Mark's 150 gallon

[markalot]

Woah, wait a sec, I certainly don't want to dose anything like a zeovit magical color up, I was looking for trace elements only.

MicroE http://aquaforest.eu/en/product/microe/

Supplement contains concentrated heavy metals – manganese, vanadium, zinc, nickel, iron, chromium, cobalt & copper. Mixture of trace elements necessary for all marine organisms.

So are you saying this is similar to ZeoSpur2 ?

I was dosing Seachem Reef Trace, which contains:

Ingredients: copper sulfate, cobalt sulfate, manganese sulfate, boric acid, sodium molybdate, zinc sulfate, rubidium chloride, nickel chloride, vanadium sulfate

I thought the products were similar except for a couple of elements. I like the dropper of the AquaForest product rather than dealing with cap fulls twice a week.

EDIT: Ah, I see, CoralE is what does that. Whew. Confusing product names to be sure.

 

[markalot]

Hey markalot, i would recommind to remove this metal things holding your hoses in the sump. They always get rusty. I saw some threads in German Forums with strange Problems possible causing by rusty metal in the sump.

Hi Poker, I will double check but I don't think any overhang the sump. I'm not sure what metal the braces or, maybe more importantly, the screws are made of so that's certainly something I should keep an eye on. Thanks.

 

[markalot]

Pictures, just because.

My 40 is doing well but had an algae explosion, I mean explosion. I remember now when I switched back to T5s I grabbed ATI bulbs I had on hand and told myself to buy new ones. *cough* I believe some of these might be 1.5 years old now. Corals doing well, growing well, but acros lack color.

The slimer and all the montis seem to really like the 'old' light, and the teal stag is almost solid blue. I'm not sure that's the correct color or not. :fun4:

It doesn;t encrust much but above is what I want to see in here to be convinced things are back to normal.

Starting to move some SPS back into here from the overcrowded 40.

Yellow/Green Poci

Showing this one to also show the green slime on the rocks. I have been doing gravel vacs in sections during water changes and stirring the top of the sand occasionally but it keeps coming back. If left long enough it starts to climb up the glass and can be scraped off in small sheets. I am hoping dosing traces without iron might help and I do see more gravel than green now but any change is very slow.

 

[markalot]

PO4 is

.04 ELOS
.06 Hanna
55 (.17) Hanna ULR

Yea. :headwalls:

 

[MichaelW]

PO4 is

.04 ELOS
.06 Hanna
55 (.17) Hanna ULR

Yea. :headwalls:

This is why I hate test kits... Who knows what the real value actually is

 

[reefmutt]

Mark, what is your rational for dosing iron to combat the green slime?
You know how I feel about the checkers...
I'd go with the two giving similar results.. I see you already own the Elos.. Why not go get yourself a second one of those to help in your comparison testing?

 

[drawman]

PO4 is

.04 ELOS
.06 Hanna
55 (.17) Hanna ULR

Yea. :headwalls:

Yeah that's frustrating. I guess a good reason not to chase numbers here.

 

[markalot]

Mark, what is your rational for dosing iron to combat the green slime?
You know how I feel about the checkers...
I'd go with the two giving similar results.. I see you already own the Elos.. Why not go get yourself a second one of those to help in your comparison testing?

No rational, I thought dosing the traces higher in Manganese was a good thing.

As far as testing, I'm on the second one this morning, first one used last night. I've got $300 in damn test kits, about to end my testing career. :lolspin:

This morning:
ELOS .07 ish
Hanna ULR 30 (.09)
Glass needs cleaned every other day.

:facepalm:

 

[markalot]

Yeah that's frustrating. I guess a good reason not to chase numbers here.

Yep, I'm learning that lesson finally.

 

[reefmutt]

Sorry, I read that wrong.. I thought you were dosing iron.
I see now traces without iron.
What are all of your nutrient export methods, right now?

 

[markalot]

Sorry, I read that wrong.. I thought you were dosing iron.
I see now traces without iron.
What are all of your nutrient export methods, right now?

Thanks for trying to help, always appreciated!

Export:

Skimmer,
GFO,
TLF Phosban Reactor 550 filled with Seachem Matrix,
Return chamber has Seachem Matrix as well,
20ml vodka per day via topoff and Kalk,
Weekly 15 gallon water changes.


Looks like MicroE has iron in it so I am adding iron as well.

 

[reefmutt]

Thanks everyone, so far so good.

NO3 = 2.5 (Salifert)
PO4 = .03 (Elos Pro)

Someone stole my nutrients! My sketchy tracking of feeding shows that I have backed off coral food a bit. Very heavy last Sunday and a small pinch every other day. Fish feeding fairly consistent at 3 times daily.

