BPB’s 150 gallon

[Bpb]

Good to see the set up back and wet. Sorry to hear about your losses. I wonder if part of the reason you had zero’s showing on your test kits was because it was all bound up in the algae in the display. I recently set my tank back up and my Hanna shows some po4 but my nitrate kit reads 0. But I have very minimal algae in the tank so I know I have some no3 somewhere. turns into a waiting game, I have a few frags in it but not ready to go full bore yet.
good luck buddy, I’ll be following along on your build.

corey

Thanks for following along. I’ve picked up a few more mariculture wholesale type items with mixed success. I had fairly low expectations putting that type coral in such a young tank. The fact that it hasn’t been 0% survival is some level of success in my mind.

Also ordered a handful of things from WWC which has been about 50% survival on so far.

Most recently I acquired a decent sized zoa order from @OSUASCReefer. Eagerly hoping they all take. Ready for some success already.

Honestly at the end of the day I think my struggles root from unstable nutrients and volatility of the micro fauna in the tank. As usual, water changes appear to be heavily appreciated as everything tends to be more inflated and vibrant looking in the few days after a water change.

I began carbon dosing with tropic Marin elimi np. I’ve always had my best time as a reefer when carbon dosing so there’s no reason not to start that up again.

While low ph is not an absolute death sentence, I believe having it in range is just another thing we can do to get things in a happy range. The house is well sealed and heavily occupied with 5 people and 2 cats, as well as a heavily stocked tank so low ph is something I’ve been fighting. The frequent warm and humid days make open windows a no no for me. I won’t be drilling into my walls either to run an external air line. So I picked up a co2 scrubber and have began using that. So far it has given me a 0.4 or so ph boost which I will call a success.

No great pictures to share. Just info on where I’m at now. Going to wait another 6 months before attempting another sps coral. Need to get nutrients stable. They’re just still bouncing up and down too much.

 

[Bpb]

Been quite a while since an update to this thread. My tank lately has been eerily similar to what I experienced in 2015-2016 or so with my 90 gallon. I started that tank up in a similar manner. Used rock from a previous build, plus a lot of pre-cured dry rock, and it was nothing but problems. Healthy fish, but every coral I would put in would wilt away over a 2-3 week period. Happening on this tank as well.

To this day I've now killed probably 100 or more frags in this tank over the last year. The rocks are absolutely coated in coraline algae. The whole tank is basically purple, including all the snail shells. Lots of feather dusters, pineapple sponges, and non-photosynthetic yellow sponge growth. The only corals that seem to be happy are a couple favor, and my frogspawn. Even the zoos have half melted away. I've been here before.

On my 90 gallon, adding some ocean harvested live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater seemed to get me over the hump and acted as a catalyst to improved tank health which allowed SPS to thrive. Or so it seemed anyway. I have added about 10 pounds of fresh Tampa Bay rock to this sump now as well in hopes that will behave much the same way. If this doesn't work, I'm completely out of ideas. Tank is now approaching the 1.5 year old mark since setup, and the rocks cured for longer than that. So I'm not sure I can continue to blame this on young tank syndrome.

Measurable parameters are ok, kind of in the range I've always hung out
400-450 ppm calcium
7.5 DKH
0.1 ppm PO4
5 ppm NO3
1350 ppm Mg
35 ppt salinity
78-79 degrees warm
Tons of flow
sanded par is 100-150
par on the rocks is 200-350

No busted magnets. No pests, fish or otherwise.

Everything checks out. Now i'll continue to wait and see if the real live rock addition has any visible impact.

Onto new stuff:

I invested in some new lighting equipment. I've always been a sucker for the look of Kessils, but always felt like they were just too expensive for what they are to be used on an SPS dominant tank. A friend gave me a deal on these I couldn't refuse, and I managed to work them in with my reef breeders to have the best of both worlds. I've been working on acclimating the spectrum over very slowly over the course of 6 weeks or so now. I gradually turned off the white, red, and green channels on the reef breeders, and gradually ramped up the kessils on 100% full white color. Now my reef breeders are essentially acting as a blue blanket, and the kessils are acting as shimmer producing point sources. Par and coverage is still excellent as the reef breeders are still doing some heavy lifting, so I am not suffering from excessive hard shadowing, but I am enjoying the absolutely beautiful hard shimmer lines I've missed from the days of MH. One of the units has been giving me fits, but i think I have it all sorted out.

