Reefer 350 build

[neiltus]

Some interesting things this week:

Diatoms/Silica:-for about the past two weeks I have been getting a heavy dusting of diatoms. My 4 stage BRS RODI unit was still registering 0PPM after the DI, but there was about 25% of the color changing resin remaining. I added a 2nd DI can and a 2nd Carbon can and removed my nearly exhausted DI. I also ordered some Silicabuster to try in the future if the DI changes do not fix it. My thoughts were confirmed by a post by Jason in this thread:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2606858

Seems DI lets silicate through when it hits around 60%. I was not aware of this, but thought it could be the resin being near depletion. Anyways the replacement should help.

Algae/PO4/GFO use-I have had PO4 levels up to .5, and started some BRS HD GFO, this brought them down to .13 then back up. Most sources including the BRS instructions say to change out the GFO monthly. This is not enough. It seems GFO works to an equilibrium point, then stops, and possibly goes into a leeching period. That point can be reached in 24/48 hours. Judicious changing of GFO if your battling a "it's coming from the rocks" is needed to get and hold the levels down. It seems that my system is putting about .05+/- a day into the column, so I am changing out GFO about every three days.

There is some decent info in this thread:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2021588

I have tried the BRS HD GFO, the TLF Phosban and have some Rowaphos on order. It seems the TLF Phosban pulls a little more PO4 out of the column than the BRS HD GFO, but there is a price difference for that...the BRS is less per point. Still waiting to see how the Rowa does.

I have also cut back on lighting intensity and duration and whiteness. I don't imagine the change in the DI will hurt either.

Potter's and Goby-been in observation since Tuesday. Eating brine, mysis and Larry's Frenzy well. Feeding a very small amount 2x day. Adding Selcon every other day. Both appear very healthy and active. The Potter's has come to recognize me as a 'food source' when I approach the tank and no longer hides but comes out to meet me.

My son spotted the mantis shrimp in the DT last night while we were hunting bad crabs. The mantis is tiny, only maybe a .25 cm, we have not seen him in months.

My chalice was looking bad around the edge, found a gorilla crab hiding out under it...he was relieved of his duties and fed to the cleaner shrimp.:blown: Also found two other 'bad' crabs and they were served for a snack.

I am struggling with the Tunze 6095 and their power for this size tank. Thinking the 6055 model may have been a better fit. To late now.

 

[neiltus]

Not much to report this week-

Algae/PO4/GFO-feel like i am making some progress with the GFO, although I am changing it out every 48 hours. I had a couple decent tests -.05 and .09 with a high around .13 this week, I am currently testing 2x a day and trying to keep it below .15 till I get it and keep it below .1. The diatoms I thinned out with a vacuum. Some tuning on the skimmer (wetter) is producing more.

NO3-tank is hovering around 10-12ppm and I am just target feeding every few days the mantis, pistol and cleaner. I started using the Nyos test because I have difficulty reading the salifert between 10 and 25ppm. The salifert reads closer to 25, while the nyos reads 12 or below, this is probably due to the salifert picking up the amine NO3 and the Nyos excluding. Or my eyes.

Potter's and Goby-not much to report here, their eating well, both Larry's and selcon w mysis and brine. I did a 50% water change in their OT either, it was getting murky without a skimmer. Still no trace of NH4-on seachem badge or salifert kit over the week. I put a couple small chunks of rock in the OT that will get tossed if they need further treatment. Today is day 26 in my possession. 4 weeks from this tuesday they will get added to DT.

Additions-the LFS had a couple of nems that came in from locals where they had spit in their tanks. I feel like my water is pretty darn stable and he gave me a decent deal. One is supposedly a Sherman (Entacmaea quadricolor) other is a rainbow.

I really did not want to add anything, and both were attached to live rock---ugh---did not want to remove them and risk damage. The were at the shop in a single tank not on a community system, so I brought them home, did a small WC in the DT (5g) and split the old water in buckets. I carefully placed them in the first bucket for inspection, on the rock with the rainbow I removed a few small pieces of bubble algae, then they went in the second bucket to inspect again. Very careful to not move LFS water into my DT.

The rainbow got rolled around in transport and is in pout mode right now, the sherman opened right up.

Anyway, hoping I did not introduce some evil cysts into the DT. I have 4+ more weeks of it being fish-less so hopefully that will work out. I had been thinking now would be the best time to add nems bc I really don't have great enough lighting on a QT/OT to warrant safe observation for a couple weeks.

 

[neiltus]

Slightly better photos with the whites up on the light.

The 'rainbow' has perked up a little bit in the hour or so it's been in the tank. It was much more happy in the store, I think it got pressed up in the bag during transport.

