The ‘Most of you will completely disagree with everything I did’ 180g Mixed Reef

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update Pt 1:

Finally got around to rebuilding the collapsed lagoon end. A few challenges with this, primarily being up against the clock. I didn’t have time to tear things down and do a really solid rebuild.

I had 2 hours.

So I’ll try to outline what I did, how I did it, but more importantly, what I did wrong that resulted in this issue.

1. Quikrete Water-Stop Hydraulic Cement:

This product is mildly controversial with reef keepers. Some swear by it, some say avoid it at all cost.

I have used this stuff for years, and let me say first off that I have never had a single issue with it in terms of being an issue with water chemistry. I’ve used it on dozens of tanks, and I’ve never seen organisms react negatively to its use…even without first curing.

That said, this product has some limitations, and there is a learning curve associated with its use and how those limitations in saltwater. It is great for building structures. What it is not great for is supporting load. When using Quikrete, it’s important to not ask it to hold heavier structures together without additional support. If rocks are anchored with dowel or rods, the mortar is excellent in solidifying the structure, even when going horizontally with nothing underneath.

But if you try to get it to bear load, on its own, it will eventually crumble.

The new learning for my learning curve on this one was that plastic mass changes once underwater, and locking everything in tightly with cement when it’s dry, and then not using enough cement while doing so, is a recipe for disaster. When I built that lagoon, not only did I not account for shifting and swelling of the structure, I also mixed the cement too thin. Had there not been any structural shifting, it might have been fine, but all of that shifting plus the weight of all of the sand pretty much just liquefied the cement.

I drained the tank 2/3 of the way down to redo the front corner of that structure:

Once I did that, I realized the cement all the way around the entire structure failed. It opened up against the back panel, and once I moved the sand bed, and bunch of it just slid down under the structure. Womp womp, as the kids would say.

I was able to just cut some filter pad and block it, but I realize now that everything I’m doing is a stop-gap, and after the school year, I’m going to have to drain the tank down and rebuild the lagoon structure properly.

None of the corals I’ve added are attached to permanently cemented rocks, so it will be easy to move all of that stuff out and really get into it.

Despite the relative failure this time, I still really like the Quikrete in reefs. Just need better anticipation next time.

Put back together (for now):

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update Pt 2:

Finding 2 Needles in a Haystack

Going into redoing that lagoon end, my biggest concern was that I have a pistol shrimp and a goby living in the upper part near the overflow. The substrate depth was about 7” near the overflow, tapering down to about 4”.

I also became aware through my observations that while the main opening for the shrimp was in the top corner, the tunnel network spanned out for about 12-14” from the corner, including through the mangrove roots.

That meant that I had to try to coax the goby and shrimp out before draining. I’ll spare you the suspense and tell you that it most certainly did not happen. So, I quickly drained the tank down with 1” flex PVC, and quickly started digging. With two very small animals somewhere under several pounds of substrate, I had to be very careful trying to extricate them. I slowly and gently pulled substrate away with my fingertips.

After about 4 minutes of digging, I found the goby. Pulled it out and dropped it in one of the water containers. It was fine, even after being out of water for several minutes. Then I started looking for the pistol shrimp. I ended up clearing all of the substrate out from that end of the tank, but did not find it. I was at the point where I was going to have to start pulling mangroves, and almost said ‘Screw it’. Not sure how much mangrove experience people have, but their roots are vital to their survival, as they utilize a reverse osmosis process that allows the trees to live in saltwater. Messing with their roots can be a fatal mistake.

I gently started to brush substrate away from the roots, and was delighted to see how extensive the root structures had become. After getting the first one pulled up, I found the pistol shrimp under where the tree was. Grabbed it, dropped it in the container. It was fine.

I was delighted that I was able to actually find and capture these two. Then, after setting the tank back up, I placed the goby in the same spot. As I added the shrimp to the upper back corner of the lagoon, it shot backward toward the front of the tank, dropped down into the deeper water, and scrambled back into the rocks.

So much for that.

The goby has moved into the deeper part of the tank, and I hear the shrimp occasionally, so I’m sure they found each other. I just don’t anticipate ever seeing the shrimp again.

The happy couple before I literally tore their world apart:

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update Pt 3:

I have already accepted that the lagoon end is going to require a fairly substantial redo at the end of the school year. I really need to get in there and reinforce all of it so that I don’t have the same issue that I just tried to fix.

But I’ve never really been satisfied with how clunky and full that end of the tank looks. So that will be an opportunity to make it right and give it a little more shape and make it look less boxy. More on that when the time comes.

I think I’m done adding coral for now. Here is the latest haul:

I noticed as I was mounting coral on the corals on the reef wall end that I was kinda running out of room. Additionally, since I am going to remodel that part of the tank, I might as well redo the reef wall a little. So there isn’t much point in getting more coral. Although I could start adding some stuff to the lagoon.

