75 Gallon Aqueon Glass Tank not drilled
Trigger Platinum 26 Sump
Eshopps AEO 11015 Overflow box Pf-1200
Reefmat
COR15 Intelligent Sump pump
AI 10 Algae Scrubber
AI Axis Centrifugal 40 pump
AI Refugium Blade LED Light
Radion XR30 G6 Pro LED Light
AI 48” Blade Grow LED Light
AI 48” Blade Glow LED Light
2 MP40’s
2 300w heaters
1 Ink Bird Heater Controller
Apex A3 Pro Controller
3 EB832 Energy Bars
Apex MXM Module
3 FMM modules
2 - 1/2” flow meters
1 optical switch sensor
3 - 15” Apex Level Meters
1 optical floor water detector sensor
1 io breakout module
1 Trident MAW
1 Trident NP
1- DOS QD’s for dosing
2 DDR DOS Reservoirs
Dosing when needed - Kalkwasser, AllForReef, Magnesium7, Microbactor7
CO2 Reactor
Carbon Reactor
GFO Reactor
ConeS Q-1 Protein Skimmer
BRS 25w Classic UV Sterilizer
1 tank stand
1 side stand housing my sump and hard plumbed
1 side stand with all electronics mounted inside
1 UPS backup supply - working on installing a whole house generator
BRS 7 Stage RODI
RODI Booster pump
Mixing station
- 35 Gallon Brutte trash can for saltwater
Had been making 35 gallons of saltwater and leaving it sit with a wave pump and heater but have noticed slimy algae growth. Moving to only making saltwater day of use instead to bring ORP down from 475 to under 350.
- 35 Gallon Brutte trash can for RODI storage
1 Tunze Osmator 3 ATO
1 - 5 gallon Bashsea reservoir for ATO
2 - 10 Gallon Bashsea reservoirs for AWC
1 - DOS QD for AWC - changing 2 gallons everyday automatically.
Have a hard time using this reef2reef thread. When I go to my home under tanks it shows I do not have one setup. However, I have created a thread with my tank and all the equipment. Unfortunately, this is not a very new user friendly interface.
I will now try to start a daily status of my tank progress. It has been a long haul with lots of tribulations. I will say that I am finally growing coral which took almost a year to make happen. I have all the greatest gear but extremely bad habits of tweaking everything and putting my hands in my tank everyday.
At first (about 3 months after cycle completed), I had too much gear and I stripped the N03 and P04 down to nothing. I struggled with what I believed a small case Dino’s and then cyano. I bought a microscope but could not ever get a good enough sample to see the Dino’s effectively. They definitely acted just like Dino’s. Good thing I run a 25w UV 24/7. I was stirring up the sand and removing the thick algae/sand as much as I could daily till it all eventually disappeared and then that is when the cyano started. I managed to beat both fairly quickly (about 2 months) in my newly established tank back then. After my first few issues were solved I felt confident I could be successful. Have not had any other outbreaks. Though I still occasionally find some cyano on some rocks but I keep that stuff cleaned and removed daily.
For the last year, I have done a good job at keeping NO3 and PO4 numbers fairly steady. Salinity and temperature are rock steady.
I DOS All4Reef to keep alkalinity, calcium and magnesium levels steady. I can grow the heck out of soft corral but have struggled with LPS and SPS.
I do have problems with elevated magnesium. Usually sits over 1500ppm. I have come to the conclusion it is from the Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt mix I am using. I love this salt so I am not changing it. I was thinking that the elevated magnesium was my issue with my LPS and SPS corals not growing. However, I do believe I was wrong in my magnesium assessment being the issue.
