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TeenyReef's 10g Fusion - ATO Disaster


teenyreef

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19 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Happy New Year @teenyreef! 🎉

 

I'm so glad to hear your SPS are recovering, seeing the vibrant green back on that monticap puts a smile on my face! Your nano reef looks great without a sand bed, it was hard to notice at first because the bottom is so well filled in now. Everything seems to be settling in quite well after the removal in fact! How is Doug the puffer doing in the frag tank these days?

 

Thanks!

 

Sadly, I was just getting ready to post that Doug seems to have disappeared from the frag tank a few days ago. I hadn't been keeping the top on, and he was doing fine, so I fear he may have jumped out and be drying out behind the tank :sad:

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9 hours ago, DaveFason said:

Colors look incredible now with no sand bed. Do you think this is due to better water management or taking more care? 

Thanks! I think it's almost entirely due to reducing the nutrients as a combination of eliminating the sand bed, moving Doug the puffer to the frag tank, and doing weekly 25% water changes to get things back on track. I'm now seeing nutrients staying low on their own even with no carbon dosing, so I think I've knocked things back to where the natural bio filter capacity can handle things. 

 

Interestingly, though, although nitrates are naturally low (less than 4), phosphates keep spiking to ridiculously high levels (around .3 to .5) just over the last three weeks. Before that, they were at or below .1. I have no idea why, but I've been bringing them back down with PhosphateRx. In spite of the imbalance, there's very little algae growth (just on the glass) and the sps colors are great. These are the things that keep this hobby interesting and frustrating!

11 hours ago, vlangel said:

Wow teeny, the tank looks amazing, but then your tanks always do!  Happy 2019!

Thanks, Dawn! Happy New Year!

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On 12/30/2018 at 1:17 AM, teenyreef said:

I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and holiday season and has a happy new year! I didn't even get the December tank shots posted, oops...

 

The tank is doing really well after I restarted weekly water changes and went bare bottom. The sps that were struggling have bounced back, and even the green monticap that I thought was dead is coming back. I've added a few new frags and will get some pictures of them after the new year. In the meantime, here are some December pictures.

 

FDS (Full Desk Shot):

20181214_183017.jpg

 

2019-12-09 IM10 FTS:

2018-12-09 IM10 FTS

 

2018-12-09 IM10 Top Down:

2018-12-09 IM10 Top Down

 

So glad everything is doing well....I frickin love this tank and I've been following for years ...but I gotta say......I usually hate bare bottom tanks but this tank looks great!!! Glad all the corals are bouncing back.

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6 minutes ago, dferrari13 said:

So glad everything is doing well....I frickin love this tank and I've been following for years ...but I gotta say......I usually hate bare bottom tanks but this tank looks great!!! Glad all the corals are bouncing back.

Thanks! I think bare bottom is nice but it all depends on how it's done. Since I like the bottom of my tank to be covered with corals anyway, the sand just gets in the way 😄

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Nano sapiens

Great to see the SPS bouncing back again 👍

 

Might be interesting to measure & chart PO4 at various times (before feeding, right after feeding, just before a water change, right after a water change, middle of the daylight period, middle of the dark period, etc.) to see if you can determine a set pattern.  The effects of removing a sand bed (and all it's accompanying bacteria) can be a bit unpredictable since each of our systems is unique.

 

All this talk of nitrates and phosphates might get me to have my levels checked one of these days (it's been a few years).

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On 1/5/2019 at 12:51 AM, Nano sapiens said:

Great to see the SPS bouncing back again 👍

 

Might be interesting to measure & chart PO4 at various times (before feeding, right after feeding, just before a water change, right after a water change, middle of the daylight period, middle of the dark period, etc.) to see if you can determine a set pattern.  The effects of removing a sand bed (and all it's accompanying bacteria) can be a bit unpredictable since each of our systems is unique.

 

All this talk of nitrates and phosphates might get me to have my levels checked one of these days (it's been a few years).

