A month of updates
Wow, an entire month has gone by without a post! Being a parent is time consuming!
Let’s see… to pick up where the last post left off, the skimmer pump is no longer making a humming noise. I had cleaned it a few times, and it finally quieted down on its own. Nice.
I had a problem with some acro’s. I still don’t know what. A new frag RTN’d on me, and shortly after that the vermiculata RTN’d, and then it seemed to spread to the blue prostrata, a red/orange mille, a blue mille, and some type of bottlebrush. Bad! It doesn’t seem to have spread from there… the prostrata seems to have stopped RTN’ing, and a frag of the same piece is fine. It’s disappointing that this has taken out some really nice pieces that I’ve had for a while. I’m hoping that whatever caused this has passed… I don’t know if it was a parasite, or a chemical imbalance, or what.
The OM valve has started making a knocking noise again. I can’t believe it. I’m hoping it’s just a grain of sand or something and not ANOTHER broken motor gear. Cripes.
The MJ1200 pump I was using as a replacement for a broken Mag1.9 broke, so I reinstalled the Mag5 pump I started the system with originally. I had to reinstall the skimmer silencer to cut back on the air intake and prevent the skimmer from running too wet, but it seems to be working fine.
I’ve started dosing Microbe Lift Special Blend, after seeing some great reviews online about it. Wow this stuff is stinky. I’ve been following the instructions, and dosing about 25-50% more to account for saltwater.
We went out of town last week (brother’s wedding, yay!!! Awesome trip!!!) and it was the motivation I needed to automate the 2-part system. I decided to take the time to also redo the level controls, pump controls, and entire wiring schematic for the tank. This was pretty much a full week’s worth of evening work. I added a second GFCI outlet, in parallel to the first, and split the aquarium loads between them. Got rid of the power strips, replaced with outlets mounted on the stand near the devices. Completely redid the pump and level controls from scratch (reusing some float switches and toggle switches) and am happy to report that it’s all functioning! Right now I have a tank-high float switch, ATO reservoir low switch, sump-high switch, and top-off switch as well as toggles for the return pump, skimmer, closed loop, and ATO pump. I have inputs ready and waiting for a sump-low switch and 2-part low switch.
I still have to clean up the wires a bit (secure them, label them), add those two float switches, make a new float switch holder for the sump, and secure the 2-part tubing. I also want to repipe the return pump and the media reactors to clean them up. I also have to monitor the alk and ca levels in the tank for a week or so and make sure the dosers are set correctly.
Photos and one-line diagrams to come soon!
Rearranged some pieces, new supplements
Last night I made new batches of 2 part (recipe 2). That is all I have to say about it!
I saw online that people get better coloration out of their yellow Aussie torches by placing them in higher light. I have ours along the back wall in the most indirect light in the tank. So i decided to move it! Swapped locations with a purple torch that was closer to the halides but looked like it was a bit over lit. We’ll see how they respond.
The red planet frag has gotten beat up this week. Something broke it free from the epoxy holding it in place. Two days in a row I picked it up off the sand bed, and this morning I had to recover it from on top of a torch – not cool! I tried re-epoxying it in place tonight and accidentally broke a piece off. Jammed that piece into a rock crevice next to the main piece where it will get less light and flow; curious how it will respond in coloration and growth – if it can take hold before a snail or crab knocks it loose.
Cleaning and Experimenting
Last night I went to town on the tank walls, scraped about 80% of the coralline algae off. There’s a general rule in projects that it takes 10% of the effort to get 90% of the work done, and 90% of the effort to get that last 10% done. That’s certainly true in scraping coralline algae. The areas I have left to scrape are hard to reach with thick stubborn coralline. It’s a daunting task. I also pulled some algae out of the tank. A little caulerpa, a lot of red cotton algae. I thought I had that stuff beaten, but the green hammer branches were packed with it. It’s a downward spiral once the stuff takes hold – it’s so effective at trapping food and detritus that it grows exponentially (at least it feels exponential to someone trying to eradicate it!). I may need to try carbon dosing again – at the very least get the GFO reactor back online.
