Myka's 69 SPS Tank 2015

[Myka]

Hey all! Sorry I haven't been lurking around much as I've been really busy. I need to catch up on all your tank journals!

I don't have a lot to update because my tank basically just sucks. I've not had as much trouble with a tank as this one (thank god it's not a client's tank). I'm not sure what the deal is besides too much messing around with it.

I picked up Sodium nitrate dosing again as I was getting "undetectable" on both Salifert and Red Sea Pro kits. Plus, undetectable on Hanna ULR Phosphorus colorimeter. I was dosing 0.75 ppm every night for 3 weeks along with 5 mL AcroPower every second night. I didn't really see anything I could attribute to the dosing. The first week the tank always read "undetectable" for nitrate. Two weeks in I was seeing 0.25 ppm nitrate and everything stopped growing and I had to stop kalk dosing. Three weeks in I was still at 0.25 ppm and starting to see burned tips and colors fading. Other parameters have remained stable throughout. I'm thinking that what happened was I took phosphate from "undetectable" to "absolute zero" by dosing the nitrate. I had these same issues show up last fall when I tried nitrate dosing in this tank.

So I finally found some fish I was wanting, and added a 1.5" Tomini Tang and a couple Yellowhead Jawfish. I've been feeding a lot.

1 week into nitrate dosing I got my hands on some NP ProBioS (bacteria), and started dosing it 3 drops per night (80 gallons net). I also did the first waterchange with 50% Aquaforest Probiotic Reef Salt. This may have accelerated the phosphate reduction. Maybe??

2 weeks into nitrate dosing I was on 100% AF Probiotic salt and also added 2L Siporax. Added the 3 fish.

3 weeks into nitrate dosing when the burned tips showed up I stopped nitrate dosing, turned my lights down about 25%. Started getting a bit of green hair algae in the lower flow areas around this time (not a bad thing imo). I've lost a lot of snails that I've tried to add (about 8 out of 12).

At 4 weeks I started NP Pro dosing at 3 drops per night. I did a 20% waterchange, then the next day I did a 40% waterchange. That was 5 days ago. Hoping for a tank reset.

I have AF Pro Bio F and Components 1+2+3+ on their way here right now. Plus replenishments for the NP Pro and NP ProBioS.

Right now I'm only dosing 3 drops NP Pro, 3 drops NP ProBioS, and 2.5 mL AcroPower all dosed every night.

Fish get fed a homemade mash equivalent to about 2 1/2 cubes split into 3 or 4 feedings per day. Once or twice a week they get about 1/8 tsp R.O.E. and they get a TDO/Spirulina/NLS pellet mix once a day too on auto feeder - about 40 small pellets (fills a 1/8th tsp about 3/4 of the way).



Today's parameters (still no kalk dosing):

Temp 78F
SG 35 ppt
C 430 ppm (Salifert)
Alk 129 ppm, 7.22 dKH (Hanna) 7.5 dKH (Salifert)
Mg 1440 ppm (Red Sea Pro...I get consistent results with this kit)
K 420 ppm (Salifert)
NO3 0-0.25 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
PO4 0 ppb (Hanna ULR)

 

[reefmutt]

Hey Mindy, glad to hear from you..
Curious.. Why are you dosing np pro if you are having such low n.. And even lower p.
I would think that with undectable p, dosing n and np pro would add in keeping it at absolute zero...

 

[Myka]

Hey Mindy, glad to hear from you..
Curious.. Why are you dosing np pro if you are having such low n.. And even lower p.
I would think that with undectable p, dosing n and np pro would add in keeping it at absolute zero...

Hi Matt! Good to hear from you as well!

I'm trying to do the whole AF method. I think the ProBioF is the most significant factor in nutrient reduction though, which I'm not using. However, I haven't yet started their line of Coral A, B, E, and V which are foods and vitamins if I understand correctly (I have Coral V & E arriving on Monday), with Coral B sounding pretty similar to Zeovit Coral Snow. Maybe I need to focus more on the nutrition end than the bacteria end. Also, I'm a big fan of providing "good bacteria" to the system to help keep the good vs bad bacteria in check. I had really good results for years using Prodibio Biodigest and Bioptim, but that's dosing 2x per month, not daily. Maybe I should cut the NP Pro for now and just add ProBioS (the bacteria). I wanted to finish off the bottle of AcroPower before switching to the Coral A (aminos). I'll probably also finish the bottle of Coral Snow that I have before buying any Coral B.

