Greg's First Reef Journal (Red Sea Max Nano 20g/70L)

[Lawlboom]

Short update here. I gave up on the traditional methods of beating cyanobactera. I did a 3 day black out twice. I had a koralia 425 directly blasting the cyano (It just grew long wispy 'tentacles'). So I bought some red slime remover and what a difference. The cyano has turned a grayish brown and has reduced by about 80%. I did the first dose then another dose 48 hours later. I'm going to wait until sunday for my usual water change day and see how much is left after one week of treatment. Lookin good so far. 

 

Also I setup a QT tank and moved my murderous sixline wrasse there. I bought two 'snowflake' clowns and couldn't be happier. Much better additions over the wrasse. While interesting, the constantly darting in and out of rock isn't as entertaining as two wigglers derping around. 

[Cdubbya]

Curious on what heater you ended up using?.. there is just not much room in the rear sump. I got my nano max set up and cycling and I'm about ready for live stock. So I got to get one picked up soon.

[Lawlboom]

On 2/28/2017 at 11:16 PM, Cdubbya said:

Curious on what heater you ended up using?.. there is just not much room in the rear sump. I got my nano max set up and cycling and I'm about ready for live stock. So I got to get one picked up soon.

 

Hey sorry for the late response, I must I have lost it in the notifications. I ended up buying an Eheim 75w which was still too large for the sump. Mainly the ATO gets in the way of anything productive in the sump. Am using the 150w I have in there for now until I decide to shut down the QT then will go back to the 75 for a smaller footprint. 

[Lawlboom]

Some pictures this morning. 

[Weetabix7]

Nice, I see some definite improvements!!!

While the algae situation looks ENORMOUSLY better, it looks like you still have some hair algae. Are you continuing to follow up on that so it doesn't get out of hand again?

 

Pretty fish and pretty corals!!

[SeaFurn]

Yes, looking much better.    Do you know what kind of goose neck that is on your QT tank?   It looks like it easily supports the weight of the bulb. 

[Lawlboom]

1 hour ago, Weetabix7 said:

Nice, I see some definite improvements!!!

While the algae situation looks ENORMOUSLY better, it looks like you still have some hair algae. Are you continuing to follow up on that so it doesn't get out of hand again?

 

Pretty fish and pretty corals!!

 

Thanks! You are correct. I still have some hair algae around and I still have one stubborn spot of cyano up front. It's worth noting I also switched from pellets to frozen food. It's true what people say on the forums the ingredients say right on the package 'Moisture 85%'. Not that I didn't believe, just didn't think that pellets would make the big of a deal. Since the switch to frozen I see algae recede every day. During water changes the stuff comes right off and even when I turkey baster blast the live rock during the week some gets blown off. I think it's safe to say the algae is losing the battle right now. 

 

1 hour ago, SeaFurn said:

Yes, looking much better.    Do you know what kind of goose neck that is on your QT tank?   It looks like it easily supports the weight of the bulb. 

 

Yeah! The gooseneck is the 'par38 gooseneck' from Bulk Reef supply. I did a lot of looking and I decided both with the bulb and the goose neck rather than save a few bucks I'm going to buy things made for aquariums. 

[Lawlboom]

Picture update! It may be subtle but I see a big difference in my corals.

 

 

[Lawlboom]

Wish I had a happier update. My monti has began to bleach so I moved it to the sand. My zoos and polyps don't seem to want to open all the way. Also still no algae on my base rock. Oh and I scraped the front glass and my GSP closed up. 

 

Something is off in my system and I'm not sure what. 

 

 

 

[Weetabix7]

It's always frustrating when that happens. 

A good starting point to figuring it out is to ask yourself what has changed in the last couple of weeks.

