Maroun 150g Build Thread

[maroun.c]

Last update.
I'm ashamed to post these but this is how my plumbing has turned in the stand lately and I have been delaying tidying it up.

So as I got an Ocean motion squirt few months before It was time to install it and clean up my plumbing. I have been working for 1 week on it and the first time I did everything the OM stopped working and I had to redo the plumbing to get everything back to how it was. and just before throwing the OM in the garbage bin I decided to open it to check it and when I Opened it there was some water inside of it (screws were very light on it don't know if that's how they should be) so I cleaned the water greased it again and it worked fine. so redid the plumbing with four lines and 3 outputs in each and flow was very low as I'm only using a 1000 GPH pump and it gets divided over 1-1/2 ports at a time so redid the plumbing to have a single output on two exits and double outputs on another 2 and I still was not getting the effect I wanted. am in the process of doing it again with only one exit per port where two consecitive ports will give flow from Right side then tow other ones will give flow from the left side hoping this will give the backword forward shift I desire.
I'm also using Locline this time which should be less intrusinve and more flexible than the outpout nozzles I was using. Should be adding a vortex or Tunze in the future so then the 4 exits of the OM will be on the corners of the tank facing towrds the middle or each other maybe. any advice on how to position the exits for optimal effect is appreciated.
More important is it normal for the OM to get a bit hot on the motor end? Is it Ok to overtighten the screws or will that cause more friction on the rotation of hte drum and therefore more heat? as I had water in it and it stopped working till I cleaned and regreased it yesterday again.
Also when greasing should I put to much grease in it or just a tiny amount spread to cover all the rotating part and also the magnets part???
Thanks for any info

 

[maroun.c]

OK good news and bad news.

Bad news: The worm I found in the tank was IDd on another thread as Eunicid worm which can consume soft corals and reach really long. Wonder If I have any other ones in the sand bed so guess it'll be a few weeks of night inspections.
http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm

Good news went to a decent lighthing shop and they got my ballast and installed it in less than 5 minutes. the whole thing cost only 29 usd instead of buying a new one.
When the guy heard that I paid 150 -175 Usd for the ballast he said that this was a crazy amount. Ok it is well sealed and looks very nice however it's not visible in my Tank. He said he can make a 2-3 lamps setup for me for around 35 usd per lamp including the cabling and everything except the lamp. I could buy the T5 reflector for the LFS or use whatever he can add to that setup which means I can add 2-3 T5s to the 3 I already have ( in addition to the halides) for very cheap. For the lamps they did not have anything higher than 8000 K so I'm wondering if it's a good idea to have an additional 1-2 8000 K T5 and maybe an additional actinic one from the LFS??? Thanks for any info if using 8000 K is a bad idea.

Second good news is that I'm finishing my plumbing ( for the 4th time in the last 2 weeks) it finally looks good aethetiacally and flow wise. I still need to replace that widestream powerhead that got damaged last week as I don't have as mush surface motion as before. Pics and diagram of plumbing setup to follow.

 

[michika]

Glad you got your ballast fixed!

I'm still also really curious about the bump on your shrimp. Although it doesn't look like it has any adverse effects on it.

Yellow tang looks beautiful too.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks Catherine.
I'm hoping it will disappear when it molts.

 

[maroun.c]