All good points! I try to measure PO4 at the same time in the evening, before I feed, and at least 24 hours after I've fed Reef Roids. I know for sure that Reef Roids can artificially elevate PO4 measurements.

 

Turns out nitrates had gone back up too a few days later. I did another water change and I've been dosing PhosphateRx, just a drop every couple days. Nitrates went down 25% after a 25% water change, so they don't seem to be going up any more. And phosphates are down too. 

 

Here's a little history, just for my own reference:

11/18/18: NO3 6, PO4 .06

11/25/18: NO3 1.5, PO4 .03

12/2/18: NO3 2, PO4 .10

12/8/18: NO3 12, PO4 .38

12/16/18: NO3 8, PO4 .05

12/27/18: NO3 1.5, PO4 .49

1/1/19: PO4 .41, didn't measure NO3

1/5/19: NO3 16, PO4 .07

1/7/19 (post water change): NO3 12, PO4 .09

 

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By the way, I got a pom pom crab for the tank about a month ago. I've seen him several times, including earlier today, so he's doing great, waving his little pom poms around. But so far he's never come out of the rocks in a location that I can easily photograph. Sorry for the tease...

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

 

 

 

 What that is muh fran ?!?!?!?!?!?! I MUST KNOW 🧐

Those following along in the Secret Santa thread will be able to guess :ninja:

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4 hours ago, JR! said:

i wanna see!

Well, since you asked 🙂

 

Oooooo...

 

20190123_183230.jpg

 

Ahhhhhhh...

20190123_183255.jpg

 

It's a new Ultum Nature Systems 60U that I won in the N-R Secret Santa drawing. Many thanks to @UNS for sponsoring!

 

The government shutdown caused customs delays which is why I'm just now receiving it. It was obviously well packed and arrived in perfect shape.

 

There will be a lot of work before I can set it up, though. I'm going to replace the IM10 with this tank on the desktop. But since the desk isn't built to hold a sump underneath, I'll need to redo the desk before I can do anything else. Plus the tank will have to be drilled and I'll have to buy an overflow, lights, sump, skimmer, etc., etc..  So the IM10 won't be going anywhere for a good while.

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Awesome 🙂 I love tanks like this, ultra clear with basically no visible silicone, going to look sooo good! 

 

Oh it just hit me now but years ago I imported one of their stainless steel light hanging kits. It didn't even hit me till now that it is the same company. I have it only partially assembled to fit my 22g long as I bought it for my 75g but absolutely love that hanger. They make great stuff. I am hanging on to the hanger for when I go with a bigger tank again. 

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6 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Awesome 🙂 I love tanks like this, ultra clear with basically no visible silicone, going to look sooo good! 

I agree. I want to give a lot of thought to how the overflow will work. I want to keep the all glass/clear look as much as possible and avoid large false walls. Ideally maybe some kind of coast to coast overflow made of frosted white acrylic, but I don't think there is such a thing.

 

I've checked to see how other people have done it with this tank but haven't found anything that's really knocked my socks off yet. I think @xiaoxiy did the best job with his old 60U of all the ones I've seen so far. He used a Mame overflow which looked amazing and clean. But you have to clean it, and it's breakable, which is why he switched to an Elos tank instead when it broke.

 

So I'm tempted to go with a Mame just because it looks so beautiful, but I don't like having to clean it all the time to keep it looking nice.

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I had the mame overflow, I broke a piece on it too. It gets dirty fast, micro algae just loves to grow in it, all that flow without snails to graze on it. 

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@teenyreef - Cant wait to see the new setup. Funny you are doing this. I have a couple spare UNS tanks laying around and I thought about swapping the IM10 as well. Adding a false wall instead of doing a sump. 

 

Few ideas that may work. Return and drain coming from the bottom. Use clear PVC or a similar tubing and paint a strainer white to white it better. 

 

Also check out my IG a couple posts back. A customer in the UK did a killer job on his rimless tank with sump. 

 

Cant wait! I am also working on a new light arm that would be really rad for this tank. Similar to the old ADA lights where the mount went underneath the tank, then an arm on the side. 

 

-Dave

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