Well, if anyone has followed and/or read the thread it was pretty clear he is taking it slow. Which is smart. Allowing something bad in a tank this size is not an option as eradication would be difficult and subsequent QT/hospitalization of the inhabitants and fallowing the system would be a daunting, if not impossible task.
Triple-S Fish Ranch - 1700gal 164†x 48†x 56†SPS peninsula build
- Thread starter pmrogers
- Start date
September 2016 Update - Happy fish, dead coral, nitrates
September 2016 Update - Happy fish, dead coral, nitrates
Starting off with the good news, every single fish is perfect, fat and healthy, vibrant colors, not even the slightest sign of LLE, parasites, fungal or bacterial issues. Also on the good front, there is not so much as a speck of anything bad in the display: no cyano, dyno's, nuisance algae, aiptasia, vermetid snails, etc.
On the not so bright side, there is still not a single coral in the display. My foray into Bayer dipping was an unmitigated failure, resulting in a complete wipe of all stonies.
Main Events:
Bayer dip disaster
Where we last left off, the coral QT tank was thriving and about to graduate its first batch to the display. The fish QTs were filled with anthias and cardinals also about to graduate.
Decided to do 2 more rounds of coral dips in the last week before transferring to the display, this time using Bayer insecticide. This did not go well. With the exception of one hollywood stunner and one acro, every coral started bleaching the day after the first dip and was completely dead within 10 days. The remaining 2 corals also bleached and died about 5 weeks later. What I missed in my research on Bayer was that it requires much more thorough rinsing than CoralRx. Apparently, I put the corals back in the QT with a film of Bayer still on them. The concentration was sufficient to poison the rest of the QT; even the corals I didn't dip (bits of monti that had adhered to the floor or side wall) died within 2 weeks.
With my CoralRx procedure, I would rinse with a quick swishing about in a bucket of clean tank water. If I give Bayer another try, will use two rinse buckets each with a powerhead in them to supplement the manual swishing, and will plan to replace at least the first bucket with fresh tank water after every few rinses.
QT graduations, happy fish
On the bright side, all of the fish graduated quarantine and survived transition to the display.
With anthias in the display I had to start feeding frozen food. I know some hobbyists get anthias to eat pellets, but I've never been able to get them to eat anything other than frozen foods. Based on research here, I decided to try LRS Fertility Frenzy and Herbivore Frenzy, to which everyone responded very well. Coloration picked up across the board, 2 of the anthias made the switch to male, and the green chromis started nesting, with one of the males taking on the bright yellow rear fins and hyper aggressive behavior defending the eggs. It was fun to watch the Chromis dive bombing tangs, foxface and rabbit fish 10 times his size.
Sparus pump failure
The 3HP Pentair Sparus started making horrible screeching noises as if the bearings were shot. I immediately ordered a replacement motor. 4 week backorder on the motors so I also ordered a high output air pump and 12" airstone to use for emergency aeration in case the Sparus failed completely before the replacement motor arrived.
This turned out to be a good call, as the Sparus did in fact lock up completely about 3 days after the airpump arrived. With the airstone, I was able to leave the tank without sump circulation for a few days until I got time to plumb in one of our old Sequence 1.5hp pumps-- less than a quarter the flow rate of the Sparus, but good enough to keep things going until the new motor arrival.
I was extremely disappointed to have such an early motor failure from a high quality pump. Other than one case of the motor getting soaked, I've never had a Sequence or Reeflo motor failure in 20 years of reefing. For the Pentair motor to fail without cause was very surprising. In fact, it wasn't the case as I learned when I disassembled the pump.
Removing the shroud revealed what I consider a design flaw, but in serviceability, not in something as fundamental as motor durability. Basically, what happened is that the seal developed a slow leak allowing moisture and severe salt creep into the motor.
"But wait!", you say, all seals need to be maintained; it is your fault for not replacing it soon enough. This is true. From my years with Sequence/Reeflo, I got in the habit of a weekly check for debris or salt creep on the floor beneath the pump where the motor shaft enters the volute. Once this would start to happen, I would know to replace the seal within the next 3 to 6 months. I followed the same practice with the Sparus and was thrilled when it ran for almost 2.5 years before the first tiny hint of debris buildup below the pump. Surprising, but I chalked it up to the superior build quality of the Sparus. When the first bit of debris appeared below the Sparus, I was ready to replace the seal within the week, proud of myself for such quick and conscientious service.
