SkiCat's WaterBox 10 aka “Storm's Rainbow Anemone Haven”

[SkiCatTX]

FTS with the pumps off and cover removed taken from my iPhone using the PolypLabs Lens

 

[SkiCatTX]

Pulled out the Fuge and checked the Chaeto. Doesn't look like much here, but it is about twice the size of a couple weeks ago and good color. Fingers crossed that continues...

 

[748S911]

great set up!

[blizzardscout2]

That’s a fine looking 10g. Are you dosing iron for the chaeto? I heard that makes a huge difference with chaeto. Nice job so far. 

[DNR88]

I like the look on this tank. Not too much crazy things, just a solid looking tank. 😉

 

What light are you using for the cheato?

[SkiCatTX]

On 3/8/2019 at 10:31 PM, 748S911 said:

great set up!

Thanks 748S911!

[SkiCatTX]

On 3/9/2019 at 1:52 AM, blizzardscout2 said:

That’s a fine looking 10g. Are you dosing iron for the chaeto? I heard that makes a huge difference with chaeto. Nice job so far. 

Thanks! I am dosing and testing a small amount of Kent Iodide, and just just ordered some BA Ferrion from BRS that should be here this week.

 

I agree, I've been doing lots of reading forums, and I find a common thread that people who are having problems with Chaeto growing, but have high Nitrates and Phosphates do not check Iron and Iodine, and I see many ICP tests from tanks coming back low on those elements...so I'm going to give it a try raising them...see what happens.

[SkiCatTX]

On 3/9/2019 at 3:43 PM, DutchNanoReefer88 said:

I like the look on this tank. Not too much crazy things, just a solid looking tank. 😉

 

What light are you using for the cheato?

😀 I basically just grabbed a few rocks from my JBJ tank with whatever was growing on it...plus the Duncan single polyp and Candy Cane that I fragged. I hope to get a few more corals in a few months. I'm just letting these grow out and practicing keeping levels steady on such a small tank. It is amazingly difficult to do...

 

I put a single SantaMonica Gem5 Red LED, the same one they put on their turf scrubbers. It is completely submersible, maybe a little over powered, but I only run it 4-6 hours at night so far and it seems to be working. I was most concerned about the heat it might generate, but it has been fine so far. We'll see how that goes over the summer. I figure I can set up a fan to run with the same switch as the Gem5 if needed.

[Penisula Reef Tank]

I like it!   Hey @SkiCatTX, can you post a pic of your cabinet.   AKA your wire management.   

I'm gunna do a WB15 as my quarantine tank and I was going to build a little cabinet to house the DC controllers and plugs

 

[SkiCatTX]

3 hours ago, Penisula Reef Tank said:

I like it!   Hey @SkiCatTX, can you post a pic of your cabinet.   AKA your wire management.   

I'm gunna do a WB15 as my quarantine tank and I was going to build a little cabinet to house the DC controllers and plugs

 

Huh, not sure this is helpful, but it was a mess for sure with all the power bricks and such. So many I needed two power strips.

 

I just recently packed it all below so it looks way better from above, though it's not neatly attached to a board or anything. Here is a before and after, though I have since added a UPS to the bit inside the cabinet so the tank can run a couple hours if the power goes out. One cool thing with all DC devices is that they almost always have a connector. So I can put all the power bricks down below, but if I need to disconnect anything, I just pull the connector above, clean it or whatever, then plug it back in, no need to remove the wires under the cabinet. I even put little labels on the connectors.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

[SkiCatTX]

Left town for a week and came back to this:

 

 

Did all the tests, no major issues, likely just a bit of overfeeding, or maybe a snail died or something. Chaeto was fine as well, not sure what changed.

 

Sucked out most of it and stirred up the sand. Changed about 50% water with clean. After a couple days the Cyano is still there, but not so bad. I think I'll just give a while to settle down.

[lizzyann]

Did the dinos go away completely after the 4 day blackout? How long did you run the UV sterilizer after that? Dealing with them now... 😭

[SkiCatTX]

On 4/1/2019 at 11:29 AM, lizzyann said:

Did the dinos go away completely after the 4 day blackout? How long did you run the UV sterilizer after that? Dealing with them now... 😭

Actually it worked quite well for several weeks. Then I continued the UV for a couple weeks just in case.

 

The sand was spotless and the tank looked great, then it started coming back little by little. Though it wasn't clear if it was the same thing or not. With the original outbreak, the brown would clearly go away overnight, then build back up during the day under the light...a clear sign of dinos from what I understand. This time, the brown stayed night or day with little or no difference from first thing in the morning when the lights came on, through evening when they go off. That still could be dinos, just another type. However, it was never all that bad like before, just a brown dusting on the gravel and glass.

 

Then, I left for a week, leaving instructions for a once a day feeding and few additives, and when I came back there was an explosion of something brown and stringy with gas bubbles on strings of brown everywhere. The picture above was the night I returned, it was twice as bad the next day. I did all the tests including Nitrate and Phosphate and everything checked out, so I just sucked it out and changed some water. However, it has come back each day, forming pillows of the stuff, which stays together when peeled off the sand like turf algae. Dinos typically just disintegrate back into the water when disturbed or blown with a turkey baster.

 

I tried Chemiclean for a week, but that had absolutely no effect on it, which possibly rules out cyano bacteria. I have to leave again tomorrow, so this time after sucking the sand bed as clean as possible, and adding new water, I poured in some beneficial bacteria including Reef Bright Live Rock Enhance and Dr Tim's One and Only in the hopes that maybe it will help naturally. I'll give that some time.

