A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[troubadour11]

Here's an update of our Red Jawbreaker (I believe this is a type of discosoma, but I do not know for sure if anyone can correctly ID it)
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This shroom is now sitting basically where that sad looking one paled and shrunk for months and is doing just fine. Instead of being under the overhang though, it is out on the tip of the rock more in a bit more light. But it seems happy from what I can tell.

Now for some sump/fuge closet shots.

Current "rats nest" of my electrical board. You can see we added the wi-fi attachment sitting on the top right corner of the board. I haven't got around to attaching it with some velcro-tape.
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Hello Mr. Sump
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Phyto ... and ... Chardonay culture(s)
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Hahahaha!!!

Anyone out there culturing their own live phyto? Do you typically have to add top-off water to your cultures to account for evaporation from the airation of the bottle? Top-off with fresh water, not saltwater for phyto cultures? Our culture has been running for a month now. It doesn't smell bad. It doesn't really smell at all. Which is good, I believe. But it doesn't seem like it has gotten any thicker or darker green then when we started.

The culture was started with (if memory serves me correctly), post-water change tank water diluted down to 1.020. I then added 5 mL Miracle-Gro Liquid fertilizer and 10 mL live phyto. And I looked it up, the culture was started on 6/7.

So did I just start with a small, or to small of a dose of live phyto (only using 10 mL to start) in a 1.75 liter bottle and it's going to take more like a couple months to get a culture established enough to split and start using?

Any tips would be appreciated as I would love to continue dosing live phyto to the fuge. But I'd prefer to culture it on my own rather then buying it for $35 every third month.

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Here's the new lighting above the fuge. (2) $8 clamp on 75w fixtures, (2) of those 75w, Par30, Daylight LED spotlights, and an old tension bar I had lying around.
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Light fixtures are twist-tied (temporary safety net) to keep the clamp lights from slipping loose when bumped or if we have an earthquake. Don't want them falling into the fuge or shattering the tank or lids if they slip loose!
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Skimmer cup only a day after emptying it.
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a littler blurry and unclear. I was in a hurry walking out the door. But you get the idea. I'll snap a better skimmer cup shot next time it's a 1/2 week full or so.
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My skimmate never has a HORRIBLE funk smell to it. Everyone talks about how bad their skimmate smells, and if it only smells like a wet puddle, then somethings not right.

So I do get darker and a bit more smelly skimmate after dosing phyto which makes sense. When I dose phyto, I turn off the UV over night for 12-24 hours and leave the skimmer on turned down almost all the way for aeration.

But basically, I get tea colored water with some gunk in it. Could it be that things are doing just fine, but I don't have enough waste production in the system yet? Currently I have 3 shrimp, 5-10 coral frags, and 4 fish in a 150-200 gallon overall system?

Although maybe we should check in with my better half, DisBeReef the next time she empties the skimmate for me. I wonder if years of working as a bartender and smelling the bar floor during clean-up after a busy night has dulled my nose to the smell of funk!?!?

From what I can tell so far, skimmate stench has nothing on the smell of the bar after new years eve :bum:

 

[troubadour11]

The Great Algae Migaration of 2014!!!

Or, refugium pictures if you'd prefer to call it that :wildone:
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And these shots are a week or two old now from when I first put up the new lighting. So in that first and second picture, just imagine WAY more of that neon green matt/slime algae you see. I'm not sure if that's just the start of GHA, or a different type of algae all together? It looks like cyano slime, but green and gives off some bubbles.

But no matter what. The new lights and phyto along with feeding some cheap flakes to the fuge every so often has REALLY helped the DT! The GHA in the DT has decreased dramatically since the new lights went above the fuge and this green slime started growing.

Our fuge glass no longer looks as covered in micro-critters as it does in the 3rd picture above. But I'm guessing D.B.R. just cleaned off the glass with a scrubber sometime to view the fuge.?.?. But our glass was NEVER covered by that many critters for the last year, ever. Once we started dosing live phyto, things really seemed to change.