Here’s what that end looks like now:

What I really like about the reef wall is that I can have it getting blasted by the wave gyre, but…as in nature…it takes the brunt of the flow but lets the perfect amount swirl around in the lagoon end.

The reef wall also gets a lot of direct sunlight…about 3.5hrs a day. It’s hilarious how changing coral from one LED to another LED requires gentle acclimation, but if you switch them from LED to sunlight, they don’t miss a beat.

Finally, I still have this isolated rock structure on the left:

The top rock is just sitting there. The lower piece is one that I cut the bottom to be flat with a Sawzall, and then cemented it to the bottom of the tank. The top of that piece is naturally flat. I am trying to decide if I should leave that top rock on there, add some nice table-top acro on the lower rock, and then some other stags etc on the upper rock…

Or…

Get a Heteractis magnifica for the lower rock and then maybe move that top rock off. I would love to just have a giant anemone with a bunch of clowns in that spot.

What do you all think?

 

[mfinn]

I love everything about this build.

 

[saltnut]

I was delighted that I was able to actually find and capture these two.

Well, done. That took some patients.

 

[LegalReefer]

Update Pt 3:

I have already accepted that the lagoon end is going to require a fairly substantial redo at the end of the school year. I really need to get in there and reinforce all of it so that I don’t have the same issue that I just tried to fix.

But I’ve never really been satisfied with how clunky and full that end of the tank looks. So that will be an opportunity to make it right and give it a little more shape and make it look less boxy. More on that when the time comes.

I think I’m done adding coral for now. Here is the latest haul:

I noticed as I was mounting coral on the corals on the reef wall end that I was kinda running out of room. Additionally, since I am going to remodel that part of the tank, I might as well redo the reef wall a little. So there isn’t much point in getting more coral. Although I could start adding some stuff to the lagoon.

Here’s what that end looks like now:

What I really like about the reef wall is that I can have it getting blasted by the wave gyre, but…as in nature…it takes the brunt of the flow but lets the perfect amount swirl around in the lagoon end.

The reef wall also gets a lot of direct sunlight…about 3.5hrs a day. It’s hilarious how changing coral from one LED to another LED requires gentle acclimation, but if you switch them from LED to sunlight, they don’t miss a beat.

Finally, I still have this isolated rock structure on the left:

The top rock is just sitting there. The lower piece is one that I cut the bottom to be flat with a Sawzall, and then cemented it to the bottom of the tank. The top of that piece is naturally flat. I am trying to decide if I should leave that top rock on there, add some nice table-top acro on the lower rock, and then some other stags etc on the upper rock…

Or…

Get a Heteractis magnifica for the lower rock and then maybe move that top rock off. I would love to just have a giant anemone with a bunch of clowns in that spot.

What do you all think?

Definitely gotta support your idea of getting a Magnifica anemone, one of those flowing gently in the current with a clownfish harem would look incredible honestly! Alternatively, having a big ol' tabling acro of some sort growing out there could look really cool.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Definitely gotta support your idea of getting a Magnifica anemone, one of those flowing gently in the current with a clownfish harem would look incredible honestly!

I’m heavily leaning that way. It’s a perfect spot for one, and it can get as big as it wants there.

I can grow a table acro anywhere.

 

[LegalReefer]

Do

I’m heavily leaning that way. It’s a perfect spot for one, and it can get as big as it wants there.

I can grow a table acro anywhere.

Go for it then! It'd look phenomenal, and be a useful teaching tool if you can manage to get a breeding harem of clowns going too!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Update Pt 3:

I have already accepted that the lagoon end is going to require a fairly substantial redo at the end of the school year. I really need to get in there and reinforce all of it so that I don’t have the same issue that I just tried to fix.

But I’ve never really been satisfied with how clunky and full that end of the tank looks. So that will be an opportunity to make it right and give it a little more shape and make it look less boxy. More on that when the time comes.

I think I’m done adding coral for now. Here is the latest haul:

I noticed as I was mounting coral on the corals on the reef wall end that I was kinda running out of room. Additionally, since I am going to remodel that part of the tank, I might as well redo the reef wall a little. So there isn’t much point in getting more coral. Although I could start adding some stuff to the lagoon.

Here’s what that end looks like now:

What I really like about the reef wall is that I can have it getting blasted by the wave gyre, but…as in nature…it takes the brunt of the flow but lets the perfect amount swirl around in the lagoon end.

The reef wall also gets a lot of direct sunlight…about 3.5hrs a day. It’s hilarious how changing coral from one LED to another LED requires gentle acclimation, but if you switch them from LED to sunlight, they don’t miss a beat.

