ReefADoRe’s Biocube 16g - A very hard journey

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Txplicit said:

+1 to this because you end up with dinoflagellates, and they are MUCH harder to deal with than gha.  This is why I have to black out my tank last night, dinos showed up.

How will I know that the tank is too clean?  I thought because I am using cured live rock, and live reef sand (it states on the bag, so much beneficial bacteria that I will not have an ammonia or nitrite spike), that I would not have a mini cycle of any sort?  I was trying to avoid this... I will be testing daily.  

[Tired]

You want to see nitrates. If you see no nitrates (and no ammonia or nitrites), your tank is too clean. 

[ReefAdoRe]

3 minutes ago, Tired said:

You want to see nitrates. If you see no nitrates (and no ammonia or nitrites), your tank is too clean. 

So hard for me to grasp - I don’t know why.  I thought everything the fish do, and anything live in there is going cause nitrates and such.  When I had anemones before my tank crash, my nitrates were always at 15ppm.  I guess because I don’t have anything in there besides the fish, and the CUC, their not adding to the nitrates and stuff.  I’m going to keep working at this.  😓

[Tired]

They ARE adding to the nitrates. Everything that eats and poops and/or decays adds something in the nitrogen cycle (ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates), which your bacteria turn into nitrates.

But life, especially algae, uses up your nitrates. If you have 0 nitrates, that means they're all being used up by algae, and to some extent by any corals and the like that you have. That's why you need nitrates, because more nitrates = more food for sessile (non-moving) animals and algae. More happy algae means more food for pods, and more competition for the few species of algae that are pests. 

Basically, you want as many types of life in your reef tank as possible, especially the microscopic and near-microscopic ones. The only things you want to kill off are the things that actively harm your desired life, like anything that eats corals. The more kinds of life you have, the more stable the tank, and the less likely it is that any one type of life will get the chance to overpopulate. It's like nature. On a healthy coral reef, you don't tend to find areas with nothing but one algae. And even where you find areas dominated by one kind, other things live among it.

 

Granted, we aren't building a natural environment, we're building a very specific, very contained environment. But we can look to nature to get some ideas of what works.

[ReefAdoRe]

Ok so I received my HOB refugium (breeder box 😊) and I ha e some pics (not on the tank yet) 

[ReefAdoRe]

Definitely going to have to cut the hood in the section where the HOB breeder box goes because I cannot open the hood if it’s there.  So... to be continued.  

 

 

[Wonderboy]

Nice - that's the light I used behind my 2.5G - it will work great for chaeto - looking forward to seeing it on there!

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Very interesting reading you thread. Looks like there is a TON of great information in here. Look forward to seeing how you implement the refugium and see the effect it has on the tank.  One small slow step at a time. 

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Ocean_dreamer89 said:

Very interesting reading you thread. Looks like there is a TON of great information in here. Look forward to seeing how you implement the refugium and see the effect it has on the tank.  One small slow step at a time. 

Wow! Thank you so much. I’m working on the hood, cutting out a space so that I can fit the refugium. Hopefully it works and I’ll post pics when it’s all setup. 😊 thanks again 

[ReefAdoRe]

Ok... little by little I’m setting this little HOB fuge up.  I cut the back of the lid and also inside - a little piece of the chamber wall so that it would sit straight. 
 

now I’m wondering what I will do with the filter 🤔

 

[Txplicit]

Man it's shaping up!  You'll be fine in some.  Get everything up and running and test the parameters, you'll see the changes and stability soon enough.

 

In regards to how you know your tank is too clean, get a dependable phosphate test kit.  If nitrates are acceptable, you fish and corals will tell you.  Phosphates are what helps coralline algae and chaeto growth.  So 0 phosphates is bad.... that where dinoflagellates creep in and take over.  

[Txplicit]

On a lighter note, my tank is out of black out stage, changed water 25% to rid of dead dinos and toxicity that comes along with their death.  Ran my light snow a full day and there are some remnant of grey and white strands of algae.  Hopefully it means they are dead.  Seeing as how I an lights all day full schedule and none sprang up, I'm hopeful.

 

Ammonia: .3ppm (I just dosed fritz turbo start so need ammonia present for the bacteria)

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 5

Phosphate: .2 (a little high, but I hope the pods/bacteria/coralline/chaeto will bring I down some)

Ph: 8.2

Alk: 10dkh

 

I'll leave everything as is for a couple weeks then start testing calcium, mag to see what my corals are consuming, water change then dose if I need.  

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Txplicit said:

On a lighter note, my tank is out of black out stage, changed water 25% to rid of dead dinos and toxicity that comes along with their death.  Ran my light snow a full day and there are some remnant of grey and white strands of algae.  Hopefully it means they are dead.  Seeing as how I an lights all day full schedule and none sprang up, I'm hopeful.

 

Ammonia: .3ppm (I just dosed fritz turbo start so need ammonia present for the bacteria)

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 5

Phosphate: .2 (a little high, but I hope the pods/bacteria/coralline/chaeto will bring I down some)

Ph: 8.2

Alk: 10dkh

 

I'll leave everything as is for a couple weeks then start testing calcium, mag to see what my corals are consuming, water change then dose if I need.  

