Zibba's Reefs -- ADA 90P & Envision 100g

[zibba]

It uses a sicce syncra pump. I got it from an online vendor after a few days shipping.

Edit: why are you switching from the reef octo?

 

[KoleTang]

It uses a sicce syncra pump. I got it from an online vendor after a few days shipping.

Edit: why are you switching from the reef octo?

Unfortunately it is defective. The POV-DC1 runs like a dream for some people and others are having similar problems that I am having. I am trying to get a refund. Check out page 10 on this thread. Reef Octopus "POV" PRO-SSS-DC1 thoughts? - Reef Central Online Community

 

[Aquaph8]

Just curious, did you ever talk to Spectrapure about the silicate issue?

 

[zibba]

Unfortunately it is defective. The POV-DC1 runs like a dream for some people and others are having similar problems that I am having. I am trying to get a refund. Check out page 10 on this thread. Reef Octopus "POV" PRO-SSS-DC1 thoughts? - Reef Central Online Community

That's really unfortunate -- looks like a sweet skimmer. I've considered "upgrading" to the 8" or 9" model since the internal pump will allow me more room. I'm happy with the ATB though.

Just curious, did you ever talk to Spectrapure about the silicate issue?

No, not yet. FRAG's VP works there so I'll shoot him a message to see if he has any ideas and I'll report back.

After all the dust has settled, I think what happened is that I gave the neighbor too much 2-part and too much food to dose while we were away. The alk spiked (not sure how high) but it took 4-days to get back down to low 8s. The spike caused me to lose a few piece (BC Mad Hatter, BC Pearly Cadavor, RR Purple Flame and RR gold torch), the tips on the UC Ice/Fire echinata were indeed burnt (good call, Brett!), I had some tissue death at the base of two or three other pieces, and 3-5 corals browned out. All the deaths and inconsistencies caused the algae/diatom bloom. Needless to say, the SPS tank isn't looking that great right now. I spent about 10+ hours cleaning up the tanks and moving corals around this weekend and I still feel like there's a lot more work. Guess I have plans for next weekend...

I will say though that the ADA is looking really nice still even though I'm still battling that blue/green cyano/whatever. I sucked about 95% of it out yesterday and I'm going to see whether it comes back. If so (I'm guessing it will), I'll likely try putting carbon online for a bit and running chemiclean. It's a last resort and I don't want to move too quickly. I think it's all a product of feeding too much and adding in too many corals at once. Nothing good happens fast and all that...

 

[m88a2]

man, i just found your thread and all i have to say is great job. unfortunate that your sps tank hit a bump, but you obviously have the skills to bring it back. well done...btw that reaffirms my fear of never leaving my tank in the care of anyone for more than a day or 2, apparently thatmakes me a ***** in the eyes of my roommates.

 

[zibba]

Thanks for your comments m88a2! Really keeps me going!

I haven't posted in awhile as I was traveling a lot at the end of July and beginning of August. I'm home this week but gone again next week so I'm hoping to get this thread caught up. After we got back from the trip in late-June to see the two-part spike, we knew it was time to pull the trigger on an automated alk/cal system. I weighted several options and decided on the Bubble Magnus triple doser, since three other locals have had great success with it. The package I got came with three 1.5L Sea Side Aquatics containers:





I took about a week of measurements while fine tuning it. Then we'd measure every few days to make the appropriate adjustments. With all the issues I've been having, it's been a constant monitoring/adjusting process but I was very confident when we were both away for 4-days. There weren't any issues with parameters getting out of control.

 

[zibba]

I've continued to lose a lot of the new RR SPS, along with my nice Vivid Rainbow colony, which is really saddening. It's even more frustrating when so many of the other SPS have continued to do well. All of the RR SPS pieces that I lost STN'd from the base up. Once they started STNing, they'd take about 7-10 days to die away. I lost the feellicks, jamacian lemonade and purple flame for sure, while the sabertooth, thunder from down under and toxic are barely hanging on and the led zeplin, underwater wonder, and cherry bomb are doing fine. I also lost "sherbet swirl," "Valkyrie," "stawberry kush" and three unnamed pieces (all millies or prostratas). I can't say I've been able to pin-point what caused it. What I've done is several water changes and started running BRS carbon. With parameters inline and more stable, I've seen colors start to come back on SPS that have been in the system since last Jan/Feb, while the other RR pieces are staying pretty stagnant. All the while, the RR LPS and zoas that I picked up have done great despite the continued battle with that green/blue cyano (or whatever). I'll detail that in a late post.