 

[mhucasey]

Hi Matt! Good to hear from you as well!

I'm trying to do the whole AF method. I think the ProBioF is the most significant factor in nutrient reduction though, which I'm not using. However, I haven't yet started their line of Coral A, B, E, and V which are foods and vitamins if I understand correctly (I have Coral V & E arriving on Monday), with Coral B sounding pretty similar to Zeovit Coral Snow. Maybe I need to focus more on the nutrition end than the bacteria end. Also, I'm a big fan of providing "good bacteria" to the system to help keep the good vs bad bacteria in check. I had really good results for years using Prodibio Biodigest and Bioptim, but that's dosing 2x per month, not daily. Maybe I should cut the NP Pro for now and just add ProBioS (the bacteria). I wanted to finish off the bottle of AcroPower before switching to the Coral A (aminos). I'll probably also finish the bottle of Coral Snow that I have before buying any Coral B.

Very cool that you are going AF! A little correction though. NP Pro is the carbon source(growth medium) while ProBio S is the Bacteria. For small tanks, ProBio F is the bacteria and carbon source together in a dry form. You can use it for big tanks but it's not necessary for them.

Coral A and V get dosed together, they are aminos and vitamins. Coral B is Calcium Carbonate slurry that helps clear the water and can help with Cyano.

Coral E is a coral food with trace amounts of copper which can help lighten the corals. Its made up of planktonic organic matter and is dosed every other day.

The other supplement that is regularly used is MicroE. It is a solution of trace metals such as Fe, Zn, Mg, etc that are used up regularly. I havebeen on teh system for 4 months now and can answer any questions you have.

 

[Myka]

Very cool that you are going AF! A little correction though. NP Pro is the carbon source(growth medium) while ProBio S is the Bacteria. For small tanks, ProBio F is the bacteria and carbon source together in a dry form. You can use it for big tanks but it's not necessary for them.

Hi Matt! Thanks for stopping in, I was just trying to catch up in your tank journal. I see you're trying to break up the MicroE dosing into single element dosing. Interesting...

Where did I mix up the NP Pro and ProBioS? I think I have that straight. That is news about the ProBioF though - darn it, I just ordered it, and it shipped today already!

Coral A and V get dosed together, they are aminos and vitamins. Coral B is Calcium Carbonate slurry that helps clear the water and can help with Cyano.

Yes, it seems the Coral B is similar to Zeovit Coral Snow, and I have lots of that stuff, so I'll use that up before switching to Coral B. I'm going to use up my bottle of AcroPower before switching to Coral A too.

Coral E is a coral food with trace amounts of copper which can help lighten the corals. Its made up of planktonic organic matter and is dosed every other day.

This one I don't think I should touch right now because my corals are very, very light already. I'm not using any Zeolites yet either.

The other supplement that is regularly used is MicroE. It is a solution of trace metals such as Fe, Zn, Mg, etc that are used up regularly. I havebeen on teh system for 4 months now and can answer any questions you have.

I'm using the Components 1+2+3+ which showed up today, and my understanding is that the Components have all the micros and macros mixed in already. I figured it would be a good place to start and if all is happy I can stick with it, and if I need to make adjustments then I can switch to dosing micros and macros separately like you are.

I was following your AF transition from the beginning, and planned to hop on board as soon as possible, but had a bucket of H2Ocean to finish up first. So I've been on the AF Probiotic salt now for 3 weeks I think (without checking my notes), and slowly starting up the rest of the line. Right now I'm not dosing cal/alk since my corals are too mad to grow. :facepalm:

Thank you for the offer of help!

 

[mhucasey]

Hi Matt! Thanks for stopping in, I was just trying to catch up in your tank journal. I see you're trying to break up the MicroE dosing into single element dosing. Interesting...

Where did I mix up the NP Pro and ProBioS? I think I have that straight. That is news about the ProBioF though - darn it, I just ordered it, and it shipped today already!



