30 gallon rimless - want to regain stability

[drawman]

Hi all,
This will be a journal of my attempt to get my 30 gallon rimless tank back to health. I have successfully kept SPS coral in the past but have never really been successful in this tank. At best, I have had a few frags marginally survive through periods of die back and regrowth while never maintaining optimal color. I really only have one Acropora valida that is hanging on and will be my last canary in the coal mine. Once things are going well again and I have regained confidence in this tank, I will consider adding more coral. My goal for this thread will be to document as much as I can about this tank as well as my strengths and weakness with it thus far.

First I will start off with my equipment:

Tank: 30 gallon rimless 2' x 2'
Sump: 15 gallon Aqueon separated into 3 sections: Skimmer, refugium, return
Flow:MP10w
Lighting:Gen 2 Radion
Skimmer:Vertex Omega 130
Reactor:BRS single cartridge reactor runs GAC and GFO
Controller:Neptune Apex
Live Rock:BRS Pukani that was acid washed
Salt:Red Sea Pro

Tanks inhabitants:
Sunburst Anthias
Hammer coral
2-3 Acropora frags (minimal remaining tissue)
Mexican turbo Snails (turbo fluctuosa) - a couple larger breeding adults and too many small ones to count
Astrea turbo snail (Astraea tecta)

I also previously had 3 masked gobies and 2 tail spot blennies that perished. The gobies had slowly disappeared over time. One blenny jumped and the other one succumbed to popeye.

I do a 10 gallon water change about every two weeks with good consistency. I do not dose Ca, Alk, or Mag currently as my coral bioload is quite low and my numbers have generally tested around 450 , 9-10dKH, 1300-1400, respectively. I feed a small amount of Rod's Reef 2-3 times a day without rinsing to maintain my Sunburst Anthias.

My current weaknesses:
1. I do not take the time to test parameters as frequently as I should.
2. I am not changing my GFO with a set schedule to maintain consistency.
3. I have a buildup of detritus on the rock. I do not turkey baste/blow my rocks as much as I should.
4. I do not dose anything currently and will eventually need to as bioload changes.
5. I have generally been not putting in the daily effort into the tank. I have, however, been keeping up with weekly and beyond maintenance.

Other problems:
1. I have never felt that my skimmer has been dialed in. It removes a decent amount but has always been pretty wet. On this small of a tank it has been difficult for me to get a good skimmate.
2. I have a very fine balance with my Radion. Any changes appear to cause havoc with SPS (I always acclimate).
3. The refugium section of my sump did not successfully grow chaeto. I believe it was having too tough of a time competing with GFO early on.

I will get more details of the tank as time goes on. Any suggestions/advice is welcome but my main goal will be focusing more time/attention on husbandry and making any changes slowly and not en masse.

Currently, I have a pretty good crop of hair algae and trying to reduce that will be a good first goal for me.

As of today my paramters are:
Nitrates: 0ppm from Red Sea test kit
Phosphates: .08 (or slightly less) from Red Sea test kit

I would like to get my Phosphates down to .03 with more attention to GFO and may consider dosing AAs afterward. I will also try to test Ca/Alk/Mag tonight.

 

[scumbag_gli]

You seem to have a lot of the problems I was having for months, so I'm going to tell you what I did...follow it or not, it worked for me haha. Stop running GFO and Carbon, stop doing water changes, switch to T5's, stop dosing, increase bio load, and buy an ATO to help with water stability and changing depth in the sump (helps the skimmer).

 

[scumbag_gli]

I know some suggestions I made may seem drastic or expensive, but your issues sound like a clone to mine lol.

 

[toothman]

sounds like a good plan to me
plus zeovit method. If you really want to make sps grow well, a bit more work but results are less coral death and better health. Possibly cheaper since you do not have to buy more acros after initial placement. They will grow quickly.
must have auto top off, too much work if not, and loss of stability. t5 or halide really make it easier to grow acros.

 

[drawman]

You seem to have a lot of the problems I was having for months, so I'm going to tell you what I did...follow it or not, it worked for me haha. Stop running GFO and Carbon, stop doing water changes, switch to T5's, stop dosing, increase bio load, and buy an ATO to help with water stability and changing depth in the sump (helps the skimmer).

I know some suggestions I made may seem drastic or expensive, but your issues sound like a clone to mine lol.

sounds like a good plan to me
plus zeovit method. If you really want to make sps grow well, a bit more work but results are less coral death and better health. Possibly cheaper since you do not have to buy more acros after initial placement. They will grow quickly.
must have auto top off, too much work if not, and loss of stability. t5 or halide really make it easier to grow acros.

