Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

Ok, I can see why the pH actually dipped last night. Our AC didn't run at all last night as it's getting colder at night. I checked the graphs and the ATO/lime/kalk hasn't kick on at all since 8:57pm last night.
 
ATO normally kicks in regularly. I guess right now with higher humidity with lowering temperatures I can expect this more until the humidity drops too as fall comes and increases the evaporation over night again.

7c41ca884d9518873449ba8265855f17.jpg
 
So, I'd say the ATS did a pretty good job keeping the pH above 8.1 over the evening while no lime water was being added at all for over 12 hours.
 
That cyano on the sand bed from the weeks (most likely even more then that) worth of feeding in a single night is starting to slough off. Probably gone in another week or two. Just letting it run its course.

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I know, I lost a superman monti a while back, like 1.5 years ago, then the other day I'm taking a long look at the tank and I realized that it reappeared out of apparent nothingness, and it's 4" x 3". And right dead center in front of the tank. So you could say that I don't really hover over my tank.
 
I've read about corals coming back from seemingly skeletons so from my mass invert death last year due to cleaning supplies and family I left in all the coral skeletons hoping that one day something pops up.
 
Caught my male IO lyretail anthia purching today. Had to digitally zoom in afraid he would swim off if I walked up. I find him there quite often.
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And he swam away as soon as I walked up. The green BTA migrated to the other side of the cave wall which I think is right where I tried to place it originally. Fishies thought I was gonna feed them when I walked up so more swam into view.
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Had time tonight, not that this takes a lot of time, and pulled out the screen for a quick scrape. It was thick and heavy. Backside was a bit thicker and thicker in the middle on both sides. Noticed algae growing not just on the bottom plate but also up the clear acrylic a little too. I cleaned the plate and wiped off the acrylic windows. (Don't know what else to call them?)

Front
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Back
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I upped the flow very slightly tonight and hope the ends fill in a bit more. It's still not wide open yet. With the ramped up lights and a bit more flow I think I'll wait longer then a week to pull it out again.
 
Yup I have to do this with every cleaning. Use the toothbrush, try to avoid using the scraper as it can scratch a lot over time.

You can let it grow until the water that "piles up" is over halfway up the window.
 
I used a paper towel which seemed to do a pretty good job. Glad you recommended the higher rated pump. I'd most likely have been wide open already the last time I adjust the flow higher. I still have a little room to open up the flow more if needed.

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I have a swabbie and 5g lid Davy Jones super skimmate locker on their way. Getting the apex setup and ready for them. Researching how often and how long the swabbie should run for I see Avast recommend 5 minutes 4 times a day, reef octopus recommends 4-6 times a day for a few minutes, and then everythign in between down to only 15s a day. The 15s per day is buy a couple fairly successful reefers so I was going to just run once a day for 1 minute as the neck cleaners they ran run much faster then the swabbie does.

But then it was all based on as little disruption to the foam head was the goal. Well, I shutdown my skimmer 4 times a day anyway killing the foam head so decided to run the swabbie for 1 minute just before feeding.


Swabbie_7_6 (this looks like 1 minute but is 2 minutes but because the feeder kicks on right at 12 shutting down the skimmer this makes this run for 1 minute)
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Time 11:59 to 12:00 Then ON
If Time 14:59 to 15:00 Then ON
If Time 17:59 to 18:00 Then ON
If Time 20:59 to 21:00 Then ON
If Outlet skimmer_7_5 = OFF Then OFF


DJFull BoB Switch input to check if the Davy Jones Locker is Full
Will add to email alerts
If DJFull Open Then ON

Will add to skimmer outlet
If DJFull Open Then OFF
 
Oh and I'll be fitting in another switched input to the Davy Jones Locker lower in then the shutdown input for a dump warning before it fills up and shutsdown the skimmer.

This will be added to the Alerts only. This wont shut anything down.
If DJDump OPEN Then ON
 
And I remember why I like using virtual outlets for switch control. You can't graph switch inputs. But I can graph outlets on and off. Plus I can't switch a switch open and closed with web/phone/display interfaces but I can with an outlet to virtually test what happens and if I want to run them when live as well with out getting in to manually flipping the physical switch. Also can allow some more controls on timing or deferring any action to make sure it wasn't something splashing around causing a false positive.

So, I created a couple virtual outlets that will be used.

vLockerF_A3
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If DJFull OPEN Then ON
If DJFull CLOSED Then OFF
Defer 000:02 Then ON


vLockerD_A2
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If DJDump OPEN Then ON
If DJDump CLOSED Then OFF
Defer 000:02 Then ON


That wont change the Swabbie programming but the skimmer and email alerts will be changed to outlet on/off logic

Email Alerts
If Outlet vLockerD_A2 = ON Then ON
If Outlet vLockerF_A3 = ON Then ON

Skimmer
If Outlet vLockerF_A3 = ON Then OFF

I should get plenty of warning before it actually gets full. Then the 2 second defer will protect against me bumping the bucket that will be on the floor. I'll also know if the skimmer is going rampent if the full email/text comes soon after the dump email/text and would be shutdown.
 
ORP is still creeping higher every night. It hit 352 last night. Big swing too dipping lower back to the 200's

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Tested PO4 last night and it read 1.9. Going to add some GFO to get it back down to maintenance levels. Cyano is receding but that's not any indication of the PO4 levels dropping at least not in my experience with this tank. Once the GFO brings the PO4 back down to around .09 I'll take it back offline letting everything else take care of the rest and maintaining normal levels which for my tank is around .04-.08
 
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