Adventures in keeping a SPS reef

[Llorgon]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

The fact that phosphate did not bottom out again is a crucial victory for you AND the corals though....much more significant than nitrate status.  👍

 

The Uglies are never fun.

Honestly, I thought I got lucky and kinda skipped them this time. When I first started the tank, all the hair algae grew in the refugium and the dt stayed mostly pest algae free. Who knew it would come 1.5years into having the tank setup...

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

And they surely can be a lot of work...at times they can feel demoralizing.  THAT'S WHERE WE COME IN!! 🍻 🙂 

 

It is unfortunate that corals got caught in the ensuing algae bloom and wild nutrient swings....but it does happen.

It's weird that this tank has had such issues keeping nutrients. All my previous tanks have been the opposite in having too much nutrients.

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

I'm glad the supplement to your CUC is arriving – they will no doubt make a big difference.  

 

I would be prepared to make a judgement in a week or so on whether they are "enough" or not though.

 

If not – if you still see algae making "progress" into areas you've cleaned – then after that week, get another CUC-supplement ordered "asap".

That's the plan right now. Add weekly or every other week until the algae stops taking over.

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Have you been able to make any adjustments/improvements in this area yet?

I've played around with the placement and speed of the current powerheads, not sure if I have made any improvements or not. I'm going to try the gyre on one end and the two octo pulses on the opposite end next weekend.

 

This weekend I focused on algae removal so there are at least a few bare patches for the new cuc to work from. I also moved a few of the euphyllia onto the rocks in hopes that it will help make some of them a bit happier. I lost my 2 SPS frags to algae. It grew on the tips and I couldn't keep up with removing it before they died. 

 

My montipora isn't growing, but the colour is coming back and it's mostly green now. I still have small bits of Elkhorn and forest fire that encrusted on the rocks, but they are just small patches in between bubble algae.

[mcarroll]

On 11/27/2022 at 8:09 PM, Llorgon said:

I've played around with the placement and speed of the current powerheads, not sure if I have made any improvements or not. I'm going to try the gyre on one end and the two octo pulses on the opposite end next weekend.

Try both onto pulses on the same wall and with NO pump on the other wall.  You might be surprised and like it.  Creates double the effective flow in that direction AND removes the counter-flow from the opposite side, so the flow should also remain stronger throughout the tank than before.  (If you still want to try the gyre, try it on the same side too.)

 

It can work really well, but see what you think.  Your pumps are different than the Tunze nanostreams I was using.

 

Keep up the good work!!

[Llorgon]

6 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Try both onto pulses on the same wall and with NO pump on the other wall.  You might be surprised and like it.  Creates double the effective flow in that direction AND removes the counter-flow from the opposite side, so the flow should also remain stronger throughout the tank than before.  (If you still want to try the gyre, try it on the same side too.)

 

It can work really well, but see what you think.  Your pumps are different than the Tunze nanostreams I was using.

 

Keep up the good work!!

Interesting. I will give that a try this weekend and see how it goes.

 

Snails arrived yesterday, so I got them into the tank. When looking at the tank after lights out, I can now see:
3 trochus
8 Astrea
10 cerith
uncountable number of little stomatella like snails
5 small hermit crabs

I also got more of the live phyto, so I will continue with dosing that as it's easier to keep nutrients stable than dosing the straight nitrate and phosphate.

 

I still have algae issues, but I feel like it's not coming back as quickly in some places. Hopefully the new clean up crew will help with that. I no longer have to pull algae out every day. I can go a couple days in between and not see a huge difference. So that's good?

I'm still dealing with cyano on the front left of the tank. Hopefully playing around with powerhead placement helps with that.

 

Corals still slowly die back, but I think I have to accept the fact that I may be left with one or two euphyllia at the end of all this. The large euphyllia is not going to survive. It's down to 2 heads now.

[mcarroll]

5 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I still have algae issues, but I feel like it's not coming back as quickly in some places.

Nice – that's the first sign that you're making progress!

 

5 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I'm still dealing with cyano on the front left of the tank.

IMO try to worry about that after the hair algae bloom is gone.  

 

Cyano is a funny thing....very temperamental compared to green algae.  It only seems to show up where it's really, actually needed (the reason is not always apparent)....and it seems to "let itself out the door" just as matter of factly when the need (whatever it was) has passed.

 

My guess is that once your corals are all past the dying and recovering phase and they're getting on with growing and spreading, you'll see the cyano disappear.

 

5 hours ago, Llorgon said:

Corals still slowly die back, but I think I have to accept the fact that I may be left with one or two euphyllia at the end of all this. The large euphyllia is not going to survive. It's down to 2 heads now.

