My 125 Gallon Mixed Reef: Flames are here!

[revaltion131]

Current FTS (6/26/12):

 

 

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Haven't been around for quite awhile, didn't realize it'd been almost 2 full years until I checked the dates on here so I won't even try to resurrect a thread that old. I'll just start fresh, like I'm doing with this tank.

 

Though the tank has been up and running for nearly three years now, it feels like I'm on a fresh run, and it's because I sort of am. I started with a Solana back in 2008 and quickly moved up to this 125g tank that has been a nightmare thus far. The short version of the tank's history is that I haven't been able to give the full attention and planning it needed. As we all know with saltwater, that means bad things happen quickly and take months (or years) to recover from.

 

My goal for the tank is an SPS-dominated mixed reef. The obligatory FTS:

 

125 Gallon Saltwater Aquarium

 

As you can see, my arms are not long enough to clean all of the algae off the front and sides of the tank. I have to remove the hood about once a month to get all of that done. And even in this iffy and crooked shot, you can see that I am battling a bryopsis problem. That is slowly coming back under my control. The tank is currently in a partially finished basement, hence the dark and gloomy surroundings.

 

Equipment:

 

125 Gallon Tank, standard 72" long

30 Gallon refugium

72" Odyssea(spelling?) fixture: 3x250w MH HQI running XM 20,000K, T5's, and moonlight LEDs

Eheim 1262 Return Pump

Tunze 9010 DOC Skimmer

Collection of Koralia 2, 4, and their newer 750gph powerheads for flow

 

I do have to make a tank move, just across town, in about 8-12 months so I'm starting that planning super early. I'm sick of using a HOB overflow (don't go this route if you don't have to, seriously, don't) so I'll be buying a spiffy drilled tank at that point. If I can restrain myself (and I sure hope I can) I'll stick with the 125 gallon tank. If not, well, my wallet is already shaking... Anyway, other changes I will make at that point are going to be upgrading and buying a nice acrylic sump/refugium with more space. I want to get my skimmer into the sump or in-line with it and I'm not satisfied with the turn over of my current return pump so I'll most likely improve upon that at that point as well. If you have any recommendations, on acrylic manufacturers, better pumps, and even other skimmers, I'd love to hear them.

 

Other improvements I know I'll be making sooner are to replace the reflectors with either Lumenarcs or Lumenmaxes. I'll also be changing up the flow in the tank and probably going with some sort of configuration with MP40's, a wavebox(es), or other, better sources than what I have now. My work is also going to begin requiring me to do some travel so that speeds up my intent to look for a controller. Again, I am completely open to suggestion.

 

Livestock:

 

Understaffed Clean-up Crew consisting of some hermits, Emerald Crabs, and a couple of snails

1 Neon Goby

3 Lyretail Anthias (1 changing male, 2 females)

Started with 4 lyretails, one was too starved to save

1 Pyle's Fairy Wrasse male

1 Finspot Wrasse (Xenojulis margaritacea) male, oldest fish, been with me through quite a lot

1 Coral Beauty

1 Flagfin Angelfish: RIP 6/24/12, combo of causes. May try again in the future.

1 Blue Throat Trigger male

 

As for corals, I have a psammacora (an SPS) that I'm am working my butt off to recover (only thing left of my original Solana besides rock) and a kenya tree that is thankfully doing very well. I still hope to add a pair of clowns, probably Ocellaris, and several neon gobies, but that's it for fish. In the next couple of weeks I'll be doing a full refresh of my CUC and I may pick up a fromia or linckia starfish as well. My fish are all doing well but two of the anthias came to me thin. One is what I would call emaciated as you'll see in the pic below, but she is eating and acts to be otherwise healthy. Because of just how thin she is, I'm thinking 50/50 chances and hoping for the best.

 

Emaciated Female Lyretail Anthias

 

I'm intentionally overfeeding to make sure that she and the other skinny anthias get what they need, so it's not helping with the bryopsis, as you'll see in the pics that follow. To deal with the bryopsis, I'm getting as much direct flow on the problem areas as I can, doing 10% water changes about every three days, and running PhosGuard. It will be a pain with the overfeeding, but I'd rather have bryopsis than starving fish. Without further ado, here are some pictures of the fish that my brother was kind enough to get for me (my camera stinks).

 

Finspot Wrasse

 

Pyle's Fairy Wrasse Male

 

Lyretail Anthias

 

Flagfin Angel by LisaW87, on Flickr

 

Bluethroat Trigger Male

 

Comments, questions, concerns? Have at it!