If I ever set up a new system... I think feeding the fuge and focusing on it's development primarily for the first 2-6 months will be my priority over the DT. Maybe ;-) But I think focusing on establishing my refugium has made a huge impact for the positive on the system.

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And to wrap all this up. I found these last couple shots recently added to my album and will share them for Fishy1. Here are a couple pics I grabbed of the Acan at night. This thing looks like this about 15 hours a day! Any time reef roids, live phyto, or pretty much any small particulate food hits the tank we hardly see any flesh of the Acan. Just a giant ball of clearish feeding tentacles!!!

Oh, and sorry for the blown out exposure on the rock. I was lighting with a flashlight while I took the pictures. But the Acan tentacles look pretty sweet in this first shot!

You can probably also spot the sneaky skunk that showed up a few seconds later and got in the way in the first shot. lol
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OK, FINE!!! You win. Here is your moment in the spot light. LITERALLY!!!
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Well, there you have it. I just photo-bombed myself! If you can't tell, it was a slow day at the office ;-)

But there is a good general update of the state of things. I'll shoot some more photos this weekend to share the real state of affairs. I'm excited to share the fact you can see the rockwork in our DT again! lol

So now after my weekend of photo fun we will have a nice visual update of what is going on over here. Feel free to comment, give pointers, ideas, or suggestions if you have any thoughts on anything.

Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you all on the flip side! :beer:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, I did take a bunch of comparison pictures over the past weekend. I'm just not going to get around to update them right now.

But here's something to report that I'm happy about! I've been checking my Alk levels multiple times a week to try and get that stable and figured out. And for the last 3 weeks, my Alk has stayed between 7.8 and 7.4.

It slowly dropped down over a week as I tracked it and started to add small 2 part doses to bring it back up to 7.7 and added a little extra pickling lime to my 1/2 full ATO barrel. Since that little fluctuation at the beginning, It's tested right at 7.7 for the last week or two!!! :bounce1:

Here's hoping I can maintain this and keep it super stable for awhile! It might eliminate some of my concerns about the shape of the tank. Then again, a PAR meter might not hurt either :headwalls:

I haven't seen much improvement in many of my pieces that are struggling. In fact, some seem to have still gotten worse but are hanging on. That Seri frag I picked up to see if things were better then they appeared with the struggling corals seems to be doing good. It's skin color appears the same to me as when we first got it. :dance: Maybe even a darker more fleshy red/brown color on the furthest extremity branches and on top. A little pale in the base / center of the frag like it was when we brought it home. But still getting great bushy PE all day and it retracts back in at night.

So while I still feel discouraged because pieces we had and were doing well are struggling a bit more. I'm thinking it's continued grumpiness from my early screw ups. It is very encouraging to me that the new Seri still seems to be in good shape!

We also released the female Mandarin into the system. I was very sad to see how hungry she was! I feel bad... But she's in the DT now and is constantly hunting, sucking stuff off the rocks, and filtering what it doesn't want out through her gills. Looks like a dragon puffing steam out of it's throat :fish2: I can only hope the fuge and system can keep her happy and she starts to fatten up more. My QT regiment was tough on her. I'll do better on the male, now that I've learned some good lessons on my 1st attempt putting a Mandarin through a 5-6 week QT treatment. WHEW. It was tough and stressful, but she made it through. :dance:

 

[Fishy 1]

Sounds like it's coming along troub:thumbsup:

 

[troubadour11]

Sounds like it's coming along troub:thumbsup:

Yes and no.

- We're winning the war on GHA. Not much at all left in the DT. A few patches.

- I'm pretty sure the patches of cyano we get on the sand bed will need flow modifications to solve. It's been tough to get enough flow to keep cyano from showing up on the sand, but not make all the LPS get drilled by to much current. So I'll work on this over time. I can live with the bit of cyano. It's not invasive or really hurting anything from what I can tell. Just a bit unsightly. Long-term, I'm thinking of adding a strong DC powerhead that can be controlled by my Reef Angel. This would push across the upper 1/3 of the tank. Then maybe 1 or 2 much smaller DC pumps running from back-to-front on each corner of the tank to help iliminate the cyano on the sand bed by creating indirect flow down the front glass.