Ummn. . . No. Turns out that with the design of the Sparus there is a large cavity inside the pump front end where huge amounts of salt creep can build up unseen. By the time debris starts appearing outside the pump body, it is far too late and the dry side of motor has been marinating in salt water paste for who knows how long. Bottom line, the Sparus motor was exceptionally durable if anything, as it continued to run for months after being soaked.
My design improvement suggestion for the Sparus would be to leave the motor shaft visible where it enters the volute so that seal breakdown can be detected immediately. For now, I've updated my maintenance regimen to pull the motor head every six months to inspect the seal. This is a mildly frustrating time waster as, if the seals for the Pentair are like the Sequence, they could last anywhere from 9 months to 4 years before starting to seep.
Hydro Wizard prop breaks - world's slowest replacement
After going 18 months without an ECM-63 propeller break, 2 more snails got into the shroud within 2 weeks of each other, exhausting my supply of replacement propellers. While Panta-Rhei had been very responsive in shipping my first 2 pump and part orders, my order for additional props ended up taking over 3 months to come in. I still love the company's products but would strongly recommend that you get _plenty_ of replacement parts if you decide to run one of their powerheads. Wasn't a huge deal for me with a second ECM-63 in the tank and no corals as of yet, but in other circumstances it could be a real problem to have the powerhead offline for 3 months.
Everything looks great, too bad about the Nitrates
As mentioned earlier, the display inhabitants and water look about as perfect as any tank I've seen. Great water clarity. Fat fish with vibrant colors and no signs of parasites, infections, or damage. Not a single nuisance organism to be found in the tank: no cyano, dynos, planeria, aiptaisia, majano, vermetid snails, etc. Not a speck of nuisance algae on the rocks.
Unfortunately, nitrates began climbing in June, jumping from what had seemed to be a stable 2 to 5ppm up to 20+ in the month between my May and June tests. I did not expect this as I believe I'm still at less than a quarter of the population the tank should be able to support, and not feeding heavily. You may suspect the frozen food I began using when the anthias were released into the display, but this happened before I began feeding frozen food to the display tank.
The first thing I tried was removing the airstone from the sump, thinking that this may have been preventing the cermedia filter blocks also in that part of the sump from developing lower oxygen zones for hosting nitrate reducing bacteria. I was a little worried about pH problems developing after airstone removal, always mindful that the tall and skinny tank dimensions don't provide much water surface area for oxygen exchange. Fortunately, pH stayed stable for the next 2 months; less fortunately, so did Nitrates. The big downside to airstone removal is that the surface of the water in the sump settling area now has an unsightly bacterial film. Not harmful, just annoying since I like to keep things looking tidy even behind the scenes.
Also started a vodka dosing regimen, though this is something I've never wanted to get into for a couple of reasons: 1) it is too fiddly and time consuming; 2) a suspicion that if dosing is necessary there are fundamentals out of whack. After a month of dosing, Nitrates dropped to 15, which was a positive sign. But I also established that I really don't want to make this a permanent part of the regime, and discontinued it after about 5 weeks in.
Next up, I tripled the amount of cermedia in the sump to see if it is just a matter of insufficient bacteria hosting surface area. This was about 3 weeks ago. If this doesn't work, next up will be to replace all of the cermedia with dead rock (shouldn't have given away that last 500lbs of reincarnated rock from the old tank!). Also under consideration is to build a slow flow cermedia reactor to further increase the chances of establishing a zone near enough to anaerobic for nitrate reducing bacteria to thrive.
Mysteriously toxic coral QT
After the great Bayer dip wipe, I performed a manual 80% water change using DT water (on top of the daily automated 5gal changes) and ran carbon and a Polyfilter for several weeks before introducing a hardy monti digitata frag. It looked unhappy from the beginning and died within 10 days. Puzzling. Nitrates were the only parameter significantly out of range (~15ppm at the time). Not a great nitrate value and one that I would expect to prevent thriving, but I also wouldn't expect that nitrate level by itself to kill a monti so quickly. Appears to be time for another full drain and bleach reboot of the coral QT.
