ReefADoRe’s Biocube 16g - A very hard journey

[ReefAdoRe]

15 minutes ago, ReefAdoRe said:

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

[Tired]

Mini cycling occurs when there's too much ammonia for your bacteria to handle, either because of an ammonia increase or a bacteria decrease. Adding uncured live rock (with decaying things in it) can cause an ammonia spike, as you've seen. It should pass pretty quickly, your bacteria will rapidly multiply to handle it.

[ReefAdoRe]

46 minutes ago, Tired said:

Mini cycling occurs when there's too much ammonia for your bacteria to handle, either because of an ammonia increase or a bacteria decrease. Adding uncured live rock (with decaying things in it) can cause an ammonia spike, as you've seen. It should pass pretty quickly, your bacteria will rapidly multiply to handle it.

It was cured live rock so hopefully it did the job of adding biodiversity for now. I’ve been testing - everything’s been good so far. 😊

[Txplicit]

Great to hear!  You're on your way.  Oh don't waste your time testing for nitrite too often.  Ammonia/nitrate/phosphate are the main 3. Alk/ph/calcium/mag for specific coral health.

[Tired]

You also don't have to test ammonia and nitrites if everything looks happy. If your corals aren't upset, you don't have ammonia or nitrites. Don't waste your time and test juice, corals know what they do and don't like.

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Txplicit said:

Great to hear!  You're on your way.  Oh don't waste your time testing for nitrite too often.  Ammonia/nitrate/phosphate are the main 3. Alk/ph/calcium/mag for specific coral health.

I’ve been doing this too. My calcium is low so I’ve been dosing with two part reef fusion and little by little it’s going up. I can’t wait 😊 I’ve already been browsing WWC!!!

[ReefAdoRe]

Question for you guys: can I stick with instant ocean regular or should I change to reef crystals?

[Tired]

Instant Ocean is workable, but they don't batch-test, so you're more likely to get a mismixed batch. I'm not sure if Reef Crystals is much better. I think they're both on the lower end as salt mixes go, but they are viable. 

[Txplicit]

The best thing to do is find one you like and stay with it.  Stability is key.  You will probably have to dose and adjust trace elements based on livestock load and consumption no matter which salt you choose.  

[ReefAdoRe]

[Tired]

Oh, cute! What lighting is that? They look neon.

[ReefAdoRe]

7 hours ago, Tired said:

Oh, cute! What lighting is that? They look neon.

That’s the beauty lights on biocube with a warm filter applied. Thank you 😊

[Txplicit]

Your rocks and sand looks good.  It looks like things are starting to shape up as you planned.  Congratulations!

[ReefAdoRe]

1 hour ago, Txplicit said:

Your rocks and sand looks good.  It looks like things are starting to shape up as you planned.  Congratulations!

Thank you so much. It’s definitely with all the help I receive here. Still crossing my fingers and maintaining things. I’m scared to do the “jump into corals” but I will soon.  And then ill really have some things to show here hopefully. 

[Txplicit]

20 hours ago, ReefAdoRe said:

Thank you so much. It’s definitely with all the help I receive here. Still crossing my fingers and maintaining things. I’m scared to do the “jump into corals” but I will soon.  And then ill really have some things to show here hopefully. 

Don't be scared.  If your water parameters are good, and your flow and lighting is good, it just all comes down to placement of the corals.  You will have to move them around and adjust to find them the perfect home before gluing them down to the rock.

[ReefAdoRe]

So I finally set up the HOB refugium with Chaeto and the light and they said it shipped with pods. They said to put it in low light. I also added to my cleanup crew 😊

[Tired]

Looks like a good little setup. See any pods in there? Copepods are tiny, but you can spot the big ones if you watch.

[ReefAdoRe]

12 minutes ago, Tired said:

Looks like a good little setup. See any pods in there? Copepods are tiny, but you can spot the big ones if you watch.

I been looking, haven’t seen any yet but I guess we will see. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Reef Aquatics]

Next time, if you have a big Hair Algae outbreak...Add a couple of nice sized

Scarlett Hermit crabs and they will most likely take care of it.. There is

nothing wrong with trying to manually remove some of it well your doing

a water change too. But don't take your rocks out and scrub them, as other have

said you are killing all sorts of good things by doing that..The next time

if you have something like this happen, sit down and try to figure out why

you had this outbreak and then go from there (Tank Perimeters, Lighting schedule,

Bioload, Feeding.. ect.. ) Good that your testing your water. The HOB refugium

should help too. I have one of those on my 20 gal long.

 

 

 

 

[mitten_reef]

2 hours ago, ReefAdoRe said:

So I finally set up the HOB refugium with Chaeto and the light and they said it shipped with pods. They said to put it in low light. I also added to my cleanup crew 😊

Probably shouldn’t put chemipure blue in there. The point of the chaeto is absorb the nitrate and phosphate. Having chemical media absorber in there may outcompete the chaeto, starving the algae. 

[ReefAdoRe]

Just now, mitten_reef said:

Probably shouldn’t put chemipure blue in there. The point of the chaeto is absorb the nitrate and phosphate. Having chemical media absorber in there may outcompete the chaeto, starving the algae. 

Thank you for that! My first time doing this... 🙄 newbies, right? 😉

[mitten_reef]

2 minutes ago, ReefAdoRe said:

Thank you for that! My first time doing this... 🙄 newbies, right? 😉

I don’t know anything about running a chaeto fuge, 😅. but from nutrient removal perspective, they’d just competing with each other and chaeto probably won’t win.  If they manage to coexist (chaeto and chemipure), then you might end up with extremely low nutrient situation which is also NOT ideal. 

[Reef Aquatics]

You should not put Chemipure in your refugium.  I try to avoid stuff like that. The Chaeto works fairly well

at consuming the excess nutrients. I actually prefer using Sea Lettuce (Ulva lactuca) over Chaeto. But

both work well.

[ReefAdoRe]

26 minutes ago, Reef Aquatics said:

You should not put Chemipure in your refugium.  I try to avoid stuff like that. The Chaeto works fairly well

at consuming the excess nutrients. I actually prefer using Sea Lettuce (Ulva lactuca) over Chaeto. But

both work well.

Yep - took it out immediately. Thank you 😊 

[Txplicit]

Solid advise all around.  I know your battle with gha has you paranoid, but like I've said before, too clean of water leads to dinoflagellates, and let me tell you, it makes your gha battle a walk in the park. I 😉