IM 30L Pro Frag & Quarantine Tank

[Coolbreeze]

51 minutes ago, Tired said:

It looks like you started with mostly if not all dry rock, which is likely not helping your algae issue. Your pest algaes are left to run rampant, with minimal to no competition. Snails, patience, and making sure your nutrients are up so your non-pest algae can grow will fix it. Time for extra biodiversity to get going will be a big help, too. 

Hi @Tired, Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Can you give me a little more information on your comments please?

 

The rock was in another build for almost 3 months until the tank was leaking and was not repairable to my linking (Reliable). With that said I am on my third dose of BioKit which is supposed to be all bacteria base. Is this not enough or should I be doing something else?

 

I was just able to get my cuc this time I ordered them as they were either out of stock or my order was cancelled for some reason. This time I finally got my shipment notification so I do know that these will help with my clean-up.
 

  

 

19 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

Pretty standard for the RO/DI unit to have a higher TDS upon start up...called TDS creep I believe.  Your DI filters should be eliminating any TDS though and you should be getting a zero reading.  Mine starts at 50 TDS coming out of the RO membrane but lowers to 2 or 3 within a minute.  Either way, the DI resin gets it to zero.

 

If you are reading 7 TDS out of the DI filters than the resin needs replacement.  I have my TDS meter set to read water coming out of RO membrane and water coming out of DI cartridges.  Not sure how yours is set up.

 

 

Hi @DreC80, Thanks for stopping by and commenting as well, but I also have a few questions and hopefully you can answer them for me. When I startup the RODI it has 7 on the TDS meter and then goes to zero after 2 or 3 minutes, are you saying I need to replace my DI filter? Or are you saying that the 7 during the startup process is normal and should not be my main concern and this small amount should not matter on these smaller tanks?

[DreC80]

Can you post a pic of your RO DI unit?  I'd like to see where the TDS meter is.  Hopefully a pic showing where the TDS meter connections are.

 

Pretty sure I have the same unit as you.  I have the BRS 150 gpd system with two DI cartridges.

 

My TDS meter checks the water after leaving the RO membrane and then checks it again after leaving the second DI cartridge.

 

As long as your product water is zero, it should be fine.  

[Tired]

2 hours ago, Coolbreeze said:

Hi @Tired, Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Can you give me a little more information on your comments please?

 

The rock was in another build for almost 3 months until the tank was leaking and was not repairable to my linking (Reliable). With that said I am on my third dose of BioKit which is supposed to be all bacteria base. Is this not enough or should I be doing something else?

 

I was just able to get my cuc this time I ordered them as they were either out of stock or my order was cancelled for some reason. This time I finally got my shipment notification so I do know that these will help with my clean-up.

 

In the pictures, it looks like pretty fresh rock. The white color with the scattering of algae over it. 

 

Algae blooms largely happen when they don't have any competition. Pest algaes can thrive in low nutrients and gain ground. What keeps them from overwhelming reefs in the wild is competition, many types of algae crowding each other out. In the reef tank, you want to have a lot of non-pest algaes, slower-growing ones that don't run wild like hair algae and the like will do, so they crowd each other and the pests into control. If you have a dozen types of algae, all over the rock, all competing, none of them can come out on top and trample the others. 

 

If you have no CUC, an algae bloom is no surprise. Add them in and wait. They should start beating back the pest algae, and allowing the others to establish. But a lot of non-pest algaes don't do well in low nutrients like pests do, so you need to keep nitrates and phosphates up to let them grow. And to feed your corals. 

 

Another thing that helps keep algae under control is lots of pods that can nibble at it. And, in general, the more types of detritivores and whatnot you have, the more roles are filled, the less likely you have a problem anywhere from lack of something. Biodiversity, assuming none of the creatures involved will attack your desired ones, is vitally important to a healthy reef. 

[Coolbreeze]

18 hours ago, DreC80 said:

Can you post a pic of your RO DI unit?  I'd like to see where the TDS meter is.  Hopefully a pic showing where the TDS meter connections are.

 

Pretty sure I have the same unit as you.  I have the BRS 150 gpd system with two DI cartridges.

 

My TDS meter checks the water after leaving the RO membrane and then checks it again after leaving the second DI cartridge.

 

As long as your product water is zero, it should be fine.  

