homer1475's Biocube 29 Build Thread

[BarryV]

Hi Homer,
I have a couple of question for you. Are you still dosing
NOPOX? If you are, how much are you dosing and what are nitrates
holding at? I just checked my nitrates this afternoon and they are
at 20ppm.:bigeyes: I do a 5gal water change once a week on Friday's
I was dosing about 1ml a day. With all my Sun Coral I have problems
keeping my nitrates in check.
Thanks,
Barry

 

[homer1475]

Nitrates....ummmmmm... super high. Red Sea has me above 65ppm(high as their kit goes), API has me around 80ppm. :uhoh3:

NoPox worked for a couple weeks, dropped them from roughly 80 to 10. I continued to dose 3ml per their instructions, and all I got was a whole lot of white mucus(bacterial bloom) all over. So much so that I was changing my reactor media twice a week.

I had it set up on a doser, but after tearing it all down yesterday it seems like I had air bubbles in the line and wasn't dosing as much as I should have been. It did work, just don't know why it reversed with the same amount? I never got it down enough to cut back from 3ML a day. After the hectic holidays(busy as h*ll at work), I think I'm going to do several small WC's to get my nitrates down to a more manageable level, then start NoPox back up, because it does work.


FYI
I have cut way back on feeding, and do 5G WC's religiously on Thursdays. I feed a small pinch of flakes and about 8 - 10 NLS pellets every day, everything is eaten up and nothing goes to waste anymore(I was definitely WAY over feeding), I also feed my corals once a week with a small(less then a dime size) chunk of LRS, and 1 cube of mysis soaked in selcon.


I will say though, even with my nitrates as high as they are, my tank has never looked better. Everything is super happy, super inflated, and growing quite well. I will admit that I've read LPS and Softies tend to like "dirty" water, and that's what I'm 99% stocked with.

 

[BarryV]

Thanks Homer,
I am also going to increase my water changes. The white mucus bacterial bloom
must be from the NOPOX because I have it also.
20ppm is high, but no where as high as you had.
Barry

 

[soulpatch]

I dose nopox without any of the bacteria blooms. I wonder what else you all have going on....

 

[BarryV]

I dose nopox without any of the bacteria blooms. I wonder what else you all have going on....

Sometime today I will try to get a couple of photos of this stuff.
When I first saw them, I thought they were some kind of sponge.
Barry

 

[homer1475]

Naa its a bacterial bloom. Same thing happens when you overdose any carbon source. In my case I'm not sure how you overdose something when the instruction tell you to add 3ml and thats all I was adding. It did go away when I cut the dose in half, but then my nitrates skyrocketed to what they are now.

 

[lxn9901]

Great looking tank

 

[Nick James]

I also found these in my tank. Have been keeping an eye on them originally thinking they might be Majano, but the more they grow, I'm thinking they might be ball anemone's. I have several and one really large on on the underside of a rock I could not get pictures of because of it's location. What does everyone think?



Kind of hard to tell from the pics, but it has a central oral disk, with long clear tentacles with well defined white balls on the end. Haven't seen any pictures of Majano that looks like this.

I have a few of the same homer. I have seen one catch a flake of food and suck it into its mouth!

 

[champion6sigma]

Well it seems my cobalt neo-therm heater died a couple days ago in the off position. Never noticed as my apex never alerted me of an issue. I did have it set to not alert me until the tank dropped below 76, which it never has(changed programming now). I just happened to be looking at the fusion page and noticed a wild fluctuation in my temp, 76.4 up to 81, hich is really weird as my tank never gets hotter then 77.5 and never lower then 77.

This is the only part about living in the sticks I hate, absolutely no LFS near me that I can buy a decent heater at, always have to order off the net. The LFS I normally go to have crappy marineland that are so large they don't fit in the cube. Could go to petco or pet smart, but they all sell marineland too.

Think I might go with a finnex titanium heater, fairly cheap and I know finnex has an awesome reputation for reliability and durability. I've never used a heater that doesn't have a temperature controller attached to it, so this should be interesting none the less.

This is the one I'm looking at, kind of like the idea of it being totally controlled by the apex. Unless my apex fails, this unit can never get left on or off.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/finnex-deluxe-titanium-heating-tube.html

I've got the finnix titanium. No temperature adjustment onboard. Apex runs its all day long. I've never used a heater before this tank....and its been great during the winter. Bulk reef recommended it to me as a great reliable choice...and its cheap.

 

[homer1475]

I've had it in my tank about 2 weeks now and my temps have never been more stable. Loving this heater!

On another note.....
Anyone have any ideas on how to control nuclear green paly's? They are totally starting to take over my tank. I've been just pulling them off the rocks, but if I leave anything behind, they grow back. Such a huge PITA!

 

[soulpatch]

On another note.....
Anyone have any ideas on how to control nuclear green paly's? They are totally starting to take over my tank. I've been just pulling them off the rocks, but if I leave anything behind, they grow back. Such a huge PITA!

Welcome to my current world of pain. I have found nothing that keeps them at bay. I have tried aggressive corals, kalk, cuting, ect. Might trim them back for a few days but they always come back.