While working I accidentally broke a tip off the blue prostrata. I decided to try an experiment – I clipped a small branch off one of the green prostrata frags and glued both to a frag disc. I’m curious to see if they can coexist. It will take weeks before they encrust the distance between them, but that will also help ensure that both are healthy before they come into contact. This will be a good experiment, since I was intending on placing the green prostrata immediately next to the blue one.
Tonight I need to make more 2-part. Both supplements are pretty much empty.
Alk Seems “Locked”, Progress on Caulerpa
Well, let me start off with the good news. I have been keeping the caulerpa in the tank in check with manually removal. I’m not saying that I’m winning the battle, but I seem to be keeping it from spreading. I’ve been pulling little bits almost every night and it seems to be effective.
On to the bad, or at least frustrating, news. I can not raise the tank’s alkalinity levels above 6-6.5 DKH.
I’ve tried pulling the media reactors offline. I’ve been dosing additional amounts of saturated kalkwasser. I’ve been dosing 2-Part solution. And nothing is effective. Last night I did a test, and the results I think are typical of what happens in the tank:
10:30 dosed to get alk to 8.5 DKH. Magnesium at 1200 ppm
10:45 alk at 8.0 dkh
11:05 alk at 7.5 dkh
11:25 alk at 7.0 dkh and magnesium at 1105 ppm
Pretty rapid decrease. I was thinking precipitation must be the cause, and it seems other people do too. I started a thread at reef central, and got the following response:
If your alk test kit is correct, I would suspect abiotic precipitation in your sand bed as a possible source of eating your alk up. Check your sand bed for sand clumping.
Will do! I don’t know what to do if I find the sand bed is clumping, but I’ll check. I also received a recommendation to raise mag to ~1300. I’ll do that slowly starting tonight.
I also came across an older thread where bacteria was cited as a possible source of precipitation. I did dose MB7 for a while. Could it be related? Hmmm. Will keep updating as I find out more info.
Dosed MB7
I’ve been pulling caulerpa from the tank almost daily. Not always pulling out a lot, but every little clump helps make a dent in it. The clean up crew has been doing a decent job keeping hair alage in check as it gaisn strength now that it’s not competing with caulerpa. I decided to try dosing MB7 again, to see if that can also help out compete the algae. I dosed three capfuls (75 gallons worth) tonight.
Since I’m posting, I’ll also note that I made more RODI water today. I’ll be adding 6 rounded tsp of kalk powder after I log off here. I am going through ~4.5 gallons of top off water every 3 days or so.
A Month of Updates!!
One Saturday early in January unruly and I went on a short trip back to Midwest Coral Farms. I was a lucky winner of a bucket of Brightwell’s salt in the Uberfrags Christmas giveaways! They still had an impressive collection of corals available and had some nice inverts as well. Unfortunately this was a low-budget visit for us, so I only picked up some more cleaning supplies and a bottle of Brightwell’s Mircobacter7. I have seen a lot of people online dose this in their tanks (along with some type of carbon source – vodka, vinegar, sugar, or a combo) and I figured we could give it a try too. Anything to help outcompete the micro and macro algae! I started dosing the very next day per the instructions – one capful per 25 gallons each day. I didn’t make it more than a week before I stopped dosing (due to forgetting a couple nights). I will begin dosing MB7 again, maybe this week – more on that later.
Sadly Aloysius, our starry blenny, passed away in early January. He was looking more and more emaciated over a period of a few weeks and appeared to be on a hunger strike. No food was appealing to him. We’re still saddened by his loss and plan on replacing him sometime in the future. I guess as a “balance” of things in the tank, one of the anemones split so we’re up to three RBTA’s. So far all three are staying put within a few inches of eachother.
