TeenyReef's 10g Fusion - ATO Disaster

[teenyreef]

On 10/4/2018 at 6:40 AM, dferrari13 said:

I had the same problem...tried drilling holes...didnt work....bought a top from octoaquatics for about $100, no clips at all now

 

That's a sweet top! I got an expensive acrylic top a long time ago, but it didn't have the routed edges.

 

I've drilled a few more holes and trimmed off the extra plastic below the lid support pieces. I haven't had any creep in a couple weeks now, so I may get the old acrylic one back out and try it with the new and improved clips.

[teenyreef]

I'm 50% happy with the tank right now. As long as I'm looking at the bottom half, things look good. The zoas are growing nicely and have good color, the ric garden is coming along, and pretty much everything is happy.

 

Once I get into the upper half, things are not so great. Color on the sps is OK but not as good as it used to be, and there seems to be some kind of creeping invisible crud that's gradually killing off the chalice, setosa, and trumpets. Plus the green monticap doesn't seem to be coming back at all. 

 

I'm not sure what I want to do at this point. There's nothing obviously wrong, and even if the corals up top make a comeback, none of them are particularly wonderful. So I may get radical and consider some kind of rescape. Or at least pull the rocks, scrub them down, and maybe get rid of some/most of the corals on the upper rocks and start fresh. But if I do that I'll have to start with some test corals to make sure I've cleaned up the problem, whatever it is.

 

At this point I'm just letting it ride and trying to get things stable. Maybe do the bare bottom thing to reduce nutrients and see if that helps.

 

Or I may go crazy one day, who knows?

 

In the meantime, enjoy the October FTS and top down 🙂

 

 

 

 

[teenyreef]

Nitrates and phosphates continued to rise, and the sps corals up top continued to decline, so last weekend I did a 25% water change for the first time in about six months, and siphoned out about 25% of the sand. So stage 1 of the bare bottom conversion is complete.

 

Cheap cell phone pic of the operation in progress (I did an iodine dip of the rocks I took out while I was sucking out sand).

 

 

[Tamberav]

Damn.. 6 months! I'm not sure I can let go of water changes yet but I hate hauling water upstairs to my 25g... maybe when it matures enough.. I'll have to think about it. 

 

I don't miss my sand in the 22g at all!! I plan to go BB when I set up the IM10 again too. Only the 25g will have sand for the wrasse and sand loving snails/critters. 

 

If your modified clips don't work... they sell smaller ones on ebay I think that you could keep away from the corners. 

[tgrover35]

What do you feed the puffer?

[teenyreef]

20 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Damn.. 6 months! I'm not sure I can let go of water changes yet but I hate hauling water upstairs to my 25g... maybe when it matures enough.. I'll have to think about it. 

 

I don't miss my sand in the 22g at all!! I plan to go BB when I set up the IM10 again too. Only the 25g will have sand for the wrasse and sand loving snails/critters. 

 

If your modified clips don't work... they sell smaller ones on ebay I think that you could keep away from the corners. 

The no-water-change idea is to dose a three part with trace elements system (I use ATI Essentials) and export nutrients using some method other than water changes. Skimming alone isn't enough, you need carbon dosing or a refugium/chaeto reactor/algae turf scrubber.

 

I've been using carbon dosing (nopox) but when I increase the dosing to the levels needed to take care of the nutrients, it get to be too much and I start getting bacterial slime all over the place, and the whole tank goes out of balance. And in an AIO there's really not room for a big enough refugium to make much difference. So I'm hoping going bare bottom, and moving Doug the Puffer into the 30g tank, will reduce nutrients to a level that the nopox can handle.

 

Thanks for the tip on the clips, too!

[teenyreef]

14 hours ago, tgrover35 said:

What do you feed the puffer?

Doug just eats what everybody else eats. I feed a mix of frozen foods: PE mysis, PE calanus, Hikari Mega Marine Algae, San Francisco Angel/Butterfly cubes.

[mitten_reef]

On 10/9/2018 at 10:35 PM, teenyreef said:

I'm 50% happy with the tank right now. As long as I'm looking at the bottom half, things look good. The zoas are growing nicely and have good color, the ric garden is coming along, and pretty much everything is happy.

 

Once I get into the upper half, things are not so great. Color on the sps is OK but not as good as it used to be, and there seems to be some kind of creeping invisible crud that's gradually killing off the chalice, setosa, and trumpets. Plus the green monticap doesn't seem to be coming back at all. 