Your tank is looking absolutely amazing. It is really beautiful. You’ve done an excellent job of fixing the Dino’s. Doesn’t look like you had an issue at all AND that is why I’m following you!!!! 😉

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Txplicit said:

On a lighter note, my tank is out of black out stage, changed water 25% to rid of dead dinos and toxicity that comes along with their death.  Ran my light snow a full day and there are some remnant of grey and white strands of algae.  Hopefully it means they are dead.  Seeing as how I an lights all day full schedule and none sprang up, I'm hopeful.

 

Ammonia: .3ppm (I just dosed fritz turbo start so need ammonia present for the bacteria)

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 5

Phosphate: .2 (a little high, but I hope the pods/bacteria/coralline/chaeto will bring I down some)

Ph: 8.2

Alk: 10dkh

 

I'll leave everything as is for a couple weeks then start testing calcium, mag to see what my corals are consuming, water change then dose if I need.  

You have got an freakin awesome setup of fans! Looks like there’s no dead space with the way you’re running things. I gotta invest in another fan! 

[Tamberav]

7 hours ago, ReefAdoRe said:

Ok... little by little I’m setting this little HOB fuge up.  I cut the back of the lid and also inside - a little piece of the chamber wall so that it would sit straight. 
 

now I’m wondering what I will do with the filter 🤔

 

 

I love this!! Nice little DIY upgrade 🙂

[ReefAdoRe]

In case anyone was wondering why I cut the lid, it’s so I could complete maintenance without removing the hood completely. 

[Tired]

@Txplicit If you have fish, you want to have basically 0 ammonia. The fish will produce ammonia, at initially very low levels, and you need to keep it very low for their health. Ammonia burns their gills, stresses them, and shortens their lifespan. What you want is a soft cycle, not a regular cycle.

[Txplicit]

26 minutes ago, Tired said:

@Txplicit If you have fish, you want to have basically 0 ammonia. The fish will produce ammonia, at initially very low levels, and you need to keep it very low for their health. Ammonia burns their gills, stresses them, and shortens their lifespan. What you want is a soft cycle, not a regular cycle.

Yea I know.  However, the fritz tube start AND coralline algae helix in a bottle says there needs to be ammonia present at low levels for them as a catalyst.  The fish will be ok at low levels of ammonia.

[Txplicit]

10 hours ago, ReefAdoRe said:

Your tank is looking absolutely amazing. It is really beautiful. You’ve done an excellent job of fixing the Dino’s. Doesn’t look like you had an issue at all AND that is why I’m following you!!!! 😉

Thanks buddy!  I'm just trying to spread my personal experience an downfalls in the hobby.  Hopefully save some peers a lot o wasted time, money and redundancy.

 

I like the way you did the lid on your cube.  I chose to go lid off cause I wanted sps and the lid doesn't allow better light so I took it of and went with radion.  

 

I do have to emphasize into looking at good lighting.  Light is the biggest source for coral growth and color.  So invest in a good light (i.e. kessil, ai, radion, etc.)

[ReefAdoRe]

22 minutes ago, Txplicit said:

Thanks buddy!  I'm just trying to spread my personal experience an downfalls in the hobby.  Hopefully save some peers a lot o wasted time, money and redundancy.

 

I like the way you did the lid on your cube.  I chose to go lid off cause I wanted sps and the lid doesn't allow better light so I took it of and went with radion.  

 

I do have to emphasize into looking at good lighting.  Light is the biggest source for coral growth and color.  So invest in a good light (i.e. kessil, ai, radion, etc.)

Heheh now that I know I can cut the lid, when I get some corals in there, I’m going to cut a little more for upgraded lighting! 😏

[Txplicit]

How's the reef tank coming along?  Things getting better?

[ReefAdoRe]

So far since I scrubbed the rock and added two live rocks from LFS things continue to look good. But I won’t be satisfied for at least a month after my fuge is setup and I see the results. 😊

 

then I will buy my first corals!! We will see. 

[Txplicit]

Here's the thing with adding new rock.  You are changing the biodiversity.  Therefore, you will possibly get mini cycles and mini new tank syndromes.  If you experience this, I would go ahead and add like a biospira or fritz turbo start 900 (I recommend this one).  Did you order copepods and chaeto yet?

[ReefAdoRe]

Not yet - am waiting till this Friday. I’ve been testing water and it’s been good. No ammonia spikes or anything like that - and I finally have a reading of nitrates (which is do not have before I was so happy!). To prevent “new tank syndrome” I dose with seachem stability for 7 days 😉

 

I have my fingers crossed that I’ve got a hang on things. 

[ReefAdoRe]

42 minutes ago, Txplicit said:

Here's the thing with adding new rock.  You are changing the biodiversity.  Therefore, you will possibly get mini cycles and mini new tank syndromes.  If you experience this, I would go ahead and add like a biospira or fritz turbo start 900 (I recommend this one).  Did you order copepods and chaeto yet?

As a matter of fact I’m going to go test again right now!