[revaltion131]

Had a worrisome day or two starting on Friday. My Flagfin had been scratching at his gill plate a bit over the previous couple of days, but just normal behavior and no serious signs of illness. I got home Friday evening to find the gill plate in question completely torn up, as he'd been aggressively scratching it on the rocks all day. Also, the eye on the other side of the body was starting to show signs of pop-eye, but it was only in a specific area. After research and some help from the angel people over on Reef Central it became pretty clear that this was flukes, as my original thinking was. Here's a not-so-great picture of the sick fish.

 

 

The immediate treatment I was able to enact was adding Seachem's Garlic Guard and Focus to the fishes' food. The obvious symptoms showed immediate improvement. Four days later, the gill plate is completely healed up and the eye is almost back to normal. However, given this was more than likely a species of fluke parasite I'm going to give the system about 15 days of PraziPro treatment just to be certain. To anyone considering the reef-safe aspect, it is reef-safe with exception of a couple of species of worm, none of which I have. I'll keep data here about the dosage and effects I see. The downside is that I'm pretty sure this will set me back in my in my bryopsis management as you need turn off protein skimmers and activated carbon. Does anyone know if running PhosGuard or a substrate of that manner would have an effect on the PraziPro efficacy?

 

Also, I'm ordering new bulbs (XM 20,000Ks) and getting my CUC squared away this weekend. I'll be adding some chaeto to the halimeda in my refugium as well. Last time I got chaeto it had grape caulerpa and aiptasia hiding in it, so hopefully none of that this time ! Hopefully that stuff will help to at least keep the bryopsis in check while the skimmer and substrates need to be inactive.

[JBM]

sounds like you have had lots of whoes with this tank. The most important thing is to have faith & never do anything irrational. Keep up with your w/c's

 

if your sump is big enough (idk if it is) maybe you might want to put the angel down there for a week to let it heal (think refugium). The slow flow of water, plus other algaes & tasties will make it feel better.

 

 

Good luck & i look forward to seeing new pictures

[revaltion131]

There is definitely not room for this guy in my sump. I'd leave in the tank anyway, as no one bothers him and it offers the most hiding places and cleaners if he needed them. Thank you, though. I can't begin to express the troubles I've had so when I saw him having some problems I was about in full panic mode!

[revaltion131]

So my lighting planned has changed already. I'm getting a 72" Odyssea fixture with 3x250w HQI, 4xT5s, several moonlights, and all the ballasts, etc, that go along with it. I had a 24" Current Outer-Orbit on my old Solana and loved the fixture. The opportunity to get something similar for what I was going to spend already on my lights was too good to pass up. My only concern is that I may need to redo the hood to fit over the fixture and allow for proper cooling but the hood needs some repair work anyway. I picked up some chaeto to put into the refugium today and I'll be getting the fixture on Friday. I will probably look to get it set up on Saturday.

[revaltion131]

Wooo new lights are on the tank and it's sooooo much better! We decided to get rid of the hood altogether as it just wasn't going to be easy in any way to do regular maintenance on the tank. We'd have to pull the hood off for all sorts of things. For a cover, we cut some thin plexiglass so that it would lay right on the lip of the trim.

 

Bad news time. My skinny anthias, as mentioned in the top post, kept eating but just not well enough. Lost her yesterday. My angel that has been looking better has been dumpy and not eating much today. I am hoping that he was just stressed from my spending hours working in the tank without any lights on it. We'll see how he does over the next couple of days. Fingers crossed!

 

New pix! I apologize for not having the time to do some color correction.

 

 

 

[JayMC]

I like the new lights! I think you get a better color and I think it looks better without the hood as well

[revaltion131]

Thanks! I really lucked out finding someone that was selling an AIO-fixture, saved so much headache. I'm also happy that it didn't really fit under the hood. It just looks so much better!

[revaltion131]

I'd originally decided to not treat the system with PraziPro but my angel has been not-so-great the last couple of days and my turning-male anthias is showing signs of the flukes having spread to him as well. So I did a 60 gallon water change tonight and per instructions, I treated the system with 7 teaspoons of PraziPro. The directions also recommend adding something like Stresscoat. I have an AmQuel+ that does the same thing so I treated with an appropriate dosage (2 fl. oz). My only concern is that with adding the AmQuel, I will really watch the oxygen closely as Prazi requires the skimmer to be off. There should be more than enough agitation happening in the system to keep the water well oxygenated, but I've been bitten by that during a bad power outage.

