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rO.oster's BC29 revision 3.0 - Resurrected from Death


rO.oster

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Christopher Marks

You're in the home stretch! How has France been?

 

I really like what you've done with the gorgonians as well, great balance. Hopefully you return home to happy polyps all around :lol: 

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Thank you for the kind words, hopefully all is well upon my return fingerscrossed.  I ordered a few last pieces from Cherry Corals this week and have them on hold, to be delivered after I get home.  I am planning to have a beautiful interlocking scrolling monitopora cap section in the LH high flow area (Vivid Aquariums ultimate purple cap, green/red graft cap, orange reeftech starburst cap, ORA green cap, and ORA blue polyp purple rim cap).  Also,  a New York Knicks torch on top to complete the design.  I am super stoked!!!!

 

France has been great so far, I've been making a lot of new contacts and re-uniting with a lot of old ones, so it definitely is advancing my career.  I lived in Paris in 2012 as an ex-pat (the reason revision 1.0 was retired) for one and a half years and have not been back since.  It's been great to experience once again the pleasures and subtleties here.  This time I spent two weeks in Bordeaux and another week near Marseilles.  I have one last week of vacation in Budapest Hungary before returning home.  TBH, I am dying for a Dr. Pepper and some Popeye's chicken!!!!  LOL  I did re-visit my favorite chateau's and distilleries in Cognac and Medoc and re-upped my supplies of the fine grape juice! :bling:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thing are finally quieting down after returning home.  As soon as I stepped foot into the door, I had to check the critical parameters:  temperature, salinity, and water level.  Everything was on par!  You could just barley see into the tank, the glass was so brownish green.  I spotted my peppermint shrimp and Royal Gramma staring back and me hungrily, so I fed and planned my angle of attack.

 

The next day proceeded with a 20% water change.  GAC and GFO change.  Purigen change.  I pulled the chaeto rack out and was amazed at the growth:

 

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My fuge light is definetly working, the entire grow volume was filled.   The chaeto is healthy on all sides despite not being rotated, I am very pleased.  I cut this wad in half and put it back in.

 

I am kind of baffled by my evaporation rate.  I would say it was 3 gallons total, over 4 weeks.  I was expecting more.   I had a little salt creep at the hood seams, but the salinity actually climbed to 1.027.  

 

I set about cleaning the glass,  my Piranha Float magnet cleaner made short work of the caked on mess.  I love that thing, though sometime I get vertigo and think my tank is swaying with how much force I have to apply to move that strong magnet!

 

Many filter floss pad changes later, I did a good feeding of Reef Roids, and then another 20% water change.  You could definetly see the entire reef relax with the food and fresh clean water.

 

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I lost two zoa clusters, one I could tell was in severe recession before leaving, but the other one was a total surprise.  I have two more clusters that are currently in recession, I may try a lugols dip but they seem destined to recede away.

 

I am a little dissapointed with my gorgonians as I thought photosynthesis alone would sustain them, but they both are fasting down and looking skinny, pale, and in trouble.  They really appreciated the Reef Roids yesterday, I will keep that up and also get some live phytoplankton this week from the LFS.

 

The green mandarin was nowhere to be found.  :unsure:  The peppermint shrimp, having done its job long ago, also found its way into a water bottle trap and became frozen fish food.  I will be getting some feather dusters soon, and they do not thrive along side robbing shrimp.

 

Overall, a testament to the automation and dependability of my system.  I really rolled the dice; one spring storm and a extended power outage is all it would have taken.

 

I just saw my pom pom crab tonight under the moonlight!  Only one anemone on his claw though, hopefully everything improves with more consistent feeding.

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My cherry coral order arrived on Friday.  They protected the frags with plastic cups inside the bags and then insulated the whole thing so tightly, everything was warm and happy.  Expert.  I floated briefly to bring the temperature up, then into the coral rx they went.  I love killing pests, got you black star!!

 

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After a rinse, into the tank they went.  Everything opened right up.  The purple polyp green montipora cap got sunbstituted with a cc ultimate rainbow encrusting monti, which worked out because I was out of room for any more capricorus montis.  The starburst cap is sweeeet!  