- We passed a big mile-stone on the tank this past week! We left our home for the weekend and had a friend stay to watch the doggie. I'm pleased to say the tank looked fine once we got home. So a safe 48 hours away for the first time :lol2:

- I didn't get to our 3 week water change since we were out of town. But we have RO/DI already run and waiting salt mix. So I'll get that change done soon. On the awesome side of all that. I checked SG (at 1.026) and Alk (7.7) this morning before I left. So we're looking good there, both of them have been MUCH more stable. Here's hoping we see some positive results soon from the stable conditions these past couple weeks :beer:

- I'm quite confused on diagnosing our corals. The Frogspawn is quickly disappearing no matter what we've tried. It was doing just fine for months, then GHA started growing on it's stalk... slowly after that started, it started shrinking. Despite us cleaning off the GHA with a soft brush, it's still receding no matter what. :-( Our Aussie Gold Torch is still extending but seems to be slightly bleaching now on the tips of it's tentacles :-/ But the Hammer right next to them is expanding fully under mid-day lights and seems to be just fine. The Zoas on the same rock are expanding and actually reaching for light (not hugging close to the rockwork) at the same time, just like the hammer. But the other 2 Euphyllia are having troubles and I can't figure out why. For now I tried to shadow the Frogspawn and Torch with a towel on my screen tops. But I don't get it. The Zoas and Hammer want more light, but the Torch and Frogspawn are appearing to be a bit temperamental about it?

- New Seri is still doing well. No changes for the worse, and still looks the same. So I think I'm doing something right according to that. :thumbsup: The only other SPS still hanging around is the Orange Digi. It still has some orange polyps on it's stalk. But it's not doing well at all... Just holding my breath it hangs on and eventually decides it can recover.

Can I take a vote... Your Digi has bleached and seems to have no skin really left in many places. However you can see polyps still alive and on rare occasions see them slightly extended. Much of the stalk has small amounts of green algae on it, it looks like. But the polyps in those areas are still alive despite the bit of algae on the skeleton between polyps. It got worse when I lowered it in the tank into less light and flow (thinking it needed less light to recover from bleaching). So I put it back where it was. Should I chance less flow and light because of bleaching? Or leave it where it is?

 

[markalot]

Hey Troub,

can you dim down your lights at all, especially the white channel? Mixed reef is tough. You need directed bright light up high but the frogspawn and some torches need lower light and somewhat lower flow.

I know some of the LED gurus are looking into the new Lime LED's to allow DIY LED fixtures to look much brighter, since our eyes really peak in lime light. Most T5 bulbs have a small peak in this area and it really raises the perceived brightness. It could be that while your light doesn't look too bright it's really throwing down some PAR into the tank?

I have to tell you though, I had no luck with frogspawn until I setup my little neglected 29, where I still lost one but the rest thrived. Hammers and torches seem a LOT easier. Now I have a frogspawn in my big tank that a BTA cozied up too and it's doing fine. :crazy1:

I'm also having a time with my orange digis at the moment, but my green one is going to town. A small bit I left in my 29 is more brown than orange but fuzzy and growing like crazy. Might be a nutrient issue?

 

[Bello]

Lotsa stuff going on Troub.... glad the tank passed the 48hr test though :thumbsup:

I don't have much experience with phyto, but my friend keeps some in a container, attached to the fuge (no water exchange though). Every couple days, he empties half of it into the system, and refills the container with aquarium water....seems to be chugging along so far... that's all I know of phyto

I'd leave the digi where it is... Excess light is certainly a possibility. You might wanna borrow that PAR meter if possible. Something seems off with your tank Troub, can't say what... maybe because its a new system, and needs more time to mature? As far as the LPS is concerned, make sure you don't have brown jelly. Additionally are you feeding much? Perhaps you've reduced feeding to contain the algal growth?

