My JBJ 28gal Nano Build Thread

johntran216 said:
i just spent two hours on this thread, because im about to start on the same tank. well worth it :) can u tell me ur new maintenance schedule ever since u installed the reactors?
1)how often/much do you change ur water?
2)how much are u dosing now?
3)how often do u change the medias in the reactors?
thanks !! i hope mine can turn out as well as urs.
Click to expand...

All the info is in here, but I will recap anyway because I know it's a lot to read through:
1) I still target weekly changes, but I've gone up to 5 or 6 weeks mostly due to negligence
2) I was dosing at peak growth 36ml divided into 12 doses a day of both Ca / Alk plus another 8ml of mg going in 4 doses. Given recent troubles, it's greatly reduced now.
3) Definitely every 3-4 weeks is optimal.

And good luck with your tank! Look forward to progress!

As to the latest update on mine, negligence and travel have definitely taken their toll. I spent some time tossing dead corals today. My bali green table and bali deepwater were both dead, as were my ORA borealis and prize cali tort.

The ORA green bn is still looking to be on it's way out, but is hanging in there (and I almost threw it out once years ago as a frag and it came back and flourished) so I am holding onto it for now. ORA plum crazy is shedding flesh and looks like it will be gone soon. Stylo's look as good as ever, along with the hyacinth bn. Turki acro is also looking perfect (surprisingly for a smooth skin). ORA kelly green is also doing fine. My sunset mille is starting to show less PE, which isn't a good sign.

After trashing the dead corals I cut up the ORA green stylo from it's encrustation to relocate it back further in the tank, and moved up the crocea clam. I actually really like the new scape and it showcases my large colonies much better now. It's hard to picture a 2-yr scape when you are buying / placing frags, lol.

Anyway, I've been paying more attention to the tank, testing more, doing weekly WC's, and trying to trouble shoot other problems. My latest hypothesis is that a switch to 100% use of BRS HC GFO led to an upswing in phosphates (evident by cyano outbreaks). I'm buying some Phosban tomorrow at my LFS, changing out media in my reactors, and giving the skimmer and back chambers a good cleaning and hoping for the best. Worst, case, my softies and clams are still doing great so I just won't have an SPS dominant tank for a while, lol. I'll post pics sometime soon once I feel it's presentable...
 
hang in there, you'll turn it around! Sorry to hear about all the loss, it's sad to say bye to your favorites, plus it's a lot of money to boot!
 
venom550pm said:
hang in there, you'll turn it around! Sorry to hear about all the loss, it's sad to say bye to your favorites, plus it's a lot of money to boot!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence!! And this may sound funny, but it's really not about the money. It's more about seeing 2-yrs worth of growth slowly die off :( And even more frustrating is not knowing what the heck is wrong!! I was starting to think maybe it was phosphates and my old school API test kit just wasn't reading anything. So today I went and bought a Salifert kit at my LFS, and behold! It reads and absolute 0 even at double accuracy... Another dead end.

Not sure what else to do besides keep up with weekly WC's and try out the RowaPhos media I bought and threw in my reactor today. Fingers crossed...
 
oh, and i have an NC28 HQI w/10 gallon sump, 150 watt 14k bulb on top, overflow box to sump, skimmer......its all starting to look like a tank now, after 2.5 months. now i just need to get some nicer coral like what was in your tank...thanks again for the amazing thread!
 
biocube14g said:
i finally got to the end after three days!!!! best thread on RC!
Click to expand...

biocube14g said:
oh, and i have an NC28 HQI w/10 gallon sump, 150 watt 14k bulb on top, overflow box to sump, skimmer......its all starting to look like a tank now, after 2.5 months. now i just need to get some nicer coral like what was in your tank...thanks again for the amazing thread!
Click to expand...

Thanks a ton for the compliments, and so glad to hear you read through the whole long mess/adventure!! I'll go look for your thread.

As for my tank, I'm reinvigorated to get things back in shape. I spent over 10-hrs this weekend cleaning, water changing, testing, killing mojano's, etc. Also dropped $100 at the LFS for things to get it all back in line. I'm confident I'll figure it out, get things back in line, and start anew with my great fish, clams, and softies still in place. I've got a lot of ideas for what-to-do, what-not-to-do, and better SPS coral selections and placement. I'm looking forward to an even better Ange062 NC28 version 1.1! :bounce3:
 
My sister printed out some of my macro shots of the tank in better days for Xmas. All on canvas and ready to be stretched onto frames, great reef pr0n for the fish room in my soon to be new house!! And more inspiration for tank 1.1!!!

20121219_183541.jpg
 
Those are some cool looking prints.

As far as the die off. does it coincide with switching GFO? A couple of times when i've switched from Phosgard to GFO i had some of my SPS recede and some parts had to be cut off. I've read also when you have a little bit of PO4 and Nitrates and all of a sudden clean it all out the SPS and some other corals go into shock and can die.
 
venom550pm said:
Those are some cool looking prints.

As far as the die off. does it coincide with switching GFO? A couple of times when i've switched from Phosgard to GFO i had some of my SPS recede and some parts had to be cut off. I've read also when you have a little bit of PO4 and Nitrates and all of a sudden clean it all out the SPS and some other corals go into shock and can die.
Click to expand...

Nope, it's not GFO related bleaching die off as Ive seen that before. On the contrary, I think it may be related to excess PO4 given other signs in the tank such as cyano and a bit of GHA. This is despite both API tests and Salifert double accuracy readings of 0.

Here is a bit of the carnage. Borealis, plum crazy, turaki, red planet, and blue mille. Sunset mille is looking bad, as is the green stylo. Purple stylo and hyacinth bn are still looking good for now, as are the clams and fish.

20121226_221613.jpg

20121226_220624.jpg


Started carbon dosing as an attempt to help and have been diligent with weekly WC's for about a month. Hopefully I can turn this thing around. On a positive note, softies and the tank overall still look pretty good with everything that is left.

Worst case it becomes a colorful softie tank, but would love to have an SPS resurgence at some point when it's ready!!
 
Really sorry to hear about your losses. It is devastating to lose a colony you have grown out from a frag. Keep your head up.

I have been wracking my brain for the last ten minutes on what could be causing the problems. I keep coming back to flow for some reason. With the tank becoming packed and traveling leading to less maintenance, I wonder if the vortech starting getting dirty (they drop flow rapidly as algae and bacteria growth develops on the impeller) and the loss in flow was just too much for the corals. That would also help explain the cyano. It could also be a phosphate issue, or even more likely, the combination of the two. I would expect your phosphate tests to read zero because most of the phosphate is being used up by the algae outbreak.

How do the other parameters check out?
 
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