Ninja's Red Sea Reefer 350 - still here!

[DaveFason]

@ninjamyst you literally have the worst luck when you leave town. I think if you look back at every trip something goes wrong! Big H20 change should help big time. 

 

Hope the trip was everything you wanted and more. Refreshed and recharged! 

 

 

[ninjamyst]

Did a water change yesterday and excited to come home tonight to see how the tank is doing.  More bad news though...I lost a carpenter wrasse and an anthias while I was gone too.  So now I am down to 2 clowns, blue tang, yellow tang, firefish, midas blenny, and yellow wrasse.  I want to sell yellow wrasse since it is getting aggressive against smaller fish.  Fish shopping this weekend!

[Droy008]

I hate to say it.

But your not allowed to leave your reef alone anymore. Bad things happen when your gone.

The simple solution is, never ever leave again. Lol

[teenyreef]

13 hours ago, Droy008 said:

I hate to say it.

But your not allowed to leave your reef alone anymore. Bad things happen when your gone.

The simple solution is, never ever leave again. Lol

^this

 

Seriously, it's so hard to come back from an awesome vacation like that and have to deal with tank problems on top of returning to the cold and to work. 

 

I'm curious, though, about the melting chaeto. I would have thought that with all the nutrient spikes that chaeto would be the one thing that would be thriving. Do you think something caused the chaeto to melt down first, which lead to other problems with elevated nutrients? 

[Kijho]

I always love stopping by your thread man!  Good to see things doing well, although I'm very sorry for the recent loss.  Hope you're doing well! 

[ninjamyst]

Corals look better after water change but the cyano is coming back strong.  Also the blue tang died today =(.  No white spots on the body so I don't think it's ich.  That's 4 fish lost in a month.  No clue why.  Sigh.  Here are the changes that I made before I left last month:

 

- Changed sump light to NanoBox Tide

- Increased flow in sump with extra pump

- Increased dosage of alk and ca after testing shows alk below 6 and ca at 400

 

I also found out the lighting schedule reset at some point to the Kessil standard schedule which runs higher than my own schedule.  That probably caused the cyano / algae outbreak with the extra light.  The change to NanoBox Tide in the sump may have caused the chaeto to melt since it's a very different spectrum than my previous sump light.  But none of this explains the fish deaths.....

 

 

[YHSublime]

Beautiful tank, tagging along. 

[tanacharison]

When I lost all my chaeto by switching lights my nitrates spiked a lot and fast.. I was able to do a quick water change to turn things around but I do remember a short run of cyano after.  

[Andreww]

Man such bad luck with the fish, I’m really sorry...

...on another note, what spectrum does that nanobox light have? Cuz if your chaeto was growing fine before, sucking up nutrients and keeping the algae out of the display, now with the light change it might have stopped altogether and bleached like you noticed, and nutrients just piled up , maybe chaeto releasing some too in the process of dying and voila, algae galore in the main tank...

Really this is just an opinion but there could be some truth to it ...

I suspect your nanobox is far more powerful than what you had before...was it full intensity over the fuge? 

Based on BRS test with the chaeto and different lights, fluorescent and other typical fuge lights put out about 80 par dead center while some of the horticulture Kessil he was testing put out SPS bleaching PAR, while still growing chaeto like mad, ofcourse after acclimating it to the powerful lights...

[kimberbee]

On 12/11/2017 at 8:19 AM, ninjamyst said:

 I want to sell yellow wrasse...

Oh...!!

On 12/11/2017 at 8:19 AM, ninjamyst said:

...since it is getting aggressive against smaller fish. 

Eh... 

 

They're cute, but if they grow up to be assholes, nvm...

[ninjamyst]

Came home to dead yellow tang.  Was eating fine just last night.  WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?!

 

 

On 12/12/2017 at 9:27 PM, YHSublime said:

Beautiful tank, tagging along. 

It seen better days....

 

On 12/12/2017 at 9:35 PM, tanacharison said:

When I lost all my chaeto by switching lights my nitrates spiked a lot and fast.. I was able to do a quick water change to turn things around but I do remember a short run of cyano after.  

 

On 12/12/2017 at 9:42 PM, Andreww said:

Man such bad luck with the fish, I’m really sorry...

...on another note, what spectrum does that nanobox light have? Cuz if your chaeto was growing fine before, sucking up nutrients and keeping the algae out of the display, now with the light change it might have stopped altogether and bleached like you noticed, and nutrients just piled up , maybe chaeto releasing some too in the process of dying and voila, algae galore in the main tank...

Really this is just an opinion but there could be some truth to it ...

I suspect your nanobox is far more powerful than what you had before...was it full intensity over the fuge? 