 

A lot of time was spent arranging and rearranging frags today.  I think I can let things rest and see how they like the placements.  I’m so pleased with it all, I can’t stop staring at it.  If theres a way to photograph the tank and show what I see with acitinics only, please let me know?!  I have the camera + app. 

 

The goniporas perked up after the first feeding early this week, today I fed again.  My regiment will consist of:  20 drops phyto feast and 1/8 tsp reed roids target fed then circulated 30 minuets with no filter pump on, once every week.  Usually a water change not too far behind that.  A rotation of selcon soaked NLS or Formula 2 pellets, Rods Frozen original fish and coral food, frozen PE mysis and PE calanus; one of those choices every 2 days.  I’m being very leery of broadcast feeding phyto and any left over foods, I want to stick to a regiment and see how things look in 6 weeks when the internal cycle balance occurs.  I also want to get my fish bioload up to its final level soon for the same reason, so keeping an eye out for my final fish choices.

 

I tried feeding the torch very small silverside chunks today but the tubes weren’t very sticky.  I will give it a week to acclimate to the new spot and try again.

 

Pictures after they get some r & r!

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10 hours ago, rO.oster said:

m so pleased with it all, I can’t stop staring at it.  If theres a way to photograph the tank and show what I see with acitinics only, please let me know?!  I have the camera + app. 

I found a "pro mode" on my phone...  the biggest impact came from adjusting the white balance. If you find that setting you'll probably find access to others that will help. 

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On 4/7/2018 at 11:30 PM, teenyreef said:

Nice collection! I didn't know those little starfish were pests. What's bad about them?

well, I am no expert, but I do remember getting frags from a guy during revision2, and his tank was swimming in them.  I like the tiny white sand sifting stars but these medium small ones I want to aviod in case they multiply like the plague.

 

On 4/8/2018 at 9:17 AM, vitreous99 said:

I found a "pro mode" on my phone...  the biggest impact came from adjusting the white balance. If you find that setting you'll probably find access to others that will help. 

 

what phone?  i’m using an iphone 6S and with camera+ during daylights only can i get it close, with much adjusting of temperature, highlights, sometimes exposure, and tiny saturation adjustments.  under blue lights only the camera goes nnuh uh, nooo way..  Which is such a shame because that’s where the real magic is to behold :wizard:

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Things have settled in nicely.  Everything is enjoying the varied waterflow, fresh water, lighting (currently running blues and colors both at an even 50%), food, and placement.  

 

I’ve named my Royal Gramma: Haynie.  We’re becoming buddies, he’s just the right amount of activity and water column usage.

 

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I want a green warpaint clown goby to pertch inside all of the scrolling capricornus montiporas.  It’s going to be a while before they grow out!

 

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Behind the green ricordia, the clean sand leads to a candycane shrimp burrow.  I think a nice barbershop shrimp goby peeking up out of there would look great!

 

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I’m thinking a red or blue long tenticle gonipora to fill the volume between the torch and toadstool, upper right towards the back.  Medium lighting and medium/low flow.  What final piece would you get to fill this space?

 

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Finally, it may be cliche, but a mated pair of ocellaris clownfish living in the torch would be so supreme.  That way, everyone has a place, and a home.

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Has it really been 6 months since my last update?!  Time flies, there has been good progress on revision 3.  Lets start with the basics:

 

Lights at 50% intensity. 20% water change every two weeks on the dot.  I was starting to add kalwasser to my rodi topoff reservoir, at half the strength bulkrefsupply’s calculator dictates,  but have since backed off.  Approximately 2 filter floss pad changes per week.  Feedings lightly and sporadic, every 2 to 3 days, but a slow gorging until everyones belly can hold no more.  Carbon and GFO changes every 6 to 8 weeks, I have to be careful to not add too much (5 tablespoons each) or it inhibits flow through the media rack, making the top floss section less efficient.  Chaeto grows like crazy, but no coraline.

