OP
OP
@AngryOwl @Crazy Seahorse
A few things here to the key of my success to this tank in the beginning.
The Nitrate reactor was simply a filled container with plenty of bacteria! This reactor was, with the life inside, easily capable to handle a lot of bioload when I introduced it back at the same time I put all the corals back into the tank.
So I simply added a functioning bacteria filled substrate to the tank, with plenty of matured bacteria strains which with the mulm release I seeded the tank again and in addition to the initial boosted cycle I did right in the first few days.
The initial things I did, was to fill the tank with water and dry rock which had a lot of dead organics on it. I dosed a lot of Biodigest and the Vodka as a fertilizer to boost the Biodigest bacteria. That I observed and you saw the second day that the skimmer had to get into the tank since the fouling from the rocks started and also a bacteria bloom occurred (desired).
So in the first few days the bacteria started to superpopulate and I observed Nitrite going down toward zero while observing Nitrates. When Nitrite was gone and Nitrates were still zero, I knew this was the sign that all Nitrite was converted and since Nitrates did not increase, the bacteria amount was able to handle that. Cycle completed ;-)
Well, this is a simple and not very diverse bacteria population of course but Nitrate spikes should not become a problem then, that I knew. And I threw a very few SPS in there, to see if they make it and there are no other issues from Vodka or other substances.
That was the basis for me to introduce all my tank inhabitants and SPS back into the tank.
The additional bacteria strains in the reactor, I needed to take care of the rest of the organic waste, I trusted my Nitrate reactor which is not just for Nitrates as you can imagine. So the mulm release seeded the tank and dry rock in the tank, while the pellets in the reactor provided the needed Carbohydrates as a food source for the bacteria.
A similar thing I could have done while using Liverock from an existing tank, and keep it all submerged all the time and transfer it to a new tank. Important is to keep the rocks submerged all the time! When following along this thread you will at some point see when I will transfer this full tank 2 more times ;-)
So a tank needs two/three things (not considering lights,skimmer, etc.) mainly to be successful and these 2 things must work flawlessly:
Biology is the first, the tank has to function and need to maintain a cycle while using decent amount of carbohydrates, not too much, otherwise you may negatively impact the oxygen household, stress corals, and fertilize pathogenic bacteria just waiting to explode ;-) So while tanks become a haze in the water, the bacteria count is very high, with the likelihood of increased pathogenic bacteria as well! Keep that into account. That is why I went away from traditional carbon sources to “fuel” the tank, and prefer the fueling and hosting of bacteria in a separate container of filter system.
The other factor is chemistry! You won’t believe how many “good” ICP results were given to me which made me freaking out if it would be my tank, lol. Crazy Seahorse, publish your mentioned ICP results here and I have a good look at it.
In my case I struggled a bit with TN here and there in the first few weeks until I got my ICP results and I was shocked by some of the missing contents. Did the corrections and TN stopped from that point on. Partially it’s because it will make the SPS healthier, and healthy corals are not just more beautiful, they are also much more resistant against parasites and pathogenic bacteria! I can’t stress out the fact how much benefit you gain from a routinely monitored chemistry via ATI ICP tests if you know what to look for ;-) With the chemistry in check, it makes life easier, and reduces swings on the minor elements without chasing numbers! I hope this year I can become a sponsor and talk and advertise my Trace element method officially on R2R.
Third less but of significant importance is the achieved health of the corals, from the 2 subjects above. Sometimes it needs only one specific element to be out of whack and it impacts a lot of the biological processes in the tank, bringing swings and leading to other elements to be out of whack. Calcification as far we know is not just ALK, Ca and Mag! We also learned over the last decade that Potassium, Strontium, Barium and maybe others are an important factor to the calcification process.
To summarize this quick, and it has enough to write books about it, functioning biology, excellent chemistry, “not” excessive bacteria count is a big key to success.
Last but not least I like to say that here, by not really achieving the above factors, health of the SPS is weak, and a lot of times I do see that TN occurs since the parasites and pathogens in the tanks are on the stronger side, killing the corals that we have.
It all comes back to the health of the corals guys!!! A strong healthy person likely won’t get a cold or flu, at least not that easy ;-)
With the recent experience I make with certain problem tanks, these 2 factors taken care of, it led to extreme improvements of tanks. Easy said, I know ;-)
A few things here to the key of my success to this tank in the beginning.
