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Saxplayer’s 16g LED Biocube


saxplayer

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5 hours ago, MSunkin23 said:

Try cutting back on the mysis, there is tons of extra "stuff" in those cubes. I feed mysis once every 2-weeks, and alternate with reef roids. When I do feed reef roids or mysis. I do my water change the following day.

 

What is your light schedule as well? - You might try dialing back the light schedule, or pulling back just the LC1 lights a little and leave LC2/LC3 on in its place.

Just some thoughts-

 

 

@MSunkin23  Are you saying to *only* feed my 3 fish mysis every 2 weeks?  I take one of the frozen cubes and I cut it into quarters and feed 1/4 of it.  If I don't feed this every 2 days, and did 2 weeks - what else would I give them in the meantime?  I know the fish can go a few days but 2 weeks?

 

I will post my light schedule later.

5 hours ago, banasophia said:

Can you post a pic for us?

IMG_4938.thumb.JPG.ae075024ddfa520c72c23a2c2503b14d.JPG

 

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8 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Looks normal to me. I clean my glass daily. 

I did clean it after testing the water. I’ll post a pic tomorrow and see what you think. Do I need to dose Ca?  I have lots more coral coming after Thanksgiving too. 

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Well my tank has been running since 3/18, I just started dosing Kent’s Tech I (iodide) weekly one month ago, and Seachems Reef Fusion 2 part (calcium & alkalinity) one week ago. My alk has always run around 8-9, calcium 380-400. I felt like growth was slow and I wanted to make my mushrooms, in particular, happier. I don’t know if you really need to dose anything yet... will be curious to see what others think. 

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1 hour ago, saxplayer said:

Are you saying to *only* feed my 3 fish mysis every 2 weeks?  I take one of the frozen cubes and I cut it into quarters and feed 1/4 of it.  If I don't feed this every 2 days, and did 2 weeks - what else would I give them in the meantime?  I know the fish can go a few days but 2 weeks?

 

I will post my light schedule later.

IMG_4938.thumb.JPG.ae075024ddfa520c72c23a2c2503b14d.JPG

 

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It looks like film algae which is normal.  How often do you have to clean it?  I usually do mine once or twice a week.  However there are times where I've had to do it more due to higher nutrients in the system. 

 

Are you feeding corals?  Do you notice other algae like GHA or cyano growing? If not then I wouldn't be too concerned about the glass as it's part of normal maintenance.  

 

Your parameters look within the normal ranges (calcium at the lower end but still normal) so I don't see a need to dose yet.

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3 hours ago, Jackal227 said:

It looks like film algae which is normal.  How often do you have to clean it?  I usually do mine once or twice a week.  However there are times where I've had to do it more due to higher nutrients in the system. 

 

Are you feeding corals?  Do you notice other algae like GHA or cyano growing? If not then I wouldn't be too concerned about the glass as it's part of normal maintenance.  

 

Your parameters look within the normal ranges (calcium at the lower end but still normal) so I don't see a need to dose yet.

Thank you @Jackal227 and @banasophia

 

I'll wait to dose for now then.  I'm expecting a new (what I'm told is) rare confucius hammer as well as some frogspawn and about 8 new zoas.  

1438731860_ConfuciousHammer.jpg.e36b983098ce7857e02f622d135e2c42.jpg

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3 hours ago, Jackal227 said:

It looks like film algae which is normal.  How often do you have to clean it?  I usually do mine once or twice a week.  However there are times where I've had to do it more due to higher nutrients in the system. 

 

Are you feeding corals?  Do you notice other algae like GHA or cyano growing? If not then I wouldn't be too concerned about the glass as it's part of normal maintenance.  

 

Your parameters look within the normal ranges (calcium at the lower end but still normal) so I don't see a need to dose yet.

I am feeding only the acan, and I did reef-roids once.  I read it can really provide over-nutrients to the tank so I plan on 1-2 / month for it.  No other major GHA or cyano I don't think.  I'm newer to salt water though so if I did I'm not sure I'd know for sure.  I just don't like the fact that I have to clean the glass daily in order to see through it.  If this is normal - not a big deal just good to know.