 

One other thing that I noticed after testing over the weekend was that my Nitrate and Phosphate dropped over a few days from fine to undetectable. I added a decent dose of Potassium Nitrate, and triple my usual dose of Mono Potassium Phosphate for a few days and tested again today and Phosphate was still only 0.04ppt, though Nitrate was 12ppt. The tank is definitely using Phosphate faster now that this stuff is growing. Not sure if it is the cause, or a side effect.

 

Anyway, I'll report back this weekend after leaving the tank alone for a few days and see what happens. I hate to try or change too many things too fast, but at the same time, if I don't do something, everything is covered in this stuff in days...

 

Covering red macro algae

 

Some still on the sand even after extensive vacuuming. Though clearly plenty of green algae on rocks as well...guess I'm going to need a few more CUC soon too...

 

 

[flypenfly]

Dinos = silicates

 

so I would remove with phosguard swapped out every 3 days and continual manual removal. It takes 3-4 cycles of this but you will win!

[SkiCatTX]

On 4/3/2019 at 12:08 AM, flypenfly said:

Dinos = silicates

 

so I would remove with phosguard swapped out every 3 days and continual manual removal. It takes 3-4 cycles of this but you will win!

Hmm, that I haven't read before. Wouldn't Phosguard lower Phosphates to nothing and make the problem worse? Or you just mean temporarily to remove the silicates, then increase Phosphate afterwards when it's clear?

[flypenfly]

Phosguard removes both phosphates and silicates, it won’t cure everything but it can help. Young tanks or tanks with fresh sand I’ve found personally gets dinos from silicates leaching from sand. Or at least the kind of Dino’s I get. Essentially the eco system in your tank just needs to make it through this stage and find its balance again. Lights out can help but it just delays the process because the Dino’s will come back.

[SkiCatTX]

OK, I have Phosguard, so I'm willing to give it a try. I do already have a single ChemiPure Blue Nano in there. I added a decent amount in a filter bag in the back. I'll dose a bit more nitrate in the mean time and watch it.

[SkiCatTX]

After almost a week since I vacuumed the sand and cleaned out the brown. Still there but not nearly as bad, we'll see if the Phosguard makes any difference.

 

 

On the bright side, noone seems to care about it except me. Even the leather, which is covered with it, doesn't seem to be worried...I try blowing it off, but it comes right back.

[SkiCatTX]

Well, after adding the Phosguard the problem is decidedly worse. Almost completely brown everywhere, covering everything. The Alk is also super low, even with my normal dosing of .5ml of Dr. Tim's One it is at 6.7 today, where it is usually in the 8-9 range. All my Chaeto also died after doing well for a couple months, not sure if it was related to the Phosguard removing all the phosphate or was overwhelmed by the algae bloom, it was covered just like everything in the tank.

 

I took the Phosguard back out, it certainly took out all the phosphate, and if it did remove any silicate then great. Now I'll dose the phosphate back up to normal, and I'll try to vacuum the sand with a filter sock over the weekend so I don't have to change any water.

 

I also ordered a bottle of Dino X, not sure if I'll use it, but I figured I should have some on hand if this gets much worse.

[dferrari13]

Hang in there...you got this!!!

[SkiCatTX]

17 hours ago, dferrari13 said:

Hang in there...you got this!!!

Yeah, thanks. It is just hard to watch everything covered in brown...I vacuumed the sandbed into a bucket through a filter sock in both this and the 28 today, then poured the water back into the tanks. I hear that adding new water can feed them with new trace elements and whatnot. I am also upping my MKP since phosphate has been hovering around 0 recently, even adding a decent amount every day.

 

This is the tank just a few hours after throughly vacuuming the sand:

 

 

 

[btmedic04]

nice looking tank and I love the mods you've made! as far as the brown slime goes, I have some questions for you. how long is your photoperiod and what is your current spectrum set to? I had the same issue with my nuvo 20 for a little while as I was running my XR15 at max growth spectrum at 50% intensity for 12 hours. I changed it to AB+, 35% intensity for 10 hours and it went away on its own. 

[SkiCatTX]

15 hours ago, btmedic04 said:

nice looking tank and I love the mods you've made! as far as the brown slime goes, I have some questions for you. how long is your photoperiod and what is your current spectrum set to? I had the same issue with my nuvo 20 for a little while as I was running my XR15 at max growth spectrum at 50% intensity for 12 hours. I changed it to AB+, 35% intensity for 10 hours and it went away on its own. 

Thanks,

I'm using roughly AB+, which I got from someone online that who used a meter to figure what the conversion from Radion to AI Prime was, I think it was FishOfHex. Just checked on my phone, it looks like I'm running 10 hours with a 2 hour ramp up and down. It is reporting 36w of 45w so about 80% of an AI prime HD, though I currently have a black egg crate cover, so that's blocking some of it.

 

 Simple day night ramp:

Settings: 

 

 

 

[flypenfly]

It’s not because of spectrum or photoperiod. I would definitely stop dosing any kind of nutrients beyond normal feeding, you’re just making it worse, you have 0 phosphate because nuisance algae is using it up.

 

dinos go away on their own i promise, it’s a matter of consistent manual removal and time, really nothing else until more factual hard research is done.

[SkiCatTX]

After a couple months of doing well, my chaeto finally died off, or at least got so covered in brown slime that I couldn't tell one from the other. As it was just about gone I stuck in some of this red macro algae that is growing like a weed in both my tanks. That seems to be doing great. I just pulled out a large mass of it after only a couple weeks.