid
WWC Tasers Zoanthids
Scrambled Eggs Zoanthids
Jason Fox Sector 001 Favites
Green Birdsnest
Frozen Goniopora
Red Montipora Cap


This gives me 10 zoa frags for the garden

 

[fishguy242]

caught up quite a ride ,looking forward to watching this grow

 

[NS Mike D]

The phyto arrived.

16oz of nanno from Mercer, Ferlizer, airline tubing, 2 rigid lines. 2 pipettes, 2 syringes and tips.

I had food safe sanitizer I use for home brewing. I used this but did rinse it with rodi. Not sure what it would do to phyto.

RODI to make salt water and rinsing

Refractometer to make 16 oz salt water to 1.022 SG. Don't trust the mixing ratio on the salt bag (IO), the volume is low so error margin is very tight. I eyeballed 1/8 cup and over shot 1.035 before diluting

had one of these in one of my spare parts bin from when I was hatching brine

and the spare air pump

16oz 1.022 SG saltwater. about 12 oz of nanno (I held back some) 1ml fertilizer and a window for sunlight

I don't think this will be ready to harvest when the pods arrive, so I held back about a 1/4 cup and I have phytofest in the fridge to hold the pods over.

And so this is step one for the pod culturing.

 

[NS Mike D]

quick update for today

K 9.0
Ca: no test
Mg. 1400
SG 1.026
T 78.6°
Ph. 8.16
No3 1.5ppm
PO4 0.06ppm

 

[NS Mike D]

ughh. So I thin, it dinos and the are taking over fast. I was hoping it was just diatoms, but I've seen this before with the Kenya Tree. It closed up two days ago (today is day three) and I can see that brown cover on it's tips.

I siphoned the sand last night and this morning I stirred the sand clean but it's covered in a carpet of this stuff now.

I am going to order a microscope and post in the dino thread.

I knew I was taking a big risk with the carbon dosing but NO3 was at 64 and rising fast. I didn't think it could bottom out that fast

 

[NS Mike D]

Went lights out yesterday. NO3 was 4+ today. Did not do the high value test.

The HOB was really bothering me looking like the dinos moving fast with fuzzy, stringy growth with bubbles so I removed the rubble rocks, 80% of the water and the cheato. I rinsed the water though a mesh bag, rinsed the cheato and took about 1/3 of the rubble rock that was free of visible dinos, scrubbed rinsed and returned back to the HOB fuge. The rest of the rock was left out.

close up of a trouble area:

after the clean up.

 

[j.falk]

If you have dino issues again...try removing the sand bed. I had a serious dino problem last year...so I removed the entire sand bed and I haven't had any problems with dinos since.

 

[NS Mike D]

I split the culture in anticipation of the pods arriving. I took 8oz of phyto out of the 32oz bottle (which started as 16oz each of mercer and and saltwater) and mixed it with 8 oz salt water a 0.5ml food in a 16oz bottle and then replenished 8oz of saltwater to the 32oz bottle.

17g Instant to16oz water = 1.022 SG. The math on that was fun ;Vomit

I prefer to use the phyto fest in the pod culture as it's been the fridge for sometime (doesn't smell foul thought).

 

[NS Mike D]

Look what arrived early today:


Atlantic Biotechnology tigriopus californicus. Vert happy with the density and activity with these pods. Lots of adults.

I threw together the a home with a hermit crab tank that I forget why I got it. It's been in the pile of excess for a few years just in case of a day like today

 

[Flippers4pups]

I just came out of blackout after 81 hours.

Build Thread - Flippers reef 125 gallon

Water change water ready for tomorrow. Current tank status: And we are out of the water!: White edges on the Monti monster shows the extreme growth patterns! Crazy! It growing on to the back glass and is that freaking close to the front glass!

www.reef2reef.com

 

[NS Mike D]

I just came out of blackout after 81 hours.

Build Thread - Flippers reef 125 gallon

Water change water ready for tomorrow. Current tank status: And we are out of the water!: White edges on the Monti monster shows the extreme growth patterns! Crazy! It growing on to the back glass and is that freaking close to the front glass!

www.reef2reef.com

nice, are you easing back the lights and if so what's the plan. I'm on 50 hours and not sure how much longer I want to go