Reefer 200XL No More: Maddie's Lagoon Transformation

[design.maddie]

My corals started to look really upset. I just shrugged it off as a bad day thing. Then I saw another coral do the same. My worry rose a bit but still, another bad day. Then my Duncan started to shrink and I knew, something is wrong. I started with Alk, 13.8!! I don't have the means currently to do a massive water change. I read somewhere that I could use white vinegar to settle the Alk down a bit but that makes me nervous because I have no real experience messing with anything like that.

 

[design.maddie]

Okay, read more about this vinegar thing and just didn't buy into all that. Started changing out water daily. about 2 litres of water are being changed out per day. I turned off all the dosers because I just didn't know where everything was going awry. I had messed with too many aspects in too narrow of a time slot. I plan on slowly allowing the tank to back peddle into a comfortable state. I will then start to work back up to my elevated levels that I want using dosing.

I really would like to start dosing amino acids first, but the tank feels like it is on the verge of a mini crash.

 

[design.maddie]

Zoas have rebounded and flourished in the new house. I have the tank sitting around 12.8 Alk and dropping about .2 everyday. Still no dosing.

 

[design.maddie]

Alk finally started to go down and then dropped to 8.9 in about 36 hours. I started dosing All for Reef again at half strength and will continue to monitor with testing every 2 days. I would like to get it back to a high 11. I have 2 Kamoer pumps and only one will sync. I am using that one for the All for Reef but I would like to use the other for my Amino Acids. It keeps giving me an error about my network being Wifi5. I am ordering a Nest Pro soon and will be on Wifi6. I think I will just move on from the doser due to lack of capability.

Here is my Duncan. My oldest colony. Opened up for the first time yesterday. I tried something new with the photo processing. I think it may have come out a bit washed out.

 

[design.maddie]

Everything has been steady at 9.5-9.6 for about a week now. Coloration on some corals are still shatty at best. I started slowly adding the Aminos back in. Dosing 2ml per day. I am going to be double checking those numbers because I still don't know where to settle on these. I also went ahead and purchased 2 new fish. They were both on my buy list and were in the same tank at the store at the right size. I am hoping they can be looked at as utilitarian fish because I need their bodily waste for my corals to consume. I pulled out about 1/2 litre of algae from the refugium yesterday. It sorta looked tasty. Made me think of sushi.

Here is a photo I took of my Ultron yesterday. Both shots are within 5 minutes of each other.

 

[design.maddie]

I placed my monthly supply order and got me a pack of Seaside Aquatics Ceramic Bio-Sphere. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with size/packaging. I think everything ended up fitting just right.

 

[design.maddie]

On Monday I realized that I had not seen a snail in 2-3 months. Maybe even longer the more I thought about it. It would explain some distasteful areas in the tank. I placed an order with Reef Cleaners to rebuild my CUC. Today I received 10 Florida Ceriths, 12 Nassarius, 15 Astraea, and as always when you order from them about 50 Dwarf Ceriths.

 

[A Young Reefer]

this is my first time seeing a canary blenny and its beautiful!

 

[design.maddie]

I have been battling all sorts of problems. Phosphates are finally resolved via GFO. I am being very careful with it though. 1 gram per gallon seems to be the sweet spot. The tank has been recovering well since the Alk spike. 99% of the corals have begun to color back up, though they are nowhere near what they were like while I was dosing Selcon.

I started dosing NP-Bacto-Balance. Again. I plan to stay at the very minimum value for as long as I can. I really want to see where the tank settles in at.

 

[design.maddie]

Happy New Years!

The Ultron Favia was looking full today. Thought I would drop a photo for all to see. This is my most photographed coral I believe. It always ends up in a range for my camera to get clear photos. I tested today and all the Parameters look good. I have been monitoring the Alk and Phosphates every 3 days. Phosphates are finally reading 0.03. The Alk is on the rise though. I was at 10.3 for about a week, then 3 days later it was at 10.4, and now it is at 10.7. I will be keeping a very close eye on this and will move Alk testing to daily until everything is resolved and I am no longer seeing a change day to day. I bought a clownfish for Christmas and he is doing great. Lightening Maroon Clownfish. Very hard to get a photo of him.

 

[LeannaBanana]

Happy New Year! Loved catching up on your photos and build thread here. Glad that your parameters are back in the zone for you!

