ReefWreak's 29g SPS Biocube Adventure!

[ReefWreak]

Very nice little nano tank! Colours in the SPS are really nice too :beer:

Thanks sahin! I've been a big fan of your build and SPS experience, and see your posting all the time in the SPS forum, so that means a lot! :fish1:

Can you tell me which brand of two part you are dosing?

Sure! I've started using the generic 2 part from Bulk Reef Supply, dosed with their dosers (1.1mL/min). I'm at I believe 8 minutes Alk/day, and 10 min CA/day, and I have it split it into two doses, each delivered 12 hours apart, with the CA and Alk offset by an hour of each other. They kick on at 12/1AM and 12/1PM and are controlled by my ReefKeeper Lite. The ALK/CA are whatever the standard BRS proportioning is, and are dosed from those gallon containers you see below the tank in the stand.

I see Acropower in one of the photos; how often do you dose that? How do you rate acropower for SPS colour? Do you dose any other supplements?

I just picked it up 3-4 weeks ago, maybe I put a capful in every week, if that. I haven't really focused on dosing with it. I hope to start doing once a week, and leaving the skimmer off for the duration of the day that I dose it on, so it has time to circulate and distribute before being skimmed out.

Honestly, I haven't seen any impact from Acropower yet. I bought it and used it because of the generally positive response in the SPS forum on it, and the frequent citing of the benefits of amino acid dosing on SPS that has historically been mentioned (I remember with my old tank I tried amino acids a few times, also never saw a difference, but never was scientific about it, and had success before dosing).

No other supplements. I have a big batch of GFO/Zeolites from Drs. Foster Smith that I used when setting up the tank and haven't touched since.

My Secret!
Stability Promotes Success, Stability Promotes Success, Stability Promotes Success

No big secret, but honestly when I switched from the underpowered (for SPS) Panorama Pro LED modules to the bigger LEDs, and started consistent dosing at the same time, I immediately saw the colors start to take off. Honestly, the growth was almost okay before, but I'm seeing more growth now as well. I'm very happy with the colors, and think I made the right choice on lights (appropriate budget choice, DIY custom solderless kit, swapped out some CW LEDs for NW, and at some point I'll swap the green for a Lime LED which I have floating around).

I still feel like I could be getting more growth, but I know if my tank survives a year or two, then I'll look back and :facepalm: because everything will be growing into each other and the poor fish will have to be careful not to be stabbed by sharp acropora everywhere.

I think I'm on the road to success though. I've got everything relatively stabilized and consistent, I bought the backup battery for the vortech and test it regularly, and have a chiller that I can set up in case my AC goes out (again).

 

[ReefWreak]

Small update. Waterchange day!

This is what came out when I siphoned out the back chambers. I scraped the walls to get all of the algae out, and I will not be running the light back there for the next few weeks to see if I can get the nitrates to come up slightly to fuel acropora growth and coloration (though the colors are very good right now; It's just an experiment):

General situation: Not much changed. Skimmer fills up every 2-4 days with pretty decent dark skimmate. I'm now going to add Acropower every week, just a capful, and let it run without a skimmer for a few hours afterwards.

When I tested the water yesterday my alk came down to around 6.7, so I manually dosed a calculated 1dkh using brightwell alkalinity 2 part (just the alk part), and I bumped the 2 part dose for alkalinity up higher. I'm wondering whether the coralline algae in my tank is really impacting my calcium and alkalinity uptake. I need to get a razor to clean the inside glass, as coralline is forming pretty heavily around the edges of the tank despite cleaning the glass every two or so days.

For reference, my 2 part dosing is using BRS in their standard preparation method, and I'm currently at 8mL x 2 per day (16mL total), dosed at 1am and 1PM. Calcium I left alone at 7mL x 2 at 12 AM and 12 PM daily. The mL are assumed to be 1mL = 1minute of the doser on. I know it's technically 1.1, but I'm just going to call it 1:1.

I still want to add the two female McCosker wrasses if they ever come in from the LFS. I stopped in 2 weekends ago (a month after ordering them) and they said they didn't have record of the order, so I wrote down my order and double checked via phone last week, and they hadn't placed the order but would shortly. I'm still not adding any fishes yet in anticipation of that happening, but honestly, if they didn't end up ordering the fishes, I would be fine, probably better off.

