Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

Looks like my tank is at least acting healthy again. The clowns have laid some eggs and when I was trying to take pictures of them I noticed the mandarins doing a mating dance. They didn't like the camera to much and stoped as sone as I started to take video. I will have to try to catch them in action. The female grabs themale and drags him around!

 

[jason2459]

No longer do I have a FOWLER. I got some frags from my LFG for pretty cheap and I'm pretty excited and scared about it at the same time. We'll see if I can keep them alive. This will be my first real attempt at some corals. I had a kenya tree before but those were super simple and spread like a weed.

Here they are and no I do not have bubble algae. It's my beautiful turf algae covered in cyano. I just got done blasting them off now that the lights are out for the night. Ever since the minor misshap I've been getting wave after wave of cyano. Hoping the GFO starts kicking in soon to help out.

I put them in this afternoon and they're already extending and getting nice and puffy.

The torch:

The Blasto: (really hard to get a sharp picture on this guy and the next one down.)

Mr. Duncan

The blastos are really small and there's about 6 heads there. The Duncan has five heads and is about 2" and the torch I believe is a single head and is about three inches but the arms can really stretch out pretty good. I love the colors on the blastomussa. The pictures do not do it justice at all!

 

[Nemoislost]

wow,i just read through this entire thread.
you have come a long way since you started rebuilding this. love all the pictures

 

[jason2459]

wow,i just read through this entire thread.
you have come a long way since you started rebuilding this. love all the pictures

Thanks for reading. The journey has just begun for me. We'll see how successful I can be with the LPS corals. If you really want to a good thread to read through then you should check out Paul B's thread. Warning, it is very long.

 

[jason2459]

The super reef octopus skimmer is really starting to break in now. Been about two weeks since starting it up and the microbubbles are way down. Still a very small amount gets into the tank but they instantly go up to the surface so very bearable even if it stays like that. The skimmer has quieted down some more but still not near as quiet as the psk-100h but never thought it would be. It's not as annoying as the rio-1100 was with the SS65. It's a nice constant humm. We'll see what another two weeks will do. This skimmer definitely is not quick to break in and I think it's at least half way there.

The skimmate is getting getting much darker and getting to the wet consistency that I like. I let it go for three days and got some pics to post here shortly. The neck was just a thick cake of nasty and the smell was still just as horrible as before. I have not adjusted the collection cup down yet and still have it all the way up. So, because of that I believe there is still some breaking in to do and if I can't get to the point of adjusting the collection cup down then this skimmer's body is just barely big enough for the hy-2000 bb pump.

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

That is some serious Nog Jason ! Looks like it is doing an awesome job.

 

[jason2459]

That is some serious Nog Jason ! Looks like it is doing an awesome job.

It certainly is getting a lot better as the skimmer breaks in. Curious when it will get to the point that I can start lowering the collection cup.

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

It probably shouldn't be much longer if it acts like most skimmers. Are you going to dry it up just a tad?

I finally actually have a tank with water in it now, if you are interested:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1807612

 

[jason2459]

It probably shouldn't be much longer if it acts like most skimmers. Are you going to dry it up just a tad?

I finally actually have a tank with water in it now, if you are interested:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1807612

I'd like the skimmate to get a little thicker but not much more. I'd be happy with that kind of out put though too. Right now I don't have much of a choice as I can't move the collection cup yet.

Nice build so far!

 

[jason2459]

QT sucks.....


About three more weeks to go. :sad1:

I have already fallen in love with the fairy wrasses and the shark nose gobies. They are always swimming around, very active and don't bother a thing. The mystery wrasse is still very very shy and runs and hides every time I walk into the bathroom. I still have to peak around the door way to see him swimming around and to make sure he's eating. Which he is.

 

[blrrobinson21]

I know your pains, Ive got two fish in Qt with about 2 weeks left. It will be worth it as long as I dont have another bout with Ich.

 

[jason2459]

I know your pains, Ive got two fish in Qt with about 2 weeks left. It will be worth it as long as I dont have another bout with Ich.

Seems like it takes forever. Glad I've writen down when I got them in this log because I would have forgoten how long they've been in QT and would have taken them out by now.

The Mystery Wrasse is still very shy but I can at least stick my head in the door way with out him running for cover. He still hides as soon as he sees the rest of my body. I guess one body part at a time...

 

[ROB2005]

Jason, anything new with the gunk producing machine? Consistency to your liking yet?

 

[jason2459]

Jason, anything new with the gunk producing machine? Consistency to your liking yet?

It's still about the same. If it has thickened up it's not noticable. The microbubbles are very minimal now and either I'm getting used to it but doesn't sound as loud anymore. Idealy there will be 0 microbubbles but I haven't done anything to try and fix it yet either. I'd like for it to work itself out with out any intervention first.

