So I am browsing one of my favorite builds and came across such disappointing news! I, like so many others, say please keep fighting! I would hate for you to stop when we all know this can be overcome.
As to your question:
What is your opinion on Calcium Reactors ?
Is it a good return of investment?
Will it benefit our sick tank?
To me, personally, I find them very useful but a bit complicated by the fact that they can be quite touchy (Sensitive). It may take a while before a calcium reactor can be "dialed in" correctly. But... once dialed in appropriately, the return in investment is very high.
Here's my problem with the thought of purchasing one... it doesn't seem like we are still sure as to what is really going on with your reef tank. I am REALLY worried that a calcium reactor, at this point, would further discourage you both in continuing your reef pursuit. It's (usually) a high start up cost, and then there's the tinkering with it until it works. If a problem arises (Which often does at the beginning), I worry it may cause an additional problem for your tank's inhabitants.
My solution? For now, I would just supplement the needs of your tank either manually or via dosing pumps, if you already have them. You can easily maintain Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium by hand or via those dosing pumps.
Until you discover what is truly going on with your tank, I would wait on the calcium reactor until your patience is calmed and your tank is officially stable. I am going to re-read this thread and see if I can help discover what is going on that may have possibly been missed.
If you haven't already done so... what are your current parameters (Alk, average pH, Magnesium, and Calcium)?
Hi Dino,
So I spent some time reading over the entire thread. I looked pretty closely at all the videos, and focused on the problems that you noted and what could be seen in the videos. I also focused on the solutions you have tried to fix some/all of your problems.
I am going to try to cover all things involved with this tank and maybe we'll discover something(s) that can be remedied. Here we go:
The Tank and Sump: Nothing much to go on here as nothing seems to be leaking, and you do an excellent job cleaning the glass. One thing I would ask here (Although very minor) is
how often do you need to clean the glass? I'd like to know how long it takes before the view to the inside of the tank is blocked.
Filtration and Water changes: This is an important one for me, for obvious reasons, but lets look at the non-obvious things about this. I want to know the following:
- What is the flow (Liters per hour is fine) from the tank to the sump?
- What model skimmer do you have? How often do you clean it out, especially the pump and airline?
- How often do you clean out (Siphon out) the sump for detritus?
- What other filtration are you using? (Maybe GFO, Carbon, ceramic media, etc?)
Water Flow: I know you've worried about this in the past, and this is my biggest worry for you. It's a bit complicated/difficult to explain why.. but here's my attempt:
- You started out with extremely low flow. It was so low, that I am a bit worried that much of the tank may absorbed much of the "dirty stuff" like phosphates, etc. In effect, your rocks and/or sandbed may have acted like a sponge and took on this load. When it over loaded, it started to seep out and maybe contributing to problems like cyano, etc.
You then increased the flow pretty dramatically. You wondered why corals that liked flow started dying? That could be for several, or all of these reasons:
- The change in flow was so dramatic, it may have not been "ready" for it and just couldn't adjust to the change.
- I personally believe it was the type of flow. I was worried about this when I first saw your closed loop, but you basically have eight streams (Like a jet nozzle on a water hose) in the tank. Think of it like sitting in a room at 82-83 degrees Fahrenheit. Without some air flow, you get pretty uncomfortable. But then eight streams of low powered gusts of air appear, and you just happen to sit slightly out of the way. You get some air.. but it ain't enough. Then suddenly, the gusts of air get super powerful! You are getting hit with a narrow gust of air... like getting hit with a jetstream of water, as opposed to being rained on. While you appreciate the air.. getting hit that hard in a small area gets quite annoying.. but you aren't allowed to move. Then.. after that fun the air gusts suddenly turn off, and the air gusts change (Like when you added the tunzes, and shut off the Oceans Motions pump). Some parts of the room get some decent flow, but others do not. You are now not only unhappy but confused about these gusts of air... imagine the corals with this same scenario. (Its kind of a poor example, but the best I have.) :debi:
What we need to do if make sure the entire tank is getting nice and somewhat even flow, enough that corals are happy and the water column stays fairly mixed, keeping all the "funk" in suspension for your skimmer to eventually get. The problem? This may force you to have equipment (Like powerheads) in your tank, that you did not want. :headwallblue:
Maintenance: The most common one is water changes. Here's what I'd like to know:
- How often and how much water changing are you doing? What kind of salt are you using, and how do you mix it, and for how long? Are you testing new salt mixes to make sure you aren't getting a bad batch?