I also got rid of my algae turf scrubber. It worked well, but due to my stand/sump infrastructure it was just too much of a pain to clean and was a major headache so I had to let it go. I've ramped up GFO use and carbon dosing to offset the increase in nutrients. I also swapped out the smaller simplicity skimmer for a huge (to me) Tunze 9430. This week i also began dosing a DIY coral snow which has performed as advertised on creating that freaky transparent water clarity. Very happy with it thus far.

That's all for now. I leave you with a full tank shot. I'll try some more SPS in about a month to see if things are improving. I'm always open to advice if anyone reading this has some.

 

[JCOLE]

Been quite a while since an update to this thread. My tank lately has been eerily similar to what I experienced in 2015-2016 or so with my 90 gallon. I started that tank up in a similar manner. Used rock from a previous build, plus a lot of pre-cured dry rock, and it was nothing but problems. Healthy fish, but every coral I would put in would wilt away over a 2-3 week period. Happening on this tank as well.

To this day I've now killed probably 100 or more frags in this tank over the last year. The rocks are absolutely coated in coraline algae. The whole tank is basically purple, including all the snail shells. Lots of feather dusters, pineapple sponges, and non-photosynthetic yellow sponge growth. The only corals that seem to be happy are a couple favor, and my frogspawn. Even the zoos have half melted away. I've been here before.

On my 90 gallon, adding some ocean harvested live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater seemed to get me over the hump and acted as a catalyst to improved tank health which allowed SPS to thrive. Or so it seemed anyway. I have added about 10 pounds of fresh Tampa Bay rock to this sump now as well in hopes that will behave much the same way. If this doesn't work, I'm completely out of ideas. Tank is now approaching the 1.5 year old mark since setup, and the rocks cured for longer than that. So I'm not sure I can continue to blame this on young tank syndrome.

Measurable parameters are ok, kind of in the range I've always hung out
400-450 ppm calcium
7.5 DKH
0.1 ppm PO4
5 ppm NO3
1350 ppm Mg
35 ppt salinity
78-79 degrees warm
Tons of flow
sanded par is 100-150
par on the rocks is 200-350

No busted magnets. No pests, fish or otherwise.

Everything checks out. Now i'll continue to wait and see if the real live rock addition has any visible impact.

Onto new stuff:

I invested in some new lighting equipment. I've always been a sucker for the look of Kessils, but always felt like they were just too expensive for what they are to be used on an SPS dominant tank. A friend gave me a deal on these I couldn't refuse, and I managed to work them in with my reef breeders to have the best of both worlds. I've been working on acclimating the spectrum over very slowly over the course of 6 weeks or so now. I gradually turned off the white, red, and green channels on the reef breeders, and gradually ramped up the kessils on 100% full white color. Now my reef breeders are essentially acting as a blue blanket, and the kessils are acting as shimmer producing point sources. Par and coverage is still excellent as the reef breeders are still doing some heavy lifting, so I am not suffering from excessive hard shadowing, but I am enjoying the absolutely beautiful hard shimmer lines I've missed from the days of MH. One of the units has been giving me fits, but i think I have it all sorted out.

I also got rid of my algae turf scrubber. It worked well, but due to my stand/sump infrastructure it was just too much of a pain to clean and was a major headache so I had to let it go. I've ramped up GFO use and carbon dosing to offset the increase in nutrients. I also swapped out the smaller simplicity skimmer for a huge (to me) Tunze 9430. This week i also began dosing a DIY coral snow which has performed as advertised on creating that freaky transparent water clarity. Very happy with it thus far.

That's all for now. I leave you with a full tank shot. I'll try some more SPS in about a month to see if things are improving. I'm always open to advice if anyone reading this has some.

