45 Galllon Cube. My dream tank...only smaller!

[chrishayes]

Oh, I also shoulda said, my temps are always at 79-79.6F. Never higher or lower. I also raised the light by 2-3".

 

[chrishayes]

Ok, nitrate has definately lowered. Its not totally yellow(0ppm) but its no longer orange(5ppm). So, what do I do with the vodka dose? That seems awfully fast, doesnt it? I know my skimmer has produced double what it normally does so that alone ought to lower nitrate. I also did a 10gal waterchange last friday instead of 5gal.

What would you guys reccomend I do now? lower the dose? Stay at the same dose til its 0ppm clearly for a few days? Ive not even hit the first dosage increase yet. Im using 40proof vodka so for my 50gal of water I used .4mls for 3 days.

 

[Reef_Noob]

Welcome netime Chris

How come your pH is on the lower end? But i would say if that level is working for your system better leave it untouched.

I have no clue about vodka dosing...Jonathan (jbanks) is da man for help

Now one important factor i forgot to mention is....your beautiful refugium....bit worried the carbon dosing gonna be bad for the macros coz its gonna strip nutrients out...keep an eye out for that too...
Feeding the LPS should help they will love it

Nitrates lowering already thats pretty cool....if you ask me API should read 0ppm...but still there will be some nitrates but definately less than 5ppm. Its not definitive..i guess.

Keep us posted...

 

[jbanks]

Ok, nitrate has definately lowered. Its not totally yellow(0ppm) but its no longer orange(5ppm). So, what do I do with the vodka dose? That seems awfully fast, doesnt it? I know my skimmer has produced double what it normally does so that alone ought to lower nitrate. I also did a 10gal waterchange last friday instead of 5gal.

What would you guys reccomend I do now? lower the dose? Stay at the same dose til its 0ppm clearly for a few days? Ive not even hit the first dosage increase yet. Im using 40proof vodka so for my 50gal of water I used .4mls for 3 days.

Ok.. Good news. Keep on the schedule and bump up your dosage... When you hit zero, cut your dosage in half and that will be you r maintenance dosage.

 

[jbanks]

Im thinking you may be on to something. I certainly am feeding more heavily in this tank but not directly feeding the lps...My attempts to keep nutrients down may be the cause of the bleaching. I upped the light only a max of 1 1/4 hours so that alone shouldnt cause this bad of bleaching I dont think. I bet that with that in conjunction with reduced nutrients is whats doing it. I think Ill try to feed them some mysis today directly. Boy is my cleaner shrimp gonna love that!

Thanks for the heads up on alk swings. I plan to do another round of tests today since its been 3 days of carbon dosing. Im gonna have trouble gauging when to cut the dose because im using an api nitrate test. Its 0 or 5ppm. So when i started it was a clear 5ppm, do I wait til its a clear 0ppm or just a change in color? Ill know my PO4 for sure though with the hanna kit. My alk is always a rock steady 8.3 so Ill know if thats changed.

I have noticed my ph increase slightly. Nothing to write home about but it has increased...should be seeing the opposite right? If it goes any lower ill have to start worrying. I feel a 7.8 at night is as low as I wanna go seeing that im running a reverse photoperiod on the fuge. Right now im seeing 7.95 at night and 8.05 day. Then again, ive always had low ph, but ive never had overwhelming color or growth either so they may be related. Id love to be able to use kalk but that introduces more maintenence and risk at this point so ill hold off til im recovered from the surgery when I can monitor it better.

Thanks again Noob!

Welcome netime Chris

How come your pH is on the lower end? But i would say if that level is working for your system better leave it untouched.

I have no clue about vodka dosing...Jonathan (jbanks) is da man for help

Now one important factor i forgot to mention is....your beautiful refugium....bit worried the carbon dosing gonna be bad for the macros coz its gonna strip nutrients out...keep an eye out for that too...
Feeding the LPS should help they will love it

Nitrates lowering already thats pretty cool....if you ask me API should read 0ppm...but still there will be some nitrates but definately less than 5ppm. Its not definitive..i guess.

Keep us posted...

Thanks for the confidence RN, but I'm just learning along with everyone else :beer:

When carbon dosing, you really have to find a balance in a mixed reef.. LPS like the water a little dirty.. They actually thrive in it.. so feeding them is the way to go if you start seeing them losing color... thier just hungry more than likely.. now is a good time to think about foods like oyster feast and rotifers... either that or grab a bottle of Brightewell coral amino or some other brand and start a small regimen to add some nutrients to you system that they will absorb from the water column.. Or, you can just feed your fish more and let them create that good ole' natural food... This is one of the cool factors about carbon dosing in my opinion... The ability to feed more..

 

[jbanks]

dupe..

 

[chrishayes]

Thanks for the confidence RN, but I'm just learning along with everyone else :beer:

When carbon dosing, you really have to find a balance in a mixed reef.. LPS like the water a little dirty.. They actually thrive in it.. so feeding them is the way to go if you start seeing them losing color... thier just hungry more than likely.. now is a good time to think about foods like oyster feast and rotifers... either that or grab a bottle of Brightewell coral amino or some other brand and start a small regimen to add some nutrients to you system that they will absorb from the water column.. Or, you can just feed your fish more and let them create that good ole' natural food... This is one of the cool factors about carbon dosing in my opinion... The ability to feed more..

Thats the reason im carbon dosing to begin with! I feed too much! Im home all day and ive seen the positive effects of feeding a system more than once a week and more variety than some flake food. ai tried to strike that balance without carbon dosing but it just didnt work, and plus like I said, I like the fish! So vodka is my only answer. ai dont even think I could acheive the cleaniliness ive seen these past few days with 80% weekly waterchanges...

