BPB’s 150 gallon

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Scrubber harvest day. GFO reactor going up this weekend

 

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Seeing some brittle looking tips on these new sps so far. Harder to tell on a couple. But the tips on the digi are getting a little algae growth and they’re looking a little burnt on one of the Acros. Shame. Looks like things still are a lot volatile on the microscopic level.

 

[BCSreef]

I’ve ordered a gallon of HCGFO

Go slow with that stuff. Easy to bottom out PO4.

Curious to see how skimmerless works long term. Mine went crazy last week for no apparent reason and foamed a section of the concrete basement floor. I would love to eliminate it.

 

[Bpb]

Worlds smallest Ricordea is the newest member of the family. It's about 1/8" wide lol. Thanks @Spanky05

Pic was really just for attention.

GFO is on board for the first time in I dont know how long. I've never used the high capacity gfo before, and I tell you, it rinses infinitely easier than the regular stuff. It ran clear even easier than rox0.8 carbon does. Hopefully this will start doing work on my phosphate issue.

My Digi and acros are struggling. Majorly burnt tips and brittle tissue. I don't expect them to make it, but they're not dead yet. I've had worse looking specimens bounce back. But that was in a much more mature and stable tank. Honestly, I feel "lied to" to a certain extent by BRS. Not to speak down on the company as I use them often. It wasn't THEIR idea of dark cycling rocks. But there was so much publication on their part about doing the first several months of a dry rock tank without lights to bypass the ugly stage entirely and that has NOT been my experience. Not by a long shot. It was truthfully my own idea to do a 2 year dark cure, but at this point I feel like it was largely a failure. Not entirely, but about 80% maybe. The hair algae is so thick on the rocks. The fish keep it trimmed short like a buzz cut, but it's not going anywhere any time soon I can say that with confidence.

I miss coraline algae, sponges, and all of the biodiverse colors of my last tank, just on the rocks alone. Acros just seemed to thrive the minute they went in and I am feeling a little dejected. Almost like I'm having to re-learn the hobby. I'm rethinking things I was so certain about. Are my lights programmed adequately? Was going the scrubber route really the best call? Considering the skimmer/carbon dosing has been such an effective method for me. I don't know at this point.

Thoughts on maybe putting a small/undersized skimmer in my sump and doing some carbon dosing again perhaps? Or thoughts on carbon dosing WITHOUT a skimmer entirely? I dont know. Sort of venting at this point. I likely am just being impatient, but it is because I was so certain that curing my rocks for 2 years would have just done the trick, and it didnt. My curing tank maintained 0-0.03 po4 at the highest during it's life in my garage. Now I'm loading up on GFO and putting my fish on a diet to get it down. What gives?

 

[Bpb]

Go slow with that stuff. Easy to bottom out PO4.

Curious to see how skimmerless works long term. Mine went crazy last week for no apparent reason and foamed a section of the concrete basement floor. I would love to eliminate it.

I over did it. Dropped phosphate from 0.24 to 0.01 in 4 days with half dose amount. Killed my new digi

 

[Bpb]

Well! My JBJ Ato served faithfully for 8 years but finally went down for the big long sleep. What’s the go-to ATO nowadays?

 

[Butcher333]

I’m having acro, digi issues right now. My highlighter and half my SPS started losing flesh from tips and receding. Some just fine. Was having a lot of mesenterial threads. Everything was going so well and them. Poop. I guess too low of nutrients. I started working all day and all I can think is after seeing how little my wife was feeding that maybe the nutrients dropped too much. Either that or bacterial. Totally sucks.

 

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I’m having acro, digi issues right now. My highlighter and half my SPS started losing flesh from tips and receding. Some just fine. Was having a lot of mesenterial threads. Everything was going so well and them. Poop. I guess too low of nutrients. I started working all day and all I can think is after seeing how little my wife was feeding that maybe the nutrients dropped too much. Either that or bacterial. Totally sucks.

I’ve played that game too many times, myself. At this point the only constant I’ve been able to identify on sps really thriving is age of the system as it is. As in, the rock scape, sandbed, and general infrastructure as a whole of the tank. Any time I do a major rescape, set up a new tank, mess with the sand at all, or do any kind of major change to anything involved with those things I have problems.

I know people set up new tanks all the time, move around their rocks, add/remove sand, ect and they do just fine with it. I’ve never had that luck. My tanks always tend to need to sit as they are for about a year without change before sps will hit their stride.

With my lengthy rock cure I was hoping to expedite that process but by the looks of it, I won’t be so lucky! My LPS look as good as ever. Maybe I’ll invest in more of those so I actually feel like the tank is going somewhere. Im just so hesitant to let anything claim rock space because I really want it all reserved for acropora.

Im not typically “oh no there’s algae!” Guy, but this hair algae is becoming tiresome to look at. The tangs and foxface constantly keep it trimmed short but it’s coated every surface and now is beginning to coat the sand. Gfo and algae scrubber are rocking and keeping PO4 between 0.03 -0.06 but it just won’t let up. Installing a skimmer this weekend to likely begin carbon dosing again. I’ve never run such aggressive biological and chemical export means before. I think some poly filter and a water change or two would do me some good as well. Haven’t done a water change since setup.

 

[dragon99]

Remind me again, from left it's bonfire, bill murray, aquaticman? There were all green for awhile but starting to color up a bit.

sooo update on those three, Bill Murray is on fire. (image is reverse of previous order). Bonfire (left above, right below) is definitely the runt of this litter.