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7 hours ago, saxplayer said:

@MSunkin23  Are you saying to *only* feed my 3 fish mysis every 2 weeks?  I take one of the frozen cubes and I cut it into quarters and feed 1/4 of it.  If I don't feed this every 2 days, and did 2 weeks - what else would I give them in the meantime?  I know the fish can go a few days but 2 weeks?

 

I will post my light schedule later.

IMG_4938.thumb.JPG.ae075024ddfa520c72c23a2c2503b14d.JPG

 

IMG_4937.thumb.JPG.60e314b5e1a48e3d3b99b289e8cffeb9.JPG

Hey Saxplayer, your tank looks really good. Man that Hammer is one of the best I've seen...

 

I was just telling you my feeding regiment. I think mysis every other day could be a lot, but would let others chime in. Not sure if your watchman goby eats flakes but could be some other options besides just mysis.

This is a breakdown of how I feed my tank:

Daily (1 per day) - Pellets or Flake food (pre-wet flake food, and only a small amount)
Weekly (1 per week) - Alternate with Reef Roids and Mysis/Brine shrimp. I usually run a water change after the Reef Roids

 

**For the pellets any pellets that fall down the cleaner shrimp would get. Any residual flake food is caught in the filter pad, and I replace that every couple of days.

 

I am curious how other folks are feeding their tanks as well.



In your picture, the tank looks spotless. I always have some stuff on my glass that I ignore or scrape away.

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46 minutes ago, MSunkin23 said:

Hey Saxplayer, your tank looks really good. Man that Hammer is one of the best I've seen...

 

I was just telling you my feeding regiment. I think mysis every other day could be a lot, but would let others chime in. Not sure if your watchman goby eats flakes but could be some other options besides just mysis.

This is a breakdown of how I feed my tank:

Daily (1 per day) - Pellets or Flake food (pre-wet flake food, and only a small amount)
Weekly (1 per week) - Alternate with Reef Roids and Mysis/Brine shrimp. I usually run a water change after the Reef Roids

 

**For the pellets any pellets that fall down the cleaner shrimp would get. Any residual flake food is caught in the filter pad, and I replace that every couple of days.

 

I am curious how other folks are feeding their tanks as well.



In your picture, the tank looks spotless. I always have some stuff on my glass that I ignore or scrape away.

Well I feed to the extreme due to my mandarin and my nps corals, which I certainly don’t recommend for anyone else to do, but I will describe anyway just as an FYI. I typically feed four pinches of pellets twice a day (two pinches crushed, two pinches whole but they are tiny hatchery pellets), and I float them on the surface at least 30 minutes. In the evening I also feed frozen reef frenzy nano, frozen coral gumbo, and frozen marine cuisine, all mixed with some tank water and a couple pinches of reef roids or coral frenzy. In addition, I often add fresh hatched baby brine shrimp. To manage the increased nitrates and phosphates that result from this feeding regimen, I do weekly 4 gallon water changes, and use Nopox and Phosphate RX. 

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9 hours ago, saxplayer said:

Thank you @Jackal227 and @banasophia

 

I'll wait to dose for now then.  I'm expecting a new (what I'm told is) rare confucius hammer as well as some frogspawn and about 8 new zoas.  

1438731860_ConfuciousHammer.jpg.e36b983098ce7857e02f622d135e2c42.jpg

That hammer is stunning.   I look forward to seeing it.

 

The most important thing with parameters is stability.  Keeping them stable is more important than chasing a certain number.   If you are testing and you see that your parameters are falling then it's time to dose to maintain the daily usage.  There are online calculators that will help you figure out how much to dose.  When you do start just dose enough to replace what the tank is using instead of trying to hit a specific number. 

 

9 hours ago, saxplayer said:

 I just don't like the fact that I have to clean the glass daily in order to see through it.  If this is normal - not a big deal just good to know.

I would say that daily is more often than I normally see.  But there were times where I had to clean it daily as well.  It does fluctuate, there are some weeks that I only have to clean it once and others that I clean it twice. 

 

7 hours ago, MSunkin23 said:

 

I am curious how other folks are feeding their tanks as well.

