Andre’s Full blown 300Gallon SPS Reeftank up within a week ;-)

[PSXerholic]

Hey Andre, here's an update.....

My ph problem was due to a bad probe, so once that was resolved, my current ph is running about 8.15 (I'd still like to get it a bit higher).
My issue now is that I can't keep my phosphates up. My nitrates have also consistently dropped and I am now down to 1ppm, with my phosphates at 0. I am dosing Phyto Feast nightly trying to bring it up, but the highest I've got my Hannah Phosphorus checker is 8ppb an hour after dosing.....the next day I get a reading of 0. I am up to 10ml of Phyto nightly, which seems like a lot....sometimes I even get a reading of 0ppb an hour after dosing (which amazes me, since I should always get a reading after dosing this stuff). I've turned my skimmer completely off 24/7, trying to keep the nutrients in the tank, so I am stumped on what else to do from here. My system is about 250 gallons total with 2 medium size fish and a small CUC. I also put a few tester frags in yesterday to see how they do. Let me know if u have any advice that may help. Thanks again!

Yes, the Po4 consumption or better absorption is quite high in a fresh or ULNS tank. Rock, bacteria and many other things use up the Po4. With nutrients now dropping so low, I would leave off any carbon dosing or at least heavily reduce carbon dosing and see where the tank will heading to.

You can see the jump start your tank did by this! I personally would use this point of time to increase livestock, but that is strongly depending on the empty wallet, lol.
Reduce the carbon dosing for now and watch out for the point where the Nutrients will not drop anymore that fast.

 

[PSXerholic]

Oooops, I did it again.........
Nitrates almost down to zero, just a bit left.

Not sure what happened since No3 remained pretty stable in the 5-8ppm range recently.
I was wondering since a week ago I measured still 6 or so.
That was kind of a drop and somewhat unexpected. I noticed some colors faded slightly and hair algae appearing ;Nailbiting

So it's time for No3 dosing again.


Here is the Reef Moonshiner's TM recipe for a Sodium Nitrate stock solution out of the woods ;-)
Mix 50gram of Sodium Nitrate into 1Liter or 1Kg RODI water which you will have available as a carrier liquid.
To increase 1ppm No3, with this Solution, you need to dose 2.75ml per 100Liter tank volume.
If you want to do only 0.25ppm simply divide the total by 4...... simple math.

Here is the Reef Moonshiner's TM recipe for Potassium Nitrate ;-)
Mix 50gram of Potassium Nitrate into 1Liter or 1Kg RODI water which you will have available as a carrier liquid.
To increase 1ppm No3, with this Solution, you need to dose 3.26ml per 100Liter tank volume.
If you want to do only 0.25ppm simply divide the total by 4...... simple math.

So you see it is weaker than Sodium Nitrate solution and need some more!
The amount of Potassium increase is extremely low for our tanks and only increases 0.63ppm which is nothing compared to a standard value of around 400-410ppm. Just in case you guys are interested on the potassium increase ;-)

If you use RODI water for Nitrate solutions, they won't last longer than 3-6 months or so, due to the fact of bacteria growth.
RODI is not good for professional supplements, just saying.

Happy Reefing.
-Andre

 

[J-Dog]

FYI, I stopped carbon dosing after adding my first 2 fish and the CUC. Was I supposed to continue dosing? Fish will be added slowly, since they all go through a 4-6 week QT process before entering the display. So getting nutrients up with more fish might take a while.

Should I continue to dose nitrates and phosphates to raise them up to desired levels?

 

[najer]

What took your nitrates down, seems a bit odd?!

 

[PSXerholic]

FYI, I stopped carbon dosing after adding my first 2 fish and the CUC. Was I supposed to continue dosing? Fish will be added slowly, since they all go through a 4-6 week QT process before entering the display. So getting nutrients up with more fish might take a while.

Should I continue to dose nitrates and phosphates to raise them up to desired levels?

Nah, It was right to discontinue the carbon, as you can see now, lol. Many people just keep doing it hence I wanted to mention it for the silent readers ;-)

Keep Nutrients detectable until more live is in, doesn't hurt. Bacteria population will reduce automatically with the missing load.

 

[PSXerholic]

What took your nitrates down, seems a bit odd?!

