Xanthine's Biocube 16 - the journey continues

[Xanthine]

I'm so mad at myself. I think my clownfish has either ich or velvet bc I didn't quarantine the blenny. I know better. But I didn't do it since I had turned my QT into another DT awhile back and never bothered to replace it with a new QT.  I have ordered cupramine and a copper testing kit set to arrive tomorrow and have been reading up on what to do next. I was *just* looking at pics from when I got that little dude as a baby years ago... I hope he makes it.

 

Edit with more details -I noticed around 7 'fuzzy' spots on the clownfish first things Fri morning. (That was 18 hours after adding the blenny, 30 hours after adding a new frag)

The spots weren't like well defined round spots like I've seen with ich before, they was more fuzzy edged, on his left pectoral fin and on his chin. He also was keeping his dorsal fins flat against his body. Behaved and ate like normal.

General folklore seems to be if you can count the dots, its ich, if you can't, it might be velvet - but either way, copper is a suggested treatment option, so got some ordered with next day delivery. I mixed up some new water and started planning the hospital tank setup. 

 

That night, I did a 3.5 minute freshwater dip on the guy. It took so long to net him out, I know I stressed him out badly. I had planned on doing 5 minute dip but he started acting pretty distressed so I pulled him early. Once back in the main tank, he looked like crap!! His mucus coating all around his face and left fin was opaque and sliming up.  I should have taken a picture but it was upsetting to look at so I didn't. 

 

This morning, I didn't even want to get out of bed bc I feared I would find him dead - but thankfully, he is doing okay still. 

Mostly clear skin, normal breathing / behavior / eating.

When the light hits just right though I still see a couple spots near base of his fin and also maybe under his chin.

I took a pic and adjusted the lighting so I could see them better:

 

 

[ReefAdoRe]

Thank you for sharing! I think we all go through these phases and learn a lot from each other. CUC refreshes are the best! And do loads of great work in the tank 👏🏻

[Xanthine]

Found a worm. I don't think it's a good one.  Whew -- looks like it is an algae eater dorvilleidae worm!! Thanks @WV Reefer for the ID assist! I'll sleep much better tonight now haha!

 

As soon as I saw the tentacle hammer head looking like a freaking Subnautica Reaper Leviathan .....

 

I nabbed it for the scope. (pics are on light blue background with white light)

 

Really hard to photo in focus with how wiggly it is. It moved like snake/eel. The head tentacle things are much more obvious in person.

Greenish leg things, Red stripes on top near head, blueish guts on belly, yellow for most of body but dark red tip of tail

 

 

(Actually, it's kind of cute. But now my research into what type it is is horrifying me...happy halloween I suppose!)

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Xanthine
Thought it was a bad worm but it's a good worm!

[Xanthine]

No sign of parasites or any spots on my clown - I think the marks I saw were maybe from nips from the blenny fighting out the pecking order? 

I've seen the clown doing the weird pairing clown shimmy seizure dance with him a few times - I think he has been alone far too long!

Meanwhile, the blenny is redecorating the place and already has pushed 3 corals down onto the sand that were 'too close' to his rock-hole.

 

The urchin did really well the first few days and was making a dent in the hair algae / cyano -- then I found him dead one morning.

The rest of the new CUC isn't touching any of the algae, so that is disappointing.

Dozens of snails all staying on the clear glass while the infested rockwork sits alone.

 

I sent in my water for ICP testing like @billygoat suggested so maybe that will help give me some answers. 

 

In other news, my ATO died. I was 11 months in to the 12 month warranty. Sent it in and they confirmed it was a bad controller/sensor and mailed me back a new one right away - whew!

[billygoat]

On 11/8/2020 at 4:58 PM, Xanthine said:

No sign of parasites or any spots on my clown - I think the marks I saw were maybe from nips from the blenny fighting out the pecking order? 

I've seen the clown doing the weird pairing clown shimmy seizure dance with him a few times - I think he has been alone far too long!

Meanwhile, the blenny is redecorating the place and already has pushed 3 corals down onto the sand that were 'too close' to his rock-hole.

 

The urchin did really well the first few days and was making a dent in the hair algae / cyano -- then I found him dead one morning.

The rest of the new CUC isn't touching any of the algae, so that is disappointing.

Dozens of snails all staying on the clear glass while the infested rockwork sits alone.

 

I sent in my water for ICP testing like @billygoat suggested so maybe that will help give me some answers. 

 

In other news, my ATO died. I was 11 months in to the 12 month warranty. Sent it in and they confirmed it was a bad controller/sensor and mailed me back a new one right away - whew!

