The Life of Blue Spots Tank 1800L
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Blue spot
Member
Hey fissues. Well for once things aren't going to bad 
. A few surprising things actually. First the white spot, all fish left seam to be fit a healthy, no signs of an outbreak or visible symptons, not sure why some fish were so badly affected and others have pulled through, I've read lots and lots about white spot over the last few months the debate about whether it's in everyone's tank anyway, it's all about the fishes immunity , garlic , ginger, ozone, uv, my own personal experiment with cinnamon (lol) . For me I am pretty sure I introduced it on a catalina goby ( impulse buy , not from my regular sources who have good quarantine practices) i think this then attacked the more sensitive fish and spread, I didn't help by putting all sorts of desperate concoctions in the water further stressing everything, and my uv bulb hadn't been replaced for about 8 months. Again with the power of hindsight I was asking for trouble but, you live and learn. Now for the surprising stuff, my byropsis is melting !!!!! Hoorah! Now the question is why . As mentioned before I have also read loads about this. But I have changed so many things in my last ditch attempt to get rid of the stuff that I am not sure which one is helping or if it's all of them. So .... I've changed over to triton, I have changed my light cycle to colour radiance mode, I am not feeding as much ( less fish from white spot) so no3 has dropped to around 2 , phosphates in my tank have also been relativly high 0.1 to 0.2 on occasions, so I've changed my media reactors which for me have been a constant annoyance , clogging , and their fore not getting the right throughput, especially as I use bio- pellets in the same chamber that occasionally send particles into the reactors (nightmare) I have moved to the avast spyglass reactors. What a difference , easy to use, easy to change and I am getting perfect flow. I highly recommend these ( had them on for about 1.5 months now). So bypropsis not gone , but the difference is quite shocking. I was getting quite depressed about my tank but this has given me the little boost I needed
. A few surprising things actually. First the white spot, all fish left seam to be fit a healthy, no signs of an outbreak or visible symptons, not sure why some fish were so badly affected and others have pulled through, I've read lots and lots about white spot over the last few months the debate about whether it's in everyone's tank anyway, it's all about the fishes immunity , garlic , ginger, ozone, uv, my own personal experiment with cinnamon (lol) . For me I am pretty sure I introduced it on a catalina goby ( impulse buy , not from my regular sources who have good quarantine practices) i think this then attacked the more sensitive fish and spread, I didn't help by putting all sorts of desperate concoctions in the water further stressing everything, and my uv bulb hadn't been replaced for about 8 months. Again with the power of hindsight I was asking for trouble but, you live and learn. Now for the surprising stuff, my byropsis is melting !!!!! Hoorah! Now the question is why . As mentioned before I have also read loads about this. But I have changed so many things in my last ditch attempt to get rid of the stuff that I am not sure which one is helping or if it's all of them. So .... I've changed over to triton, I have changed my light cycle to colour radiance mode, I am not feeding as much ( less fish from white spot) so no3 has dropped to around 2 , phosphates in my tank have also been relativly high 0.1 to 0.2 on occasions, so I've changed my media reactors which for me have been a constant annoyance , clogging , and their fore not getting the right throughput, especially as I use bio- pellets in the same chamber that occasionally send particles into the reactors (nightmare) I have moved to the avast spyglass reactors. What a difference , easy to use, easy to change and I am getting perfect flow. I highly recommend these ( had them on for about 1.5 months now). So bypropsis not gone , but the difference is quite shocking. I was getting quite depressed about my tank but this has given me the little boost I needed
Blue spot
Member
Mystery solved . I think I know where the byropsis is going . Firstly with the new phosphate media reactor I am getting realy good results, measured yesterday and reading was 0.02. Secondly last night close to lights out I saw this large thing crawling on one of the corals eating the byropsis. Turned out to be a sea hare I added quite a while ago, I have never seen it since adding it so thought it must have died somewhere. It's about the size of a puppy now , for this reason I've named it spot.
Triton method is going ok, my kh is dropping (good thing for me as it's normally around 11) now about 10 , its stabilised here but my calcium levels have plummeted to 360. Going to investigate how to sort this out today.
Triton method is going ok, my kh is dropping (good thing for me as it's normally around 11) now about 10 , its stabilised here but my calcium levels have plummeted to 360. Going to investigate how to sort this out today.