Sorry to hear about this. The last 4 months have not been good for me either. I know I am going to get some flack for saying this but what if you slapped your halides back on the system? Not saying the LEDs are bad or cannot get the job done but at this point it couldn't hurt. Go easy on me. It's just a thought

 

[Bpb]

Sorry to hear about this. The last 4 months have not been good for me either. I know I am going to get some flack for saying this but what if you slapped your halides back on the system? Not saying the LEDs are bad or cannot get the job done but at this point it couldn't hurt. Go easy on me. It's just a thought

They’ve all been sold. If I didn’t experience some of the most explosive growth over the last couple years of my 90 gallon using leds, I’d absolutely be keen on switching back. I just know it’s not the issue. And on my 90 gallon I watched coral after coral die under xm10k’s and radiums. I love metal halides. But I love them for how they look. Not necessarily that they’re a guarantee of success like some individuals in the lighting forum swear lol. On top of that, my tank is in a small room and the water volume alone makes the room hot and stuffy and slightly smelly. Halides would push that over the edge. Sorry to hear you’ve had some struggles as well. What’s been the problem?

 

[blstravler]

Sorry to hear of all the troubles. Have you been able to keep any thing ‘easier’ like a Digi alive or does everything just die? Also assume you did an ICP and all is good?

 

[Bpb]

Sorry to hear of all the troubles. Have you been able to keep any thing ‘easier’ like a Digi alive or does everything just die? Also assume you did an ICP and all is good?

Tried some bubblegum digi from 3 different sources and they have died pretty quick. So far these have “survived” as in, they look fairly normal and healthy but with zero growth over the last year

Jawbreaker mushroom (local)
Assorted zoas (R2r classifieds, some growth)
Leptastrea (old tank)
5 different favia (one from my last tank 2 from TSA, 2 WWC )
3 psammacora (WWC)
1 frogspawn (local)

Aside from those I’ve lost several chalices, favia, zoas, a huge 6 year old bubble coral, goniopora, torches, acans, hammers, multiple montipora, and roughly 75 or so acros I’d guess. Sources of all corals attempted are a mix of WWC, TSA, and a handful of locals with healthy happy packed with mature growth tanks, containing many corals that came from me originally.

Did an ICP test a couple months ago and it was unremarkable. Nothing in excess, Iodine a touch low like most people.

 

[blstravler]

Tried some bubblegum digi from 3 different sources and they have died pretty quick. So far these have “survived” as in, they look fairly normal and healthy but with zero growth over the last year

Jawbreaker mushroom (local)
Assorted zoas (R2r classifieds, some growth)
Leptastrea (old tank)
5 different favia (one from my last tank 2 from TSA, 2 WWC )
3 psammacora (WWC)
1 frogspawn (local)

Aside from those I’ve lost several chalices, favia, zoas, a huge 6 year old bubble coral, goniopora, torches, acans, hammers, multiple montipora, and roughly 75 or so acros I’d guess. Sources of all corals attempted are a mix of WWC, TSA, and a handful of locals with healthy happy packed with mature growth tanks, containing many corals that came from me originally.

Did an ICP test a couple months ago and it was unremarkable. Nothing in excess, Iodine a touch low like most people.

A few months ago I had some issue with all my SPS. Mostly because I lost track of the tank maintenance as both my parents feel very sick. But months after getting my maintenance back in line - I kept having SPS randomly die. Did the ICP and the only thing I changed was I upped my Iodine (a lot). I recently saw the interview with Shane from SBB corals and he swears by keeping his iodine in check. Could be a total coincidence but it’s the only thing I changed to fix the issue (aside from getting back to good tank maintenance routine). I also noticed great improvement in color. Maybe give Iodine a try?