I currently have 11 fish:
Yellow Tang
Mated pair clown fish
Royal Gramma
Filefish (has now eaten all of my pulsing xenia)
Six Line Wrasse
Bicolor Blenny
Orchid Dottyback
A pair of Lemon Damselfish (These are devils)
Tuxedo Urchin
Trochus snails
Nessarius snails
Blue legged hermit crabs
Red legged hermit crabs
About 23 different frags of soft, LPS and SPS corals
I have had very few fish loss over the last year and a half but a large amount of coral loss. I do have some corals that have done well. Duncan started as 2 heads is now like 12 heads. 1 torch started out as a single head and is now at 3 heads. 1 hammer started as 2 heads is now at 5 heads. Kryptonite Candy cane coral started at 2 heads is now 12 heads and another candy cane started at 2 heads is now at 10 heads. I have a red plate monti that has quadrupled in size, a digi that is absolutely exploding in growth, a birds nest and a few other SPS growing. A leather that keeps on growing and then shedding its leaves. A toadstool that is absolutely huge and continuing to grow. Most of the major recent growth I believe is because I started to DOS Tropic Marin block trace elements based on Tropic Marin ICP results. However, over the last year I would say I have lost several hundred if not a couple thousand dollars in other coral before I started dosing the trace elements.
Now for what I believe the issue is and my solve to take my tank to the next level for growth. Lighting is excellent. PAR is 350 at the top of my reef and 90-100 at the sand. I have several caves and passage ways for my fish. Flow is good. I have 2 MP40’s as well as 2 gyro xf350 cloud WM’s. All are set fairly low in speed making sure I do not have too much flow for the torches, Hammer and Frogspawn but enough for the Acro’s.
I believe one of my biggest issues has been my struggles with my PH stability. I have always had a big problem with daily PH swings. I can get it up to 8.15 with windows open in the house but it drops down to 7.79 overnight. If I do not open windows for several days like this summer my PH would not even make above 8 during the day. I have used a
BRS C02 reactor since I started my system but that has not made much difference. I also keep the fresh air suction line out in the garage while my tank sits inside the house. This makes a very small reduction in my PH swings but in my opinion not enough. I also run an algae reactor on opposite light schedule as my main tank lights to assist with reducing the PH swings. It has not made much difference. I have even added an additional sump light at night but that has had zero effect on my PH swings as well.
I believe Kalkwasser would have a big impact in bringing my PH swings down to a minimum.
Kalkwasser setup though really cheap to get going has been a bit of a big challenge to set up. I have had to have a ton of programming in my Apex to get the stirrer, Kalk DOS as well as make sure the All4Reef dosing coordinated and right. I worry that my ALK and calcium will go way out of spec. Problem is even though I deal with automation equipment for work evidently, I am not that familiar with Apex programming. I have been confident in my abilities to program my Apex properly. However, reality is I am not quite an expert yet.
So after the last couple years of trying to ignore AI, I finally used it for the first time to assist with some of the Apex programming. And wow I was amazed at what it could do!
After asking questions and giving address names and answering questions AI helped me set up programming for my All4Reef DOS, Kalk DOS, and Kalk stirrer. There were several safeties put in place as well as set up my RODI ATO for the Kalk Reactor. It looked amazing and I thought it was great!
I could not sleep well the first night because how nervous I was depending on AI to help me write the programming for my Apex.
The next morning, I took a look at my PH and there was no change on Fusion and my Trident ACM alkalinity test at Midnight and 6am was a little low. I was thoroughly confused as to why the alkalinity and or PH had no change from the Kalk DOS. Turns out I did not see any actually DOS amounts in my graphs for DOSQDR. I checked everything appeared to be fine. Kalk Outlet state was “Off” in Auto, Kalk Permit virtual Outlet state was “Off” in Auto, Kalk Lock state was “Off” in Auto, PH Lock outlet state was “Off” in Auto. I was generally confused. All4Reef Permit state was “On” and in auto. All4Reef DOS state was “OK TBL” in Auto. All4Reef DOS state “On” in Auto.