- Are you adding any additives (Bacteria, iodine, etc) to your tank, aside from the magnesium/calcium/alkalinity? How much of each are you adding and when?
- Like I asked up top, how long does it take before you feel the need to clean the tank walls?
- Have you been siphoning the cyano from the tank?
- Have you been pulling out any of the algae from the tank? Are the tangs eating any of it?
Sand bed: How deep is your sand bed, and how new is it at this point? When was the last time your stirred it up or did anything to it?
Algae, other issues:
- Aside from the Cyano, are you suffering from any other obvious issues like hair algae, bryopsis, etc?
Odd questions:
- Have you lost any or much of you Clean up crew? Has there been a massive die-off of them at all? If so.. when?
Bacteria dosing: This is going to be a bit weird to deduce but we'll give it a try.
- Are you still dosing any forms of bacteria and/or bacteria food? If so, what brand is it, and at what doses? How often are you doing it, and how long have you've been doing it for?
I have to run and pick up my son, but I'll be back shortly and will write more of my questions. We'll get this fixed!
Christian initially I would like to sincerely thank you on behalf of both for your time and effort in assisting. We highly appreciate this and we thank you in advance for your patience.
Here is feedback to your enquiries:
Curent parameters:
pH: 8.10
Temperature: 25.5 c (78F)
Redox: 230 mV
Salinity: 1.0250
kH/ Alkalinity: 125ppm (7 dkH)
Mg: 1250
NO2: 0
NO3: 3
PO4: 0.08
Ca: 380
Potassium: 370
Ammonia: The minimum value on Salifert test set reads “less that 0.25” and that is what I have
Cu: 0
Baron: 1.5ppm
Methods of measuring:
Computer: pH, Temperature, Salinity, Redox
Salifert: Mg, NO2, NO3, Potassium, Ammonia, Cu, Baron
Hanna meter: Calcium, kH, PO4
Q & As
The Tank and Sump: Nothing much to go on here as nothing seems to be leaking, and you do an excellent job cleaning the glass.
Question: One thing I would ask here (Although very minor) is how often do you need to clean the glass? I'd like to know how long it takes before the view to the inside of the tank is blocked.
Answer:I will talk about how the situation is now since a few months ago it was a totally different case. We start seeing a very thin layer of green kind of algae start forming on the second – third day following a good cleaning of the glass.
Filtration and Water changes: This is an important one for me, for obvious reasons, but lets look at the non-obvious things about this. I want to know the following:
Question: What is the flow (Liters per hour is fine) from the tank to the sump?
Answer: 200 to 2,400 l/h but to be honest i dont know on what is it set as it was set upon installation and hasnt been changed ever since
Question: What model skimmer do you have? How often do you clean it out, especially the pump and airline?
Answer: Skimz Kone SK201 - Air intake 780l/h, with a ES2800 pump
Question: How often do you clean out (Siphon out) the sump for detritus?
Answer: Not that often. Maybe once a month. In general the sump looks to be very clean even without cleaning it.
Question: What other filtration are you using? (Maybe GFO, Carbon, ceramic media, etc?)
Answer: We am not using any of the mentioned items. The only one I have is a basket with cotton filter which we change 2-3 times a week.
Maintenance: The most common one is water changes. Here's what I'd like to know:
Question: How often and how much water changing are you doing? What kind of salt are you using, and how do you mix it, and for how long? Are you testing new salt mixes to make sure you aren't getting a bad batch?
Answer: We are doing weekly water change of 10% (approximately 60-70L each time). The salt we have been using so far was Grotech and we just switched last week to a new one named Blue Treasure. We are using a semi-automatic water change chamber so what we do is isolate this separate chamber (by valves) that hold those 60-70L, empty the chamber, put new salt, add RODI and have a circulation pump in this separate chamber to ensure that salt will be dissolved. When we see a fair dilution we open the valves and the water from the chamber start entering the system. Have never test new salt mixes and in full sincerity this is something I didn’t think we have to do nor I know how to do L
Question: Are you adding any additives (Bacteria, iodine, etc) to your tank, aside from the magnesium/calcium/alkalinity? How much of each are you adding and when?
