tibbsy07 5.5 pico reef

[tibbsy07]

NEVER CLEAN AGAIN !!!

 

 

 

 

 

They make low voc cleaners you know.

 

I could hook you up with medical grade stuffs, might even kill your cooties.

I have medical grade stuff in lab - and we don't use crazy things at home.

 

This lol

 

And you don't need to use intense cleaners. A mix of 50/50 vinegar and dish soap is a ridiculous degreaser and cleaner, 1/20 regular blue Dawn and water for an all-purpose cleaner, 50/50 rubbing alcohol and water for a disinfectant, 50/50 vinegar and water for removing scale buildup (or 100% vinegar, spray bottles are your friend). Baking soda can be mixed with pretty much any of those for extra abrasion and cleaning power.

Windex for windows. 10% bleach for most, or an all-surface cleaner. the 50:50 rubbing alcohol: water would need to be higher for me (I only use 70% ethanol if I go this route). Either way, I measured this morning and the intake vent for our air system is 20 feet from the kitchen/bathroom, the only place that gets cleaning like that regularly. Anything in the living room is vacuum, dust cloth (not a chemical one, a cloth one).

 

prions are prions, if you're going to get one you might as well get the good ones

Yeah, I'm not working on prions. I'll work on select agents (did in grad school) or BSL2/BSL3 pathogens, but I won't do BSL4 or prions. Nope. Never.

 

 

Checked the tank this morning. Hazy again, and a few strings of gunky slime bacteria in the display that I missed. Dammit.

 

Maybe it's my cleaning procedure? The first time I did a soak in hydrogen peroxide, then vinegar, then a water rinse for 5 minutes, then a 20 minute soak in a 10% bleach solution (don't freak out yet). I then rinsed everything off well (yes, bleach was totally gone, I made sure) and reassembled and put back into the line up.

 

This time, I used StarSan for the soak. It's a food-grade acid-based sanitizer used for homebrewing. It's no-rinse for homebrewing applications, but I rinsed it off anyways. While the stuff was soaking, I scrubbed it all (AC70, parts, heater, media basket, etc) with a brush. I then re-soaked, and re-rinsed. Dried it all off (air dry), added it all back, and added my water back (50% change total). Then I added the microbacter7 dose.

 

In terms of cleaning agents, these are pretty harsh. Bleach however is just bleach - and at 10% it is effective, but it doesn't contain phthalates or anything else. Just straight up plain bleach. The StarSan could be phthalate-filled, but based on the tech sheet, I don't think so - it's phosphoric acid and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. It's got a lot of phosphates, but I rinsed them off. Possible that they stick to the plastic, but I doubt it. They wouldn't be causing this either.

 

Edit: Here is what my filter floss looked like last night

 

What about things like lotion or soap residue on your hands. I know someone that won't go in his tank without gloves because of a possible contamination of his tank.

 

Since it is a bacteria would chemi clean take it out?

 

 

I don't think the chemiclean would work, but it's possible. It's also possible that soap residue/lotion caused it, but I don't use lotion much. This also happened without my hands in the tank at all.

[tibbsy07]

It should be noted that the AC70 and everything within it is sparkling clean, lol. It's like it was when I first got it.

 

 

I wonder if the low salt could be contributing to the problem? I'm doing another water change today to bring up the salinity a bit

[metrokat]

The lid you have on the tank, have a picture of it? Maybe gas exchange is limited.

[tibbsy07]

The lid you have on the tank, have a picture of it? Maybe gas exchange is limited.

No lid anymore.

[tibbsy07]

Quite a few people have mentioned this article http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/mystery-white-reef-slime-part-iii, and I ran across it myself.

 

tl;dr summary is that a Dentist's office had a tank with a BAD white slime outbreak like mine. It was caused by Alcaligenes xylosoxidans, a Gram-negative aquatic bacterium known for heavy slime production. The only thing they were able to do to manage and eradicate the organism was to use Dr. Tim's Re-Fresh at a dose of 5ml/10gal every day, then switch over to Dr. Tim's Waste-Away to clear the slime. The tank is apparently doing well.