Beefing up the flow to as much as they can comfortably tolerate is the best/only thing left to do at this point.

 

More flow (and better flow) encourages everything that needs to be encouraged at this point.

 

 

[Llorgon]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:13 PM, mcarroll said:

Nice – that's the first sign that you're making progress!

 

IMO try to worry about that after the hair algae bloom is gone.  

 

Cyano is a funny thing....very temperamental compared to green algae.  It only seems to show up where it's really, actually needed (the reason is not always apparent)....and it seems to "let itself out the door" just as matter of factly when the need (whatever it was) has passed.

All I do with cyano right now is siphon as much out as I can when doing a water change.

On 11/30/2022 at 2:13 PM, mcarroll said:

 

My guess is that once your corals are all past the dying and recovering phase and they're getting on with growing and spreading, you'll see the cyano disappear.

Sadly, I think I'm going to end up with 1 euphyllia, the space invaders, the montipora and the big orange acan like coral when this is all done.

On 11/30/2022 at 2:13 PM, mcarroll said:

 

Beefing up the flow to as much as they can comfortably tolerate is the best/only thing left to do at this point.

 

More flow (and better flow) encourages everything that needs to be encouraged at this point.

 

 

More flow is the goal of the weekend!

 

I did some more algae cleaning tonight. I'm seeing progress on that front. Still lots there though. The bubble algae is a pain to pull off, especially in all the little crevices.

 

Corals are still pretty much slowly dying. There's 1 euphyllia not completely closed up and I've been seeing more polyp bail out on the unhappy frags. The space invaders is holding up, but I can't seem to keep the algae off the ends that died off originally. I wonder if cutting the ends would work?

[mcarroll]

Looks like progress to me!

 

A couple of focus areas I'd suggest:

 

1) You have one area of mature algae growth on the back wall the looks like it should be "easy picking" compared to working in your rock.  Try to knock that out during your next session if possible.  Large areas of mature growth would not only be inaccessible to your cleanup crew, but also a large source of algae spores AND algae 

 

If you don't already have something like a Kent Pro Scraper for your back and side walls, I highly recommend the addition.

I like the short handle for my home setup.  But on other setups I've taken care of the extended handles (there are 2-3 sizes) are very nice too.  

 

Magnet scrapers don't work well in every situation.

 

2) That green coral in the front-right of the photo (maybe the Euphyllia?) may have to get more severe help than would generally be needed since it's in direct contact with SO MUCH algae.  Without something to remove that algae this coral won't win the fight it's in.

On 12/1/2022 at 10:23 PM, Llorgon said:

If it's impossible to make this coral better using your fingers to remove algae (eg spaces are too small), then make one exception and remove it from the tank (but ideally not from the water – take it out in a small bucket of tank water – and give it a CAREFUL scrubbing-algae removal.  

 

Use something gentle for the scrubbing like a baby toothbrush.  The coral skin neat the skeleton base is very thin.  

 

Use an actual pair of tweezers if you think it would help with plucking/scraping since they can be precise and they're metal/strong.  A small-tip flat screwdriver can also be handy.  Be careful.  🙂 

 

You might have to briefly expose the coral to air after the cleaning when moving it back to the display since the bucket water will (hopefully) be full of algae particles.

 

Just try to make it the only exposure, and limit the time and amount of jostling/handling the coral experiences while out of water.

 

BTW, all the kid-glove handling is mostly because the coral has already been through the wringer.  A healthy coral wouldn't necessarily dictate the extra TLC.

[Llorgon]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:43 PM, mcarroll said:

Looks like progress to me!

 

A couple of focus areas I'd suggest:

 

1) You have one area of mature algae growth on the back wall the looks like it should be "easy picking" compared to working in your rock.  Try to knock that out during your next session if possible.  Large areas of mature growth would not only be inaccessible to your cleanup crew, but also a large source of algae spores AND algae 

 

If you don't already have something like a Kent Pro Scraper for your back and side walls, I highly recommend the addition.

I like the short handle for my home setup.  But on other setups I've taken care of the extended handles (there are 2-3 sizes) are very nice too.  

 

Magnet scrapers don't work well in every situation.

I have a scrapper and I have been removing large chunks of algae from the back glass on water change day. Rocks are harder to get the algae off of so I have been focusing on them.

On 12/3/2022 at 5:43 PM, mcarroll said:

 

2) That green coral in the front-right of the photo (maybe the Euphyllia?) may have to get more severe help than would generally be needed since it's in direct contact with SO MUCH algae.  Without something to remove that algae this coral won't win the fight it's in.