 

[Bpb]

A few months ago I had some issue with all my SPS. Mostly because I lost track of the tank maintenance as both my parents feel very sick. But months after getting my maintenance back in line - I kept having SPS randomly die. Did the ICP and the only thing I changed was I upped my Iodine (a lot). I recently saw the interview with Shane from SBB corals and he swears by keeping his iodine in check. Could be a total coincidence but it’s the only thing I changed to fix the issue (aside from getting back to good tank maintenance routine). I also noticed great improvement in color. Maybe give Iodine a try?

Adding a little lugols is on my radar and to-do list actually. How does he/you test iodine, or do you just add a small amount sparingly? Hobby grade tests seem like garbage and icp tests are too expensive to use super frequently. Zero iodine was basically the only standout thing on my ICP test.

 

[blstravler]

Adding a little lugols is on my radar and to-do list actually. How does he/you test iodine, or do you just add a small amount sparingly? Hobby grade tests seem like garbage and icp tests are too expensive to use super frequently. Zero iodine was basically the only standout thing on my ICP test.

I couldn’t find a good hobby grade test so I’ve committed myself to ICP test monthly. After being way low I started dosing Iodine from Brightwell. It was too much to measure and I went to about 3 drop or so of Lugols each week. My last ICP test it was really high so now I’ve gone down to one drop a week and I’ll send my next ICP this week to see how it works. So far even though it’s high the tank seems very happy.

Here is my latest Iodine reading from ICP -

 

[JCOLE]

They’ve all been sold. If I didn’t experience some of the most explosive growth over the last couple years of my 90 gallon using leds, I’d absolutely be keen on switching back. I just know it’s not the issue. And on my 90 gallon I watched coral after coral die under xm10k’s and radiums. I love metal halides. But I love them for how they look. Not necessarily that they’re a guarantee of success like some individuals in the lighting forum swear lol. On top of that, my tank is in a small room and the water volume alone makes the room hot and stuffy and slightly smelly. Halides would push that over the edge. Sorry to hear you’ve had some struggles as well. What’s been the problem?

I lost about 80% of my Acro's. A couple of things happened that could have attributed to this. Everything was looking great up until I had my water heater disaster in March. Shortly afterward is when most of my pieces started losing color, etc. They just never recovered and slowly withered away. Maybe water from the water heater sprayed in my tank, drywall from cutting out sheetrock etc got into the system. Who knows? My Nutrients skyrocketed during this time from what was low(No3 - 5-10ppm and Po4 .05) to around 80ppm of No3 and .25-.35 for Po4. I sent off an ICP and nothing was really low except for Iodine and Iron. I started dosing both and now they are back up to normal levels.

I see where you mentioned a good Iodine tester. I use the method @Rick Mathew came up with. Have you seen this before? He uses a Hanna Nitrite tester with Red Sea Iodine reagents to test. It only takes a couple of minutes and is really accurate. I tested this with the .06 sample that Red Sea sends and the Hanna read .06. It is the best hobby Iodine tester I have seen so far. I made a spreadsheet that has these formulas already in them so all I have to do is input the reading the tester gives me and it does the rest. If interested then let me know and I will send you the spreadsheet. You don't need it to test as you can just do the math on your own. It does save some time though if you decide to test Iodine more often.

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE In my quest to improve my testing accuracy and precision I found the standard colorimetric tests for Iodine difficult to get any kind of accurate reading and the repeatability (precision) was not...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Bpb]

I lost about 80% of my Acro's. A couple of things happened that could have attributed to this. Everything was looking great up until I had my water heater disaster in March. Shortly afterward is when most of my pieces started losing color, etc. They just never recovered and slowly withered away. Maybe water from the water heater sprayed in my tank, drywall from cutting out sheetrock etc got into the system. Who knows? My Nutrients skyrocketed during this time from what was low(No3 - 5-10ppm and Po4 .05) to around 80ppm of No3 and .25-.35 for Po4. I sent off an ICP and nothing was really low except for Iodine and Iron. I started dosing both and now they are back up to normal levels.

