Englishrebel's 260 Gallon System Build
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tonyespinoza
Premium Member
FYI - I have about 200lb of Eco Rox from BRS and it took a long time to cure. By cure, I mean soaking in RO/DI to get all the phosphates out. Using a deltec kit, it always had measurable PO4 until I got to changing the RO water every week for about 2 months. Probably could have done it faster if I replaced the water every couple days. This was the case with two separate batches of Eco Rox. Point being, it might be good to run a PO4 test (Deltec is the only one that I've personally found reliable. I have a hanna meter too, but only use it if the Deltec tells me there's an issue.)
I'm not so sure T<sup>2</sup>, one of the major drawbacks of Ca reactor it that they tend to decrease pH as they usually add CO<sub>2</sub> into the tank if not carefully adjusted.
Alan,
I'd let things take their course. Give it some time and see if the pH doesn't increase as the tank ages. Making too many adjustments on a new tank is like attending a meeting of, not so civil, engineers planning a new bridge. Each one has a minor adjustment from the original plan, that if not followed, will cause it to collapse.
Alan,
I'd let things take their course. Give it some time and see if the pH doesn't increase as the tank ages. Making too many adjustments on a new tank is like attending a meeting of, not so civil, engineers planning a new bridge. Each one has a minor adjustment from the original plan, that if not followed, will cause it to collapse.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14943204#post14943204 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EnglishRebel
Well Sylvester and Tweetie (NO, I did not name them my 5 year old granddaughter did) are now in their new home. The are swimming at one end looking at their reflections in the end glass (does that mean they're vain)? :rollface:
Their spots from the zoos in the LFS tank (dumb place to keep them) are starting to clear up. I was in the LFS on Monday and they have moved the zoos out.
I moved all the corals from the downstairs tanks into the display tank this morning. I also dosed some PH buffer as mine was 7.45 despite almost 160 gallons of new SW added when I filled the tank. I dosed in three batches an it's now up to 7.88. I'm going to do it gradually and also keep an eye on the dKH as I don't want it to go above 6.0.
I see someone has been shopping at ac of NC.
It's a great store. I go there quiet often.Yes Tom that could happen...If your not using a Ph controller.
I tried running without one - not worth the effort.
But with a good controller, AND - the cheap and simple addition of a non-pressurized 2nd chamber( ultra simple) that all the effluent/processed water flows thru, never a problem. Ph remains stable, and calcium and Kh as well.
Of course - he could always resort to a powered reverse undergravel filter (hell - I am on your list anyway...I could not help it!):rollface:
T
I tried running without one - not worth the effort.
But with a good controller, AND - the cheap and simple addition of a non-pressurized 2nd chamber( ultra simple) that all the effluent/processed water flows thru, never a problem. Ph remains stable, and calcium and Kh as well.
Of course - he could always resort to a powered reverse undergravel filter (hell - I am on your list anyway...I could not help it!):rollface:
T
Paul tells me that a RUGF will take care of ANY of a tank's problems, including low/high pH.
Not on my list but watch out for Paul.
EnglishRebel
Retired Rebel Reefer
Tony
I'm not going the calcium reactor route (even though Frank makes excellent ones
) -- I'm going with balling lite. I have the BRS two part (well three really) Alk, Calc, and Mag which I can dose with my Profilux triple pump unit.<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14971061#post14971061 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
I'm not so sure T<sup>2</sup>, one of the major drawbacks of Ca reactor it that they tend to decrease pH as they usually add CO<sub>2</sub> into the tank if not carefully adjusted.
Alan,
I'd let things take their course. Give it some time and see if the pH doesn't increase as the tank ages. Making too many adjustments on a new tank is like attending a meeting of, not so civil, engineers planning a new bridge. Each one has a minor adjustment from the original plan, that if not followed, will cause it to collapse.
Tom
I think you're right. I'm having another mini cycle at the moment (brown diatoms on the snd and what appears to be brown hair algae on the rock).
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14971279#post14971279 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by icedgxe
I see someone has been shopping at ac of NC.