If it's impossible to make this coral better using your fingers to remove algae (eg spaces are too small), then make one exception and remove it from the tank (but ideally not from the water – take it out in a small bucket of tank water – and give it a CAREFUL scrubbing-algae removal.  

 

Use something gentle for the scrubbing like a baby toothbrush.  The coral skin neat the skeleton base is very thin.  

 

Use an actual pair of tweezers if you think it would help with plucking/scraping since they can be precise and they're metal/strong.  A small-tip flat screwdriver can also be handy.  Be careful.  🙂 

 

You might have to briefly expose the coral to air after the cleaning when moving it back to the display since the bucket water will (hopefully) be full of algae particles.

 

Just try to make it the only exposure, and limit the time and amount of jostling/handling the coral experiences while out of water.

 

BTW, all the kid-glove handling is mostly because the coral has already been through the wringer.  A healthy coral wouldn't necessarily dictate the extra TLC.

That coral is a space invaders pectinia. It had some die back at the beginning of all these issues. I've been trying to get that algae off for awhile now and it's been a real pain. Ive been thinking of just cutting the dead tips with the algae off. I also need to dip it to get all the red planaria off it.

 

As for the tank, I played around with the flow this weekend. I had a few setting wrong on the wave engine programming. I think I have it figured out now. My pumps now alternate between LPS mode and square wave. I set them both to 70% speed. As an example beforehand a pump running at 58% was spinning at 380rpm and now at the same speed it's at 1130rpm.

 

I'm still seeing some polyp bail out on the euphyllia. I've thrown out 3 frags so far. I'll see if any of the flow changes help things at all.

[Llorgon]

It's been almost a week since the flow was increased. I'm not seeing a ton of change, but I do get more algae blowing around the tank and not as much cyano is coming back on the sand.

 

I'm still seeing poly bail out on the euphyllia. I've thrown out 4 frags so far. I see only one frag has any sort of flesh band so they all might be goners. The big euphyllia is down to 2 heads. 1 is partly out and the other is incredibly receded into the head.

 

I tried to get as much algae off the space invaders as I could. I ended up having to cut the dead ends off. That was on Tuesday and it's still unhappy and I have seen algae growing back on it already...

 

I scraped a ton of algae off the back wall. There was a bunch of Coraline beneath it so I'm hoping that starts to take off. 

 

The two rocks I have been focusing on cleaning off have been staying relatively algae free. With the exception of the cracks and holes I can't seem to get the algae pulled out of. I still think I am going to need more snails. I have been looking for a tuxedo urchin, but every place is sold out, so for the time being I'm going to order another 6 snails.

 

I had another bout of crazy skimmer last night. I'm really not sure what set it off this time, but once again it went crazy and overflowed out of the sump, and I still haven't been able to turn it back on.

 

While playing around with the skimmer, I noticed that all the algae in the refugium has died off. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

 

Nutrients have been relatively stable. Nitrate has been around 7ppm and phosphate briefly dipped to around 0.07ppm. I have been dosing 10ml of live phyto daily to keep up nutrients.

[mcarroll]

On 12/9/2022 at 9:27 PM, Llorgon said:

I had another bout of crazy skimmer last night. I'm really not sure what set it off this time, but once again it went crazy and overflowed out of the sump, and I still haven't been able to turn it back on.

Overflowing back into the skimmer is not really an issue.  But your is overflowing OUT of the sump....as in, onto the floor???  Any way to prevent that from happening?  (Pic of the install?)

 

Maybe this caused by pulses of organics from the algae dying off in the sump?

 

On 12/9/2022 at 9:27 PM, Llorgon said:

While playing around with the skimmer, I noticed that all the algae in the refugium has died off. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Good in the long run, at the very least.  (Probably in the short run too.  We're not running an algae farm here!! 😉) 

 

The nutrients freed up by that die-off may have been "funding" some of the algae growth in the display.  It could predict a slowdown in the display algae too.

 

On 12/9/2022 at 9:27 PM, Llorgon said:

Nutrients have been relatively stable. Nitrate has been around 7ppm and phosphate briefly dipped to around 0.07ppm. I have been dosing 10ml of live phyto daily to keep up nutrients.

Reduced demand from the sump may be part of this stability.   Whatever the case, this stability is great news for your corals.  The ones capable of recovery are doing it in earnest now.  👍

[rimga123]

Tank looks much better in my opinion! Sad to see the corals not doing well. I probably would have gone and restarted the whole system or doing a good ripclean (even though it would be difficult on a system this size)

 

[Llorgon]

On 12/11/2022 at 1:50 AM, mcarroll said:

Overflowing back into the skimmer is not really an issue.  But your is overflowing OUT of the sump....as in, onto the floor???  Any way to prevent that from happening?  (Pic of the install?)

