Adventures in keeping a sps reef

BAMatter

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Have you been feeding more? If you feed frozen it’s a good way to get more fish poop/bacteria in the system without adding incredibly large amount of PO4…
 
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Llorgon

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Have you been feeding more? If you feed frozen it’s a good way to get more fish poop/bacteria in the system without adding incredibly large amount of PO4…
I feed half a cube of frozen at night and add 10ml of AB+ in the morning. It seems to keep PO4 around the 0.1ppm range.

I find I always overshoot when I dose the straight PO4.

The big euphyllia had 3 heads bail out yesterday... Pretty demoralizing thing to come back to.
 

BAMatter

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I feed half a cube of frozen at night and add 10ml of AB+ in the morning. It seems to keep PO4 around the 0.1ppm range.

I find I always overshoot when I dose the straight PO4.

The big euphyllia had 3 heads bail out yesterday... Pretty demoralizing thing to come back to.
Have you been dosing the AB+ this entire time? If so, I’d stop dosing that until the algae issue has subsided. Your remaining corals are not up taking the nutrients you’re adding. I would personally feed the fish, and dose helpful things for biome like live phyto and pods as discussed. Just my $0.02, but your algae issue could be from overdosing the AB+…
 

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Llorgon

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Have you been dosing the AB+ this entire time? If so, I’d stop dosing that until the algae issue has subsided. Your remaining corals are not up taking the nutrients you’re adding. I would personally feed the fish, and dose helpful things for biome like live phyto and pods as discussed. Just my $0.02, but your algae issue could be from overdosing the AB+…
Interesting. No, I haven't been using it the entire time. Just a few days last week before I was away and today. I had been using live phyto, but I ran out and haven't ordered more yet.
 
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Llorgon

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These vacations and work trips really mess with my tank progress. I was gone for 3 days, back for one day then gone for 2 more.

Both nitrate and phosphate dropped during that time. I added some phosphate to my ato water so it only dropped a bit, but my nitrate went from 8ppm to 0. It's now back up to 4.1ppm and 0.13ppm.

I'm still pulling out algae every night. I'm seeing some improvement on the gha, but beneath it is lots of bubble algae. I've found using a screwdriver works great for getting the bubble algae off the rocks.

Corals haven't been doing well. The big euphyllia is down to 4 heads, but I think soon to be 2. I spent Sunday night eating dinner with friends watching 2 heads bail out in about and hours time... I'm fully assuming I will probably lose almost all my euphyllia.

I have live phyto, 6 astrea and 1 trochus snail that should be delivered on Tuesday. I waited to place the order for cuc so they wouldn't be delivered while I was away and most of the trochus and the tuxedo urchin was sold out.

I'm giving myself until the spring to turn my tanks around. Watching things slowly die is just not fun. Both tanks have become more of a chore these last few months.
 

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Llorgon

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Snails arrived yesterday, so I got them into the tank. When looking at the tank after lights out, I can now see:
3 trochus
8 Astrea
10 cerith
uncountable number of little stomatella like snails
5 small hermit crabs

I also got more of the live phyto, so I will continue with dosing that as it's easier to keep nutrients stable than dosing the straight nitrate and phosphate.

I still have algae issues, but I feel like it's not coming back as quickly in some places. Hopefully the new clean up crew will help with that. I no longer have to pull algae out every day. I can go a couple days in between and not see a huge difference. So that's good?

I'm still dealing with cyano on the front left of the tank. Hopefully playing around with powerhead placement helps with that.

Corals still slowly die back, but I think I have to accept the fact that I may be left with one or two euphyllia at the end of all this. The large euphyllia is not going to survive. It's down to 2 heads now.
 

BirdFish5000

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I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I am going through similar (but not as severe) issues, and I added an algae turf scrubber three weeks ago. Improvements aren't huge yet, it's only three weeks, but they are definitely there. Consider one in addition to the fuge?
 