[Lawlboom]

Back here with an update. It's been a crazy life for a while. I got married which was great and the honeymoon was amazing. The trouble though happened at the EXACT moment we left for the airport. As we were leaving a HUGE lightning strike happened and the entire area lost power, but it came back almost immediately. When I returned home my AI prime was flashing blue instead of green and my tank... COVERED in algae. I mean everywhere. I couldn't even see my corals. When the house lost power, the internet got knocked out and the prime lost connection so apparently it ran default mode. I believe it ran for 12 hours at nearly maximum strength every day for a week. I was lazy and wasn't keeping up carbon dosing before the wedding so my nitrates were about 40ppm. High nitrates and blasting the tank with light for 12 hours...

 

Here we are a month later. Some algae remains on the sandbed. I lost some polpys and zoas. Surprisingly my monti has lost some of the white and now is growing. I thought I was bleaching it but maybe I wasn't giving it enough light? My frogspawn remains unchanged. My blasto was totally covered and somehow survived no problem. 

 

What I did 80% Water change, brushed out all sponges and filter sock, 3 day no light blackout covered in towels. After 3 days I uncovered and did another 80% water change (It took that much to siphon out all the dead algae). 2 days later I did a 50% water change to get the remaining algae. I also switched out my old carbon for Chemipure. 

 

What I'm doing I have switched to Red Sea pro salt. I'm back to dosing No3-Po4-X. I have bought Phosphate test kit and this weekend will be heading out and picking up a calcium test kit also. I really don't want to dose so I'm hoping the new salt mix will be enough to maintain what I have. Going to do weekly 10% waterchanges and see how that works. No new corals for a while, we just put a offer in on a house so I might be moving in a month. Going from a 700Sqft apartment to a 1500Sqft house seems like a dream. 

 

My complaints with this Red Sea Max nano is that there's no room in the sump for anything. I really really want a calcium reactor or at least an algae reactor but trying to accomplish those without it looking like a horrible mess of equipment is most definitely a challenge. If I get rid of the stock ATO I would have some room for some pumps but will have to come up with another ATO solution. I have an empty 75g, 40b, and 29g. I seriously considering upgrading to the 40B with 29g sump and keeping the nano for a quarantine tank. I priced it all out and it'll be about $1100 unless I go for the cheap Ebay, and DIY ATO. That's it for now, will try to do a least monthly updates and will definitely do a build thread if I upgrade. 

[RIP Sebastian]

That sucks. Glad everything is coming back.

[Lawlboom]

I tested nitrates yesterday and that silly API kit read 20PPM. I took a sample out to the LFS to test and they used a Red Sea Kit and it came back as 1ppm. I went ahead and bought a Red Sea Nitrate Pro kit the results were about .75ppm. I knew the API kits weren't always accurate but it seems to be it's time to throw mine in the garbage. Starting to wonder if my time keeping discus would have been easier with a more accurate test.. 

 

Anyway found some bubble algae in the tank going to get to removing it. Also noticed what I believe is the start or coralline algae speckling the rocks. Changing to the Pro Salt was worth the money. 

 

I'm going to begin looking into solutions for an algae reactor and a bigger ATO. For those familiar with the Red Sea Max Nano there are some challenges in the way the sump is setup in the back. Removing the stock ATO and putting just a float valve with an external reservoir would free up some space for a pump I'm just not sure how I would return. I like the idea of a hang on the side display refugium. The issue with that is I want to run the lights opposite the display lights I don't know how to avoid the light from bleeding over without painting a side of the tank which I don't want to do. I guess add some points toward upgrading to the 40B.

[Lawlboom]

Got an early birthday present. First time I've ever received a shipment of coral. I was a little stressed because the bag water was at 72F but everything is doing fine in the QT. Second picture shows a rather large aiptasia. Hopefully I can scrape it off before I transfer to the DT. 

[Recci]

Why don't you follow the full red sea care program?  Thats what I am doing with the same tank. Dose nopox correctly and you shouldn't have any algae issues at all. Use the foundation a,b and c to keep your params stable. There is no need for reactors or anything on this tank. It looks like you really haven't done your research properly (not that i am an expert). I am starting a journal on the same tank.