Heinz 57

[RaymondNoodles]

This tank is doing well. Cyano and dinos have been receding. The fish, corals and inverts are happy and healthy. I've been focusing on keeping nitrate and phosphate at appropriate levels and dosing alkalinity to maintain stability which was dropping surprisingly fast. Two weeks ago I installed a UV sterilizer which is not as effective on my specific type of dinos (LCA) as others such as ostreopsis but it will help prevent against parasites and algae.

 

UV sterilizer: Lifegard Aquatics Pro Max 25w

UV pump: Hygger DC running at 400 GPH, source water from the skimmer section and dumping into the return pump section using braided vinyl tubing

 

 

Parameters

• Po4  .03
• No3 5
• dKH 9
• SG 1.025

Flame hawk was a bit aggressive towards the other fish especially at feeding time so I made the difficult decision to rehome him to a fellow local reefer with a 120g. Very nice guy. His tank has been running for 20 years! He drove over an hour each way to pick him up. Here's Mr Hawkfish in his new home. The wrasses are much more active now, exploring the entire tank whereas before they hung out in one small area opposite the hawk.

 

We have 2 new inhabitants - a pair that I've wanted for 10+ years the first time I saw them in a friends tank - a yellow watchman goby and tiger pistol shrimp! They were not paired at the LFS and came from 2 different stores. The YWG is a pretty tiny little guy, about 1" and the shrimp is about 1.5". They paired up immediately and have been sharing a burrow for the last 5 days. They are so fun to watch so I had to set up a camera. 

 

Took some top down pics for the first time with pumps off after a reef roid feeding session.

 

 

Installed 2 circulation fans in the cabinet. One pulls in air from the back and the other is blowing across the inside of the cabinet. Still need to mount one but for now it's sitting in a little caddy bin I recently installed which also holds the brightwell alkalin 8.3.

 

 

I have the skimmer returning into the sump in order to keep nutrients from bottoming out. It was a little too effective for a while.

 

That's all for now. Thanks for following along!

 

[TheKleinReef]

Tank looks great!

 

Starting a tank with dry rock and sand is tough. It's a solid 12-18 months of misery before everything stabilizes. Even if you do everything "right" the system is just so fragile. Once you get through that though it's a bite easier (unless you get a bad batch of salt like i did.....)

[RaymondNoodles]

1 hour ago, TheKleinReef said:

Tank looks great!

 

Starting a tank with dry rock and sand is tough. It's a solid 12-18 months of misery before everything stabilizes. Even if you do everything "right" the system is just so fragile. Once you get through that though it's a bite easier (unless you get a bad batch of salt like i did.....)

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

You got that right. I knew it was going to be a battle but I accepted that ahead of time which has helped in not feeling overwhelmed or frustrated when issues arise. 

Luckily I've never had a bad batch of salt but I've heard some horror stories. Did you lose a lot of livestock? How quickly were you able to figure out it out? Was it the Tropic Marin situation last year? A local reefer here in the Chicagoland area lost almost every coral in his 1,000-ish gallon system. He is a Dr, very smart guy, and was pulling his hair out trying to figure it out.

[TheKleinReef]

18 minutes ago, RaymondNoodles said:

Did you lose a lot of livestock? How quickly were you able to figure out it out? Was it the Tropic Marin situation last year? A local reefer here in the Chicagoland area lost almost every coral in his 1,000-ish gallon system. He is a Dr, very smart guy, and was pulling his hair out trying to figure it out.

I lost 50/55 corals. I did my usual water change, noticed things didn't look quite right. I tried to dilute the problem with waterchanges, within 48 hours every sps died. Tried to frag what i could to save, but I lost everything.

Yep it was the TM Pro incident. Lost all faith in that salt.

 

I took about a year hiatus, but i'm actually hopeful again.

[RaymondNoodles]

@TheKleinReef that is horrible and very unfortunate. Glad to hear you got back on the horse. Briefly checked out your aquarium journals - WOW there's a ton of information there and awesome pictures. Going to do some more reading as time permits. 

[RaymondNoodles]

Some pics from tonight 

[RaymondNoodles]

[RaymondNoodles]

Hey all, long overdue for an update. Two months ago I added a diamond goby - he’s great, keeping the sand clean and hasn’t been dumping sand on rocks or corals. Added my first acropora about a month ago and it seems happy. Also recently switched from Brightwell Alkalin 8.3 to the Avast Marine kalk stirrer with Hydros dosing pump. Haven’t seen any dinos or cyano in a couple months. Going to move all the electronics out of the sump cabinet into this dedicated cabinet soon. I’ll probably paint it to match the cabinet. Had this canvas printed from a picture my wife took of our daughter on the beach in Anna Maria Island, FL which I absolutely love. Happy reefing! 😎 

 

 

[debbeach13]

That picture is perfect above the tank. 

[MLS_Reef]

I like that side mount cabinet.

[RaymondNoodles]

On 5/16/2023 at 1:07 PM, MLS_Reef said:

I like that side mount cabinet.

Thanks! Amazon $60. Contemplated building one but I was able to find one with the exact dimensions I wanted with a ventilated door. Too many other projects going on at the moment.