Newbies IM 25 AIO

[Llorgon]

Hello everyone, I am relatively new to reef keeping so all help is appreciated. I have had a reef tank for about a year now and it has been a rough go so far.

I had a 75 gallon tank for a year. Tank cycled, added some fish and coral things were going well then a powerhead melted and sent melted plastic into the tank and killed everything in the night. Restarted and fought bad dinos for 6 months followed by gha. The gha was just getting under control and then I moved.

 

For the move, I picked up a IM 25 AIO to house corals and fish for awhile until I can get the 75 gallon up and running again. So the original setup of this tank was a bit of a rush. The tank has been up and running for 5 weeks with livestock in it for 4 weeks.

 

The move was 5 hours to the new place and was hard on the corals. Fish were fine, but I lost all my sps, my largest acan and a green toadstool. I am left with 2 acans, a kenya tree, frogspawn and 2 mushrooms.

 

So with my current coral stocking I am looking to make this a LPS dominant tank.

 

Tank info:
IM25 AIO
sicce 1.5 return pump
ghost skimmer
Radion xr30 - Set to coral labs LPS/soft prgram at 30% brightness
Vortech mp10 - Reef crest mode, max 50%
tunze ATO

Inhabitants/coral
Frogspawn
kenya tree
2 acans
2 mushrooms
 

a lacking cuc - was decimated in the 75 gallon when I had dinos and I haven't replaced them yet
2 juvie clown fish
royal gramma
juvie yellow tang( I know not ideal, but this is temporary for it. Until I can setup the 75 gallon again)

Tank params:
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 78
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5ppm
Phosphate: 0.021
Alkalinity: 9.6
Calcium: 435
Magnesium: 1380
 

Right now I am trying to get my frogspawn to be happy again. No matter where I move it it just doesn't want to open up.

 

Looking for help to make this a great LPS tank!

 

[Llorgon]

I dropped the brightness on the radion down to 20% this morning. Starting to see the frogspawn open up a bit more. Hopefully it continues!

[mitten_reef]

That’s a lot of cyano. I’d go a bit easier on the light period too.  How long r u running the light now?

[Tamberav]

Is that new sand and new rock?

 

It will be a challenge at first since the set up of this tank was rushed.

 

I have a 25 lagoon with similar set up and pretty much all LPS. It is a great footprint. 

 

I would swap salts so your talk runs lower since your PO4 is lower. Will be easier to keep it stable.

 

Biggest factor is maturity. 

[Llorgon]

38 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

That’s a lot of cyano. I’d go a bit easier on the light period too.  How long r u running the light now?

Ya it is. 😞 Lights are on from 9am to 9pm running the default coral labs LPS/soft program.

18 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Is that new sand and new rock?

 

It will be a challenge at first since the set up of this tank was rushed.

 

I have a 25 lagoon with similar set up and pretty much all LPS. It is a great footprint. 

 

I would swap salts so your talk runs lower since your PO4 is lower. Will be easier to keep it stable.

 

Biggest factor is maturity. 

Ya new sand and rock. I tried to get the rock cycling before the move, but some things died during the move. Ended up with a mini cycle for a week after it was setup. Cycle is complete and I think now the tank is just going through the ugly stages.... I think.

 

Actually my po4 is usually higher. I tested my water after a water change and gravel vac. The week before it was 0.120 and this week it was down to 0.021. I use instant ocean reef crystals for salt since it's easy to get around me. What would be a better salt to use?

[mitten_reef]

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

Ya it is. 😞 Lights are on from 9am to 9pm running the default coral labs LPS/soft program.

You might see some improvement with shorter lighting period, maybe shorten to 10 hours total?  

Be sure to siphon out the cyano when you do water change too. 

[Llorgon]

57 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

You might see some improvement with shorter lighting period, maybe shorten to 10 hours total?  

Be sure to siphon out the cyano when you do water change too. 

I will make the change to the light period tonight.

 

Ya. I have a feeling there will be a lot of cyano siphoning in my future.

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, Llorgon said:

Ya it is. 😞 Lights are on from 9am to 9pm running the default coral labs LPS/soft program.