Ill keep spot feeding the lps and giving the tank lots of blended food like rods and reef fusion along with occasional pellet and flake. I think I may be able to keep the fuge going at the same time as long as I keep feeding the fish 3xday and maybe relaxing the wc's to bi weekly...what do you think?

SO far, the sps look FANTASTIC but the cleaner water is certainly affecting the lps. They are going pale and looking bleached...If they cant take the heat then theyll have to leave the kitchen. This is an sps tank so they will be looked after foremost.

Thanks for you guys help! Ill continue on the scheduled dose til api says no more then cut in half and tweak from there. Good plan?

 

[jbanks]

Your plans are sound from my perspective with bi-weekly WCs and on dosing. With your LPS you can also try shading them as much as possible. Another reason the LPS may be bleaching is because there is more light penetration as well when carbon dosing. So, they may be going through an aclimation phase right now. I had a double wammy because LPS are not to crazy about direct T5 light either. So, I shaded them where I could and the others just had to acclimate or "leave the kitchen" as you so eloquently put it! LOL..

 

[chrishayes]

Your plans are sound from my perspective with bi-weekly WCs and on dosing. With your LPS you can also try shading them as much as possible. Another reason the LPS may be bleaching is because there is more light penetration as well when carbon dosing. So, they may be going through an aclimation phase right now. I had a double wammy because LPS are not to crazy about direct T5 light either. So, I shaded them where I could and the others just had to acclimate or "leave the kitchen" as you so eloquently put it! LOL..

Lol yeah they started breaching.before I started carbon doing. So yeah I have them out of the light entirely. Well see how it goes.

I just recieved a package of red macro algae! Who'd that come from?

 

[jbanks]

Nice! You may find at some point that you will not be able to sustain macro algae in your fuge due to nutrients being too low from carbon dosing. In the interim you can try a reverse lighting cycle with the fuge to help combat the Ph swing at night. I know I'm talking about two different things at once, but I take you for a multitasker too! LOL...

 

[skinpuppi]

Did they survive? There should be 3 different kinds (a red lettuce and the other 2 I mentioned earlier) . I had my wife package them since I am out to sea.

 

[chrishayes]

Yup Alive and well! My light isn't on. So ill ha e to check them out more tonight and get pictures! Thank u so much for doing that! Good guy u are! And the wifey ain't so bad either! Im so freakin amazed u actual sent them...crazy someone keeping their word. Nuts. Lol

Man just having red in there is insanely cool! And they are so healthy! Please link me to where I can view what they came out of, it must be amazing.

 

[chrishayes]

I just couldnt wait! The irridecense on the dragons tounge looking one was too much to bare. I HAD to move it around to see where itd look best! Here are some pictures, let me know which way looks best. As you may be able to tell, I yanked the whole left side of the fuge out hoping to find some red algae and sure enough, the UPS man pulled in the drive. What a great surprise!

 

[chrishayes]

Double post

 

[chrishayes]

Which layout do you like best?

or

Oh, and this is what one days worth of skimmate looks like while on the vodka!

Should I skim drier while dosing? It would take out less nutrients I guess but does it take out enough of the bacteria? I like to wet skim, always have just dont know enough hands on about a vodka system.

 

[jbanks]

I don't really subscribe to a wet vs dry skimmate preference. My BK seems to perform better skimming wet, so that works for me. the skimmate is still dark and smells like......well you know what it smells like! LOL! I actually have to sit a carbon pad on top of my Skimmer to absorb the reek that it will broadcast from the basement to my first floor...

 

[soverjas]

just catching up on the build. looking good

 

[chrishayes]

I don't really subscribe to a wet vs dry skimmate preference. My BK seems to perform better skimming wet, so that works for me. the skimmate is still dark and smells like......well you know what it smells like! LOL! I actually have to sit a carbon pad on top of my Skimmer to absorb the reek that it will broadcast from the basement to my first floor...

Ok, normally in a non carbon tank id reccomend wet skimming but not to the point of doing waterchanges with it. THis is just to keep the skimmer active even when theres no solid foam head. You can still remove a good amount of waste when you do this as apposed to dry skimming that if theres no head due to lack of heavy organics, the skimmer is just a big airstone.

Ive dried it up a touch and well see how that goes. Itll be skimming much heavier in the days to come, more on that in a minute...boo

just catching up on the build. looking good

Hey thanks man, keep taggin along, things have gotten more interesting! see below.

 

[chrishayes]

So I knew something just didnt seem right with my corals. I used a pair of binoculars and really went over them well and sure enough, I have red bugs...so dipping and QT didnt work. The only thing I can think of that woulda let them in is that the last couple lps corals I got I didnt treat the QT with interceptor since I didnt have any acros with that purchase. All I did was dip and QT them for a few days to observe. Obviously, these things can hitchike in on non acros.

Its hit me hard and knocked the wind out of my passion. It wont beat me but it sure made me pout. I even turned out the light as soon as I saw them scurrying on the tricolor. I couldnt watch it, didnt want to believe it, was embarrased that I constantly preach using reef condoms...now look at me.

 

[chrishayes]

Moral of the story, dipping is certainly not enough to keep pests out of the tank, dipping and QT isnt enought to keep pests out of the tank, so the only way to keep them out is to profilactically treat EVERYTHING that goes in the tank. ANd that treatment should be for the full lenght of time that youre supposed to do it. No shortcuts.

Long story short, im looking for a gram scale so I can treat my system and QT. I will certainly lose some valuable members of my tank cause theres no way I can get them all out. Ill try as hard as I can but im not confident. Tearing the corals from the tank isnt an option either since I dont have time. Im leaving for a trip to Colorado on the 22nd and then surgery on the 28th. Ill have to treat the tank. ANyone have advice for me here?