second_decimal 10g Nano

[second_decimal]

So just to update things.... the tank has been not what I was aiming for. Went through a small bout of brown hair algae but I just had to wait that out and it resolved itself. Currently dosing 3 part but still trying to get things dialed in. I must shamefully admit that I could not resist and added a juvi powder blue tang so there would be some movment and activity. I knew I couldn’t keep him and Had planned on giving him away when he got too big. The court jester goby only pops up here and there, the shrimp stays hidden and so does the purple fire fish. I was warned that PBT are ich prone but I have had fish with ich before and they all recovered for the most part. Long story short... he did get ich, died after 4 weeks and took all the others with him in short order so now I’m running fallow. 
 

During all this time, I had been dealing with low PH issues that at times would swing from 7.8 to 7.5 during the night. I was dosing kalk and not seeing results. Po4 and No3 were at zero with daily feedings so pretty healthy cycling.  I started being more diligent with my water changes and saw no change. I would do a WC and PH would rise to 7.8X but then drop down to 7.6X by the next morning. Digging deeper, opened a window... no change. Added Co2 scrubber... no change. Getting a little frustrated and running out of options, I decided to pursue the strategy that something was rotting inside the tank. So I started targeting areas where detritus could collect and cleaning pumps etc.. I target feed reefroids but also not seeing the results I was expecting. Lackluster colors, and now my acans started melting.. I lost a small Superman digi frag, a green slimer frag as well. Yesterday, after having cleaned all other areas in the front and AIO sections of the tank, I finally got to the skimmer.. low and behold... the pump intake was completely clogged. It was still frothing so I had not noticed anything was amiss. Also saw the intake was throttled to the lowest setting.... cleaned all that up. Put it together.. the skimmer is going nuts. Let’s see how it goes, but started the morning at 7.82 and rose to 7.93 so far. Acans still look pretty beat up and GSP refuses to extend but at least it’s something. I will update again soon. 

[teenyreef]

Dang, I never would have thought the skimmer being clogged would cause that much trouble. This is why it's so important to post about the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. I learned something today 🙂

 

[mitten_reef]

I know the skimmer is messing up your pH. how are you acclimating the corals with the new light?

[second_decimal]

so another long overdue update. the corals seem to have acclimated well and colors are somewhat returning. the acans came back and look.. dare i say.. pretty good. I am dosing 3 part and that seems to be doing alright. i also add 3-4 ml of Red Sea AB+ daily. once a week (or thereabout) i dose like 10 ml of fresh phyto that i pick up from a local guy. i added to the cuc from reefcleaners.org and that is also working out pretty well...so far lol. my PH is still running low but i am doing everything i can think of but may start mixing kalk into the ATO water.

 

 

Now for some hardware stories..

 

i have always held the belief that all the cables and things sort of detract from the overall viewing experience. because of that I purchased an intank rear chamber cover to hide all the components. we went from this.. 

 

to this..

 

 

obviously a vast improvement. i ran into the challenge with the nano skimmer height adjust-ability however. The max height before the collection chamber hit the cover and started to rattle everything left the skimmer running very wet. so much so, that the ATO would kick in all the time and it was actually affecting the Salinity. grabbed a 3" hole saw and wound up with this.. 

 

 

 

skimmer is running perfect and cup needs to emptied every 4-5 days... if you look closely at the picture above with the cover on you will see the skimmer collection cup protruding just a tiny little bit. almost flush so the adjustment from very wet empty cup daily to empty every 4-5 days happened by increasing height about .5 inches 

 

 

[second_decimal]

a few more tank shots.. 

 

 

 

[jack1978]

You have a tank? 

[second_decimal]

1 hour ago, jack1978 said:

You have a tank? 

its not mine.. i'm just catfishing everyone

[second_decimal]

 

 

[second_decimal]

this morning was sort of scolded by @mitten_reef for not sharing tank updates on my build thread. guess i should share an update...

 

i am being invaded.. no.. violated.. by aptasia and its having its way with my tank. the only thing that had been introduced in the last 4 weeks (or more) was a small cuc order from reefcleaners. it started with 1 and i went pretty deep on the rock to cut it out. i turned around and found another the next day. cut that one out of the rock. turned around the next day and had four more. this time i just took the rocks out since they where small and had nothing else on them. i did have to relocate a zoa colony that had gone from 4 heads to 20+ over time. the aptasia was on the plug itself so i relocated the colony lost 4 heads and tossed the plug with the aptasia untouched. this morning... 4 more popped up. i think i got rid of those though and the battle is finally over.

 

I figured i should share a pic so that others can learn what they can do if they are ever faced with an aptasia problem..

 

[second_decimal]

Did some house cleaning along with a WC. While the rocks where out, drilled a few holes for plugs, shook all the rocks in the waste water. Vacuumed the back underneath rock work to get gunk out. Hopefully that will address the low PH issue I have been passively fighting. I am running out of options (and causes) so hopefully that will work. Added a few new frags from my friends at UCC.. let’s hope I don’t kill them too lol 

 

 

 

 

 

 

edit: updated pics because the others were just terrible. 