Answer: We used to add 3 drops of ZEObak (bacteria) and 3 drops of ZEOAmino (aminoacids) 2-6ml of Sea Klear phosphate remover (depending on how much algae we could detect on the tank), 6 ml of vinegar (3 x 2 ml so we don’t get great pH fluctuations).
Question: Have you been siphoning the cyano from the tank?
Answer: Periodically, we did though notice that the cyano came and gone at different phases of the day. After siphoning the sand we could see that top layer was as if you add water to powder – it was like a cyano paste.
Question: Have you been pulling out any of the algae from the tank? Are the tangs eating any of it?
Answer: 3 months ago when we got an algae issue I tried to pull it out manually – tanks where not even going close to it – sea hare did her job though. Now we have no algae apart from some parts of the tank where mainly the circulation is not that great and it looks as if it is trapped algae that has died (minor quantity)
Sand bed:
Question: How deep is your sand bed, and how new is it at this point? When was the last time your stirred it up or did anything to it?
Answer: The average depth of the sand bed was approximately 5-6 cm (2-2.3in). The first 5 months after setting the undersigned was stirring the sand all the time because he didn’t like the cyano formation (smart me). After that I read afew articles and stopped my bad habbit. Then for 2 months I didn’t touch at all the sand until we decided to vacuum the sand totally out as it was neither deep enough nor sallow enough – something in between trapping all the crap with a lot of black air gaps that were visible from the sides. What is left now is a very thin (less than a cm deep -0.4 in) layer that we are not able to siphon it totally out so we are more or less bare bottom.
Algae, other issues:
Question: Aside from the Cyano, are you suffering from any other obvious issues like hair algae, bryopsis, etc?
Answer: A lot of hair algae issues started at 2 months after setting the tank and ending on month n.6. for the past 2 month no algae anywhere in the tank . We think that Sea Klear has helped OR created a different kind of trouble which comes with your below question.
Odd questions:
Question: Have you lost any or much of you Clean up crew? Has there been a massive die-off of them at all? If so.. when?
Answer: We reached a point where we would wake up in the morning and start turning turbo snails up side down. It really seemed like there was an attack of a toxic gas – snails were acting as if they had fainted. We are talking about 8-15 snails collapsed every single morning and us spending 5 minutes turning them around. Even if we did so it was taking a lot of time for them to start being active again and before we knew it.. boom, they were collapsing again. I would say that we have had this problem nearly ever since we set up the tank. My partner noticed that when we increased dosing Sea Klear phosphate remover we would see the entire clean up crew collapsed. The truth is that for the past 2 weeks that we have stopped dosing Sea Klear we don’t see as many fainted snails as before. But still there is a couple every day.
Bacteria dosing: This is going to be a bit weird to deduce but we'll give it a try.
Question: Are you still dosing any forms of bacteria and/or bacteria food? If so, what brand is it, and at what doses? How often are you doing it, and how long have you've been doing it for?
Answer: I have stopped dosing any type of bacteria 3 months now. I was using the Bioptim (1 dose per week). I was using it for around 2 months. I stopped using vinegar 2 weeks ago. I have been using vinegar nearly at the same time as Bioptim
I don’t know how important that is but the tank is 8.5 months old. We see so far no life in the rocks. In our old Red Sea Max 250 tank at night there was a mini “Studio-54” action with a lot of different creatures, warms, mysis etc. We do have coraline on all rocks though but no life. We have been thinking of adding a few pieces of live rock and get more diversity but we are not sure if we are not sure if it is recommented. Everyone we have asked says go ahead but we are still in the process of making our homework.
Some pics that might help:
It was doing great until 4 weeks ago
We have lost great lot of Zoanthis - looks like they have closed permanently
What is left from the sand
...In the meanwhile some other corals are doing great
Thank you for your time in reading my pretty long reply. Looking so much forward hearing from you and once again THANK YOU for being there.
Warm regards,
Dino
