Cloud 9 Aquariums 80 Sps Dominant Build

[cloud9aquariums]

Week 6 Update!

I feel like a judge on the voice. My team is full!!! So this week I rounded out my sps selections with a few local pickups that I had been looking for/ were great deals on chunky frags which really filled me out. Now I feel like i have a great variety of colors and growth patterns to work with that will look amazing as it grows in.

As far as parameters go, my nitrates continue to drop (16) and phosphates are holding below 0.1 I did bottom out one day and had to cut back on my bacto balance dose and brought it up with a good heavy feeding with frozen and Reefroids. Alk and Calcium consumption continues to rise and my kalk dose is up to 900ml in order to hold 8.

My lighting increase hasn't shown any negative/positive effects which I'll take as a win. Looking for additional coloring to show in a few weeks as the livestock adjusts.

New pickup (name unknown)

Tyree Tricolor Acro

CR Purple Lush

Strawberry Shortcake

Green Lantern

Green Slimer

Top down Update

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Week 7-9 Update!

Finally hit some speed bumps this week which are visually showing so ill drop them here incase anyone experiences the same and can learn from it. One of my new pickups started to bleach stn at the base, red Monti Cap bleached overnight, torch extension is a quarter of what it usually is, goni's extension shortened (pink hardly coming out at all), few of the acros have lightening in color (though some continue to brighten go figure right), gsp is closed in the center of large mat covering my overflow, dinos starting to show on the sandbed, and my cheato is dieing off/breaking apart. Oh and my massive green mushroom is splitting. Have a feeling it was a combo move of my phosphates going undetectable and raising the lighting intensity. Turned on my carbon reactor incase the shroom is releasing some nasties into the water. Did some heavy feedings to raise the nutrients but it jumped quickly (naturally this happened before they started showing stresser signs) so i switched back to elimi-np briefly to get back in range before continuing with bacto balance.

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Week 10-11 Update!

As you've probably guess this didn't turn around overnight but I'm glad I've learned enough from other seasoned hobbyists on here to know that freaking out tends to cause more harm than just waiting it out and making small adjustments as needed. So with that being said, I pulled my cheato and shutdown the fuge. It wasn't growing and loose chunks were getting trapped in my skimmer making it overflow. OH SO FUN. But it gave me a chance to do a nice vac in the sump and decided to throw in my green machine uv to try to knock back the dino. Some of my LPS extension has returned (goni's grumpy) but it's still not nearly as full as before the dino bloom. I was also pondering this could be ugly phase 2 from the new rock I added in. Anywhere the coralline hasn't grown in has now gotten dino and a little algae. Nothing out of control that the clean up crew can't maintain though thankfully.

CHEMISTRY
-Still using bacto-balance (raised dose to keep phosphates higher)
-Kalk dosage has held steady as alk rose to 9 (telling me uptake slowed through the stress)
- pH has dropped from high 8.3 to high 8.1 possible causes 1. no more fuge (though it wasnt really growing anyways) 2. Higher carbon dose knocking down nitrates 3. Dinos

GOOD NEWS
Alot of the sps (THE ENTIRE REASON FOR THIS TANK) is popping off colors have come back and exceeded the previous. Growth is still showing.

Green lantern has been extra fluffy and the new dragon (right) is coloring in nicely after a slight fade

Pc rainbow showing new tips with good coloring

I still cant believe this little booger piece of orange passion has survived and is throwing new polyps

The green goblin has really taken to the higher lighting. It's put on much better coloration and gotten "knobby" on the topside

And even though my micro lord has been rather deflated, it's shot out baby polyps all around it! Heres one side

So im still a happy camper!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Coral looks great in your tank!!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Coral looks great in your tank!!

Thank you! Few small hurdles but it's coming along nicely!

 

[Petcrazyson]

edit…

 

[cloud9aquariums]

5 month update!

I took a break from updates while I tried to sort out some issues I began to experience. As much as actively posting can get you some help, I've also seen tanks go under from a plethora of bad advice.

So here's the last 2 months in a nutshell and what ive learned:

After my carbon dosing bottomed put my nutrients I had a bacteria bloom. Lesson learned? Don't go too fast with carbon dosing!