Thanks for the replies!

So I wasn't as comprehensive with my first post as I would've like but I am definitely running an ATO! I wouldn't do a tank without

ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3155

Also, I came across a real stupid mistake by myself last night as I was making RODI water. My DI resin had been completely exhausted for quite some time (I really have been slacking on keeping up with it) and my TDS readings were 002 coming out of the RO and 001 coming out of the DI. Now I don't at all think this is the key factor to blame for my tank but it sure isn't helping. I have noticed my sexy shrimp disappear after the last few months and it makes me wonder if I have been leaching some metals or other compounds in the tank that led to their demise. Also I have a batch of that RODI water still so I'm going to test that for phosphates as well - I could be contributing an unnecessary amount through ATO as well. Again, I really don't think this is the contributing factor but I'm really trying to correct every problem no matter how insignificant.

scumbag_gli - I don't think your changes are drastic and I've thought about implementing some of the things you're talking about. I'm hesitant to remove the GFO just yet but may do so in the future. I am going to be more consistent about changing it at regular intervals and testing to make sure I'm not completely stripping my water of phosphates. I have been thinking hard about removing the GAC, however. I run about 2 tbsp of BRS lignite GAC along with my GFO in a single BRS reactor. I would say I've been changing it every 1-2 months but again I haven't been good about logging it. Now since I had the issue with my DI resin I'm going to keep on doing water changes but after that I may consider doing smaller ones in the future. I would love to switch back to T5s and may do so in the future. Due to location of the tank and the rimless factor it would be a tougher switch - not impossible but tough. I also agree with the boiload comment. I think it's so light of a bioload in this tank that it makes my already temperamental skimmer more finicky. I may consider getting another blend and some gobies and other more peaceful fish. I really don't want to get anything that will be aggressive towards the Sunburst Anthias because it is and has been doing so well. I'm glad to hear that you've basically agreed with all my prior assumptions on this tank :fun2:

toothman - I would love to run zeovit as well. I travel a lot between this place and my fiance's so I unfortunately would never be able to keep up with the zeo system at this time. I have family members helping out with the tank (feeding, etc.) but they can't help with zeovit. I have always had trouble with the Radion but I cannot place complete blame on it. So many people have beautiful SPS tanks with them so I have always held out hope it was not my limiting factor. BTW, I'm running the 120 degree optics on mine.

I will try to get some photos of the tank up and hopefully some more parameters.

 

[sixpackgarage]

Get rid of GFO to start to see if you notice a difference after a couple of weeks.. the health of my livestock seemed to be negatively affected by GFO, I stopped using it and now use carbon instead. Everything in the tank looks happier.

 

[drawman]

Get rid of GFO to start to see if you notice a difference after a couple of weeks.. the health of my livestock seemed to be negatively affected by GFO, I stopped using it and now use carbon instead. Everything in the tank looks happier.

I might end up doing this in the end. It would be nice to find a way to manage my phosphates. If I take my GFO off line I may reconsider trying Chaeto again.

 

[drawman]

Out of curiosity I tested the phosphate level of the RODI water I made last night before I changed my DI resin. It appears that it tested .08ppm but the colors weren't quite right. I'm not sure if the test kit will apply to deoxygenated RODI water...

 

[drawman]

I called my water supply company today as well to see if chloramines are used. He left a message and said they are not but he mentioned they do add phosphates to the water as a pipe coating. I'm not sure how common of a practice this is but it has me inclined to go to a two stage DI. That way when the first cartridge gets exhausted I can put the second one in it's place as many people do. Thoughts?

If I can improve my RODI water then I will be more inclined to remove the GFO.

 

[toothman]

try spectra pure di, I think it is the best. I use bulk reef refill di as first cartridge and spectrapure 2nd.

You really do not have to run zeo and dose everyday, but it is better

I would ask you just to sponge power first in any system zeo or not and see if you do not get immediate better pe and health. Just a word of caution you may be hooked on blue bottles after you try it. For best results you should not have gfo in system with sponge power.

you can run zeo and skip a week with out any problems.

But just try sponge power, and pm me with results. fosters and smith have it on sale $25. one drop 25 gal/day. the bottle will go a long way.