Based on BRS test with the chaeto and different lights, fluorescent and other typical fuge lights put out about 80 par dead center while some of the horticulture Kessil he was testing put out SPS bleaching PAR, while still growing chaeto like mad, ofcourse after acclimating it to the powerful lights...

Yea, I am pretty sure the new nanobox light killed the chaeto.  It's very different spectrum and very powerful, probably 200-300 par on the chaeto now.  Going to try and find some local chaeto and start again.  

 

 

[JayPagi]

This sucks to read. Did you test for ammonia? 

[tibbsy07]

Sorry to see the recent troubles, but gorgeous tank as always dude. Love the NB in the sump, too

[tanacharison]

I was never able to grow chaeto again and switched to culpera and mangroves.. but that beam makes mangroves shoot up like bean sprouts. That’s so sad about the fish! Could also just be a lot of stress... idk.  I’m excited to see this bounce back.

[Kijho]

So sorry to hear man

[ninjamyst]

Looking to get a chaeto reactor.  $210 for a Skimz one at BRS.  ANyone has recommendation for more affordable option?  I want one that's self contained and sits inside the sump.  Not a hang on or one where the pump is external.  There's why most of the DIY ones dont work for me...

[ninjamyst]

I think my cyano is actually dino =(.  Multiple water changes, scrubbing tank down, new carbon / phosguard, and tank is still covered with this stuff.  Sigh.

[DaveFason]

On 12/16/2017 at 11:30 AM, ninjamyst said:

Looking to get a chaeto reactor.  $210 for a Skimz one at BRS.  ANyone has recommendation for more affordable option?  I want one that's self contained and sits inside the sump.  Not a hang on or one where the pump is external.  There's why most of the DIY ones dont work for me...

I use the AquaMaxx and place the pump in the water and have the reactor sitting on the the section with the filter socks. Works well and was a good upgrade. 

 

On your sump light. Try running JUST the royal blues for a bit. 

 

-Dave

[mitten_reef]

16 minutes ago, DaveFason said:

I use the AquaMaxx and place the pump in the water and have the reactor sitting on the the section with the filter socks. Works well and was a good upgrade. 

 

On your sump light. Try running JUST the royal blues for a bit. 

 

-Dave

I thought most plants like warm white/reddish-purplish lights?  Macros are plants-ish, aren’t they? 

[Andreww]

A grow light usually has blue and red spectrum.

Maybe Dave is referring to running just to blues so the OP doesn’t stress the macro even further with too much light...acclimation mode of some sort.

Then increase the red etc as well after some time.

 

[Rory282]

Ninja,

 

Check these out.

http://www.ultrareef.it/eng.ultrareef.it/prodotti - uaf-003.htm

Don't know what they cost but they look sweet irl.

[ninjamyst]

The IM Magnafuge light I used before is all warm white with no blues or reds and the chaeto grew fast.  So maybe the new full spectrum Nanobox light is too much for the chaeto to get used to.

 

Also I think I figured out what killed my fish.  Been doing a lot of research on dino and apparently it is toxic.  When I came home from vacation, I did a big water change and scrubbed a lot of dino off the glass, sandbed, and rock.  That probably released toxin in the water and killed the fish, especially since the tangs are herbivores.  Now that I know this is dino, it's going to be an uphill battle to get rid of it.  Of course I didn't know dino is toxic until last night and I went and bought like 10 snails and 5 blue leg hermits yesterday to eat the dino...

 

My plan of action now is:

1. Dose prazipro just in case there is internal parasite in the tank (I suspect dino toxin killed the fish but my firefish is also looking very skinny so maybe there's something else in the water)
2. Bought a new IM minimax reactor to double amount of carbon / phosguard I am running
3. Manual removal of dino as much as I can
4. Lights out for 3 days next week if things don't improve
5. LAST RESORT: break down tank and upgrade to a bigger one =P

 

[Nola Bear]

I have Dino’s as well. I am trying bioclean and I believe I am seeing some improvement.it is one dose every 15 days, and I plan to do three doses. 

 

If if that doesn’t work, there is a great thread on another forum that has an idea I will try next if what I’m doing now doesn’t work. 

 

http://166.78.194.236/forums/showthread.php?t=2307000&page=30

[Cannedfish]

Man this a huge bummer, but I think you've got this. Your tank is too bad ass to tear down. 

[xiaoxiy]

Hey Ninja. Food for thought here; I've had 3 dino outbreaks in my tank, and the only thing that was able to beat them back each time was increasing my feeding and dosing vibrant once every 2 weeks. For some reason, I always get dino outbreaks when I try to cut back on feeding; I wonder if it just thrives in a lower-nutrient system but gets outcompeted in a higher nutrient system by other algae.

 

My last outbreak was about 3 weeks ago, after I tried to cut from feeding 1.5 cubes to 1 cube a day. After 1 week of feeding 2 cubes a day and manual removal, my tank was dino free.