After the imbalance of bacteria, I had a cyano outbreak and an algae bloom on the new rock. Tried some of the less invasive methods of beating it, aka water changes, diy coral snow, micro bubbling, manual removal. Finally hit it with chemi clean. BAM that did it.

After talking with my buddy who grows sticks like weeds. He recommended i refresh my bacteria colony with Biodigest. I also added some mixed Pods and live phyto.

While this battle was going on, my torch extension was just getting worse by the day and it finally just gave up, sticks were browning out, and some stn and bleaching. And my nutrients just kept going up. I didn't want to start carbon dosing again (can you say ptsd). All the signs were saying something was off. I've had tanks grow out of control with little to no effort so I was really getting frustrated trying to figure out what was going on.

So I decided to run an icp test and pray something popped up. SOMETHING POPPED UP. Or should I say some things haha test came back showing aluminum at over 200, measurable copper levels, and my Salinity was 43.5 psu. Not a typo. WELL THAT EXPLAINS IT.

Now for the record, I use calibration solution every time I use my Refractometer. So I went out and bought the Milwaukee digital Refractometer and sure enough my calibration solution was reading 43.5 psu. My hypothesis for the aluminum? Yall read those threads on a certain bio brick leaching aluminum? Guess who has one and drop kicked it into the trash after that icp. This guy. Copper? I discovered my skimmer wire was a little loose at the housing of the pump and quite honestly hasnt been working well lately. Lesson learned? Don't trust anyone, anything, ever in the history of ever lol

The fix:

I pulled my bio brick, Upgraded my skimmer, started running polyfilter and cuprisorb, and took 5 days slowly swapping out salt for fresh water to get my Salinity back in check.

The miracle:

My fish are all still 100% alive and thriving. Coral not so much. BUT alot of the sticks are still hanging on which is wild to me, zoas lost some color but will bounce back, and I lost 1 of my three gonis and the torch. But theres still pieces to grow back, we have answers now, and the tank is looking better every day. I'll do an updated photo tour tonight. It's not going to be pretty but it can set a baseline for week 1 after the almost crash haha

I've also decided after the icp to hop on moonshiners so I can keep an eye on everything and really tune it. I'm coming back with a vengeance.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Pictures to follow this evening!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

As promised here's some pictures taken on March 28th

As you can see we have a few total losses. Most everything lost significant color/browned out. But there is still life and the chance to come back. Ive seen so many threads that seemed to have zero problems from the start and while I wish that was my case, I'm more than happy to be transparent about the trials I'm facing to hopefully help someone else in the future!
At the time of these pictures I had just finished correcting my Salinity. I chose to do it over 4 days and the timeline seemed to be perfect. I also decided that having a second verification for my testing results would be great peace of mind so im going to continue ICP testing.
My determination to come back strong made me really look at any weaknesses in the system and double down on taking care of that. Next post will show my upgrades!

 

[Petcrazyson]

This tank looks really nice! Love the rock work and the sticks. Plans on a Euphyllia or pora(bernar/Goni/alve) garden?

 

[cloud9aquariums]

This tank looks really nice! Love the rock work and the sticks. Plans on a Euphyllia or pora(bernar/Goni/alve) garden?

I appreciate it! Tried to keep the rockwork interesting with plenty of caves so you have to spend some time with the tank to see it all. My main focus/priority for this tank is sticks but I still have an affinity for gonis and euphyllia. So it really comes down to whether they will thrive in these parameters. The good news is anything that doesn't take will do well in our nano mixed reef that's dialed in for LPS and softies.

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Update time!

We're locked back in and many things which were browned out or paled have turned the corner and are coloring back up!

I present to you the rr pink cadillac!

But wait theres more!

PC Rainbow making a comeback!

And after losing a few pieces through the Salinity debacle I had a couple open spots...

RR Fuzzy Navel

Spath from ARC

JF Homewrecker

And picking up a rainbow splice milli next weekend!