Yes but I wish they hadn't put them in the tank with zoo frags (they have now removed the frags). The black "burn marks" are fading (faster on the female). AC of NC does run a good store though. I was at Pet & Hobby on Reynolda this week and they have a new guy there (at least I think he's new as I hadn't seen him there before) and he seems quite knowledgeable.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14972332#post14972332 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
Paul tells me that a RUGF will take care of ANY of a tank's problems, including low/high pH.
Tom
RUGF.........hm that's a thought. Do I also need beer bottles? :lol:
EnglishRebel
Retired Rebel Reefer
Jeff
Does that mean I have to cancel my order with Drs. Foster & Smith for those six Scopas Tangs?
I think I have to cut back on my lighting as I have them on from 10:00 to 10:00.
Alan...It is TIM...not Tony.
What a "mixed metapohor" you are ! You certainly have taken of every other technology to provide STABLE conditions for the tank.... but insist on a relatively manual approach to the ph/kh/alk portion via "balling"....
Perhaps I need more education on "balling" (applause in the background is the wife....)
I suppose we all have our "ticks" and "isms" about this hobby. And the funny thing is - most of them will work IF you adhere to the required regimen needed to fully utilize them, and IF you are consistent.
That is why the popularity of calcium reactors has grown to become as popular as they are with larger systems..... They can provide constant, and consistent results. With less fuss than dosing so many different individual products.
I have run calcium reactors on systems for 8 years, with only a change of media needed every few months ( usually 2-3 times a year). There are trace elements in the media in calcium that you may not be able to replenish with other methods at the rate/ratio as found in nature.
Just my opinion.......but they work, and work well year in and year out if you understand how to use them.
T
What a "mixed metapohor" you are
! You certainly have taken of every other technology to provide STABLE conditions for the tank.... but insist on a relatively manual approach to the ph/kh/alk portion via "balling"....Perhaps I need more education on "balling" (applause in the background is the wife....)
I suppose we all have our "ticks" and "isms" about this hobby. And the funny thing is - most of them will work IF you adhere to the required regimen needed to fully utilize them, and IF you are consistent.
That is why the popularity of calcium reactors has grown to become as popular as they are with larger systems..... They can provide constant, and consistent results. With less fuss than dosing so many different individual products.
I have run calcium reactors on systems for 8 years, with only a change of media needed every few months ( usually 2-3 times a year). There are trace elements in the media in calcium that you may not be able to replenish with other methods at the rate/ratio as found in nature.
Just my opinion.......but they work, and work well year in and year out if you understand how to use them.
T
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EnglishRebel
Retired Rebel Reefer
Tony
That's interesting. Where would the phosphates come from? Would this have any effect on the PH? I just checked my PO4 and get no detectable reading, but as WaterKeeper has often said the algae are consuming it as fast as it's being released/produced so a low reading doesn't mean you don't have phosphates.
tonyf
New member
I'm with you JRF ... jumping ahead too far. There's a long way to go still. The following narrative from Eric Borneman includes some useful information in this regard.
Hi Eric, I was hoping you could help me to understand better what it means for a system to "mature" or "become established". Hobbyists (me included) are always saying not to keep that sps or this anenome for a least a year until your system has matured. What exactly are the differences between a tank which finished cycling a month ago and one that finished cycling 11 months ago? Does it have to do with water parameters being more stable? Does it have to do with natural food availability? Does "tank maturity" pertain more to those who utilize a DSB, because it takes 6 months for a DSB to become functional ?
Tank maturity seems to be even more of an issue without the sand bed. The sand bed just takes some time to get enough nutrients in it to sustain populations and stratify into somewhat stable communities and become functional. So, here's the tank reason, and then I'll blow into some ecology for you. When you get a tank, you start with no populations of anything. You get live rock to form the basis of the biodiversity - and remember that virtually everything is moderated by bacteria and photosynthesis in our tanks. So liverock is the substrate for all these processes, and also has a lot of life on it. How much depends on a lot of things.
Mostly, marine animals and plants don’t like to be out of water for a day at a time...much less the many days to sometimes a week that often happens. So, assuming you are not using existing rock from a tank, or the well-treated aquacultured stuff, you have live rock that is either relatively free of anything alive to begin with, or you have live rock with a few stragglers and a whole lot of stuff dying or about to die because it won’t survive in the tank. Some, if not most, rock exporters have a “curing process†that gets rid of a lot of the life to begin with and some of this is to keep it from dying and fouling further, but some of it would have lived if treated more carefully.