Yes, it seems the Coral B is similar to Zeovit Coral Snow, and I have lots of that stuff, so I'll use that up before switching to Coral B. I'm going to use up my bottle of AcroPower before switching to Coral A too.



This one I don't think I should touch right now because my corals are very, very light already.



I'm using the Components 1+2+3+ which showed up today, and my understanding is that the Components have all the micros and macros mixed in already. I figured it would be a good place to start and if all is happy I can stick with it, and if I need to make adjustments then I can switch to dosing micros and macros separately like you are.

I was following your AF transition from the beginning, and planned to hop on board as soon as possible, but had a bucket of H2Ocean to finish up first. So I've been on the AF Probiotic salt now for 3 weeks I think (without checking my notes), and slowly starting up the rest of the line. Right now I'm not dosing cal/alk since my corals are too mad to grow. :facepalm:

Thank you for the offer of help!

Components 1+2+3 will certainly handle all the microelements, no need for the MicroE or the other individual elements in that case

 

[MichaelW]

I dose the coral e daily. In the instructions it says daily. The coral a and v are every other day. I did start off every other day with the coral e but did go into daily as that's what I understood in the directions... Did I misunderstand?

 

[mhucasey]

I dose the coral e daily. In the instructions it says daily. The coral a and v are every other day. I did start off every other day with the coral e but did go into daily as that's what I understood in the directions... Did I misunderstand?

No, I totally forgot that I was dosing every other day to be cautious at first. I'm not concerned with Coral E any longer so I may go to daily dosing as well. Its potent stuff, lots of organic material and omega oils in it, if you get it on your skin it is hard to wash off that smell...

 

[Myka]

I received more Aquaforest goodies, so here's the dosing schedule starting today:

80 gallons net

ProBioS - 3 drops/night (started 3/14)
Coral E - 2 drops/night (first dose tonight)
Zeovit Coral Snow - 3 mL/night (in place of Coral B until used up) maybe I should reduce to 1 mL??? (first dose tonight)
Coral V - 2 drops/odd nights (first dose tonight)
TLF AcroPower - 5 mL/even nights (in place of Coral A until used up, started 3/14)

NP Pro - dosing suspended until I see some nutrients

Siporax 2L in a coarse mesh bag in a high flow area of sump added 3/23.

Feel free to suggest changes!

 

[plyle02]

Sounds good to me Mindy Congrats, look forward to seeing your progress!
Cheers,

 

[reefmutt]

Very cool, Mindy. Looking forward to your AF transition.
We may need a few 'before' pics however!

 

[Myka]

Sounds good to me Mindy Congrats, look forward to seeing your progress!
Cheers,

Thanks Perry! What do you think about the Coral Snow? The container says for me to use 3 mL daily, but it seems like a lot.

Very cool, Mindy. Looking forward to your AF transition.
We may need a few 'before' pics however!

Pff...no need for pics, just think about pale, pale little corals. :facepalm:

 

[Myka]

I was reading back in Andrew's thread and came across this comment...

i don't have anything colored like the pics of that walt disney thing lol - the vendor pics are beyond ridiculous - you idiots don't need to over saturate and skew the colors on nice stuff to sell it !

A very easy way to know if you are kicking goals in regards to acro colors is this, if the display looks better under actinics only than with full lighting on your colors are sh$tful............. you can take that however you want.

Sale pics under stupid lighting spectrum is a wank aimed at wanker reefers.

Not only did the comment make me almost lose my morning tea onto my laptop, I was also thinking, "Hey I must be on the right track" because my tank looks better under whites than it does under blues. I totally agree with Andrew's comment though, and I wish vendors would start taking more pics under 15,000K or so. Andrew's comment caught my attention because just yesterday I switched out some bulbs (and noticed most of my bulbs are a year old already since they came off the previous tank, so I guess I need to order up some bulbs).

