A reef, wrasse and a few angels tank in Uttoxeter

Sarah24! · Oct 21, 2018

Hello,

First off welcome to R2R it’s an amazing forum and the people here are lovely and have amazing knowledge. Secondly, so awesome your from England, my mum is from there and I lived there for a bit, when I was a little girl and till my mum and dad moved back to the states. I’m still considering moving back since I miss it so.

Secondly, a couple of things I see from your first post you had three leds, and now have five. I would take a look, a strong look and maybe you have way to much light. I say this because I have a 240 and running only 2 current orbit marine pros the 60 degree lens non ic loop version. When I added a third it really made my tank mad and browned my corals out. After removing the light, my sps started to get its coral back. If you nkt have found the sin/cos, or critical angel then you may want to. Plus with that much cross
Over your crossing points will me much hotter. Did you decrease how much the lights were or did you run them
The same as prior?

Third terribly sorry about the ick, that’s bloody nightmare. In response to this, I’d start using garlic guard every time and then get a uv steralozer. I personally have had amazing results and it’s proven it’s weight and gold.

I would absolutely like today set up qt tank and treat the remaining fish with copper. With the other fish having ick it’s onlt a matter of time, before they drop eggs and infect them again. This is why a uv sterilizer is worth its weight and gold. Any free swimming parasites will be killed by the device.

There are several fish I still want but won’t get because I have had no issues with my fish. I have had to be content w my fish I have now. I will have you look and don’t and any fish and if you treat with copper you must do it in a separate tank. I wish you well and if you need further assistance please jusr let know.

Sincerely
Sarah

Subsea · Oct 21, 2018

I feel your pain. So sorry for your tank.

Stress & imune systems is a complex subject. It would be difficult to say with certainty that ich came from newly introduced fish. For certain, stress compromised immune system of new fish as well as established fish in tank.

I know that I had dormant ich in my 25 year old tank 10 years ago. It ran its course with no fish loses.

Mortie31 · Oct 21, 2018

Sarah24! said:
Hello,

First off welcome to R2R it’s an amazing forum and the people here are lovely and have amazing knowledge. Secondly, so awesome your from England, my mum is from there and I lived there for a bit, when I was a little girl and till my mum and dad moved back to the states. I’m still considering moving back since I miss it so.

Secondly, a couple of things I see from your first post you had three leds, and now have five. I would take a look, a strong look and maybe you have way to much light. I say this because I have a 240 and running only 2 current orbit marine pros the 60 degree lens non ic loop version. When I added a third it really made my tank mad and browned my corals out. After removing the light, my sps started to get its coral back. If you nkt have found the sin/cos, or critical angel then you may want to. Plus with that much cross
Over your crossing points will me much hotter. Did you decrease how much the lights were or did you run them
The same as prior?

Third terribly sorry about the ick, that’s bloody nightmare. In response to this, I’d start using garlic guard every time and then get a uv steralozer. I personally have had amazing results and it’s proven it’s weight and gold.

I would absolutely like today set up qt tank and treat the remaining fish with copper. With the other fish having ick it’s onlt a matter of time, before they drop eggs and infect them again. This is why a uv sterilizer is worth its weight and gold. Any free swimming parasites will be killed by the device.

There are several fish I still want but won’t get because I have had no issues with my fish. I have had to be content w my fish I have now. I will have you look and don’t and any fish and if you treat with copper you must do it in a separate tank. I wish you well and if you need further assistance please jusr let know.

Sincerely
Sarah

Thanks Sarah
Your right about Ick being a nightmare, this is the first time I’ve ever had it in 14 years reefing... if I could catch the fish they would of already have been put in a hospital tank, but as you can see I have hundreds of pounds of live rock and dozens of SPS colonies so catching them isn’t an option unfortunately.
Regarding my lights, I went from 3-5 to improve coverage and reduce shading, I used a par meter to keep the intensity of the lights as was so there not getting fried, but a good point for nyone not measuring..

Mortie31 · Oct 21, 2018

Subsea said:
I feel your pain. So sorry for your tank.

Stress & imune systems is a complex subject. It would be difficult to say with certainty that ich came from newly introduced fish. For certain, stress compromised immune system of new fish as well as established fish in tank.

I know that I had dormant ich in my 25 year old tank 10 years ago. It ran its course with no fish loses.

I’m gutted, yes so difficult, to ascertain blame, but the last addition defiantly upset the balance of the fish hierarchy, which I think is more responsible...