I have an idea, but it need to be confirmed with a repeated attempt!
Well, I dosed some Cobalt, Silver and Copper
But more likely it was the filter fleece I took out of the socks since the fleece can become a natural Nitrate factory. I did in the past naturally increased Nitrates with aerobic filter media. I thought the filter blocks I have as a bubble trap would keep Nitrates high enough but apparently not. My Nitrate Reactor is super powerful !!! I probably will never be required to go to a bigger reactor with this tank when it's filled with fish and corals.

 

[najer]

Cool, I don't test so shifts on other people's journals always worry me!

 

[PSXerholic]

Cool, I don't test so shifts on other people's journals always worry me!

Those things can happen very quickly as you can see by a minor change ;-)
You should test here and there to get a better feeling about the characteristics of your tank.

Now, this is also an example why people struggle sometimes with high nitrates just because something simple is brewing in their tanks ;-)

 

[PSXerholic]

Kelly Green Psammocora

 

[PSXerholic]

JF Orange Psammocora ;-)

 

[PSXerholic]

Something valuable from the @Diesel out of the SPS DIESELTANK ;-)
Not sure if he can ID already, this thing colors up still. Purple pink tips and extreme strong fluorescence and aquamarine colors.

 

[PSXerholic]

No name Acan...........

 

[PSXerholic]

Another nice Acro now showing off with all lemon yellow tips and partially base.

 

[PSXerholic]

My baby blue ORA Staghorn I got back from a buddy after I lost the Original colony due to the broken tank.

 

[PSXerholic]

BTW, when Boron is high, the Borate Alkalinity is high as well, which changes the color of the Salifert ALK test from pinkish to red ;-)

 

[PSXerholic]

Here is a re-post since I get questions on my UV unit ;-)
This below should take care of this subject I posted somewhere else on R2R before:


Some people say it's counterproductive, but here is why you need a UV sterilizer ;-)

Since this is a current subject on my tank system, I thought to share this info.
Overall, UV is a good thing to have the tank going through the years.
It helps to avoid or better minimize potential issues down the road.

All right………….UV…………….trying to keep it simple!

There are multiple reasons why it’s beneficial /precautional and unfortunately expensive to run a UV sterilizer.
I say Sterilizer since there is a difference between sanitizing and sterilizing.

1.) Bacteria control and prevention
In my case, many of you know that I run a bacterial method to manage my nutrients, means I overpopulate the good bacteria to breakdown waste.
This can be done in a variety of methods such asBiopellets, Zeo, Vinegar, VSV or any other liquid bacteria supplements etc.

So I use VSV, wich is a mix of different carbons in addition to amino acids to feed bacteria.
The bad part of any bacterial method is, that you do not just feed the good bacteria, also you feed the bad bacteria !!!

These bacteria can be worst case “Pest bacteria” such asRed slime or any other “Disease bacteria” that are harmful to our corals such as brown jelly disease, Vibrio and many other Bacterial-Coral/Tank diseases.
Many of the bacterial diseases are still unknown.

Bad part of bacteria is, they come in with the nice Coral from a store or coral dealer and even Hydrogen/Peroxide Bayer dip won’tkill it. Some Bacteria will survive deep down in the Coral and rock.
So unless these bacteria do not have a reason to excessively overpopulate by carbons, high temperatures, amino acid addition,many nutrients etc. they still will keep populating in the tank.

In my particular case, I did see (likely from too muchAminos and excessive feeding), a slight overpopulation of “Scavenger bacteria like they are in Waste Away”, which are heterotrophic bacteria types. These bacteria do only live in the water column, and do not settle on substrate. They can multiply by 10x within 15minutes with enough light and eat all kind of waste very effective.
However, if those are excessive in the tank, in a way that you see a slight hazel in the water when you look along the tank, then this can end up in a problem.
a. It can be easily come to a sudden huge bloom wiping out the tank since these bacteria consume a lot of oxygen.
b. Their Oxygen consumption will result in less oxygen,elevated Co2 and therefore causing low PH, especially over night!!! No good inHouston !!!
c. The waste oxidation process consume a lot of ALK,supporting a. & b.
d. A few more undesired effects on water chemistry such as low ORP etc.
e. Food for Corals and the good bacteria are limited since heterotrophic bacteria tend to eat and consume the goodies that the corals and other bacteria like to have. Means these bad bacteria can compete out the good and desired ones.

