The Great Wave - Waterbox Peninsula 3620 - Alkalinity fluxing!

[DevilDuck]

6 minutes ago, Jakesaw said:

You have an interesting Plug / holder of your Gorgonians glued to your rock.  Could you share what it is you're mounting the Gorgo's into.  Thanks

 

Your recommendation for frag plug holders is working well in my tank

 

Thanks

They came with the gorgonians from Macro Algae: Your Source For Quality Marine Plants and Macroalgae | Gulf Coast Ecosystems (live-plants.com)

They are half domes with 2 small holes drilled into them, one hole dead center and the other is slightly offset. They seem specifically made for gorgonians and macro algae. I cut the stems off the plug, which was very easy since they were hollow in the middle, and applied some reef epoxy and glued them to the rock.

[ronix]

cool scape! Love all the different corals!

[DevilDuck]

Big Picture Update!

 

 

 

SPS are starting doing well in this tank, good polyp extension and and I'm starting to see good growth.

 

Diamond Tip Staghorn

 

Green Goblin?

 

Green Bird's Nest

 

Mellow Yellow Anacropora

 

Bonsai

 

John Deere leptastrea

 

Jack o' Latern leptastrea

 

SpongeBob Cyphastria

 

Metorshower Cyphastria vs 'Shroom Battle Rock

 

The color on this Orange Ricordea looks unreal!

 

Big Disappointment of the week. I ordered 3 Bali Blood Red Carpet anemones from Bali Blood Red Mini Carpet Anemone | Corals Anonymous. For $177 this is what they sent me.

Wayyy smaller than the .5-1 inch advertised on the site. I've already lost the one on the far right, it climbed off the shell and disappeared into the sump.

These things are so tiny, I am not sure if they will survive. I sent them a nasty email, no response yet. 

 

At this point, I would recommend everyone avoid "CoralsAnonymous.com" at all costs. 

 

[ninjamyst]

Love that SpongeBob!!  Where did you get it from??

[DevilDuck]

2 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

Love that SpongeBob!!  Where did you get it from??

I buy most coral locally from individuals who do it as a side business. I know there are a lot in Chicago (my hometown). Search in Facebook groups, and you should find a few. Some maybe on the down low since FB is cracking down on live animal sales.

 

 

[debbeach13]

15 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

Big Disappointment of the week. I ordered 3 Bali Blood Red Carpet anemones from Bali Blood Red Mini Carpet Anemone | Corals Anonymous. For $177 this is what they sent me.

Wayyy smaller than the .5-1 inch advertised on the site. I've already lost the one on the far right, it climbed off the shell and disappeared into the sump.

These things are so tiny, I am not sure if they will survive. I sent them a nasty email, no response yet. 

 

At this point, I would recommend everyone avoid "CoralsAnonymous.com" at all costs. 

 

 

That is highway robbery! I hope they respond with some satisfaction. 

[dpoltsdsu]

How are you liking the Waterbox?

[DevilDuck]

On 2/15/2022 at 5:39 PM, dpoltsdsu said:

How are you liking the Waterbox?

I love it. I wish I went bigger! 

[DevilDuck]

Bought myself a real doser, the new Red Sea ReefDose 4 head. I love it! The app works well, the dosing is very accurate, and it keep its setting even when the power goes out. It's a nice upgrade from the Kamoar X1, which was a fine single head doser but it would stop dosing if the power went out.

 

It's probably more heads than I really need, but the step up from the 2 head doser was minimal amount.

 

Head 1: Custom mixed DIY All-For-Reef (Less Mg, more A- trace elements)

Head 2: Vodka (started carbon dosing the beginning of the month, no impact yet on nutrients) 

Head 3: ?? maybe ChaetoGro

Head 4: ?? maybe AcroPower or Reef Energy AB+ weekly

 

 

 

Some love from the maxi mini carpet last night.

[rimga123]

What do you mean by a custom all-for-reef solutions? Just buy their individual trace element liquids and mixing them together to your liking? I am using all-for-reef solution myself and my calcium creeps up, or if i keep calcium stable, kh goes down.  Would love to know how you mix your own DIY solution.