Sarah24! · Oct 21, 2018

Mortie31 said:
Thanks Sarah
Your right about Ick being a nightmare, this is the first time I’ve ever had it in 14 years reefing... if I could catch the fish they would of already have been put in a hospital tank, but as you can see I have hundreds of pounds of live rock and dozens of SPS colonies so catching them isn’t an option unfortunately.
Regarding my lights, I went from 3-5 to improve coverage and reduce shading, I used a par meter to keep the intensity of the lights as was so there not getting fried, but a good point for nyone not measuring..

Hello,

Which par meter did you use and did you compensate for the critical angel. I have a ly-cor 7800 from my college days still. Unless you find the critical angel and account for that and then find the sin and cosine of the degree of lens used the par will be inconsistent. I attached a file showing the equation you would use.

When you do this also account for refraction angel off the water.

Mortie31 · Oct 21, 2018

Sarah24! said:
Hello,

Which par meter did you use and did you compensate for the critical angel. I have a ly-cor 7800 from my college days still. Unless you find the critical angel and account for that and then find the sin and cosine of the degree of lens used the par will be inconsistent. I attached a file showing the equation you would use.

When you do this also account for refraction angel off the water.

Thanks Sarah, I have a seneye, not the best but with acceptable limits, does anyone ever use these equations?? As I never see them mentioned by Dana Riddle or anyone when there discussing measuring PAR, I’ve seen the compensation calcs for the different Wavelenght of LEDs but never this. How much variance would you actually get and is it even possible to measure the angle in a home aquarium with a handheld unit? I took dozens of readings over several weeks so I’m guessing the measurements will average out.. Maybe we can discuss further if my tank survives the more pressing issues I’m battling right now..

Sarah24! · Oct 21, 2018

Hello,

I believe @Dana Riddle that he has used these formulas before. It’s easier to do when the tank is dry, but you can do it when it’s wet. I havnt used your meter before just the ly-cor and the apogee a few times. The other equation should help you find the refraction ratio based on the angle of degree the lens are.

marvelousone · Oct 21, 2018

You have an awesome looking tank there.

Mortie31 · Oct 22, 2018

Sarah24! said:
Hello,

I believe @Dana Riddle that he has used these formulas before. It’s easier to do when the tank is dry, but you can do it when it’s wet. I havnt used your meter before just the ly-cor and the apogee a few times. The other equation should help you find the refraction ratio based on the angle of degree the lens are.

Thanks Sarah, I’m sure Dana has used them in the lab in experiments, but aren’t they completely impractical for the home aquarist? Regarding measuring the refraction how can I measure it for over 900 LEDs and a water surface that is constantly changing in angle to the lights due to random surface agitation? And would it practically make any difference given that I don’t have single point light source lights like the puck style radions? I chose the orphek lights because of the high numbers of LEDs and lenses and the more gentle coverage they give.. that’s why I think i can safely use PAR meters and use the averages of there results... I’m sure what your saying is correct in a lab but not worth the effort at home..

Dana Riddle · Oct 22, 2018

Mortie31 said:
Thanks Sarah, I’m sure Dana has used them in the lab in experiments, but aren’t they completely impractical for the home aquarist? Regarding measuring the refraction how can I measure it for over 900 LEDs and a water surface that is constantly changing in angle to the lights due to random surface agitation? And would it practically make any difference given that I don’t have single point light source lights like the puck style radions? I chose the orphek lights because of the high numbers of LEDs and lenses and the more gentle coverage they give.. that’s why I think i can safely use PAR meters and use the averages of there results... I’m sure what your saying is correct in a lab but not worth the effort at home..

A good PAR sensor is cosine-corrected and will as good a job as possible in making accurate light measurements. Not perfect, but acceptable.

dragon99 · Oct 23, 2018

Well that's rotten luck to get the dream fish and then lose half your fish to ich. Hope the rest hang on and have pulled thru

Mortie31 · Oct 24, 2018

Just a quick update, I’m now down to just 5 fish, my pair clowns, purple tang, flame angel and a cleaner wrasse, not hopeful for any of these as all showing symptoms now...

