Another RSR XL 425 build

[shakeandbake]

Still on the QT circuit. Thought the frozen General Cure pellet mush mix was working after 3 weeks but I saw one of the clowns with a string yesterday. Thinking it's an intestinal worm thing and not flukes. Might see a slightly swollen abdomen? I am going to dose the water, wait 48 hours per the package, dose again, and then observe for the rest of the week. Maybe the medication isn't adhering to the food well. They seem to be active and eating well. I was ready to move them to the display at the 5-week mark. Now I am unsure. I think the clowns might be hardy and able to fight through it but other fish might catch it and not do as well. So I want to be patient and try to get it sorted out for them now. Frustrating. Previous plan was to add clowns this week, order a small CUC, and QT them. But looks like that might have to wait.

Working to set up the DOS water change. Almost got that ready to go. I think I might start with just a small weekly change and shoot for 12g a month, then adjust.

Chaeto is growing well and I am seeing some diatoms and green algea in the refugium. Tunze fuge light seems to be doing its job well. Expecting display tank lights in the next week or so. Might work to get those set up but hold off another month before turning them on. Dosed Microbacter 7 for 2 weeks and the rock is starting to show a little film. Water was getting a little yellow so this morning I decided to set up some carbon in one of the reactors. I had no idea the mess I was going to make. How the heck do you rinse these mechanical pencil refills? Got them everywhere. Thank god my wife wasn't home. I might have lost as much carbon down the kitchen drain as I got in the reactor. Crazy.

 

[shakeandbake]

Well the first QT graduation class went well. They gave me a dayish hunger strike in the display tank but after exploring and accumulating to the higher flow the pair seem to be back to their normal crazy selves.

Did a 75% water change in the QT to get nitrates back down to 5. Traveling to the LFS this weekend to scout out a few candidates. I was thinking of doing a cleanup crew next but I am leaning towards another 5 week fish QT first since the lights aren't running on the display tank yet and all of the diatoms and algae are growing hard in the refugium for now.

After adding fish I broke in the skimmer. Surprised that it is pretty quiet. It took maybe half a day to get a good foam. I raised the skimmer by 1 1/4 inch with some pvc previously but I am not sure that was needed. After running it I have had to open the valve up a little to get the foam closer to the top.

I have the DOS running a light waterchange schedule to get a feel for how it works and to monitor parameters. Targeting a 12.5% change per month for now. I figure the total system is around 100 gallons so 1575 ml/day gets me to about 12.5 gallons per 30 days. Surprised how the default program breaks it up. Every ten minutes it swaps 11ml. So it is going to run 144 times in a day? Seems a bit much. I think I am going to try and cut that down and do the daily change over 6 hours to see if that increases the pump speed or if it will do fewer larger swaps. I can't imagine swapping 250ml will impact parameters at all and it might cut down on any on/off wear and tear.

 

[najer]

Well the first QT graduation class went well. They gave me a dayish hunger strike in the display tank but after exploring and accumulating to the higher flow the pair seem to be back to their normal crazy selves.

Did a 75% water change in the QT to get nitrates back down to 5. Traveling to the LFS this weekend to scout out a few candidates. I was thinking of doing a cleanup crew next but I am leaning towards another 5 week fish QT first since the lights aren't running on the display tank yet and all of the diatoms and algae are growing hard in the refugium for now.

After adding fish I broke in the skimmer. Surprised that it is pretty quiet. It took maybe half a day to get a good foam. I raised the skimmer by 1 1/4 inch with some pvc previously but I am not sure that was needed. After running it I have had to open the valve up a little to get the foam closer to the top.

I have the DOS running a light waterchange schedule to get a feel for how it works and to monitor parameters. Targeting a 12.5% change per month for now. I figure the total system is around 100 gallons so 1575 ml/day gets me to about 12.5 gallons per 30 days. Surprised how the default program breaks it up. Every ten minutes it swaps 11ml. So it is going to run 144 times in a day? Seems a bit much. I think I am going to try and cut that down and do the daily change over 6 hours to see if that increases the pump speed or if it will do fewer larger swaps. I can't imagine swapping 250ml will impact parameters at all and it might cut down on any on/off wear and tear.