Blue spot
Member
More good news today. My white cap goby and pistol shrimp have been awol for about 6 months now , this morning they have set up a new home close to the side of the tank, so I can see them again now.
This is going to be a horrible thing to say but I think the half wipe out has done me some good, I've changed a few things I was to scared to alter because everything was doing "ok" but I had a few things that I had become semi obsessed by that were probably having a detrimental effect. One of these was ph values everyone is always talking about a ph of 8.2 , I could never get this without some serious intervention and because I had a bad experience with this in my Red Sea max , on the new tank I was determined to get my ph where it was supposed to be. Now Because of the triton method I am more focuses on alk stability and decided to just see what happens with my ph , I watched it go down..... And down...... And down , trying desperately to not run for the buffer , but it got as low as 7.6 ( this was going to be my breaking limit but it happend at night). The next day it started to pick up on its own. I am now running between 7.9 and 7.8. Probably not perfect , but my corals are definetly appreciating the change in the tank, I read a lot of people's posts on here and everyone is normally talking about low alk and a high ph. I am the complete opposite to this, and it was the same on my other tank but for the life of me I don't understand what I am doing to get the opposite . if anyone has any suggestions , I would like to hear them ?
This is going to be a horrible thing to say but I think the half wipe out has done me some good, I've changed a few things I was to scared to alter because everything was doing "ok" but I had a few things that I had become semi obsessed by that were probably having a detrimental effect. One of these was ph values everyone is always talking about a ph of 8.2 , I could never get this without some serious intervention and because I had a bad experience with this in my Red Sea max , on the new tank I was determined to get my ph where it was supposed to be. Now Because of the triton method I am more focuses on alk stability and decided to just see what happens with my ph , I watched it go down..... And down...... And down , trying desperately to not run for the buffer , but it got as low as 7.6 ( this was going to be my breaking limit but it happend at night). The next day it started to pick up on its own. I am now running between 7.9 and 7.8. Probably not perfect , but my corals are definetly appreciating the change in the tank, I read a lot of people's posts on here and everyone is normally talking about low alk and a high ph. I am the complete opposite to this, and it was the same on my other tank but for the life of me I don't understand what I am doing to get the opposite . if anyone has any suggestions , I would like to hear them ?
Blue spot
Member
Well I've completely gone against my own advice and Davie. I've been obsessing about numbers again . That being said I am trying to get to grips with the triton method. So... From my understanding I am trying to achieve a stable kh value, mine is 10.2. Which I have done. But , my calcium levels have gone from 420 to 340. I've double , triple checked with 2 test kits , and I've mixed a bit of fresh salt water and tested that, so the kits good. If I increase the elements dosing to get my calcium up my kh starts to increase further. Any suggestions anyone ?
Next thing that is slightly linked to the above ( in the nature of full honesty , no matter if I look stupid) I also thought my ph was dropping averaging 7.7 to 7.6. Although I promised to ignor this , an alarm went off on my apex and sent me into full ph recovery mode. So I added some Kalk . I figured low ph low calcium I'll put a bit in. The truth of it was my probe was out (even though I had calibrated it a few weeks ago) and my ph was fine. Obviously this has bumped my kh up a bit further leaving me even less room to boost my calcium ( I think , if I am understanding things right).will this settle back down now? The last bit only happend yesterday so the first question still holds.
So in short how do I get some more calcium in using triton without my kh going through the roof ?
So that's the questions out the way , update wise everything is doing ok. Fish are good, no further white spot or deaths, I've added a couple of pipefish in to keep my other one company, and 1 coral, so being very good. Byropsis is still diminished due to less light, cleaner water and a sea hare the size of a pony ( it's still growing). Coral wise my sps has took a bit of a bashing , colour and damage from the byropsis , but were definetly back on the up. Il get some pictures next time , but I have decided to remodel again. Not happy with it, last time I remodels to scrape of the byropsis so rushed a little and dodged some fish homes , this time I am going to give myself a little more time .
