drummereef's 180g in-wall build

Hey Brett, I dont mean to derail your thread but a quick question if I may. I remember when you were setting up your tank you were a little back and forth on how to plumb your manifold. Now that you've been through it and lived with it for a while, do have any advice or tips you can give me on do's and donts. Thanks
 
aquaph8 said:
Hey Brett, I dont mean to derail your thread but a quick question if I may. I remember when you were setting up your tank you were a little back and forth on how to plumb your manifold. Now that you've been through it and lived with it for a while, do have any advice or tips you can give me on do's and donts. Thanks
Click to expand...

Derails welcome, I've been a boring host lately. :D

So far so good with the manifold design. I don't really have any complaints at this point. The only thing that could be perfected would be to avoid the proverbial air bubble burps when turning on the return pump, but that's not really an issue to me. I cheaped out the first time around and used lower quality ball valves so I ended up getting some George Fischer valves from Savco a few months ago and they are awesome. Super smooth action. Other than that it does what it's supposed to do. ;)

As far as do's and dont's... Just use teflon tape on the threaded nipples. I tried using teflon paste when I first put it together thinking it would put less pressure on the valve threads, turned out to be a huge mess. It was water tight, just messy as heck. When I replaced the ball valves with the George Fischers I used tape. No leaks and no mess. :)
 
Question for everyone... :confused:

Since I upgrade the lighting to the new Phoenix bulbs I've seen an increase in Dinos (if my ID is even correct). I didn't really have any to speak of before the bulb change but it's just now starting to effect the gorgonian, as you can see in the pic below. The corals and fish are fine. Weird thing is, it is mostly attracted to the plastic in the tank like the overflows and pumps. There's a tiny bit in one area of the sand bed and a small amount on the glass - almost none on the rocks.

Nothing major but wondering if it's due to the lighting change and do you think it will go away on it's own?


Dinos.jpg~original
 
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Upon further inspection I'm not totally convinced it's dinos. It may just be a variant of cyano. Hopefully it will just pass as the tank get's used to the new lights.
 
What is your Ph?? if it's not 8.5 raise it! Of course slowly but.. I had a major outbreak. It started showing up on the power heads, overflow (plastic? see similarity?). Some minor on sand. Then turned to whale snot on everything :(. I raised Ph above 8.5 and it slowly faded to black. Now if I let it drop I see them start again so I try to keep at 8.4 or above. JMHO :)

I just saw your second post.... if so disregard mine ;)
 
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Kinda funny but I got exactly the same thing in my tank and I just switched from phoenix 14k to radium 20ks. I've got some on my rock work too. Been watching it and it doesn't seem to be spreading any more. My ph according to my reefkeeper is between 8.09 and 8.19. I'm sure if we changed suns in the solar system it might mess with the oceans too lol.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk
 
Nanook said:
Probably the increase in lighting.
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Gonna gree with Nook here. I'm not sure that's Dino's at all. From everything I've seen Dino's is substantially darker. You have to realize you went from a 20k light to a 14k light so you are running a different spectrum...so different things may happen now as far as algae.

How much mb7/bacteria are you dosing at this point? After talking/reading some more I'm finally convinced I HAVE to keep dosing bacteria with the pellets or I'll just compound problems, #1 being cyano.
 
Thanks guys! I'll take your word for it that it's not dinos and is just from the lighting change. I've been watching it closely and it doesn't seem to be getting worse. Hopefully it will correct itself within a couple water changes. Thanks! :)
 
cromedogg33 said:
How much mb7/bacteria are you dosing at this point? After talking/reading some more I'm finally convinced I HAVE to keep dosing bacteria with the pellets or I'll just compound problems, #1 being cyano.
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Currently I'm not dosing any MB7. I am however dosing Zeo Bio-Mate and now Special Blend. I ran out a little while ago and haven't picked up some replacement. What specifically about MB7 have you heard it's necessary to dose?
 
Not MB7 exactly just any of the MB7 type bacteria. Just while having pellets online I've been following some threads where they are using it to keep a bacterial balance. As soon as people stop to little/much they get bad algae outbreaks.

I'm dosing ~12 drops a day and am noticing my cyano just dissapearing. I'm still confused though, where does the bacteria go? The skimmer takes some out I believe, but the bacteria is colonized I thought? Why would we have to keep doing so?
 
cromedogg33 said:
I'm still confused though, where does the bacteria go? The skimmer takes some out I believe, but the bacteria is colonized I thought? Why would we have to keep doing so?
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Excellent question Josh. And one that I probably am not qualified to answer. :lol: But, I think a lot of the dosing we do isn't to keep the pellets colonized, but to keep the overall system bacterially in balance. This means bacteria that colonizes the substrate and rocks. Like I said before some bacteria products require available carbon sources in the water column like ZEObak, some don't like ZEO Bio-Mate (and possibly MB7). The ones that don't will colonize and reproduce in the substrate and rocks. Other's will find available carbon sources like the bio pellets. Apparently ZEObak is a bacteria that won't reproduce unless there is an available carbon source in the water column like vinegar or vodka or ZEOstart etc... I don't know, however, if MB7 requires a carbon source freely available in the water column or truly colonize on the pellets for that matter. Maybe someone can chime in on that. ;)
 
Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates recently... Busy with work and doing a little remodeling around the house has kept me preoccupied. :( But, I'm still moving forward with the reef. :) The "dinos" are about the same as last reported. I'm low on salt right now so I'm kind of forcing myself to try the "no water change" cure for dinos. I've read a lot of people have success eradicating them if they are essentially starved of trace elements. No lights and high pH are hit and miss from what I've seen but do work for some. So, I'm currently on week 2 of no water changes. I'll keep an eye on organics and nutrient levels during this period. I'm also due for a FTS so I'll see if I can get that up in a day or 2. :)
 
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