I used to run industrial pumps on a pharmaceutical plant, yes to less often and for longer.

 

[shakeandbake]

Got the lights mounted. Went with Refi Extremes. Pretty positive so far. Still working to dial in an initial program. Went to an every other day LPS schedule for a few days to address the diatom bloom. I removed the Peak period and shortened it for now to a noon to 7 schedule. I plan to customize each period in the future and increase the lime and warm %'s because the defaults are a little pink for my taste. I am not entirely excited by the RMS tank mounts. I feel like they put some stress on the glass, and that gives me some pause. That said, I am very pleased with the Reefi RMS bracket that adjusts the angle to sit level. Without that, I would have already returned the tank mounts.

Added to the QT on Saturday. Against my better judgement I grabbed a pair of purple firefish. They were eating well and appeared to be doing well together. I figured I would QT and observe them, and then if there is bullying I would return one and exchange it. So far they look happy, swim together and play nice and they are eating very well. Only 4 1/2 more weeks to go. I also added two cleaner shrimp and a few scarlet hermits. I have a CUC on order and I plan to add them to the QT for a few weeks to observe before setting them loose on a young tank that is already starting to show diatom blooms and algae.

I got the DOS dialed in and that is running a light water change schedule. I ran through the setup and then I realized that I had to reverse the tubing on my DOS_remove pump due to it rotating in the opposite direction than it did while priming the pump manually. Not sure why that design decision needed to happen. But it did and after sorting that out it seems to be running well and parameters remained stable.

 

[Nelsons_reef]

Looking good so far keep up the good work

 

[shakeandbake]

Updates. QT 2.0 is going well. Observed for 1-week and both firefish are active and eating well. No signs of ick or flukes or internal parasites right now. I see both of them chase each other a little. But nothing I would categorize as bullying, certainly not as aggressive as the clowns were initially. Neither hide and they both sleep side by side in the same crack under one of the PVC elbows. We'll see if that keeps up. The pair of cleaner shrimp also look good. Very active and eating like crazy. Noticed a black dot or two on their shells. Read that may be related to poor water quality? QT parameters look pretty good. They were at the LFS for several weeks, so, maybe there or in acclimations? One molted and no longer has any spots. I plan to continue to monitor for 30-days. If anything pops up in the QT on the fish or shrimp I will move to a 10 gallon hospital tank and go from there.

QT additions from Reefcleaners arrived Saturday afternoon. USPS priority mail did its job and delivered Wed-Sat. But I was a little worried because initially the tracking link said 'expected delivery Monday.' Next order I will make sure to leave an extra day of wiggle room so nothing sits anywhere over a Sunday. Out of 2 dozen snails and maybe 10 hermits only one snail smelled a little funky. I was very pleased overall. First, I was surprised that some of the items were bagged individually, ...all of the hermits and all of the trochus. Second, I was shocked at how small the dwarf cerith snails were. Most were 1/8-1/4 inch? That said, I couldn't remember how many I ordered, but they must have sent 50 of those little things. I know I did not order 50 of anything. And they immediately crawled off to work. The trochus snails took their time however and my bloodthirsty cleaner shrimp tested them immediately. I put a specimen container over the snails overnight and in the morning most were ready to head out on their own. Though the assassins took at least one that I know of and they are not shy about trying to tip them over. Hopefully, those don't end up as a $20 meal for my shrimp. Now to monitor for a month or so.

The ReeFi lights are amazing. Never had LEDs before so I might be overreacting. And I am early on the LED learning curve. But I am pretty happy with them. I will play some more and load some other more experienced user settings. But for now FOWLR I have a modified SPS schedule running from noon-8. Diatom bloom seems to have run its course or taken a pause. The refugium chaeto is growing but it is floating with some algae/bacteria that created bubbles. Might rinse that in a bucket with some tank water a little.

The slow DOS water change is doing its thing and parameters have stayed stable. The carbon ran for 2-weeks and I am going to turn that off and clean out the reactor this week some time. The skimmer is running and creating a little colored foam, but with just the two clowns in the display there really isn't the bioload right now.