I think if I add any more fishes (which I'm still on the fence about in general), I'll just "adopt" fishes from people who are breaking down tanks and need to get the fishes rehomed. There is a swissguard basslet that someone is getting rid of in Manhattan (and he also has Tunze 9001 or 9002, he isn't sure) so I might check that out. We'll see. No rush, as things are doing very well, and we'll have to see how the current bioload plays out without the algae/refugium in the back.

Nice thing is that most of the corals are happy and colorful. I have the Berlin acro that is actually growing nicely now, but it's the only acro to not color up nicely. Still kinda brown with blue tips. No idea why.

I also moved around today the platygyra piece that I have to see if it will start growing faster in a new location. It looked like some of it's color was fading/receeding, so I'm getting nervous. So is the war coral / favia as well. It's not an LPS thing, since the hammer coral looks great, and might even be growing in some additional heads. Not sure what the deal is, so trying to move them around and see what we can get going.

 

[soulpatch]

How are things looking with the higher nitrates and such?

 

[ReefWreak]

One of the important mottos for this hobby is that nothing good happens quickly.

That being said, I think that my largely pale colored ponape birds nest is actually darkening in color, and it seems like I'm continuing to get nice growth in my acros. I think I'm seeing an intensifying of my anchor coral (green appendages with purple tips) and the platygyra that I have looks a bit deeper in color recently, but it may finally just be acclimating to my tank/lights.

Of course who knows, and it's probably placebo effect, but I think there is a slight difference.

I'm definitely seeing more "whisps" in the tank. I think some of these are small strands of cyano that are growing in places and blowing off. I think some of them are from little tube worms that release a long strand to catch plankton. I've only noticed both of these more frequently in the last week or two, so it might be contributing to that, though why, since the fuge wasn't filtering anything, only absorbing dissolved nutrients.

No patches of cyano or dinoflagellates yet to speak of. I still have "dragon's breath" algae in the display of my tank, and it has much more bubbles on it's leaves, so it may be taking up nutrients now, whereas before it's growth was constrained by the faster growing green algae in the back of the tank. I suppose I should either remove or just cut down this red algae to truly let the nutrients stay put.

 

[soulpatch]

As with anything changes are hard to see. I suggest you look to take pics almost daily for a bit so you can document the changes happening. Same thing that helped me see that my corals really were growing much more then I thought.

I plan on taking pics of my two damaged corals daily starting tomorrow night to see if I can watch the succession of the black bugs and the regrowth of the coral. Maybe do a write up in here on the treatment for nanos as well so we have it on file.

 

[JakeK]

ReefWreak, thanks for starting this thread. I'll be following for sure. You and soulpatch have already given me so much advice. SPS coral is something I'm holding off on for now. I did order one small frag and it promptly bleached out when I raised it from the sandbed to the rock. I want my tank to mature some more and me to get more experience before I really consider it. You're 120 gallon was incredible!

 

[jaylensdad06]

very nice job

 

[ReefWreak]

Thanks for the kind words JakeK and jaylensdad06!

I need to keep updating. I swear I look at my tank daily! I just need to get on the pictures. I spend an embarrassing amount of time continuing to read and research and think about my tank, so at least if I'm helping others it justifies it somewhat (in my head anyway).

If you added an SPS coral and it bleached, just leave it at the bottom of the tank. Let it fully brown out for a few weeks. It may color up down there once it gets more acclimated to your tank. They can only handle a few stressors at a time, so a new tank has many (inhabitants, flow, light, nutrient levels, etc.), so it's easiest to introduce each stressor one at a time until it's established and then you can start playing.

With all of the frags in this tank, I have glued them directly to the rocks after acclimation (drip over an hour or so). I also will dim my lights to ~10% for a week or two and then bring the lights back up slowly (5% per week). It's nice with LEDs (and some T5s) that you can dim like this. Back with MH, I had to have a frag rack that I added them to, which I could lower to the bottom of the tank (it was attached to a magfloat), then I could raise over the course of a week or two to acclimate them to the tank's lighting.

Tons to learn and explore. Never hesitate in asking me any questions!

 

[ReefWreak]

Updates!

Well, I don't have much to report with the tank. Only changes I've made was taking the refugium off line. I still have macro in my display (Dragon's breath), but I got rid of the refugium in the middle chamber in the back. Still running the skimmer. I am adding Acropower every Friday/Saturday, and leaving the skimmer off for ~12 hours after adding so it gets plenty of circulation. I'm not seeing a difference. We shall see.