At the suggestion of Dave, o2manyfish, I sent a water sample off to Triton Labs for detailed analysis to see if there was an issue with metals or other anomalies, possibly due to the cermedia blocks. The analysis came back with no obvious smoking guns to me, except possibly Barium, about which I know absolutely nothing. Barium was flagged as red at 15x too high, Iodine flagged yellow at 15 against a target of 60. Calcium and Magnesium were flagged as yellow and red, but at 430 and 1230 respectively, they are in line with successful tanks I've run in the past.
Current State
As of now, all coral additions, including QT, are on hold until I get nitrates back down to 5ppm or lower in the display. Even given my up front "Slow" disclaimer, it may be time to move this thread from the Large Reef Tanks forum to the Fish Only forum.
Thanks everyone who has followed and been so supportive. For now, I will plan to make this my last post until and unless I get back on track to making this a true reef system.
September 2016 Update - Happy fish, dead coral, nitrates
Starting off with the good news, every single fish is perfect, fat and healthy, vibrant colors, not even the slightest sign of LLE, parasites, fungal or bacterial issues. Also on the good front, there is not so much as a speck of anything bad in the display: no cyano, dyno's, nuisance algae, aiptasia, vermetid snails, etc.
On the not so bright side, there is still not a single coral in the display. My foray into Bayer dipping was an unmitigated failure, resulting in a complete wipe of all stonies.
Main Events:
- Bayer dip disaster
- QT graduations: 7 lyretail anthias, blotched anthias, 4 long spine cardinals, purple tang, six line wrasse
- Happy fish - rich colors, egg laying chromis, male coloration changes 2 anthias
- Sparus pump failure
- Hydro Wizard prop break; world's slowest replacement
- NSW dosing lines and UV recirc clogged by precipitate buildup
- Perfect looking water, too bad about the nitrates
- Current state
Bayer dip disaster
Where we last left off, the coral QT tank was thriving and about to graduate its first batch to the display. The fish QTs were filled with anthias and cardinals also about to graduate.
Decided to do 2 more rounds of coral dips in the last week before transferring to the display, this time using Bayer insecticide. This did not go well. With the exception of one hollywood stunner and one acro, every coral started bleaching the day after the first dip and was completely dead within 10 days. The remaining 2 corals also bleached and died about 5 weeks later. What I missed in my research on Bayer was that it requires much more thorough rinsing than CoralRx. Apparently, I put the corals back in the QT with a film of Bayer still on them. The concentration was sufficient to poison the rest of the QT; even the corals I didn't dip (bits of monti that had adhered to the floor or side wall) died within 2 weeks.
With my CoralRx procedure, I would rinse with a quick swishing about in a bucket of clean tank water. If I give Bayer another try, will use two rinse buckets each with a powerhead in them to supplement the manual swishing, and will plan to replace at least the first bucket with fresh tank water after every few rinses.
QT graduations, happy fish
On the bright side, all of the fish graduated quarantine and survived transition to the display.
With anthias in the display I had to start feeding frozen food. I know some hobbyists get anthias to eat pellets, but I've never been able to get them to eat anything other than frozen foods. Based on research here, I decided to try LRS Fertility Frenzy and Herbivore Frenzy, to which everyone responded very well. Coloration picked up across the board, 2 of the anthias made the switch to male, and the green chromis started nesting, with one of the males taking on the bright yellow rear fins and hyper aggressive behavior defending the eggs. It was fun to watch the Chromis dive bombing tangs, foxface and rabbit fish 10 times his size.
Sparus pump failure
The 3HP Pentair Sparus started making horrible screeching noises as if the bearings were shot. I immediately ordered a replacement motor. 4 week backorder on the motors so I also ordered a high output air pump and 12" airstone to use for emergency aeration in case the Sparus failed completely before the replacement motor arrived.
This turned out to be a good call, as the Sparus did in fact lock up completely about 3 days after the airpump arrived. With the airstone, I was able to leave the tank without sump circulation for a few days until I got time to plumb in one of our old Sequence 1.5hp pumps-- less than a quarter the flow rate of the Sparus, but good enough to keep things going until the new motor arrival.
I was extremely disappointed to have such an early motor failure from a high quality pump. Other than one case of the motor getting soaked, I've never had a Sequence or Reeflo motor failure in 20 years of reefing. For the Pentair motor to fail without cause was very surprising. In fact, it wasn't the case as I learned when I disassembled the pump.
Removing the shroud revealed what I consider a design flaw, but in serviceability, not in something as fundamental as motor durability. Basically, what happened is that the seal developed a slow leak allowing moisture and severe salt creep into the motor.