 

[TDN88]

Looks awesome nice work so far

 

[neiltus]

Interesting observation this morning-

Yesterday mid-day I added new GFO. I tested at .11 before that. No feeding or organics put into the tank with the exceptions of the two nems and the rock that they were attached to.

This morning I tested at .25. Yes, it could have been a bad test. Excluding that thought it also could be the addition of the two other rocks containing material with PO4. The LFS has told me before that this particular tank is not low nutrient. I can't think of a way that much PO4 would have appeared without either a test error or addition of it.-possibly through water in the nems or some decay on the rocks.

Anyway, it's interesting to me, so I thought I would note that. Going to test again later today. I doubt my PO4 is depleted that quick as I have been getting at least 48 hours out of it before a rise....

Oh, one nem stayed put, the rose trucked around his rock a couple times and moved to the side of it. Cool watching them move.

 

[neiltus]

Not much to report this week. The "diatoms" seem to be either a weak cyano or dyno strain. I have not put them under a scope, working on access to one. They only appear on the sand bed in the areas where there is light, there are no bubbles attached, and are not stringy, only slightly powders. I am changing to a non-reef salt to see if the excess trace stuff in the salt mix is something they are going for.

Any other thoughts on it would be appreciated...

I have upped the skimmer pretty wet and doubled down on GFO, last PO4 test was at .08, it seems my ph is dropping the more GFO I run, but I am still 7.9+ during the day with it going to 7.8 at night.

The nems seem to be doing well, both have moved, the rainbow has perked up and seems to like high flow/high light, the rose however likes lower flow and less light and after doing a few laps around the rocks settled on a place where he stretches out daily...looks weird. I will let him figure it out.

Potter's and Yellow Goby are still in OT, both eating well...three more weeks.

 

[neiltus]

Few things of note to update:

Minor dino annoyance (or what I believe is).

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=24826999&postcount=4018

The brown stuff on the substrate that I thought to be diatoms I actually believe to be a form of dino-Amphidinium-I have not scoped it, but the behavior of it not growing in unlit areas, low ph, etc seems to fit the bill. There are no air bubbles, no stringy stuff, and it's not on the liverock.

I have two fighting conchs, and I added a third recently. I question if they eat these dino, could not really find an answer. Anyway, the two I had had been busy under the substrate...so I revoked that temporarily. I do see them move over the sand and pick up the pieces that are brown and put them down looking white-so they are either eating it, pretending to be working, or just tossing most of it in the column. Regardless, it looks better.

There are a bazillion different fixes for this stuff, I have read everything from dosing bleach to lights out, you know. I recently was riding the GFO party to get the PO4 out of the tank, and that seemed to correspond with the bloom of this crap.

My gameplan: stop GFO, run carbon/Purigen, smaller water changes using a non-reef salt (ex 5 gallon) and vacuum the crap out of the substrate during so, skim wet, introduce some macro (pending), add a few cerith and narcissus snails (pending), put in more pods (pending), nuke with Kalk.

The pending stuff is on order-few shaving brush plants, 10 more snails, and pods, although I have them already.

Have done a few days of raising the Ph to about 8.6-8.8. This does something to them. Now we are at this:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2611200

Worse case scenario we remove most of the substrate. Not trying to kill them all, just not be an eyesore. My NO3 recently went from 15ppm to about 50ppm in two days, no feeding just kalk addition. So there was some die off in there.

Current stock:

Nems doing well. The "sherman" moves constantly. The GBTA stays put.

Potter's and Goby have two more weeks in QT to hit their 8 week mark, I may go a week or two longer if I can't get this dino thing under control.

Ordered:

LA had 15% off so I bit on a couple DD wrasse-

Golden Rhomboidalis Wrasse Terminal Phase Male
Tanaka's Pygmy Possum Wrasse

I plan to QT these fish slightly different than the potter's, since they are being shipped, I want to get them eating in 2/3 days before nuking with formalin or prazi. Still on the fence about using formalin on these fish. Going to put in my 10g (not the one with the other two fish) and start feeding then do Prazi dose(s). If all goes well, I will do TTM and possibly formalin at the end of the cycle.

If none goes well and they have symptoms, will just treat and freak.

 

[neiltus]

New Fish (and plants)
The fish I ordered showed up today. Both looked a little shocked, but were mobile. Put them in a Formalin Dip for their 50minutes of torture. I used about 1.9ml of Formalin MS (37%) at 2.5 gallons of very aerated salt water. Then into an 10g OT where I will try to get them eating over the next week before starting TTM.