 

About a month after my April update, water conditions slowly deteriorate, it was evident by the rapid buildup of green algae on the glass not long after giving it a nice mag clean.  I broke out my nano skimmer, installed and dialed it in.  Immediately things improved, the chaeto growth slowed. Things leveled for a month or so, but some things like my orange ric just stay shrivled and small, some plating monti’s not growing much at all.  Other things doing really well, overall I think just one more zoa frag melted since my last update.  A few spots of coraline showing up in the corners.

 

Eventually, tell tale signs of a dense ...green? cyano matt, mainly in just one patch up front in the middle inwards V.  It never grew, I kept my eye on it and just kept trying to make my skimming as efficient as possible.  Slowly, the back wall grew a mat of really short flappy gooey algae, but the onset was slow.  I put in another order 20L quick crew from reefcleaners, I wanted to make sure my CUC was in good health since the blue leg hermits do their thing and the smaller nerites always find a hole and make a run :mellow:  See how far you get?!

 

Finally last month, despite frequest skimmer tunings and maintaining water changes + media changes, a heavy onset of what I can only describe as green cyano on all rock surfaces.  Air bubbles under gelly goo, but also powdery blasts of red and green.  Overall quantity of the spread was still relatively low, but it went from being a small eyesore to a pain in the ass. I’m actually surprised it took this long, each previous tank revision has needed a chemiclean after stocking is complete to fully balance the algae equation.

 

Per the instructions; temporarily adding a bubble wand and letting my skimmer run with no cup, removing the carbon and GFO, i dosed for 20 gallons of physical water volume.  It took it a while to work, 3 to 4 days, so no O2 shock, and no losses.  It was really cool how much motion the bubbles gave my tank!

 

FTS 10-05-2018:  The green pocillipora is the newest addition.

 

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I turned down my lighting intensity to 35% and had an immediate improvement in coloration in almost everything, especially the birds of paradise birdsnest and the meteor shower cyphastrea.  Everything was so bleached before!!  Now the coraline algae is starting to take off too, so it definitely goes to show you how powerful these LED’s are, and I have only a 700mA supply.

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December 01, 2018 FTS

 

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Things are starting to get sticky!  I am super impressed with the amount of growth over the last month, already I can picture how the water column will get filled as things continue to progress.  The coraline has really taken off too, on the back wall and on the rocks.  My lighting is at approximately 30% intensity on both blues and whites.  The coloration has improved ten fold.

 

I got a new pair of Davinci ocellaris clown fishes, my dream babies!  The paler orange male dances for his darker orange friend, but she doesnt seem interested just yet.  I am crossing my fingers that one day they will take up residence in the torch!!

 

The barbershop goby and candycane pistal shrimp give me a front row seat in the front left of the tank.  Im so lucky to get such good views of their symbiotic relationship.  During feeding, I clearly see the goby go after food and then spit it into the burrow hole!

 

I am still maintaining a 20% water change every 2weeks, carbon/gfo/purigen change every 6 weeks, filter floss and skimmer cup once a week, 4 gallons rodi to the topoff reservoir every 6 weeks.  I cant remember when was the last time I measured any parameters.  My specific gravity never budges from 1.026.  Water temperature is constant 77.8 F, no fluctuations.  I only have to use my magfloat maybe once every three weeks, the CUC covers the glass at night and keeps it clean. 

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

14 month update

 

I am maintaining a 20% water change every 2 weeks, and a media change (5 tablespoons gfo/carbon/purigen) every 8 weeks.

 

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As long as I keep my skimmer cup cleaned, I only mag clean the glass once every 6 weeks or so.  There is this 4 week window where everything seems to be in a kind of perfect clean/dirty ratio, and everything grows and thrives.  

 

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When doing the media change, I also trim back the chaeto, throwing out 2 fist sized chunks.  Ive spotted a apastatia or two recently in the display after not seeing any for a year, and think it came from them hitchiking in the back.  Time for another peppermint shrimp soon!

 

 

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I’ve  had to rescue my babershop goby from the back fuge, twice now... The first time he was MIA for well over a month before I found him during maintenance lol.  The second time was just a week or so before I checked for him, he practically swam into my net for rescue.

 

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I’ve noticed that the sand is really clean.  In the visible thickness around the perimeter, I have no scuzz band or any wierd coloration.  I do have a much beefier CuC then ever before, but also have tried to stay diligent with my skimmer.