The skimmer cup overflows, bubbles come out the top and it's enough to spill out of the sump. I have a lip on my stand and that has kept the water in the stand, but if not for that, then all over the floor.

On 12/11/2022 at 1:50 AM, mcarroll said:

 

Maybe this caused by pulses of organics from the algae dying off in the sump?

I doubt it as this has happened before. Every time I went away this summer I would come back to this. It also happened a couple months ago after feeding pellets for a few days. It followed by another round of coral loss.

 

I never experienced this before. When I went away last summer it was never an issue. It's not a new skimmer, I have had it for years now. It's very strange. It usually takes a few days to calm down and I have to readjust the skimmer again.

On 12/11/2022 at 1:50 AM, mcarroll said:

 

Good in the long run, at the very least.  (Probably in the short run too.  We're not running an algae farm here!! 😉) 

 

The nutrients freed up by that die-off may have been "funding" some of the algae growth in the display.  It could predict a slowdown in the display algae too.

 

Reduced demand from the sump may be part of this stability.   Whatever the case, this stability is great news for your corals.  The ones capable of recovery are doing it in earnest now.  👍

I hope to see some recovery. Would now not be a good time to try some chaeto in the sump to see if it will out compete the algae in the display?

On 12/11/2022 at 3:04 AM, rimga123 said:

Tank looks much better in my opinion! Sad to see the corals not doing well. I probably would have gone and restarted the whole system or doing a good ripclean (even though it would be difficult on a system this size)

 

Thanks. Ya, it sucks about the corals. I did think of restarting or just quitting, but I was convinced otherwise. Ripclean was also considered, but I am not really setup to be able to easily do that.

 

I was away from Sat-mon. When I got back there was a bit more algae in some place so I definitely need more snails, but I can see green on the places that I have cleaned and not pest algae! I can also see that the emerald crab is starting to make a dent in the bubble algae which is great.

 

Corals are still pretty unhappy though

[rimga123]

Small steps!

Nothing happens overnight.  I have been batteling dinos for the past while and onlt starting to see some sort of results now.

You know what you need to keep doing to move forward now, so its just a matter of time till you get back on track.

Also i would probably scrub back wall and sides as well

Would make the tank look much cleaner

[Llorgon]

2 hours ago, rimga123 said:

Small steps!

Nothing happens overnight.  I have been batteling dinos for the past while and onlt starting to see some sort of results now.

You know what you need to keep doing to move forward now, so its just a matter of time till you get back on track.

Also i would probably scrub back wall and sides as well

Would make the tank look much cleaner

Oh I have gone through dinos before. That was rough. I had good luck with dosing silicates, I think sponge excel. Once algae started growing that made a huge difference, but I am not sure if that is dinos type dependant.

 

I recently removed a bunch of algae from the back walls when I did a water change. Do you mean to completely scrub it to remove the coraline and the algae?

[rimga123]

Im not sure what kind of dinos i have, but i increased nutrient level from zeros, got myself an uv and i dose hydrogen peroxide, manually remove them couple times a day and I stopped cleaning the glass to help other algaes take hold. Seems to be working so far! But too early to say.

I personally dont like the look of coraline, so yes, i wohld scrape it all off. I think that it would make a big difference in how tank looks overall. But its really a thing of preference. 

And as you mentioned, it might be good idea to intorduce cheato to outcompeat the hair algae, but only if you can keep the nutrients up. I am sure that @mcarroll will shed some knowledge on it and if its worth doing at all.

In the mean time, just try to get some more cuc

[mcarroll]

15 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I hope to see some recovery. Would now not be a good time to try some chaeto in the sump to see if it will out compete the algae in the display?

That's not really what we're after.  Don't get distracted. 😉 

 

Remember:  Corals like the same conditions as algae.  And you only "just now" got the nutrients to stop bottoming out.

 

All we're after at this point is algae removal (thanks to you and your snails).  More or less just like what happens on a real reef.

 

Continue keeping nutrient levels "in the positive" unit this is all over.  👍

[Llorgon]

On 12/13/2022 at 3:20 PM, rimga123 said:

Im not sure what kind of dinos i have, but i increased nutrient level from zeros, got myself an uv and i dose hydrogen peroxide, manually remove them couple times a day and I stopped cleaning the glass to help other algaes take hold. Seems to be working so far! But too early to say.

I personally dont like the look of coraline, so yes, i wohld scrape it all off. I think that it would make a big difference in how tank looks overall. But its really a thing of preference. 

And as you mentioned, it might be good idea to intorduce cheato to outcompeat the hair algae, but only if you can keep the nutrients up. I am sure that @mcarroll will shed some knowledge on it and if its worth doing at all.