Some pics to reward you for my lack of updates:

FTS:

Joe the Coral has Polyp Extension (PE) for dayyyyys:

This "Emerald Sky" has really turned out to be a stunning coral in my display (the pic is a little washed out, sorry. It looks a bit bluer IRL):

Smooth and silky ORA Hawkins A. Echinata:

And the value of macro, because I spent a few days lunch money (a lot of days) on the lens ):

And just because, did I mention PE for days? I meant daaaaayyyyyssss:

 

[soulpatch]

clean your glass man. LOL

 

[ReefWreak]

lol I know. I need to take a razor and start hacking away. But I'm busy right now. Aranciata and vodka, and watching this . Cause baby, you're a firework.

 

[soulpatch]

you need to get the flipper nano or the tunze nano. No need for razor blades again...

 

[ReefWreak]

Well Reefapalooza should be the perfect place to see what scrapers are out there and pick up the best one.

 

[sahin]

Nice little nano. What foods are you feeding the fish?

 

[ReefWreak]

Thanks!

I feed a small pinch of NLS TherA+ daily (sometimes twice daily), and every friday or so, I break a small piece of Rods food (1/4" x 1/4" or so), thaw it in tank water, and distribute it with the pumps off. No direct feeding of corals (though I know some of the pellets fall onto the euphillia and fungia corals), and no SPS feeding.

I have started dosing one capful of Acropower weekly, but again, I do not believe I am seeing benefits from it, and even if I saw something going on, I just got rid of my refugium at the same time, so I'm not sure which would be the right reason for things getting better.

As a side note, I need to start adding magnesium. When testing my magnesium level is always on the low side, and I have the BRS magnesium mix sitting around, so I should probably start adding it in.

Does anyone know if Dragon's Breath algae grows quickly or not? It hasn't ever grown much in my tank, but I don't know if it's because it is a slow grower, or if it is because it has been out-competed by the green hair algae that I always let grow in the refugium.

 

[ReefWreak]

HHNNNGGGG I just wrote a nice narrative on my testing for the day, and then my finger slipped and I hit CTRL-W, so goodbye nice long post. Damnit.

Salinity is a little low --> skimmer is skimming too wet, despite it pulling out a dark tea color.

Alk (7.7) is right where I left it 2 weeks ago, bumped up dosing is working.
Ca (~350) is falling behind, so I upped its dosing, it's closer to Alk's schedule now.

Alk is 7 minutes x2 daily (7.7mLx2), Cal is 6 minutes x2 daily (6.6mLx2) with the +1 update.

Nitrates are 0. Good thing. While staring into the depths of my (small) abyss, I noticed that some of the rocks have a thin short hair growth of algae on them. About 0.5mm or so. I think it's from my skeleton crew of clean up crew.

Did two capfulls of Acropower today. Colors are good as it is, just looking for the next best thing. Skimmer will be off for the next 12 hours or so.

I'm itching for the next great thing... I'm thinking maybe I should dial the lights up a bit more, 5% blue and 5% colors? That would put me at 45 on each. For those of you with 700mA LEDs, double my blue numbers for your comparison.

The colors on my corals are actually very nice, I just want more growth. I was wondering if maybe it was a lack of calcium/alkalinity that I wasn't seeing great growth the last month or so, but A. I do see some growth, so I shouldn't be so harsh, and B. there are many other reasons for there not to be growth.

I want those extra nutrients to be growing coral, not that stupid rockfuzz of algae!

 

[soulpatch]

I wouldnt up the lights any more personally. I cant even get above 80% or so without seeing decline so you are probably spot on for where you want them to be if not a little too bright. I think the lack of calcium is hindering your growth more then anything else.

I need to get back into testing. I have gone long enough to have cycled the high alk from my tank switching back to reef crystals so I need to get back into testing once or twice a week and set up my dosers.

 

[ReefWreak]

I really should be testing my RC waterchange water too until I get really comfortable with it, and particularly to see how it's impacting my alk/cal levels. I think that was one of the reasons I never used to like messing with water changes in my old tank. With a calcium reactor dialed in, any time you used lower alkalinity NSW, it would drag down alkalinity levels to NSW, and I didn't want to go through all of the testing to buffer it back up appropriately.

I know once you get into the rhythm, it isn't an issue anymore, and you don't have to test every time then, but still, like testing 3 times a day, once before W/C, W/C water, and once after W/C is a PITA. But it should be done.

 

[soulpatch]

agreed and soemthing I need to get back into.

 

[homer1475]

I never test my water change water, should I be? I did once or twice when I was having issues with MAG, and it tested very close to what the bag/box/pail says it is. It was withing a couple points of what they claim it should mix up at, but not enough of a difference to make a difference.