The tank is now on day 40 with no water changes and the stability thats brought is showing! I'm on my second round of moonshiner corrections and have been controlling nutrients with a combo move of upgraded equipment (skimmer, algae scrubber, auto feeder), bacteria dosing (prodibio, mb7) and carbon dosing (TM Elimi NP). I still have some trace aluminum and copper but the last ICP shows it going down so ill keep running cuprisorb and polyfilter. Nothing seems to be bothered by these levels so im just going to keep doing what im doing.

Now that things are bouncing back I'm hoping to see my alk and calcium uptake increase soon so i can get back on kalk. Currently running 2 part to keep things in check in the meantime. I suppose my next post should get everyone up to speed on the new gear and stand organization!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

This update is going to be entirely gear/stand related.

So far as gear goes, my reef octopus skimmer i had was quite old. I got it used years ago and the pump was not performing as good as it used to. In a quest to get control of my nutrients i opted to go for the big upgrade and snagged a Maxspect Jump SK-400. I THINK IM IN LOVE. But no seriously it's an absolute beast. My pH has never been higher after I T'd my outside airline into the dual intakes. To top it all off, it all comes apart so easily for maintenance so it's going to be a pleasure to clean regularly.
I've had refugium in the past but this sump doesn't make that easy to do without light spill and the risk of sucking cheato into the skimmer. Again to help keep nutrients down with my no/reduced water changes I opted to pick up an Icecap Algae Scrubber (it's the small pro). I just completed the break in and so stay tuned on how well it functions but so far so good. Ive got algae growing on the mesh and not in my tank so im not complaining!
The final piece of gear I added was a Redsea Reefwave 25 gyre pump. I had it down in my frag tank but I really wanted to increase the overall volume of water movement across the tank. The chaotic flow between the gyre and mp40 seems to be working much better at keeping those polyps moving.

THE STAND. If we're being honest, I got this tank used and the stand was a diy from the first owner. While it's strong and does the job. It's progressively turned into a cluster and the single panel "doors" which fully removed allowed gear access but you also had to lean them up somewhere while working in the sump and they were ugly to say the least. This comeback story wouldn't be complete without a stand overhaul. So I went for it.

THE BEFORE

THE AFTER

It's still a work in progress but everything has a place now and there's no juggling to be done accessing anything. I have my daily (MS) elements easily accessible along with my top off container which i can now visually see the level of and quickly removd to refill (the old one was the homedepot bucket tucked in the back behind everything). I also made a side access door to get to all my controllers and dosing easily. I even have extra storage for correction elements and dips.

For ease i made all the doors bifold so they dont swing way out into the room and become a hazard while working around the tank.

Overall I'm happy with the weekend project and having an organized stand just makes it so much easier to work on and stay consistent!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Time for another update!

First a few new pickups!

Below is a WWC Little Red Ferrari. I've learned first hand how touchy the dragons can be so I was a little nervous to pick up this one but i love the growth pattern of them so let's hope it colors up and settles in well!

Next up is the RR Rainbow Splice I mentioned in the last update. I just picked it up but it's already showing good polyp extension. Its primarily green with a touch of the purple on the base on one side so well see how it colors up as it grows. It was a deal too good to pass up so the mystery will be fun to update!

And finally a top down! As you can see the colors are really making a come back! Only a couple pieces still working on getting back to their former glory and a few have surpased that! Looking to start increasing the lighting intensity again now

How are things going you ask?!

FANTASTIC. After being on the verge of a crash, it's so exciting to look at the tank every day and see colors and polyp extension increasing! Now we're back into growth mode. My alk and calcium uptake has been increasing exponentially so I've gotten back on the kalk train! Awesome to finally see new growth tips again!

An early review of moonshiners method: I'm a big fan. The parameters have been super stable and I'm over 50 days since my last water change. The daily doses are quick and take no more effort than feeding the fish. Seeing how fast everything colored back up and even beyond its previous state, makes me hopeful for the future. I'm seeing significantly more polyp extension on the sps than ever before. Doing regular ICP tests also give me peace of mind having a secondary check for my own testing.