"But wait!", you say, all seals need to be maintained; it is your fault for not replacing it soon enough. This is true. From my years with Sequence/Reeflo, I got in the habit of a weekly check for debris or salt creep on the floor beneath the pump where the motor shaft enters the volute. Once this would start to happen, I would know to replace the seal within the next 3 to 6 months. I followed the same practice with the Sparus and was thrilled when it ran for almost 2.5 years before the first tiny hint of debris buildup below the pump. Surprising, but I chalked it up to the superior build quality of the Sparus. When the first bit of debris appeared below the Sparus, I was ready to replace the seal within the week, proud of myself for such quick and conscientious service.
Ummn. . . No. Turns out that with the design of the Sparus there is a large cavity inside the pump front end where huge amounts of salt creep can build up unseen. By the time debris starts appearing outside the pump body, it is far too late and the dry side of motor has been marinating in salt water paste for who knows how long. Bottom line, the Sparus motor was exceptionally durable if anything, as it continued to run for months after being soaked.
My design improvement suggestion for the Sparus would be to leave the motor shaft visible where it enters the volute so that seal breakdown can be detected immediately. For now, I've updated my maintenance regimen to pull the motor head every six months to inspect the seal. This is a mildly frustrating time waster as, if the seals for the Pentair are like the Sequence, they could last anywhere from 9 months to 4 years before starting to seep.
Hydro Wizard prop breaks - world's slowest replacement
After going 18 months without an ECM-63 propeller break, 2 more snails got into the shroud within 2 weeks of each other, exhausting my supply of replacement propellers. While Panta-Rhei had been very responsive in shipping my first 2 pump and part orders, my order for additional props ended up taking over 3 months to come in. I still love the company's products but would strongly recommend that you get _plenty_ of replacement parts if you decide to run one of their powerheads. Wasn't a huge deal for me with a second ECM-63 in the tank and no corals as of yet, but in other circumstances it could be a real problem to have the powerhead offline for 3 months.
Everything looks great, too bad about the Nitrates
As mentioned earlier, the display inhabitants and water look about as perfect as any tank I've seen. Great water clarity. Fat fish with vibrant colors and no signs of parasites, infections, or damage. Not a single nuisance organism to be found in the tank: no cyano, dynos, planeria, aiptaisia, majano, vermetid snails, etc. Not a speck of nuisance algae on the rocks.
Unfortunately, nitrates began climbing in June, jumping from what had seemed to be a stable 2 to 5ppm up to 20+ in the month between my May and June tests. I did not expect this as I believe I'm still at less than a quarter of the population the tank should be able to support, and not feeding heavily. You may suspect the frozen food I began using when the anthias were released into the display, but this happened before I began feeding frozen food to the display tank.
The first thing I tried was removing the airstone from the sump, thinking that this may have been preventing the cermedia filter blocks also in that part of the sump from developing lower oxygen zones for hosting nitrate reducing bacteria. I was a little worried about pH problems developing after airstone removal, always mindful that the tall and skinny tank dimensions don't provide much water surface area for oxygen exchange. Fortunately, pH stayed stable for the next 2 months; less fortunately, so did Nitrates. The big downside to airstone removal is that the surface of the water in the sump settling area now has an unsightly bacterial film. Not harmful, just annoying since I like to keep things looking tidy even behind the scenes.
Also started a vodka dosing regimen, though this is something I've never wanted to get into for a couple of reasons: 1) it is too fiddly and time consuming; 2) a suspicion that if dosing is necessary there are fundamentals out of whack. After a month of dosing, Nitrates dropped to 15, which was a positive sign. But I also established that I really don't want to make this a permanent part of the regime, and discontinued it after about 5 weeks in.
Next up, I tripled the amount of cermedia in the sump to see if it is just a matter of insufficient bacteria hosting surface area. This was about 3 weeks ago. If this doesn't work, next up will be to replace all of the cermedia with dead rock (shouldn't have given away that last 500lbs of reincarnated rock from the old tank!). Also under consideration is to build a slow flow cermedia reactor to further increase the chances of establishing a zone near enough to anaerobic for nitrate reducing bacteria to thrive.