I do have the same one as you. The TDS meter is on the last two DI cartridges with the out selected on the TDS meter. I spoke to BRS support yesterday and they said that it is normal for the TDS not to be zero at the start and then go to zero in a short time. So, I am okay with that and  I think that I will order the parts for the split anyways as I wanted two containers, one for salt and the other for RODI water. Thanks for the insight 🙂

[DreC80]

7 hours ago, Coolbreeze said:

I do have the same one as you. The TDS meter is on the last two DI cartridges with the out selected on the TDS meter. I spoke to BRS support yesterday and they said that it is normal for the TDS not to be zero at the start and then go to zero in a short time. So, I am okay with that and  I think that I will order the parts for the split anyways as I wanted two containers, one for salt and the other for RODI water. Thanks for the insight 🙂

No problem, just didn't want you chasing a .....problem.

 

As long as the final product water is zero TDS you are good.  If it reads above zero then it's time to replace DI resin.

 

 

 

 

[Coolbreeze]

Well after going over some items I decided it was time to get all the data to get to the bottom of my algae outbreak.

 

I removed all water from my ATO and RODI storage tank. Then I made all new water after I ran the RODI until it hit zero TDS (About 2 minutes). Then I tested water for ammonia and nitrite. Both were zero. I then added two ball valves and one 90-degree elbow so that in the future I can run RODI until it is zero and then turn off that ball valve and turning on the other until filled.

 

Next I turned down my lights to 50% and moved red spectrum from 24% to 12% to reduce growth of algae.

 

And finally, I tested for ammonia and nitrite in the display tank. To my surprise ammonia was 0.1, I tested it three times to be sure. Then I tested for nitrite and it was 0.5, again I tested three times to make sure and then finally I tested for Nitrate and it was 5.

 

Because ammonia is above zero this became my priority to get it to zero asap. So I did 15% water change and added 5ml of MicroBacter StartXLM from Brightwell. This product can be used for new tank cycles or fixing damage bacteria.

 

Sunday is my normal day for water changes and clean-up. I will schedule another water change based on ammonia and nitrite tests and go from there.

One thing that I would like to mention is that all corals, fish and inverts are doing great so I guess this number is low enough to not kill them yet. 
 

[Coolbreeze]

So, after a week of doing 10g water changes every other day and removing equipment and cleaning and testing it there has been no changes whatsoever on ammonia, actually has gone up from .1 to .2. Also, the additional bacteria addition did not help.

 

Currently I received my ICP test back and I have zero ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and heavy metals so I can remove my RODI unit as a source.

 

Next up I have removed all equipment from display and cleaned it. Put each item in a bucket of fresh saltwater and tested for ammonia after 5 hours. All equipment came back as zero ammonia. Instead of putting all the equipment back in I made some changes to simplify its configuration. I dropped down to one Mighty Jet pump in the back and set it to 1.1 on its display, this will provide 173gph water flow which should equal to 86.5gph per side. I removed both heaters as temperature swings were happening by more than one degree. I instead installed two Colbalt Neo-Therm 75w units, one on each side (Used from other build). Currently I am now running within -+.2 degree’s which is more stable and reliable (Now solved this issue).

 

I also have taken out a small rock and put it in new saltwater for 5 hours to test for ammonia. It also came back as zero. I am running out of items to test and see where my source is coming from.

 

All livestock is accounted for, although I did lose one WWC Superstar Zoa and 2 heads on the Rainbow Micro Lord.

 

If I cannot find its source soon, I will lose all my livestock here. So, I am going to make a desperate last-ditch effort here and switch this display over to a full ZEOvit system. Let’s see what happens over the next 7 days here, hopefully I can stabilize the water parameters and stop coral die off.
 

[Coolbreeze]

I forgot to mention that I did remove Innovative Marine UV unit as well as tested the salt for ammonia as well. Sand was also vacuumed.

 

I also changed what I was feeding. I moved to frozen PEMysis as this is 75% water and will be less bio load on the current system.

 

If anyone thinks that I missed anything, please chime in here and let me know your thoughts.
 

[mitten_reef]

Have you eliminate the potential for test kit being wrong?  Some color comparison kit are known for inaccuracy, I don’t test the nitrogen parameters, so can’t say much about it from personal experience. 
You sent ICP in only for your source water and not tank water?

just rattling out ideas here. 

