200G IM EXT (First tank ever)

[vittpsu21]

Oh also forgot! Pod cultures and phyto are going strong I think I’ll be harvesting the first batch of phyto this weekend

Ignore the ones up front they are sterilizing for the swap

 

[vittpsu21]

Well we lost the Blenny this morning sadly :( the Royal seems to come out of his cave when I feed to grab some food and then go back in and the clowns seem to be doing just fine. I checked all the parameters last night prior to finding the blenny and have been checking daily, so hopefully it was nothing I did on my end...
Ammonia: 0.05 (I think Hanna just finds risidual but this goes from 0.01 up tot his 0.05 depending on feeding I think)
Nitrite: 0.00
Nitrate: 14.9
Alk: 7.8
Phos: 0.07
Ph: 8.1
Temp:78
Salinity 35.5

So everything seems ok, I checked my surface agitation it seems ok to me, but really not sure, 3 mp40's + all returns pointed up. Picture below for those interested, I am sure its hard to tell from a picture but its basically ripples all the way across, like when a rock skips on a pond.

 

[UncommonSense]

Well we lost the Blenny this morning sadly :( the Royal seems to come out of his cave when I feed to grab some food and then go back in and the clowns seem to be doing just fine. I checked all the parameters last night prior to finding the blenny and have been checking daily, so hopefully it was nothing I did on my end...
Ammonia: 0.05 (I think Hanna just finds risidual but this goes from 0.01 up tot his 0.05 depending on feeding I think)
Nitrite: 0.00
Nitrate: 14.9
Alk: 7.8
Phos: 0.07
Ph: 8.1
Temp:78
Salinity 35.5

So everything seems ok, I checked my surface agitation it seems ok to me, but really not sure, 3 mp40's + all returns pointed up. Picture below for those interested, I am sure its hard to tell from a picture but its basically ripples all the way across, like when a rock skips on a pond.

I don’t think you did anything wrong in this case, as sad as it is…

You have plenty of dissolved O2 with that massive open water surface, protein skimmer running, etc…

Did the blenny have a pinched belly when you got it? Possibly not eating well?

 

[vittpsu21]

I don’t think you did anything wrong in this case, as sad as it is…

You have plenty of dissolved O2 with that massive open water surface, protein skimmer running, etc…

Did the blenny have a pinched belly when you got it? Possibly not eating well?

I did not ever see him eat tbh, he would perch on rocks but then go back into hiding, and I always thought he was breathing heavy. But Blennys in general seem to always look like they are breathing heavy lol, I tried to feed him frozen like he got at the QT place. I also tried to attach some Nori for him but never really caught him eating. I see the Clowns and Royal dart for stuff constantly during feeding, also pods.

Just mostly wanted to be sure I didn't do something wrong and the others were also in trouble. The surface agitation is the hardest thing to know as a new person as it looks like its good to me but what do I really know lol

 

[vittpsu21]

Had some videos and pictures of him from yesterday as I thought he was really breathing heavy … well just a video I don’t think I had any pictures of him


View attachment 20250921_124346_A68E1574-4286-4BDF-8D93-3522EFEFC10F.mov

 

[UncommonSense]

Had some videos and pictures of him from yesterday as I thought he was really breathing heavy … well just a video I don’t think I had any pictures of him

Wow! Yeah, that breathing is TOO heavy… like 2x normal respiration rate… he had something going on when he was shipped, more than likely…

It does suck, but at least it’s not something you did wrong!

 

[vittpsu21]

Had some videos and pictures of him from yesterday as I thought he was really breathing heavy … well just a video I don’t think I had any pictures of him

Wow! Yeah, that breathing is TOO heavy… like 2x normal respiration rate… he had something going on when he was shipped, more than likely…

It does suck, but at least it’s not something you did wrong!

Yeah I thought so too and he was kinda like that from the start that’s why I took the video was weird seeing him breath so crazy

 

[Bbio]

I turned them around and mounted them to the wall.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when deciding to mount my lights. Are these just the kessil extension mounts? How are you using 1 per light? The website shows 2 per light

 

[vittpsu21]

Alright, everyone in the main tank has been adjusting fairly well after our loss! I was told when I order next time to mention it and he will replace so that’s nice, however, I am a bit away from that for sure.

I’ve been learning that I had no idea how much or how little to feed! My skimmer on the plus side is finally pulling out things since there is things to pull out! My rocks have seen better days between the detritus and the gunk! But it’s probably my fault from learning to feed as a new person! The QT tank also has its new inhabitants in it to start its 60+ day protocol. I ended with 4 bangai, 4 pajama, and one fire fish! I did separate the two carinals into groups to try to curb any craziness so hopefully that works.

The QT has been quite a lot of work with water changes and keeping my eyes on things even though I moved over my seeded sponge! What I learned is that Hanna reads total ammonia which also includes some non toxic? Apparently the first few days I couldn’t figure out why my seachem alert said yellow (good) but my Hanna was reading way too high of ammonia???

Anyway we have been doing a lot of water changes and I eventually just bought an hob which I won’t run carbon in during meds just to help me with filtration and stability! I have no started copper yet as I’ve had to do way more work and therefore way more stress on the guys then I wanted in the last week! So I’ll be letting things settle! Video of my gramma in main tank below and also picture of the qt. The gramma is so pretty


View attachment 20250924_191059_0AAA3F9E-EF43-4ABD-9980-5C208AFA9437.mov

 

[vittpsu21]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when deciding to mount my lights. Are these just the kessil extension mounts? How are you using 1 per light? The website shows 2 per light

I originally tried his method so I can confirm, they are these...