Can't wait to see those ICP results! Hopefully some new information will be revealed there. 🤞

 

What kind of ATO do you have? I had a similar issue with a SmartATO Micro (faulty pump - they use a proprietary design that interfaces specifically with their controller, so it was not easy to replace) and also found their customer service to be top notch.

[Xanthine]

ICP results for tank in! RODI still hasn't posted. 

 

Recommendation Findings based on ATI's comparisons --

 

 

Interesting data comparisons btwn my home test kits and the ICP- 

 

Symbol	ATI / ICP Value	Home Value	Method
Salinity (NaCl)	30.95 PSU (1.0233)	1.0235	Refrac
Carbonate hardness	8.21 °dKH	8.15	Salifert
Magnesium	1300 mg/l	1290	Salifert
Calcium	414.6 mg/l	420	Salifert
Copper	u.	N.D	Seachem
Nitrate	0.01 mg/l	0.5	Salifert
Phosphate	0.03 mg/l	0.05 / 0.07	Salifert/Hanna

 

Full results :

 

Spoiler

Symbol	ATI / ICP Value	Calculated reference value	Difference
Base elements
Salinity (NaCl)	30.95 PSU (1.0233)	35.00 PSU (1.0264)	-4.05 PSU
Carbonate hardness	8.21 °dKH	7.50 °dKH	0.71 °dKH
Major elements
Chloride	17746 mg/l	17509 mg/l	236.8 mg/l
Sodium	9596 mg/l	9727 mg/l	-131.6 mg/l
Magnesium	1300 mg/l	1163 mg/l	137.0 mg/l
Sulfur	926.9 mg/l	813.6 mg/l	113.4 mg/l
Calcium	414.6 mg/l	372.3 mg/l	42.34 mg/l
Potassium	452.1 mg/l	360.8 mg/l	91.30 mg/l
Bromine	77.94 mg/l	59.25 mg/l	18.70 mg/l
Strontium	7.73 mg/l	7.07 mg/l	0.66 mg/l
Boron	3.94 mg/l	3.89 mg/l	0.05 mg/l
Fluorine	1.10 mg/l	1.15 mg/l	-0.05 mg/l
Minor elements
Lithium	1518 µg/l	150.3 µg/l	1367 µg/l
Silicon	197.0 µg/l	88.43 µg/l	108.6 µg/l
Iodine	7.01 µg/l	57.48 µg/l	-50.47 µg/l
Barium	5.00 µg/l	8.84 µg/l	-3.84 µg/l
Molybdenum	12.69 µg/l	10.61 µg/l	2.08 µg/l
Nickel	2.26 µg/l	0.44 µg/l	1.82 µg/l
Manganese	u.	0.88 µg/l	-0.88 µg/l
Arsenic	u.	1.33 µg/l	-1.33 µg/l
Beryllium	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Chrome	u.	0.44 µg/l	-0.44 µg/l
Cobalt	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Iron	u.	0.44 µg/l	-0.44 µg/l
Copper	u.	0.44 µg/l	-0.44 µg/l
Selenium	u.	0.44 µg/l	-0.44 µg/l
Silver	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Vanadium	2.10 µg/l	1.33 µg/l	0.78 µg/l
Zinc	u.	1.77 µg/l	-1.77 µg/l
Tin	u.	0.44 µg/l	-0.44 µg/l
Nutrients
Nitrate	0.01 mg/l	2.00 mg/l	-1.99 mg/l
Phosphorus	10.01 µg/l	13.26 µg/l	-3.25 µg/l
Phosphate	0.03 mg/l	0.04 mg/l	-0.01 mg/l
Pollutants
Aluminium	19.67 µg/l	0.09 µg/l	19.58 µg/l
Antimony	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Bismuth	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Lead	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Cadmium	u.	0.18 µg/l	-0.18 µg/l
Lanthanum	u.	0 µg/l	0 µg/l
Thallium	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Titanium	u.	0.09 µg/l	-0.09 µg/l
Tungsten	u.	0 µg/l	0 µg/l
Mercury	u.	0 µg/l	0 µg/l

[Xanthine]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:28 AM, billygoat said:

What kind of ATO do you have?

It's an XP Aqua Duetto. Until it failed it was a 'set it an forget it' - loved how stable it kept my salinity!

 

Speaking of salinity stability -- tank is running a little low at 31 vs 35, mostly from overcompensating while the ATO was out. 

Lowered sensor for now and topping off with salt to raise it back up. 