 

I'm not sure what I want to do at this point. There's nothing obviously wrong, and even if the corals up top make a comeback, none of them are particularly wonderful. So I may get radical and consider some kind of rescape. Or at least pull the rocks, scrub them down, and maybe get rid of some/most of the corals on the upper rocks and start fresh. But if I do that I'll have to start with some test corals to make sure I've cleaned up the problem, whatever it is.

 

At this point I'm just letting it ride and trying to get things stable. Maybe do the bare bottom thing to reduce nutrients and see if that helps.

 

Or I may go crazy one day, who knows?

 

In the meantime, enjoy the October FTS and top down 🙂

 

 

 

 

hey! you have green sunnyD problem too?

[teenyreef]

3 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

hey! you have green sunnyD problem too?

They do turn a little green in this tank. Although for some reason they come out more green in the pictures than they are to my eye in real life. The same ones are much more yellow in my 30g frag tank, though. It's probably a combination of higher nutrients and less light in this tank.

[Tamberav]

30 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

The no-water-change idea is to dose a three part with trace elements system (I use ATI Essentials) and export nutrients using some method other than water changes. Skimming alone isn't enough, you need carbon dosing or a refugium/chaeto reactor/algae turf scrubber.

 

I've been using carbon dosing (nopox) but when I increase the dosing to the levels needed to take care of the nutrients, it get to be too much and I start getting bacterial slime all over the place, and the whole tank goes out of balance. And in an AIO there's really not room for a big enough refugium to make much difference. So I'm hoping going bare bottom, and moving Doug the Puffer into the 30g tank, will reduce nutrients to a level that the nopox can handle.

 

Thanks for the tip on the clips, too!

 

Ya I have seen this method increasing in popularity and when I have a big tank (someday) I would certainly like to try that or set up automatic water changes. I think this method is nicer though if I can not fail at it. I can see how it would be challenging in a nano with limited ways to remove nutrients. 

 

How is the expense doing it this way vs cost of salt?

[teenyreef]

On 10/25/2018 at 11:35 PM, Tamberav said:

 

Ya I have seen this method increasing in popularity and when I have a big tank (someday) I would certainly like to try that or set up automatic water changes. I think this method is nicer though if I can not fail at it. I can see how it would be challenging in a nano with limited ways to remove nutrients. 

 

How is the expense doing it this way vs cost of salt?

Yes, I think it really is a better method for a bigger tank, where things are more stable and there's more room for error (and refugiums). 

 

I think it's quite a bit cheaper than salt. Especially if you're going to dose to begin with. ATI Essentials is actually pretty cheap, certainly no more expensive than most dosing products. So the saving in salt from no water changes is significant.

[teenyreef]

Just finished stage 2 of the sand removal project, sucking out more sand and doing another 25% water change, and I did an iodine dip for the ric garden and the left hand front rock. All the sand in the front two thirds of the tank is gone now. There's still plenty left in the back, but it's not very visible now. I'll take a picture later tonight or tomorrow when the water clears. 

 

With the next water change/sand removal, I'll remove all the rocks, and dip/scrub the big rocks in back. While the rocks are out, I'll get the rest of the sand, and catch Doug the Puffer so he can go in the 30g tank. Catching the fish from the 30g tank to go in here will be a completely different project 🙂

 

The sps on the big rocks are continuing to decline, although I'm cautiously optimistic that the water changes are slowing/stopping the problems. The red dragon, green monticap, and red monticap have all given up the ghost. The chalice still has a little bit left, as does the red setosa, and the bubblegum digi is still doing OK although the PE and color are not good.

 

The cali tort, idaho grape, and nameless brown/blue acro are still doing fine, though.

 

I accidentally broke off the ORA peralberry so I threw it in the frag tank for now while I'm messing with the rocks. There's still a decent size chunk that was encrusted, and it's doing fine so I think it will grow back even if I don't reglue the broken piece back on.

 

[teenyreef]

Last week, I took a few macro pictures of some of the corals that are struggling to see if I could spot anything that's eating them. But all I see if algae taking over where the corals have died.

 

Setosa:

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the trumpet coral is almost gone too. This is the third time I've tried to keep trumpets (you know, that "easy beginners" coral) and I've failed every time 😞

 

 

Here's the bubblegum:

 

[Tamberav]

I suck at xenia although I have some alive now for the 1st time ever... 

 

Have you thought about a cheato reactor? Might be a good way to get the benefits of a large fuge w/o having a large fuge... 

[Lula_Mae]

Sorry for the tank troubles!  This tank seems kinda moody with all the ups and downs.  Is it channeling its inner teenager?

[teenyreef]

On 10/27/2018 at 7:05 PM, Tamberav said:

I suck at xenia although I have some alive now for the 1st time ever... 

