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DCNano14 - complete tank reboot...whatcha think?


NanoRox

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My dragon eye zoas closed the next day (Sunday) and have not reopened.  One polyp has partly opened but certainly not like the first day.  I have moved the frag to where I hope is a better spot (close to where my fruit loops are open and doing great).   The actual body of the little colony looks healthy with no mucus.  the polyps look full so I will just wait them out now. 

 

I think I found a good spot for my blue mushroom frag.  Just under a small ledge at the bottom with little flow.  They have also moved on their own (I did not know they could do that) and seem happy. (see pic).

 

I also have an ORA Ricordea Yuma that was a bit difficult to make happy but again placed him under a ledge away from the flow and he is doing great.  (see pic) One thing I have noticed (maybe this is normal, maybe not) but I thought a happy coral was always full and inflated (for the lack of a better term) but I find my mushrooms at least cycle (grow/shrink) a few times a day.

 

And finally I happened to win a coral frag raffle right here on this forum and added 4 small Acan frags.  I know...LPS but they are supposedly hardy and from what I can tell, they really are.  full, tendrils out all the time and very active at night.  I will watch my Ca, Mg and ALK closely as well as feed them in the near future.  For now I have them on the bottom where they will stay for a week or two.  Plan is to move them mid tank at some point. 

blue shrooms 11-15-17.JPG

Ricordia yuma 11-15-17.JPG

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Maintenance done today. 

 

I am going to have to start toping the tank off.  My salinity increased to 1.030 which is too high.  I assume I can manually top off for now and may get something more automated later.   water parameters are:

 

temp 80

salinity 1.030

ph - 8.0 (had been 8.2 last week so would like to get it back up.  water change should do it)

ALK - 9.5 (was 10 last week)

Ca - still high and over 500

MG - 1500

phosphate - <.03

NH4 - 0

NO2 - 0

NO3 - 10 (would like to get this down to 5)

 

I wonder if my new zoas will not open due to the high salinity?  going to get that back down (slowly) to 1.025 or 1.026.

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It's quite possible they closed up due to the salinity, though zoas can be finicky too sometimes. I top off every day or two to keep salinity under control. Have never had an ATO lol.

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SomeWhereInSD

I have a started a similar setup and was wondering how you attached the Mini Tide M to your Biocube. The gooseneck clamp I have does not allow it to attach it to the rim firmly. If you could post  a side shot of how it's attached to the rim it would be much appreciated... Thnx...

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8 hours ago, SomeWhereInSD said:

I have a started a similar setup and was wondering how you attached the Mini Tide M to your Biocube. The gooseneck clamp I have does not allow it to attach it to the rim firmly. If you could post  a side shot of how it's attached to the rim it would be much appreciated... Thnx...

sure...I will post later today but I must admit my solution is not very sexy.  I used a lego piece to make up for the gap the rim creates.  :-) 

8 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

It's quite possible they closed up due to the salinity, though zoas can be finicky too sometimes. I top off every day or two to keep salinity under control. Have never had an ATO lol.

I think this was the cause.  Once I started topping off properly the polyps opened up within a day, :-) 

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10 hours ago, SomeWhereInSD said:

I have a started a similar setup and was wondering how you attached the Mini Tide M to your Biocube. The gooseneck clamp I have does not allow it to attach it to the rim firmly. If you could post  a side shot of how it's attached to the rim it would be much appreciated... Thnx...

Here you go.  The white piece is the long thin lego that fit perfectly.  In hind site I should have used a black lego but I was so eager to get it fixed I grabbed what I could. It works great though. 

 

You will find this to be an issue with many "hang on tank" kind of brackets when working with the Biocube.  That edge messes everything up.  I think, with some work it will come off but I did not want to risk it.   I recently installed an ATO and used my same Lego fix (black this time) and worked fine. 

APC_0008.jpg

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Installed my Hydrofill ATO today.  works like a champ.  I hate to complain about something small BUT they really need to make the tubing connections easier to connect to.  I have 1/4 tubing and had to heat it up, stretch it, you name it just to connect the tubing...took a good half hour.   

 

Anyway, once set-up it is working great.  I am wondering though where I will ever be able to add a doser later down the road when I actually need to dose (way down the road).  the back of the tank is pretty full and the inside cabinet looks like NASA control already.

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9 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Haha Lego work great for so many things, nice solution for shimming the light clamp! Durable and reef safe :lol: 

ha thanks.  love them Legos! 

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SomeWhereInSD

Thanks for posting the pic! It solves my mounting problem. 

 

Is that a custom screen enclosure on top? 

 

I've been thinking about how to make one since the top will be removed. My other thought is to mod the top by cutting a large square hole in it and adding screen material. 

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1 hour ago, SomeWhereInSD said:

Thanks for posting the pic! It solves my mounting problem. 

 

Is that a custom screen enclosure on top? 

 

I've been thinking about how to make one since the top will be removed. My other thought is to mod the top by cutting a large square hole in it and adding screen material. 

It's actually a screen kit from Bulk Reef Supply.   not too hard to put together

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"Hey...keep it down in there"

 

so my snails must be happy.  eggs on the glass this morning.   Apparently my snails have much to be thankful for.  

 

Water parameters are good...Ca came down just a bit as my Acans are starting to use some of the Ca now I think.  I also love my new ATO.  I had no idea I was losing that much water in a week due to evaporation (about a gallon a week).  