[second_decimal]

current equipment list

IM 20 Nuvo

Intank rear chamber cover

Mighty Jet return pump

2 Caddies 

Profilux Ultimate 3.1 EX

Eshopps nano skimmer

Cobalt neo heater 

tunze 6040

NBR/ATI hybrid

 

things that a living in the tank right now.. 

UCC Rainbow BTA not bubbling but looks happy nonetheless

Green Aussi Torch really short tentacles and looks like more like a hammer but with tentacles shaped like a torch

 

Green Hydrophora received some damage and lost some flesh on the tips. Still kickin though and looks like it may be regenerating.

 

One Acan 4 head frag

 

UCC Red digi

 

GSP

 

UCC Encruster (Skull scratcher?)

 

 

Zoas

Neon green center / red-orange tentacles

Dark center / red tentacles (hornet)

 

Green center / green tentacles / yellow mouth

 

Sunny D

 

Scambled egg

 

UCC red center dark tentacles

 

Light green center/ pink disk / pink tentacles

 

 

 

Yellow-green center / grey disk / red tentacles

 

Yellow center / sand colored disk / light brown tentacles

 

Bright green center / green disk / brown tentacles

 

 

 

Light brown center / purple disk / light brown tentacles (Purple Puddles?)

 

 

 

UCC Cali tort

 

 

 

emerald crab

fire shrimp and cuc

 

and also.. aptaisia. I have been fighting some aptasia.  Have been keeping a close eye on everything and aptasia x’d like 18 over the course of a week. Most are tiny and I get them as soon as they pop up. Presumably it will burn out at one point or another. 

 

 

 

 

[Tamberav]

Very nice, everything looks happy! 

 

I believe the aiptasia that is pretty invasive and prolific at multiplying is from the pacific which wouldn't come in on the local RC snails. However, he does import now so maybe something made its way in. (There is a cousin of the aipasia in the gulf, it just doesn't really reproduce at a pest rate). I just zapped a few myself, mine came in on a torch coral. Nothing visible on the torch when I added it but sure enough, some popped up there. 

[second_decimal]

yea so far so good. all still very little and new.. that's how that goes lol. as far as aptasia origin, who knows... they pop up all over the place. regardless, this is an extra prolific strain.. i killed 5 yesterday and i hunt them all day. they keep popping up though. presumably i will eradicate them eventually. 

 

i changed the dosing regiment from 3 part to ATI essentials 1/2 and RS AB+ that i was adding manually every day. i also changed the pump pattern to a more swaying type of action. i only have that little 6040 but its set to ramp up to about 90%max and then drop to 20% minimum. so its like a gentle current that ramps up to a strong current and back down again to a gentle current. wonder if it will make any difference to the tank inhabitants. we will see.

 

[second_decimal]

Played around with a few camera settings tonight. 
 

[second_decimal]

So I have been generally dissatisfied with the bb and decided to add some substrate. It made the tank twice as bright and will hopefully be a happy home for a sandsifter. 
 

 

[second_decimal]

there has been some issue with algae lately. it was long brown and wicked fast growing. literally the tank would start the light cycle fine but by the end it was covering zoas and everything else..

so i started a 3 day dark cycle and turned the back on today. went from this.. 

 

 

to this

 

 

PO4 and No3 were 0 so i assume low nutrient to blame.. feed more often to generate some nitrates

[mitten_reef]

29 minutes ago, second_decimal said:

there has been some issue with algae lately. it was long brown and wicked fast growing. literally the tank would start the light cycle fine but by the end it was covering zoas and everything else..

so i started a 3 day dark cycle and turned the back on today. went from this.. 

 

 

to this

 

 

PO4 and No3 were 0 so i assume low nutrient to blame.. feed more often to generate some nitrates

Hopefully it was just a strong case of cyano, and not dino. 

[second_decimal]

lol doubt it. i know cyano and this was not looking like that thick carpet cyano has. i am going to increase feedings and monitoring nitrates. or i can dose worst case. 

[second_decimal]

It’s been a while and the tank has been through some things. After running at zero Po4 and zero No3 for a while (I thought I was doing well and everything looked happpy) dinos came with a vengeance. I tried black out periods etc. and finally, after a 4-6 week battle I wound up dosing vibrant. That cleared it up amd paved the way for a solid cyano attack. That I got under control by way of chemiclean. It worked as promised and the cyano clearer up in short order. Things where good  for like 3.7 seconds before the GHA/Bryopsis attack. That also was escalated quickly and started chocking out everything. That was cleared up by fluconazole. After all that, the tank inhabitants showed serious signs of deterioration and some never recovered. I was also forced to ditch the ATI/Nanobox hybrid fixture that kept loosing the blue channel and burning up Nanobox arrays. It was replaced with a AquaticLife T5 fixture supplemented by a ReefLed. Much more reliable at a fraction of the cost. Anyways, that was some time ago but here is a FTS now. 

 

[second_decimal]

Still going..