65 Gallon Wife Approved Build

Miah2bzy

Miah2bzy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#41
#41
Quick Update:

Got through the diatom phase with some hair algae starting to crop up. Swapped the astrea snails to the sump and added 8 trochus to the display. Still looks real ugly but most of the diatoms are no longer growing.

Harvesting 75% of refugium macro weekly.

Added a doser for 6ml of alk overnight (spaced 1 ml 1 hr apart).

PH swings are much smaller now.

Purple firefish decided to die on us from unknown causes.

Tang fooled us and looked to be getting sick, shed it's mucus layer and hasn't missed a step since.

Zoas added new polyps. Digi has new growth tips on it. Cap and encrusting corals are in recovery but doing ok.
 

Attachments

Miah2bzy

Miah2bzy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#43
#43
Lesson Learned: Don't Throw out Frag Plugs just because you think the coral died.
I have 2 encrusting montis, 1 monti cap, 1 digi monti. When I added to the tank at the end of December they all freaked out and receded, loosing color and structure. The encrusting and caps bleached nearly white within 2 hours with tissue necrosis evident. That was weeks ago. I kept parameters at safe levels, kept up with water changes, and kept the flow/light schedule the same. I moved the corals to better positions based on their type (the cap is now tilted so that it's not acting as a sail catching all the halide light). I did not see any changes for weeks. 6 weeks later and every coral has started coming back, this week we started seeing them pop under the LEDs with 1-2 polyps forming again. What looked like a complete loss for 3 of frags has, over the course of 2 months, come back to full life. More pics to come once they fully heal!
 
SynDen

SynDen

Administrator
Staff member
M.A.S.C Club Member
M.A.S.C. B.O.D.
M.A.S.C Treasurer
M.A.S.C Webmaster
#44
#44
Ya, I always leave frags in until I am sure they aren't coming back. Can't count how many time I put something in, have it appear to die and then have it come back sometime later.
Glad yours came back this time around.
 
Miah2bzy

Miah2bzy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#45
#45
Major tank renovation this weekend:
I was having issues with my parameters (specifically ph / alk). While I could dose alk and get some stability I was finding that I was hitting a ceiling with C02 and buffering. This is partly due to being in a basement. I did add an airstone to the sump to offset this but it wasn't getting the results I wanted. I was also seeing the corals recover but not grow, things are stable but not thriving and I wanted better.
Initially I had emphasized biological filtration to boost the bacteria, pods, and algae in the sump by removing the sump baffle between the refuge chamber and skimmer chamber. I had 20lbs of rock and a whole mess of macro in there (harvesting macro at 75% 2x/week). While this was keeping up with the nitrates/nitrites, I wasn't seeing what I wanted so we made the choice to add a skimmer now before we started going heavy on corals and growing the tank out.

1) I setup a pod tank in the utility room. We pulled all the live rock save 1 small piece from the sump, all the macro, and the 3 pod towers and moved these to the pod tank. I have a small powerhead, the AI refuge light, a small heater that's all connected to my old reef keeper lite for ato/heater control.

IMG_4670.jpg

2) We added the baffle back in and cleaned out all the settled detritus. Moved all the snails, hermits, and crabs to the pod tank. Then adjusted water levels and added the skimmer. I have 3 skimmers, we chose to go with the Skimz I had as it was original with this tank purchase and would for sure fit. It also has a port on the skimmer cut for draining where the other two don't. I would have preferred the reef octo 150-S but space and the lack of the drain port meant going with the Skimz.

3) There's a small amount of macro in the refuge now and a piece of rock. Adjusted the water levels, ran the skimmer for a bit, turned the ato back on the display tank and we're back in business. So far this morning, the tank has responded well with no large algae blooms, water is actually running clearer than it has in a month or so now and the corals have all shown polyp extension which is new.

IMG_4672.jpg
IMG_4674.jpg
 
SynDen

SynDen

Administrator
Staff member
M.A.S.C Club Member
M.A.S.C. B.O.D.
M.A.S.C Treasurer
M.A.S.C Webmaster
#46
#46
Add a vornado or a few clip fans over the sump and that will help a lot with ph too. These are a must in most cases, but especially for basement sumps. I keep 2 or more on every one of my tanks in the system. The ones on the sump are blowing directly onto the water too
 
Miah2bzy

Miah2bzy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#47
#47
Got thorugh a couple cycles with the tank and then this algae (?) popped up. Any ideas on what it is and how to handle it? I've been under the assumption of letting it run it's course as all parameters have been in normal ranges. This popped up when we added the protien skimmer.

IMG_4835 2.jpg
IMG_4836 2.jpg
IMG_4837 2.jpg
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#48
#48
Those look like diatoms or dinos to me... but photos are not super clear. Compare with some photos. I would guess dinos.

The normal dino treatments work, like sucking them out, water quality, etc.

They key is to get diverse and hearty things growing on those rocks so that things cannot grow over them. Dinos and diatoms cannot grow on coralline, film bacteria and the like. They can be the scourge of dry rock, along with cyano. Get some seed rock or sand if you have not already. The hidden cost of starting with dry/sterile rock and sand.

If you get some mature, covered live rock, the pods, sponges and bacteria start to spread and not only control the dinos, the populate the dry rock and make it so that they cannot grow. This can take some time.

My normal suggestion is to look into a pack of starter live rock from some place like Tampa Bay Saltwater or see if there is some mature live rock for sale locally. I can assure you that any pests that you might get from like, like aiptasia or a mantis shrimp are much easier to get rid of than dinos.
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#49
#49
For the co2, the only thing that you need to do is to air out your house. pH always falls in line unless you are adding a strong acid to your tank.

Windows open when it is warm outside. If you need to, buy a co2 meter from Amazon with a NDIR sensor and keep the ambient co2 below 600... under 500 is better. The one next to me right now says 515 and my tank pH is going to be about 8.35, but I don't have to measure it anymore.

We have such beautiful weather in Colorado, no need for co2 scrubbers, dosing kalk or anything else. The humans and other pets in your home will benefit from lower indoor co2 too - schools have to be under 800, or so, and most homes can get well over 1500 if they never air them out.
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#50
#50
If you are anywhere near longmont, you can come by for a few scoops of live sand and I probably have some rubble with tons of pods, coralline, sponge and all kids of other good stuff. I am shutting down a larger tank.
 
SynDen

SynDen

Administrator
Staff member
M.A.S.C Club Member
M.A.S.C. B.O.D.
M.A.S.C Treasurer
M.A.S.C Webmaster
#51
#51
Ya, that looks like dinos to me too. There are a lot of different kind of dinos and they can be hard to ID which type you have, but figuring out what type they are and what is fueling them can be the key to fighting them.

Some are fueled by silicates, some thrice in low nutrients, others feed on phos, or No3, or other nutrient that are out of balance. Best way to ID them is under a microscope, but if you don't have access to that, then you can try a DOC + ICP tests. The tests might be able to show what nutrient or organic is out of whack and a possible culprit
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top