I'll put up a pic of the fuge as you wanted when I get some time, it's been really busy with my tank mess and some free extra life lessons

 

[troubadour11]

Hey Troub,

can you dim down your lights at all, especially the white channel? Mixed reef is tough. You need directed bright light up high but the frogspawn and some torches need lower light and somewhat lower flow.

I know some of the LED gurus are looking into the new Lime LED's to allow DIY LED fixtures to look much brighter, since our eyes really peak in lime light. Most T5 bulbs have a small peak in this area and it really raises the perceived brightness. It could be that while your light doesn't look too bright it's really throwing down some PAR into the tank?

I have to tell you though, I had no luck with frogspawn until I setup my little neglected 29, where I still lost one but the rest thrived. Hammers and torches seem a LOT easier. Now I have a frogspawn in my big tank that a BTA cozied up too and it's doing fine. :crazy1:

I'm also having a time with my orange digis at the moment, but my green one is going to town. A small bit I left in my 29 is more brown than orange but fuzzy and growing like crazy. Might be a nutrient issue?

- We definitely can dim our lighting. I have 2 DIY Rapid LED fixtures over the tank with 3 dimmable channels each (white/color, blue/uv, and a (2)blue/(2)uv moonlights). I have now dimmed my white/color channels back to 65% (from 85%) and the blue/uv are down to 90% (from 100%). A while back I had them at levels similar to this. But our zoas on the same rocks as the Euphyllia were, and still are, reaching for light. Their stalks are about 1/2 inch long each. I would have thought if all of these were struggling for light, I was ok slowly bumping them up. But the zoas are all opening up still at least, despite reaching some. I guess it's better they are open and reaching then the frogspawn disappearing and the torch showing some bleaching signs. Even though the hammer next to them is just fine :facepalm:

- I know what you're saying about the visible light spectrum and how our eyes perceive light. I definitely did my share of :reading: on that when planning my light set up. That is on reason why my white/color channel has a mix of clear white, a few neutral white, 1 deep red, 1 cyan, and 2 blue (if my memory is correct on those numbers). So I feel mixing in the cyan and blues definitely helped mix the look of those strings. But looks can definitely be deceiving with LEDs.

At least I've more or less eliminated Ca and Alk as an issue. Mg should be good as well. It's been between 1150 and 1300 typically. If it drops below 1200, I've been adding some supplement to keep it up a little higher.

Lotsa stuff going on Troub.... glad the tank passed the 48hr test though :thumbsup:

I don't have much experience with phyto, but my friend keeps some in a container, attached to the fuge (no water exchange though). Every couple days, he empties half of it into the system, and refills the container with aquarium water....seems to be chugging along so far... that's all I know of phyto

I'd leave the digi where it is... Excess light is certainly a possibility. You might wanna borrow that PAR meter if possible. Something seems off with your tank Troub, can't say what... maybe because its a new system, and needs more time to mature? As far as the LPS is concerned, make sure you don't have brown jelly. Additionally are you feeding much? Perhaps you've reduced feeding to contain the algal growth?

I'll put up a pic of the fuge as you wanted when I get some time, it's been really busy with my tank mess and some free extra life lessons

I wish I could get my phyto to work like that. That is a pretty awesome idea. So far I've been able to make mountain dew colored water out of pale watered down mountain dew colored starting water. lol. I'll have to try starting another batch and see if that one works better. Because I really do think dosing live phyto has helped my tank. Probably also added to fueling some our cyano on the sand bed too. But it's not to disturbing. Improved flow in the long run will solve that.

Ok, so I dimmed my LEDs as I mentioned above. I also have a towel folded over what is left of the Frogspawn and also shadowing the Torch and Ducan. Hopefully both of those moves help. I'm starting to think it was definitely to much PAR for the Frogspawn, Torch, and Duncan. But what do I know? They all went through the early fluctuations too. So it still could be residual effect a month or so later I guess?