[Coolbreeze]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:59 AM, mitten_reef said:

Have you eliminate the potential for test kit being wrong?  Some color comparison kit are known for inaccuracy, I don’t test the nitrogen parameters, so can’t say much about it from personal experience. 
You sent ICP in only for your source water and not tank water?

just rattling out ideas here. 

I am using the Red Sea test kit. Good point on checking to see if it wrong. I was just looking for the color to be yellow and it has been a light green in color and when used the first time it was correct. Also I have not done a ICP on the display, so another good point. Will order kit to see what the results are.

 

I have converted the tank over to ZEOvit so will be giving update shortly.

[Coolbreeze]

Well it has been 6 weeks since dealing with ammonia issue. I can report that it is gone and the tank is doing much better, but I will have to admit it was tough and a touch and go situation. After starting to dose ZEOvit products and got really rough. First off algae hair started to go away after 13 days, but then I got a real bad case of cyano so I needed to buy a few more blue bottles for tackling it so that is convenient 🤥 or is it 😀. So I purchase Cyano clean and Coral Snow and started doing these as well. After 6 weeks it is almost gone, but then I saw a few aiptasia. I really started to get frustrated as if it is not one thing then it was another. 

 

I took a break for a week and monitored all the activity and noticed that the aiptasia was between two rocks that was not cemented in, so I grab the rock and put it in a bucket. Turned the rock over and grab the aiptasia with tweezer until it was all gone. Then in the area that it was located I sprayed some hydrogen peroxide, now it is gone😀.

 

One other area that I made some improvements on is food. I through away all my current flake food and replaced with frozen mysis and calanus. I also bought some Reef Nutrition TDO-B1 Chroma boost which I feed to my corals and fish sometimes when running late. The last thing I did was add ZEOVit Ammo for fish. This has been awesome as I notice my clowns colors are really coming out and seem to be glowing.

 

Last but not least since converting over my corals have been growing. My Zoeas that I got had one or two heads and most of them have doubled in six weeks. I am sorry to report that I did lose 4 corals before getting things under control. I lost Rainbow Micro Lord, Sunset Monti, Thunder Acro and WWC Emeralds on Fire Zoa's.

 

But I am happy to report all others are doing really well and even opening up much better and brighter. Also I did not lose any fish or inverts.

 

[mitten_reef]

 

^^ the green glow on that torch.  😲

 

Glad you got a bunch of stuff sorted out and ready for the next step.   

[debbeach13]

Sorry about the corals you lost. Sounds like things are going good now. I hope that continues for you.

[Coolbreeze]

Sunday was maintenance day and as such I needed to do the ZEOLites replacements. Now that I have a few minutes here I wanted to post my ZEOvit schedule and try to get caught up on some systems that I have beem following.

 

[Coolbreeze]

Things are looking good so I wanted to add two more fish. I ordered them on Monday and they are yesterday and I did my standard dip and acclamation process. Today they are very active and is eating well. The two that I added are Blue/Green Black Axil Chromis - Small and Vanderbuilt Chromis - Medium. With both of them swimming around and being very active it looks as if I now have some action going on and it has made the two clowns become more active as well.

 

I did add 5ml of Vibrant to help control algae bloom and so far my water is crystal clear.

 

Now that things seem to be stable I am planning over the next couple of days to attach all my Zoanthids to the new NanoRox to make a garden.

[TerraIncognita]

This tank is so beautiful, I can't wait til it ages a bit. Defo jealous.

 

seems like it's moving along great which is awesome.

 

My only recommendation I would add is for LONG term longevity, start figuring out how to cycle out some of the chemicals and extra doses you're doing, before adding anything else, I know it's the most annoying thing to say and hear, but the more you add, and change, and dose, the harder it will be in the long run to just really stabilize it so you don't even need to think "did I dose today?"

 

MY own personal ideal tank situation is simple cal/mag/alk dosing, and otherwise just feeding and weekly/spot cleanings. It's to me the most long term enjoyable and manageable tank system. I can't deal with the daily testing, and poking and prodding, and checking, because I just can't do it for extended periods of time, every single day. I've been able to keep many mixed reefs like this successfully. Let the algae bloom grow and die, let the spikes and waves happen, then remove bit by bit all the supplements you've included into your routine.

