ksfulk's Red Sea Reefer 525xL

[spiraling]

Wow that's a lot of hard work!

 

[ksfulk]

Wow that's a lot of hard work!

It was a ton of work... but Im happy that its done - for the most part. Ive been waiting to get the replacement downpipe in the mail and it finally showed up Tuesday morning. I got all of the fish back into the tank last week - though I did lose the pyramid butterfly during the transition period Everybody else made it just fine, though I did seperate out the Coral Beauty, who is going to reside elsewhere now that its decided it likes to eat coral. The sea cucumber climbed into the powerhead and made everything really gross for a bit, and in my panic to water change and get carbon in there, I dumped a handful of Rox carbon into the sand - but still, nothings too terrible considering what could have happened.

I was hoping to get things back together before the weekend, but I think my Vectra may have given up the ghost in the move. I tried firing it up the other day and its not responding. I may just pick up a COR-20 and give that a whirl. Ive been hoping to get my hands on a Trident anyhow, so might as well go all in on Nepture - lol. We'll see what happens next, but assuming I can get a new return pump this week, by Sunday, the system should be all back to being automated and happy.

Then I can think about getting some corals in there!

 

[ksfulk]

Random pictures from the past week or so. Basically, everybodys back in the main tank. I was able to finally get the plumbing sorted and get the new COR-20 pump working with the existing plumbing which was a huge bonus. I had a hard time getting the new Apex to connect to all of my old modules, so I had to spend an entire day reloading each one, but now its running really nicely. Ive managed to integrate all of the old modules with the new, and the tank is just humming along now. The hybrid light is really nice, now that I have it hung up, but Im still having some issues with the Reeflink communicating with Eco Smart Live. Oddly I can control the lights using the phone app, but not using it from a computer. I'll get some better pictures tonight when the blues arent the only thing on in the tank.

All of the fish (except for the pyramid butterfly (dead) and Coral Beauty (rehomed)) are alive and well. I think Im going to try to hatch some brine shrimp and get them added into the tank daily as another method of feeding those greedy wrasses, so they quit eating my snails. Lots of hair algae and a dusting of dinos has started already, so hopefully I'll be well on my way to adding SPS back into the tank in another few weeks. I put in a zoa order with @mistresscorals this afternoon, and hopefully those will help color balance the lower areas of the tank.

 

[ksfulk]

 

[spiraling]

My wrasses love fresh hatched BBS, but it doesn't seem to make a dent in their appetite.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

That hybrid light setup looks great!

 

[ksfulk]

Finally got some sticks back into the tank!!!!!


Been over a year, but there’s finally some sps in the tank and dang does that feel good. Over the weekend I made my extra spending money do some heavy lifting and bought a few frags from Fraghouse Corals live sale, as well as picking up two maxima clams from PacificEast Aquaculture. Everything arrived today looking great and warm, so I put everything through my standard dipping protocol and within an hour they were all in the tank. I’m sure that the tank likely isn’t entirely ready for sps yet, but I’m willing to take the gamble on some nice aquacultured sticks. Good polyp extension even after being in there all day so hopefully I don’t wake up to some bone white beauties

 

[spiraling]

Those are some big clams!

 

[ksfulk]

After many months of simply not caring, I’m being “gently” prodded back into caring about my tank once again. After the move, work, life and the world have become the kind of complicated that have taken focus from hobby things and pushed them towards neglect.

The fish are fine, no worries there. All the coral that I bought back in September/October have kicked the bucket or become tasty morsels for hungry critters, save for a single frag of zoas that don’t seem to grow or die - just exist. One of the maximas also fell prey to something - not sure if it was fish, bad water chemistry or something else entirely (it never attached to anything in the five months it was in the tank). The other is doing quite well.

So I soaked and scrubbed all the power heads over the weekend. I’m going to vacuum the sump and the sand bed this week and well as do a big 40-50% water change to get things back on track. I think I might give up on zeovit and try something else. For now, I’m just going to try and get the phosphates and nitrates down (water changes, GFO, and changing socks daily) and do a bit more research.