Mysteriously toxic coral QT
After the great Bayer dip wipe, I performed a manual 80% water change using DT water (on top of the daily automated 5gal changes) and ran carbon and a Polyfilter for several weeks before introducing a hardy monti digitata frag. It looked unhappy from the beginning and died within 10 days. Puzzling. Nitrates were the only parameter significantly out of range (~15ppm at the time). Not a great nitrate value and one that I would expect to prevent thriving, but I also wouldn't expect that nitrate level by itself to kill a monti so quickly. Appears to be time for another full drain and bleach reboot of the coral QT.
At the suggestion of Dave, o2manyfish, I sent a water sample off to Triton Labs for detailed analysis to see if there was an issue with metals or other anomalies, possibly due to the cermedia blocks. The analysis came back with no obvious smoking guns to me, except possibly Barium, about which I know absolutely nothing. Barium was flagged as red at 15x too high, Iodine flagged yellow at 15 against a target of 60. Calcium and Magnesium were flagged as yellow and red, but at 430 and 1230 respectively, they are in line with successful tanks I've run in the past.
Current State
As of now, all coral additions, including QT, are on hold until I get nitrates back down to 5ppm or lower in the display. Even given my up front "Slow" disclaimer, it may be time to move this thread from the Large Reef Tanks forum to the Fish Only forum.
Thanks everyone who has followed and been so supportive. For now, I will plan to make this my last post until and unless I get back on track to making this a true reef system.
dave.m
Active member
For nitrates you might want to look for detritus accumulation. This might be on or under the rocks, aquarium floor (you went with no substrate IIRC), and in the sump areas. Sometimes something as simple as moving the water strongly over the rocks with your hand or a small submersible pump can help stir sediments back up into the water column for removal by the filter socks.
Dave.M
Dave.M
CHSUB
"Certified Hobby Expert"
not surprised you're having no3 problems, as i see very little no3 sinks. i second the idea of a sulfur reactor with about 12 gallons of sulfur, in addition to more live rock and a large well lite algae fug.
dca22anderson
New member
Absolutely AMAZING!! Nicely done Paul!!
nuxx
.Registered Member
Still not 100% sure about MarinePure and nitrate removal.
I run 3 blocks in my sump and didn't see a decrease in nitrates when I added the last two blocks.
The biggest difference I've noticed as to nitrate removal is macroalgae. Took awhile for it to finally start growing though...
I harvest around 40 lbs a month. My nitrates do not measure on low range tests.
This is with around 600 gallons of system volume feeding frozen 2 to 3 times a day with flakes, pellets and nori. Four 4"+ tangs, crosshatch pair, two angels, anthias, wrasses, etc...
Might want to look into plumbing in something you can grow crazy amounts of chaeto in. The middle of my sump is full of chaeto, being well over lit as well.
I run 3 blocks in my sump and didn't see a decrease in nitrates when I added the last two blocks.
The biggest difference I've noticed as to nitrate removal is macroalgae. Took awhile for it to finally start growing though...
I harvest around 40 lbs a month. My nitrates do not measure on low range tests.
This is with around 600 gallons of system volume feeding frozen 2 to 3 times a day with flakes, pellets and nori. Four 4"+ tangs, crosshatch pair, two angels, anthias, wrasses, etc...
Might want to look into plumbing in something you can grow crazy amounts of chaeto in. The middle of my sump is full of chaeto, being well over lit as well.
AkoAung
aka -iDestroya-
Thanks for sharing your challenges as well as successes. On nitrates carbon dosing (vodka, vinegar, etc) is now a regular part of routine for many reefers here from what I can see.
Carbon dosing as I understand it is food for the bacteria population to grow and consume more of the nitrates (along with aggressive skimming to remove the bacteria) so it will help a lot I'd have to think. Some firms sell liquid food for bacteria under their own labels but carbon dosing is more economical, and simpler with the use of a doser.
I can't find any reference to use of macroalgae in your sump system, nor algae scrubbers as both of those will help with nitrate and phos removal along with biological media and carbon dosing.
More cermedia blocks can't but help along with a slow flow reactor in your sump system. You may also want to consider supplemental bacterial additions to ensure a proper mix of bacteria as it is part of the routine regime of well known time tested successful reef keeping systems advocated by a few companies such as KZ. I have seen a few tanks who were able to keep SPS corals 14 days after start up following KZ method. There's no documented method faster nor more successful so that might be something to consider as well. Whatever your choices, I hope you succeed in realizing your reef vision.
Cheers!
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