Next thing that is slightly linked to the above ( in the nature of full honesty , no matter if I look stupid) I also thought my ph was dropping averaging 7.7 to 7.6. Although I promised to ignor this , an alarm went off on my apex and sent me into full ph recovery mode. So I added some Kalk . I figured low ph low calcium I'll put a bit in. The truth of it was my probe was out (even though I had calibrated it a few weeks ago) and my ph was fine. Obviously this has bumped my kh up a bit further leaving me even less room to boost my calcium ( I think , if I am understanding things right).will this settle back down now? The last bit only happend yesterday so the first question still holds.
So in short how do I get some more calcium in using triton without my kh going through the roof ?
So that's the questions out the way , update wise everything is doing ok. Fish are good, no further white spot or deaths, I've added a couple of pipefish in to keep my other one company, and 1 coral, so being very good. Byropsis is still diminished due to less light, cleaner water and a sea hare the size of a pony ( it's still growing). Coral wise my sps has took a bit of a bashing , colour and damage from the byropsis , but were definetly back on the up. Il get some pictures next time , but I have decided to remodel again. Not happy with it, last time I remodels to scrape of the byropsis so rushed a little and dodged some fish homes , this time I am going to give myself a little more time .
Blue spot
Member
Hi folks . I'm after some help. Cheato. In the sump. Lighting suggestions. Again I've read the forum and found lots of conflicting information. From what I have read people with sodium lighting seam to universally say this is the best. But I was hoping to use some form of led to direct the light, save on heat , power etc, but I still want good growth. So I've started to try and find a light unit and it seams to be a mine field of different options red lighting adding some yellow for healthier growth etc etc etc . Could anyone personally recommend an led fixture they are getting decent results with ? Any help greatly appreciated .
dave.m
Active member
I have found that any cheap LED fixture will work as long as it is a white light and not too blue. You need to keep in mind the need to keep up a flow with cheato that will turn it over. I have found that if cheato sits there with only one side facing the light the bottom side will die and disintegrate all over the place.
Dave.M
Dave.M
Blue spot
Member
Forgot to mention on sorting my low calcium levels out against high kh. I read an article that stated if you want to raise you calcium and offset your kh you need to add calcium chloride. Other forms of calcium may bring all your other levels out and not correct the problem .before anyone jumps on me I have no idea if this is true, I only ever comment on things I have tried and their fore have my own personal experience of. So after trying to raise my calcium with calc I was indeed getting a rise across the board ph and kh. I tried the calcium chloride and within two doses levels had stabilised. Just thought this might be useful to someone, or perhaps the rest of the world already knows and I'm just missing something
Hi Blue Spot,
I've just read through your entire thread, it has been a read.
First I'd like to point out, I do not own a tank, I am only a forum troll.
I've noticed a pattern, you chase numbers and results and do not allow the tank to settle. You add fish, ask questions next, dose, then ask questions, or add equipment then add equipment to counter the equipment added.
I know you mean well, and I hope this doesn't come across as me attacking you, it is just simply advice I have seen multiple times in this forums and others, slow down.
I don't know if your tank priority has changed, but on post one, you wanted to build this tank for a Blue Spot / s. Yet when you got the blue spots you threw in a bunch of other fish that directly compete or stress Jawfish out. Is this still your main goal?
One thing that you might want to read up on, and read the forums about, is an algae scrubber. From what I've read it will increase/decrease your o2,co2 so long as the atmosphere around it is normal, by increasing surface agitation, lower your nitrates and phosphorus levels, and you can easily design or buy one. Seeing as you are a design engineer this may be up your alley. As an example look for "Turbo Algae Scrubber".
If this does work as planned expect a decrease in your tank algae, as well as your sump algae, and expect some interaction with your biopellets, "Biopellets vs algae scrubber" you can read the posts. Most people seem to run a scrubber with a very small amount of GFO with great results to get rid of bryopsis and lower the N/P to 0.
Anyways, wish you happy reefing, and I have noticed your camera skills have improved greatly,
Ram
I've just read through your entire thread, it has been a read.
First I'd like to point out, I do not own a tank, I am only a forum troll.
I've noticed a pattern, you chase numbers and results and do not allow the tank to settle. You add fish, ask questions next, dose, then ask questions, or add equipment then add equipment to counter the equipment added.
I know you mean well, and I hope this doesn't come across as me attacking you, it is just simply advice I have seen multiple times in this forums and others, slow down.