I also picked up another DOS, and have it setup for automatic water changes (~10% weekly), so hopefully that also helps out. I have a UV sterilizer, but I just can’t bring myself to redo all the tank plumbing to accommodate the thing.

This house seems to suffer from a similar problem that the old one suffered from - my tank pH is consistently low. I’ve tried a few different methods of combating this, but even with all of the windows in the basement opened, I’m still at 7.71 - 8.03 for my daily range. It’s consistent across multiple meters and time ranges. I’m not sure that even with an external air intake this will change. Kinda stumped with that one. Any ideas are appreciated, since I think this is going to inhibit sps keeping.

So that’s the update. I’ll see about getting weekly and monthly photos and videos up so I can get back to being engaged with the tank and the forum. I find that when I’m engaged, my husbandry seems to be better as well

 

[spiraling]

Welcome back! Glad to hear the fish are fine.
I certainly understand your need for the break, and the pull back to the hobby.
I have similar PH issues, except when we leave for a few days it finally goes up to about 8.2. Opening the windows doesn't help, at least not much. I tried the CO2 scrubber this year and could only get it from 7.8 up to about 8, never higher (I recalibrated my probe too). But after about 4 days away it will climb to 8.2. I assume its a tight house for us. Is yours similar when you leave?

 

[ksfulk]

I have similar PH issues, except when we leave for a few days it finally goes up to about 8.2. Opening the windows doesn't help, at least not much. I tried the CO2 scrubber this year and could only get it from 7.8 up to about 8, never higher (I recalibrated my probe too). But after about 4 days away it will climb to 8.2. I assume its a tight house for us. Is yours similar when you leave?

Not that Ive noticed. Granted, at the moment, we arent leaving the house much in recent months, but over the winter when we would leave, I didnt see any real change in the pH of the tank at all. Its pretty rock solid in its range, regardless of the number of people in the house, windows opened or closed, heavy breathing done near the tank, etc. The probe is relatively new, and calibrated monthly, so I dont think thats the issue either.

Im trying to think of a minimally invasive way of bringing a fresh air line into the house without any major construction, but I havent found a manner of doing so that isnt insanely conspicuous (the tank shares the wall with the front of the house - its almost directly under the main door) but we'll see what happens.

 

[ksfulk]

Took a look at all my testing kits yesterday, and YIKES! are some of them old. I tossed reagents for six test kits, and then proceeded to test with the kits that I had reagents for. Here are the results:

Specific Gravity: 1.027 (Refractometer)
Calcium: 465 ppm (Salifert)
Alkalinity: 8.41 dKH (Hanna)
PO4: 0.93 ppm (Hanna)

Trident readings:
Calcium: 653 ppm
Alkalinity: 8.38 dKH
Magnesium: 1357 ppm

So, looks like I need to recalibrate the Trident as well - I think that the intake line for the Trident are right next to the dosing lines for my 2 part, so that could explain why its higher, but I should still recalibrate the thing. I'll make another round of tests at the same time today and tomorrow, so I can get some data points for consistency and then start treatment.

Clearly my biggest issue is the PO4 - I knew it would be high, so Im not surprised, but Im trying to determine whats my best plan of attack. I can run GFO in my media reactor to try and bring it down, but Im also thinking about trying an lantham chloride treatment to see if I can knock it down relatively quickly. My only worry is that some tangs show issues with lantham treatments, so theres that wrinkle to consider.

Ive got a list of items (new test kits, refill of reagents, salt, filter socks, etc) in my cart right now to address these issues and moving forward - I think Im going to try using NO3-PO4-X from Red Sea as my nutrient management system for this go round, I like ZeoVit, but I need to be a little more hands off with the tank this go round - so the carbon dosing route on a dosing pump seems like its going to be the way forward. Luckily my ESV 2 part covers all of the rest of the tank needs, so I dont need to go whole hog into another dosing/nutrient management system like Triton or AquaForest.