 

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The green pocillipora must have “spawned” early on after getting it, because I see baby’s starting to nub up on most every free rock surface.  No signs of any love interest, or real estate shopping with my clown fishes ..🙁

 

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I love sitting next to my tank, it brings me a lot of joy and pride.  Thanks for looking!

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This is a gorgeous aquarium. I love the way everything fills in the rock structure, and also how there is an open band of substrate around the whole thing to set it off. It really draws in the eye!

 

Thank you for posting an update, otherwise I would probably have never seen it! This is exactly what I hope to have when my system reaches the same milestone - a clean, beautiful, stable tank 🙂

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17 month update.

 

I caught back up with the water changes and reupped my CuC after having a small stint there with little care.  Thankfully, this tank has been very forgiving because of the automation, top-off, and media.  Still, I have a small patch of sandbed thats green, cosmetic really, but the additional Florida ceriths and nerites are starting to shift the balance positively.  I got rid of those annoying frags and rearranged the items slightly on the sandbed.  The sunset orange scoly is my newest edition, doing very well in low flow + low lights.  I feed it once a week when I wake up in the morning for work, its huge spikey guts stick out hungrily.  It’s  starting to band up more and I can see hints of yellow in the center!

 

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Things are really starting to colonize.  What’s super dope is that just in the last week, the neon green toadstool hosts the clownfish!  The male completely submerges into the tenticles, and does this dance, sticking his front half out until the female darts in to join him.  I am smitten 😍 watching them play after dinner!

 

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Every chance I get to sit next to my tank, I breathlessly sigh in wonder.  Thank you for looking, and the kind comments left thus far!

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  • 1 month later...

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Trying my best to combat algae growth on the back wall and on the sand bed.  Its a three prong approach:

 

1.  I recently added to my CuC.  I am thinking with so much coral real estate I may buy a few blue leg hermits to access the spots snails cant get too and hopefully add to the overall grazing power.

 

2. I bought a siphon with a large diameter tube end; to start slowly sucking out the accumulated scuzz in the sand.  I just regulate the flow with my fingertip on the hose end, and I can effectively let the sand drop back down and capture only the murk.

 

3.  UV filter, SunSun JUP-02 5w unit, it's been 24 hours so far - going to run it for like 5 days and see where everything is at.

 

My iPhones video capture ability of the tank has always been limited, but it seems to be better as of late, so I made a short.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

A very long time has passed since my last update; I can't believe that the last photo's I have even taken of this tank were in November 2019:


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My last post described the growing algae issue I was battling, which was mainly on the back wall.  Little did I know what was in store for me.

 

2020 brought a lot of change.  We all faced it, one way or the other :sad:.  The algae issue only grew worse.  The thick matting carpet totally covered the back wall.  It started to take hold on the rocks, on the sand bed.  Fluffy, slimy, dark greenish brown, unlike anything I have seen before.  I bought more clean up crew and diversified the snail and hermit species, but they never made a dent.

 

I watched hopelessly as things got worse.  I knew I had to take action, but didn't know where to start.  I tried in vain with frequent water changes, refreshing my GFO/GC/Purigen media.  Siphoning the sand bed in sections helped and if I threw all my weight behind these normal tactics, then the sludge buildup would pause.  There was just too much stored nutrients in the rock and sand.  The cheap SunSun UV filter broke almost immediately, you get what you pay for....  At one point, the sludge was so thick, that it seized the impeller blade on my MP10.

 

I turned off my alternating timed fuge light, removing my chateo ball from the fuge.  It was a slimy green glob of junk, impeding flow and trapping debris.  I tried desperately to help things by manually removing sluffs of glob which was now covering most everything, clogging and indiscriminately covering the SPS all the way down to the softies.  There was so much sludge that the overflow grates were clogging every few days.  Forget about filter floss, it was clogged after 6 hours.  Bubbles of gas were trapped throughout it all, what a unending nightmare.  I turned down my LED light intensity in small increments to try and minimize excess lighting.