[revaltion131]

First day into the prazi treatment. The trigger worried me at lunch today as he didn't eat one bit and showed erratic swimming behaviors. I fed a couple of hours later, just formula one pellets, and he ate, but not terribly voraciously. If you know triggers, that's not a good thing. At dinner tonight he tore into the food per usual and was the first to tear in to the new algae sheet, so he's back to normal. Everyone else is acting normally and the Flagfin angel is starting to eat a little bit more. He won't take anything out of the water column, however. He's looking actively for food along the bottom of the tank but it's like he can't see the pellets down there. I'll have to keep watching him closely and I hope this passes as the treatment goes through.

 

Well, livestock's good minus a slightly-peeved leather (it could be way more contracted and it's still giving me PE, but the water conditions are worrisome. My ammonia is a color touch past 0 ppm, but not high enough to read as .25. The nitrite, however, is definitely .25 ppm. AmQuel+ (see last post) says you need to wait about 24 hours in between doses, which it had been, so I added more and went a bit more generously this time as I hadn't completely dosed up to my system's water volume last night. I am hoping to see improvements tomorrow as doing a water change would really be a problem with the prazi efficacy.

[revaltion131]

Quick lunch-time update (it's awesome to work 5 minutes from home). Nitrites and ammonia are back down to 0, woohoo! Everybody's eating normally and corals look good. Bryopsis too, unfortunately. The flagfin angel is definitely more active and did pull some pellets out of the water column today. He showed enough excitement at the frozen food to have me thinking he might finally start eating it again soon. Also, the anthias with the gill problem (caused by the flukes, from the research I did) is starting to look better.

[JayMC]

glad to hear!

[revaltion131]

Thanks! The fish are definitely looking better. I'm torn right now between doing what I should probably do (continue with the prazi treatment) or do some mega water changes and see if I can't make my pest algae disappear. I had to fight off dino for about 8 months before it finally just disappeared. It looks like it's coming back, on top of the bryopsis.

[uglyfish]

Thanks! The fish are definitely looking better. I'm torn right now between doing what I should probably do (continue with the prazi treatment) or do some mega water changes and see if I can't make my pest algae disappear. I had to fight off dino for about 8 months before it finally just disappeared. It looks like it's coming back, on top of the bryopsis.

 

Good to hear the fish are recovering.

This hobby can be so frustrating - but it makes success that much sweeter.

[revaltion131]

Good to hear the fish are recovering.

This hobby can be so frustrating - but it makes success that much sweeter.

 

It sure does. The fish are finally all doing well and eating satisfactory amounts so yay, I can finally stop overfeeding. The bad part about my PraziPro treatment was needing to have the skimmer offline. My algae went out of control and I've got dino again, weee. The dino went away last time when I was finally able to get regular maintenance going again so I hope that this will do the same after a couple of ~40% water changes. I turned the skimmer back on Saturday night and the skimmate is almost black. I'll post pics before I clean it this afternoon.

[revaltion131]

As promised above, here's a picture of my skimmer cup after running again for about 48 hours.

 

 

I'm not going to do a PraziPro treatment again until I have the bryopsis under control. I do not think that the issues I'm having with my Flagfin Angel will be helped any by treating with prazi again immediately. Also, I think the tank will only take more damage from the issue of having to have the tank running without the full compliment of filtration, as the dino problem coming back suggests.

 

I'm going to start treating with Kent's Tech M and I'm two days in. This thread was a great read (if I'd found something similar on NR, I'd link to that, I know many NR folks don't care much for RC) and has a little more information than I thought I needed to know about approaching bryopsis in this manner. My current mg is at 1740 ppm but I was stupid and forgot to measure my Mg before I dosed for the first time, so I can't be certain what the hypothesized 30% increase would be for me. I'm going to base it off of 1600 ppm so I'll have a goal of 2080. I'll keep my Mg here for 2 weeks (the period in which you should see an effect on the bryopsis) and increase it further if necessary. Here's the thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...=kent+magnesium

[revaltion131]

This is one of those bad news/good news days.

 

The bad news is that my Flagfin finally bit it yesterday. I'm not really sure what it was, but I'm pretty certain their rep for being difficult and delicate has something to do with it. Kind of considering collection problems or I just didn't catch the flukes soon enough. It could be a combination of things. I wrote to WWM for help (before the fish passed on) after not getting anything on forums and have not heard back from them either. I may try one again in the future.

