Macron's 20 Gallon Tank

[Macron]

Welcome to my reef journal! 

 

Having struggled with my reef tank for over a year, I now turn to you, the esteemed community of Nano-Reef.com, to guide me on the righteous path to reefing success.

 

FTS: 9-12-18

 

Equipment:

 

Display: Innovative Marine Fusion 20

Lighting: Ecotech Radion XR15we + Diffuser

Filtration: Filter Floss, Carbon, Seachem Matrix

Refugium: Innovative Marine ChaetoMax Light (24 hrs on), Chaetomorpha

Heater: Cobalt Neotherm 50w, Aqueon Pro 100w

Circulation: Stock Return, Vortech MP10QD

Skimmer: Innovative Marine Ghost Desktop Skimmer

ATO: AutoAqua Smart ATO

RO Unit: BRS 5-stage Premium Plus 75 GPD

Rock: BRS Pukani

Salt: Instant Ocean Reef Crystals

 

Equipment Settings:

 

Vortech: Lagoon Mode in lowest setting.

Radion: SPS PHX14 Coral Lab Template; 35% Brightness; Lights on at 12:30 PM, Night at 9:30 PM, Lunar cycle from 9:30 PM-12:00 AM.

Heater: 78ºF

 

Current Maintenance Routine:

 

Daily: Feed fish.

Every Few Days: Replace Floss as needed, Clean Glass if needed, Blast rocks with turkey baster, Shake detritus out of cheato ball.

Weekly: 10-15% Water Change, Stir Sandbed, Empty Skimmer Cup, Trim Chaeto.

Monthly: Replace Carbon.

 

Fish:

 

Sixline Wrasse

Tail Spot Blenny

Yellow Clown Goby

Green Clown Goby

 

Inverts:

 

Tiger Conch

Rock Flower Anemones

Snails

Mixed hermits

[Macron]

A brief history of this thing:

 

April 2017 - Started out as IM 10 gallon tank.

June 2017 - Dino outbreak that lasted months, all corals changed permanently for the worst.

December 2017 - Tank switched over to 20 gallon. Things seem to stabilize, but nothing is thriving.

April 2018 - Hair algae starts to take hold, most of the corals seem to be slightly irritated.

May 2018 - Weekly water changes can't keep up with the hair algae. Removing hair algae with a toothbrush almost daily for months, Cutting back on already minimal feeding, using Vortech cover to suck up free floating algae. Had to slowly remove the sandbed over a period of a month because hair algae had completely covered it.

July 2018 - Goby goes into the back chamber of the tank and dies in the return pump line while I am on vacation over the weekend. I return to a completely crashed tank with extremely high ammonia levels. Hair algae still seems to be unbeatable. Started dosing vibrant as last resort.

[Macron]

More pics of the tank's current status before the hurricane comes:

 

My hair algae issues and stressed corals from the crash/algae:

 

 

I do have a few new arrivals though, and they seem to be doing great so far:

 

[Clown79]

Welcome to nano.

 

 

What are your parameters at? 

 

Has the gha been completely removed at this point?

 

I would highly recommend vacuuming your sand weekly, especially with the black sand.

 

The size of the grain is very large and it traps detritus. 

I had it and had to remove half of it because of the gha that was only in the sand bed. I had to completely remove it eventually because nothing I did got rid of it...until I changed to a smaller grain sand.

[A Little Blue]

Watch your phosphates, feed little but often, sandbed seems like a ticking bomb and it might be easier for you to go bare bottom, increase flow, macro-algae fuge is a good idea and I like seeing that, light and light period looks OK, test, test and make sure your parameters are stable and consistent. There is nothing else I can add. I am not a fan of pukani rock. I can’t scientifically prove it but in my opinion (and others) this rock can leach phosphates over time which can become an issue.  Good luck. 

[Macron]

16 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Welcome to nano.

 

 

What are your parameters at? 

 

Has the gha been completely removed at this point?

 

I would highly recommend vacuuming your sand weekly, especially with the black sand.

 

The size of the grain is very large and it traps detritus. 

I had it and had to remove half of it because of the gha that was only in the sand bed. I had to completely remove it eventually because nothing I did got rid of it...until I changed to a smaller grain sand.

Hey clown, thanks for checking out the thread.

 

Currently, my parameters are as follows (keep in mind I am only using inaccurate API tests):

 

Salinity - 1.025

Ammonia - 0ppm

Nitrite - 0ppm

Nitrate - 0ppm

Phos - 0ppm

Alk - 9 dKh

Calcium - 450 ppm

Mg - unkown

 

I have to keep manually removing the algae every week (at one point it was every day), but it is still very much there. I still dose vibrant 1-2 times a week at 1.5x the recommended dose, but I am not sure if it has slowed the algae down or is having any effect whatsoever. My chaeto has definitely stopped growing since I started.

 

I totally agree with vacuuming the sand bed - it is part of my religious weekly maintence routine. Luckily, this black sand isn’t growing GHA yet, only diatoms it seems. The sand is only a couple of months old so that may be why the diatoms have colonized it.