The Nitrate reactor was simply a filled container with plenty of bacteria! This reactor was, with the life inside, easily capable to handle a lot of bioload when I introduced it back at the same time I put all the corals back into the tank.
So I simply added a functioning bacteria filled substrate to the tank, with plenty of matured bacteria strains which with the mulm release I seeded the tank again and in addition to the initial boosted cycle I did right in the first few days.
The initial things I did, was to fill the tank with water and dry rock which had a lot of dead organics on it. I dosed a lot of Biodigest and the Vodka as a fertilizer to boost the Biodigest bacteria. That I observed and you saw the second day that the skimmer had to get into the tank since the fouling from the rocks started and also a bacteria bloom occurred (desired).
So in the first few days the bacteria started to superpopulate and I observed Nitrite going down toward zero while observing Nitrates. When Nitrite was gone and Nitrates were still zero, I knew this was the sign that all Nitrite was converted and since Nitrates did not increase, the bacteria amount was able to handle that. Cycle completed ;-)
Well, this is a simple and not very diverse bacteria population of course but Nitrate spikes should not become a problem then, that I knew. And I threw a very few SPS in there, to see if they make it and there are no other issues from Vodka or other substances.
That was the basis for me to introduce all my tank inhabitants and SPS back into the tank.
The additional bacteria strains in the reactor, I needed to take care of the rest of the organic waste, I trusted my Nitrate reactor which is not just for Nitrates as you can imagine. So the mulm release seeded the tank and dry rock in the tank, while the pellets in the reactor provided the needed Carbohydrates as a food source for the bacteria.
A similar thing I could have done while using Liverock from an existing tank, and keep it all submerged all the time and transfer it to a new tank. Important is to keep the rocks submerged all the time! When following along this thread you will at some point see when I will transfer this full tank 2 more times ;-)
So a tank needs two/three things (not considering lights,skimmer, etc.) mainly to be successful and these 2 things must work flawlessly:
Biology is the first, the tank has to function and need to maintain a cycle while using decent amount of carbohydrates, not too much, otherwise you may negatively impact the oxygen household, stress corals, and fertilize pathogenic bacteria just waiting to explode ;-) So while tanks become a haze in the water, the bacteria count is very high, with the likelihood of increased pathogenic bacteria as well! Keep that into account. That is why I went away from traditional carbon sources to “fuel” the tank, and prefer the fueling and hosting of bacteria in a separate container of filter system.
The other factor is chemistry! You won’t believe how many “good” ICP results were given to me which made me freaking out if it would be my tank, lol. Crazy Seahorse, publish your mentioned ICP results here and I have a good look at it.
In my case I struggled a bit with TN here and there in the first few weeks until I got my ICP results and I was shocked by some of the missing contents. Did the corrections and TN stopped from that point on. Partially it’s because it will make the SPS healthier, and healthy corals are not just more beautiful, they are also much more resistant against parasites and pathogenic bacteria! I can’t stress out the fact how much benefit you gain from a routinely monitored chemistry via ATI ICP tests if you know what to look for ;-) With the chemistry in check, it makes life easier, and reduces swings on the minor elements without chasing numbers! I hope this year I can become a sponsor and talk and advertise my Trace element method officially on R2R.
Third less but of significant importance is the achieved health of the corals, from the 2 subjects above. Sometimes it needs only one specific element to be out of whack and it impacts a lot of the biological processes in the tank, bringing swings and leading to other elements to be out of whack. Calcification as far we know is not just ALK, Ca and Mag! We also learned over the last decade that Potassium, Strontium, Barium and maybe others are an important factor to the calcification process.
To summarize this quick, and it has enough to write books about it, functioning biology, excellent chemistry, “not” excessive bacteria count is a big key to success.
Last but not least I like to say that here, by not really achieving the above factors, health of the SPS is weak, and a lot of times I do see that TN occurs since the parasites and pathogens in the tanks are on the stronger side, killing the corals that we have.
It all comes back to the health of the corals guys!!! A strong healthy person likely won’t get a cold or flu, at least not that easy ;-)
With the recent experience I make with certain problem tanks, these 2 factors taken care of, it led to extreme improvements of tanks. Easy said, I know ;-)