 

Have you thought about a cheato reactor? Might be a good way to get the benefits of a large fuge w/o having a large fuge... 

I have, but I don't think having one in a rear chamber will be effective enough, and I don't want an external reactor. If I was going to go with something external I'd just add a sump, which kind defeats the whole idea of an AIO.

 

I have also though about an algae turf scrubber, like I'm trying in the 40g tank. But there's no place to put one without giving up either the skimmer or the media basket. 

 

So really, for about the fourth time, I've become convinced that regular water changes are the best thing for this tank 🙂

 

[teenyreef]

10 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Sorry for the tank troubles!  This tank seems kinda moody with all the ups and downs.  Is it channeling its inner teenager?

Lol, maybe that's the problem!

 

Seriously, though, I've had trouble with bacterial growth on the big rocks for a long time. I beat it back with intensive maintenance a year or so ago. I just think the problems I'm seeing now may be related. Maybe there's just something in those rocks that tends to bloom when I dose too much carbon.

[teenyreef]

...and of course, the problems could just simply because my nitrates were at 48 and phosphates were at .58 a couple weeks ago 

 

It's quite possible to get too carried away with this no water change stuff.

[Reefkid88]

I have thought about maybe running a algae scrubber on my new tank,but haven't decided if its worth it or just go the ole biocube skimmer,carbon bag route ? What are your thoughts. 

 

 If I ran a scrubber would that be a good enough source of biological filtration and not run carbon or a skimmer ? 

[teenyreef]

Here's what the tank looks like now after phase two of the sandbed removal project. Seems like a lot of corals have their underwear showing now 

 

 

 

[teenyreef]

1 minute ago, Reefkid88 said:

I have thought about maybe running a algae scrubber on my new tank,but haven't decided if its worth it or just go the ole biocube skimmer,carbon bag route ? What are your thoughts. 

 

 If I ran a scrubber would that be a good enough source of biological filtration and not run carbon or a skimmer ? 

Ask me again in six months after I see how the ATS does in the 40g. But I see an ATS as being complementary to a skimmer. Or maybe a better way of looking at it is that a skimmer set very dry gives a good backup to an ATS if something goes wonky. 

 

Even now I run carbon sparingly. Just once a month for 3-7 days. I've learned the hard way that it's so easy to strip the water.

[Reefkid88]

Yeah ? I wonder if in a 5g it would just kinda of make it not efficent or do wonders.. I have been pondering maybe making one and trying it out. 

[StinkyBunny]

On 10/27/2018 at 7:05 PM, Tamberav said:

I suck at xenia although I have some alive now for the 1st time ever... 

 

Have you thought about a cheato reactor? Might be a good way to get the benefits of a large fuge w/o having a large fuge... 

If you're having trouble keeping Xenia, your alk is WAY too low.

51 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

So really, for about the fourth time, I've become convinced that regular water changes are the best thing for this tank 🙂

 

We've started doing small water changes every 4 days and it's made a world of difference. Some tanks work well with dosing, others like new water. The only thing we add 3 part is kalk through the ATO. I add mag weekly and iodide every 4 days at 1/4 of the recommended dose because of all of the leathers I have. one other thing I've found with Montiporas is they like iron, dunno why that is, but they benefit from a light dosing of iron.

[Tamberav]

5 minutes ago, StinkyBunny said:

If you're having trouble keeping Xenia, your alk is WAY too low.

We've started doing small water changes every 4 days and it's made a world of difference. Some tanks work well with dosing, others like new water. The only thing we add 3 part is kalk through the ATO. I add mag weekly and iodide every 4 days at 1/4 of the recommended dose because of all of the leathers I have. one other thing I've found with Montiporas is they like iron, dunno why that is, but they benefit from a light dosing of iron.

 

I don't think it was the alk... I think i just didn't neglect it enough lol... It loved my first reef tank ever and doing okay in the 25g but I skipped a bunch of water changes. Also it could just be that it shipped poorly ....or maybe it was the temps as that apartment ran kind of hot that they all died in...

 

It's not going to die this time... Damn it! 😄

 

 

[Tamberav]

2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

...and of course, the problems could just simply because my nitrates were at 48 and phosphates were at .58 a couple weeks ago 

 

It's quite possible to get too carried away with this no water change stuff.

Hah! I would have jumped ship when nitrates hit 15 to 20 and did a water change. 

 

Carbon dosing is nice but guessing the bacteria and nano skimmer have a hard time keeping up with the bioload? 

 

I just need to figure out what to dose to keep macro growing so I don't need to carry so much water upstairs... Guess it's time to start playing around with some iron in the QT tank 😛