 

The good news ties in with the bad. The angel, of course, found a quiet place in the heart of the rocks to end his time. So, to recover the large fish, I had to tear apart a huge pile of rocks, but it gave me the opportunity to redo my aquascape. It was needed. The anthias loved it as the moving seemed to kick all sorts of pods into the water stream and they were going nuts. I think I've got a much better flow set-up going now (still want to go up to Vortechs, though) and it just plain looks better. I don't think I sacrificed any places for the angel and wrasses to swim in and out of, but I know the trigger's mad because he lost his little fort.

 

Also, I'm finalizing my fish live stock plans. The fish I will be adding for certain are a GSM Maroon Clown pair, a Potter's Angel, and a Gold-Spotted Rabbit. Depending on how the tank feels in terms of stock, I may also add a Rhomboid and/or Flame Wrasse.

 

Finally, the bryopsis is dyinggggg!! Heh, haven't gotten my Kent Tech M dosed enough to be doing the damage. I trashed my old kits, thinking they'd gone bad but my new kits, Red Sea Pro (well-reviewed) tested Nitrates at 0 and Phosphates at .04, so even if they're false readings due to the amount of algae, it's much better than I thought it was.

 

I will post pics of the rockwork tomorrow after the water's cleared.

[revaltion131]

The bryopsis is definitely dying! So happy to finally have that stupid stuff dying off for certain.

 

Here's a pic of the new rockscape. It's still not nearly as clean and interesting as I'd like, but it's a lot better than it was. I think to get what I really want, I'll need to wait until I buy my new tank/move/upgrade and buy some new rock as well as use some structuring equipment such as PVC piping and cement. Excuse the somewhat dirty water.

 

 

I got a pic of my trigger that almost doesn't need adjusting. It's a good thing because I don't have time to fix it up today. It could use a little color toning and a good cropping, though. This guy is definitely turning into one of my favorite fish. I wish I'd taken a little more time to plan on him before buying as a pair would have been fantastic.

 

 

I think I'm adding a new camera to the list of "equipment" I need to buy for this tank.

[Catch22]

Have you tried just pulling your rocks out one by one and scrubbing them with a scrubber and rinsing the algae away?

 

http://www.citylivingstores.com/mas_assets/full/565996.jpg

[revaltion131]

Actually, my manual removal involved pulling it out then using a super-hard bristle toothbrush to scrub off the rest. With it dying, it's coming off really easily, so I'm pulling a bunch out tonight and doing a smallish water change to pick up the left-overs.

[uglyfish]

Actually, my manual removal involved pulling it out then using a super-hard bristle toothbrush to scrub off the rest. With it dying, it's coming off really easily, so I'm pulling a bunch out tonight and doing a smallish water change to pick up the left-overs.

 

If you're going to pull out the rocks, you could soak them in a hydrogen peroxide solution overnight and then rinse and soak in normal saltwater for a few more days. If you were to do this in quarter batches of rock, you could eliminate your algae pretty quick. Peroxide destroys algae.

 

If you don't like peroxide, then pulling out the rock in stages and leaving it the sump without light for a week or 2 should do it. Scrubbing doesn't work for me.

[revaltion131]

Thank you both for the advice.

 

The manual removal wasn't really working in terms of getting it to go away either. There's no way you can get every little bit of anchored algae. It was more for looks than anything else. Using peroxide or setting my rock aside scared me as the stuff was all over the rocks (think of those REALLY bad tanks that literally look like a field of grass) and I couldn't exactly go lights-out for 1-2 weeks on my display. I was worried about doing something like that only to have it get started up again on that rock from bits I couldn't find on the sand or on other rocks.

 

The stuff is definitely dying off now and my dino is going down as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I have actually finally managed to starve the stuff off. Also, with it clearly dying, I've stopped dosing Tech M for the time being. My Mg is at 1700ish with my base from my water changes. To get the 30% increase speculated as necessary I'd need to dose it up to 2200ppm. That's a lot...Also, I kinda had a boo-boo and tossed my good dKH and Ca tests instead of the expired ones. I'm wary of getting Mg that high and not being able to track the other two.

[revaltion131]

Phew, practically the full day put in on tank work.

 

Got the first of two MP40's last night and got it set up. After a short assembly problem ( user error) I got it set up and running. We'll see how it goes playing to get the modes just right. Sure is nice to not have three different powerheads in one corner...

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

I also got my second refugium set up today. What a pita, this whole not 100% thinking things out before I do it. Researched and recommended pump was uh...no. No, it was not acceptable. Finally got something that worked. Now I need to fine tune the flow and change things up a bit so I don't have the uber fun closed loop. I'll post pics in the morning. I walked by the new fuge light and kinda kicked the cord out of the adapter. Of course, it landed in the water so that's not getting run again for quite some time.