 

I wonder if the phthalates are coming from one of the water jugs I have? The bottom of it has turned kind of yellow in recent weeks (I got it from the LFS for refilling with their RO/DI water). It's been hard to tell to me if the water has taken on that color, but I suspect it may have. I doubt these containers are BP free, which is likely where the phalates are coming from, if they are the problem. If it's volatile organic compounds (VOCs, as JBB mentioned), then I don't know where they have come from.

 

My goal now is to up the MicroBacter7 dose to 2.5ml a day and see where that gets me. I'm hoping I can see the heck out of the tank and get it back to normal.

[metrokat]

I'm not sure if peroxide works in this case and I am also not a big fan of dosing peroxide in the tank. You could possibly try a controlled dosing. Take that gooey filter floss and wash/dip in 50/50 peroxide. It's going to kill and clean right away but rinse it and put back in the tank then see if it comes back.

[jbb]

Don't take this the wrong way tibbs, but it seems like every week or so you are tinkering with one thing or another . I often wonder if some of your headaches aren't self induced by the constant tinkering. Maybe if you just took a step back and let the tank cruise for a bit it would have the ability to mature somewhat and therefore lead to less problems.

 

I could be totally wrong , but I've been through the obsessive tinkering stage and I was always having problems. If the stringy stuff doesn't seem to be hurting anything maybe remove as much as you can manually and then step away and let it ride.

 

Just a thought

[Reefkid88]

Don't take this the wrong way tibbs, but it seems like every week or so you are tinkering with one thing or another . I often wonder if some of your headaches aren't self induced by the constant tinkering. Maybe if you just took a step back and let the tank cruise for a bit it would have the ability to mature somewhat and therefore lead to less problems.

 

I could be totally wrong , but I've been through the obsessive tinkering stage and I was always having problems. If the stringy stuff doesn't seem to be hurting anything maybe remove as much as you can manually and then step away and let it ride.

 

Just a thought

+1

[tibbsy07]

I'm not sure if peroxide works in this case and I am also not a big fan of dosing peroxide in the tank. You could possibly try a controlled dosing. Take that gooey filter floss and wash/dip in 50/50 peroxide. It's going to kill and clean right away but rinse it and put back in the tank then see if it comes back.

The gooey filter floss is gone. I wasn't dosing peroxide. I took the AC70 when it was gross, and soaked its components and the shell in peroxide. Peroxide should have killed the slime initially, and if it didn't, the bleach soak should have.

 

Don't take this the wrong way tibbs, but it seems like every week or so you are tinkering with one thing or another . I often wonder if some of your headaches aren't self induced by the constant tinkering. Maybe if you just took a step back and let the tank cruise for a bit it would have the ability to mature somewhat and therefore lead to less problems.

 

I could be totally wrong , but I've been through the obsessive tinkering stage and I was always having problems. If the stringy stuff doesn't seem to be hurting anything maybe remove as much as you can manually and then step away and let it ride.

 

Just a thought

+1

Normally I would agree, but in this case I didn't actually do any tinkering. Slime showed up, I tried to control it. It came back and here we are. I do have a bad habit of tinkering, but for the last month or so, all I've been doing has been weekly 1g water changes and media changes as needed, topping off with fresh water, swapping out filter floss, and in the last week some microbacter7 and phytochrom. I've left the corals alone, I've left the sand bed alone (for the most part, a few vacuums when water changing). I probably was overfeeding the phytochrom (a few drops a day) but I was feeding that with the other phyto I used and didn't have an issue. It's clear that the phytochrom is more concentrated.

[tibbsy07]

So far no more slimey stuff. I've dosed 2ml of microbacter7 for the last 3 days. I'm going to begin dropping the dose down to the recommended normal dose of ~10 drops for my tank. So far so good. I also put more carbon in this time than last time and that seems to be helping.

 

I'm still unsure of my temperature. I have 2 thermometers in there. One is the glass thermometer that is telling me my tank is at 77ish degrees. The other is the stick-on one that is telling me my tank is at 83... They are in the exact same corner, too. Not really sure. The water feels cool to me and the only thing generating heat in the tank would be the AC70 and the 25W heater in it. The LED generates a good amount of heat, but it's 9" from the surface of the water and most of the heat comes off the back through the heatsink, not directly down at the water.