This effect can happen easily in fully matured tanksystems that ran for years with no issue. No warning, it just happens!!!!

So a good UV Sterilizer will be able, if correctly sized,help to prevent overpopulation of most bad bacteria in a matured tank system since those are mainly heterotrophic.
Do not apply this to a new system, since the “good” boys still have to grow everywhere in the substrate first.

Keep in mind that some scavenger bacteria cannot be competed out in a tank by other bacteria in the substrate. They do take the food source away from the bacteria that live in the substrate which makes it in some cases impossible to bring the tank back in balance. In those cases the only way is a Hydrogen Peroxide Injection reactor method or a strong UV ;-)

2.) Fish diseases and parasites……….do not forget all kinds of Fish fungus, viruses and parasites such as our friend ICH.

A UV will help to keep parasites and diseases in check.

3.) Better Water conditions
Utilization of a UV will increase the filtration and skimmer efficiency!!!
I observed right after starting the UV, that ORP went up,and skim-mate became more, darker and more stinky, lol.

Also it makes the water more crisp, helps to minimize or even in some case replaces the use of Activated carbon to remove yellow tint.

That means more PAR and more blue spectrum to your corals, which can make a big difference on certain coral colors.

Higher REDOX/ORP means also better Co2/O2 ratio which supports to elevate the tank PH.

4.) UV types
I did use a variety of UV lamps in the recent years and mostly did only turn on the UV when needed.
Keep your hands off the Coralife and cheap sterilizer.They might scare the bacteria but mostly do not really work well.
Some have even metal parts in there that will corrode and screw the tank water.
I can strongly recommend the Aqua UV type or TMC type sterilizer that come with a high pressure true UV-C lamp.

See this article about UV that I found useful and simply explains the importance and difference of bulbs and type of sterilizer.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumUVSterilization.html


5.) Sizing is the biggest issue.
A UV unit should be good for preventive action, but also be properly sized to handle asap a bloom or parasitic issue when needed.
So for prevention you use high flow, and for asap action you lower the flow to have higher reaction time in the lamp.
From my experience the minimum size should be at least a57W for a 200G tank as a guide.

6.) Installation and dwelling time
Don’t run UV in the sump recirculating the water.
Have a secondary pump taking filtered water and feed it back to the tank.
I tried it and it makes a huge difference!
Another issue with a loop only in the sump, you likely run into over sterilization of the sump which is bad for regugia and biomedia sumps!
More about this can be found here:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumUVSterilization.html

Also for the different purposes have the pump loop with a relief valve equipped to be able to vary the flow. In that case you can play with the flow and exposure time to avoid over sterilization in “preventive mode” if a strong UV is installed.

In order to avoid full sterilization between the sump and tank, I hooked up the UV on one of my two return pumps.
That will still allow planktons and bacteria from the sump to be imported back to the tank.

7.) Over sterilization
It is possible if the above mentioned is not considered, and if a very strong UV is being used. Another way to control sterilization is the Utilization in hours per day. Just run the UV on a timer.

8.) Observations I made by use of UV
Clearer water
Better and more vibrant colors
Better Polyp extension
ORP increased
Skimmer performance increased
Slightly Higher PH
Less use of Activated carbon
Healthier looking corals of course
Less to no issues with diseases of all kind (knock on wood)
Less issues with Algaes of all kind that spore through the water column
I can safely pop bubble algae, lol


I guess I covered most of the important stuff here,however read through the link above, that has very valuable info in there.

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

The BC Bellicose Trobairitz ;-)
Frag doing great so far.

 

[PSXerholic]

Also a FTS in the evening to check everything glows !!!
Few SPS missing, but will give it more time.

 

[CNDReef]

Awesome information as always, thanks for sharing with us.

 

[MTBake]

The BC Bellicose Trobairitz ;-)
Frag doing great so far.

Looking real good! Still waiting for my Bellicose Trobairitz to wake up and do something. Still has a reddish tinge to it with no growth at all. Polyps have been retracted for some time now as well.