 

I also took the leap and ordered a Flame Wrasse pair from Pacific Island Aquatics and they should come in on Friday. They'll be in QT for 6-8 weeks. I've changed my stocking plans up a bit. I thought the Gold-spotted Rabbit I wanted would be alright in my tank long term, but it looks like they need something more like 200 or so. Since that seems to be the case, I think I'll keep looking for a suitable rabbit and have probably a Chocolate or Ctenochaetus tang as my back-up. I'd love to try a PBT but everything says they're meeean SOB's and Purple Tangs are that much worse. I know I want a large (8"-10" max) herbivore and I think I may avoid Apolemichthys angels from here on out.

 

I almost forgot! I also considered adding a female Blue Throat Trigger as my second "large" fish, but what I've found in my initial research is that the chances of my male properly accepting her are fairly dismal, though I love him and having a second fish with his type of personality would be awesome.

[revaltion131]

Going to be a long-ish post, bear with me!

 

1.) The Vortech is awesome! Can't wait to get a second one for the other side.

 

2.) Finally replaced the test kits I accidentally tossed. So, after my water change my levels were:

Phosphates: .08 ppm

Mg: 1850ppm

Ca: 520ppm

dKH: 6

Soooo...my Mg is high, to get the +30% estimated when dosing Tech M for getting rid of bryopsis (yes, it's coming back) means that I need to get to ~2400 ppm. I need to do more looking into whether or not this is going to be too high. Yesterday was the third day after the change and my Mg was down to 1720ppm after dosing double the recommended (280mL) the previous day. From what I understand, it may have something to do with my dKH being low. I am not sure what I can do to measure the unknown substance in Tech M that does kill off bryopsis. Because I can't check that and I don't know what it's associated with, I'm wondering if the substance will still build up even with the Mg dropping. I just plain don't like the idea of the hydrogen peroxide treatment, especially with the amount of rock in my system. If the Tech M does not work, it's going to be just plain trying to starve it off with water changes and phosphate removers.

 

3.) As far as the dKH, I want to raise it but I don't need to raise my calcium, obviously. I had to do this with my old Solana, but I can't remember what I used, I just remember that it worked well. I am thinking that I'm going to try BRS' Sodium Bicarbonate as a standalone, but that's just as a preliminary search.

 

4.) My phosphates have gone up, but I also just changed my PhosGuard out. When it runs out, I'm going to look at moving on to a GFO/Carbon reactor.

 

5.) I am going to need to get a larger sump much sooner than planned as I just don't have room for the things I need. I also filled it up poorly last time I needed to empty it and caused the seems on the last two baffles before the return pump. There is sand in the return chamber now and I think it's part of what's contributing to all of the particles in my water, that and the Xeno wrasse throwing up sand in the front of the Vortech for what seems to be a favorite game of his.

 

6.) Flame wrasses came in from Kevin at Pacific Island Aquatics on Tuesday. They are both eating and predictably shy/freaked out. I can't seem to get the Seachem Ammonia Alert badge to read a clear <0.02 ppm, even though my API test kit is putting out clear 0ppm test results. I have an ammonia alert on my display as well, and that is a clear < 0.02ppm reading. I'm wondering if I need to be worried or not.

 

7.) Pictures!

 

The male. The female has been out and about more, but mainly just to eat. She spending most of the time between the PVC pipe and the glass, so she's not in a spot to get a real picture of her at. Sorry the glass is not the cleanest!

 

 

Pyle's male

 

 

Bluethroat male, by far the most photogenic.

 

 

My Finspot male, wondering if we really do need to get rid of the bryopsis. He loves to cruise right along the top of it and pick pods out of it.

 

 

And last, just a bunch of filter feeding worms on this rock. I messed up the scape pulling out algae last night, so this end is hidden now.

 

 

P.S. I am officially adding a new camera to my list of tank expenses.

[uglyfish]

The mp40 make the tank look so much cleaner than 3 heads. Nice addition. The second MP40 will make the tank rock.

 

A gfo reactor should help with po4. 0.08 is high enough to feed serious algae. And keep in mind that the bryopsis growth itself is consuming po4 - so your levels could be higher. I would lower the po4 before bringing the magnesium level up to 2400. Once your po4 is low, you can decide if you need to go the tech M route. In my opinion, going Tech M, with po4 at 0.08 will produce temporary results.

 

Baking soda will work to raise dhk. I use a lot of BRS stuff and am very happy with it.

 

Keep posting.