A Great Way to ruin a perfect wall; My 400 Gallon Project

[SERVO]

Time to resurrect this zombie thread.

The briopsis was handeled with Kent Magnesium. After that, I had a horrible bout of Dictoyta algae that was ultimately treated by Algae-fix. No problem with coral loss.

The tank has been doing well as of late, but certainly not awesome. My Blue tort colony grew about 14-16 inches tall. The problem is, I have had a few instances where a feed pump has died, or a line has clogged or some issue occurs and my Alk slowly creeps down and then I start to get base STN. Needless to say, there were a lot of dead patches on this beautiful Staghorn as well as others.

I bribed Marc Levenson to come over this weekend and help me "re-build". We took out most of the corals on the left side of the tank, chopped them up and removed 3 rocks from the left. THis allowed me more space for the corals and fish and got rid of alot of plague palyothoa's that have been growing out of control. I'm cooking that rock now.

I am in the process of reglueing some of the frags to rocks to re-grow a colony, but now I'm not sure where to put things.

I also have started Vertex Bio-pellets today. I'm not one to jump on bandwagon trends in this hobby but the conjecture seems overwelming at this point. I plan on documenting my sucess/failure/joy/frustration.

I am planning on possibly implementing an automatic water change system in the near future with the reef filler pump. I want to see what happens with the biopellets before I change my water changing habbits.

Since I have a droid phone posting pictures will be easy. More to follow.

 

[jnarowe]

Tease.

 

[psteeleb]

Ryan - let me know if you need any help with anything. I'll be home all next week.

 

[SERVO]

I'm really excited to see if this is the real deal. If this works for someone as hands off as I am, this is the next phase in reefkeeping.

Ultimately, I ripped out most of the corals on this side of the tank and really opened it up.

What looks like a brown pocillopora is actually yellow!

Here is an updated FTS. I'll replicate the angle and distance over time.

 

[Outerbank]

Ryan, let me know how those pellets work. Looking good.

Scott

 

[Bax]

Your scape looks much more open.

In the long run, it'll look better I think.

Tell the floor stripper he's missed.

 

[SERVO]

Your scape looks much more open.

In the long run, it'll look better I think.

Tell the floor stripper he's missed.

I like it much better. I have 2 wave boxes, 2 6100, 1 6200, 2 nanostreams and I still wasn't getting enough flow because of all the coral growth. There was ton of silt that accumulated on the rocks.

I really like the spaceous look, I need to get corals back to being the center of focus and not the space. That will take a bit of time.

I'll send the stipper some love! ha ha ha

 

[Chrisrush]

Wow Ryan, that's some change. Hopefully the bio-pellets will be of some value. I'd like to try them at a later date. Keep us updated.

 

[Jimmy Walls]

Ryan,
I am planning to order some Bio-pellets this week, was wondering if it has helped. Still need to come by and see the tank and meet the little ones.

 

[JASON L.]

Hows the tank doing now?

 

[mynameisjoe]

Your entire set-up is bada$$...This thread was a nice read....

 

[psteeleb]

this thread is way over due for an update

 

[SERVO]

You are not kidding! I've added much, changed more and I'm thinking of a large overhaul.

 

[derekdelisi]

Careful with the Pellets. I'd underdose significantly if I were you. I was running slightly under the recommended dosage and after a year I had finally stripped my water ie. starving my corals. It took me a few big water changes and heavy nutrient-dosing to fully recover.

 

[SERVO]

The pellets are really underdosed. I haven't found a reactor that is really a good fit for my tank. I've been using the BRS Jumbo reactor and I'm happy with it, but flow through is an issue. I'd like to see more pellet disturbance than I do.

My biggest issue is all of the Majano's that have accumulated. I bought a racoon butterfly and kept him in the large overflow of my frag tank. I didn't have the balls to put him into my tank. I'm evaluating the best method of taking out all of my rock. I don't really have the room to put a rubbermaid container into my fish room, light it up and house all of my corals while I empty the tank. Case in point....


The Stylopora is as big as a dinner plate...or was

 

[SERVO]

I need to something and that will be drastic. I have some BIG corals that have grown over the past 5 1/2 years into some collasal colonies, I'll have to go crazy chopping up everything to get all of the Majanos out. I'm not really sure of what to do with something like the Stylopora and pocillopora colonies

 

[Chrisrush]

I know someone who has an empty tank....

 

[mal1099]

Hey Servo how you liking the vertex bio pellets. I have been using them since september last year and the results and very nice. most people have been saying to run the reactor output near your skimmer intake. I dont do that and havnt had any issues besides the initial bloom which lasted only a few days.

 

[SERVO]

Whos that Chris? ;p

The pellets have been good. I've never had any issues with Nitrates or Phosphates, but I can tell you that the algae has reached an all time low and I am feeding more. Antecdotal, but a filtration that makes since to me. In fact, my lawnmower blennie was starting to look like he was going to die, as the glass and rocks are as clear as can be. I made some changes, but I may have to get rid of him for his own good. He used to be the fattest fish in the tank. Not now.

 

[jgsensor]

Try a majano wand and electrocute them. They work great. You can get one from saltwatercritters.com. I bought one from Paul B on reef sanctuary a few months back and it works wonders and doesn't bother the corals. He has a thread called killing aptasia with electricity were you can read about it on reef sanctuary.