 

I feed PE Pellets (smallest size) once a day, about 3-4 small pellets per fish.  I bought the bag when I got the tank over a year ago and it's still half full.   I also feed reef roids once per week for my corals.  For the reef roids I spot feed the corals without the pumps on and let the eat for 20 minutes then I immediately do a water change to remove excess.   If I notice excess algae or cyano then I stop using reef roids until it clears up.

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On 11/16/2018 at 12:24 AM, MSunkin23 said:

Hey Saxplayer, your tank looks really good. Man that Hammer is one of the best I've seen...

 

I was just telling you my feeding regiment. I think mysis every other day could be a lot, but would let others chime in. Not sure if your watchman goby eats flakes but could be some other options besides just mysis.

This is a breakdown of how I feed my tank:

Daily (1 per day) - Pellets or Flake food (pre-wet flake food, and only a small amount)
Weekly (1 per week) - Alternate with Reef Roids and Mysis/Brine shrimp. I usually run a water change after the Reef Roids

 

**For the pellets any pellets that fall down the cleaner shrimp would get. Any residual flake food is caught in the filter pad, and I replace that every couple of days.

 

I am curious how other folks are feeding their tanks as well.



In your picture, the tank looks spotless. I always have some stuff on my glass that I ignore or scrape away.

@banasophia @MSunkin23

 

Here is what my tank usually looks like every 18-24 hrs.  Very consistent, green film inside the glass.  When I use my mag-float, it is like a cloud of dust only it's green.  It literally is like dust on wood, but its whatever it is on glass.  My water parameters are fine as I can tell.  I am running in my filtration:  1st section = filter floss.  2nd section = chemipure blue (2 weeks old).  3rd section = sea chem matrix (bio).  

 

I was thinking maybe my bio was *too* high so I did a 40% water change and took about 1/3 the sea chem matrix.  However, in 12-24 hrs it still looks like this.  My corals and fish seem fine.  Not a clue why this is so "bad".  

 

I don't mind algae, but this cloudy stuff-  whatever it is - is annoying me.

 

Should I take out the sea chem matrix or the chemipure?  Should I dose anything?  I'm kind of saddened if this cloudy, loose algae material is *very* normal, because I have $750 in coral coming and I really have zero interest in not seeing through the glass within 24 hrs. 

 

Thanks for the help guys.  I appreciate it. 

 

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42 minutes ago, saxplayer said:

@banasophia @MSunkin23

 

Here is what my tank usually looks like every 18-24 hrs.  Very consistent, green film inside the glass.  When I use my mag-float, it is like a cloud of dust only it's green.  It literally is like dust on wood, but its whatever it is on glass.  My water parameters are fine as I can tell.  I am running in my filtration:  1st section = filter floss.  2nd section = chemipure blue (2 weeks old).  3rd section = sea chem matrix (bio).  

 

I was thinking maybe my bio was *too* high so I did a 40% water change and took about 1/3 the sea chem matrix.  However, in 12-24 hrs it still looks like this.  My corals and fish seem fine.  Not a clue why this is so "bad".  

 

I don't mind algae, but this cloudy stuff-  whatever it is - is annoying me.

 

Should I take out the sea chem matrix or the chemipure?  Should I dose anything?  I'm kind of saddened if this cloudy, loose algae material is *very* normal, because I have $750 in coral coming and I really have zero interest in not seeing through the glass within 24 hrs. 

 

Thanks for the help guys.  I appreciate it. 

 

45079683475_a8508c81ac_z.jpg.1bc7ea3be03ebe5f45f581d160af467f.jpg

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Does the tank receive sunlight from a nearby window? 

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I agree with Jackal, I would check sunlight or look into dialing back your lighting schedule.

 

However, this doesn't seem too bad. For me, my tank looks like that after 48hours without cleaning the glass. Do you have any snails? Thats Thanksgiving dinner for those guys!