And yes, I desperately need a PAR meter to map my tank. I definitely agree. I just definitely can't afford that addition right now. Even if I could, I think I'd upgrade my powerheads first. I guess I'll just have to error on the side of lower light for the time. Seems to be a better spot to miss then to much light. I thought I was going to be able to get on a list at a LFS to borrow their PAR meter. They told me I could. But every time I've asked about it since, they act like they don't know what I'm talking about. So I've given up there. I might check out a local club meeting and join up there so I can have access to their PAR meter and things. So I'm definitely working on it. Mapping the PAR values for my lights is one of my top priorities to figure out.

I'm fairly positive there is no brown jelly issue. I haven't been able to find ANY signs of damage or anything as the Frogspawn shrunk. So I feel it would be safe to bet it's flow or light related. The only "pest" that could have bothered it was some GHA growing on the stalk. But we've been trying to remove that consistently with a soft, old toothbrush.

We did reduce feeding when we were battling the GHA. But we are still feeding once a day for the fish. And usually Reef Roids once or twice a week (down from 3-5 times) targeted with a turkey baster and food. Along with target feeding the Sun Polyps 3 or 4 times a week with food when we feed the fish. Then usually once or twice a week we dose live phyto to the refugium and circulate it over night before turning back up the skimmer and UV sterilizer back on.

Thanks for the good thoughts and advice :thumbsup: Things left where they are at and lights = adjusted lower power :eek2:

And on that note... I'm ready for it to be the weekend already! :bum:

 

[troubadour11]

Also, I'd like to get some info on DC driven powerheads if anyone has recommendations based of experience. :idea:

One of my 1200 gph powerheads (JBJ Oceanstream) already broke! :mad2: I'm so sick of cheap quality crap packaged in expensive products!!! The screw piece on the end of the ball/socket broke off still screwed inside the powerhead when I was adjusting the flow angle. The cheap P.O.S. mount never holds it in position and slowly lowers over time, I had to keep adjusting it despite having tightened the mount to hold it in place.

So, if you were going to upgrade my flow. How would you do it? I'm primarily interested in DC driven powerheads since I can control possibly 2-4 powerheads through my Reef Angel. If I already have to replace a broken powerhead in less then a year, I might as well step it up to the better, programmable control functions like the Vortech's functions.

Since it's a mixed reef. I was thinking of adding 1 powerful powerhead running across the top length of the tank. With the powerhead mounted on the far end from the overflow pushing water back towards the overflow box. Then, because of the cyano we get at the bottom/front of the DT, I would consider 2 small DC powerheads mounted on the upper/back corner pushing water into and down the front glass. Thoughts, ideas, or recommendations? :idea:

Also, any thoughts on how to fix/modify the "broken" JBJ powerhead? It still works if I could find a way to re-mount it somehow. FYI... epoxy and superglue could not hold the weight of the powerhead from breaking off. :angryfire:

For now I have an inexpensive 600 gph, non-controllable, powerhead in the broken ones place and am still running the other JBJ powerhead on 10 second intervals opposite the 600 gph stream.

 

[markalot]

I just threw away a larger Korelia pump that broke at the little adjustment thing. Really ticks me off how cheap some of this stuff is, I certainly agree.

I own an MP10, 2 MP40's, 3 WP25's and 2 WP10's. I'm sold on the Jaebo pumps, they are high enough quality to be reliable and they are cheap. I also prefer the way the pump holder works because there's no thin piece of plastic that can snap off.

 

[Bello]

Sorry to hear about the PAR meter episode, a pity... TBH, I'm not entirely sure how useful the par meter is for detecting light below 440nm, I say that because my readings seem pretty low, but possibly because I have a bunch of 420nm's that aren't read well....dunno... just guessing....

I believe the Jebao's interface with the RA, so that could be an option. I personally use a few MP40's(bloody expensive), and a bunch of small non controllable Tunzes (reliable as ever!). I did buy a Jebao WP60 (got a good price), and used it for a bit but no more (too powerful!!!). So I'm not much help here .