The Gold Rhomboidalis Wrasse is larger than I expected. It looked like he went into cocoon mode after the bath, went around the OT once and found a hiding spot to zone out. I imagine his color is off, but he is still a damn dapper fish.

The Pygmy Possum did the same. He is small, color is a lot more vivid than in the photos.

I also received some shaving brush plants, gave them a quick rinse in RODI water and into the makeshift fuge. Basically I eggcrated off a portion of the return pump area and put in a JBJ Glo Nano light. Hoping to offset some of the pH swing I have and possibly remove some NO3 in the process. I also have some Chato coming later this week. I am not optimistic that these plants will do much to NO3, but it will not hurt to find out....more concerned about the pH dips.

Dripping Kalk has helped quite a bit. My pH was dropping below about 7.78-7.75, with the Kalk dripping it now is only dropping to around 7.92 at night.

Potters and Goby
Doing well, still eating. No signs of any nasties...They were started in QT (w Formalin, TTM+Prazi on 10/12, so sometime at the end of next week they will go in DT. That will give them 8 weeks and change in QT and free up the other 10g for TTM on the new fish.

Dino Battle
Still looks better than it did with the Kalk slurries. I have on hand some seachem Metro to do a 10 day regime at 250mg per 10 gallons, I also ordered some "Vibrant" by Underwater Creations...it was discussed on another forum and some individuals have used it with pretty decent results. Not at a point where I am ready to go there...just willing if other measures don't work.

Before

After (today at lights on)

 

[Brieninsac]

Looking good Neil. When are your first two fish going in?

 

[neiltus]

Looking good Neil. When are your first two fish going in?

Possibly end of next week. We can say Dec 9th. Eyeballing dino issue in the meantime, would rather nuke without fish in the tank.

 

[neiltus]

Couple pics of the Rhomboid Wrasse in QT, good to see him out and about after the Formalin...

Rear fin looks better, was clamped pretty hard when in the dip...

Interesting wrasse, their color is pretty cool, photos don't do it justice. Might have to break out the Leica and try some photos.

 

[neiltus]

Well the two ultra cautious wrasses woke up today with the Tanaka getting out and exploring around a bit.

I put in some selcon soaked brine, and they took a few...good sign. They were not real aggressive, but more investigating. Few days and they will be over their shipping/formalin stress and hopefully be more interested in food.

 

[neiltus]

Feeding is going well, fed 3x today, the Rhomboid is a pig, have to feed on both ends of the tank so the ultra shy Tanaka gets some...combo of Mysis/Brine and the some LRS.

I dosed Prazi, because the Rhom had some suspect stringy poo. I dialed back the dose a bit, 1ml at 3pm, followed by another 1ml at 6pm (making sure there were not adverse pouting effects from the Prazi).

Will do a WC in 2-3 days and re-dose Prazi again in 6 days. Hopefully plan to have the Potter's and Goby out of QT late next week so I can start TTM with these two.

 

[neiltus]

Decided to do some preventative stuff today-mainly disassemble/clean skimmer and vac some of the detritus out of the sump-there is not much in there, but wanted to try out the 10 buck vac I bought on eBay-it's called a "Mr. Cleaner" and appears to have a smaller footprint than the vacs made by the big names. It works well enough to get in tight places and dump the crap into a mini elastic filter sock. I read a tweak where someone uses rechargeable batteries in a C battery adapter to give it more power....might try that in the future.

Skimmer
I bought a BK mini 160, mainly because I had read a couple reviews that it was set and forget-it is, and it's probably a little much for this tank, but with the red sea sump water height it seemed like a decent fit. I followed the 'german-english' instructions on their website for cleaning and impeller/bearing breakdown, it's pretty simple and takes maybe 30 minutes if you attempt to go very slow and careful. I was concerned about the bearing removal/replacement...it's pretty easy if you don't try to do it blindfolded.

Fish in QT
Not much to report here, fish are eating, the wrasses survived the dreaded 1st round of Prazi...all is well. The pygmy likes his spot under the filter but acts like a big fish when the food gets dumped in. No aggression between the two.

Dino stuff...
The dino outbreak seemed to have eased back a little bit, the addition of a few more CUC are keeping the sandbed moved which is not a bad thing. The dino is still there, but it's staying away from being ugly. Other things done were a boatload of Kalk slurries, raised my dkh from 8-8.3 to about 9.6ish, added some pods.

I think the Potter's and the Goby are ready for the DT, Wed will be 8 weeks and I will probably go another week. I still have a few less than desirable crabs roaming the DT. I try to spear or chopstick them out when I see them...I even set a couple flap traps and caught some, however with the addition of some nassarius snails (5) they seem to pop up and go straight for the traps and trigger them-they are pretty fast as far as snails go.