 

Nitrates are still too low - with ICP showing even lower than I thought - 0.01, and phos only at 0.03

So annoying to be dealing with such a prolonged algae and cyano outbreak even at these low nitrate and phos levels.  

 

I finally moved my gramma over to this tank (so now my 2nd DT is back to being a QT/hospital standby tank).

 

 

I have 2 pincushion urchins on order from algaebarn headed this way -- hoping they work out better than that tuxedo did!

 

 

[Xanthine]

RODI ICP results came back  - non detect for everything, so that's one less thing to worry about!

 

The blenny continues to knock down any corals that come too close to his upper rock. He is so strong! He pulled a glued coral off of a frag and also knocked over my two corals that were epoxied into the rock too. Not sure what his deal is but it's a good thing he is cute.

 

I took my middle left rock out of the tank yesterday to give it a good nail brush scrub to remove some huge globs of cyano/algae.

I'm thinking the cyano/algae is just so thick the urchin/snails can't even get to the base to mow it down.

I was happy this morning to see that both pincushion urchin are on that rock now!  

 

I really want some mexican turbos but having a hard time finding ones in stock.

Then when I finally do find them somewhere I putz around on the sites trying to find enough to get to free shipping and end up never checking out.

 

Until then plan is to take a rock out every few days to give a good scrub. 

I also just reduced the day lights LC1 from 9 hours on down to 7 hours. 

[billygoat]

Glad to hear the RODI result came back normal. That's one thing I was particularly concerned about, so its a relief to have that factor off the table. Doesn't make your persistent algal blooms any less weird though... so now it's back to the drawing board, I guess. 🤷‍♂️

 

I know I've said it before but I still think this tank is super cool, algae problems or no. Does your royal gramma always swim around out in the open like that?

[banasophia]

yeah, apparently Mexican turbo snails are seasonal... my LFS said they should be stocking them again soon... I find that the zebra turbos they have at my LFSs right now are not nearly as good 

[Xanthine]

Snail update...finally found some turbos in stock and ordered them in hopes of controlling the hair algae. Bought two mexican and two zebra. Along with some limpets, cerith, and nerites.

Shipping delay resulted in them being in transit for 6 days....needless to say, opening them up was nasty 🤢. All of the turbos were dead. Of course. Dangit!!!!

 

Also frustratingly my blenny just disappeared the other day. Was there at night, then no sign of it in the morning. No sus hermit or snail huddle, no fish jerky outside the tank, just ...gone

 

 

[farkwar]

On 11/22/2020 at 11:15 AM, banasophia said:

Mexican turbo snails

Siesta

[Xanthine]

I'm so sick of cyano and hair algae. Literal years of battle now with this same maroon strain.

Going to try to rearrange rocks for better flow and add another powerhead next.

 

[icatchsnook]

My two year old biocube16 also has had a nearly constant struggle since the beginning with cyano.  I still really haven't found a good solution unfortunately.

[billygoat]

On 1/9/2021 at 6:08 PM, Xanthine said:

I'm so sick of cyano and hair algae. Literal years of battle now with this same maroon strain.

I like your tank anyway! So there! 😅

 

I feel like you have probably addressed this at some point in the past, but could it have something to do with your lights? Are you using the stock lighting that comes with the BioCube?

[Xanthine]

1 hour ago, billygoat said:

I like your tank anyway! So there! 😅

 

I feel like you have probably addressed this at some point in the past, but could it have something to do with your lights? Are you using the stock lighting that comes with the BioCube?

Thanks for the positivity! 🙂 Yeah I'm still running stock LEDs, I really love the hood of the cube.  I'll have to do some more googling on the lighting aspect.

It is curious that my little QT/DT tank (actually it's a mangrove tank at the moment) uses the same water, same salt, right next to this tank and not seeing those same issues.  

 

I did do a rearrange of nearly every rock and pulled hair clumps for hours - although the giant cespi hides most of the outcome!

I cleared out the space on the right side that was blocking flow into the bottom grating into chamber 1, and also moved the rocks forward a bit so more room for behind flow.

 

I blasted the sand with powerhead and am moving it around throughout the day to keep things stirred. (I was going to add a hydor but don't have the electric outlet space at the moment)

Interestingly, aside from the huge clumps of hair algae/cyano mats debris balls, the sand itself seems almost clean - even areas that hadn't been siphoned in a long time would pass the 'drop test' 

 

Also -- got a liveaquaria shipment with 5 mexican turbos, they are at work now!

(I also have a hammer, anthelia, and a glove polyp in the little tank now, planning to move over here soon!)

 

[Xanthine]

I added my koralia to the tank the other day and have my jebao turned to top speed to help increase flow. 