Finally, I still have this isolated rock structure on the left:

The top rock is just sitting there. The lower piece is one that I cut the bottom to be flat with a Sawzall, and then cemented it to the bottom of the tank. The top of that piece is naturally flat. I am trying to decide if I should leave that top rock on there, add some nice table-top acro on the lower rock, and then some other stags etc on the upper rock…

Or…

Get a Heteractis magnifica for the lower rock and then maybe move that top rock off. I would love to just have a giant anemone with a bunch of clowns in that spot.

What do you all think?

Love all the new frags!

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

High school kids are funny about this aquarium. It’s almost like they don’t even know it’s there.

But then you point something interesting out to them, and they flip out.

Today, I noticed a basket star that had come in with the maricultured rock. It was actively feeding, and when I was pointing it out to students, they lost their minds:

Also found a Samo crab in one of the maricultured acros. I’m assuming it came in with it, and there didn’t appear to be any tissue damage, so it can stay for now. But I’ll be keeping my eye on it:

The kids went nuts over the crab as well.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update:

As I have mentioned, I don’t plan on doing much, if any, water testing. I’ve never chased numbers, and I generally have a good feel for what is going on in the water.

If there is a parameter I definitely don’t chase, it’s pH. In my experience, two things are true: 1) in nature, the pH does change…sometimes daily, and 2) if alkalinity is in line with where it would be in nature, it’s going to be pretty difficult to bring it down very much.

But then sometimes I get curious.

I have a classroom that, for 6 hours a day, has 25-30 people in it. That is a LOT of CO2 production and release. In addition. I do not have a protein skimmer with an air intake that I could run out of the window.

My pH should be on the low side, right?

Not according to my Pasco sensor:

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Quick update:

Not much going on that’s exciting in the tank. I neglected it pretty badly, and it sort of went into a meh phase. Some cyano started to show up, and with my IB bio students doing their Internal Assessments (big self-designed experiments), I encouraged the cyano to grow thinking some students might want to use the cyano for their IAs.

The biggest issue is that I think my temps dropped over spring break. I have heaters in the tank, but maybe insufficient if the room temp dropped far enough. Anyway, several corals bleached, but who knows.

Given that we are almost at the end of the year, and I have some repairs to make to the system, I probably won’t add anything new.

I did end up getting a 55 gal (30x24x18), so last Friday, I drilled a hole for the drain, painted the back, and set it up as the macro algae tank. I need to make some lighting changes, but I like having the larger tank:

So probably won’t do anything other than adding some turtle grass to the lagoon and setting up an ATO for the summer. I know I wanted to only use Chicago tap water, but I had a 4-stage RO/DI unit and 65gal polypropylene storage container lying around, so I’m going to hook it up. We need a good amount of non-tap water for our labs, so it’s justified.

Finally, it looks like I am going to be moving out of 9th grade bio next year and getting a few sections of enviro-sci. That’s exciting for me, but more exciting is that we submitted everything for Shedd Academy, and it looks like Shedd will be coming in and co-teaching an Aquatic Science class with me. That will be an awesome opportunity.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

End of the year final grades:

The school year has finally…thankfully…come to an end. It was a challenging year for a number of reasons, and I’m relieved that it’s over. Having recently completed grading finals, I figured I would give the reef system a final grade as well.

Before doing that, I am super excited that my admin is allowing me to start an ecology senior elective class for next year, of which I will have 2 sections. It’s a year-long class, and the challenge there will be to be able to do a year without getting into the super rigorous deep tracks of ecology. I will definitely make it challenging, because the students will have had 1 year each of bio, chem, and physics by the time they get to my class, and they should be able to handle some multi-causality/multi-variate stuff.

It will be heavily project-based, and the reef system in the classroom will play a role in our exploration of ecology. I’m really pumped to be able to do this class.

Overall grades:

1. Water quality: A-
2. Coral mortality rate: B-
3. Fish mortality rate: A
4. Coral health: B+
5. Fish health: A
6. Mangrove health: A-
7. Coral growth: C-
8. Nuisance algae control: A to D, depending on the day
9. Appearance: B+
10. Ease of maintaining: A+++
11. Ecological health: B+
12. Ecological balance: C+
13. Biodiversity: C+ (but could give it an ‘incomplete’)

Final grade: B

What has worked:
1. Despite no mechanical/chemical filtration or water changes, it’s a pretty clean tank

2. Dino bloom early on eradicated with no remediation efforts outside of competition

3. The mangroves have gone crazy!

4. I think I only lost a few chromis. All other fish survived and are healthy despite no quarantine and use of established rock, substrate, and use of maricultured rock

5. The lower coral mortality/health/growth grades were due to temp swings. Had a heater not working in late winter, and a bunch of corals and the bubble tip anemone bleached. A few didn’t recover, but most have come all or most of the e way back.