 

[Bbio]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when deciding to mount my lights. Are these just the kessil extension mounts? How are you using 1 per light? The website shows 2 per light

I originally tried his method so I can confirm, they are these...

Yeah, I have a rimmed tank and I don’t want a huge cross bar going across the whole thing. I was thinking kessil, now I’m sure. I’ll just buy their mounts and mount it to the wall.

 

[vittpsu21]

Yeah, I have a rimmed tank and I don’t want a huge cross bar going across the whole thing. I was thinking kessil, now I’m sure. I’ll just buy their mounts and mount it to the wall.

He mentioned earlier in the thread too, but just an fyi, he uses the extension arms on top of those mounts also (we have the IM 200 both of us, and it was needed to get from the wall to the center of the tank)

 

[Bbio]

Yeah, I have a rimmed tank and I don’t want a huge cross bar going across the whole thing. I was thinking kessil, now I’m sure. I’ll just buy their mounts and mount it to the wall.

He mentioned earlier in the thread too, but just an fyi, he uses the extension arms on top of those mounts also (we have the IM 200 both of us, and it was needed to get from the wall to the center of the tank)

I anticipated that since their mounts are only rated for up to 24” tanks so I’m assuming the arms only extend out to 12” and the space between the tank and the wall would add more length needed.

 

[vittpsu21]

Not a ton of updates this week, the QT is going and still a to of effort, although I seeded the sponge in my sump I have learned I probably needed more time! Live and learn I guess!

I bought an hob for the back to add more media to help the bacteria along and have mostly been doing daily 20-25% water changes. All the fish look happy, all eating, outside of one bangai I have lost. He wasn’t eating and didn’t acclimate well so my guess is it’s not anything tank related! I did manage to get a divider in, although ugly had put the pajamas on one side and the bangai and fireflies on the other! I won’t start copper until I’m sure the filter is keeping up properly because I don’t want to add unneeded stress to myself with more watery changes.

The main tank I am still just doing weekly water changes and have scaled back my testing to weekly again(I was doing daily for ammonia when I first added the fish! But the number didn’t move so after 5-6 days I felt comfortable not doing it as much). I did very much overfed at first, whoops, and have since scaled back but definitely caused some ugly! I did stir up a small portion of sand today during my 10% and plan to continue to do so!


Parameters:

Salinity: 35.8 (I had to order new Hanna calibration as I’m sure mine somehow drifted and my number crept up despite tipping g with RODI)

Alk:6.9 this is falling and may need to look into dosing at some point soon, but this is down week over week so far)

Ph: 8.0
Temp: 78
Nitrite: 0.00
Nitrate: 17.7
Ammon: 0.04
Phos: 0.03
Calcium: 450 ppm

This was all pre water change so some will have adjusted after!

 

[vittpsu21]

Well little update, many days later, the QT still is quite a bit of manual work... below is a graph of what my ammonia has looked like from all my past readings. My Seachem has not ever left yellow, so the internet and research tells me that most of this is NO4 and eventually will get caught up on. This is with about 2 5 gal changes per day and me removing as much detritus/leftovers as possible. I did finally have enough today and go in under the heater on one said and use a paper towel to stir up and siphon all the stuff under the heater...I plan to do the other side tomorrow in the hope that this will help the NO4 being released.

 

[Sean Clark]

Following along

 

[vittpsu21]

Alright so, we did our weekly readings...

0.05 phos, 0.00 nitrite, 0.04 ammon, 14.6 nitrate, alk 6.6, mag 1460, have not gotten calcium yet will do that after water change (running out of time) and ph 8.0

So the alk has been pretty consistently dropping, and perhaps I am going to have to start to do some research into 2 part. I thought I would have more time for that but maybe not? I am pretty new so very open to any feedback from others on this as I begin to research it!

We also, harvested our first set of pods we cultured, I decided since I have so much phyto to instead split them into 2 pod cultures and then put the remaining 1/2 into my tank. So currently we will be running double phyto (1 diatom 1 non diatom strain) and 2 pod cultures all at once. That leaves me with 2 backup jars so I will truly have to stay on top of cleaning and sterilizing the saltwater going forward though most of my harvesting seems to be on weekend. The first pod set took quite some time to come to maturity, I think about 2-3 weeks and the phyto was a little slow at first but has since increased in speed since. I have read the pods now will start to go faster and faster just like the phyto, so my already booming pod population seems like its going to get way more lol. I have a picture on my phone of the harvest I put into my refug, and the ones I restarted the light from the phyto is so bright you can really see just how many pods there are! Crazy

 

[vittpsu21]

 

[UncommonSense]

I thought I would have more time for that but maybe not?

Are you dosing kalk via your ATO or any other means yet?

— sorry if this got mentioned earlier, I’ve been away from the build for a bit!

 

[vittpsu21]

Are you dosing kalk via your ATO or any other means yet?

— sorry if this got mentioned earlier, I’ve been away from the build for a bit!

Nope! Only dosing I am currently doing is micro dosing phyto 125ml per day, every hour. I was looking at ESV B-Ionic, but it is kind of confusing as my tank feels too new to be dosing Alk already? But maybe I just have no idea what I am saying with that lol