Accidentally took out a few 'hands' of the cepsi by having it too close to the pump intake - oops. 

 

This gave me a much needed laugh tonight - one of my oldest and favorite inverts, a super tongan nassarius, went for a wild ride during sand vacuuming. 

All the reflections in this photo mess with perspective a bit, it's kind of neat. 

 

[banasophia]

38 minutes ago, Xanthine said:

I added my koralia to the tank the other day and have my jebao turned to top speed to help increase flow. 

Accidentally took out a few 'hands' of the cepsi by having it too close to the pump intake - oops. 

 

This gave me a much needed laugh tonight - one of my oldest and favorite inverts, a super tongan nassarius, went for a wild ride during sand vacuuming. 

All the reflections in this photo mess with perspective a bit, it's kind of neat. 

 

Hehe that snail had a little adventure. 😆😆😆 The cyano is looking better. 

[Xanthine]

So the cyano toxins must have increased. I sadly lost my urchins and several more snails.

My duncan, one head of a torch and the frogspawn were showing severe tissue recession with cyano coating the exposed skeletons. 

With this turn for the worse, I decided to take an aggressive approach, well aware of potential consequences - but weighing options decided on a two phase chemical + physical attack.
I dosed with RedCyano RX, leaning on melev's assurance around proper usage.

 

And....5 days later...so far it was a great decision.

 

One day after dosing, the corals had noticeably increased polyp extension. The cyano was gone by the 3rd day. 
Had to do a large water change after the medication anyways, so figured I'd make the most of it and reduce the GHA issue at the same time.

I then took all of the rocks out one by one, scrubbed GHA off with nail brush, used peroxide on the worst areas, and did a thorough sand cleaning.

I decided to put one less rock into the tank to give more room for flow circulation and moved the structure even more into the middle of the tank.

Noticeably also moved the cespi to the top of the tank since it was becoming a detritus trap in the bottom right corner. I also put the GSP island in the back left corner hoping it will go up the back wall.

 

I should wait until the corals settle and reopen more to share a picture...  but I'm so pleased with the improvement, I wanted to share current state -- 

 

 

[icatchsnook]

Great to see the treatment has helped your tank!  I have also been fighting my own multi-year battle with cyano in my 16gal biocube and have been seeing some good progress in diminishing the cyano since putting a skimmer online about a week ago.  I went with the cheap coralife skimmer and it took a few days to break in but started making good foam after that. 

 

I have been wondering a lot lately about this style tank and the lesser gas transfer we deal with compared to open top tanks.  My pH was always around 7.9 before the skimmer and within two days of putting the skimmer online it has measured consistently between 8.2-8.3.  I also bought some chemiclean but have not tried using it so far and unless things take a turn for the worst I will probably keep skimming for a few weeks at least to see if that gets rid of the cyano alone.

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, icatchsnook said:

Great to see the treatment has helped your tank!  I have also been fighting my own multi-year battle with cyano in my 16gal biocube and have been seeing some good progress in diminishing the cyano since putting a skimmer online about a week ago.  I went with the cheap coralife skimmer and it took a few days to break in but started making good foam after that. 

 

I have been wondering a lot lately about this style tank and the lesser gas transfer we deal with compared to open top tanks.  My pH was always around 7.9 before the skimmer and within two days of putting the skimmer online it has measured consistently between 8.2-8.3.  I also bought some chemiclean but have not tried using it so far and unless things take a turn for the worst I will probably keep skimming for a few weeks at least to see if that gets rid of the cyano alone.

Chemiclean has worked great the times I’ve used it in my 16, my 32, and my Evo 5... you just want to be sure to add an airstone to increase the oxygenation during treatment. I’ve found it works well to do a chemiclean treatment to knock back the cyano population, then about 2 weeks later I start dosing microbacter 7 for a week or two to help establish a better balance of good microorganisms in my systems. 

[banasophia]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:05 PM, Xanthine said:

So the cyano toxins must have increased. I sadly lost my urchins and several more snails.

My duncan, one head of a torch and the frogspawn were showing severe tissue recession with cyano coating the exposed skeletons. 

With this turn for the worse, I decided to take an aggressive approach, well aware of potential consequences - but weighing options decided on a two phase chemical + physical attack.
I dosed with RedCyano RX, leaning on melev's assurance around proper usage.

 

And....5 days later...so far it was a great decision.

 

One day after dosing, the corals had noticeably increased polyp extension. The cyano was gone by the 3rd day. 
Had to do a large water change after the medication anyways, so figured I'd make the most of it and reduce the GHA issue at the same time.

