Mark's 150 gallon

[markalot]

Thanks everyone. Daniel, I'm sorry, hopefully there is something to recover.

SO we know ORP is fairly meaningless but for those tracking at home ...

ORP hit 320 last night, which is near where it used to run over 6 months ago. If I thought ORP was usable I might point out that all my weird issues started when ORP dropped and stayed below 300.

Probe has never been cleaned or calibrated and I doubt it's that accurate, but something to ponder.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Good job Mark. Nice to hear your finally getting that tank on track. Specially since all the mysterious ups and downs its gone through.

 

[Wrangy]

Good to see things are still on the up Mark Baby steps are still forward movement so you're on the right track

 

[sahin]

Good to see that your tank is rebounding. :beer:

 

[plyle02]

Yay for the horrida, she is a beauty! Glad to see things on the mend Mark!

 

[joshky]

Mark your thread is going to be very inspiring to many, you've stuck it out longer than most would at this point. Keep it up man, I'm glad to see new growth and recovery signs!

 

[markalot]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it.

I'm old and stubborn so not going anywhere, even if I have to buy a big rubbermaid tub for the fish and start over.

The slimer was showing stress on the base again, sliming up as if something was "bugging" it. I cut a frag from the middle of a piece and glued to a plug, similar to what I did with the blue stag, and then used an underwater superglue technique that BRS uses to make a super glue bubble/blob and rub on the stressed and dying areas to seal in the problem.

If it's a pest it will be back, if not maybe it has a chance to recover. While I was at it I tossed the undipped blue stag piece which was brown and not growing.

My next decision is with the nasuta. I starts to color up and then re-browns for no apparent reason. It's probably time to break it off and dip.

 

[markalot]

For what it's worth here's what I'm looking at with the slimer. When I dipped I should have cut out all the dead or sketchy areas and this could have been avoided.

This piece was brown just over a week ago and you can see how quickly it's colored. The healthy parts looks very happy so I'm convinced the water is ok.



And just because I'm so thrilled with it, the stylo is behaving like a stylo, just like that nearly off the plug. :lolspin:

I keep reminding myself that I had issues with just about every coral in this tank, not just the acros, so if I have an acro specific pest it's on top of whatever else went wrong.

KH is 7.6. I'm using 1tsp of Kalk per gallon of topoff and now supplementing with 2 part rather than using all Kalk. Mg was down to 1250 so I've been raising it up slowly using Seachem dry Mag. One of the issues with Red Sea Blue Bucket is lower Mg which always need supplemented when I use it. Switching back to a higher Alk, Mg salt will help.

 

[plyle02]

Mark,
I am sorry if I missed it, but you did a cyano treatment for green slime recently correct? Just curious how the process went, and were you able to rid yourself of it? I just did a treatment with chemi clean, due to the fact that it does not destroy good bacteria. So far seems to be working, but the skimmer is ****ed, so I am going to wait 48 hours and do a larger water change. If you wouldn't mind refreshing on the process and the results, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks,

 

[markalot]

Mark,
I am sorry if I missed it, but you did a cyano treatment for green slime recently correct? Just curious how the process went, and were you able to rid yourself of it? I just did a treatment with chemi clean, due to the fact that it does not destroy good bacteria. So far seems to be working, but the skimmer is ****ed, so I am going to wait 48 hours and do a larger water change. If you wouldn't mind refreshing on the process and the results, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks,

I did use it and it worked fairly well but seemed to be limited in this tank. The green slime is mostly gone but the red slime remains in pockets. In my 40 gallon it took care of everything but raised the nitrates to 40.

I dialed my skimmer back all the way and removed carbon. The skimmer occasionally produce a little skimmate, mostly overnight, which may have been enough to weaken the effect but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

For whatever reason my tank is no longer reacting badly to GFO usage, perhaps because GFO + Cyano drove it too low, or perhaps because cyano dieoff at night or during GFO usage yoyo'ed PO4 too much.

 

[plyle02]

I did use it and it worked fairly well but seemed to be limited in this tank. The green slime is mostly gone but the red slime remains in pockets. In my 40 gallon it took care of everything but raised the nitrates to 40.

I dialed my skimmer back all the way and removed carbon. The skimmer occasionally produce a little skimmate, mostly overnight, which may have been enough to weaken the effect but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

For whatever reason my tank is no longer reacting badly to GFO usage, perhaps because GFO + Cyano drove it too low, or perhaps because cyano dieoff at night or during GFO usage yoyo'ed PO4 too much.

