taricha's Classroom 60 gal experiments

[taricha]

About 7 years ago I saw a cool "freshwater" puffer fish for $5 in walmart(!) and thought he looked awesome.
I put him in a planted aquarium: amazing personality, and will eat most anything, researched him. Green Spotted Puffer. Not actually freshwater, brackish water. So I gradually over weeks move the tank to brackish, discover that there's almost no available brackish plants, tank would be boring. Learn that these puffers are happily kept at full marine salinity, and you can have lots of cool things at full marine salinity, except what the puffer eats - which is just about everything.
...
So I've had this 60 gallon Reef Tank in my classroom in some fashion for about 6 years. After about 4 years, the puffer died, which allowed me to start thinking about much more interesting things that can be in a reef tank.
In the past year I've finally upgraded piece by piece, somewhat passable lights first, then supplemental lights for color, quality test kits, element dosing, added a fuge, got a real skimmer, built a sump etc. Now I feel like I have what I need to keep the things I am interested in alive, essentially anything except sps.
A goal of my tank is as much life and diversity as possible. It's amazing how I can watch my tank daily for a whole year, and yet see something new even after that.
I am a science teacher, but my training is physics, so I've possibly learned more about chemistry and biology from my tank than from any classes. And if I ever get bored, I can just take a sample from somewhere in my tank and throw it on a microscope slide: boom - freaking alien world. BTW more convincingly alien life on a microscope slide than in any sci-fi production.

The point of this thread is to try to figure out a few puzzles,

• what wavelengths of light I'm missing that causes Red/Orange/Yellow to not "pop" in my tank the way it does under some other LED systems (Kessil, Reefbreeders, etc)
• reduce algae in the DT to not noticeable levels
• how to increase the amount of available nutrition in the water to support diversity of life including less demanding NPS
• how to manage amounts of light, flow, C, N, P, skimming, and dosing, to figure out what to keep in excess and what to zero out to help achieve the two items above
• how does "old tank syndrome" relate to above? why my first slowly growing cyano event happens 6 years in?
• how can natural sunlight in the display tank be used without burning corals/triggering algae outbreak.
• how is aquarium water meaningfully different than Natural Sea Water in terms of our ability to keep specimens healthy (in some ways it's dirtier, in other ways it's more sterile)
• How to trigger sun polyp feeding response, then feed in a not time-consuming way.
• This tank is my favorite that I've ever seen. Wonder how much of it I could replicate. Aug 2015 ToTM by rhdoug.
  
  

 

[chimmike]

well, lets start with a few things:
-what is your lighting? If bulbs, how old/what kind?
-Water parameters?
-Filtration?
-water source?
-Water change frequency?
-Feeding? What/how much?


Natural sunlight can be used but if sole source it will eventually brown out the corals much like happens in nature (not bad, just won't get the color pop). Color pop is all about manipulation of the spectrum to please our vision, mostly.

 

[Pwnm30rdi3]

Looks like chimmike beat me to it! I'll leave this here anyways!

I want to start by saying, I really like what you are doing. Giving kids the access to a reef tank is a wonderful gift. Keep it up! :beer:

We need to know more about the tank in order to accurately help you.
For example, we can't address lighting unless we know what light you are currently using.

We can offer generalized algae reduction methods, but knowing what type of algae you are battling in your DT will help immensely. Post some pictures of your tank and even the algae you have in the DT!

Water parameters are always helpful as well!
Knock out the basics:

• Salinity
• PH
• Nitrates
• Phosphates
• Calcium
• Alkalinity

 

[taricha]

Good place to start. Meet my tank.

60-ish Gallon, 48" long
Lights: Orbit Marine 36" 36W fixture + 48" 24W Ecoxotic Stunner strip Magenta/453nm Blue + two x 36" 18W Ecoxotic Stunner Strip 12000°K White/445nm Royal Blue

2 big powerheads across the front, 2 little ones across the back

Sandbed varies from <0.25" to maybe 3"


20gal sump/fuge Just added a month ago houses:
ASM G3 skimmer, small media reactor with a little GFO/GAC, 2x100 watt equivalent LED + 150 watt equivalent CFL (6000 Lumens total) @ 2700K over fuge. Chaeto, Caulerpa, Hair, Microalgae harvested for export as soon as I get enough.

Dosing routine: 40ml Vinegar/2ml Vodka 5-7 days a week

Have not dosed Ca/Alk/Mg in 3 months due to high levels that I was allowing to come down naturally.