I still have a few really nice unnamed RR pieces that I'm farming for our local "PROP" group and they're looking fine. I think they'll be alright (they've been in there for nearly 2-months now) but if they start to take a turn, I'm going to pass them onto a friend.

I haven't taken many pictures of the RR SPS yet, but the RR "The Phoung" doing pretty well (pictured below) -- it's a delicate coral like the red dragon and Hawkin's "echnicta," which I've had good success with so I'm hoping I can keep this one alive. I think this is going to be an awesome piece as it continues to color up.



And here's a picture of the RR Led Zeplin:

 

[zibba]

We have been really trying to hold off on adding anything else to the tank, but we came across a ridiculous deal late-July and couldn't pass it up. The LFS down the street from my house had a fish labeled as a "Whip Fin Wrasse" [EDIT: "High Fin Wrasse" thanks, evolved!] They clearly just picked a random name, but I knew exactly what it was when I saw it -- Cirrhilabrus naokoae. It's been eating great, integrating well with the choati and McCormick's and very personable. But it's one of those fish that never stops moving, and it moves fast! These pictures aren't up to par, but I wanted to share:

 

[zibba]

Here are some pictures of some of the SPS that have been in the tank for awhile, have lost some color and aren't going really fast, but are making a comeback (I hope!).

WWC Red Dragon -- this one is actually going pretty well still, just lost it's color a bit.


Hawkins [browned out but still hanging tough]


Oregon Tort -- color has remained pretty consistent, staying true to form as a slow grower


Strawberry Shortcake -- polyps are more exended since removing the pygmy angel -- color is slowly improving.



Picked this Gongiopora from RR -- nothing crazy, but my first gongi and it's doing pretty well



Move this Trachy into the Envision so it would have some more room to spread out. Very happy, but looks a little dull in this picture. In reality, it's very beautiful. You can see the diatoms are still an issue (try to ignore them...that's what I do -- don't ask me how that's working out).

 

[zibba]

I haven't been practicing my photography recently, so a lot of these pictures are so-so and have a lot of "noise" because my ISO was too high. I'll keep trying for better ones down the road. Here are a bunch of new additions and some other random shots of corals in the ADA under the MaxSpect Razor:

Reef Raft (RR) Warhammer Acan Hillea


RR Red Barron chalice


RR Blue Hippo Chalice (I bought the blue merlin, but I'm 99% sure this is the blue hippo -- not blue merlin)


RR Princess Favia


RR Sunset Rodactus


RR Nuclear Sunset Rodactus


Blue and Orange Ric (I think this came from reef2go -- it has since sprouted two babies, one of them is pictured on the left and the other I split off and it's on the rockwork)


Random Mushroom shot (few from reefs2go, a LFS called "The Aquarius" and Reef Raft)


RR Blue Hornet Zoas


RR Spawn Frenzy Blasto (this piece is beautiful -- can't grow fast enough!)

 

[zibba]

Tyree Watermelon


Fruit Loop Chalice


Mummy Eye Chalice -- Pretty awful picture, but it's at a weird angle and I can't get a full shot of it without shooting at an angel through the glass -- you get a full picture of the piece but it's blurry. Colors are a little weird here too. Oh well


Random Zoa/Paly shot (Nuclear Greens, Capitan Americas, X-mans, and Unique Coral's Purple Dragons. Jason Fox Psarmacora (sp?) in the upper left and Tyree Setosa in the upper right)


Metor Shower Cyphastria -- super colorful and a fast grower, it's running out of room on this rock

 

[evolved]

I thought you said they had it labeled as a "High Fin Wrasse"? Which could be considered a common name for naokoae, but "Whip Fin" would make it mis-ID'd as C. filamentosus.
/technicalities

Reefing wouldn't be reefing if it was simple. You'll find success again I'm sure.

 

[zibba]

I thought you said they had it labeled as a "High Fin Wrasse"? Which could be considered a common name for naokoae, but "Whip Fin" would make it mis-ID'd as C. filamentosus.
/technicalities

Lol, your recollection is better than mine. You're right, I just edited the post. It was definitely High Fin.

Reefing wouldn't be reefing it was simple. You'll find success again I'm sure.

True story. And, I hope so. The colors were looking so good at the beginning of June -- how quickly things can change! With your sage advice and patience, things will come around.