 

Coral life began to fade and recede in the latter half of 2020.  I lost my crowning green Pocillipora, then the ORA Birds of Paradise birds nest colony.  My heart sank.  I bleached the coral skeletons; they currently reside on my nightstand.  Lots of coral recession all around, no hope in sight.  While writing this post - I went back and searched through all my photos and archives and I cannot find one single picture taken of that train wreck, so embarrassing!

 

I was determined this year to make one last attempt at fixing things, else it looked like this was the end of the revision 3.0.  Is this the fate that lies for tanks that mature past 2 years?  Surely not, but I had let things devolve so badly that there was little hope.  In February 2021 I purchased a Aqua brand UV light, but life was so busy that I didn't get around to hooking it up.  I also stopped doing media and water changes at this point, feeling totally discouraged.

 

One day, FB suggested an R2R thread about combatting algae by using Hydrogen Peroxide.  I knew that you could remove rocks from the tank and target the algae directly by dripping and scrubbing, but this discussion was about dosing the tank in general.  There was a wide range of consensus on how much to dose, from 1ml/10gal to 1ml/gallon.  I was curious about what would happen, so I started dosing on the light side, and slowly ramped up.  I had nothing to lose.  This is using standard 3% H2O2, dosing at night with no tank or UV lights on.

 

When I finally got close to 1ml/gallon (20ml total), things began to change.  The CuC became really motivated and the sludge algae buildup ceased; and started lightly shedding off.  Feeling inspired, I finally got around to hooking up the Aqua UV light and pump which was an eyesore since it hung on the feeding lid in the front of the tank.

 

Determined, I continued to dose.  I moved my useless skimmer from chamber 1 into chamber 2 where the chaeto ball used to be, downstream of the filter floss in order to prevent it from getting clogged.

 

I could see the CuC trying their best.  I put in a big order at reefcleaners to up my chances, and also bought a few more blue leg hermits, trochus and other large snails.  I bit the bullet and got a emerald green crab but things were so toxic still that they didn't last very long and frequently died.  Undeterred, I bought more to replace the losses as things continued to improve.  

 

When I started exceeding 1ml/gallon (25ml-30ml total for a BC29, which accounting for displacement has about ~20 gallons of physical water in it), things really started to happen.  The algae began to shed off in large amounts.  For a few months I was changing my filter floss every day or two, having to take a toothbrush and brush away the sludge blocking the upper and lower overflow grates that allows for fuge circulation.  I had many a battle with my ATO as the overflows grates quickly clogged up (the ATO sensor is in chamber 3).  What a pain that was, thank goodness for the micro ATO and pump timer safety shutoff feature!

 

Things started to markedly improve.  One rare health indicator that had never really occurred for me in revision 3:  coraline algae growth started to explode on the glass.  The CuC started to seriously challenge the algae remnants, the algae was in recession.    I watched in wonder as week by week things improved.  Then, about 6 weeks ago I found that I only needed to change my floss every week.  Victory was at hand!

 

This weekend was finally an opportunity to perform some major tank maintenance.  I scraped all the coraline off the glass.  Did my first water change in 6 months, adding fresh GFO/GC/Purigen media.  Siphoned out the back chambers (no algae, just silt and debris).  Removed my hood, wiping off all the surfaces, salt buildup, etc.  I put the skimmer back into chamber 1 after a good vinegar soaking and scrubbing.  Specific gravity was brought back to 1.026.  The dust settled, and the new filter media is now kicking in, finally giving me that HD viewing effect that I haven't seen in over a year!!!!

 

I present to you, rO.oster's reincarnated revision 3.0 - 3.6 years old and resurrected from the brink of death:

 

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Now to find a new cool SPS frag to regrow in the upper middle.  I just checked and the prices on Cherry Corals are insane, what happened!!!?? Any suggestion on what to fill that spot with, maybe some kind of shelfing acro? 

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  • 3 weeks later...
Christopher Marks

Amazing update @rO.oster, wow! Thanks for sharing your journey with us. These are incredibly resilient ecosystems to keep in balance, I'm glad you persevered and got through the algae and coral losses to the other side. It looks great all refreshed!

 

Is peroxide dosing now a regular part of your maintenance plan long term?

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