Struggling with some SPS Turning white over the last week Its not very fast as is usually describedin RTN however it took out 3 tiny fragss completely in 4 days. A larger blue accroporah started loosing tissue, don't think it was RTN as affected areas did not turn white but it jsut seemed as the tissue peeled off leavinga greenish skeleton. this one never showed any PE since I got it 2-3 months ago but never lost tissue.
Recent changes to the tank were:
-Loss of one Seo pump pumping water to the surface, fixed by using another pump pumping water along the surface.
-Modification of clsoed loops with addition of Ocean motions Squirt. flow may be a bit stronger than before but much more random. flow from OR 3500 (1000G) is divided over 4 3/4 inch outlets 2 pumping from left to right and 2 pumping from Right to left. Corals are at least 12 inch from output and the Aquirt pumps water to 1.5 outlets at a time so output is less than 600 GPH from any exit at anytime. do you think that could be too strong for corals
-Lost an 80W T5 for around 10 days got it fixed but did not turn it on directly I'm acclimating at 3 hours aday since 4 days now and will add 1 hour per week starting enxt week.
-Reduced fans timing as water temperature started fluctuating between 76 and 80 now it is in 78-80 range
-water tests yesterday after 120 Litres waterchange:
Temp 79
PH 8.13
Alk 11.2 ( a bit on the high side as after each water change will cut down on alk addition for 2-3 days)
Ca 380 (slowly increasing it to 450 as it was around 360 last week) do you think that is the culprit
Mg 1280 (increasing it to 1350)
PO4 0
Nitrates 35 a bit higher than usual
Clams, LPS, softies lok fine. the largest Accro I have is showing growth signs for the first tiem since 4 months (will post pics to make sure it's not RTN on the tips. Another Green accro stil shows as much PE as usuall and ooks fine. Pavonal looks OK a very big Scrol coral I had which looked dead for weeks then started showing PE and colored up to a very nice green showed 1 white area which started growing. fragged the white off with a safety margin 2 days ago, this afternoon saw two other whitish areas which I just fragged... Carbon has been runnign since 3 weeks wil change it next week as I read it's better not to change it immediately after water changes.
Any think yuo think I should check for or do to avoid loosing the rest of my SPS?
Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[melev]

The things that come to mind when corals RTN:

Temperature swings
Alkalinity swings
Salinity swings

Calcium is fine, with 375 being the lower end of the target range.
Magnesium was somewhat low, so bringing that up to 1300 (or 1400) is fine. Usually Mg should be 3x the Ca level.

Nitrates being up can be part of the issue too. I'd imagine the higher nitrate, the lesser lighting, the temperature variances combined are part of what caused those corals to RTN. I would verify that the alk and salinity readings are in fact accurate, and get another thermometer as well to compare against. Stability is key.

The Tubastrea is probably an unrelated occurrence, since it is a LPS.

 

[Aquarist007]

Awesome tank and pics as always Maroun

Marc--can RTN be also caused by not enough light. I have an elegance that I am losing by the day. Its on the bottom of the tank but there are new bulbs.
Its also an Indonesian--I heard they were harder to keep then the Australians?

 

[melev]

In the past few years, Elegance corals were a real difficult coral to keep. Eric Borneman was doing a study on them, trying to figure out if it was a disease or not, and many such corals died after a slow decline.

I've never kept one because of the fact that we didn't really have an answer and I didn't want to be part of yet another loss. I see them in other people's tanks quite often, and they are pretty but I don't have any advice one way or another. Good water parameters and food are usually the winning combination with most LPS. Elegance do better on sand, and yes they do need light.

 

[maroun.c]

Ok 2 weeks of continuous traveling (still have 6 to go only being at home for weekends) reuslted in huge delays on updates of this thread.

this Scroll coral was one of the affected corals. only parts of it bleached but it was a bummer as this coral was making a great recovery:

Looked like this when I got it.

Many told me that it looked that there is no life in it and I only kept it in the tank as it was still yellow in colour and was filling up some empty space.
Was going to through it away after my corals started getting crowded when I saw a small change and it turned into this

except for that marked dead tissue area it was doing great and even that area was starting to get covered.

2 weeks ago things started to look bad for some of my corals and this scroll coral specially.
I had made no changes to the system excpect fora water change few days ago and change of my CL System to something much more random and avoiding certain corals being continusously blasted with waterflow. Only thing worth mentioniing is the worms incident a bit ablve where 3 Eunicid worms dell down from tubing and 2 of them were sucked by a powerhead feeding the frag tank and resulted in all setup being very clowdy (did a 140 litres water change and added carbon and things were ok till this)
So a whitish area appears and then increased in size the following 2 days

Following 1 fragging attempt to stop it

fragged it further when a bit more white appeare and since then looked fine. Was at home on saturday and it seemed fine with only a small part of new white that is not spreading.