Finally I should talk future plans:

I'm having concerns with my current light setup. While the hydras can give me the punch I need, the spread just isn't there even with three. There's still hotspots (the diffusers help break that up significantly though Im losing intensity) and I can see alot of shadowing. Rather than waiting for the frags to turn into shaded colonies I'd rather head it up and do something about it ahead of time. I want to grow this beast out big and beautiful!

My gameplan:
I'm talking with @Orphek about their new Osix controller paired with 6 Or3 bars (a combination of the blue plus, reefday plus, and uv/violet). I've seen fantastic results from others using them as supplementals but the ability to create a fully controllable system from them just seems perfect. I will be posting a video this week showing my current state with the Hydras and then will be doing a full review with updates on the new Orpheks!

If anyone is interested in seeing more frequent pictures I'm posting daily on Instagram and will be updating on YouTube as well this week. Cloud9Aquariums on both!

Until next time!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Before things get too far ahead i have to catch you all up to speed. WE'RE CRUISING. This update is going to be mostly eye candy showing growth and coloration. We can geek out a little at the end i promise.

Homewrecker already settling right in, threatening to take off in growth instead of basing out more and its showing some pink which is ultra exciting!

The rainbow splice had also decided to threaten a growth spurt with these new axials on the backside already which im okay with! The orange undertone has become more pronounced as well. May not seem like much but considering this is a new pick up, I expect growth delay and color morphing (good or bad) as it acclimates to my system.

Okay okay let's see some actual growth eh?

Forest fire digi is absolutely the brightest coral in the tank any time of day hands down and it came back from the brink of death and is going nuts.

PC Rainbown continues to color up and is now showing growth progress.

Green lantern has doubled (tripled?) In size.

Here you can see the growth of the PC Rainbow even starting new branches off the plug now. Green lantern side shot as well really helps perspective on growth.

Myagi tort has exploded with growth shooting out branches everywhere!

Green Mille has really put on alot of branches and is filling out nicely.

Strawberry shortcake was determined to encrust off the plug first but recently started throwing out tons of axials all along the rim of the plug!

Pink Cadillac has finally gained the light growth tips! Its an interesting piece in that i prefer to look at it in daylight spectrum as it shows the blue polyps but its also fun to throw on orange filter (glasses) at night to surprise your friends at how much it pops.

Also wanted to show some love to this Chalice which has been plugging away starting off as one little eye and now forming a rim!

Finally, just because I'm living out a dream of going sps dominant doesn't mean I gave up zoas....

The garden is completely overgrown and I've had to begin fragging to maintain separation. Some varieties are overtaking others so im going to do what I can to slow down the inevitable lol

Alright before I wrap this up I promised a little geek out sesh. Get your nerd on let's talk numbers:

Alk I've locked in at 8.5dkh and maintaining with kalk and adjusted with 2part.
Speaking of kalk, im at 1054ml daily dosing.
Calcium was dropping as everyone hit a growth spurt so I had to bump it up with 2part.
Mag I'm holding 1450
Nitrates continue to hold between 35-50
Phosphate has been holding at 0.03-0.1 via Tropic Marin carbon dosing. I check it regularly (every 3 days) as I've had to bounce between bacto-balance and plus-np if I get a zero reading.

Still absolutely loving my decision to put this tank on moonshiners method. The few minutes a day of dosing your dailies is worth the lack of stress I've had by knowing my tank is locked in. The latest ICP came back with minimal corrections (expected monthly uptake stuff) and I've managed to get my aluminum down to the 80s with just cuprisorb/polyfilter and still no water changes. Should be able to take that off line in another month or two!

The final exciting news is my Orphek lighting is shipping out tomorrow which means this build is going to get some serious POP very soon. My plan for transition is to par map my current setup for EVERY SINGLE CORAL at all my lighting phases and then painstakingly match it with the Orphek system. Im curious to see if I get any adverse reactions as alot of the shaded sides of the sps come out of the dark! I usually feel 2 weeks is the point where sps show their reaction to changes. So my plan is to give it a month in this "mode" and then begin to raise the intensity gradually. Looking forward to documenting this change extensively for others to show how much lighting plays a role!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Before things get too far ahead i have to catch you all up to speed. WE'RE CRUISING. This update is going to be mostly eye candy showing growth and coloration. We can geek out a little at the end i promise.