Here's the parameters I'll be shooting for to get some SPS into the tank:

Specific Gravity: 1.025
PO4: 0.01 - 0.05 ppm
NO3: 0.25 - 0.75 ppm
dKH: 8.0 - 8.3 dKH
Ca: 430 ppm
Mg: 1280 ppm



Happy Nem managing to snag the LRS chunk that the tangs pried off the glass

 

[spiraling]

Not that Ive noticed. Granted, at the moment, we arent leaving the house much in recent months, but over the winter when we would leave, I didnt see any real change in the pH of the tank at all. Its pretty rock solid in its range, regardless of the number of people in the house, windows opened or closed, heavy breathing done near the tank, etc. The probe is relatively new, and calibrated monthly, so I dont think thats the issue either.

Im trying to think of a minimally invasive way of bringing a fresh air line into the house without any major construction, but I havent found a manner of doing so that isnt insanely conspicuous (the tank shares the wall with the front of the house - its almost directly under the main door) but we'll see what happens.

I doubt a fresh air line will work if opening the windows or leaving for a few days doesn't work. Why do you want to change the PH if its solid? I guess I feel stability is better than hitting a number.

 

[ksfulk]

I doubt a fresh air line will work if opening the windows or leaving for a few days doesn't work. Why do you want to change the pH if its solid? I guess I feel stability is better than hitting a number.

With the pH generally below 8.0 corals (and other invertebrates) can have a much harder time with calcification and creating skeletal material. I've also read that the skeletal structures are much weaker at this range, as they incorporate other elements in to the structure. If my pH was centered around 8.0 Id be less inclined to worry about it, but with the average being 7.84 I'm more worried about raising it a few points.

The thought about running a direct line is two fold. One, its starting to get warm outside and soon I wont be able to have the windows open in the house due to the weather, the same can be said for the winter when its -20 outside. Second, while the window are open in the house, there's nothing directly near the tank. Meaning that the tank likely benefits from the outside air exchange indirectly, but by piping a direct airline to the skimmer, the air will be forced into the tank water, hopefully furthering the oxygenation of the water. At least that's the thought. Its likely that it wont do anything at all, but I'm hoping for something.

Numbers remain stable, so thats a good thing. I threw in a small bag of GFO in the filter sock after yesterdays maintenance, so when I run my tests this afternoon we'll see what the numbers look like. I did a 40 gallon water change over the weekend before running out of salt, so Im waiting for my BRS order to arrive later this week before I tackle anymore remediation items. Im anxious to get my hands on the nitrate test kit - Im sure they are high, but once I have an idea as to what the levels are, I can figure out the best way to lower NO3 and PO4 in tandem. Id hate to drop one or the other and drive a cyano bloom.

I also need to clean my dosing lines, scrub my skimmer and remove the ZeoVit media from the reactor. Once the order comes, Im planning on continuing to run the reactor, just with bags of GFO and Carbon inside of them, rather than the Zeo material. We'll see how that goes!

 

[ksfulk]

So... good news, bad news...

Good news is that the PO4/NO3 numbers are on the decline with my current regiment of treatment.

The bad news is that I injured my hand pretty severely (laceration with a table saw) and i cant risk touching or cleaning the tank for fear of bacterial infection. That means a few months of just looking at the thing and having my kids tend to the fish while i heal up. I have surgery scheduled for tomorrow, and the doctor said recovery time is likely 4-8 months. So, back to auto-pilot mode, at least for a little while. Hopefully i can still trend in the right direction while I heal.

 

[spiraling]

Sorry to hear about your hand
I had an injury last fall that had me on crutches for a few months. Tank was on autopilot and did OK. I got everything stable, all that black sand out, and now it is thriving. I have been ignoring it this summer and it is doing great! So hopefully yours will do so too!

 

[ksfulk]

Thanks! Its going as well as can be expected under the circumstances. I've got a second surgery scheduled for next week and then more recovery time. Could have been worse, so i'm pretty lucky in that regard. Im just bummed there isnt much in the tank to look at, aside from fish.

 

[revhtree]

How are you doing and how is the tank?

 

[Johnsoto25]

everybody looks happy!

where do you get those fish if you dont mind asking? beautiful tank BTW!!! I just started with my tank this past weekend and is the same a 525xl and are amazing!

 

[Reef of Fillory]

How are you doing and how is the tank?

@ksfulk Left us - cut up his finger and said to heck with it!