I was thinking of dosing Reef Energy AB+, but it is best kept in a refrigerator, so I just manually plop some in every couple of days, acro power might be a better solution for dosing.

Love how clean your equipment sits in the cabin.

[DevilDuck]

5 hours ago, rimga123 said:

What do you mean by a custom all-for-reef solutions? Just buy their individual trace element liquids and mixing them together to your liking? I am using all-for-reef solution myself and my calcium creeps up, or if i keep calcium stable, kh goes down.  Would love to know how you mix your own DIY solution.

I was thinking of dosing Reef Energy AB+, but it is best kept in a refrigerator, so I just manually plop some in every couple of days, acro power might be a better solution for dosing.

Love how clean your equipment sits in the cabin.

The formula for regular DIY All-For-Reef is:

 

1 liter Recipe & Directions

• Step 1: Starting with a clean container with at least 1 liter capacity, add 750 mL RODI water. Room temp water is ok, but warm water will help dissolve the powder more quickly.
• Step 2: Slowly add 140g CarboCalcium powder, stir continually.
• Step 3: Add 12g Bio-Magnesium powder, stir continually.
• Step 4: Add 100 ml Pro-Trace A-
• Step 5: Add 100 ml Pro-Trace K+
• Step 6: Keep stirring. It can take some time for the solution to be clear. Estimate ~20 mins. Solution will be a tint of blue, this is normal.

I've increased Pro-Trace A- to 120 ml and decreased Bio-Magnesium to just 5g. Based on the consumption of my tank.

 

Unfortunately, with AFR Calcium and Alkalinity are linked. You cannot increase one without the other, you just pay attention to Alk as elevated calcium typically is not an issue in most tanks.

In order to decouple alk and calcium, you will have to switch to a traditional 2-part.

 

I have Reef Energy AB+ now, once I use up the bottle I'll switch to AcroPower. I'm not a fan of the weird unnatural florescent green color that Reef Energy AB+ has either.

 

Thanks! Hope this helps.

[DevilDuck]

Lost my purple gorgonian I received from, @nathenvan Not sure what happened. It was doing well for months, with some new growth and great polyp extension. Suddenly started losing flesh down to the wire skeleton. I removed it and tossed it. I recently added several larger Caribbean gorgonians to the tank. So I'm thinking it maybe allelopathic warfare. It's probably a good time to change out my carbon.

 

 

 

[DevilDuck]

Lost one of the oldest residents of the tank, my blood red fire shrimp. It was acting oddly a week ago, venturing outside of this usual spot. It just disappeared, no shell or body or trace of it was found. 

 

My birds nest coral also started dying from the center of the colony. I tried to frag a few pieces but they are in rough shape. Hoping it will bounce back. It Went from my proudest piece to near skeletal so quickly! The rest of the acropora in the tank seem to be doing well. 

 

 

 

New frag of Pikachu acro. Amazing colors!

 

Aiptasia has also invaded the tank. I’m finding and killing 2-3 every week.

[DevilDuck]

After 1.5 months of carbon dosing with vodka my nitrates have dropped to near 0 ppm on  my salifert test. Final amount was 8 ml so I’ve lowered the daily dose to half of that to 4ml.

Phosphate has been at 0.02 ppm for the last month. I may need to dose neophos a gain to bring it back up a bit.

[DevilDuck]

I recently got promoted at work and it's kept me from updating and taking pictures.

 

Vodka dosing looks like it's working well for me. My nitrates have been stable around 5ppm and phosphate between 0.03-0.05 ppm feeding 3 times a day (2pm and 10pm freeze dried food, 5pm frozen)

All-for-Reef has kept alkalinity stable at 8.3. 

 

At one point got too busy to fill my ATO reservoir and my salinity may have gone up causing my Bird's nest and a staghorn acropora to RTN.

 

 

Rock flower anemones are growing rapidly. At some point one of them spawned and I see 3 tiny orange RFA babies attached to the live rock.

One lime green tentacled RFA has grown about 25% in the last few months and is budding smaller clones at it's base. I'm not sure how long it will be until they detach:

 

 

None of the tiny bali blood red carpet nems which I purchased from Corals Anonyomus seem to have survived. Which is disappointing, but not surprising given the sizes they sold to me. After a few complaints and back and forth emails, they offered me a discount on my next purchase. I ordered my first clam and 2 abalone snails. Very excited about the new inhabitants coming in this week!     