Perhaps the Matrix has kicked in, or maybe the Walt Smith Fiji mud (shhh, didn't tell anyone, fool and his money and all that) in various plastic containers is helping to reduce nitrates. Or, none of the above.

MicroE didn't arrive today and I didn't decide to add 3 drops daily.

I took this from the last page...
I'd be willing to bet that the green slime is stealing your nutrients..
This is the trouble with having a strong growth of cyano in a stocked tank and in your case, with somewhat finicky coral population..
When you try to starve out the cyano, you starve out the corals as well and if you try to feed the corals, the slime benefits..
Every time I treated with slime remover, I would get an immediate jump in nutrients as the slime died and stopped consuming it.
I'm not sure how long you plan to wait for the slime to run its course.. Perhaps it will.. But if you do plan to treat, I'd get a fresh batch of gfo ready just before dosing.. Enough to compensate for the jump in po4..
And don't be too quick to remove the slime remover from the system.. It takes a bit of time to really be fully effective and I have never seen it have adverse effects on the corals unless the system has poor flow and/or oxygenation.
In a system I take care of, with a huge cheato fuge, every now and then, for no apparent reason, I see red slime begin to show up, and at the same time the cheato slows down. I can see it coming. A week later the cyano has taken hold and the cheato has completely stopped growing.. A shot of a slime remover and within a week, the cyano is gone and the cheato is growing like gangbusters again. The system is about 10-12 years old and I have seen this happen about 3 times.
Anyways... Here I go again telling you (or really ever so subtly suggesting that) you to intervene after ragging on you to stop messing around in there..
I just find that cyano plays havoc on a system by depriving the corals of nutrients ..
A spot of cyano here and there is one thing but a solid and prospering covering of cyano is quite another.. It really has the ability to pull a system out of whack..

I have also heard that vinegar is better at suppressing the growth of cyano than vodka when Carbon dosing... Not sure if this is true..
Maybe a small uptick in Carbon dosing right at the time of treatment would also help..

 

[markalot]

Hey Matt,

I have Chemiclean ready to go honestly, just waiting for some magic moment, or a kick in the ***.

I did Chemiclean in my 40 and it worked wonders. The PO4 stayed low but Nitrates hit 40. Everything did brown but stayed alive and relatively healthy. The tank looked good until a recent algae explosion.

I also wonder if I have dinos, which I have never recognized, doing a number on some corals. I keep seeing damaged tips and stringy things hanging off the tips of some corals. :uhoh2:

I was just taking pics of the 40 since it confuses me.

P = 9 = .03
NO3 = 0, no color at all.

Red cap looks fantastic even though these numbers would pale it out in this tank.

The teal stag is as light as I've ever seen it.

Non acros look good, acros look pale. I love this hobby?

I think I'm going to hit the chemi clean.

 

[markalot]

Bubbles!

Ask me in a few days if I still have a tank. Skimmer is dialed all the way back to aerate the tank, the deed is done. This yoyo PO4 might also be explained by me stirring things up, having some of the cyano go into the sump and then die and release nutrients in the dark.

 

[reefmutt]

Good luck!
Bubbles indeed.. Crazy bubbles..

 

[markalot]

Nothing has happened yet but the acros look crazy happy, lots of polyp extension.

I'm sure everything will be dead tomorrow but right now, good to go.

Also, oddly enough, the bad tank smell rapidly went away ... wife even noticed. Odd. Extra aeration most likely.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Mark
Tank look a lot better, but i see tons of algae in the background. Hoping with that chemiclean, you can beat it. I have used it 2 times i the past , with great success.

 

[reefmutt]

Nothing has happened yet but the acros look crazy happy, lots of polyp extension.

I'm sure everything will be dead tomorrow but right now, good to go.

Also, oddly enough, the bad tank smell rapidly went away ... wife even noticed. Odd. Extra aeration most likely.

Once bitten twice shy...
It's crazy.. Every morning and every time I've been away, I walk into the basement with a small niggling sensation that he tank is going to be an Armageddon..
Knock on wood.. So far so good...

I'm knocking on wood for you, Mark!

 

[Acronic]

150 Astraea snails and some turbos would make quick work of that algae

 

[mhucasey]

Once bitten twice shy...
It's crazy.. Every morning and every time I've been away, I walk into the basement with a small niggling sensation that he tank is going to be an Armageddon..
Knock on wood.. So far so good...

I'm knocking on wood for you, Mark!

So I'm not the only one?