Daniel's RSM 250 SPS tank

[nemodan]

Here the green pocillopora lost many branches, but stop there. I will see if I can cut the dead ones next weekend.

The purple one has 2-3 weeks old and was immediately affected. I am sure he will not make it. I am very disappointed , it is a pretty coral.




Well.... no more for this weekend !!!

Cheers to All and thank you for,all your positive feedback.

All the best.... and happy reefing.
Daniel

 

[plyle02]

Daniel,
It looks like you are most certainly on track again, maybe the herd needed to be thinned. Great job! Cannot wait to see the tank in a few months!
Cheers

 

[nemodan]

Daniel,
It looks like you are most certainly on track again, maybe the herd needed to be thinned. Great job! Cannot wait to see the tank in a few months!
Cheers

Thank you Perry !!! Every day I am learning from you and many others here at the forum.

Daniel

 

[nemodan]

Thank you Mark !!



I was able to reduce the Alk from 9 to 7 by stopping the dosing pumps (1 unit per day was the tank consumption). Tonight dosing pumps will be on and let see if the dosing compensate the use and the Alk stays at ~7 dkh.

Yesterday with Alk at 8 dkh, CA was at 450 ppm and Mg at 1300 ppm. I am waiting a new Mg test kit (salifert). Mine is Red Sea and has 2 months expired . I got an Elos new and was giving 1050 ppm. I will wait the Salifert and stick with 1 brand. Let see next weekend.

I will be in a business trip in Germany this week. So my wife (she is a Saint) will be feeding tanks and testing Alk to see if this new dosing schedule keeps Alk at 7 dkh. If needed I can increase or decrease the dosing with the phone (Apex).

Cheers
Daniel

Update from the other side of the ocean .... LOL.

As I wrote above , after 2 days of the dosing pumps off, I saw a 1 dkh consumption per day.

On Sunday nigth the tank was at 7 dkh. Went to the reef chemistry calculator online, entered the total water volume and that I am using B-ionic. The calculator told me that to increase 1 dkh I need to add 42 ml of B-ionic to my water volume. I decided to program the dosing pumps to add 39 ml (just in case) from midnight till 5 pm.





My wife measured Alk Monday and Tuesday night, at 8 pm and was at 7.3 dkh each day ....HURRAY.

I am adding what the corals use per day. Let see if I can keep this alk level constant as well as any other parameter. Provide again stability to the tank.


Cheers
Daniel

 

[reefmutt]

Very cool, Dan!
I don't want you to come home to another disaster.
You don't deserve it!

 

[nemodan]

Very cool, Dan!
I don't want you to come home to another disaster.
You don't deserve it!

Well Matt..... arrived home and one of the SSC colonies was half dead. Cut all the dead part, superglue the area and is again in the tank.

There are more corals suffering that wasn't expressing that damage last week.

I just lost all my energies and hope on this tank. It had his glory for some months. Now is gone. I am losing interest on it.

 

[reefmutt]

Oh boy... Steady, Dan!!
How are the test corals doing??
Keep looking at those.
(I'm crossing my fingers that the new test corals are doing well..)

 

[nemodan]

Looks like an eternity that I have not updated this thread and is juts like a little over a month but I hope you all understand my frustration. When I started posting at RF (first page of the thread) a was recovering from a crash. All was on wheels and then another. I will not try to find the "why this happens again" but I am sure that all started with my idea of changing salt, having an important electric outage... etc, etc, etc. The lesson learned is: DANIEL DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING WHEN ALL IS WORKING. . I hope having it in capital letters and bold will remember me to follow what i just wrote.



Let me start with the tank as it was posted in posting 202 (January 2016) on this thread.



Now today's tank:












You can see colors are not vibrant and many colonies have gone !!!!!

I will continue.......

 

[nemodan]

Now I will start with the consequence of whatever happens in my tank.

With exception of the dead colony that have a pen over it, all the others were the so pretty pictures I was posting:



These are the last 2 colonies that died. The left was a test colony. the right one a pollicipora that grew from a small colony during the last 2 years (survived the first cash). The pen provides idea of the size.



I will continue.......

 

[nemodan]

So now the I hope good news:

I am battling again to reduce P and N. Some weeks ago they were at:

P 0.25
N 50

I reduced the fish food to half and emptied my 4 media reactors (they the big size) on salt water, washed all the detritus accumulated among the stones, refilled and again in business. They were pretty dirty.....a LOT DIRTY !!!... I used them for several months, probably nearby 6-8 months without any pre-filtration. Some months ago I added a big fitter sponge to each pump. But what was inside stayed there.