In the mean time, just try to get some more cuc

Definitely try and find the type of dinos. I'm told it can make a big difference in how you get rid of them.

 

I don't mind the coraline, but I have it and algae mixed together... so it might not be a bad idea.

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

That's not really what we're after.  Don't get distracted. 😉 

 

Remember:  Corals like the same conditions as algae.  And you only "just now" got the nutrients to stop bottoming out.

 

All we're after at this point is algae removal (thanks to you and your snails).  More or less just like what happens on a real reef.

 

Continue keeping nutrient levels "in the positive" unit this is all over.  👍

I always get distracted. I will leave things as is for now then.

 

I tried to order more snails and a tuxedo urchin today and got
"Thank you for the order.

Unfortunately we have now stopped shipping livestock for the holiday season and will therefore have to cancel and refund this order for you.

We will start again early in the new year so if you still would like these you can order again then and we can get them shipped out for you."

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I tried to order more snails and a tuxedo urchin today and got
"Thank you for the order.

Unfortunately we have now stopped shipping livestock for the holiday season and will therefore have to cancel and refund this order for you.

We will start again early in the new year so if you still would like these you can order again then and we can get them shipped out for you."

Understandable, but dang!  🎄

[Llorgon]

ya, it sucks, but with temps going down to a high of -15C next week it makes sense.

[Llorgon]

Some good news and bad news for the tank.

 

Good news: a few of the remaining euphyllia have been looking a bit better the last couple of days.

 

Bad news: when trying to clean around the frags I lost 3 heads of euphyllia. Pretty much anything I moved immediately had the remaining polyb bail. The large euphyllia is also completely gone now. I'll remove the Skelton tonight when all the little snails that hang out under it are out and about. 

 

With my main place that I order snails from not shipping until mid Jan, I'm having a hard time finding cuc. I'm trying to find more local sources to save on shipping. For example with shipping, a tuxedo urchin would be $100... Or if I wait until mid Jan, $40 ish with shipping.

 

 

[rimga123]

Id keep the skeletons. I had a hammer to grow back after 2 years of being dead.

Nice to hear that other corals are doing better. How are your parameter these days? Also, dont you have any local shops thay stock marine creatures or local clubs that would spare some cuc?

[Llorgon]

9 minutes ago, rimga123 said:

Id keep the skeletons. I had a hammer to grow back after 2 years of being dead.

Nice to hear that other corals are doing better. How are your parameter these days? Also, dont you have any local shops thay stock marine creatures or local clubs that would spare some cuc?

I thought about keeping the skeletons since I have had euphyllia grow back as well, but at this point it gets rid of a bunch of algae and it's a few less things I have to try and keep algae off of.

 

We have 1 dedicated shop in town and it's a guy running it out of his garage and open on the weekends. There are a couple pet stores that have a tiny saltwater section but one is pretty questionable in the quality of what you are getting and the other is decent, but gets cleaned out quick.

 

The local group is about 800 people, most of which is "side hustle" type people so it's no cheaper than ordering and most have some sort of pest algae growing on the snail shell already. I did reach out there, but haven't had any luck.

[wuzzo]

For cuc I’d go on reef cleaners honestly, shipping is only like 15 bucks for stuff that doesn’t have a star, also if you want super cheap nassarius, cerith and astrea snails try gulf coast ecosystems.  Two cheap places for bulk snails.

[Llorgon]

14 hours ago, wuzzo said:

For cuc I’d go on reef cleaners honestly, shipping is only like 15 bucks for stuff that doesn’t have a star, also if you want super cheap nassarius, cerith and astrea snails try gulf coast ecosystems.  Two cheap places for bulk snails.

Unfortunately, neither of those places will ship to Canada.

[wuzzo]

52 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

Unfortunately, neither of those places will ship to Canada.

Did not know this, unfortunate situation. Your best option is just to look local or for places in Canada that ship to you.

[Llorgon]

I did my regular weekly water testing last night. alk, cal and mag have all been steady at 8, 475 and 1480 the last month. But I have noticed something a bit odd with my nutrients, every 4th week I see a big drop. My nitrate generally drops .6-1ppm a week and phosphate has generally been pretty consistent week over week.

Every 4th week I see a large drop in both. Last time nitrate went from 7.2ppm the previous week to 0 and phosphate went from 0.12 to 0.05

This time nitrate went from 7.6 to 0 and phosphate went from 0.16 to 0.003ppm.

I'm bringing both back up again, but it seems odd that it goes in this cycle. I have been feeding the same, do the same size water change on Sunday afternoon.