Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

Hey Mike, you can run the skimmer very dry or add an extra feed a day - particularly meaty foods like mysis etc without the need to add more fish or dosing silly chemicals etc. It's common sense and not at all complicated when you think about it - over thinking things is why most people get themselves in trouble and next thing you know Tom's getting another dirty PM lol.
I'm not sure but i think Matt uses moose droppings to get his nutrient levels up....... ;)
 
I've stirred away from chemicals and additives a long long time buddy.Didn't work for me and it did hurt my wallet.
Off course at the same time for other fellas they work wonders but i guess,every tank's needs and equipment is different.
The only thing i add once per week is a cube of pappone.But maybe that's not enough.
You are right on that too,things are not complicated.

lol,with matt's "dropping secret":p
 
Well, with emulating natural reef conditions in mind I would tend to think particulates like fish poop, pappone/foods, reef roids type foods would be best...while keeping nutrients as low as possible.
But this combo is always the trickiest..
I have no idea what concentration of amino acids can no found in natural reef waters, but I assume that on a natural reef the corals wouldn't really need them due to all the particulate foods available.
There seems to be significant anecdotal evidence that aminos can help a hungry tank with few fish but I'm not sure they help the corals so much when nutrients are higher or they corals have the opportunity to catch particulate foods..
I think one of the things I have the most trouble with is moderation once the sweet spot has been found.
The trick is to find what is working and then maintain that instead of trying a bit more of this or that since a bit is working well..
The only 'droppings' in there are my aio pellets.. They kinda look like droppings..
 
reefmutt said:
The pics of the tank at the beginning of this thread were indeed my old tank- it was a 500 gallon system with a Deltec ap 1004 skimmer which was rated at like 2000 gallons or something.. I had a 50 gal sump with a 250w mh over it growing cheato like it was a weed on steroids...

I believe this tank thrived on pure dumb luck. I set up a large enough system with overly large support and it coasted blindly along until I tore it down.
Click to expand...

Matt, I don't think that it was dumb luck, I think that what has happened is the hobby has had a shift in the way we look at and measure the success of our tanks from back then. Back then most of us, myself included, rarely tested anything. Alk as you mention was one of the only things that was consistently tested for, Ca once in a long while and Mg almost never unless there was a problem. Never did I test PO4 until I had been keeping the tank for a good 7 years or so. NO3 I tested in the beginning when setting up the tank, and then not for years. I and many people used visual clues for how the tank was doing. If I saw some algae, I would get more snails, run some carbon, or get some macro algae. I would never have tested NO3 or P04. Pale corals, who had that problem? I had lots of fish and feed enough so that I didn't have too much algae in the main tank. Everyone used live rock to keep nutrients low, and many people used live sand as well. But then we started to see a shift to get the LS out of the tank (cooking rock, and starboard reef) and around the same time lots of products came out (and people stared carbon dosing) that allowed one to keep nutrients (NO3) very low and be able to use less and less live rock too. From here testing I think started to take off to make sure the products were performing well and to check if they needed to be replenished.

Now we are testing things on a very constant basis, and I think for some it works well but for others it makes us both chase numbers and make more changes in the system that we might not otherwise make.

BFC is fun to compare and talk about but, I think we need to understand it is just for fun, every system handles nutrients in the tank differently, and having a lot of fish in a system that does not handle nutrient removal very well can get you in trouble.

For me I am only testing alk every few days. NO3 every 2-3 weeks and the rest every 4-6 weeks. PO4 I last tested a month ago.
 
Joe, I agree completely with what you say here.
Yes, it was not completely dumb luck, there was a LOT of good planning and design that allowed the tank to do so well.. My old system is fairly similar to your current system. A huge skimmer, the ARID reactor which is effectively the same thing as a 50 gallon cheating sump with a 250w mh over it..solid natural nutrient reduction.
You said in your post above "everybody used live rock to keep nutrients low and many used live sand as well"
My old system controlled nutrients so well that testing was unnecessary. Your current system keeps nutrients so low that testing is not necessary. When a system is designed with features that control nutrients naturally, testing isn't necessary.
But when a system, for whatever reason doesn't control nutrients properly, testing is necessary. - Richard Ross's tank being a notorious exception...but that's a whole other bundle nutrient vs algae vs coral health conundrum
There is a very fine line between chasing numbers into the ground and monitoring your system to keep it in balance..
Low and controlled nutrients is still one of the main goals of almost every hobbyist. Was back to hen and is today- the methods have changed a lot, however..
I'd love to have a large enough skimmer and cheato sump to keep nutrients at bay but for whatever reason, my p seems to climb to about .2 before leveling off..
Maybe as an experiment, when I get home, I will play with lowering my aio pellets to a point where it is no longer necessary for me to add nitrates and watch for a while and see where p goes- assuming n stays around 5 ppm..
Not sure what I have said here..
I guess what I'm saying is that usually the people who say they don't test, don't because the system is taking care of business..
If the system isn't taking care of business, testing and new courses of action are required and once actions are taken, testing is the only way to know if what has been done was good or bad for the reef.. Maybe there are reefers that could rely on observation alone... But I'm not sure I would...
 
Matt can we please have more of those amazing pics??? :) I'm sure there are corals in your tank which you havent posted recent photos of.

Great colours + Great photography=Eye candy :beer:
 
Hey Sahin... Yeah... Nobody is here to read a novel...
I'm on vacation this week.. In beautiful Ogunquit, Maine until Sunday..
I'll try to take some pics when I get back..
Well... Here's one I never posted.. Echinata:


And a couple lousy iPhone shots of the two Fiji mini colonies I got before I left.


If you put your thumbs and pointer fingers together to make a circle, that's about how big they are..

Here's a classic Maine sunset shot.. What an iPhone can do with REAL light.. And some help from snapseed. :)

Well that's all I got for now..
I have a little half pinky sized frag of RR purple monster but it ain't anything to write home about. Maybe I'll see how it looks when I get back..
 
That is some beautiful scenery! It's a whole different world than the desert I live in. I'd love to get out there one day.

Whiskey
 
Wow posting pics of your tank while on vacation, that takes it :facepalm: YOU ARE OBSESSED :hmm3: Nice pics :beer: Looks like you're in a good spot in Maine, so jealous, beautiful country you Quebec'ers have next door. Enjoy the vaykay :D
 
Yes.. It is very beautiful. And a lot more watery than the desert!
My brother in law drives from Toronto, with his 3 kids and wife every year for this vacation. The cousins have a blast. It's a two day drive for them because they stop to sleep- often at our house in Montreal..
Here's a couple more scenery shots.. Not corals..... All bough I AM thinking about my tank constantly!!
Absolutely!!! Totally obsessed! :)
Sunset by the Atlantic Ocean.






These shots were taken with my 70d and then transferred my my phone for editing with snapseed.. My favorite phone editing app..

Back to corals next week!! :)
 
Wow beautiful scenery. Your photography is pretty awesome too. :beer: Thanks for posting the coral shots. Look forward to more when you get back. Have a nice time! :)
 
Beautiful photography Matt, i think you should take a few bags of sand up next visit and sort out the BB beach.......:spin3:

BFA416EB-9AF2-479E-9546-C71F9C40C32B_zpsoytwtojz.jpg
 
Well... I'm baaaack..
Thanks for the kind words about the pics.
Maine actually has one of the biggest sandy beaches in the world when the tide goes out but not where I took these shots..
Bulent, this far up the U.S. coast, the water is by no means comfortable for swimming.. Probably in the 16-20 degree range.. Only crazies and kids play in the water.. Unless you have crazy kids and then you have to follow them in......

So, I don't have pics yet and unfortunately, not much changed while I was away. Because my mom was feeding the fish and adding potions only once a day, I did not have her adding as much food as I put in, in a day.. I noticed a significant change in only one parameter- phosphates.
After using my ultra low range Hanna egg and my regular phosphate Hanna egg and my Elos high resolution test kit.. I finally got a reading I trusted at .03. When I left, I was at .12.
This caused some polyp retraction on a couple corals, some browning/paling in some and almost no growth. I also lost one mariculture piece to rtn. I fragged it and the piece remaining looks good so far.
For the week I was gone, my mother was adding half the frozen food that I usually give and none of the mix of reef vitality/reef roids/reef chili/reef pearls that I add twice a day.
She continued to add the no3 solutions, though..
Currently, n is at 6ppm and p is at .03. I like these numbers so I will try to keep them around here and compensate for the nutrient reduction by adding an amino acid. Going to try Polyp Lab's Colors. Super concentrated stuff. The directions are 1 drop per 250 gallons tank water. I'll Add a drop a day and see how it goes.

Another interesting and frustrating thing I have encountered is the return of my bryopsis.
It started coming back before I left. Last time I had it, raising mag to 1700 made it shrivel and die in 36 hours.. This time it has been totally unaffected by 1700. I have had to raise mag to 2000!! To get it to stop growing.. I'll hold it here for several weeks, I think..
As for cheato and magnesium levels, while I was away, my mag dropped from 2000 to 1800 and during that period, I did in fact have very noticeable cheato growth. Perhaps not quite as rapid as usual but it was not put into stasis by the high mag level.

Lastly, the frickin green slime/cyano continues to coat the rocks in my system.. Not going to do anything about it other than to blow the rocks clear on a regular basis..
Well, I think that cover it for now..
I'll try for some photos asap!!
 
Hi Matt,

so you had good color and health at .12? No wonder I had so many issues every time I would lower PO4 from >.1 to .06 or less. Each time it seemed I woudl lose a random acro and make the other ones angry. Chasing numbers kills, that's for sure. I need to toss these kits. :hammer:

Sorry for the losses but glad to hear the tank generally survived in one piece.

Oh, I know it's a magic potion but I dosed Microbacter7 at the full recommended rate daily for a week and my cyano has magically vanished. I'm not sure it had anything to do with it or not.
 
Thanks, mark, if the slime doesn't go away in a few weeks, I will try some bacteria products.
I think what the corals crave is that good ol' stability..
I was at n6 p.1-.13 for a long time and things were fine in the tank, maybe not a lot of growth and color could have been (can always be) better..
Chasing numbers can always be tricky.. Especially if you try to many things or do something too drastic..
I'm going to try to keep them where they are now in my tank because the corals haven't reacted that poorly and over time, they should adjust..
We'll see.
 
Beautiful Echinata you have! Congratulations!

Holiday in a charming place like this In beautiful Ogunquit, Maine renews the soul.

A hug!
 
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