 

In other news, my training grant finally took effect and they are giving me equipment money. I've been given $3000 to spend on work-related things (computer, books, software, etc.) and we are pretty limited in what we can buy. I'm definitely replacing the 2007 macbook I have. I think I may actually be switching back to a PC. I can get a really nice MSI laptop with the same specs as the 15" retina pro and a 7" Google Nexus tablet for $700 cheaper than the basic list price of the macbook retina pro. It ultimately ends up sazing me $1000 and leaves more money in the equipment fund should I need something down the line.

[tibbsy07]

Tank looks good, currently. I did a water change last night using IORC - new salt for me. LFS didn't have any IO left in stock and I needed to get new salt. Tank seems to like it, so far.

 

Still waiting on a couple of things before I do the FTS and update, but I do have a question - A friend of mine (one of the people I got into the aquarium when I was in grad school) is sending me a fluval sea PS1 skimmer. He has all kinds of gear and stuff and I guess he bought a new skimmer and is getting rid of this one, so he's sending it to me free.

 

1.) Should I even bother hooking it up?

 

2.) If I do, can I fit it in the AC70?

[tibbsy07]

I came up with a kickstarter in another thread, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of it, lol. If I had the space to do it, I would 100% put that up.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/349995-kickstarter-frag-tank-project/?p=4806447

[tibbsy07]

The Fluval Sea PS1 skimmer that my friend sent me came yesterday. This thing is HUGE. Definitely will not fit in the AC70. Guess I'll hang on to it in case I ever upgrade to a larger tank and need one.

[evanski]

...I won't do BSL4 or prions. Nope. Never.

 

Wuss. I iz disappoint!

[Cameron6796]

That's bacteria

 

Really cuz my ac 20 gets that and it's just from water flowing over around the pipe and sitting stagnant i just use cotton swabs to remove it.

[Mariaface]

Tank looks good, currently. I did a water change last night using IORC - new salt for me. LFS didn't have any IO left in stock and I needed to get new salt. Tank seems to like it, so far.

 

Nice! I'm waiting to update my tank, as well. Between the move and job searching and all that nonsense, it's been suffering. :x

 

I actually just switched from Red Sea Coral Pro back to Reef Crystals, and other than my whacky alkalinity it's been keeping the tank pretty happy. I'm curious to see the change for your tank between the two salts!

 

In other news, I'd definitely trust the glass thermometer over the stick-on one, the adhesive thermometers have always been either defective or unreliable in my experience. Maybe your tank has been running too cool?

 

I was thinking about switching from my 2008 Macbook to a Lenovo with those higher specs, but that wouldn't be work-related. I hadn't even heard of MSI; now I definitely need to look into this.

[metrokat]

Really cuz my ac 20 gets that and it's just from water flowing over around the pipe and sitting stagnant i just use cotton swabs to remove it.

hmmm

[Cameron6796]

I guess that stagnant sitting water would form large quantities of bacteria that could turn into a stringy gunk. My assumption was simply..."gunk" though so I just figured the slow drip of water where the suction pipe is water spills over a little and it's almost a film ish layer of milky sludge

[tibbsy07]

 

Wuss. I iz disappoint!

Hey man, I did select agents. BSL4 and prions are just more hassle to study than I am interested in. All the suits and extra cleaning? No thanks.

 

 

Really cuz my ac 20 gets that and it's just from water flowing over around the pipe and sitting stagnant i just use cotton swabs to remove it.

Definitely bacteria. I have a few strands tonight. Was out of town this weekend, so water change tomorrow. I'm going to have to scrub again.

 

 

Nice! I'm waiting to update my tank, as well. Between the move and job searching and all that nonsense, it's been suffering. :x

 

I actually just switched from Red Sea Coral Pro back to Reef Crystals, and other than my whacky alkalinity it's been keeping the tank pretty happy. I'm curious to see the change for your tank between the two salts!

 

In other news, I'd definitely trust the glass thermometer over the stick-on one, the adhesive thermometers have always been either defective or unreliable in my experience. Maybe your tank has been running too cool?

 

I was thinking about switching from my 2008 Macbook to a Lenovo with those higher specs, but that wouldn't be work-related. I hadn't even heard of MSI; now I definitely need to look into this.