Last Test: 12/16/15
Sal - 1.0251 (target 1.0260 - varies 1.0250-1.0270 no ATO)
PO4 - .039 (varies .073 - .019 Hanna ULR - I don't put a whole lot of stock in these #s)
Mg - 1460 (down from a high of 1680)
KH - 9.3 (down from high of 11.9)
Ca - 465 (down from high of 530)
NO3 - always 0 (not 2)
NO2 - always 0 (not .05)

Fish:
Yellow Candy Hogfish
Azure Damsel
2 x Firefish
Blue-Green Chromis
Algae Blenny
Neon Goby

Corals:
Softies -
4 species Discosoma, 3 Rhodactis, 4 Ricordia
half a dozen zoa
yellow polyps
3 palys
2 green star polyp
pulsing xenia
2 kenya tree
Green toadstool leather
brown cabbage leather
green clove polyps

LPS -
mini Alveopora
Cup coral
Pipe Organ 6 wks
duncan 6 wks
galaxea new
Lepastrea new
Frogspawn new
Bubble new

Other Stuff -
purple photosynthetic sponge
purple frilly (photosynthetic) gorgonian
Rock flower anemone
Orange Tree Sponge new
Sun Coral new

cool hitchhikers -
Urchin
orange ball anemones
curly cue anemone
a dozen clams/oysters
dozens of sponges

Things in my tank I love:

Algae on the rocks here

Some more algae here

Can see some of the cyano in this pic below the alveo

 

[chimmike]

If you're still having algae issues, check out the DIY section and the thread on Algae Turf Scrubbers. Pretty interesting stuff there.

Make sure on the light fixuture that bulbs are changed out every 8-12 months (obviously not the LED's)

 

[taricha]

Curious how you guys would make sense of this data? No matter what I do, I have Phosphates, but no Nitrates, and steady algae growth and small but increasing cyano.

btw, thanks for Algae scrubber suggestion. That's an upgrade I'll build some version of into my sump somewhere in the near future.

For as long as I've had quality test Kits - 6 months - I have had some amount of PO4 (.02 - .08 via Hanna ULR checker) and undetectable NO3 (2ppm is lowest detectable value in Red Sea kit)

I've done small to large amounts of Vodka dosing, Vinegar Dosing (tested up to 2mL/Gal) in line with RHF's max vinegar dosing limit thread. Currently doing 12ml vinegar & 5.5 ml vodka.
Run a lit Fuge in sump, skimming, GAC, GFO, no noticeable changes, always modest algae growth in display and small increasing amount of cyano.

To further bring down phosphates, and thinking my carbon dosing stops working because of being nitrate limited, I decided to dose Nitrates in the form of KNO3 (stump remover).
Pre-Dose numbers (12/16/15):
PO4 - .039
NO3 - 0
NO2 - 0

I dosed (into the sump) 3g of KNO3 over 10 days to my 60 gal of water adding 8.3 ppm of NO3

Today I tested again (1/1/16):
PO4 - .043
NO3 - 0
NO2 - 0

And for curiosity's sake I did two phosphate tests of a jug of Walmart Distilled water (not my water source, I distill my own):
#1 test: PO4 - .028
#2 test: PO4 - .019

Not what I expected. Unsure if that says tests are not useful, or if distilled water can't be trusted to have low enough PO4 to avoid algae issues, and I should check water out of my distiller.

I think these results say that my phosphate has stayed fairly constant within test uncertainty.

possible theories:

• tank is NO3 limited most of the time, making it hard for carbon dosing to reduce PO4
• I've reached the level of phosphate leaching from my rock/sand some of which is 6yr old
• my self-distilled water is likely the source of PO4
• the tests are garbage and say nothing
• I'm feeding more P than my carbon dosing level can remove
• the N/P levels are too low to be relevant, and I'm feeding algae/cyano by carbon dosing in excess

thoughts?

 

[taricha]

I tested water fresh out of my distiller.
PO4 - .043 sigh.
Also, I feed the equivalent of about 1/2 cube a day.

 

[taricha]

Found this great article from Randy about how much phosphate is in foods and how it compares to other sources of P.
Randy basically says that hobbyists got hanna checkers, start testing stuff and see phosphate boogeymen everywhere, like distilled water (guilty) and forget the math that the food we add has thousands of times more PO4 than any other source, so we start considering doing stupid/useless stuff. I was actually thinking about how to avoid doing most of my water changes. guilty again.

I'll have to take a close look at what's in my food, as it's almost certainly the cause of the excess P vs N.

 

[taricha]

So 99+% of the Phosphorus going in a tank is from food.
And there is no such thing as P free food. If it was once alive, it has P.
So if you want less phosphate going in, feed less is the common advice.

However, there's some foods with more and some with less P relative to their protein. Bones are high in P, and fish meal (containing bone) is a very common food ingredient.
I pulled 4 different food items out of my feeding routine because fish meal was the primary ingredient, and 2 more (labeled as algae/herbivore) had fish meal as 2nd ingredient.
No more food with fish bones for now.

Unfortunately, there won't be a chance to see if this allows the phosphate to drop, because I had my yellow candy hogfish apparently died in my tank. Newcomer fish insufficiently quarantined brought in ich and maybe something else. So no new fish for a while.