I am going to totally enjoy setting that rock outside and watching the bastards shrivel up and die when I move tanks.


Needless to say ZERO GSP, Palys, xenia, ect will be going in the next tank...

 

[ReefWreak]

You could try killing them with kalk paste, as you would aiptasias.

I have a few in my tank, they've actually been the slow growers. The small green/purple zoanthids have been the ones that have taken over my tank. I now have mats upon mats of them across my tank I wish they were connected underneath, as I'd peel them off, but they're not.

If you only have a few, use kalk paste, and don't think twice about it. Just limit how many you do at a time since the kalk will swing your pH up.

 

[soulpatch]

Kalk paste was no bueno for me. They literally laughed at me from in the tank and I swear doubled their heads. They are the chimera of my tank.

 

[homer1475]

I've tried Kalk paste. Unfortunately once the Kalk dissipates, they grow right back! Resilient little bastards they are. It's one of those corals that look cool as a 2 head frag, but quickly explode into a nuisance in a hurry.

EDIT:
I did move my torch closer and he's doing a good job, but where stings and kills one head, 2 more spring up in its place.

 

[ZeeSparrow]

I don't have them but what about an epoxy pancake on the spot? Kalk paste with the pancake superglued on top. Just a thought.

 

[homer1475]

I don't have them but what about an epoxy pancake on the spot? Kalk paste with the pancake superglued on top. Just a thought.

Hadn't thought of using epoxy.....

I'm pretty sure they would just sprout around it. I have set rocks on them, and they just squeeze around the rock.

Think I'm going to give it a shot anyways. It's tank maintenance and WC day anyways.

 

[homer1475]

Small update:

Everything is doing wonderful, with the exception of my open brain. It finally succumbed to me injuring it while I moved it about. The injury became infested with algae and it just progressed all around the rim. It was completely bleached out and had no flesh left. I didn't see any feeder tentacles for months, but it would take in food if I placed it directly on its mouth. Kind of bummed as it was one of my original corals and I really like the brains.

I will get another eventually. or perhaps another fungia to put in its place.

I finally got my nitrates under control through several small WC's, and 7 days later they are holding steady. I will start carbon dosing again to keep them low. I think I might go with the vinegar method instead of NoPox. Vinegar is also way cheaper then vodka, and I really don't need any alcohol in my house(15 years sober).

Still no need for calcium or magnesium dosing as my weekly WC's are keeping up with them. I'm only dosing ALK(baked baking soda) at 20ml a day to keep . AlK is the only thing that is consistently low but with 20ML dosed at night in 4 doses im at a consistent 8.5DKH, so that keeps me happy.

 

[ReefWreak]

If you want to do alkalinity/calcium dosing and introduce some vinegar for carbon dosing, you can look into super saturating your kalk tipoff with the vinegar. More calcium and alkalinity per topoff dose and carbon.

I think you can also look into ethanol/methanol dosing for a more pure and not-for-consumption approach for carbon dosing. Vinegar is tough because it'll hammer your pH and alkalinity if you only dose that.

I'll do some research and see what else I come up with. You can also run biopellets which are effectively solid carbon sources too.

 

[homer1475]

Well got a couple new tests in the mail the other day and now I'm slightly confused.

I've been using Red Sea kits since I started this tank nealy a year ago and have been quite happy with them(except the MAG test, huge PITA!!!). Now they are mostly used up and was looking into using something different for comparison. I opted for the salifert kits and this is where the confusion starts.

With the ALK kit my red sea tells me I'm at 8.7DKH(where I've been keeping it with dosing), but the salifert kit gives me only a 7.0DKH. I know its not a huge difference, but I want to maintain at a pretty constant level and close to 9DKH.

I've done both tests several times and they always come out to these numbers, so I'm not thinking it's testing noise or anything to do with my testing methods. Which should I follow? I know both kits are highly recommended around here, but why the difference? Could my reagents be bad in the salifert kit? Which one should I follow? Since my red sea kit only has about 3 or 4 tests left I don't want to go raising my ALK up higher(salifert tells me 7.0) to only cause issues simply because of a bad test kit.

Thoughts?

 

[ReefWreak]

Stupid question, but did your salifert kit come with a 7.0dkh reference sample? My last kit did, so I trued-up with it before testing (the actual results were about -0.1 below reference, but I ignore it since what is 0.1 in the scope of test kits).

If not, unfortunately alkalinity reference is something that is hard to come by. There are some that you can whip up with an accurate scale and some borax, but you'd have to do your own research on that. As an alternative, is there an LFS nearby that you could see if their salifert kits had reference samples that they could give you, or you could buy the test kit. +1dkh isn't a significant difference, as 8-9 will be okay, but you'd always want to keep it in that range.

Probably worth emailing salifert and seeing if they can ship you a reference sample? I dunno if Red Sea has them or not, but you could call and ask them as well.

Also worth mentioning that people have complained of getting low alkalinity numbers out of the end of the batch of salifert reagent. You're at the end of the red sea reagent, and it is higher, but it might be inaccurate at the end of the reagents.