Ya new sand and rock. I tried to get the rock cycling before the move, but some things died during the move. Ended up with a mini cycle for a week after it was setup. Cycle is complete and I think now the tank is just going through the ugly stages.... I think.

 

Actually my po4 is usually higher. I tested my water after a water change and gravel vac. The week before it was 0.120 and this week it was down to 0.021. I use instant ocean reef crystals for salt since it's easy to get around me. What would be a better salt to use?

 

Regular IO would have lower alk and not fluctuate so much as reef crystals. 

 

Honestly diatoms are a normal part of the uglies but I would say cyano and such is more of a problem of stocking to fast. (or poor maintenance like when I skip water changes for months). The rock needs time to mature and grow coralline and microalgae and other organisms which seems to help greatly. 

 

It can't be helped though so at this point you will just have to manually remove. 

 

 

 

[Llorgon]

3 hours ago, Tamberav said:

 

Regular IO would have lower alk and not fluctuate so much as reef crystals. 

 

Honestly diatoms are a normal part of the uglies but I would say cyano and such is more of a problem of stocking to fast. (or poor maintenance like when I skip water changes for months). The rock needs time to mature and grow coralline and microalgae and other organisms which seems to help greatly. 

 

It can't be helped though so at this point you will just have to manually remove. 

 

 

 

Interesting. I have been doing weekly water tests and my alk has been pretty consistent so far. Staying at 9.6-9.7 for 5 weeks now. Once I finish this bucket I will try out the regular IO salt.

 

Most likely the cyano is from stocking too fast and probably my heavy feeding. I have been doing weekly 5 gal water changes and changing filter socks so I have been staying on top of maintenance.

 

Is there anything I can do to help speed up the rock maturing or is it simply a time thing?

 

 I have moved my photo period from 12 hours to 10. The 10 hour photo period will start tomorrow. Hopefully that will help a bit with the cyano.

 

Two heads of the frogspawn we're opening up a little bit today. Hopefully the rest will follow. Looks like lowering the brightness might help after all.

 

One thing I know I need to do is replenish the clean up crew. But should I wait awhile longer for things to settle in before adding more to the tank?

[Llorgon]

Happy Halloween everyone!

 

Spent last night carving pumpkins. It's been awhile since I had done that. Forgot how long it takes to scoop all the guys out of a decent sized pumpkin!

 

Yesterday while searching for my algae scraper I found a bottle of vibrant. Decided to dose a bit of it. Unfortunately this was during lunch and I immediately got distracted by work and left the open bottle by the tank. And guess what one of the cats does? He stretches up to see what is going on and it's enough to knock the bottle over. So overdosed vibrant a bit yesterday...

The tank was cloudy, but no harm done. I did do a 5 gal water change. 

 

Below are the pumpkins, overdosed vibrant tank and the offending cat.

[Llorgon]

Took a few more pictures of the tank. The lps setting on the radios seems very blue to me. Maybe it's just me though.

 

Acans are doing well as is the Kenya tree. At least something likes my tank!

 

The frogspawn has a few heads that are doing a little better. Hoping it continues.

 

The mushrooms I have are very small. About half the size they were in the 75 gallon. Again doesn't seem to matter where I move them.

[10001110101]

I think number one you need to get that cyano out of the tank, you're coral won't be happy in my experience until it's gone.  Keep manually removing as much as possible and dose some bacteria cultures like Brightwell MicroBacter7 or Seachem Stability for like 2 weeks to get the bacterial population in your tank up, I would consider doing some bigger water changes.  Turn the flow up on your MP10, I actualy have the same tank as you and as long as your corals are positioned correctly in the tank you can run reef crest up to 70-80% with no problems, actually my tank is mostly LPS and I have my MP10 running at 70% reef crest everything seems to love it, the diatoms will go away on their own with a handful of snails in the tank, cyano won't.

 

Also I've heard some hit or miss things about the ghost skimmer, IM makes a newer version that is supposed to be a lot better, consider putting a little fuge chamber in the back with a small LED (even a couple of watts will work) and making sure your skimmer is dialed in.