I think biggles uses Tunzes and Jebaos. The Tunze 6095 also seems neat, though I don't know about control with the RA. Decisions, decisions, decisions

 

[troubadour11]

Thanks for the opinions and info on the powerheads.

Based off a bit of :reading:, price, and the recommendations, I'll probably be leaning towards adding a Jebao PH. If you were setting up a 90 gallon mixed reef, do you think you'd try WP25 over the WP40? I will probably only be adding 1 at this time and running it with my current single JBJ, adjustable x-seconds pulse PH. I was using the (2)-1600gph powerheads alternating on 10 second pulses.

I was thinking... it might be best to pick up 1-wp25 to start with. That way I could get it set up and see how it runs with my aquascape. From the sounds of reviews, the wp40 might be pretty powerful for a mixed reef maybe. So my thought was to start with the wp25, and see how it does. Then I could add a second wp25 or upgrade to a wp40 with a the original wp25 as a supplemental flow pattern later on.

One major plus (in my book) for the 2-wp25 set up is the size of the PH. There's a pretty big difference in tank space between the 25 and 40. Since we're attempting the mixed reef. I was thinking the 2 smaller PHs set up would be an advantage in both flow control and slim profile/tank space.

As bello mentioned, I can hook the wp25/40's up to my Reef Angel for an additional $25 cable each (adds a bit of cost)... or I can run them on the provided controller for the time. Bello, are you controlling your controllable PHs through your reef controller, or did you use the provided controller box? Advantages one way or the other? I guess I'm wondering why I would need to buy $25 cables to connect to my RA unit if their controller does the same thing out of the box.?.?.

I know what you're saying on the +/- range for a PAR meter with LEDs. Have you looked at this: http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/aquarium-par-meters/? I know this is specifically for the Apogee sensor. But it shows the range for each bandwidth it can measure. It says about a -10% as it gets down in that range. But I bet it would still be really useful to have access to a meter. I'm less concerned with a small +/- percentage. As long as I know I'm between certain levels in areas of my tank, it will drastically help to narrow down issues I believe. If I were richy, rich-rich. I'd just buy the Reef Angel PAR sensor for $275. But I think I'd rather find one to borrow every year or two for now and spend that money on PH upgrade or corals (once I get it all mapped out and don't bake them).

Thanks again for all the feedback. Let me know if anyone else has thoughts

 

[troubadour11]

Well, I pulled the trigger and have 2 Jebao wp25's on their way! :bounce2::bounce3:

I haven't ordered the integration stuff for our Reef Angel yet. That is probably the plan in the long run. I can pick up cables to hook them up and even a battery back-up supply for the power heads that can be tied in through the RA unit :fish1: Which is an extremely good idea to build into the system with the potential for power outages where we live.

I'm looking forward to setting this up. I think it will be a much better system for the DT. I can then move my old set up into the refugium to create some current in there. Even if it's only the 1 PH on an alternating timer. It will definitely help. Maybe I can figure out a harness from egg crate or something to hold the broken PH as well. Since it still works fine, other then the crappy broken mount. And then I'll get my little maxi-jet back for stirring up new saltwater and pumping it into the sump for water changes!

I'm also highly curious to see what the weekend might bring. . . :wildone:

I hope something cool :idea:

 

[Bello]

Ooohhhh, what do you have up your sleeve for the weekend?

The WP-25 seem to be the right choice :thumbsup:. Biggles was saying something about keeping them free of algae, else they loose their intensity...:reading:

I don't have any of my pumps rigged to my GHL, BTW. The controllable ones all have their own drivers, so why bother?

 

[troubadour11]

Ooohhhh, what do you have up your sleeve for the weekend?

The WP-25 seem to be the right choice :thumbsup:. Biggles was saying something about keeping them free of algae, else they loose their intensity...:reading:

I don't have any of my pumps rigged to my GHL, BTW. The controllable ones all have their own drivers, so why bother?