I then took all of the rocks out one by one, scrubbed GHA off with nail brush, used peroxide on the worst areas, and did a thorough sand cleaning.

I decided to put one less rock into the tank to give more room for flow circulation and moved the structure even more into the middle of the tank.

Noticeably also moved the cespi to the top of the tank since it was becoming a detritus trap in the bottom right corner. I also put the GSP island in the back left corner hoping it will go up the back wall.

 

I should wait until the corals settle and reopen more to share a picture...  but I'm so pleased with the improvement, I wanted to share current state -- 

 

 

Looking good! I like the coral placement!!

[Xanthine]

10 hours ago, icatchsnook said:

I have been wondering a lot lately about this style tank and the lesser gas transfer we deal with compared to open top tanks.

Yes, same! I read a post where @banasophia talked about fish gasping in their cube previously which had me thinking more about gas exchange too.

 

My coral started looking so much better soon after dosing the redcyano rx...which happens to also coincide with me adding the airstone bubbler to the tank, thereby increasing oxygen....hrmm...

 

I've been searching for a skimmer that is small enough for chamber one. Probably going to go with version 2 of the coralife one but it's currently sold out from a lot of online retailers which makes me wonder if there is a version 3 coming? Or maybe just discontinued, since it's not on the coralife site at all anymore... (edit - found a small online shop with a Coralife V2 skimmer in stock -- bought it!)

 

In the meantime I have an airstone in chamber one. The bubbles and gunk are then caught by the filter floss I have on top of chamber 2 - I think it's helping somewhat at least? Not comparable to needlewheel venturi microbubbles but I would think similar to airstone based skimmers like the V1 of the coralife skimmer.

 

Also while taking a picture of the back chambers I remembered I wanted to share something I did awhile ago but don't think I've mentioned here yet.

The little clips on the fish saver guard from @inTank are great for holding my dosing lines in place! 

 

(It's messy but all the lines from top to bottom here are - Jebao, Airstone, Heater, Reef Fusion #1 and #2, ATO RODI water and sensor lines, grounding probe, tank return pump, Koralia pump)

 

[icatchsnook]

@Xanthine Getting the V2coralife skimmer into chamber 1 was interesting in the biocube16.  It really doesn't fit well and is too tight if you just remove the false floor and that's it.  The width of the chamber is too small due to the guideplates on the sidewalls that originally held the cartridge filter.  They were impeding the skimmer and made the clip on the overflow edge have alot of torque force, which bent the clip and the overflow wall a bit and just wasn't right (especially for getting the skimmer in/out).  I took a razor knife and scored the edges of the guideplates where they met the main plastic divider wall separating the display from sump.  A few slices with the razor then used a long handle flathead screwdriver to gently pry the guideplates off of each of the walls (one is adhered to the overflow wall between ch1&ch2, the other is on the leftmost wall).  I just inserted the flathead screwdriver and rotated it a bit to work the guideplate off in sections until it was free from the wall and I could bend it to fold it along the razor score cuts and it easily broke off along those scores.  Once those guideplates were out the skimmer went in nicely with no torque on the clip or overflow wall.

 

Breaking in and tuning the skimmer took about a week.  At first it was just dumping microbubbles out of the bottom and those were going through the sump and into the display.  Regardless of how I set the air valve it did this in the beginning.  I ran it with medium air flow for about two days and the bubbles began collecting at the top and there were less in the display.  After a few days of messing with the airvalve it wasn't really skimming well and the skimmate was just tea colored water.  I reduced the air valve to about 1/4 turn from closed and let it run for another couple days at which point it has started producing a nice foam and a drier, darker skimmate.  Been doing that for about a week now.

 

I've only been running the skimmer for about 3 weeks but can really see a difference in how much less cyano there is and how much happier the corals look.  pH has been testing locked at 8.3 the whole time still.

[Xanthine]

Dangit, so much for getting the skimmer....got a message "The Coralife BioCube Protein Skimmer that you had ordered is unfortunately unavailable at this point in time. We have already issued you a refund for that item"

It seems to be sold out almost every where. (edit - found a 'like new' used one and bought it, hope it's in good condition)

 

Happy to share that my clown is still BFF's with his cespitularia. I was worried he would reject it after the rearrange and instead choose a powerhead again, but nope, he is snuggled right in.

 

The duncan seems to be recovering slowly, the frogspawn not so much but I'm not giving up on it yet. 

I love being able to see SAND again instead of cyano mats. Lots of sand snowglobe and sand dune action happening. It's down to glass bottom behind the rocks in places due to the powerhead but I'm ok with that.