Reefer 170: West Mariculture Aquascape

[tanacharison]

A few weeks of stability and your brown corals will bounce back! I’m glad to hear your lights back. 

[xiaoxiy]

It's been about 2.5 months since I last did a water change, and the growth has slowed down even before the fiasco. I think I'm gonna go back to regular water changes until I get those triton results back.

[basser1]

SPS corals are not for the faint of heart. One thing goes out of whack and there are problems. Plus they are not as forgiving as LPS or Softies. I've been doing this for almost 20 years and just when you think you have everything dialed in.....  BOOM! something crops up.

 

But I continue to keep those fuzzy colored sticks! Good Luck on your sticks coming back!

 

BTW your tank looks really nice......

[xiaoxiy]

1 hour ago, basser1 said:

SPS corals are not for the faint of heart. One thing goes out of whack and there are problems. Plus they are not as forgiving as LPS or Softies. I've been doing this for almost 20 years and just when you think you have everything dialed in.....  BOOM! something crops up.

 

But I continue to keep those fuzzy colored sticks! Good Luck on your sticks coming back!

 

BTW your tank looks really nice......

Agreed! Thanks for the compliment.

 

I've been missing the act of water changes as well. My fingers were getting itchy after 2 months of no water change...

[xiaoxiy]

First water change in 2.5 months. 10 Gallons completed.

 

 

[mitten_reef]

15 hours ago, xiaoxiy said:

Nanobox Hybrid back over the tank! 

 

 

On a negative note, some of my acroporas didn't handle the light fiasco very well. I'll post pictures later, but the aftermath ranges from browning tissue to peeling as well. They're of my favorite acroporas too (the new millepora) I suspect that the 1dkH alk increase, in addition to the fact that these were maricultured, damaged them heavily. I am now constantly staring at my tank, mentally willing the acropora to make a recovery. I need a distraction....

 

I sent my triton test in last week as well; we'll see what it shows.

 

I also got a replacement skimmer pump in and reinstalled my skimmer. Unfortunately, the first thing the skimmer decided to do was overflow like crazy.

 

 

Sorry for the misfortune of the millie's, I hope they recover.    The tank colors sure look a bit muted today. 

 

I think this goes to stress the point that @DaveFason has been making on all of his threads.  DO NOT MESS WITH THE LIGHT PROGRAMS.  I see that by switching the fixtures back and forth - practically the same as frequently changing your LED programmings - it could wreak havocs to a once-thriving group of corals.   

 

Of course, your change was due to necessity and I'm sorry to bring it up as an anecdotal point.  But perhaps you can give up timelines on how the light source were changing, and the before-and-after effects? 

 

edit: of course those CAPS were not directed to you @xiaoxiy.

 

 

 

[xiaoxiy]

7 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Of course, your change was due to necessity and I'm sorry to bring it up as an anecdotal point.  But perhaps you can give up timelines on how the light source were changing, and the before-and-after effects? 

Lights bugggered out on 2/26/2018, and I had to put my old ATI 4 bulb powermodule over the tank. When I say old, I mean this fixture's reflectors were 50% oxidized and brown, dropped from 300+ PAR down to 150+ PAR. Over the course of a few days, my alk increased by a 1dkH over a short period of time due to the drop in growth. I got the Radions on my tank on 3/6/2018, but it was likely too late. The pieces that were browning had already browned out. Of interesting note, only the new mariculture pieces suffered, my old pieces did well throughout the fiasco. Dave did some quick work and got my light back to me by 3/9/2018 and I was able to get them installed again. I am still waiting for alkalinity consumption to increase again.

 

14 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

The tank colors sure look a bit muted today. 

The muted coloration of the tank is likely not a result of the browning. It's due to the light spectrum, with 2x 6500K daylight bulbs. The tank looks similar to what you would see while snorkeling in a shallow reef. 

[Neopolymath]

I almost never post here (have lost the password to like 2 accounts previous to this one), but I remember that you were a med student. Are you a 4th year? If so, I hope you received good news yesterday about the match! Nice to see a fellow reefer/med student. There are a few of us.

 

I have liked the evolution of your style. The tank looks nice. 

[William]

40 minutes ago, Neopolymath said:

I almost never post here (have lost the password to like 2 accounts previous to this one), but I remember that you were a med student. Are you a 4th year? If so, I hope you received good news yesterday about the match! Nice to see a fellow reefer/med student. There are a few of us.

 

I have liked the evolution of your style. The tank looks nice. 

Agreed (PGY3 resident here) hope your match goes well.

[xiaoxiy]

2 hours ago, Neopolymath said:

I almost never post here (have lost the password to like 2 accounts previous to this one), but I remember that you were a med student. Are you a 4th year? If so, I hope you received good news yesterday about the match! Nice to see a fellow reefer/med student. There are a few of us.

 

I have liked the evolution of your style. The tank looks nice. 

 

1 hour ago, William said:

Agreed (PGY3 resident here) hope your match goes well.