I did go about 4 days with out a water change and after doing a 3g change the skimmer seemed to produce a lot more microbubbles but after a few hours they calmed back down. Not sure what that was about.

 

[jason2459]

Dang. Last two weeks of QT. Or just under the two week mark actually. I'm still getting waves of cyano outbreaks. Weird. Decided to try some different pellets instead of flakes or the current pellets I have as a supplement. I picked up some Ocean Nutrition Formula One Marine Pellets. It's supposed to be lower in phosphates. It doesn't include fish meal which I guess contributes greatly to phosphates.

This turned out to be a great move too for an entirely different reason though. My male mandarin seems to love these new pellets. They are supposed to be a soft pellet and include garlic and salmon oil. So, maybe that's what he's liking. The female doesn't seem to notice them one bit but the male is actively searching for them in the substrate and going crazy for them.

 

[Aquarist007]

Dang. Last two weeks of QT. Or just under the two week mark actually. I'm still getting waves of cyano outbreaks. Weird. Decided to try some different pellets instead of flakes or the current pellets I have as a supplement. I picked up some Ocean Nutrition Formula One Marine Pellets. It's supposed to be lower in phosphates. It doesn't include fish meal which I guess contributes greatly to phosphates.

This turned out to be a great move too for an entirely different reason though. My male mandarin seems to love these new pellets. They are supposed to be a soft pellet and include garlic and salmon oil. So, maybe that's what he's liking. The female doesn't seem to notice them one bit but the male is actively searching for them in the substrate and going crazy for them.

thanks for the detailed list of your equipment etc. It will be usefull to point others to the list

What I have found with pellets is that they don't all get eaten and eventually can cause cyano problems

 

[jason2459]

thanks for the detailed list of your equipment etc. It will be usefull to point others to the list

What I have found with pellets is that they don't all get eaten and eventually can cause cyano problems

My phosphates have been off the charts since the power outage fiasco and had several fish and inverts die just sitting in there for a while. I'm thinking I probably still have some dead stuff under the rocks. Nitrates are below 5 so that's not an issue right now. Seems like between the live rock, macro, RUGF, and skimmer the tank has no issue keeping up with nitrification and denitrification. Just the phosphates are an issue right now. I'm thinking of hitting up three 50% water changes every other day and see what kind of dent that does to the phosphates. Checking the next day after each one to see how much if any it's dropped. Otherwise I might look into lanthanum(sp?) or dosing with some vinegar.

 

[jason2459]

One other thing I'm going to experiment with is trying out regular Instant Ocean instead of Reef Crystals. Seems like every time I do a water change I have to leave my skimmer off for about an hour since I got this new skimmer. The amount of air it brings in just creates a foam canon into the collection cup right after the water change. My other skimmers never had this issue but they were also not drawing in any where near the amount of air as the sro lx-2000s.

I read that Randy really long name Farley had the same issue with his skimmer and Reef Crystals. Could be the vitamins or other additives they put in there. I also got my idea of daily water changes from him but I'm doing them manually. He has a dual head water pump that automatically turns on and does a small daily water change.

I'll have to watch my calcium levels and if I need to I'll start using lime water.

 

[jason2459]

Well, since I did an inventory list on the previous page I suppose I should update my maintenance schedule (page 5 was my last one) and see if there can be any improvements there.

Maintenance:
Run mag float on glass daily to every other day even if it doesn't look like its needed and razor as needed (Have not needed to run a razor on my tank since setting it up yet.)

Daily basting of live rocks then do a Daily very quick under a minute ~1-2g water change.

Clean skimmer collection cup as needed. Used to clean it every day but with the much larger collection cup now I go about three days.

Fill ATO container once a week. About 4 gallons worth in a 5 gallon bucket. Will watch calcium levels and add kalk to ATO if needed.

Checking pH, cal., mag, alk, nitrates, and po4 every other week. The pH and salinity more often. Probably every three days to once a week. It's really quick and easy with the probe and refractometer and lets me know when things are going downhill or stable.

Once a week pull out some macro.

Diatom Filter/blasting every 3-4 months.

Replace Ozonizer and Diatom filter every 10-20 years.

Clean RUGF in 25-30 years :lol:

I suppose I should be cleaning my water pumps too....


Feeding:
Daily noon automatic feeder with either pellets or flakes. Just switched up to some new pellets that my male mandarin seems to love.

Nightly put in a half a frozen cube of something. Rotating between mysis, spirulina brine, prime reef, formula 1, formula 2, and blood worms (I've seen both mandarins take a nip at the blood worms). Once all fish go in then will probably bump up to a full cube.

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

thanks for the recap Jason.