The QT parameters on Fri were sal 33ppt, pH 8.1-8.2 , Amm 0, NO2 0, NO3 5-10, PO4 0, Alk 8.5, Ca 420. My LFS is maybe a 40 minute ride and my daughter had a thing out that way. So after I dropped her off I stopped in for some window shopping. That turned into an impulse frag buy. I figured with the QT parameters looking OK I would drop a test LPS in there. I picked up a hammer and a frogspawn that were $20-30 deals too good to pass up. They must have large colonies in the back that they are fragging the heck out of. So much for slow and steady.

I am going to need to learn how to take better quality pictures.

 

[shakeandbake]

Couple updates.

A day or two after adding the CUC I had the start of an ammonia spike in the QT that moved the seachem ammonia alert badge from safe <0.02 to alert 0.05. The color wasn't all the way there but it was moving. Tested and showed 0.02 on the red sea test kit. So we took out 5-6 trochus that hadn't woken up from shipping and did a water change. Everything seemed to go on without missing a beat. Added a quarter cap full of brightwell erase CL, waited a little, and retested. Tests were back in the under 0.02 range and then at 0 a few hours later. Shrimp, firefish, and the remaining CUC were active and eating away and parameters looked OK.

Re: the CUC, I added maybe ten small scarlet hermits, 10 cerinth, 10 nerites, a boat load of dwarf cerinths and maybe two of the trochus that made it through shipping. So, overall, well under what numbers some of the small packages included. In just a little over 1-week the CUC has almost completely wiped out all of the a green algae that had grown in the QT. So I am wondering what to do. I am thinking I will need to supplement them with some algae sheets maybe? The display tank has diatoms but it does not have the green algae like the QT did. I imagine they were being over fed initially in the QT, and a little diet will be OK, but I don't want to starve them out over the next month in the QT and then the display. I might only add some to the display initially and leave the rest in the QT.

The pair of cleaner shrimp have both molted and look good. The firefish continue to get along, are eating well, and are fattening up. Maybe 2 weeks out from adding them to the display. That would be a month of monitoring. The clowns don't exactly look lonely in the display but I am worried that maybe they shouldn't have been the first fish added. I am probably overfeeding them as well since they have grown noticeably since purchase and since adding to the display.

 

[shakeandbake]

Last weekend we moved two cleaner shrimp, 2 firefish, and maybe 75%of the CUC to the display. We spend about a week or so getting the QT temp, salinity and pH in the QT to match the display. I'll net a pair, put them in a large specimen container, hang that inside of the display and then add a cup or so of water every few minutes until we double the water volume 1.5-2x over 30-45 minutes. Then I net em and drop em in. So far that system has worked well and everything looks happy. I did make it a point to turn off the ATO until I added back in some saltwater.

The clowns immediately swam over to "inspect" the firefish. The little guys got a little shy for a while. I introduced them during lights out so I think that helped. One of them disappeared into the rocks and I couldn't spot him for a bit. But after a few hours he was out and about. No hunger strikes this time and by day two they were all swimming out in the open together. I noticed that even during dinner no one is getting chased or missing out on a meal. I was a little worried the clowns would be more aggressive. But nope. So that's good. I didn't realize how big the cleaner shrimp got in the QT. They are absolutely dying for one of the clowns to sit still long enough for a quick check up.

I cut up an eggcrate to fit around the overflow and light mounts and put a screen over it for a temporary lid. We ordered a classic lid from ClearView maybe back in mid Sept. Waitin on that. That said, we have not seen anything close to a jump by either of the firefish. Better safe than sorry I guess.

After 4-5 weeks the reefcleaners CUC completely wiped out every speck of algae in the QT. And you can see from the pics above we had green algae on the tank bottom and all over the PVC. All completely gone. After running a shortened LPS program with the new lights for 2-3 weeks we had what looked like hair algae beginning to grow on the top of most of the rocks in the display. I was worried that if it got too long the CUC might not be interested in it. Well, that's gone. Less than a week and they have munched most of the algae I could see. Now they are working on the sand bed and on any diatoms that we couldn't wipe on the overflow box. Still expecting things to get ugly. But maybe the patience and lucky CUC timing could pay off there.

A week or so back a vehicle hit a pole in town and we had a power outage for maybe an hour. I ordered the Apex aux power plug and picked up a 1500VA UPS (as well as with a battery powered air pump). I am going to try and work on that this weekend. I am hoping that with some programming we can run two WAVS, and maybe keep the COR 20 on 1%, for around 30 amps. That might give us 3-4 hours in the event of an outage.

We also have our eye on a little Dwarf Cherub Angel for the next QT class.

 

[shakeandbake]

Spending a little too much time on the QT tanks. Started treating a lil angel and had to set up a small second QT to drop som zoas and a mushroom in. Keeping cords and boxes organized is getting to be a bit of a task.

 

[shakeandbake]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Still working on the QT with the little angel. About a week after adding her to the QT she had what looked like an infection on a pectoral fin. We treated the QT with Ruby Reef Rally. Over three days this led to some visible improvement on her fin. We treated for flukes with General Cure. Then we observed for two weeks. She is very active, no signs of flukes, or infection, and eating extremely well. One more week until graduation.

On the coral QT we added some zoa frags from NY Reefs. Incredibly fast shipping. Arrived 1-day after order. Everything was dipped in CoralRx and then added. Appear to have had a pod bloom in the coral QT after that. Everything is open and we are seeing 3-4 frags already begin to grow new polyps. No visible pests after 3 weeks. Going to go another week and then add these to the display along with the dwarf angel.

LED learning curve hit. My previous experience was with T5s. Pretty much twist in bulbs and go. With the new LEDs I was running a shortened LPS program at first. Then I moved up the sunrise time and added a 1.5-hour peak period. I only had two LPS coral frags in the display, both on the sand bed, to test things out. A few days later I noticed some of the arms on the frogspawn frag were beginning to look clear. So I moved that to the shade and began a 30 day acclimation period beginning at 60%. Looks like the FS is improving a little and beginning to regain color, but, it remains a little stressed. Tank parameters looked good. 78F, 34 ppt, NO3 10, PO4 0, KH 8, and Ca 420. Bummed out that I slipped up here. Hopefully it wasn't a big misstep.

 

[shakeandbake]

Moved everything from the QTs. The Cherub Angel, the zoanthids, torch, and monti. Cherub is doing really well. Found a little cave for night time, eats frozens, and very active pecking at the rocks all day. She gets along extremely well with her tank mates though she will poke a snail once and a while to see what it will do or watch it fall off the glass. At times she swims right around with the clowns like little buds.

I did see the Cherub pecking at the frag plugs on the rack a few times and got a little nervous. But she hasn't gone near polyps or LPS, just looking for algae. There was some hair algae on the sides of a few plugs. Thats gone now. Pecked things completely clean.

The Reefi acclimation tool is very very nice. And forgiving. After the frogspawn looked a little clear I backed things down to 70% and set the lights to ramp back up over 14 days. It colored right back up. I noticed the FS and the hammer aren't completely extending arms and I am wondering if they are pushing out new heads or if they need a longer light cycle. I do see some kids on both. But I wanted to move slow so my day to night program is only set to run Day LPS (91 watts), Peak LPS (105 watts), Day LPS (91 watts) from 12:30 to 6PM. After the program ramps back up to 100% I think I am going to place corals on the scape permanently, lengthen the day-peak times, and then re-acclimate again over a few weeks.

Began working to hone in chemistry. Picked up the Red Sea MG, ALk, Ca test kit, some bottles of Fritz Mg Alk, Ca and started slowly bringing parameters to the mixed reef range. Mg was a little high maybe, at 1400, so no additives there, but that is likely the tester forgetting how to count. The Alk tested at 7 and Ca at 410 so we are adding 20 ml of Alk and 30 ml of Ca a day to get those to 8.5 and 430 over 3-4 days. We have a DOS mounted and ready to calibrate and program but I want to do everything by hand until things level out. I expect some pretty low demand once we get dialed in right now.

Looking for a few fish for the QT, bangai, royal gramma, maybe a goby. The display tank is an extremely peaceful tank currently. Really want to keep that vibe if I can.