 

Honestly though just upping the flow on your mp10 may actually take care of the cyano altogether, they dont' like high flow, that and reduce your photoperiod, cut it back to 8 hours, if you want to be able to view your tank at night you can just turn the lighting down to like a deep blue actinic for first and last two hours at a low brightness, this won't really grow the algae and you still get to watch your tank and your corals will still benefit.

 

Quick question, what is your source water like?  Are you using RO/DI?  I always had algae issues in my first tank until I buckled down and bought a 4 stage RO/DI, algae hasn't been a major issue in any tank since and I can't even remember the last time I had cyano, probably only in my first tank.  Yeah really this is the number one thing by far if you aren't using RO/DI you need to make the switch immediately, using pure source water matters more than all the protein skimmers, chaeto, gfo, carbon dosing in the world.

 

I think no one mentioned anything about RO/DI because we probably all assume that's what you're using, and if so see all above recommendations, if not that is ur problem for sure.

[Llorgon]

13 hours ago, 10001110101 said:

I think number one you need to get that cyano out of the tank, you're coral won't be happy in my experience until it's gone.  Keep manually removing as much as possible and dose some bacteria cultures like Brightwell MicroBacter7 or Seachem Stability for like 2 weeks to get the bacterial population in your tank up, I would consider doing some bigger water changes.  Turn the flow up on your MP10, I actualy have the same tank as you and as long as your corals are positioned correctly in the tank you can run reef crest up to 70-80% with no problems, actually my tank is mostly LPS and I have my MP10 running at 70% reef crest everything seems to love it, the diatoms will go away on their own with a handful of snails in the tank, cyano won't.

 

Also I've heard some hit or miss things about the ghost skimmer, IM makes a newer version that is supposed to be a lot better, consider putting a little fuge chamber in the back with a small LED (even a couple of watts will work) and making sure your skimmer is dialed in.

 

Honestly though just upping the flow on your mp10 may actually take care of the cyano altogether, they dont' like high flow, that and reduce your photoperiod, cut it back to 8 hours, if you want to be able to view your tank at night you can just turn the lighting down to like a deep blue actinic for first and last two hours at a low brightness, this won't really grow the algae and you still get to watch your tank and your corals will still benefit.

 

Quick question, what is your source water like?  Are you using RO/DI?  I always had algae issues in my first tank until I buckled down and bought a 4 stage RO/DI, algae hasn't been a major issue in any tank since and I can't even remember the last time I had cyano, probably only in my first tank.  Yeah really this is the number one thing by far if you aren't using RO/DI you need to make the switch immediately, using pure source water matters more than all the protein skimmers, chaeto, gfo, carbon dosing in the world.

 

I think no one mentioned anything about RO/DI because we probably all assume that's what you're using, and if so see all above recommendations, if not that is ur problem for sure.

I have some stability on hand so I will start adding that. I bumped up the mp10 to around 70%. I will leave it there for a few days to see how things respond.

 

The ghost skimmer has been a bit of a pain to get it dialed in. Not super happy with it. I looked into a little refugium chamber, but from what I was reading most people said the benefit was pretty minimal. Might look into it again though.

 

I will drop my photoperiod down again tonight and see how that goes.

 

I have a ro/di unit that I bought new when I moved. So it and all the cartridges are 5 weeks old. I make water once a week about 10 gallons worth.

 

Update on the tank, frogspawn is looking a bit better today. Seeing some improvements on all but one head. On a downside I lost a hermit crab 😞

 

[Llorgon]

Upping the mp10 to about 70% on reef crest seems to have taken care of the cyano I had on the sand. Still some left here and there on the rocks though.

 

I also removed all the dead coral while doing my weekly water change. On the plus side while removing the dead coral I found that there was a tiny piece of the bird'snest still alive! It's a very tiny piece, but it's something. So I broke off the live piece and kept that.

 

My water does seem slightly cloudy lately. I am wondering if it's because of the accidental vibrant overdose earlier in the week.

 

[Tamberav]

Instead of doing vibrant, you could just do a large water change. When I get behind on water changes I just do a 10g one. When I get months behind I get a cyano bloom... a large water change and a deep clean and the cyano is gone until I slack again. 

 

You clean/stir/siphon the sand, correct? 