From the moment you start, you are in the negative. Corallines will be dying, sponges, dead worms and crustaceans and echinoids and bivalves, many of which are in the rock and you won't ever see. Not to mention the algae, cyanobacteria, and bacteria, most of which is dehydrated, dead or dying, and will decompose. This is where the existing bacteria get kick started. Bacteria grow really fast, and so they are able to grow to levels that are capable of uptaking nitrogen within...well, the cycling time of a few weeks to a month or so. The “starter bacteria†products give me a chuckle. Anyone with a passing knowledge of microbiology would realize that for a product to contain live bacteria in a medium that sustains it would quickly turn into a nearly solid mass of bacteria, and if the medium is such that it keeps them inactive, then the amount of bacteria in a bottle is like adding a grain of salt to the ocean compared to what is going to happen quickly in a tank with live rock in it.
However, if you realize the doubling time of these bugs, you would know that in a month, you should have a tank packed full of bacteria and no room for water. That means something is killing or eating bacteria. Also realize that if you have a tank with constant decomposition happening at a rate high enough to spike ammonia off the scale, you have a lot of bacteria food...way more than you will when things stop dying off and decomposing. So, bacterial growth may have caught up with the level of nitrogen being produced, but things are still dying...you just test zero for ammonia because there are enough bacteria present to keep up with the nitrogen being released by the dying stuff. It does not necessarily mean things are finished decomposing or that ammonia is not being produced.
Now, if things are decomposing, they are releasing more than ammonia. Guess what dead sponges release? All their toxic metabolites. Guess what else? All their natural antibiotic compounds which prevents some microbes from doing very well. Same with the algae, the inverts, the cyano, the dinoflagellates, etc. They all produce things that can be toxic â€"œ and sometimes toxic to things we want, and sometimes to things we don’t want. So, let's just figure this death and decomposition is going take a while.
OK, so now we have a tank packed with some kinds of bacteria, probably not much of others. Eventually the death stops. Now, what happens to all that biomass of bacteria without a food source? They die. Some continue on at an equilibrium level with the amount of nutrients available. And, denitrification is a slow process. Guess what else? Bacteria also have antibiotics, toxins, etc. all released when they die. But, the die-off is slow, relative to the loss of nutrients, and there is already a huge population, and yet you never test ammonia. "The water tests fine.†But, all these swings are happening. Swings of death, followed by growth until limited, then death again, then nutrients available for growth, and then limitation and death. But, every time, they get less and less, but they keep happening â€"œ even in mature tanks. Eventually, they slow and stabilize.
What's left? A tank with limited denitrification (because its slow and aerobic things happen fast) and a whole lot of other stuff in the water. Who comes to the rescue and thrives during these cycles? The next fastest growing groups...cyanobacteria, single celled algae, protists, ciliates, etc. Then they do their little cycle thing. And then the turf algae take advantage of the nutrients (the hair algae stage). Turfs get mowed down by all the little amphipods that are suddenly springing up because they have a food source. Maybe you've bought some snails by now, too, or a fish. And the fish dies, of course, because it may not have ammonia to contend with, but is has water filled with things we can't and don't test for...plus, beginning aquarists usually skimp on lights and pumps initially, and haven't figured out that alkalinity test, so pH and O2 are probably swinging wildly at this point.
So, the algae successions kick in, and eventually you have a good algal biomass that handles nitrogen, produces oxygen through photosynthesis, takes up the metabolic CO2 of all the other heterotrophs you can’t see, the bacteria have long settled in and also deal with nutrients, and the aquarium keeper has probably stopped adding fish for a spell because they keep dying. Maybe they started to visit boards and read books and get the knack of the tank a bit. They have probably also added a bunch of fix-it-quick chemicals that didn’t help any, either. Also, they are probably scared to add corals that would actually help with the photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, or they have packed in corals that aren't tolerant of those conditions.
About a year into it, the sand bed is productive and has stratified, water quality is stable, and the aquarist has bought a few more powerheads, understands water quality a bit, corallines and algae, if not corals and other things are photosynthesizing well, and the tank is "mature." That's when fish stop dying when you buy them (at least the cyanide free ones) and corals start to live and grow and I stop getting posts about "I just bought a coral and its dying and my tank is two months old" and they start actually answering some questions here and there instead of just asking questions (though we should all always be asking questions, if not only to ourselves!).