So I proceeded to perform manual water testing of all my parameters (Alkalinity, Calcium, Magnesium, N03 and P04) using all of my Hanna testers. Started to see my N03 spiked hard from 7ppm to 20ppm over night on my Hanna testers. I was not overly concerned with that as I had convinced myself that my Trident NP was out of calibration again because I know I have expired reagents in it. Then at 11:27am my Trident NP Measured N03 at 65ppm. Then at noon after the Trident ACM completed its testing I started to see elevated Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium parameters. High and rising but not over the top yet.
Looked around for something possibly dead but could not find anything. I increased my water change from the 1 gallon a day to 2 gallons per day to aid in the spiking N03, Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium.
Later that night I saw my Trident ACM Alkalinity parameters swinging hard upwards. In my thoughts, I thought that is impossible because I turned off the All4Reef DOS and Kalk DOS.
The next morning I started to see an increase in my Alkalinity and then my Calcium and was doing my normal routine fill up my AWC reservoir, drained old salt water from the reservoir and filled my RODI ATO reservoir. I took a look at my readings in Fusion again. Found my trident ACM Alkalinity test went into Alarm. Thought that was strange as that never happens. Then 6am test, test at noon and beyond were all in Alarm for Alkalinity. I went to check on the DDR reservoirs and found All4Reef completely empty and dry. At that point I knew I had a big problem. I had DOS’d nearly 1 liter of All4Reef the day before. I thought oh crap this is bad. I immediately changed my AWC to 4 gallons daily as I did not want to bring it back down as fast as it was rising.
In the meantime I still continued to DOS all my Block trace Elements as well as Tropic Marin K+ and A-. Before it was all said and done NO3 climbed to 65ppm. Then my Trident NP went into alarm for N03 until it finally came back down into measurable amounts. Alkalinity went beyond measurement capability 20+ DKH. Calcium over 600 PPM Magnesium over 1600ppm. It took nearly 7 or 8 days days for Alkalinity to finally return to under 9 DKH, Calcium back under 450ppm and Magnesium back down to 1500ppm.
Took my programming back to google AI instead of ChatGBT . Turns out I had one bad line in the All4Reef DOS program. “Set On” was a terrible idea in my code for my DOSQD. It is not an outlet so that is not a command that should be used. The Kalk DOS also had some improper programming which causing it to not DOS.
Needless to say to say I got everything programmed correctly now. My Neptune ATK ATO has been giving me issues for the past year. AI found the issue with its programming as well.
For the first time now 3 weeks later I feel confident that everything is now working as it should.
AI is great but you still need to know what you are looking at. Best way is to use two different AI models to check themselves out. A whole lot of time and stress could have been avoided by this.
Crazy thing is the only thing I lost was my Pulsing Xenia which was out of control. Looks like my Filefish has now found out that it is food and devoured it all. Even other little patches. Funny thing is last month I was trying to give my Pulsing Zenia away because it was such an overgrown weed.
AI says that it released sugars in the water and the Filefish picked up on it and started to eat it I believe I will probably have to get rid of him because I have other soft corals that I do not want him to eat. Maybe that is why I cannot keep Zoa’s.
My new Blue hammer was just getting acclimated to my take parameters as well as my gold frogspawn. They are both retracted and have not come out for a few weeks now. At night the blue hammer sticks some tentacles out to catch food but my gold frogspawn has not shown any tentacles. I have not seen any brown jelly disease or bailed polyps so I am still holding out hope for them to recover.
On the positive side of things, with all this research and looking things over I discovered why my C02 reactor does not make a difference with my PH. I found out that I connected my skimmer line from my C02 reactor to the air silencer port on my skimmer. I should have bypassed it and plugged it straight to my skimmer pump. When I did this today I could physically feel the suction on the line at the C02 reactor for the first time ever and my PH high today rose to 8.25. First time ever above 8.15. I did have the windows open today but I pulled my fresh air suction line to my C02 reactor back inside from the garage and still saw it climb that high. I believe I have finally made
some good progress and hopefully finally level out the PH swings. It is 7:46pm now dark outside, tank lights have been off for over 2 hours and my PH is still 8.18.
Tomorrow, I will add some pictures and updates on how it goes tonight.
