Ryan's Reef 73G SPS and Wrasse Dominated

RyanCSGO · Nov 14, 2017

Rakie said:
Food for thought -- If you have trouble keeping nutrients up, chaeto is creating a problem.

Adding chaeto to my aquarium was one of the worst things I ever did for the reef, removing it was the best move I had made. I keep it pretty simple now, my sump has a skimmer in it. No socks, no bio balls, no chaeto. None of that stuff helped, but it all harmed -- It was way too efficient, and sucked my tank dry of all nutrients, causing paling.

yeah, I've been contemplating removing it over the last couple days. Maybe i'll pull it out tonight when I get home.

Rakie · Nov 14, 2017

RyanCSGO said:
yeah, I've been contemplating removing it over the last couple days. Maybe i'll pull it out tonight when I get home.

No need to do anything too hasty right away -- I'm a big proponent of the 'sit and watch' "method". It's good to be able to spot trends, if this problem doesn't get better, it may be worth your time to remove it. My Chaeto was sucking down 5ppm no3 per day, and doubling size every 4-5 days. Seemed great but it was a pain to keep in check. It lived in a kritter keeper I drilled out and placed in my sump.

RyanCSGO · Nov 14, 2017

Rakie said:
No need to do anything too hasty right away -- I'm a big proponent of the 'sit and watch' "method". It's good to be able to spot trends, if this problem doesn't get better, it may be worth your time to remove it. My Chaeto was sucking down 5ppm no3 per day, and doubling size every 4-5 days. Seemed great but it was a pain to keep in check. It lived in a kritter keeper I drilled out and placed in my sump.

honestly i did jump the gun when i put the chaeto in. I was hardly registering any no3 and couldn’t register any po4. Based on the chaeto growth over the last month I’m sure there’s not enough of either to support both the corals and chaeto. I’m only registering no3 now because i have been dosing potassium nitrate, and I’m now seeing a cyano. I’m betting an imbalance between the no3 and po4 is the cause.

Went ahead and took the chaeto offline. Will see what things look like over the next few weeks.

RyanCSGO · Dec 8, 2017

drtrash · Mar 2, 2018

Ryan I know it’s painful to recall but was the first tank that came apart a crystal dynamics?

RyanCSGO · Mar 8, 2018

It's definitely been a while.

The wife and I unexpectedly have to move. Although its unfortunate, we have turned this into something positive.
We are in the process of buying our first home. When we first found out we decided to tare down the tank and sell everything thinking we would need the money more than the tank.
well, that wasn't the case. we have decided to keep the tank and will be restarting it once we move to our new home, not sure how soon that will be.
heartbreaking to know i could have left the tank running and made the move with it, but in the long run this will make for a much easier move.

Will be back ASAP