 

After the first year, it will start to become really tiring to worry about media replacement and dosing, and when did I change "this specific media" and "i forgot to mark the calendar". Also when something goes wrong, you now have so many potentials of "what went wrong" it's really hard to pinpoint. 365 daily, every day. it's hard. Kids are less work it seems sometimes than these "damn fish" lol.

 

I've always tried to really stabilize my tanks out as soon as possible so that I can spend more time just watching everything in symbiosis, instead of watching them watch me trying to make all their lives more comfortable and safe constantly lol.

 

Also the more you have to do to the tank, the more it will create stress on the species living inside. If someone was constantly in your house, exterminating, changing air filters, changing plumbing, adding aerosols, checking, poking, prodding, you'd start to lose your mind as well. Despite the fact your house is SQUEAKY clean, you'd hate them with a passion.

 

I think all animals (including these fish) are so much more closely related to humans in the sense of day to day bodily living (eating, sleeping, your home environment etc) than we ever really take a step back to examine it, If you think about your own house as a big fish tank, it kind of gives you a cool new view of aquarium keeping.

 

Some fish can live in the dirtiest water, some humans can live in the dirtiest houses, but it's all "what you're used too" and how it acclimates. Some people can eat a lot, and not be obese, some people can't, some people can survive the cold, some people like it warm, but really if you think about it, we're able to adapt to ANYTHING if we do it in gradients ourselves, fish are just smaller people who can do the same thing, on a smaller scale.

 

This is just my personal preference and opinions. Otherwise like I said, tank is beautiful, and I'm just jealous ❤️ I hope it keeps getting better.

[Coolbreeze]

Today was water change day and hopefully it was the last. I hooked up the AutoAqua AWC system and was hoping to have thing thing hooked up some time ago. With that said it was not hard to do. First you need to figure out how much water you would like to change and over what time. Then you measure the area where you plan on putting the two optic sensors at and finally you look at how much water your reservoir can hold.

 

So I have three 5 gallon reservoir from Innovative Marine, One for ATO water, One for fresh salt water and finally the last one is for waste water. Then I measure the back of the IM 30 return area and figure out what it would take to move .5 gallons on each water change. So after doing all the math I needed to set the unit to do a water change every 3 days and 12 hours for dispensing .5 gallons of fresh salt water. I set the two sensors 2 inches apart in the back chamber.

 

Now on the waste container I put one of the pumps thats came with the original IM Nuvo concept and added a 30ft hose to it (1/2"). Now all I have to do is turn on the pump through my Apex to empty the reservoir and pump it out to my bathroom where I added a piece of plumbing to attach the 1/2" house to it.

 

My last part of this configuration is to add two sensors. One sensor will be for ATO and if it reaches the sensor it will turn off the power until the water can be replaced and the other sensor will be in the back chamber in case we run out of fresh salt water.  

[debbeach13]

Sounds great. Let us know how it goes.

[Coolbreeze]

Well it has been 2 weeks of testing the new AWC system and at this point in time I cannot recommend it for the following reasons.

 

1). The first AWC did not happen and after investigating it was a failed pump - New pump is close to 30.00

 

2). I did a manual run and found that the pumps are too small. Now keep in mind that the water is just below the DT and is using a standard 40G stand. When it ran it took some time for the water to come from the DT to the first reservoir. After reviewing the water drain it went way past (About 3") from the optical sensor. I did take a look at the sensor to make sure that it was clean and it was.

 

3). Now the refill process started and again it took some time for the pump to actually get the new saltwater up to the DT and when it did it went pass the optical sensor by about an inch. In doing so it change my salinity way out of wack.

 

4). In three days I tried it again and got the same results.

 

After doing some research I found that you can replace the pumps with a standard pump by buying a new piece of equipment at a cost of 30.00 piece (Will need 2) plus the cost of your pumps. So at a cost of 200.00 for the initial unit is really not worth it.

 

With that said I will be going back to my original plan of using Apex for a water change and moving the water to a drainage pipe in the ceiling. I need to wait a little longer to have my new fish closet completed first. This will have all the electronics and water (ATO & Salt) available. Then all I have to do is fill either container about once every three months.