I don't know if your tank priority has changed, but on post one, you wanted to build this tank for a Blue Spot / s. Yet when you got the blue spots you threw in a bunch of other fish that directly compete or stress Jawfish out. Is this still your main goal?
One thing that you might want to read up on, and read the forums about, is an algae scrubber. From what I've read it will increase/decrease your o2,co2 so long as the atmosphere around it is normal, by increasing surface agitation, lower your nitrates and phosphorus levels, and you can easily design or buy one. Seeing as you are a design engineer this may be up your alley. As an example look for "Turbo Algae Scrubber".
If this does work as planned expect a decrease in your tank algae, as well as your sump algae, and expect some interaction with your biopellets, "Biopellets vs algae scrubber" you can read the posts. Most people seem to run a scrubber with a very small amount of GFO with great results to get rid of bryopsis and lower the N/P to 0.
Anyways, wish you happy reefing, and I have noticed your camera skills have improved greatly,
Ram
Blue spot
Member
Hi ram. I completely agree with you , and no I don't feel attacked any advice is greatly appreciated and it's always good to get some fresh eyes on what I'm messing up lol. Unfortunately those failings you point out , and I readily admit is just my way of learning. I'm a bit of a practical sort realy , I read and read but for everything I read you can read an opposing statement from someone else . their fore I tend to pick a problem I think I'm having and then try to solve it and file it away I.e that was worth doing or what an unmitigated disaster that was, but all the time I'm learning and I don't sensor, if I mess something up I get it on here quick in case someone else tries it. This is my first tank after a Red Sea max so have had to learn a Myriad of things , lighting , sumps, skimmers, dosing, different corals and fish I have no experience with and the things the books can't tell you (mind you the tassled file fish was a pure whim , but has ended up being one of my favourite fish ). Then their are just the practicalities of having a larger tank !
The only thing I do disagree with is the blue spot , other than a damsel fish (who was already in their ) I didn't suffer much aggression , and Bert lived with all of them , I still feel feeding is key. I will get back to blue spot but I am getting over my one mitigating white spot disaster , all other things have been nice to have , the white spot obviously seriously effected the health of everything in the tank and killed Bert . So my future checklist was.
1) wait 8 weeks without any further white spot outbreak.
2) get rid of byropsis , I explained everything I tried for this
3) move on to triton method , always wanted to go this way but as things were going well and I had never dosed anything before I didn't feel confident enough to go straight in . This is where I am up to , and hopefully I'm ready to send my first water analysis in now that I have stabilised my calcium and kh .
4) I'm going to rescape
5) get another blue spot.
But you are right on the goal thing , my goal was to keep a blue spot in a reef environment and that is still my goal but didn't want to get another one so quickly after the white spot and whilst I was doing some experimentation .
I have been reading up on algae scrubbers for a while now and with the new stuff available it seams like people are getting good results, this is sort of where I was going with the lighting for the algae. At the moment my sump algae bed is shrinking, I'm assuming because I have my nitrates and phosphates under control (from getting better results with the new reactors) so my thinking was , if I light the algae realy well in the sump it may prevent any byropsis coming back in the display tank, but I like your idea on the turbo scrubber I'm going to have a good read about them now, you do realise this will be a complete experiment for me though ram , and completely change my system causing yet more instability ..... My god .... I've converted you ram
The only thing I do disagree with is the blue spot , other than a damsel fish (who was already in their ) I didn't suffer much aggression , and Bert lived with all of them , I still feel feeding is key. I will get back to blue spot but I am getting over my one mitigating white spot disaster , all other things have been nice to have , the white spot obviously seriously effected the health of everything in the tank and killed Bert . So my future checklist was.
1) wait 8 weeks without any further white spot outbreak.
2) get rid of byropsis , I explained everything I tried for this
3) move on to triton method , always wanted to go this way but as things were going well and I had never dosed anything before I didn't feel confident enough to go straight in . This is where I am up to , and hopefully I'm ready to send my first water analysis in now that I have stabilised my calcium and kh .
4) I'm going to rescape
5) get another blue spot.
But you are right on the goal thing , my goal was to keep a blue spot in a reef environment and that is still my goal but didn't want to get another one so quickly after the white spot and whilst I was doing some experimentation .