 

[melev]

Wow, that's a great recovery. From the original images, I wouldn't have expect any life to come from it, and was probably one of the people that said so. Oops!

 

[maroun.c]

Many did say the same Marc so problem there.
I also thought the same. sill it's bad that it is receeding now tht tank should be more stable I'm hoping this stopped there. Sorry don't have a better picture post fragging will get one when back home but notice how the earlier round shape is V shaped now.

 

[maroun.c]

At the same time some of my sps tiny frags bleached while others very close to them and in same water flow and lighting seemed fine.
So here are the deteriorating ones:

3 of these Pocilloporas have lost tissue and seem on the way out:

now like:

 

[maroun.c]

Last coral that didn't make the last 2 weeks.
this blue accro igot few months ago

Tried to save it by fraging the remaining parts of it and this is all that remains. Unfortunately the follwoing day parts of the frags were white and the day after it was all gone.

 

[maroun.c]

Last coral that didn't make the last 2 weeks.
this blue accro igot few months ago

 

[maroun.c]

Well some more bad news, Just got off the phone with my wife and she's telling me the green pocilloporas have further lost polyps. also the green scroll coral posted above has also a new white spot that seems to have grown a bit from yesterday. do yo uthink I should frag it for the 3rd time or just wait to see how it goes? unfortunately I won't be back from Saudi till Wed evening.
any idea what this white could be on an LPS? or what's causing it? Any specific thing to check for? on the last check only nitrates were a bit high at 30 if I remember correctly but I did a water change and added carbon afte that. Thanks for any info

 

[maroun.c]

Forgot to mention those pods I noticed lately on rocks at night mostly on rocks with affected corals.
do you guys think they're just attracted to corals in bad shape or couuld they be eating them? should I bait and get them out when back home?

 

[maroun.c]

Plumbing changes.
Initial setup:

Changed as it became too messy in the end and was not providing the random flow I wanted and ended up blasting some areas non stop.

 

[maroun.c]

New plumbing:

Lt Side

Rt Side

Surface Motion
LT side

Right Side

and a surface motion shot from Below

Resulting flow is very close to what I wanted. 1000 G flow gets divided to 1.5 outputs at a time so a maximum of around 600 GPH from each output going from Lt Front-Lt Rear towards right side then from Right rear-Right front towards left resulting in counter currents and some under flow in the lower parts of the tank altough all current is in the upper part of the tank and not pointing down to avoid blasting corals. do you think a 600 GPH intermittent currnt on corals at least 10 inches away from the output? Guess I might add a Vortech or a Tunze from Right side towards left. So far current is a bit less than before as the Marea 3500 pump I had broke the impeller after shattering excessively due to bad frequency current from the backup generator.
The OM Squirt did give me it's share of hard time as the rotating drum got stuck on weekly average ending in flow getting stuck in one direction. opened it and greased it repeatidly with no success. Emailed OM and got very prompt reply expalining that I should grease both parts of the black part above the drum. which I was already doing however the instruction was to place the small magnets as they are attracted by the drum and then sliding the motor on them. which i was not aware of before. so installed it this was before traveling on Friday and so far it's working fine.

 

[chrismunn]

when i had some zoanthids that were sick i also noticed quite a few of those large amphipods crawling all over them. i wasnt sure if the pods were killing the coral, or if the pods were eating the coral die off? i never confirmed what was atually happening, although i do know this; after i treated the zoanthids and nursed tham back into health, i havent seen any more amphipods on those corals. as a matter of fact i dont see them on any of them anymore. that finding leads me to belive that they were actually going after the corals dieing tissue, but again i cant say that for sure. many people have me that pods will normally go for dieing tissue, but i have also read reports that the same amphipods can actually be an aggitator to corals. maybe its a little bit of both???

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the info.
Are those amphilpods of any benefit to the tank anyway? do fish like mandarins or wrassess usually eat those as they were a bitt o big for mandarins I guess?