Old combo:

ATI Coral Plus
ATI Blue Plus (dusk/dawn)
ATI Blue Plus
KZ Fiji Purple
ATI Blue Plus (dusk/dawn)
ATI Coral Plus

New combo:

ATI Coral Plus
ATI Blue Plus (dusk/dawn)
KZ Coral Light (the 10,000K one, not the "new gen")
KZ Fiji Purple
KZ Blue Plus (dusk/dawn) (new bulb)
ATI Coral Plus


Current fish (getting pretty stocked!):

2 Panamic Barnacle Blennies
1 Royal Gramma
1 Pintail wrasse
1 Yellow Coris wrasse (H chrysus)
2 Onyx Clowns making lots of free fish food (spawning haha)
1 Pajama Cardinal
1 Tomini Tang
1 Yellowhead Jawfish


On another note, I've been getting a bit of green slime after increasing the number of AF products. I'm not using the Components yet as I'm only dosing Sodium bicarb waiting for the calcium to fall 20 ppm. I'm hoping to get that online this weekend maybe. The tank isn't using up much right now, only going through 0.3 dKH per day, but I'm seeing some color coming back after the side effects KNO3 dosing browned out most of the colors. Some pieces are completely unaffected, and others you can't even tell what color they are supposed to be. I notice now though, that through this last fail I didn't take any pics. I haven't taken any pics since late January, so I didn't get the worst of it on record. Again, the reason for the KNO3 causing issues, I think, is because the NO3 additions dropped PO4 from "undetectable" to absolute zero.

Like this one...

Before KNO3:

After KNO3:

Here are some that paled a bit more, but weren't as hard hit. Some were completely unaffected (like the bright green humilis). You'll see some hair algae in the pics which is actually fairly welcome to me at this point. I'm going to pick up some more Ring Cowries today, and I think they'll do a good job of consuming the algae and putting those beautiful nutrients back into the water.

 

[JB NY]

I didn't see any browning from KNO3 dosing, just some deepening of color. What levels did it go up to and how fats did you move it. I moved my N up about .5 -1 ppm per day max.

 

[Myka]

I didn't see any browning from KNO3 dosing, just some deepening of color. What levels did it go up to and how fats did you move it. I moved my N up about .5 -1 ppm per day max.

I didn't post any of the bad pics - there was burned tips and STN. The corals in the last pics were mostly unaffected by the dosing. The last one above was actually totally pale yellow brown and has just started to color up again in the last week or so.

I'm not in front of my log book, but I think I dosed 0.75 ppm per day for 3 weeks which resulted in water column testing of 0.25-0.5 ppm. Meanwhile, PO4 was 0 ppb on Hanna ULR.

 

[Oldude]

Good looking frags!

 

[scrapz]

Think the best way to add nit n phos is naturally through more fish and more feedings. Dosing this and that makes it too hard to track down what is doing what. Back to KISs:thumbsup:

Btw the lokani looks awesome..

 

[Myka]

Good looking frags!

Some from your tank!

Think the best way to add nit n phos is naturally through more fish and more feedings. Dosing this and that makes it too hard to track down what is doing what. Back to KISs:thumbsup:

Btw the lokani looks awesome..

Thanks, that's Hawkin's "Echinata" Lokani. I'd prefer deeper coloraiton.

The tank gets fed A LOT - my fish are fat. There's now a decent fish load too. They get a homemade frozen mash 2-3 times per day, equivalent to about 1.5 cubes total, plus about half of an 1/8th tsp (about 20 med pellets) of mixed pellets midday via an auto feeder. None of them are lean - not even the Jawfish.

All I was dosing before was the KNO3 which I've done in other tanks, but it didn't work very well in this tank. Meh. Now I'm on Aquaforest though, and dosing all sorts of crap. :rollface:

 

[plyle02]

Good looking frags!

:thumbsup: I agree totally with this statement Hope all is well Mindy!!!

 

[Myka]

:thumbsup: I agree totally with this statement Hope all is well Mindy!!!

Thanks Perry! I think the tank is just slow to mature and make SPS happy. I also think the mini-crash at the tank's 3-month mark really hit things harder than I first understood. I look at pics of the frags from just before the mini-crash and I shed a tear because they haven't looked as good since. :facepalm:

I'm going to the LFS right away to pick up a new maricultured piece today that I picked out yesterday as they were unpacking. Pretty pink corallites with a green or yellow base - might be a tenuis (I have to look closer).