 

[nathenvan]

On 3/1/2022 at 2:17 PM, DevilDuck said:

Lost my purple gorgonian I received from, @nathenvan Not sure what happened. It was doing well for months, with some new growth and great polyp extension. Suddenly started losing flesh down to the wire skeleton. I removed it and tossed it. I recently added several larger Caribbean gorgonians to the tank. So I'm thinking it maybe allelopathic warfare. It's probably a good time to change out my carbon.

 

 

 

Bummer on the gorgonian.  I can have one ships out to you when the weather gets warmer .  Just cover the shipping 👍

[Kindanewtothis]

On 2/24/2022 at 7:50 PM, DevilDuck said:

I love it. I wish I went bigger! 

Starting to think about a Waterbox tank instead of a DIY. What do you like about it?

[DevilDuck]

6 hours ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Starting to think about a Waterbox tank instead of a DIY. What do you like about it?

It was between this tank, a Red Sea Reefer 250, or a custom build from a local aquarium maker.

 

The custom build was going to be much more expensive, and the fit and finish would not have been as refined as either the Waterbox or the Red Sea.

 

The Red Sea wasn't a peninsula, and I needed that format for where it was going to be placed in the house. The fact that Red Sea doesn't use standard US size plumbing and filter sock diameters also put me off.

 

Waterbox has this tank available as an All-In-One as well as a sump version. I went with the sump version for the extra water volume, more display tank space, and a place to hide skimmers, heaters etc. Glass on the Waterbox is also 1mm thicker all around than the Red Sea.

 

Some cons:

• First tank came damaged, and I had to wait 3 additional weeks for a replacement.  
• The sump is large (which is a pro) but as a result there is not a lot of storage space in the cabinet
• It took some work to get the doors to line up correctly after the sump is installed. There was not a lot of room to make adjustments
• The included 4.4g ATO reservoir is nice but I feel it could have been larger. I have to refill it every 3 days in winter. 
• Even flow is hard to accomplish with a peninsula 

 

 

[Kindanewtothis]

On 4/13/2022 at 1:50 PM, DevilDuck said:

It was between this tank, a Red Sea Reefer 250, or a custom build from a local aquarium maker.

 

The custom build was going to be much more expensive, and the fit and finish would not have been as refined as either the Waterbox or the Red Sea.

 

The Red Sea wasn't a peninsula, and I needed that format for where it was going to be placed in the house. The fact that Red Sea doesn't use standard US size plumbing and filter sock diameters also put me off.

 

Waterbox has this tank available as an All-In-One as well as a sump version. I went with the sump version for the extra water volume, more display tank space, and a place to hide skimmers, heaters etc. Glass on the Waterbox is also 1mm thicker all around than the Red Sea.

 

Some cons:

• First tank came damaged, and I had to wait 3 additional weeks for a replacement.  
• The sump is large (which is a pro) but as a result there is not a lot of storage space in the cabinet
• It took some work to get the doors to line up correctly after the sump is installed. There was not a lot of room to make adjustments
• The included 4.4g ATO reservoir is nice but I feel it could have been larger. I have to refill it every 3 days in winter. 
• Even flow is hard to accomplish with a peninsula 

 

 

Is there space for a refugium ? It seems to be available only on some bigger models of the reef series.

[DevilDuck]

3 hours ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Is there space for a refugium ? It seems to be available only on some bigger models of the reef series.

The Peninsula 3620 has been renamed the Marine X 3620 Peninsula: Technical Specifications (waterboxaquariums.com) Waterbox Product Manual (shopify.com)

The lay out of the sump has been changed slightly, but the dimensions look the same as mine.

[Kindanewtothis]

34 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

The Peninsula 3620 has been renamed the Marine X 3620 Peninsula: Technical Specifications (waterboxaquariums.com) Waterbox Product Manual (shopify.com)

The lay out of the sump has been changed slightly, but the dimensions look the same as mine.

Yeah I saw the website but only the reef series seems to offer it

[DevilDuck]

I just use a cheap course sponge to divide mine. I grown tons of grape caulpura on it. Yes, I know I need to clean my sump...
 