 

Also you may want to do the test to make sure it is cyano and not dino. You suck some up and stir it up so it dissolves, strain the water through a paper towel then wait an hour to see if the clumps reform. Many types of dino will re-clump while cyano just sort of turns the water pink or brownish. 

[Llorgon]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

Instead of doing vibrant, you could just do a large water change. When I get behind on water changes I just do a 10g one. When I get months behind I get a cyano bloom... a large water change and a deep clean and the cyano is gone until I slack again. 

 

You clean/stir/siphon the sand, correct? 

 

Also you may want to do the test to make sure it is cyano and not dino. You suck some up and stir it up so it dissolves, strain the water through a paper towel then wait an hour to see if the clumps reform. Many types of dino will re-clump while cyano just sort of turns the water pink or brownish. 

Ya I dosed vibrant twice because I had some left over. Between two doses and it getting knocked over it's all done. Won't be getting more. Water changes is probably easier anyways.

 

I have been siphoning the sand every second week. I saw a big drop in nitrates and phosphates when I siphon it.

 

I am pretty sure it's not dinos. I had dinos for 6 months in my 75 gallon and they aren't looking similar. The stuff on the sand I think was for sure cyano as it cleared up quickly after upping the flow. On the rocks it might still be diatoms? It's reddish brown, but doesn't blow off easily with a turkey baster. Also not stringy like the dinos were. 

 

That being said I could be wrong so I will do the test when I test my water this afternoon.

 

I would take pictures, but I just can't seem to get the colours right with my phone camera.

[Llorgon]

Tested tank params today

Tank Params are

Salinity: 1.026

Temp: 78

pH: 7.8

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 5

Phosphate: 0.031

Alkalinity: 9.6

Calcium: 450

Magnesium: 1340

 

Mag and Cal have gone in opposite directions this week. Might be my testing error. Sometimes it's hard to tell when those salifert tests have started to change.

 

Did the test for dinos and came back negative! 

[10001110101]

Nice, seems like you're headed in the right direction.  Taking all the dead coral out will help a lot actually, the cloudiness in the tank could be just from detritus being stirred up from the higher flow in the tank now.

 

Glad you don't have dinos!

[Llorgon]

I'm glad I don't have dinos as well!

 

Tank has been looking better today. Water is less cloudy and the frogspawn is looking a little bit better.

 

On some less good news, looks like I will be moving again in December... So that means taking the tank and moving everything again. At least it's only 25 minutes away this time.

[Tamberav]

I move fairly frequently... hard for me to keep a build long since when I move layout of the house changes so then I change my tanks up and so on. Ah well.

[Llorgon]

That sucks. Moving is such a pain. Or maybe I don't move enough and haven't mastered it yet.

 

On the plus side I can setup the 75 gallon again sooner!

[Llorgon]

Not much to update on with the tank. It's basically on holding to keep everything steady until we move again. Mostly been dealing with our problem tenant and hoping she moves when she said she was going to.

 

Frogspawn is doing better, but still have 2 heads not opening. Others are opening, but not to the same extent that they were in the 75 gal.

 

Kenya tree is loving life and the 2 mushrooms are still half the size of what they were in the 75 gallon. Acans seem to be happy as well.

 

I finally managed to get a picture of the teeny tiny piece of forest fire digi that survived.

 

Fish are all happy and eating!

[Wonderboy]

Wow - everything was coming along great and now you have to move it again - following and hoping everything goes well  :]

[Llorgon]

6 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Wow - everything was coming along great and now you have to move it again - following and hoping everything goes well  :]

Right!? Things have been stable I was at the point where I could start adding some cuc maybe a coral or two. Oh well another couple months I guess. Hopefully the tank won't take too much of a hit from this move.

[Llorgon]

Did my weekly water change and water testing. I got a big increase in phosphates this week. I'm not entirely sure why. Everything else is pretty stable.

 

Tested tank params today

Tank Params are

Salinity: 1.026

Temp: 78

pH: 7.8

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 5

Phosphate: 0.092 up from 0.031 last week.

Alkalinity: 9.6

Calcium: 450

Magnesium: 1350

 

Tried to take more pictures. They always come out so blue! Anyone have tips on taking decent pics of the tank with a Nexus 6?