Homewrecker already settling right in, threatening to take off in growth instead of basing out more and its showing some pink which is ultra exciting!

The rainbow splice had also decided to threaten a growth spurt with these new axials on the backside already which im okay with! The orange undertone has become more pronounced as well. May not seem like much but considering this is a new pick up, I expect growth delay and color morphing (good or bad) as it acclimates to my system.

Okay okay let's see some actual growth eh?

Forest fire digi is absolutely the brightest coral in the tank any time of day hands down and it came back from the brink of death and is going nuts.

PC Rainbown continues to color up and is now showing growth progress.

Green lantern has doubled (tripled?) In size.

Here you can see the growth of the PC Rainbow even starting new branches off the plug now. Green lantern side shot as well really helps perspective on growth.

Myagi tort has exploded with growth shooting out branches everywhere!

Green Mille has really put on alot of branches and is filling out nicely.

Strawberry shortcake was determined to encrust off the plug first but recently started throwing out tons of axials all along the rim of the plug!

Pink Cadillac has finally gained the light growth tips! Its an interesting piece in that i prefer to look at it in daylight spectrum as it shows the blue polyps but its also fun to throw on orange filter (glasses) at night to surprise your friends at how much it pops.

Also wanted to show some love to this Chalice which has been plugging away starting off as one little eye and now forming a rim!

Finally, just because I'm living out a dream of going sps dominant doesn't mean I gave up zoas....

The garden is completely overgrown and I've had to begin fragging to maintain separation. Some varieties are overtaking others so im going to do what I can to slow down the inevitable lol

Alright before I wrap this up I promised a little geek out sesh. Get your nerd on let's talk numbers:

Alk I've locked in at 8.5dkh and maintaining with kalk and adjusted with 2part.
Speaking of kalk, im at 1054ml daily dosing.
Calcium was dropping as everyone hit a growth spurt so I had to bump it up with 2part.
Mag I'm holding 1450
Nitrates continue to hold between 35-50
Phosphate has been holding at 0.03-0.1 via Tropic Marin carbon dosing. I check it regularly (every 3 days) as I've had to bounce between bacto-balance and plus-np if I get a zero reading.

Still absolutely loving my decision to put this tank on moonshiners method. The few minutes a day of dosing your dailies is worth the lack of stress I've had by knowing my tank is locked in. The latest ICP came back with minimal corrections (expected monthly uptake stuff) and I've managed to get my aluminum down to the 80s with just cuprisorb/polyfilter and still no water changes. Should be able to take that off line in another month or two!

The final exciting news is my Orphek lighting is shipping out tomorrow which means this build is going to get some serious POP very soon. My plan for transition is to par map my current setup for EVERY SINGLE CORAL at all my lighting phases and then painstakingly match it with the Orphek system. Im curious to see if I get any adverse reactions as alot of the shaded sides of the sps come out of the dark! I usually feel 2 weeks is the point where sps show their reaction to changes. So my plan is to give it a month in this "mode" and then begin to raise the intensity gradually. Looking forward to documenting this change extensively for others to show how much lighting plays a role!

Beautiful looking coral!!!

 

[Northern Flicker]

That ICP story is wild. Makes me think I should send a sample in.

 

[cloud9aquariums]

That ICP story is wild. Makes me think I should send a sample in.

It litterally saved my tank! I lost a good inch on my hairline baffled at what was going on lol Best $45 bucks I've spent! Even if you don't decide to do it for dialing in traces via moonshiners or other method. I wouldn't hesitate to run one quarterly as a failsafe to confirm your own testing has been accurate.

 

[cloud9aquariums]

Beautiful looking coral!!!

Thank you! It was a crazy road but now we're on track and this is going to be a fun one to watch grow out!

 

[cloud9aquariums]

MY FRIENDS the @Orphek Osix Or3 system has ARRIVED!

Rather than writing out all my findings here, I just dropped my first impressions video on YouTube. Spoiler alert, there's par readings! Go check it out!

 

[Reign1]

Good review .. I have an Atlantik for a new build thinking of adding some bars to it