 

[design.maddie]

My Alk started to rise again. I have been monitoring it every 3 days since that last spike. It went from 10.3 to 11.6. I cut the dosage in half down to 5ml every day. Alk dropped to 10.6, I took half of the decrease and added it back so that I now sit at 7.5ml per 200l.

I have been spending a lot of Zen time with the tank in general but also with the corals. Tonight I was finished cleaning the glass so I would have clean glass in the morning. I don't run a filter sock so it take a while to clear up. I walked away and when I passed by I noticed that one of my oldest colonies wanted to show me a new trick.

My phosphates won't stay steady. It will be undetectable one day then 0.03 the next day then right back down to 0.00 on a Hanna. I feed the same amounts everyday at relatively the same time.

 

[design.maddie]

I don't have anything to update with. Still adjusting the NP-Bacto and All-for-Reef. Had a tiny algae outbreak but It doesn't seem like anything a couple good brushes of the rock won't clear up. GHA is all it is. I DID notice that I am getting some good growth of coralline algae starting to develop on the rocks. Not sure how long it has been since I dosed the stuff in the bottle but it is logged here somewhere.

A local reefer friend asked me to take a coral from him to keep because it was expensive and he was killing it. For my struggles with helping him take the frag and try to save it he gave me 2 other frags. I don't get this guy but Okay.

This is my Pavona coral colony. It is bigger than my palm and I have 2 colonies of the same size. This photo is taken 2 hours after I fed the fish and 1 hour before lights out. This colony is sitting in about 100-125 PAR at its highest 1/3. The flow is strong(not intense) from right to left.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Your Pavona looks good!!!

 

[design.maddie]

Your Pavona looks good!!!

Thanks so much. I showed my close friend the photo and he asked to see a video of a coral in motion. I woke up to my a coral looking great in the waves. Took this video for him. Thought it was worthy of a post on the Build Thread.

 

[design.maddie]

I have been watching the tank's parameter now for 2-3 weeks. Phosphates and Alk every 3 days. My averages with my current dosing are Alk @ 10.5 (+/-0.3), Phos @ 0.02 (+/-0.02) I am not sure what is really causing the phosphates to rise and fall like that, possibly just bad timing with feeding. I would believe the same thing is happening with the Alk, irregularities in time of day of samples. Still, I am continuing the current dosing of

1ml of NP-Bacto (mid day)
7.5ml of All-for-Reef (at lights on)

Orange Spotted Bleeny

I will be doing a full tank shot and break down soon.

 

[design.maddie]

I was admiring my tank today and I saw something that didn't seem right. As I looked closer I couldn't even decide what I was seeing. Then I googled reef tank pest. Flatworms.

I don't know where they would have come from. Clearly one of the last things I tossed in the tank. I don't know how the population exploded so much so fast. Guess that is part of being a pest. Now, I need to decide a course of action. Fish? Chemicals? I really need some help with this one.

 

[design.maddie]

Flat worm solution will be to purchase a scooter blenny. I really like the idea of a velvet Nudibranch but I have experience with housing the scooter blennies successfully not so much for nudibranchs. Everything else is stable in the tank. Still a bit more algae in the display than I would want but that should shift as I have turned the refuge LEDs to 24/7.

The photo below is near lights off and pushing around 20k spectrum. I removed all the blues and tried to best balance the whites and other colors to best represent the IRL look of this mushroom.

 

[design.maddie]

I must share this photo!

I have been documenting my newly purchased scooter blenny. She is doing really well. Today was the first day I watched her eat heavily on brine shrimp stuffed with greens. She appears to be in good health and prowling the lower areas of the tank for all sorts of worms and critters.


My Alk had dropped to 9.0 so I adjusted my All-for-Reef back up to the OG dose of 10ml per day. I really want to be in the mid 10.5dKh range. Phosphates still are not detectable.

 

[design.maddie]

I can't seem to get a handle on all these little issues. Tested Alk while I was feeding and was shocked when I saw 8.5. I was expecting well into the mid 10s maybe even an 11 this early in the dosing cycle. I heard the doser run this morning, I see there is fluid still in the reservoir. I am seriously scratching my head now. I just raised the amount of All-For-Reef, why is it dropping? I have dosed this stuff on this tank over 2 years now. There is no WAY I have the coral colonies to be soaking up that much Alk. The dosing pump intake hose had been raised out of the liquid. I pushed it back down to the bottom and did a manual dose of a days worth. (10ml) My coral coloration is funk right now and I have a photo to prove it.

A very drab looking colony. Hopefully it will color back up in a week or two.