Side note, my orange tree sponge shows a very noticeable variation in the length of the osculum tubes during the day. It seems to be dependent on food in the water. I'll try to get good pics.

 

[taricha]

Here is a time lapse of the orange sponge (axinella I think) today. It's 4 hours condensed to 30 seconds. The oscula at the beginning are almost invisible and likely nearly closed. They seem to extend first then widen.

I added a few things to the tank. vodka/vinegar, mysis&cyclops, phyto&goniopower, at different times. I'm not sure what first triggered the sponge to start flowing.


https://youtu.be/u85rrrTSeCA

 

[taricha]

For the first time in months, I can see the beginning of signs of reduction in nuisance algae.
This pic 12/28

This one on 1/8

Also notice increased purple sponges. And the first new coralline growth on my glass in months.
These are the changes I made listed in order of the role that I think they played in starting algae reduction:
1 - removed hermit crabs about 3 wks ago.
2 - dosing a total of ~13 ppm nitrate over 2 weeks.
3 - increased vinegar/vodka by 50% to 19/9 ml per day (temporary).
4 - blasting debris from sandbed/rocks around the tank every day or two for the past week.
5 - stopped feeding 4 different foods with fish bones in it (fish meal, whole fish) about 5 days ago.

#1 Initially removing hermit crabs increased algae, but it also has allowed other clean-up crew members to increase in population as evidenced by baby stomatella and cerith snails on the glass. I also believe other grazers are more active without constant random crab murders.
#2&3 The nitrate and carbon dosing are I believe increasing the water column bacteria as shown by sponge growth. This ought to mean that P is being processed faster - some is removed in skimming, some into algae in fuge, some incorporated into sponges etc.
#4 blasting debris puts more nutrients where filter feeders and my skimmer can get at them.
#5 not adding food with out of balance P would be much higher on the list if I had been doing it for any length of time.

What I have a hard time believing is that I've had algae reduction when an entire 2.5" yellow candy hogfish died in a cave I couldn't get to 4 or 5 days ago.

 

[taricha]

Frogspawn and bubble coral separation, how much space do they need? There is very gentle flow from frogspawn towards the general direction of bubble. Almost no flow at the bubble - just the way he likes it.

 

[jdaniels175]

I had a frogspawn grow to the size of a cantaloupe, and it was great at stinging stuff, so keep that in mind for spacing.

 

[taricha]

Any thoughts what this is? Some patch of orange fluorescing strongly under blues, not similar to any coral I have.

I then pulled out my blacklight and it's crazy yellow-orange.

Also, I'll be moving my frogspawn to give it and the bubble more room.

 

[taricha]

Here's my failed thus far ice cube time release feeding attempt.
Idea is to have ice cubes melt in a funnel over several hours to slowly release the food into the tank.
I mixed up 3 days worth of all the food I add to the tank, diluted it with distilled water until I had a half liter, poured it in an ice tray than makes jumbo cubes.
Next day into the funnel...

At the bottom of the picture is one mostly melted, and a second fresh cube on top of it.

The "slow" part of the slow release worked great. It took about 5 hours to melt the days' food. I could extend that with insulating the funnel. However the "release" part of slow release was a failure. The water melted so slowly it left the food undisturbed on the side of the funnel.
Back to the drawing board.

 

[taricha]

I was curious about just how much non-water my skimmer pulls out.
So I collected 4 days of skimmate about 800ml, scraping the cup etc and evaporated it to see what the dry mass pulled out was.

856.2g of skimmate, then dehydrated it over low heat (oh god, the smell)

After evaporating, I had 38.3g remaining. So I evaporated 817.9g of mostly water, and assuming 1.026 specific gravity - same as the tank- the 817.9g of evaporated water left behind
817.9 x .026 = 21.3g salts.
So subtracting the salt 38.3-21.3 =
17g of dry weight organic gunk over 4 days.
Great article here about what's in the dry weight out of a skimmer: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature
That 17g dry weight would be like growing & harvesting 131g of chaetomorpha or similar algae in 4 days (13% dry weight). Much faster than the algae growing in my fuge.

 

[taricha]

Speaking of chaeto, ran across this article that talks about how chaeto can radically change its composition to absorb whatever element N or P is in excess. Depending on what they dosed, they got N to P ratios as high as 194, and as low as 6!
http://www.icm.csic.es/scimar/pdf/66/sm66n4355.pdf
"Effect of nitrogen and phosphorus supply on growth, chlorophyll content and tissue composition of the macroalga Chaetomorpha linum"
If the algae species grown on a scrubber behave remotely similarly, that would be another big reason why algae scrubbers work so well - they bring balance to the tank.
Another nugget in the article, N increases chlorophyll, which gives me a simple clue of what's happening when my algae goes from dark green to yellow.