Well, it won't be hooking up my new powerheads :strooper: Those should show up sometime next week. How it takes a week to ship them from the same city I live in, I don't know. But the amazon distributor ships them from somewhere just outside LA.... but yet it still is going to take until next Thursday to receive them. Even though I got a shipping notice today?.?.?. Maybe they'll show up Saturday afternoon as a nice surprise and the shipping notice gives how long "it could take." :bum:

I've read a few people mention they get flow reduction on the wp25's if they don't keep them clean. So I'll keep an eye out for that once I get them running. :thumbsup: Thanks for the tip!

And as for my weekend plans. If I don't end up having to work, I'm not 100% sure what I'll be up to. But maybe some sneaking around me thinks :smokin: I wouldn't mind checking out what's around at the LFS. Maybe they'll be something that peaks my interest. I'd be open to maybe another acan if I come across one I really like. I'd be in the hunt for another type of stick to try out. My newest Seri seems to be doing well still at the 1 month mark. I'm sure keeping Alk stable around 7.7 has really helped. But who really knows. It depends what's available... I may check out a local club as well since their meetings are this weekend. Or I may be working :hmm4:

That's exactly why I was asking about the PHs hooked up to your controller. I couldn't come up with a huge reason to spend the extra $ to connect it since it comes with the controllers anyway. I guess I could program the RA unit to have them "talk" and work together to create current. But I think I'd really only spend the cost to hook it up if I need to in order to run a battery back-up on my powerheads in the long run. Time for some :reading: on that one. Not that my :reading: ever really stops anyway.

I hope the weekend treats everyone right! :beer:

 

[martinphillip03]

How has your tank reacted to your new lighting schedule?

Marty

 

[troubadour11]

How has your tank reacted to your new lighting schedule?

Marty

Hey Marty, thanks for checking in.

I still don't know what to make of it. The lighting change hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. Something is up, because the torch is continuing to be unhappy. The frogspawn barely has a small polyp left :angryfire: and I haven't seen the fungia open in awhile either!

But I've been at work all day and worked yesterday. So I'll get to watch the tank a big more closely today.

I've also been keeping a towel over the frogspawn and torch to further shade them a bit. I haven't noticed any change in the hammer or green birdsnest. They're both doing well still. Same with the couple blastos, a few mushrooms, and the unknown LPS piece are still doing fine.

The orange digi is doing it's same old unhappy thing. Has bleached mostly and has really thin green algae on it's stalk. Occasionally the florida cerith snails climb up and eat some of the algae off it. But mixed in among the green aglae, it has orange polyps that I really never see extended. But they are there. The frag hasn't really changed in a couple months since it first took the down turn. I thought it was going to die off. But it's fighting and still has the same amount of sucked in orange polyps as before. So, it's not doing great, but it's not dying either. :worried:

As soon as I put up this post, I'm off to do a 30-35 gallon water change on the system. We're a week late on that because we were out of town. I'm really hoping the water change will spark some life back into anything that's a bit unhappy. My Alk has been stable at 7.7 and Ca and Mg have been up in the correct ranges. So I'm hoping I can continue to keep things stable and finally see some positive results soon. :smokin: Time for some tank maintenance... :crazy1:

 

[martinphillip03]

Your nitrites or nitrates. Whatever is last

Marty

 

[troubadour11]

Well, that was a busy yesterday afternoon digging around in the reef. I accomplished the 30-35 gallon water change and some other maintenance.

In the process of that, I attempted to clean out the refugium some. With the power head breakage and having to remove the MJ-600 PH from the fuge, it was suffering from some stagnant flow and needed a good cleaing. If I can't grow macro-algae in there, at least I sure can grow me some micro-aglae!

So, I got in there, hooked up a siphon hose into a filter sock in the sump (by-passing the drilled overflow drain for the time) and "harvested" as much of the micro-algae as the mesh sock could grab for removal. A turkey baster cleaned off the rocks and sand nicely, and then I gave the glass a good scrubbing. I can now see in there again for the time. I did grab a few pictures of the work over the weekend that I can share at the end here.

I got up this morning and did some chemical testing to see how things leveled out after the water change.