 

Just ordered three new frags online from Salt Critters (awesome Black Friday sale) so will get them next week.  Over all bad algae in tank is also down quite a bit.  All is good on the western front. 

snail-eggs.JPG

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On 11/20/2017 at 9:48 AM, Duane Clark said:

Happy Blue Shroom.   At Least I know I can keep something alive.  :-)

happy mushroom.jpg

Your led lighting is especially nice with separation of spectrum making this live rock’s coralline colors dance.  Very nice.

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3 hours ago, Duane Clark said:

"Hey...keep it down in there"

 

so my snails must be happy.  eggs on the glass this morning.   Apparently my snails have much to be thankful for.  

 

Water parameters are good...Ca came down just a bit as my Acans are starting to use some of the Ca now I think.  I also love my new ATO.  I had no idea I was losing that much water in a week due to evaporation (about a gallon a week).  

 

Just ordered three new frags online from Salt Critters (awesome Black Friday sale) so will get them next week.  Over all algae in tank is also down quite a bit.  All is good on the western front. 

snail-eggs.JPG

Looks like Dragons Breath in a dozen spots on this rock.  Touch that red stuff on rock.  Also, has is the lacy green macro doing?

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13 minutes ago, Subsea said:

Looks like Dragons Breath in a dozen spots on this rock.  Touch that red stuff on rock.  Also, has is the lacy green macro doing?

Is that what that is?  Its starting to grow nicely on this rock in particular.  It's very pretty.  The lacy green macro is also really very nice.  It's stayed clumped in three spots.  Does not seem to be spreading but is getting taller and the rosettes are a bit larger in diameter.  Unless it causes a problem I am going to let it go and see what it does.  As someone mentioned earlier it looks like a fresh water plant more than algae. I am also getting little micro feather duster type worms with purple feathers popping up in a few spots.  I am very pleased with how things are going so far.

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A few more additions.  I will stop for a while now and let these grow out some.  This is too addicting but so far everything is doing well.  no losses yet (knock on wood).

 

I have a green star polyp, more Zoanthids (don't know what kind since the online vendor only had a number next to them) and a hammer coral (not green tip...in fact the pics looks more blue or purple so I hope I will see that more once I move this guy closer to the light).

APC_0017.JPG

APC_0018.JPG

APC_0019.JPG

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OK...so it's been one month since the tank was started.  Admittedly have some hair algae the cleaning crew needs to deal with and I would like to get my nitrates lower than the current 10 ppm but I am happy with the progress thus far. 

Tnk update 11-29-17.JPG

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nice tank

 

I too would grow the macro, its highly susceptive to peroxide so its easy to set it back if it gets mean.

 

the hair algae you should deal with, not wait for the crew or they'd have prevented it. its a known invader, with one lift out of the rock that algae can be knife scraped clean via surgery. many will opt to not, and take chances and that's all in the fun of reefing.

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10 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

nice tank

 

I too would grow the macro, its highly susceptive to peroxide so its easy to set it back if it gets mean.

 

the hair algae you should deal with, not wait for the crew or they'd have prevented it. its a known invader, with one lift out of the rock that algae can be knife scraped clean via surgery. many will opt to not, and take chances and that's all in the fun of reefing.

Will do on both accounts.  tomorrow is maintenance day so I will scrape clean as much of the hair algae as possible.  Thanks for the info!

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hey one last little tip only cuz its a massive time saver

 

when its scraped clean and outside of tank, put peroxide on that cleaned spot then wait a sec, rinse off. that last step will stop every anchored invader known in reefing

 

it means you w never have an invaded reef forever though its an unnatural process to force that. if we guide early, it'll lessen then stop that's the hidden secret. algae is not about nutrient detailing, you can be algae free even with higher than normal nutrients simply by disallowing a given mass a few times, directly.

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Water parameters have changed a bit from what I have been seeing the past month.  pH has dropped to 8.0, alk has dropped to 8.5 and calcium is no longer sky high (over 520) and has come down to 460.  Nitrate is still at 10 (argh!) I would like to get my pH back up to the ideal 8.3 and would also like my alk to get back to 9 or 9.5.  I don't want to make any drastic changes and I certainly don't want to chase pH around.  I am seeing one Acan frag having issues (wont open completely) so not sure if that is due to pH or alk or something else.  Will have to wait and see.  Just a few tweaks:

 

1. my ATO is using 1 gallon a week.  That surprises me.  I had no idea I was losing that much water.  since I want the ph a tad higher and I am seeing lower alk plus my calcium is good but not insane anymore, I am going to add 1/4 tsp of kalkwasser to my ATO water and monitor. I have no interest in doing full 2 part dosing (don't have the need  yet anyway) but I want to keep things simple.

 

2. I have redirected one of my water jets to agitate the water a bit more.  Hopefully increased surface agitation will help gas exchange so if CO2 is helping lower the pH maybe that will help a little.

 

3. Taking a break on adding anymore corals for a while.  Will let the tank "season" a bit this month and just let the corals do their thing.

 

I will have to add a shrimp or something soon because my kids keep nagging me when I will add something that moves.  plan on polling the forum to see what livestock they would suggest.  may make a little contest out of it...should be fun. 

 

 

UPDATE:  I decided to feed my corals (Coral Frenzy) this morning while lights were ramping up.  Holy crap Batman!!! The Acans are huge now and have returned to their former glory.  It appears, for my Acans at least, they need fed twice a week

 

 

 

 

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