6. By and large, outside of the temp issues, the acros that made it have done pretty well. Most days there is decent polyp extension, decent color, and some growth. They’re my indicator. If the acros are looking good, then I don’t need to massively change anything.

7. I had some cyano start showing up. My IB bio students were starting their experiments, so I just let it grow w/o intervening so that a student could use it if they wanted. At one point, there was cyano covering most of the bottom and 40-50% of the rock. I thought about doing something to knock it back, but then came back after Memorial Day weekend and it was 95% gone. Your guess is as good as mine.

8. Used straight Chicago tap water, and it didn’t seem to faze the coral even a little. And not only tap, but tap out of pipes in a 115 year old school building. I don’t know that I can point to an issue in the tank and attribute it to source water quality.

9. The bubble tip anemone almost completely bleached. Over the course of 6 months, is made a full recovery.

What needs improvement:
1. Environmental control is #1 by a long shot. The school does drop temps on cold weekends, etc. I did not have an ATO set up either, and the combination of temp and salinity swings really set me back.

2. Need better lights, preferably halides. My love affair with LEDs ended a while ago, and this experience does not make me like them more

3. Biodiversity. Need to get the cryptic zone going in the sump, and get more diversity in my macro algae tank. It’s currently dominated by C. prolifera.

4. I really want more water movement in the tank

5. Lagoon end needs to be built up along the reef wall a little.

6. Need a LOT more animals next school year

Big change I made:
Because I am teaching ecology next year, and because our sci dept always has a need for some sort of filtered/purified water, I installed a 4-stage RO/DI and an 65gal polypropylene storage tank. From that, I was able to make ATO for all the systems in the classroom (I now have about 200’ of 1/4” line coursing through my prep and class rooms). I also had to do this because I cannot come into the building for the next 4 weeks, so needed that set up.

.

What do you all think of the anti-reef reef?

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I went ahead and tested the water before I headed out yesterday.

Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.4
Alk: 8
Ca: 390
NO3: 15 (would like this a little higher)
PO4: 0.04

Overall, decent. Could obviously use more Ca, so I loaded some up into my ‘doser’ and let it go.

I’m a little nervous about leaving this thing running for a month with no supervision, so hopefully I don’t walk into a disaster in July.

I’m still baffled by the sudden disappearance of all that cyano. It was literally over a weekend, and it was essentially gone. I did notice an uptick in the caulerpa growth, but I didn’t think it would be enough to zap that much cyano over a weekend. Not going to complain though.

I added some turtle grass a month or so ago, but its growth has been pretty slow. I would love to see that stuff get going. You can see it in the background. The roots weren’t much when I got it, so it’s going to take some time to get going.

Note the sponge growth on the rock. That’s the maricultured rock from @Gulf Live Rock . It has almost doubled in size without me doing much of anything to foster its growth. I would love to get a lot more sponge growth. I’m definitely going to load up on more of the Gulf Live Rock this summer. Love that stuff.

Also, when I had to fix that lagoon section a couple of months ago, I had to pull the mangroves. Their root structures were pretty massive, and it was crazy to see how many pods, worms, etc were down in the roots. Also, those mangroves were not happy about being uprooted. They were each regularly cranking out new branches, but since I replanted them, that has stalled. They look fine, but I think it’s going to take a couple of months for the roots to re-establish.

I am going to rebuild the weird return line plumbing coming out of the overflow and make a box that fits in there that water will flow into and then plant a couple more mangroves in there.

Finally, I really need to get some sort of cryptic zone going in the sump. I’ll update in July when I can get back into the school.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update:

A few weeks ago, I stopped into the school to do a wellness check. I was delighted to see that my new classroom furniture was about to go in, because all of my old desks and stools were out in the hallway.

I was not delighted to walk into the classroom and find several custodial workers mopping water up off my floor. Apparently while moving desks out, somebody clipped the macro-algae tank and it started leaking through a seam. All told, the system probably lost 40g of water….which meant that it was replaced with 40g of freshwater. That reality came to light when I saw that my 60g water storage container was nearly empty.

Fortunately I showed up when I did. I was able to quickly shut the macro tank off from the main tank and bring the salt back up in the main tank. I then had to leave for 2 weeks, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to walk into today.

Well, here’s the tank:

After chipping my away at the wall of algae, I saw this:

The acros that had partially bleached are showing some growth, and some of the color is coming back. Not great, but growth is a good sign. All other corals and the mangroves looked pretty good. Not a bad save for what could have been a disaster.

Now that the main tank has been disconnected from the main tank, there is some cyano showing back up. Once I get a new tank for the macro algae and patch it into the main system, that cyano should go away.

No cyano in the macro tank: