Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

[markalot]

WOW, I missed a lot of updates.

Just spent 10 minutes drooling at the last 2 weeks of pictures, great job! Who cares about cyano and bubble algae.

 

[JB NY]

Matt those corals are looking so nice, the pictures are great! The variety of corals you are collecting is fabulous.

On one hand with the sps I wouldn't want to change anything, but on the other I too get bothered when everything doesn't look awesome. So I understand your frustrating with the cyano and bubble algae. In the past I have manually removed as many bubbles as I can, years ago it used to be part of my routine to spend about 45 minutes Saturday morning pulling bubble algae off the rocks, I would fill a coffee cup each week, eventually it went down, I also bought some green emerald crabs that helped too.

As for the Cyano, if you have tried everything and it still wont go away, you could try Ultrareef Red Slime Remover. I've used it and recommend it to others in the past with SPS tanks, I've never had any issues with SPS or any other coral or fish when using it. Dose as they instruct and the cyano will go away. Turns your tank a scary yellow/green color but do some water changes and run some carbon after and it gores away pretty quickly.

As for Muriatic acid, I use it every time I do a water change, I use IO, and the alk is around 11 dKH so I bring the alk down to 7.5 before using, it does drop the pH at first so I put the acid in the day before and the pH is about 7.9 by the time I do my water change.

But really, corals are looking outstanding!

 

[reefmutt]

You didn't think this was gonna be easy, did you? Easy is for goldfish tanks! Use one of these dental picks to pull the bubbles off the rocks and then just net them up whole:

You can pry them free without popping the bubble.
I will reserve comment on removing the AIO pellets and Cyano:twitch:

Matt, nothing about this latest tank of mine has been easy.. I don't think its really a big concern about removing the bubbles whole.. if they pop so what.. there is clearly already an abundance of bubble algae spores in the tank... the more the merrier!
I aint going back to pellets just yet...

Wow wow wow - puuurty corals mate!!!!

Hey Thanks, Nils.. i think they can be puuurtier..

I used Chemiclean for ciano twice. Once on the first SPS tank that was 13 G . And once in my actual tank. Followed instructions and used half of the recommended dose. I didn't wait to have a big amount of ciano when I did the trestment. Gone and never returned, neither when I had my crash. Just read around what people think about the product.

Cheers. .. Daniel

Thanks, Dan.. I'll give the zero regimen a few weeks to work.. if the tank doesn't clean up, I'll go medieval its a**!!

I got an entire container of Zeozyme with a shipment from Zeovit USA - they threw it in for free. I used it, quite lot, as directed with or without bacteria, with and without "fermentation time". I never noticed any positive effect on cyano. I tried Coral snow as well, I never saw any real difference.

The only two things that stopped cyano for sure for me was:

1) Chemiclean. Double the regular dose, repeat every three days for three treatments. It will make your skimmer explode, so just take the cup off until it mellows a bit. My LFS owner, who had a really nice private SPS tank that he moved to the store uses it whenever he needs to and has no qualms recommending it.
2) Siphon it out into a sock in the sump and keep the water. I'm starting to think the changing water conditions of you water changers contributes to the imbalance that helps Cyano thrive. My SPS reef was swimming in the stuff and then it just melted away once the reef water stabilized. I had a bit of a resurgence when I started dosing Acropower(at more than double the recommended dose), it continued with the Salifert AAs, but i dialed in the dose to be a little less than the recommended dose and a little siphoning has pretty well cleared it up. I'm not 100% Cyano free but its looking pretty good in there.

thanks, Matt.. may resort to a treatment.. I am dosing a small amount of Polyp Lab's Colors.. Its a very concentrated animo acid.. 1 drop per 250 gallons. I'm using 3 drops a week

 

[reefmutt]

WOW, I missed a lot of updates.

Just spent 10 minutes drooling at the last 2 weeks of pictures, great job! Who cares about cyano and bubble algae.

I'm glad i could provide some drool worthy material for you, Mark.. did a bit of drooling over some of your acros!

Matt those corals are looking so nice, the pictures are great! The variety of corals you are collecting is fabulous.

On one hand with the sps I wouldn't want to change anything, but on the other I too get bothered when everything doesn't look awesome. So I understand your frustrating with the cyano and bubble algae. In the past I have manually removed as many bubbles as I can, years ago it used to be part of my routine to spend about 45 minutes Saturday morning pulling bubble algae off the rocks, I would fill a coffee cup each week, eventually it went down, I also bought some green emerald crabs that helped too.

As for the Cyano, if you have tried everything and it still wont go away, you could try Ultrareef Red Slime Remover. I've used it and recommend it to others in the past with SPS tanks, I've never had any issues with SPS or any other coral or fish when using it. Dose as they instruct and the cyano will go away. Turns your tank a scary yellow/green color but do some water changes and run some carbon after and it gores away pretty quickly.

As for Muriatic acid, I use it every time I do a water change, I use IO, and the alk is around 11 dKH so I bring the alk down to 7.5 before using, it does drop the pH at first so I put the acid in the day before and the pH is about 7.9 by the time I do my water change.

But really, corals are looking outstanding!

Joe, thank you for the high compliments! I appreciate it!
And thanks for the tips. I have been looking at both Red Slime Remover and Chemiclean.. The thing i like a bit better about the RSR is that they say it is not necessary to remove carbon when dosing.. I'm leaning towards the RSR over CC.. But! I'm not going to use it yet.. going to try the Zeobac, Zeofood and Coral Snow for a couple weeks..

How much Muriatic do you use per, say, 25 gallons of IO salt water? I skipped my water change last week because it had Purple up in it (I dumped it instead) and I noticed a complete cessation of recession in my plana that has been receding for several weeks..

 

[mhucasey]

I skipped my water change last week because it had Purple up in it (I dumped it instead) and I noticed a complete cessation of recession in my plana that has been receding for several weeks..

Now that is interesting:reading:

 

[JB NY]

Joe, thank you for the high compliments! I appreciate it!
And thanks for the tips. I have been looking at both Red Slime Remover and Chemiclean.. The thing i like a bit better about the RSR is that they say it is not necessary to remove carbon when dosing.. I'm leaning towards the RSR over CC.. But! I'm not going to use it yet.. going to try the Zeobac, Zeofood and Coral Snow for a couple weeks..

How much Muriatic do you use per, say, 25 gallons of IO salt water? I skipped my water change last week because it had Purple up in it (I dumped it instead) and I noticed a complete cessation of recession in my plana that has been receding for several weeks..

On the RSR, it works. I've heard a few negative experiences on chemiclean which is why I have never used that one before. I think the only thing you need to watch with RSR is the skimmer might overflow, so just turn it down in the beginning.

As to the muriatic acid. I mix up a 50gal bag of IO at once in a 44g brute container, it makes an almost perfect salinity of 35ppt. on this I use 20ml of muriatic acid, and it drops it down to 7.3-7.5 from 11.5 dKH. So I would say you should use about 1/2 or 10ml?

One of the really nice side effects of bringing down the pH on the IO salt is it mixes up perfectly clear, nothing precipitates out of solution in the mixing container at all, here is my mixing container after a year of almost weekly water changes. Oh yeah, I do not heat my SW mix, only in the winter do I raise it to about 68-70F.

 

[reefmutt]

Thanks for the info, Joe!
And that is one clean wc bucket!

 

[reefmutt]

So, I have a bit of a conundrum... I would love to hear some opinions on a course of action.. Or maybe opinions on what my plan is..
Background:
Since reducing and then removing aio pellets- along with a corresponding reduction and complete removal of kno3 additions. The cyano and bubble bryopsis algeas have been very.. Shall we say.. Happy.
N was stitting at around 3 ppm and p at .06-.08
Yesterday's results showed n down to less than one but still measurable. P still at .08.
In the past week, the cyano has really come on strong. However, so has acro growth and pe. The corals really look great in general. Even with my turning up my ca reactor last week, kh was still lowish (6.5). I have turned up my ca reactor again..
Oh! I forgot to mention that I began adding a small amount of iron again - starting last weekend... Maybe this is effecting cheato growth and n reduction.... Forgot about this factor.. At any rate, I will continue small iron dosing- all effects have been positive..
Anyways, even with the slide in nutrients this week, corals look really good..
I am planning to dose the tank with red slime remover eventually- if it doesn't go away but I'm torn between just letting the system do its own thing- let the nutrient slide continue, OR intervene by adding some kno3...
I plan to add kno3 because I don't want n to drop to zero..
Any thought in this course of action.. Or ideas on a different course of action are greatly welcome!!

And now..... Reef porn!
This guy continues to ouch out at the base and keep its rich colors..

Growing very well..

Great pe in Oregon tort..

Macro Blenny!

Just plain macro heaven!


PE!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Nice coral photos as usual.

If you use a chemical to eliminate cyanobacteria, you need to be prepared for upward spike in nutrients as cyanobacteria consume some of the available nutrients, if not most, in the water column.

In my opinion, addition of iron (if it also contains molybdenum), iodine (iodide form), trace elements (molybdenum in particular), amino acids and potassium supplementation will encourage cyanobacteria growth, if they are already in abundance. I mention this because you indicated that you started to dose some of the above.

Good luck with your plan. I hope you succeed.

 

[mhucasey]

So, I have a bit of a conundrum... I would love to hear some opinions on a course of action.. Or maybe opinions on what my plan is..
Background:
Since reducing and then removing aio pellets- along with a corresponding reduction and complete removal of kno3 additions. The cyano and bubble bryopsis algeas have been very.. Shall we say.. Happy.
N was stitting at around 3 ppm and p at .06-.08
Yesterday's results showed n down to less than one but still measurable. P still at .08.
In the past week, the cyano has really come on strong. However, so has acro growth and pe. The corals really look great in general. Even with my turning up my ca reactor last week, kh was still lowish (6.5). I have turned up my ca reactor again..
Oh! I forgot to mention that I began adding a small amount of iron again - starting last weekend... Maybe this is effecting cheato growth and n reduction.... Forgot about this factor.. At any rate, I will continue small iron dosing- all effects have been positive..
Anyways, even with the slide in nutrients this week, corals look really good..
I am planning to dose the tank with red slime remover eventually- if it doesn't go away but I'm torn between just letting the system do its own thing- let the nutrient slide continue, OR intervene by adding some kno3...
I plan to add kno3 because I don't want n to drop to zero..
Any thought in this course of action.. Or ideas on a different course of action are greatly welcome!!

And now..... Reef porn!
This guy continues to ouch out at the base and keep its rich colors..

Growing very well..

Great pe in Oregon tort..

Macro Blenny!

Just plain macro heaven!


PE!

More beauties! You take great pics Matt! As for the cyano, it's unsightly but if your corals are doing well it may be best to just continue siphoning it out when possible.

 

[reefmutt]

Nice coral photos as usual.

If you use a chemical to eliminate cyanobacteria, you need to be prepared for upward spike in nutrients as cyanobacteria consume some of the available nutrients, if not most, in the water column.

In my opinion, addition of iron (if it also contains molybdenum), iodine (iodide form), trace elements (molybdenum in particular), amino acids and potassium supplementation will encourage cyanobacteria growth, if they are already in abundance. I mention this because you indicated that you started to dose some of the above.

Good luck with your plan. I hope you succeed.

Thanks, Bulent.. I guess I am dosing a lot of cyano foods.. Iron (without moly), FM color elements- red and blue, kno3 again and a small amount of aminos.. Having said that, the corals are really doing well at the moment so I am hesitant to remove anything..

More beauties! You take great pics Matt! As for the cyano, it's unsightly but if your corals are doing well it may be best to just continue siphoning it out when possible.

Thanks Matt, yes I think I agree with you.... For now.. I'll try raising my n a touch, try siphoning out some of that cyano, keep the coral snow/zeobac/zeofood for a while and live with the cyano..

Well I have another issue.. It's a coral scraping crab.. He's grey/white/black, very hairy with white beedee eyes. He has done this to this coral..

I am going to try putting a drinking glass leaning almost upright in the tank with a piece of shrimp or something and see if I can get catch him.. Otherwise I will begin trying to kill him with a small screw driver or something..

Here's a couple of 'deep waters' that I haven't taken photos of yet.. Not much no new growth in them, yet..

My RR purple monster has encrusted well and grown only slightly.. This frag is only one inch long..

Again, encrusted but now significant growth..

Suharsonoi? Caroliniana?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I feel very depressed after seeing the latest pictures (not!). Spectacular.

Regarding A. caroliniana or A.suharsonoi, I would say it is more likely to be the former after consulting C.Veron's reference:

A. caroliniana
A.suharsonoi

 

[mhucasey]

So are you having your paycheck direct-deposited to the aquarium store's account? Unreal man, so many awesome deepwaters!!!!

 

[reefmutt]

I feel very depressed after seeing the latest pictures (not!). Spectacular.

Regarding A. caroliniana or A.suharsonoi, I would say it is more likely to be the former after consulting C.Veron's reference:

A. caroliniana
A.suharsonoi

Bulent, I can always count on you! yes, I was leaning towards Caroliniana as suharsonoi seems to have pointier tips..
And thanks for not being depressed!

So are you having your paycheck direct-deposited to the aquarium store's account? Unreal man, so many awesome deepwaters!!!!

Matt... Please keep your voice down... The last thing I need is the wife finding out!!
Actually, aside from the purple monster which obviously wasn't cheap (fragbox mail order), they were just inexpensive pickups.. They are generally not good sellers because they don't have crazy, flashy colours..
I forgot to post this little frag from Raging reef I got a few weeks ago.. Starting to encrust and maybe growing a bit.. Still looking sweet!

 

[nemodan]

So are you having your paycheck direct-deposited to the aquarium store's account? Unreal man, so many awesome deepwaters!!!!

+ 1 to this comment . Those corals are speachless.

Daniel

 

[mhucasey]

Matt... Please keep your voice down... The last thing I need is the wife finding out!!
Actually, aside from the purple monster which obviously wasn't cheap (fragbox mail order), they were just inexpensive pickups.. They are generally not good sellers because they don't have crazy, flashy colours..

Right! So the story is the corals were cheapie throwaway frags that they practically paid you to take. Got it! Don't worry, I won't crack under cross examination

 

[biggles]

Matt... Please keep your voice down... The last thing I need is the wife finding out!!
Actually, aside from the purple monster which obviously wasn't cheap (fragbox mail order), they were just inexpensive pickups.. They are generally not good sellers because they don't have crazy, flashy colours..
I forgot to post this little frag from Raging reef I got a few weeks ago.. Starting to encrust and maybe growing a bit.. Still looking sweet!

Yeah Matt, i'm sure your wife won't think something is up with the dud frag story when she's looking at acros like these......... :facepalm:

Awesome colors buddy and quite the stunning collection you have going on.... really pleased for you mate

 

[SPS911]

This guy continues to ouch out at the base and keep its rich colors..

I like how this one is coloring up! Where is this from or called?

 

[reefmutt]

+ 1 to this comment . Those corals are speachless.

Daniel

Thank you, Daniel! Just have to get them to grow out a bit..

Right! So the story is the corals were cheapie throwaway frags that they practically paid you to take. Got it! Don't worry, I won't crack under cross examination

I am not going to say anything on the grounds that what I say can and will be used against me in a court of law...

Yeah Matt, i'm sure your wife won't think something is up with the dud frag story when she's looking at acros like these......... :facepalm:

Awesome colors buddy and quite the stunning collection you have going on.... really pleased for you mate

Thanks!
Actually, Andrew, my wife is actively disinterested in my aquarium. She hasn't really looked at it since it was removed from the living room (a decade ago)

I like how this one is coloring up! Where is this from or called?

Hey sps911, I got this frag from Raging Reef in Montreal. It was a pale orange when I got it.
I have no name for it. It came from one of his imported colonies he fragged.
It's one of my favorites. Looks great and is budding out nicely..

 

[markalot]

More great pictures, I love the first deep blue deepwater, how fantastic looking! Yea, now I'm depressed as well.

I've reduced the flow of my bio-pellet reactor to almost 0 now after discovering nearly 0 PO4 and NO3, really frustrating to have nutrient problems for so long and now I'm having issues keeping them elevated. I suspect vinegar added to my topoff+kalk is really doing a good job even though it's only the equivalent 20ml a day or so. I still have more learning to do with nutrient reduction