I ordered some stuff from reef cleaners, it shipped last wednesday, was supposed to be here on saturday (yesterday), no luck. Not going to be pretty when it shows monday...

 

[neiltus]

Tank shot

 

[neiltus]

Today I added the Yellow Prawn Goby and the Potter's Angel to the DT. They spent 8 weeks and 4 days in QT (formalin + 2x prazi + observation). Both were eating excellent in the QT. Drip acclimated then netted them in...did 30 minutes lights out. Potter's went into hiding and the YPG is cruising around-I think looking for the pistol shrimp who I hear popping about every minute or two.

Tank Parameters are good (NO3-12ppm, PO4=.08, Ca=420ppm, 35ppt, pH+8-8.1), Mg was a little low 1320 so I touched it up a bit. Been dripping Kalk and like the help in pH and keeping the dkh up around 9.6, I have started to see improvement in the coralline since I started Kalk and only touch up with 2 part.

New Orders
Splurged for an early Christmas present and ordered a new ATO container. Ordered a 10.2 something gallon from Royal Exclusive. The white matches the reefer stand and it's made from welded PVC. With gas heat running I get maybe 3-4 days out of the 2.5g, so hoping I can go 10+ with the new container.

Also got a shipping note from Advanced Acrylics that my cover is shipping this week. Excited about this...don't want jumpers. It was against better judgement to move the fish out of QT into the tank without a cover yet-would hate to have a jumper after going through 8 weeks of QT.

Rhomboid and Tanaka
Approaching 2 weeks in QT, they have had their second dose of Prazi and both appear eating well and healthy. Both these fish came from Live Aquaria...so their going to go 8 weeks plus in QT. Plan on starting TTM this week since I have my other 10 gallon free. One thing I did not plan for, the Rhomboid is a pretty messy pig...my guess is the bio filter is struggling with the mess he leaves...so I test regularly and have prime and water ready. His color has improved via some variability in the diet...PE Mysis and some LRF.

Will get photos of the equipment up when installed (or when Royal actually ships it, since it has been queued to ship for a week now-ha).

 

[Brieninsac]

Post pictures of the lid when you get it. I want to see how it compares with the Artfully Acrylic lids.

 

[neiltus]

Post pictures of the lid when you get it. I want to see how it compares with the Artfully Acrylic lids.

Brain fart...it's an Artfully Acrylic lid....

 

[neiltus]

Well it took four months to get here...

 

[neiltus]

Things seem to be settling in well.
NO3-4ppm
PO4-.02
Dkh-9.6
Ca-435
Mg-1335

Early Xmas Gift
The reefer 2.?g ATO container was not cutting it, even with a lid. Gas Heat dries out the house and my evap rate is up, so I splurged on a Royal Exclusiv ATO container. Very well built, the white of the container matches close enough to please the wife with the red sea stand. Best part-12.6g of ATO goodness in a barely noticeable profile next to the stand.

PO4 fun
I had high PO4 and was running quite a bit of GFO to get it down from 1ppm. Seems the salt I was using tested for some PO4. I suspect the issue with the dino was also due to the salt, I made a change and it seemed to make the dino "bloom" less, Details here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2615141

Livestock
I think my nems need more light, as they seem to be reaching. I am slowly tweaking the Kessil settings. Currently I am ramping up to 51% Int. Still using a lot of blue.

The Potter's and Goby are eating well, the Goby hangs out by the pistol shrimp, but they have not made the connection yet.

The mantis made a new hole in the rock the other day, it's cool to see how he covers it then opens it up. He is hiding less and takes a krill from a long stick. I still have a few undesirable crabs in the tank, I hope he and the pistol make short work of them.

The wrasses in QT are eating well. The Rhomboid is a hog and the possum gets the leftovers. Next Tuesday marks 4 weeks in QT for them. I plan on doing TTM at some point towards the end of their 8 weeks.

NO3 and Cheato
I sectioned off a portion of the return pump area with egg crate and added some cheato in there. It doubled in size in about 3 weeks and I pulled it in half. Regardless, my NO3 is now between 4-8ppm with the red sea pro test kit. This test kit is much easier to read than salifert fyi. I am not dosing carbon, but the cheato has helped reduce water change volume to get NO3 down.

Next few months
My wife really wants corals. I have been looking and plan to make an order after I get the wrasses out of QT. I want to properly QT the corals so I don't accidentally introduce something nasty.

Still waiting on the lid from artfully acrylic. I received an email stating my lid was going to CNC, but they had some backup/it's the holidays, so still waiting patiently.

Merry Christmas all....

Tank shot