So, ecologically, this is successional population dynamics. Its normal, and it happens when there is a hurricane or a fire, or whatever. In nature though, you have pioneer species that are eventually replaced by climax communities. We usually try and stock immediately with climax species. And find it doesn't always work.
Now, the "too mature" system is the old tank syndrome. Happens in nature, too. That whole forest fire reinvigorating the system is true. Equally true on coral reefs where the intermediate disturbance hypothesis is the running thought on why coral reefs maintain very high diversity...they are stable, but not too stable, and require storms, but not catastrophic ones....predation, but not a giant blanket of crown of thorns, mass bleaching, or loss of key herbivores.
This goes to show what good approximations these tanks are of mini-ecosystems. Things happen much faster in tanks, but what do you expect given the bioload per unit area. So, our climax community happens in a couple years rather than a couple of centuries. Thing is, I am fully convinced that intermediate tank disturbance would prevent old tank syndrome.
My advice on starting tanks is to plan the habitat you want. Find the animals and corals you like. Learn about the tiny area of the reef you will try and recreate, and do not try to make a whole coral reef in one tank. Then, purchase the equipment required to emulate that environment. Then, add the appropriate types of substrate (sand, rubble, rock, whatever) and wait long after “your tank water tests fine†before you add fish and corals. First, add herbivores and maintain water quality. Water changes, carbon, skimming, alkalinity, calcium. Keep the water of high quality, even for things you can’t test for. Wait a few months and enjoy the growth that will happen. Then, add some of the species that you plan to keep….invertebrates and corals. They help create the environment, and also photosynthesize, add biodiversity, stabilize nutrients, etc. Then….then….add fish. The fish will have a reef as their new home. They won’t be stressed by this variable bouilllabaise of water and a strange habitat that keeps changing as things are added or die. They will have a stable tank with real habitat, and then the original concept you imagined will have happened.
_____________________
Eric Borneman, Feb 2006
tonyespinoza
Premium Member
Tony
That's interesting. Where would the phosphates come from? Would this have any effect on the PH? I just checked my PO4 and get no detectable reading, but as WaterKeeper has often said the algae are consuming it as fast as it's being released/produced so a low reading doesn't mean you don't have phosphates. [/QUOTE]
i would assume that somehow phosphates were trapped in my BRS rock either from organisms that died there or through other processes.
if you get no detectable PO4 with a good kit with the lights off, then it should be a pretty good indicator that you're in the clear!
That's interesting. Where would the phosphates come from? Would this have any effect on the PH? I just checked my PO4 and get no detectable reading, but as WaterKeeper has often said the algae are consuming it as fast as it's being released/produced so a low reading doesn't mean you don't have phosphates. [/QUOTE]
i would assume that somehow phosphates were trapped in my BRS rock either from organisms that died there or through other processes.
if you get no detectable PO4 with a good kit with the lights off, then it should be a pretty good indicator that you're in the clear!
EnglishRebel
Retired Rebel Reefer
TonyF[/]
That's an interesting extract from his book. As everyone says ....... slow down.
That's an interesting extract from his book. As everyone says ....... slow down.
"Yes but I wish they hadn't put them in the tank with zoo frags (they have now removed the frags). The black "burn marks" are fading (faster on the female). AC of NC does run a good store though. I was at Pet & Hobby on Reynolda this week and they have a new guy there (at least I think he's new as I hadn't seen him there before) and he seems quite knowledgeable."
Yeah it sucks that they had them in that tank. I was there yesterday and the two left still have a significant amount of black spots. They are a great store though. I go to pet and hobby every once in a while. From what I have heard the store used to be amazing and the display was gorgeous years ago. I am pretty sure there is a new guy there as well and he seems to be trying to turn things around which is always good.
Yeah it sucks that they had them in that tank. I was there yesterday and the two left still have a significant amount of black spots. They are a great store though. I go to pet and hobby every once in a while. From what I have heard the store used to be amazing and the display was gorgeous years ago. I am pretty sure there is a new guy there as well and he seems to be trying to turn things around which is always good.
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