 

ON a side note a have a new addition coming.... Stay tune as it is stunning looking and waited several months for one to become available.

[ScubaEthan]

I'm impressed with your stand build! I'm looking at getting the same tank and have been pondering building my own stand too.

[Coolbreeze]

Well it has been some time since I have updated this journal. It has been very busy at work and getting my home remodel in order. Still having issues getting an electrician to come in and run a few power lines for my new fish closet.

 

After going through my R&D and several options I have decided to not go with. Complete ZeoVit system as it seems too much playing mad scientist in some ways. First off you start off figuring out how much to add of each bottle to our system, but there is no way of knowing if things work at all. A prime example of this is adding Zeofood Plus to the system can cause Cyno and once you get it then you cut back your dose and buy two more products to fix it. I will use part of the system as I do see many benefits of using it. The following items I will still use

 

1). Coral Vitalizer
2). Pohl’s Xtra
3). Amino Acid Concentrate LPS
4). Sponge Power

 

the above items I did see many benefits from them. Like my Zoas that I had only had one head on them when I purchased them and now many of them have exploded with 6+ heads. Other corals seem to brighten up as well. I did not see the benefit of the other stuff as I do not see the corals uptaking and mulm and the exact dosage is hard to figure out and will change based on coral growth. I will be switching back to MicroBacter7 as I see many community members using it here with great results.

As stated above in my other post I will not continue with the AWC system that I purchased but instead will be using my Apex and DOS system for that.

 

I am very happy with ALL FOR REEF. Very simple to use and I can change trace elements if needed. This can be done by using a ICP test every 6 months or so.

 

My current lighting system is currently getting old ( 5Years) and now I see one light where it will blink bright and then go back to its prior setting, which leads me into another topic of my dream lighting system. Here I think I will start a new thread to get some input on what I am thinking of doing and some input from the community since this hardware can be very expensive.

 

 

 

My last point is that I have decided to now use this tank as a quarantine/frag tank as I just do not see it for the long haul in my living room. It looks too small for my room and I wanted a tank to be a focal point of the room. I have ordered my Dream Tank and I will start a new journal when it arrives, and I will use this one for a frag and quarantine display only.
 

[Coolbreeze]

So I have completed the transition from reef to frag. I decided to use a small amount of rock work at different levels so I can easily remove fish from this tank to my WB20g or main display. I have noticed that the colors of the animals are really bright so I will continue to use ZeoVit supplements. Here are a few pictures of the changes I made. I do need buy a new camera so that I can get better pictures (color and macro shots).

 

[Coolbreeze]

Well first off, I have a new DSLR camera coming so that I can take better pictures in the future.

 

I have purchased some new material for filtering water instead of using filter pads, well sort of. I found new filter pads on Amazon from a company called Aquatics Expert and been using them for the past 4 weeks with some outstanding results.

 

I purchase them in two different microns. One at 200 and the other at 50. I placed the 50 microns on the bottom and the 200 on top as it has two layers similar to other filter pads. After running them for two weeks on this system it has cleared up the water as if it was never used. All left over food that was not eaten during my 5 minutes feeding cycle is cleared right up in a few minutes after pumps start running again. Cost is lower than the other brands out there.

 

Here are the links if you want to investigate for yourself.

 

Dual Density Pad

50 Micron Pad

 

It also comes in 100 Microns as well.

 

100 Micron Pad
 

[Coolbreeze]

My Waterbox Marine X 110.4 has arrived today and I have started my new build thread. Yes this will be replacing this unit sometime down the road. Now I need to run to Lowes to pick up some 5 gal buckets so I can drain this down far enough to move it to its new home so I can start building the new stand tomorrow.

[Coolbreeze]

In preparation of DT move I have decided to do  a major tank cleaning. So far I have completed the following.

 

1). Cleaned Rock and Sand

2). Cleaned both Nero 5 Pumps.

3). Cleaned back chamber.

4). Changed filter pads.

5). Mixed some Peroxide with water for a dilution to clean algae off of some Zoa's frags. (Frags are starting to open back up today)

 

Tomorrow I plan on cleaning the following.

 

1). IM rear pump.

2). Clean and calibrate Apex Probes.

3). Change out Rox 0.8

 

and finally make 15 gallons of new water for a water change when moving the DT to its new resting place. (Move planned for Friday)