I see where you mentioned a good Iodine tester. I use the method @Rick Mathew came up with. Have you seen this before? He uses a Hanna Nitrite tester with Red Sea Iodine reagents to test. It only takes a couple of minutes and is really accurate. I tested this with the .06 sample that Red Sea sends and the Hanna read .06. It is the best hobby Iodine tester I have seen so far. I made a spreadsheet that has these formulas already in them so all I have to do is input the reading the tester gives me and it does the rest. If interested then let me know and I will send you the spreadsheet. You don't need it to test as you can just do the math on your own. It does save some time though if you decide to test Iodine more often.

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE In my quest to improve my testing accuracy and precision I found the standard colorimetric tests for Iodine difficult to get any kind of accurate reading and the repeatability (precision) was not...

www.reef2reef.com

That is a fantastic resource I’d love to have the spreadsheet

 

[JCOLE]

That is a fantastic resource I’d love to have the spreadsheet

I just sent it to you. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

 

[Bpb]

Ordered a couple more ICP tests, and the iodine testing stuff. I dont expect it to be a total game changer but couldnt hurt to keep in the ballpark on a pretty important parameter. Everything should be here today. I'll measure it myself and check my accuracy with an ICP test then begin a dosing regiment.

One change made (per recommendation by the program) was to switch to NP Bacto Balance from Elimi NP. My phosphate getting up to nearly 0.4 made me break my "not messing with GFO" mantra and I put a miniscule amount in. I've been running only 6 tablespoons and replacing it every 2-3 weeks. It's only a 1/3 dose based on what my tank calls for but that has brought phosphate down under 0.1 where I feel like most people agree it should be.

Since adding the tampa bay rock, and switching to NP Bacto Balance/reducing phosphate it has been bacterial bloom after bacterial bloom. Tank is constantly milky white. I can clear it up with coral snow but that only works for a day or two, then its back to haze for days. I can only imagine it is the plethora of new species of microbes brought in by the tampa bay rock, but this is going on for over a month now. Surely at some point it should clear up on its own right?

 

[Bpb]

Not much fun to share. But a build thread with only words tends to get kinda boring.

 

[Bpb]

Tank is trucking along. Keeping it as simple as possible. Sps are finally doing more than dying or sitting still. Things are actively encrusting which is good. Still struggling with low ph and can’t supplement anything yet. As water changes and my occasional use of kalk paste to kill aiptasia are enough to keep me up at 8.4 dkh. I ordered a few clams to hopefully start soaking up some dkh so I can start supplementing kalkwasser regularly to try and boost ph and speed up growth.

 

[Bpb]

The latest adventure of the tank:

I've tried to stay on top of keeping my skimmer pump clean. Having a pump external to the skimmer body has long been a preference of mine because removing and disassembling an entire skimmer is a pain. I guess last time I put the bushing back in the socket perfectly straight on the magnet side, which cause it to run slightly crooked.

The result was 3 days of the magnet's plastic coating rubbing on the side wall of the pump, causing it to heat up, which ultimately melted some of it onto the impeller shaft, and seizing the bushing to the impeller itself. The bushing cracked and broke in half upon removal, and the drive shaft is all rough.

Per advice from Tunze, I've ordered a new impeller and bushing set, and have used some 400 grit (they recommended 800 grit, but I didnt have any on hand and couldnt get to the hardware store), to gently sand the impeller shaft smooth again.

New Impeller should arrive in the mail today. I'm hoping this works. If not I'll have to buy a new pump entirely, which is not a fun purchase. This was the one annoying part about leaving the Lifereef platform and going to Tunze instead on this tank. While the performance and footprint of the Tunze is superior to that of the Lifereef, I hate being locked into a proprietary system of components. Standard schedule 40 and whatever pump you choose is definitely a huge set of thumbs up in favor of Lifereef skimmers. But, such is life.

Next issue is the aiptasia. I went to such great lengths to eliminate them from this system, only to have one sneak in on a frag. Despite my best efforts to keep them controlled through chemical means, it has served only to spread them. You cant really see them standing back and looking at the tank, because I kill them before they can get larger than 0.5" or so, but that just means there are tiny ones in a virtually innumerable mass. Looking close, in any given 3" cubed volume of hard surface in the tank, you can find no less than 10-20 tiny little aiptasia creeping out of every crevice in the tank. Many cannot be reached by my hands to kill. Some of the ones on underhangs in the back are monster sized and I just simply cannot get to them. Removing rock isnt an option because my rock work is all cemented together.

I dont trust peppermint shrimps or fish for this job. The tales of them going rogue are just too frequent. Filefish, butterflies, and peppermints seem just as likely to pick sps polyps, lps flesh, and zoas as they are to eat aiptasia. Not worth the risk. I think the next solution will be to try Berghia Nudibranchs. I've avoided them to this point due to the cost associated, but I'll pony up now. Any advice on Berghia from those experienced with them?

 

[Daftendire]

It's good to see a system start to pick up speed. Did you ever find out what was impeding coral growth? I may have missed this but did you ever start to dose for iodine?

 

[Bpb]

It's good to see a system start to pick up speed. Did you ever find out what was impeding coral growth? I may have missed this but did you ever start to dose for iodine?

I had several conversations with SunnyX and Adam from battlecorals on the matter. I’ve been in the hobby a while. Had success previously I was happy with, and am pretty good at reporting most every typical measurable issue people run into with coral problems.

I SUSPECTED without mentioning to them that I was still suffering from some degree of microbial issue. I felt like despite my best efforts to start the tank with diversity, it just wasn’t sufficient. And the new tank headaches lasted a while.

They both independently, without my leading, recommended I add a significant percentage of real ocean harvested live rock. In my previous tank I struggled as well and within a few months of adding some real live rock, everything just began heading the right direction.

So I heeded their advice which was in line with my gut instinct and ordered 15 pounds of rock from Tampa bay saltwater to load the sump with. And like clock work, within a month, the couple sps I still had that were clinging to life suddenly started to encrust, I added a pack of about a dozen acros from a local and they almost all immediately began encrusting. What makes me happy about the above pictures, is not showing off frags I bought. Those were all fresh cuts. Glued immediately. Not pre-conditioned and healed pieces I ordered. So all the encrusting you see is actual growth in my ownership, which I am thrilled about.

At this point, I feel like a broken record. Any time I read someone lamenting about their 1-2 year old tank struggling, despite major elements being stable, lighting and flow being adequate, and nutrients being in range, I always just say “toss in some real live rock. It’ll likely do the trick with no other effort needed”.

I don’t know why this idea hasn’t gotten more traction, but I absolutely believe the chief contributing factor to why hobbyists now struggle in ways they never used to has everything to do with live rock and the lack thereof.

We read endless debates over leds ruining the hobby by old school purists, and equipment retailers saying “well hobbyists struggle now because skimmers and filtration are SO efficient now, that everyone overdoes it”.

I wholeheartedly disagree with all of the above. It all boils down to the fact that everyone starts their tank with sterile rock and sand. You cannot bottle up the magic of live rock. You can’t “lights out” your way past the “ugly stage” and suddenly have a teeming and beautiful tank at the 3 month mark. No tricks. No products. Gotta be the real thing, and from the ocean.

Also…I did start conservatively dosing iodine. I brought myself up to the safe range quickly, and I’ve dosed one single drop on the 1st of the month every month since. Need to do another triton test to see if that has kept it where it needs to be, or if it needs to be modified

 

[Daftendire]

Appreciate the thorough explanation. It's interesting that your multi-year coralline covered rock wasn't able to sustain the system like everyone would expect.

I have a similar situation with a two year old dry rock tank with all kinds of sps/lps issues - across the room from a AIO nano with Australian live rock that seems like it will grow anything.

 

[Bpb]

Appreciate the thorough explanation. It's interesting that your multi-year coralline covered rock wasn't able to sustain the system like everyone would expect.

I have a similar situation with a two year old dry rock tank with all kinds of sps/lps issues - across the room from a AIO nano with Australian live rock that seems like it will grow anything.

Nobody was more confused and disappointed than me. But the fresh live rock recharge did the trick. I’ll likely make ordering a recharge pack of rock every couple years part of my routine.