After the food reduction and cleaning of matrix reactors (3 weeks ago) my parameters are:

P 0.2
N 25-50 An intermediate color on Salifert kit.

Looks like is going in the correct direction.

About alk, I was able to keep it for the last month and a half stable at ~ 7.5. Suddenly it started to go down in the last 2 weeks and yesterday was at 6.8 dkh. I take this as a good signal that coral are starting to be a little happy. So I increased in 2 ml my dosing.

Yea.... what is 2 ml ? you are probably thinking that is too small amount. I am using B-ionic and if you think I was dosing ~ 80 ml (if memory is correct) and went down to 37 ml/ day...... wow... lot of corals dying. Now i went to 39 ml >>HURRAY !!

I still keep my 15% WEEKLY WC. Always with the refugium there and connected to it the 4 media reactors with Matrix Plus i added last weekend another with Siporax.


Lets post some pictures.............

 

[nemodan]

All taken from the side of the tank, colors are poor due to high nutrients and I have a new phone that do not take the same quality of pictures as my old Note 4 independently that experts says it is better (S7) ......probably its me


From my first crush a frag survived from a big colony.....and went through this new disaster, but here he is:





Added ~2 month ago... starting to have growing tips


All survivors.... unless I provide some detail:



a SSC


Added ~ 2 moths ago


One of The rescued frags from my BIG ZOA EATER Read Planet (you guys remeber the pictures of that thread)


Another frag of the same Red Planet

 

[nemodan]

This survived the first crash as a small colony. Grew a lot and now is struggling to stay there.



This green Acro went to a ordeal. Was a small colony 2 years ago. RTN so fragged and glued it to a stone. The frags grew, fuse and went now through 2 crashed and is still there ...HURRAY ..... he was 1 of the first 3 Acros I introduced in July of 2013 !!!! in my new SPS 13 G tank
I can't take a full picture from the side. but is a very nice size colony and healthy !!!



The one in the middle is a survivor also from that first 13G tank from around November 2013. Grew, then was reduced to almost nothing and now one of those small frag is growing again....HURRAY



This big guy never stopped growing. Is going slow now, but is always growing. It has 2 branches out of the water.



The green slimer is doing the same as in the last crash....all tips burned (zoom picture). But is alive and I am sure will come back. I will need to cut those tips.


SSC


????

 

[nemodan]

~ 2 moths old, encrusting !!


First test Acro bought when colonies started to died........still alive and growing.....but TOO SLOW !!! I meant I believe is growing ...


This Plating Red Planet has something between 1-2 months in the tank (I posted when I added). Have been encrusting since then ..... HURRAY !!


One of the two SSC colonies..... there other left only a half inch frag that is in the refugium and alive.



New..~2 months old.... I do not know what it is, but started to encrust.


Encrusting...HURRAY


Less than a month old and encrusting




For now this is all my fellow reefers.

All the best
Daniel

 

[glaukos]

Very beautiful pics dan,thanks for sharing!
Corals look nice and healthy:beer:

How do you keep mushrooms under control?

 

[nemodan]

Very beautiful pics dan,thanks for sharing!
Corals look nice and healthy:beer:

How do you keep mushrooms under control?

Thank you !!!!

When I can .... in other words if I am able to reach them..... I use a scalpel. Cut them on the base or in pieces and take out off the tank the pieces.

Daniel

 

[glaukos]

I have a friend who has them in his tank and those @@$'s always come back!
No matter how much scraping we do or even dig and remove parts of the rock!
They kill a couple of digis that come in contact with them.
Do they harm any of the your corals?

 

[nemodan]

I have a friend who has them in his tank and those @@$'s always come back!
No matter how much scraping we do or even dig and remove parts of the rock!
They kill a couple of digis that come in contact with them.
Do they harm any of the your corals?

Yes...they did. They touched the base of a nice Acro colony and all the tissue died in that area. The colony keep growing until I kill it.....faster than the mushroom......grrrr.

Yes, If I could have a time machine I will go back in time and trash that rock. Now is too late.

Fortunately they decided now to spread down the rock and the back tank wall.

They killed the section(s) that they were able to touch. But the rest of the acro was good.

Daniel

 

[markalot]

Sorry for the losses but I think the tank still looks good. My slimer did the exact same thing but is now starting to grow like crazy again, finally! Can't wait to see things in a few months.

 

[nemodan]

You can see the mushroom colony how it is spreading on this picture.

 

[nemodan]

Sorry for the losses but I think the tank still looks good. My slimer did the exact same thing but is now starting to grow like crazy again, finally! Can't wait to see things in a few months.

Thank you Mark !!!!

I though you were already on vacation.

Cheers
Daniel