Awesome info Mark!
I appreciate it man So far so good in my tank, 24hours later and 60% of the stuff has melted or is peeling from the live rock. I added a filter sock back on to help collect it. I have full confidence that the cyano will be gone by Thursday, well that is the plan... Thanks again, I appreciate the info and glad things are turning around for you

 

[markalot]

No problem Perry, hope it all works as planned!


I'm moving rescue corals back in from my 40 gallon, I cannot take care of two twitchy tanks, the 40 was supposed to be easy corals.

I am so lucky I fragged the Red Robin before I killed the one in here. Unfortunately while all the acros are healthy they are all extremely pale. I had a huge algae outbreak and PO4 and NO3 hit 0. Arghhh :lolspin: The tank was also reaching 82 in the afternoon with the T5's and poor ventilation so I switched back to all LED.

My view from the cheap basement chair. You can see hints of color coming back.


The pale Blue Stag.

Red Robin

Nasuta frag.

Purple Poci

There was a lot more algae on these rocks but the Foxface immediately began working on it.

What's left of the 40 (avert your eyes, some softies in here ). Slimer will stay since it's healthy and the one in here has yet to prove to me it can get healthy. Anything else needs to look and do well under LED or it gets the boot.

 

[joshky]

Wow you went back to LEDs, that's a big change Mark, I hope it does good for you. Are you using your old maxspect or what?

 

[markalot]

Wow you went back to LEDs, that's a big change Mark, I hope it does good for you. Are you using your old maxspect or what?

Woah, sorry for the confusion, in my little rescue tank (40 gallon). :lmao: This tank will forever remain T5 lit as long as I grow acros. I used my 40 as a rescue tank when things started to dive and fortunately was able to save some acros, including the Red Robin.

That darn tank overheats quick and I just don't want to fool with it that much. It was supposed to be the 'easy' tank.

 

[joshky]

Woah, sorry for the confusion, in my little rescue tank (40 gallon). :lmao: This tank will forever remain T5 lit as long as I grow acros. I used my 40 as a rescue tank when things started to dive and fortunately was able to save some acros, including the Red Robin.

That darn tank overheats quick and I just don't want to fool with it that much. It was supposed to be the 'easy' tank.

Ooooooh OK! :lol: Yeah that makes more sense.

 

[Oldude]

Good luck with the saved pieces and the tank comeback.

Good luck with the saved pieces and the tank comeback.

 

[markalot]

Thanks Greg, that's exactly what I need.


So here we go again. The tips of the valida are melting and a few other corals are showing stress. I have documented everything I've done and might, just might, have one or two ideas.

- 2 days ago I fed a squirt of Polyp Labs Polyp Booster in the morning.

- I've been raising Magnesium using Seachem Reef Advantage Magnesium (dry) mixed with RODI per instructions.

- I've been adding a cap of Seachem Reef Trace every other day. This is a new product for me, not used during previous melt down.

Mg tested at 1250 3 days ago,
KH 7.6 last night (steady)
Calcium tested 400 this morning (drop from 410 2 weeks ago)
NO3 8 to 10 via Salifert
PO4 .04 - .05 via Elos Pro

I only have one Salifter Mg test, will get another.

I did a 7 gallon water change last night but noticed the issues prior to the change. Used AF Reef Salt this time around.

Here's an example of a Valida tip which will most likely show damage in a few days followed by more damaged tip pictures. See how the tip appears to be melted rather than healthy?








Frags on the frag racks are doing fine and nothing else looks to be havign any issues at the moment. I do have a frag of the Valida which is not showing any issues.

Fragged last week

This was just fragged 2 days ago.

I'm going to stop using the polyp booster product, it may be old or contaminated, and get a different Mag supplement since I don't know if that is causing an issue or not.

Other than that nothing I can think of is in common with the last melt down. I've been careful to limit the products used and to document what and when I use them.

 

[Bpb]

Man this is brutal to read. Considered a full on do-over?


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[markalot]

Man this is brutal to read. Considered a full on do-over?


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If things don't improve I'll restart after our summer vacation.

edit: I missed the edit window on the post above; that blue stag was fragged 3 weeks ago, not last week.

 

[nemodan]

Hi Mark

Is it possible for you to cut those "melted tips"?

I did that when I had "burnt tips", that helped to avoid algae to start grow on the tips.

BTW I do not know if what you call "melted tips " is the same as "burnt tips", but the start looks pretty similar. At the end I had a skinless tip with algae growing on it.

Best !!
Daniel