 

[zibba]

I've mentioned several times throughout this thread that I've been battling some blue/green algae/bacteria, which I believed was cyano but I had a hard time finding pictures of something that looked similar to what I had. The way it was forming reminded me of cyano -- matting out over the sand bed, rock work and occasionally my orange ball sponge and some chalice frags (that was the final straw). I had been trying to combate it via aggressive water changes for several months (siphoning it out very meticulously). No luck. I decided to continue doing the same and added carbon online, however, the decision to add carbon was also tied to my SPS taking a dive. I just couldn't seem to get ahead of it going this route. I could have tried a lights out treatment, but after looking at a bunch of different threads, I decided (very hesitantly) to try a Chemiclean treatment.


On Tuesday night, after a 25-gallon water change (~15%) on Monday that included aggressively siphoning out all of the blue/green whatever, we pulled the carbon off-line, turned off the skimmer, added two airstones and dosed the Chemiclean at 2/3rds of the recommended dose. The next morning (10 hrs later) when the lights turned on, we noticed some improvement. Two-days is the recommended wait period before the next water change. On Thursday night, the tank's sand bed looked sparkling and I didn't see any traces of the blue/green whatever -- confirming in my mind that it was a strain of cyano. We did another 25-gallon water change, and put the skimmer and carbon back online. The skimmer, as expected went nuts -- I pulled out about 5-gallons of saltwater.


My solution, rather than replacing the water right away, I let the skimmer pull out enough water to reduce the water level in the skimmer chamber (i.e., I didn't turn the autotop-off on). The next morning I replaced all of the saltwater that the skimmer took out and then adjusted the valve accordingly. It was a success.


Friday morning the tanks looked the best I've seen in several months and they're continuing to look great. I'm happy that the treatment was a success. I understand this is a temporary fix and that I shouldn't get my hopes up for this to be the end-all-be-all solution to my issue. At this point, I'm just hoping that I can stay ahead of it with a diligent maintenance routine. Though, I've read posts from some long-time, very successful, reefers that have used this as a matter of course every 6-8 months to freshen things up. I'm not sure I'll adopt that approach, but I'm enjoying the immediate effect.


After all of those water changes with Red Sea Coral Pro, which has a higher Alk and lower Mg than I normally run, my alk went up and my Mg came down (tested this morning). Here are the results of my tests:


Alk: 9.0 dKh (Hanna), 8.8 (Red Sea)
Cal: 450 (Red Sea)
Mg: 1360 (Red Sea)
Nitrate: 0.5-0.75 (just picked up a Red Sea kit)


I'm happy with these results but I'll continue to let the alk slip down a bit into the low 8s , high 7s.


I'm going to try and update the FTS soon too.


Have a great day,
Z

 

[Stomp]

Those are some great photos.

 

[cmaxwell39]

Sorry to hear about the troubles you have been having the last couple of months with the SPS tank. I love sps corals, but it drives me nuts that it sometimes seems like it takes about 5 min to upset them and at least two months to make them happy again. That is part of the challenge I guess.

Hopefully the cyano will stay away now that you have it beat back. Sometimes you have done everything you need to do to get it to stay away, but you can't tip the balance while it still has a foothold in the aquarium so drastic measures are needed. Hopefully this is the case for you.

Nice looking photos. That RR Led Zeplin is sweet.

 

[zibba]

Those are some great photos.

Sorry to hear about the troubles you have been having the last couple of months with the SPS tank. I love sps corals, but it drives me nuts that it sometimes seems like it takes about 5 min to upset them and at least two months to make them happy again. That is part of the challenge I guess.

Hopefully the cyano will stay away now that you have it beat back. Sometimes you have done everything you need to do to get it to stay away, but you can't tip the balance while it still has a foothold in the aquarium so drastic measures are needed. Hopefully this is the case for you.

Nice looking photos. That RR Led Zeplin is sweet.

Thanks for the compliments on the photos Stomp & cmaxwell39!

Drives me nuts too and sometimes I wonder why I don't just stick with LPS and Softies. Love the look of fully grown SPS reefs and knowing that you grew them from frags is just that much more rewarding -- I guess that's what's keeping me going right now.

Have a great night y'all.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Gorgeous corals!! How about an updated FTS?

 

[zibba]

Thanks for stopping in and the compliment Krista! I meant to do FTSs yesterday but ran out of time. I'll try to get one up before heading out of town tomorrow. Cheers!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Love the update photos! FTS is a must! HA!