Happy to report the usual:
SG = 1.026
Temp = 81.1 - I would like this a bit lower, but it's hovered between 79.8 and 81.1 consistently throughout the summer over here so far.
API PH = 8.1/8.2 - stable as always.

Salifert Alk = 7.7 - Still rock solid there, even after a water change it was the same!
Salifert Ca = 440
Red Sea Mg = 1080 - A tad bit low again here, even post water change. I will dose to bring it back up slightly closer to 1200+ levels. It looks like I may need to start weekly Mg doses to maintain 1200+ now. Water changes seem to keep it slightly lower then that. But I've never seen it lower then 1000.

And since Marty asked:

API NO3 (post water change) = 5-10ppm - definitely not above 10.

I did not test for nitrite and haven't been monitoring it anymore really. I occasionally test for it in the QT when we are running hypo. But I've never shown any traces of Ammonia or Nitrite in the full system since I initially cycled it. I can test if the consensus is that it could be the issue with the corals since it's a quick test. I just ran out of time before I needed to hit the road into work this morning.

Currently no PO4 test, but we can assume there are medium levels at least due to the NO3 levels and micro algae that grows in the fuge.

While cleaning the tank, I gently repositioned the fungia back under the archway to give it more shade. Since the frogspawn took the downturn, and now the torch & fungia are hiding, I wanted to make sure it was shadowed more for the time. I'm also still keeping a towel above the torch, hoping that will help. :mad2:

Unfortunately, I ended up having to work over the weekend. So the water change and testing is all I got accomplished. Well, that and a bit of time observing the DT on Sunday afternoon, post water change. It's still a blast to watch the pistol shrimp and YWG since they paired up!!!

And that also means no sneaky surprises or fun stuff since I didn't make it to the LFS's.

By the way, I'm taking votes for the next fish to QT!?!? We are going to postpone adding the male mandarin for a little bit. I'm going to work on fattening up the female more and let the system adjust to her addition before we attempt to add another to the mix. So we're on the hunt for another friendly reef dweller that will mix with a firefish, YWG, 2 clowns, and mandarins. I'm still thinking a school of blue-eyed cardinals, or similar at some point. Not on this addition though. Also, a yellow-eye Kole tang is still on the list towards the end right now. Wrasse's are probably out of the mix (due to pod competition with mandarins).

Right now, I'm considering going with a solitary Royal Gramma to add a splash of bright purple to the tank. Thoughts or ideas? :idea:

 

[troubadour11]

Sorry if I'm rambling away here. I'm waiting for my pictures to finish uploading. The 2 new WP-25's should be delivered today! Looks like the shipping notice is a bit off. They are currently "out for delivery!" So my tank will be getting a slight flow modification very soon. This wasn't really planned and kind of annoys me having to change another variable in the tank right now. But I feel adding these will be an improvement in the overall waterflow of the DT in the long run. And my hand was kind of forced since the old PH broke. Consequently, the fuge got an update to it's flow as well. I rigged up a simple hack to hold the broken powerhead in place in the fuge. So now there is a nice swirling, constant on current in the fuge from the broken PH. The flow in there looks much nicer now and will get better again when the new wp-25's are added and I can move the 2nd JBJ-PH into the fuge.

Working in the fuge...

At the start of cleaning. 1 Rock cleaned, the rest of the tank to go...
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down the front glass.
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top down
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siphon drain by-pass into filter sock set up
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Post cleaning and currently a nice sandstorm
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So using the glass lid, overflow/drain box, and the constant on current from the PH, the broken one stays nicely in place for now creating a nice swirling motion throughout the entire fuge!
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And that is all I have to update on for now. Please let me know if there are any tips that may help me improve things. But I'm at least happy that my chemical levels are becoming fairly stable. :thumbsup: So continuing to head in a good direction I think. Still a little discouraging that my water quality has theoretically gotten better and WAY more stable over the last 3 months, but 50% of the corals have gotten worse. All while the other 50% seem to be just fine... :crazy1: