Another Risk, reefer 350

[Risk1994]

I think so. Im honestly not sure.

 

[Risk1994]

Let the cyano go a couple of days and it blew up...


I got a small canister filter, filled it wil floss and sucked out the cyano, unfortunately lots of gravel came up with it, Ill need to add back.

This morning this much grew back...only like 10hrs later...

 

[Risk1994]

The tanks only had water for like 6 months so I'm loath to add chemi-clean. I've QT'd everything so I feel like I already have an inadequate biome and don't want to reduce it further.

• I sucked out as much cyano as I could,
• my MP40 is already on max reef crest, so I cant really increase flow.
• I'm going to leave lights out for 3 days
• Add vibrant. Perhaps I can out compete it.
• The UV sterilizer is on low flow for ich (50gph) I suppose I could ramp it up (way up) to max to protozoa speed.

If it keeps going like this I guess I'll have to go chemi-clean..Im not sure what else to do. nutrients are already really low, I dont want to go to zero. In fact Im thinking I need to add NO3/PO4.

my levels are as follows...

​	after cyano​	before cyano​
ph​	7.9​	8.1​
alk​	6.6​	7.1​
NO3​	3.7​	13.9​
PO4​	0.02​	0.06​

I think the PH drop is mostly due to CO2 media expiring. Pretty sure the nutrient drop is due to cyano sucking it up.

 

[Risk1994]

Continue to suck out cyano, after the 3 days lights out its much reduced now. Im going to start weekly dosing vibrant.

Also BRS had a sale on the IceCap Gyre 4k. I got that, I know cyano doesnt like flow and I was unhappy with what I was getting from the MP40 alone. Placed it vertically on the back wall.

 

[Risk1994]

As an interesting aside. Apex lets you do some interesting things.

Here is a comparison chart, in yellow is PH. The blue bars represent when the AWC adds 1 gallon of new salt water.

Seems like shortly after the new water is added the PH peaks. Could be a co-incidence, I believe around noon is when PH peaks normally but still kind of cool.

Here is the chart now, doesnt seem like changing the AWC timing does much.

 

[Risk1994]

I cannot believe this but now my Yellow tang has stopped eating and has a pinched belly, just like the Purple did.

He's acting just like the purple tang did. I had to endure watching that one inexplicably waste away over 2 months. All through QT and up to a week ago the yellow would plow through any food I dropped in the tank, he push away anyone getting near food and he'd hit anything at the surface so hard you could hear the splash. Now he's just stopped.

My parameters have been pretty stable, PH/temp/salinity, my corals are doing really well, and Im starting to see coralline. Why is this happening to my fish?

The cyano issue I had is mostly resolved now, does cyano cause fish to stop eating? I did also notice my small clown had some white stringy poop...not the tang though, is this a sign of something?

I'm so frustrated I really am starting to feel like I want to throw in the towel. Watching fish out of no-where inexplicably wither away and die over months despite every attempt to save them is just awful. No spots, no cottony growths, no cloudy eyes or twitching...just stops eating and withers away over 2 months.

 

[Risk1994]

The fun continues, last night wife complained at 4am of the return pump turning on and off. This usually means the water level in the sump is too low, when the pump turns off, the sump level rises and the pump starts again. Been meaning to fix this in Apex software. Anyway rather than get up I turned OFF the return pump, and to be safe turned the ATO to OFF.

Wake up this morning to an overflowing sump with ATO turned ON...not auto...ON. Fortunately my reservoir was down to like 15 gallons but thats 15 gallons of brackish water on my floor.

So far I've had 2 floods, one in basement, caused by a badly designed ATO on my part. Second was today and Im chalking it up as APEX's fault. OFF should be OFF. I cant imagine anywhere in my programming that would override the OFF and turn it to ON at at 4am...besides the sump was full...why would apex call for water?

I've learned my lesson and I no longer trust APEX. I hadthe ATO set to ONLY turn on during daylight hours. I'm paranoid of floods. This has worked fine for months. Somehow it overrode the OFF I set it to last night, and ignored the rule turning it on only during the day, ignored the sensor showing water, then turned it ON and kept it on, flooding my floor. There are no less than 3 points that should have prevented this...belt and suspenders.

From now on Ill have to have a physical switch to my ATO on run it manually only. This really seems to be the weak link in the flooding realm.

sump salinity - 1.016

 

[Risk1994]

Added a physical on/off switch to the ATO pump and a new routine to my daily schedule, turn off ATO before bed, get up in the morning turn on ATO. No more trusting APEX...doveryay, no proveryay.

I'd like to do something similar for the DOS in case APEX decides to also empty the NSW container on my floor at 4am. However even with the power off it seems like it can still pump with just USB connected. If I pull the USB nightly I feel like this will cause issues. Will have to think about this one.

 

[Risk1994]

New water sensor, completely independent of APEX. If it gets wet, all power is killed.

 

[Risk1994]

So the tang is looking normal again but I've lost another flame angel to yet another inexplicable illness.

This break in period for me has been brutal. here are the casualties.

Purple tang - Im not taking the blame for this one, there was some crazy issue from the lfs...read about it here.
2 flame angels - totally unknown issues you can read about it here.
1 orchid dottyback - succumbed to ich in QT.
1 clownfish - jumped since I left the top open a smidge one night.

I now have a 10g ready to go on a moments notice and a medicine cabinet full of fish drugs for the fist sign of trouble....
Take a look, am I missing anything?



Oddly enough corals are doing pretty will in my DT and actually growing in my QT.

 

[Risk1994]

So I'm taking a new tack on this tank. Too many fish casualties and I'm battling cyano. I'm coming off another 3 day lights out tomorrow.

* Turn off the AWC (1g per day currently) for a couple weeks.
* feed more heavily and varied.
* turn off UV
* bypass filter roller for a week
* dose nitrobacter 7 once a week
* new diamond goby arriving shortly, help with sand turnover. Turkey baste the rocks every few days. I have no CUC currently.

My QT corals are doing really well and lots of corraline in that tank. Nitrites are 16 and phosphate is .2! It gets the 1g overflow from my DT every day. (I'll have to to WC manually now) My DT has much lower nutrient levels (Im sure the cyano has a lot to do with this).

I want the DT a little dirtier like my QT. Get some more junk in there to help with the biome. Hopefully push past this ugly phase.

 

[Risk1994]

So I did all the above and have been back on regular schedule for around a week now...

AWC back on, feeding normal, UV on, Roller back on, Goby has been AWESOME.

Cyano has me up against the ropes. It has exploded all over my tank. I have to storm the tank every 3 days or so. I've already done 2 blackout periods in the last month so I don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to dose chemi-clean for fear of ruining my young bio filter. I've switched over to nitrobacter clean from nitrobacter 7 in hopes that it will help in the battle.

This tank has been up 6 months and this break in is really killing me. Over a month straight of bad cyano...is this normal for a 6 month old tank? Will it ever end??

The only upside is my diamond goby is a beast, keep the sand turned over so well the Cyano hardly can grow on it, really remarkable. The flip side is that now its exploded all over my rocks with a vengeance.

 

[Risk1994]

Phosphate has been rising slowly...I guess Ill put in some carbon with GFO.
Not sure why the alk jumped so high...Ive been dosing some buffer every few days as the PH was dropping to around 7.6 without it, thanksgiving didnt help, had a party and my house co2 jumped to like 1600! PH dropped like a stone that day. Does buffer increase Alk? The only other things I put in the tank are nitrobacter clean.

I cant figure out this CYANO

​	PH​	alk​	nitrate​	phosphate​
10-28​	8.4​	7.4​	13.7​	0.05​
11-13​	8​	6.6​	10.8​	0.09​
11-16​	8​	6.7​	16.5​	0.077​
11-22​	7.9​	7.7​	15.2​	0.064​
12-1​	8​	9.7​	10.8​	0.11​

 

[Risk1994]

Bit the bullet and added chemi-clean this morning. Its getting to plague proportions.

 

[Risk1994]

Chemi-clean worked unbelievable well, removed every last trace of cyano.

Did a 35% WC today, then my skimmer pulled out like another 10g. I let it empty into a bucket and kept topping off with salt water. Be prepared for WC after chemi-clean usage....youll need a lot more salt water than you think.

 

[Risk1994]

after WC parameters...

PH 8.0
Alk 7.9
NO3 - 9.6
PO4 - .04

Small drop in Nitrate but big drop in phosphate.

Im going to change feeding a little. I used to auto feed seaweed pellets every day around 1pm but fish never really seemed to like it and a lot would just float there all day. I switched to TDO and the fish like it much more. Im going to feed slightly less of it daily to make sure its all eaten. Such a small amount is difficult to auto dose though.

Ill keep feeding the frozen mysis daily as the fish go nuts for it. I do like 1/3 of a cube wich is a real pain. I need more fish so I can stop having to chop up cubes.

I feed a small sqauare of nori every other day depending on how much algae is in the tank. The tang spends all day picking.

 

[Risk1994]

Going to change lighting a bit also...here is my current sched...



I reduced the full power period so the ramp up/down will be longer.

Also I dropped the whites/greens on a recomendation...claiming that whites add to cyano...this is awefully blue though. Used to be at 90...I may increase to 50 or so, we'll see.

 

[SaltyArms]

Reading through this today, I wanted to make one comment... you can fix the wire on the MP40 controller if you want to. Those drivers are easy to work on and they're designed to take apart. Pull off the front adjustment knob and then take out the screws on the back. Then you can pull it apart and the wire will just unclip. So if you unclip it, route it how you want, and then put the driver back together... you're golden.

Otherwise, great build thread. I'm setting up my own 350 now as an upgrade from a Reefer nano and I've been doing research on what people are using for powerheads.

 

[Risk1994]

76 days of fishless coral QT is complete for several corals - woohoo! Cant believe they lived this long in QT. I did lose a galaxia and a montipora digitata.. however I did manage to keep a few SPS in the QT.

adding the following from Tidal Gardens..

• Burning Banana Stylocoeniella
• Freak Hair Pavona
• Red Sea Pulsing Xenia

 

[Risk1994]

Reading through this today, I wanted to make one comment... you can fix the wire on the MP40 controller if you want to. Those drivers are easy to work on and they're designed to take apart. Pull off the front adjustment knob and then take out the screws on the back. Then you can pull it apart and the wire will just unclip. So if you unclip it, route it how you want, and then put the driver back together... you're golden.

Otherwise, great build thread. I'm setting up my own 350 now as an upgrade from a Reefer nano and I've been doing research on what people are using for powerheads.

Your right about that. I've considered it, but I just KNOW the moment I do that Im going to need to remove the driver for some reason then have to do it again. Wish there was some way to add a quick disconnect.