 

[drawman]

scumbag_gli - I don't think your changes are drastic and I've thought about implementing some of the things you're talking about. I'm hesitant to remove the GFO just yet but may do so in the future. I am going to be more consistent about changing it at regular intervals and testing to make sure I'm not completely stripping my water of phosphates. I have been thinking hard about removing the GAC, however. I run about 2 tbsp of BRS lignite GAC along with my GFO in a single BRS reactor. I would say I've been changing it every 1-2 months but again I haven't been good about logging it. Now since I had the issue with my DI resin I'm going to keep on doing water changes but after that I may consider doing smaller ones in the future. I would love to switch back to T5s and may do so in the future. Due to location of the tank and the rimless factor it would be a tougher switch - not impossible but tough. I also agree with the boiload comment. I think it's so light of a bioload in this tank that it makes my already temperamental skimmer more finicky. I may consider getting another blend and some gobies and other more peaceful fish. I really don't want to get anything that will be aggressive towards the Sunburst Anthias because it is and has been doing so well. I'm glad to hear that you've basically agreed with all my prior assumptions on this tank :fun2:

Just realized I used the wrong emoticon haha

try spectra pure di, I think it is the best. I use bulk reef refill di as first cartridge and spectrapure 2nd.

You really do not have to run zeo and dose everyday, but it is better

I would ask you just to sponge power first in any system zeo or not and see if you do not get immediate better pe and health. Just a word of caution you may be hooked on blue bottles after you try it. For best results you should not have gfo in system with sponge power.

you can run zeo and skip a week with out any problems.

But just try sponge power, and pm me with results. fosters and smith have it on sale $25. one drop 25 gal/day. the bottle will go a long way.

Yeah it seems like there are a lot of good opinions on SpectraPure. Once I run out of my BRS stuff I will probably give them a try. Do you run both the MaxCap and SilicaBuster?

I used to use Coral Vitalizer for a small period of time but I can't say I was real consistent with it. I did run GFO at the time as well not sure if that mattered.

I have newly made SW that I'm going to use for a water change today I will be curious what the phosphate level is on it.

 

[drawman]

I did end up testing the newly made saltwater and it appeared to read .04 or less on the Red Sea test kit.

 

[WaReefer458]

I run a small bag of ROWAPHOS in my filter sock. no phosphates to be found in my tank

 

[drawman]

Just did some testing of the tank. All are from Red Sea test kits that expire 4/16.

Ca 460ppm
Alk 11.5dKh
Mg 1400ppm


I manually took out a bunch of the hair algae and did a water change with my new RO water last Friday. I can see that the hair algae is not growing well anymore so I am making some good progress there. I do have a good crop of bubble algae unfortunately though.

I am strongly debating taking the GAC and GFO reactor offline or using next to nothing in it to see if that will get my corals to bounce back. I feed 2-3xs a day but again my bioload isn't very high so I'm not feeding much.

 

[drawman]

I figured I would post my Radion graph as well. Again it is a Radion Gen 2 with 120 degree lenses.

 

[drawman]

I ended up just taking the GAC and GFO reactor offline today. Hopefully it will help my cause. I was running them packed together which was probably not ideal either.

If this doesn't do it I have considered lowering my Alkalinity. I know I'm on the high side with the Red Sea Coral Pro.

 

[drawman]

I just started my transition to lower Alkalinity last night. I bought a new bucket of Red Sea salt (blue bucket) and will slowly transition my Alk to about 9-10 by lowering it about 0.1 dKh a day. I may consider going all the way to 8 dKh. I may be going a little slow with it but overall that's a big drop and want to make sure I don't stress anything out and can monitor changes. With my coral load being so low I feel like it will take forever to get my Alkalinity to drop passively.

I've been back to dosing Coral Vitalizer as well to hopefully add more food in the mix.

Eventually when I get my Alkalinity where I want it I'm going to scale back on my water changes. I've been doing about 10 gallons every 1-2 weeks and I may drop that 3 gallons or skip a few times. I really do think my nitrates are low and I may be starving things somewhat.

I have 3 very small encrusted pieces of acro hanging on. They are probably no more than a half an inch in diameter but I can monitor them for changes in color and polyp extension before adding more.

 

[drawman]

A quick update, I can definitely see things are responding to the changes quite well. I have my alkalinity down to about 9dKh and I've been dosing KZ Coral Vitalizer and BRS Reef Chili quite regularly. The three Acropora that I've been using to gauge have been showing pretty decent polyp extension with one of them looking great! I ordered two more acros and put them in the tank last Wednesday and they are looking really good so far as well. My only problem has been trying to manage the hair algae.