Mr. Microscope's Cube 2.1

[Rehype]

Congrats microscope...you did an incredible job

[Mr. Microscope]

Congrats on TOTM! Not only does it look beautiful, but everything you've learned and documented along the way is a huge service to noobs like me.

Thanks Polar! Disasters suck, but it's vital to share them. I must say your 8 gallon is coming along quite nicely! Way better than my pico!

Congrats microscope...you did an incredible job

Thanks Rehype! I have to say I've taken a lot of inspiration from your standard of aqua-aesthetics.

[M&C]

Congrats on TOTM! It's well deserved. I have a couple questions:

 

• What are the settings you run on the MP10? My biggest challenge so far has been finding just the right flow to keep both softies and stony corals happy but its pretty obvious you've done that.
• Are water changes enough to keep parameters stable with all those nice SPS colonies or do you dose?

[Mr. Microscope]

 

Congrats on TOTM! It's well deserved. I have a couple questions:

 

 

• What are the settings you run on the MP10? My biggest challenge so far has been finding just the right flow to keep both softies and stony corals happy but its pretty obvious you've done that.
• Are water changes enough to keep parameters stable with all those nice SPS colonies or do you dose?

 

 

Thanks Matt! Good questions:

I have my MP10 on NTM running at about 75-80%. I really like NTM becuase of the short pulse waves + the other part of it that is something like RCM. I think the key, however is it's position relative to your corals. I used to have mine on the back wall to keep it from being an eye sore, but I moved it to the side because I had some issues with it blowing directly into the rocks and also damaging some SPS flesh. It is now on a side glass and not blowing directly on anything. The sacrifice in looks was well worth it. My corals seem to be growing faster and my SPS have much better polyp extenstion. Heightwise, it's about a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the way form the top. For my softies, I just keep them at the base of the pillar which seems to be the slower areas. Ther are a few spots like close to the opposite side of the tank near the bottom where the flow bounces off the glass where I have to be carefull not to put anything. Hense, there's not much over there.

 

For water parameters, my water changes seem to be keeping up. I use Kent Reef Salt which have very high stats for Mg, Ca, and Alk. Though, my water chages are about 15-20%.

[M&C]

Thanks for answering my questions!

[Mr. Microscope]

Thanks for answering my questions!

Also, for water parameters most of my colonies are still pretty small. I also recently got rid of my clam which has freed up more elements for everything else.

[Scorched]

Congrats Micro!

[specore]

Congratulaions. I have been silently admiring your work for a while now.

[Mr. Microscope]

Congrats Micro!

Thanks Scorched! Love your 12 gallon!

Congratulaions. I have been silently admiring your work for a while now.

Thanks specore!

[ESJ]

Congratulations! Beautiful Tank!

[kveekx]

Congrats! Im so happy to see your tabk finally TOTM after all the inspiration your tank has given me! Keep up the great work!

[NicoS]

Congratulations, it's a beautiful tank.

[jball1125]

Congrats mate, well deserved!

[Mr. Microscope]

Congratulations! Beautiful Tank!

Thanks ESJ!

Congrats! Im so happy to see your tabk finally TOTM after all the inspiration your tank has given me! Keep up the great work!

Thanks kveekx! Happy to inspire. I was very close to doing a 37 column like you when I first started. I excited to see the progress on yours as well.

Congratulations, it's a beautiful tank.

Thanks Nico!

Congrats mate, well deserved!

Thanks jball!

[ESJ]

Congrats!

 

Do you dose? I didn't notice it being mentioned anywhere.

[Mr. Microscope]

Congrats!

 

Do you dose? I didn't notice it being mentioned anywhere.

Thanks ESJ! No dosing yet. Just 15-20% WC weekly with Kent Reef Salt. I used to dose Salifert Coralline Aminos. It gave me better growth on my SPS, but also contributed to algae outbreaks. So, I stopped. I used to dose Vitamin C. Had great results with that, but I ran out and haven't gotten any more. 'Will pick back up with Vit-C when I get around to it though.

[ALexpsycho]

Congratulations for your TOTM mr.microscope.very nice work.

[albertthiel]

Congrats Microscope ... that is super and you can be proud of your achievement for sure !

 

Super well done ...

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Congratulations for your TOTM mr.microscope.very nice work.

Thanks Alex!

Congrats Microscope ... that is super and you can be proud of your achievement for sure !

 

Super well done ...

 

Thanks Albert!

[Mr. Microscope]

This is really embarrassing (especially after winning TOTM) and it's taken me a few days to work up the gumption to post it, but in the spirit of hoping others read this and don't repeat my mistakes I'm afraid I have to come clean admit to the biggest bone-headed move I've made yet.

In short, I accidentally dosed my tank with H2O2 causing a bleaching event among most of my SPS. Here's what happened:

Back Story
During a usual water change, I make up about 4-5 gallons of water in a bucket. Then, I take out a little more than that from the tank and put it into another bucket. I put the freshly made water in the tank and top off whatever is needed with the old water. That way, I guarantee that all of the new water goes in there without measuring how much I take out.

All was going well..
I was doing a water change earlier this week. My tank is about free from algae and the only place where it was continuing to thrive was in my overflow. So, I turned off my return pump and poured a bunch of H2O2 in my overflow. It was mixed around with a small pump I have in there. I let it work it's magic for about fifteen minutes and then siphoned out the entire return area which probably had about 1.5 gallons in it.

After I had siphoned out the water+H2O2 mix from the overflow, I continued to take water out of the display until I has almost filled the bucket as normal. Not thinking twice about it, I put the water in the same bucket with the water from the overflow. You can probably see where this is going.

I filled up the tank with the freshly made water mixed to perfect salinity and temp. Since I took out more than I made, I used some of the old water from the waste bucket to top it off. In total, this was probably about a third of a gallon of water.

..until..
I cleaned up all the supplies from the WC and noticed that things in the tank were looking a bit shocked like I used cold water or something. Everything in my tank with the exception of the fish really started freaking out after a few minutes. All SPS retracted polyps, acans sucked in like frightened turtles, and zoas all closed up. After a few more minutes, I noticed little bubbles forming all over the place. Seeing this last symptom hit me like truck. If I was in a movie, at this point there would have been a lightning-fast montage of clips of me remembering the last fifteen minutes, then the camera would have panned around me in a circle and paused as I did the double-face-palm.

 

 

Immediate action...sort of..
Realizing that H2O2 is photosensitive, I left my lights on as long as possible that night trying to oxidize it as much as possible. Unfortunately, the salt I used to do that water change was the end of the bucket. I'm now waiting on a new bucket to be shipped to me. Of course, as it turns out the salt is on backorder. That means no more water changes for a couple weeks.

Casualties...
By the next day the acans were looking okay and now look as good as ever. Most of the zoas were back to normal with the exception of the Organisms. They seem to slowly be making a recovery. The biggest loss though was my SPS. With the exception of my birdsnest and stylo, they all bleached or browned out to some extent. Polyp extension was also almost nil by the next day; that seems to be improving though. I believe they will recover in a few months.

My live rock also seems to have taken a hit as it's a lot whiter than it used to be.

On the plus side, whatever algae was left in my DT has almost been entirely wiped out.

My greatest concern however, is not necessarily for my SPS but for my biological filtration. I'm afraid I may have decimated the good bacteria in my tank.

The lessons:

• For any of you out there considering dosing your tank with H2O2, DON'T!
• Order your salt before you run out. You never know if your online supplier may be out of stock.

Actions taken to fix the issue
I'll be reducing my LED output. Right now everything is running at 700mA. I'm planning to bump down at least the white channel to 30% or so. Once my SPS go from bleached to browned-out, I'll start raising it back up about 10%/week.

Second, I ordered some of Dr. Tim's One&Only Live Nitrifying bacteria. I figure it couldn't hurt to boost up the live rock. I may run an airstone for a few days after adding it since I figure it will be a little bit like running biopellets with an increased population of bacteria.
^^Any thoughts on this?^^

I'll be posting pics later and documenting the recovery as much as possible.

Despite this incident, I feel extremely motivated and optimistic about fixing the problem. You'd think something like this would really depress a hobbyist, and though I's still smacking myself in the forehead every time I look at my acros, I guess I've forgiven myself. I'm in no way ready to give up on this tank!