 

This one is from BRS I think but you can find them in hardware stores as pond filter sponges. Cut it slightly larger than the space and wedge it in. 

[DevilDuck]

Tank has been humming along. Vodka dosing at 4ml a day keeping nitrates about 5 and phosphates under .05 ppm. I'm pretty happy with it so far! Whatever doesn't fit in the dosing bottle, I dose on myself!

 

I'm now concentrating on pests. 

 

First is green hair algae. I've been pulling, plucking and brushing weekly. I went out and purchase some more CUC to join my fight. A small tuxedo urchin, 5 ninja star Astra snails, and a tropical abalone. 

 

Next annoyance that has been aggressively popping up are aiptasia. Got a peppermint shrimp to help out. So far, it's doing well on one side of the tank. Hopefully he'll get hunger and braver to go after the aiptasia on the other half.

 

I'm also spending a lot of time crushing vermetid snails too. Too bad nothing really eats them. 

 

 

The mother of pearl on this ninja star snail drives my camera bonkers. I'm happy to report that the red plating monti below is finally starting to grow!

 

Springer's Damsel, he's so blue under the lights he's almost 1 dimensional. The meteor shower cyphastera below is probably the only thing that is growning besides gha.

 

Hardest working Sandshifting goby.

 

Crabby murder pizza

 

Hand biter

 

[DevilDuck]

Why?

Like may reefers, I've been experiencing issues with Rapid Tissue Necrosis and Slow Tissue Necrosis on a few frags that I have in the tank. It mainly impacted LPS that had previously been doing well for months, often splitting into multiple heads then suddenly their health starts to degrade, and they waste away over the course of weeks or in some cases overnight. A couple of examples are a hammer coral I've had since starting the hobby and most recently my favorite alvelopora colony.  Both were thriving and even made it unscathed through multi-month dino outbreak. 

 

RIP

 

Now, I'm seeing 2 other hammer corals, 3 gonis, and 2 types of encrusting montiporas also started not extending polyps and starting to have tissue recession.  

I also noticed that my Rainbow Bubble Tip anemone would no longer expand to its previous size and color. I would find 1 or 2 shed tentacles in the sand bed weekly. ICP reports seem to show no heavy metal contamination and a good amount of trace elements present.

 

How?

I've been following a thread on reef2reef regarding Cipro dosing may help with the RTN/STN and is known to help ailing anemones: (11) Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease | REEF2REEF Saltwater and Reef Aquarium Forum. I figured it was worth a shot.

 

I ordered some aquatic specific Cipro from fishantibiotics.com. Dissolved two 250mg tablets in 50ml of RODI to achieve a 10 mg/ml solution. My water volume is approximately 70 gallons total. So I dosed about 3.5-4ml of the solution to achieve the recommended 0.125ml/L concentration in the display every night after lights out for 10 nights. I wasn't overly concerned with getting the dosage exact as it the overall concentration was low. From what I have read about treating anemones in a QT, dosages were at least 10x this amount.  

 

After the 10th day, I ran a big bag of carbon and did a small water change. My skimmer was run 24/7 to aerate the water and remove any dead bacteria killed by the cipro. 

A couple of days later did a maintenance dose of MB7 and BioGest to repopulate nitrifying bacteria. I also kept my usual daily dose of vodka.

 

What Happened?

My Results were pretty mixed.

• Both hammer corals survived, but still do not inflate up to their former size and extension
• 1 goni still died the other 2 do not show any polyp extension will likely not make it.
• Both encrusting montiporas did not make it.
• The BTA made a good recovery. No more shedding tentacles and much better inflated size. Hoping in a few weeks it bubbles up once again.

 

No other ill effects or livestock losses and no spikes of ammonia. I have a refugium full of pods and grape caulupra that were also unaffected.

So, cipro in my tank helped with some lps and the anemone but it is not a cure all for all types of coral ailments like RTN/STN.

 

I believe the recommended concentration of .125 ml/L was too conservative. Next time I may try 2x-3x that amount.

Another reason maybe that those dying corals were too far gone to make a recovery. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nic]

Enjoyed reading through your tank build. Hope you're able to figure out the RTN/STN issue soon!