So far the salt looks good. Tank is very happy. I trust the glass thermometer now. I used a trusted meat thermometer (clean, duh) and the glass and meat thermometers were spot on.

 

Don't get MSI or Lenovo - I have been doing a lot of research and they have crap build quality. Lots of complaints about screen and hinge failures, among other problems.

 

I ended up back with a Mac. Macbook air, actually. Too many pros to pass up. That and it was hard to justify a "gaming" computer for work using gov't grant money. The accountants didn't like that much

[Mariaface]

Don't get MSI or Lenovo - I have been doing a lot of research and they have crap build quality. Lots of complaints about screen and hinge failures, among other problems.

 

I ended up back with a Mac. Macbook air, actually. Too many pros to pass up. That and it was hard to justify a "gaming" computer for work using gov't grant money. The accountants didn't like that much

 

Huh. I was under the impression Lenovo was on the better quality side of PCs. Maybe I should just spring for a desktop... I'm a bit wary of getting a Mac again; I'm not a fan of the new restrictions. Can't even replace your own battery. They're phasing out Ethernet ports and disk drives, too. And there's a severe lack of USB ports, which would necessitate a hub (and that brings up efficiency issues as far as the kernel deciding which device to run when, blah blah blah). I'm sure they're still good, and I know the OS is a breeze to learn/use and is less vulnerable in general. So I'll have to rethink what laptop I'd be getting. Buying the peripherals and the expensive base laptop might end up being worth it if there are that many complaints about PC build quality.

[tibbsy07]

Huh. I was under the impression Lenovo was on the better quality side of PCs. Maybe I should just spring for a desktop... I'm a bit wary of getting a Mac again; I'm not a fan of the new restrictions. Can't even replace your own battery. They're phasing out Ethernet ports and disk drives, too. And there's a severe lack of USB ports, which would necessitate a hub (and that brings up efficiency issues as far as the kernel deciding which device to run when, blah blah blah). I'm sure they're still good, and I know the OS is a breeze to learn/use and is less vulnerable in general. So I'll have to rethink what laptop I'd be getting. Buying the peripherals and the expensive base laptop might end up being worth it if there are that many complaints about PC build quality.

I was too, until I started reading reviews. If you plan on stability and power for a budget, a desktop build is the way to go. I just can't use that for traveling and lab work, so I need mobility. After lengthy discussions with labmates/advisors/co-workers, most people in our department and in my field in general are switching to macs. I don't rely on my battery, so I'm not worried too much about the replacement issue, and as for disk drives/USBs, I haven't had an optical drive in 5 years (mine failed early on). Many of the ultrabooks are now moving away from disk drives, and the Air is an ultrabook-style laptop.

[Mariaface]

I was too, until I started reading reviews. If you plan on stability and power for a budget, a desktop build is the way to go. I just can't use that for traveling and lab work, so I need mobility. After lengthy discussions with labmates/advisors/co-workers, most people in our department and in my field in general are switching to macs. I don't rely on my battery, so I'm not worried too much about the replacement issue, and as for disk drives/USBs, I haven't had an optical drive in 5 years (mine failed early on). Many of the ultrabooks are now moving away from disk drives, and the Air is an ultrabook-style laptop.

 

Yehp, it looks like you're better off with a Mac! :]

 

How's the slime issue looking, by the way?

[tibbsy07]

I've noticed a bit of salt creep on the front glass occasionally, and lately it has gotten worse. Checked last night, and the rim is giving out Gotta get this figured out and fast!

[xiaoxiy]

I think that's an sign to upgrade.

[Mariaface]

I've noticed a bit of salt creep on the front glass occasionally, and lately it has gotten worse. Checked last night, and the rim is giving out Gotta get this figured out and fast!

 

Oh, no! D: That happened to me with a NC28 last year, the bottom rim decided "nope, I don't get paid enough for this" and began to actually drip. I didn't have corals to worry about, though, so I put the rocks in a bucket with a heater and powerhead, then put the fish and everything else into a 5-gallon I was planning on using as a sump at some point in the future. Everything's back in a nuvo 16 now, and I have the NC28 sitting in the corner of shame until I move somewhere where I can reseal it or something. Still considering selling it to someone who actually knows how to reseal aquariums, though.

 

Good luck!