Thanks you two! Despite all the anxiety, I matched yesterday; now I'm happily awaiting to find out where I matched @ on Friday!

[William]

2 hours ago, xiaoxiy said:

 

Thanks you two! Despite all the anxiety, I matched yesterday; now I'm happily awaiting to find out where I matched @ on Friday!

What specialty ?

[xiaoxiy]

1 hour ago, William said:

What specialty ?

Psychiatry! 

[xiaoxiy]

Here are the two browning milleporas

 

You can really see how much they've browned in the reflection in this picture.

 

My secale, however, is developing some serious purples again.

 

These frags didn't even flinch during the fiasco.

 

Finally, here's a really good representation of the spectrum/color I see from 7AM-3PM.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Grow out tank absolutely filled to the brim. Time to sit back and watch things grow!

 

[benjho]

that portrait on the left tho 

[xiaoxiy]

3 hours ago, benjho said:

that portrait on the left tho 

lmao 

[xiaoxiy]

I turned the flow off to my grow out section and managed to snag some shots.

 

 

Here is my XY Blue Bonnet Tenius

 

Jason Fox Flame. Pretty brown, no reds or yellows yet :(.

 

Blue/Pink Millepora nubbin (I have a much larger frag in the display). Not so pink anymore lmao

 

The Riddler Acropora: Gorgeous mix of purples and greens.

 

Reef Raft Asia: Was browned out for 1 month and is recovering some color again. The distributors picture showed red hot body with yellow tips!

 

Vivid's Rainbow Delight (Right) and Upscale Microclados (Left)

 

Un-named Tenius: A local reefer's frag that is developing pink tips and yellow polyps in his tank. Hopefully mine will too!

 

 

Zoanthids! PZ Prometheans and Pink Flamingos. 

 

Rainbow Montipora: Almost died, but now recovering.

 

Recovering acropora frags. The brown frags with yellow tips were originally a mariculture that was sky blue with yellow tips. 

 

 

[ninjamyst]

This tank is legit!  All those acros look great despite the lighting and alk changes.  Are you still feeding super heavy?

[xiaoxiy]

14 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

This tank is legit!  All those acros look great despite the lighting and alk changes.  Are you still feeding super heavy?

Omg your alive!!!!!!

 

I have been transitioning to pellet foods and auto feeder. I roughly matched the pellet amount to the amount of frozen food  via the protein/fat mass listed on the labels

 

Also slowly cutting back on amino acids as well in hopes of making this tank as hands off as possible.

 

My dream is to be able to run the tank on autofeeding and autodosing. Less time I spend on my tank, the less neurotic I am, and subsequently the less I try to micromanage the tank. We all know that micromanaging a tank leads to disasters!

[xiaoxiy]

Just got my triton ICP results back: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/51954/

 

Looks like 2.5 months of no water change didn't mess anything up! That gives me a lot more confidence in skipping my water changes, given that I am using the full-balling method to replenishing macro and micro inorganic chemicals.

 

What is stunning is the low phosphate despite the amount of feeding I was providing the tank! My Hanna meter always reads at 0.00ppm, but has a (+/-) 0.04ppm margin of error.

[tanacharison]

26 minutes ago, xiaoxiy said:

Just got my triton ICP results back: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/51954/

 

Looks like 2.5 months of no water change didn't mess anything up! That gives me a lot more confidence in skipping my water changes, given that I am using the full-balling method to replenishing macro and micro inorganic chemicals.

 

What is stunning is the low phosphate despite the amount of feeding I was providing the tank! My Hanna meter always reads at 0.00ppm, but has a (+/-) 0.04ppm margin of error.

[xiaoxiy]

Not out of the trouble zone yet.

 

I continue to see residual effects from the alk spike and light fiasco.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Here are my April updates.

 

I've fully transitioned the tank from frozen foods to PE Mysis Pellets fed with an autofeeder. I also transitioned from Amino Acids (Reef Energy and Acropower) to KNO3. This has done more for the growth and coloration in my tank than the amino acids ever did. I've been slowly increasing the amount of KNO3 I dose weekly. 3 weeks ago, I started at adding 0.8ppm KNO3 daily, but now I'm up to 2ppm KNO3 daily. When I test at the end of the week, my nitrates still read at 0. To dose, I use the Nanodoser 1 and mix in Seachem Iron into the KNO3 solution as well.

 

Because of the KNO3 and pellets, I rarely touch my tank anymore. The only manual maintenance I perform is refilling the syringe, refilling my ATO on a weekly basis, cleaning the glass once a week, and cleaning my skimmer cup every 2 weeks.

 

Here's how the tank and some of the corals currently look!

 

 

 

[SeaFurn]

Looks fantastic! I love the height of your scape.

Glad the changes you've made are helping. 

[teenyreef]

I'm glad things are improving! My 30g frag tank always has zero nitrates, so I dose both KNO3 and aminos.