It’s been a month of equipment failures, it feels like. The second PC ballast died, leaving the tank with no actinic supplementation. Yesterday the return pump (a Mag 1.9) failed, so I am temporarily using an MJ1200 for return flow. I’m estimating that it’s giving us a whopping 46 gph, based on some measurements I did a few weeks ago. Sometime soon I’m going to need to purchase a replacement – looking at QuietOne1200.
Instead of replacing the actinic ballasts in-kind I decided to purchase an IceCap T5 retro kit with ATI Blue+ lamps. A little more money upfront, but better PAR and output for less energy = a better long term investment. It took about 3 weeks for me to get it installed, but I took care of that this weekend. I like the color quite a bit. Adds a nice amount of blue to the Iwasaki MH’s, and looks great by itself at dawn/dusk. It’s funny the tricks your eye can play on you. With the Iwasaki MH’s on by themselves, the tank looks pretty white. Add in the actinics and the tank takes on a bluer color. Turn off the actinics and suddenly those white Iwasaki’s look pretty yellow!
A few months ago I posted about a strategy I had for eliminating algae in the tank. I basically said I would let the caulerpa run rampant while I eliminated the hair algae, and then I’d focus on the caulerpa. I realized this was a horrible idea! The caulerpa is a real pain to get out of the tank, and I’d be much better off starting with eradicating that from the tank! So I reversed my strategy – I am manually removing caulerpa and letting hair algae do its own thing. The caulerpa grows back fastm but I’m making a decent dent in it. I think if I can keep it under control for a while, the invertebrates in the tank can get control over the hair algae. Then I can consider some caulerpa-eaters to take care of the rest.
Side effect of the rapid removal of caulerpa – two browned out SPS frags. The “bonsai” (which looks more like a tricolor seneca I’ve seen advertised) and the granulosa both lost color right after the first major removal. I’m sure the tank had a spike in phosphate and/or nitrate. Patience and they’ll color back up again.
Oh – I got bit while pruning the caulerpa! Prime suspect? Male pajama cardinal! Go figure. He took a small chunk out of my knuckle, the punk.
I have been having a hard time keeping the alk high in the tank. I have increased the kalkwasser concentration (now using 5 or 6 rounded teaspoons per 5 gallons) but still haven’t been able to keep alk above ~6dkh. Magnesium is testing at 1500, so that’s not the culprit. Thinking that maybe all the GFO I was running was causing some precipitation I pulled both reactors this weekend. I’m going to test alk a couple times this week, along with playing with the kalkwasser, to see if I can make an improvement.
Added cage around the modded MJ pump in sump to prevent chaeto clogs. Made the cage out of egg crate and a finer mesh material – working great so far!
Cleaned the skimmer pump, and tried a few different ways of running it to see how much skimmate I could pull. Using the silencer to adjust the amount of air restrictions, I basically found: no silencer = wet skimmate; full silencer = very dry skimmate; bottom half of the silencer = nice middle ground. Most of the time now I’m running with only half the silencer installed.
I also cleaned the Vortech for the first time in… a long time. It was getting clogged with caulerpa strands from the manual removal i’ve been doing. Noticable increase in flow after a solid cleaning.
Stupid me washed down one of the power strips with water after doing some work in the tank. Luckily I only knocked out one, and luckily the GFI outlet tripped, and luckily I was able to recircuit everything onto the remaining power strip. This makes me want to change how I have things set up. A power panel in the back of the sump would be really nice. Maybe leave a convenience outlet up front, with some toggle switches to turn equipment on/off (the toggle switches I’m using on the return pump, skimmer, and ATO are awesome). Hey, maybe even spring for a controller which could incorporate the alarm switches I installed but couldn’t get functioning. The Neptune Apex or Apex Lite look appealing but that’s a lot of coin to drop.
Well, that’s all I can remember for the time being. I will try to be a bit more diligent on my updates this month!