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Llorgon

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I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I am going through similar (but not as severe) issues, and I added an algae turf scrubber three weeks ago. Improvements aren't huge yet, it's only three weeks, but they are definitely there. Consider one in addition to the fuge?
Hmm I haven't thought of that. I tried a DIY one in my 25g at one point, but it worked too well and stripped the tank of nutrients.

On the advice of a few people on another forum I actually shut off the refugium for now. There's a bit more of a pH swing at night, but it's been way easier to keep nutrients up. Plus when I had the refugium running the gha was growing in the refugium and display tank, so....
 
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Llorgon

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What a nightmare :( Hopefully you keep getting progress.
Ya, it hasn't been fun. Pretty demoralizing having things go smoothly for 1.5years then lose 90% of the corals. I'm somewhat pushing through though.

I did some more algae cleaning tonight. I'm seeing progress on that front. Still lots there though. The bubble algae is a pain to pull off, especially in all the little crevices.

Corals are still pretty much slowly dying. There's 1 euphyllia not completely closed up and then the scan like coral in the middle is actually looking pretty well. The space invaders is holding up, but I can't seem to keep the algae off the ends that died off originally. I wonder if cutting the ends would work?
 

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Llorgon

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I've been playing around with my flow a bit. I had my original setting with the wave engine incorrect. I've changed them and I am getting more flow, but I'm not sure if it's enough.

I only have one coral not completely closed up and the only way I can get any movement to it is if I have the pumps set to 100% which seems a bit much?
 

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BAMatter

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I've been playing around with my flow a bit. I had my original setting with the wave engine incorrect. I've changed them and I am getting more flow, but I'm not sure if it's enough.

I only have one coral not completely closed up and the only way I can get any movement to it is if I have the pumps set to 100% which seems a bit much?
I can help with your flow settings… post your schedules and tile settings. Can direct message me if it’s easier.
 
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Llorgon

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I can help with your flow settings… post your schedules and tile settings. Can direct message me if it’s easier.
Awesome. I'll post here in case anyone else is having issues and stumbles across this.

I got my nutrient export mode to work, I had to delete and recreate it though.

I'm looking to have my pumps go between ocean swell and square wave every 30mins until the nightime schedule kicks in.

Below is what I have each set to.

Then if I wanted to have nutrient export run once a day, I think I would just set a specific start and end time for it?

The pumps are set to 100% with the schedules capped out at 70%.

I think you said that you used the square wave pattern as well. Does it always alternate between the same flow settings it doesn't seem to vary the speed at all.
 

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BAMatter

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Awesome. I'll post here in case anyone else is having issues and stumbles across this.

I got my nutrient export mode to work, I had to delete and recreate it though.

I'm looking to have my pumps go between ocean swell and square wave every 30mins until the nightime schedule kicks in.

Below is what I have each set to.

Then if I wanted to have nutrient export run once a day, I think I would just set a specific start and end time for it?

The pumps are set to 100% with the schedules capped out at 70%.

I think you said that you used the square wave pattern as well. Does it always alternate between the same flow settings it doesn't seem to vary the speed at all.
Are you using a WaveEngine with a Hydros controller or just the WaveEngine? Also, are you using the ReefOcto controller with 0-10v? Does yours look like this?
 

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Llorgon

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Are you using a WaveEngine with a Hydros controller or just the WaveEngine? Also, are you using the ReefOcto controller with 0-10v? Does yours look like this?
I'm using just the wave engine. No ReefOcto controller. All done through the wave engine.

Yep, looks like those pictures. I think I am messing up the start/stop and run times
 

BAMatter

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I'm using just the wave engine. No ReefOcto controller. All done through the wave engine.

Yep, looks like those pictures. I think I am messing up the start/stop and run times
Something looks off…
Can you press schedules from the menu, select a schedule, and post a screen shot of what you see ?
 
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Llorgon

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Here's the two schedules I'm trying to run every hour, currently set to 30 mins for testing.

I'm also seeing any schedule I set seems to stick to the lowest end of the schedule. For example, my square wave has run at 29% since yesterday. Before it was going at 70%. I switched the schedule to sine wave which should go up and down and it says alternating between 18%.
 

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