[MikeTR]

Keep on keepin on.

and test for the basics again.. ammonia, nitrite.. not that you can do anything about it without salt.. hrmm..

[BulkRate]

DOH!

 

Anytime I'm doing something with peroxide I make it a point to handle the treatment bucket like hazardous waste. I'll even do the dip itself in another room just to avoid exactly what happened in your situation. And I still have more near misses than I'd like.

 

I'd grab one of those hang-in-the-tank ammonia test badges Seachem makes as well as a small box of any reef-suitable salt you can lay hands on. Water changes even with a suboptimal blend's going to be better for your livestock than an ammonia/nitrite spike. Admittedly you MIGHT not need the salt at all... your biofilter may bounce back just fine with the supplement of biospira/dr timms. But the badge may give you an early warning with enough time to prep an emergency change or temporary holding bucket..

[eitallent]

I am so sorry Eric!!

 

I used Dr. Tim's for my 125 and it took longer than I expected for those bugs to wake up. So, I wound up also adding the Nano's ceramic bio-pellets (well rinsed in fresh SW and in a fine phytoplanton straining bag I got from brineshrimpdirect.com so as not to spread flatworms) to speed up the spread of biological life into the 125g tank. In addition to Dr. Tim's perhaps a local reefer could lend/give you some sand/bio-pellets/rocks to speed it up.

 

Thanks for sharing that story! It is really valuable for us Newbies.

[metrokat]

Sorry to hear of the mishap. SPS can recover from both bleaching and browning with time and care. Check your levels to make sure you can provide as stable an environment as possible. Peroxide will oxidize so I am not sure what a water change could do now if it was not done when the problem was immediate. In fact letting the water run dirty for a couple of weeks might give a chance for your biological filter to re-establish faster. Hang in there

[Mr. Microscope]

Keep on keepin on.

 

 

and test for the basics again.. ammonia, nitrite.. not that you can do anything about it without salt.. hrmm..

Thanks for your support Mike. Good idea! I'll break out the test kits when I get home.

DOH!

 

Anytime I'm doing something with peroxide I make it a point to handle the treatment bucket like hazardous waste. I'll even do the dip itself in another room just to avoid exactly what happened in your situation. And I still have more near misses than I'd like.

 

I'd grab one of those hang-in-the-tank ammonia test badges Seachem makes as well as a small box of any reef-suitable salt you can lay hands on. Water changes even with a suboptimal blend's going to be better for your livestock than an ammonia/nitrite spike. Admittedly you MIGHT not need the salt at all... your biofilter may bounce back just fine with the supplement of biospira/dr timms. But the badge may give you an early warning with enough time to prep an emergency change or temporary holding bucket..

Good idea with the separate bucket. I'll keep that in mind in the future. I thought those Ammonia badges weren't reliable. You like them? Thanks BulkRate!

I am so sorry Eric!!

 

I used Dr. Tim's for my 125 and it took longer than I expected for those bugs to wake up. So, I wound up also adding the Nano's ceramic bio-pellets (well rinsed in fresh SW and in a fine phytoplanton straining bag I got from brineshrimpdirect.com so as not to spread flatworms) to speed up the spread of biological life into the 125g tank. In addition to Dr. Tim's perhaps a local reefer could lend/give you some sand/bio-pellets/rocks to speed it up.

 

Thanks for sharing that story! It is really valuable for us Newbies.

Thank you for sharing your experience with Dr. Tim's! I'll keep that in mind when I use it.

Sorry to hear of the mishap. SPS can recover from both bleaching and browning with time and care. Check your levels to make sure you can provide as stable an environment as possible. Peroxide will oxidize so I am not sure what a water change could do now if it was not done when the problem was immediate. In fact letting the water run dirty for a couple of weeks might give a chance for your biological filter to re-establish faster. Hang in there

Thanks for the encouragement kat! Good point about more nutrients for the SPS. No water changes might not be so bad for a couple weeks as long as I can keep the basics in check.

 

 

Anyone have any thoughts about reducing lighting or will this not help for H2O2 related bleaching?