I have been reading up on algae scrubbers for a while now and with the new stuff available it seams like people are getting good results, this is sort of where I was going with the lighting for the algae. At the moment my sump algae bed is shrinking, I'm assuming because I have my nitrates and phosphates under control (from getting better results with the new reactors) so my thinking was , if I light the algae realy well in the sump it may prevent any byropsis coming back in the display tank, but I like your idea on the turbo scrubber I'm going to have a good read about them now, you do realise this will be a complete experiment for me though ram , and completely change my system causing yet more instability ..... My god .... I've converted you ram
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Your alage is decreasing because of your biopellets. I have read to many horror stories with biopellets to use them in my future tank, and you are not exporting nutrients only temporarly converting their form. The only way to keep nutrients low is to export, this is done through either lots of water changes and/or algae.
Again, I am only an internet expert.
Again, I am only an internet expert.
See I'm an idiot, the biopellets make a home for bacteria and are knocked off by the tumbling action of the reactor, the bacteria are removed by the skimmer. Hence exporting the nutrients that way.
Bottom line, if your tank is looking good, you are doing something right.
Just ignore my posts.
Blue spot
Member
Hey ram . No problem , but you can already see the problems I have, you read one thing and then 10 things to contradict the last thing you read. Nothing I'm my opinion beats personal experience.
So my experience of bio pellets were , I put them in , nothing happend. I read wait. I did . Nothing happend . I thought maybe I don't have enough in . I added some more nothing happend. I left them on and sort of forgot about them for 6 months ....... Nothing happend. I added a co2 scrubber. Bio pellet mucus explosion. All over the tank , I piped it into my skimmer directly. Poor skimmer output and large blobs of mucus in the skimmer I added a dual valve, skimmer improved. Co2 scrubber caused algae outbreak. Remove co2 scrubber. Bio pellets still stayed active , nitrate reduction from 25/30 to 1 in about 2 months. Ticking along nicely now. But again that was only my experience you could add them and they work straight away , same thing with the phos remover, I added remover fluidised it and still got poor results, couldn't understand it, now I realise my reactor was not fluidising the media effectively , I use the same amount of remover for longer periods of time and still get better results than I used to. But it is a process you have to go through , I think this is why you get so many opposing opinions , it could be a small thing that is stopping your success with a particular theory or idea, you just have to figure out why .
So my experience of bio pellets were , I put them in , nothing happend. I read wait. I did . Nothing happend . I thought maybe I don't have enough in . I added some more nothing happend. I left them on and sort of forgot about them for 6 months ....... Nothing happend. I added a co2 scrubber. Bio pellet mucus explosion. All over the tank , I piped it into my skimmer directly. Poor skimmer output and large blobs of mucus in the skimmer I added a dual valve, skimmer improved. Co2 scrubber caused algae outbreak. Remove co2 scrubber. Bio pellets still stayed active , nitrate reduction from 25/30 to 1 in about 2 months. Ticking along nicely now. But again that was only my experience you could add them and they work straight away , same thing with the phos remover, I added remover fluidised it and still got poor results, couldn't understand it, now I realise my reactor was not fluidising the media effectively , I use the same amount of remover for longer periods of time and still get better results than I used to. But it is a process you have to go through , I think this is why you get so many opposing opinions , it could be a small thing that is stopping your success with a particular theory or idea, you just have to figure out why .
Blue spot
Member
Well I've gone a little crazy today ������. It all started when I gave my tank a really good measure , and I'm talking everything. For once everything was stable .. Hoooraahhh !!! That's one month no tinkering , just running triton. I even measured my potassium, iodine and iron , my iron was at zero but other than that a fantastic result...... So to celebrate .. I went a little cray cray fish wise. I've got , another yellow tang, a mimic tang (out of all the tangs this is my favourite , the ones that have the brown body, I think you may call them a chocolate tang in the US) a baby majestic Angel , a pigmy hawkish (already have one of these but I always try to pair where I can) a lizard fish (this is something new for me) a squirrel fish (again something new) and finally a copperband , hopefully to eat a few aptasia. I've also returned a few corals As I'm going to rescape this week and they won't fit in with what I'm planning. In all.... Great fish tank day .
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