Mortie31 · Oct 25, 2018

Now I need to maintain my SPS for the fallow period, I had a very efficient filter system that allowed me to feed very heavily and keep fish and corals happy, my concern is to not drop NO3 and PO4 levels to much to quickly, so I’m going to do the following please advise/ suggest alternatives

Open skimmer drain tap and allow back into sump (maybe remove cup but concerned about micro bubbles)
Feed reefroids and dd SPS paste daily to start with to stop NO3 levels dropping to quickly, then adjust depending on nitrates etc
Reduce V&V tank dosing daily over next week
Turn off Nitrate reactor feed pump (hopefully bacteria go dormant, I’ll keep the circulating pump on)
I’m assuming I have some PO4 bound up in rockwork so leeching should buffer the drop so not so concerned about these levels dropping to quickly
I have 40ish hermits and a few brittle stars will these be ok?
Turn off AWC in a week as I still have a fish carcass unaccounted for.
I have liquid NO3 and PO4 i can dose if tank levels drop to low

Tristren · Nov 26, 2018

Just read through this thread. Amazing tank. Very sorry about last month.

How is the tank doing with the fallow period?

Mortie31 · Nov 26, 2018

Hi Tristren, thankyou.. the fallow period was going ok until my cleaner wrasse, showed back up, and now I can’t catch him... I’ve lost a couple of SPS colonies as well, which I think were due to an ammonia spike... this hobby always throws up challenges..

Tristren · Nov 29, 2018

Mortie31 said:
Hi Tristren, thankyou.. the fallow period was going ok until my cleaner wrasse, showed back up, and now I can’t catch him... I’ve lost a couple of SPS colonies as well, which I think were due to an ammonia spike... this hobby always throws up challenges..

It does at that ... When I first start (way back in 2017) the tank was overcome by ich about four months in. We lost the fish that we had, except for the cleaner Wrasse we had added to try and get at it.

Getting the Wrasse out was a challenge. We had the benefit of having very few corals in the early system, so I could move out some rock. It was all pretty traumatic to be honest...

Having said that we did go through the full fallow period and have not had any issues, with the fish, since. Any fish that has gone in since has spent enough time in a separate observation tank first.

We've had plenty of other challenges since but, in the tank, all the fish are happy and healthy now.

So best of luck.

Cheers, Tony

Subsea · Nov 29, 2018

Mortie31 said:
Now I need to maintain my SPS for the fallow period, I had a very efficient filter system that allowed me to feed very heavily and keep fish and corals happy, my concern is to not drop NO3 and PO4 levels to much to quickly, so I’m going to do the following please advise/ suggest alternatives

Open skimmer drain tap and allow back into sump (maybe remove cup but concerned about micro bubbles)
Feed reefroids and dd SPS paste daily to start with to stop NO3 levels dropping to quickly, then adjust depending on nitrates etc
Reduce V&V tank dosing daily over next week
Turn off Nitrate reactor feed pump (hopefully bacteria go dormant, I’ll keep the circulating pump on)
I’m assuming I have some PO4 bound up in rockwork so leeching should buffer the drop so not so concerned about these levels dropping to quickly
I have 40ish hermits and a few brittle stars will these be ok?
Turn off AWC in a week as I still have a fish carcass unaccounted for.
I have liquid NO3 and PO4 i can dose if tank levels drop to low

As I followed the progression of how stress, from new fish introduction to an established reef, cascaded into you having to treat & quarantine a complete tank of fish, I felt your pain.

You are in for a balancing act to maintain your biofiltration without a fish load. Considering your CUC, I would feed system as if fish were still there, just not so much. With respect to protein skimmer, I assume you are leaving it on for gas exchange. Putting skimmate back into sump makes sense to me. You might consider that your nitrate reactor would see that as food and could maintain sufficient bacteria populations to be used when needed. @Lasse puts skimmate as a carbon source under a sandbed for a type of anaerobic digester.

Mortie31 · Nov 29, 2018

Subsea said:
As I followed the progression of how stress, from new fish introduction to an established reef, cascaded into you having to treat & quarantine a complete tank of fish, I felt your pain.

You are in for a balancing act to maintain your biofiltration without a fish load. Considering your CUC, I would feed system as if fish were still there, just not so much. With respect to protein skimmer, I assume you are leaving it on for gas exchange. Putting skimmate back into sump makes sense to me. You might consider that your nitrate reactor would see that as food and could maintain sufficient bacteria populations to be used when needed. @Lasse puts skimmate as a carbon source under a sandbed for a type of anaerobic digester.

Thank you Subsea, I have been feeding, but lighter than before, and so far I’ve managed to keep No3/PO4 levels measurable. All of my cuc alive, I’m also taking advantage of this time to build up copepod numbers in the tank, so am feeding phyto as well which is helping... the barebottom tank idea didn’t last long i hated it so I added 25kg of new dry sand in the other day... tank looks so much better again now..