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On 11/15/2018 at 10:19 PM, banasophia said:

Here’s a nice article you might like about clean up crews that mentions film algae and the fact that there may be times of the year that you need to clean the glass daily or even twice a day:

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/get-a-clean-up-crew-cuc-for-your-reef

Well if it was me I wouldn’t worry about it, I would just scrape the glass twice a day... look at Marc Levensen’s tanks from the link I posted... he has amazing tanks and I really look up to him... he said there may be times of the year that you need to clean the glass daily or even twice a day. Your tank looks great to me aside from the film algae on the glass so personally I wouldn’t worry about it. I notice that people mess up their tanks sometimes trying to correct minor problems, so I usually try to just roll with it when it’s something minor... but, that’s just my strategy. 

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2 hours ago, Jackal227 said:

Does the tank receive sunlight from a nearby window? 

No, none.  

2 hours ago, banasophia said:

Well if it was me I wouldn’t worry about it, I would just scrape the glass twice a day... look at Marc Levensen’s tanks from the link I posted... he has amazing tanks and I really look up to him... he said there may be times of the year that you need to clean the glass daily or even twice a day. Your tank looks great to me aside from the film algae on the glass so personally I wouldn’t worry about it. I notice that people mess up their tanks sometimes trying to correct minor problems, so I usually try to just roll with it when it’s something minor... but, that’s just my strategy. 

Alright, thanks for the advice.  I am hesitant to add more CUC because I had a few die.  I thought maybe that was contributing (dead CUC).  

 

I currently have:  2 astrea, 1 turbo, 1 red legged hermit.

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8 minutes ago, saxplayer said:

No, none.  

Alright, thanks for the advice.  I am hesitant to add more CUC because I had a few die.  I thought maybe that was contributing (dead CUC).  

 

I currently have:  2 astrea, 1 turbo, 1 red legged hermit.

I have way more than that... got the recommended snail only cuc from reef cleaners...I don’t think they do that much for the film algae though, that’s all about the flipper scraper. 

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10 hours ago, banasophia said:

I have way more than that... got the recommended snail only cuc from reef cleaners...I don’t think they do that much for the film algae though, that’s all about the flipper scraper. 

Mine are the same way.  They will eat the film algae but they can't keep the entire glass clean.  Instead you'll just see clean little zigzags from where they were eating. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

HELP - not sure what is going on in my tank.

 

I have added a bunch of zoas primarily about 4 weeks ago, and they seem to have been fine.  I left recently for an 8 day trip over Christmas and I had my neighbor feed the fish every 3rd day (3 times total over 8 days).  I am confident he didn't add anything wrong or over feed.  

 

When I returned, this past Thursday the 27th, all my zoas were essentially closed.  My acans were somewhat retracted / closed and my euphyllia don't look super happy.  I have 3 snails (1 turbo and 2 astrea).  Both astrea were lying on their side which I have never seen before.  The turbo was munching along. The 2 fish seemed fine.  I was unable to test / do a water change Thursday.  

 

I did about a 60% water change yesterday (Friday the 28th) and siphoned / blew off the rock well as well as the sand.  I set the 2 astrea on the sand upright and observed.  I also used a paint-brush lightly with 6% hydrogen peroxide on about 75% of the zoas I could see after the water was down, to remove algae that was visible to me.  This in the past worked well for me when a similar issue was happening.  

 

Today (Sat the 29th) everything seems to be looking somewhat the same, some zoas are mildly opening but not really.  1 of the astrea is on the glass cleaning and the other remained on its side where I left it yesterday, so I removed it. 

 

Testing from today:

Salinity 1.026

Temp 77.8 (off of chiller) and 78.6 (off of external thermo).  These stay quite constant.

Mg 1460 ppm, Ca 390 ppm, Alk 2.6 MeQ/L or 7.3 dKH (all Red Sea)

Phos 0 ppb (Hanna ultra low phos)

Ammonia = 0.2 to my wife's eye vs 0 to my eye?  Where would I have ammonia from - poss dead snail??

Nitrite = 0 

Nitrate = 2 

 

I replaced my sponge again today (after replacing yesterday after water change), replaced my chemi pure bag.  I also dosed a cap full of prime due to the (maybe) ammonia level?

 

Please help if able.  Not sure why any of my zoas aren't open and they were all fine previously 8 days ago.

 

I feel like I do need to get some more snails ASAP.  Could algae on them be an issue?

 

Thanks!  Grant

 

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