 

 

 

[Clown79]

Where is the gha growing?

[Macron]

8 minutes ago, A Little Blue said:

Watch your phosphates, feed little but often, sandbed seems like a ticking bomb and it might be easier for you to go bare bottom, increase flow, macro-algae fuge is a good idea and I like seeing that, light and light period looks OK, test, test and make sure your parameters are stable and consistent. There is nothing else I can add. I am not a fan of pukani rock. I can’t scientifically prove it but in my opinion (and others) this rock can leach phosphates over time which can become an issue.  Good luck. 

Thanks. I also have long suspected the rock being the culprit of leaching phosphates, although there is no way I can prove it either... all I did was soak the rocks in RO/DI water for a month while changing the water out every week or so. This is the first time I have used pukani.

 

I don’t know if this is an important observation or not, but I have barely any coralline growing in this tank. It has yet to grow on the rock for over a year. There is some on the top of the power heads, but that is about it.

 

I am hoping to someday get Hanna checkers as I hear they are more accurate than API.

 

 

[Macron]

7 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Where is the gha growing?

It is occupying my rocks and the exposed skeletons of my stressed corals. Also there is a good amount growing in my refugium, but I am not too worried about it being in there.

[Clown79]

Some hanna checkers are recommended. The phosphate and alk ones.

 

The api phosphate tested is useless for SW

It's a high range kit. You need a low range kit.

 

 

Where is the gha growing now?

[Clown79]

1 minute ago, Macron said:

It is occupying my rocks and the exposed skeletons of my stressed corals. Also there is a good amount growing in my refugium, but I am not too worried about it being in there.

Your chaeto pr the amount you are growing can't compete with the gha.

 

 

To completely get rid of the gha it's best to remove the rock. Scrub them with a toothbrush. Do a hydrogen peroxide dip on the rocks(corals must be removed), rinse the rocks in sw, then return to tank.

 

The other option is spot treating with peroxide but than can take long if you have a lot.

 

Another option is stopping vibrant and dosing peroxide directly into the tank.

 

It will kill the gha.

Do a Google search on peroxide treatments.

I've done it and it helped

 

 

Finding the cause is another thing.

 

Do you vacuum your back chambers often?

What do you feed the tank?

[A Little Blue]

Elevated Mg might help with GHA. If you decide to do that,  just do it slowly. You can go as high as 1550-1600 if done in small increments over several weeks. 

[specore]

Pukani definitely has this reputation. There is a long line evidence to support it leaking phosphates and it is generally recommended to "cook" it before placing it in a tank for this reason.  

[dferrari13]

Ive had a sand bed for almost 4 years...never cleaned it once...and all is good.

Have you tried cutting down on light levels and also on time. It may help.

 

I also think the rock could be the culprit or something possibly dead in the rock. Hang in there. Dont give up. 

[FISHnChix]

If your not over feeding and are doing good cleaning with your water changes and still have gha you can try fulcozole.  Takes about a month to rid of gha .. it was the only thing that worked for me.. 

[A Little Blue]

You can also try Halloween, Pincushion or Tuxedo urchin. They usually come in around 2” but occasionally you can find them smaller (smaller is better). They graze on algae all day long and are great at it. However, they seem to prefer fresh grown algae so, you gonna have to physically remove old patches of algae yourself. Once your algae problem is resolved, you can trade it in for store credit at your LFS. 

[Macron]

I actually had a tuxedo urchin for a very long time, but it died when my tank crashed. It would sometimes go at the algae and leave a bare trail behind it, but most of the time just stayed on the back wall.

 

I try to keep the back chambers somewhat clean, but for whatever reason, IM designed the back chamber so that there are two dead zones under the overflows. I try to get a turkey baster in there to blow it out but it is not very effective. I may try fluconazole if time doesn't resolve my algae problems.

 

It looks like there is going to be a minimum 3 day blackout coming this weekend as hurricane Florence is headed straight for me. The forecast is calling for a potential of 40+ inches of rain.

[Macron]

A little update since my internet is finally back on.

 

- The tank survived the hurricane for 6 days without power. I had a battery-powered air pump running over that time period, supplemented with occasional power via a drop cord running from my truck - enough to run the pumps.

 

- My gobies died unfortunately, but not from the hurricane. They had been on hunger strike since I got them, and basically became skeletons. They would eat some food, but would either stop after a few bites or spit it back out. I had some arctic pods they seemed to like, but they didn't seem to want to eat enough. So now I am back to two fish.

 

- My sunset monti is stressed and bleached, which I am hoping is from the lack of power/water circulation, and not something in my water.

 

- I bought a hanna phosphate checker to test my PO4 from a different angle. First 2 readings were 0, third was 0.02. But the presence of algae tells me that it is definitely there.

 

-  Hair algae still reins supreme, had to remove my cheato because it was not growing. It was dark, brittle, and just unhealthy looking. My fuge is basically a hair algae scrubber now.

 

- I am thinking right now that the microfauna in my tank is just imbalanced. Considering finding a nice encrusted piece of live rock or order a Coraline algae plate to add to the tank, and get some coraline to compete with the GHA.