 

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sooo update on those three, Bill Murray is on fire. (image is reverse of previous order). Bonfire (left above, right below) is definitely the runt of this litter.

I’m going to have to take note of the big encrusters among the group and use those on the spots where certain rocks articulate to form a natural cement.

@BCSreef I decided to go ahead and install a skimmer again courtesy of @dragon99. Popped in a simplicity 240 dc. Slightly under sized but that was kind of my goal, plus it’s the biggest one that would fit. I’ve got about 8” between the top of my sump and the ceiling of my stand so nothing wider will actually fit which rules out a lot of “proper sized” skimmers. This will allow me to start carbon dosing again.

 

[Jacked Reefer]

Following! Can’t wait to see where this is going.

 

[Bpb]

Following! Can’t wait to see where this is going.

Thanks for joining. It’s going good places. Just not as quickly as I’d like. I’ve been here before. It’ll pass

 

[BCSreef]

I over did it. Dropped phosphate from 0.24 to 0.01 in 4 days with half dose amount. Killed my new digi

I did the same thing with LaCl3 a few weeks ago. PO4 went from 0.15 to 0.029 (ICP). Nothing died, but had some colors fade. Colors still not normal.

I did lose all my macro algae!

 

[BCSreef]

Im not typically “oh no there’s algae!” Guy, but this hair algae is becoming tiresome to look at. The tangs and foxface constantly keep it trimmed short but it’s coated every surface and now is beginning to coat the sand. Gfo and algae scrubber are rocking and keeping PO4 between 0.03 -0.06 but it just won’t let up. Installing a skimmer this weekend to likely begin carbon dosing again. I’ve never run such aggressive biological and chemical export means before. I think some poly filter and a water change or two would do me some good as well. Haven’t done a water change since setup.

The ugly stage will pass. I agree that age of the system plays a big part. You'll get there!

For an ATO, I used to use a Tunze, but after I started using a GHL controller, I used it with an optical, primary sensor and a float as a secondary. Both worked well.

So you are back to a skimmer. Once I get the scrubber, I thought I might abandon skimming. However, the skimmer with outside pumped in, plays a major part in keeping my pH reasonably high during AC season. Since we had new winddowns installed, the house is so sealed up. I have since decided to keep the skimmer for both nutrient control and CO2 control.

 

[Bpb]

Scrubber looks like it is at a predictable 14 day clean time which I’m fine with. I’ve gotten the process down to about 20 minutes for a full removal, cleaning, and reassembly. Skimmer is performing well and the cup needs emptying every 3 days or so. High capacity gfo is holding phosphate down at near undectable levels still on the first half strength batch. We are at 26 days since installing it.

New ATO arrives today which is good. Also need to set up the auto feeder. Never used one of those before and I’ve been avoiding it. I’m old and set in my ways. Never used an auto feeder before. Need to get it running before I go on vacation, but not sure I’d trust it. Either it doesn’t run at all, and my anthias starve, or it dumps it all in and I’ve got another problem on that end.

Despite the rapid necrosis I encountered with my tester pieces, they’re all still alive and showing signs of bouncing back. If I stay the course I expect they’ll all recover.

Biggest goal right now equipment wise is obtaining a kalkwasser reactor I can hook up to the Neptune dos that’s been sitting in my garage for a year but BRS has been out of stock on the avast marine one for a while. Most kalk reactors seem to get lousy reviews but this one seems to be decently reliable if installed correctly. Space is a concern so that takes several manufacturers out of the discussion

 

[Oldsman]

Sounds like your bouncing back ! I really struggle w patience , always tinkering w flow or feeding and it effected the corals. Once I've kept my hands out , their showing better colors and opening more. I picked up a large cuc order from reefcleaners..and all the snails are cleaning the refugium instead of the dt..oh well

 

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Went ahead and mounted my second light. Even with two since the optics are so tight, I get major falloff on the ends and on the back glass which will make frag racks a challenge in the future. I really would rather not have them on the front glass. It’s just such an eye sore.

Desperately need to get some CUC in here. Despite keeping nutrients bottomed out at undetectable levels for a couple months now, and doing major turf scrubber harvests, the display remains coated in turf algae which has now taken the sandbed over as well. Sps look horrid. But…gonna have to
Bring the keepers back over likely after I get back from vacation. If I lose them all, I’ll sit here with a fish tank for another year or so before I try again with sps

 

[Bpb]

Brief update. Nutrients staying pretty low. Still can’t get any nitrate detection. I have upped my feeding considerably and turned down the lights on the algae scrubber. I will start dosing amino acids within the next week. Going to give the Bright well amino‘s a try.

I went ahead and picked up all the acros that I had saved from my last tank. Thanks @dragon99 for taking such good care of them. One went RTN in a flash after a couple days but the rest look pretty good still. I chopped them off the bases and put on fresh plugs so I had to sacrifice considerable encrusting growth. Gradually increasing light intensity to get the rocks scape up in the 350 range. I kept it a bit lower since I didn’t have a ton of sps mounted.

I think I’ll do something I’ve not done before and start filling out the bottom with lps. I’ve never really been big on lps. But I think I’ll give them a go in this tank. Always been afraid of torches and goniopora so that may be a challenge I address.

I also started a weekly phytoplankton dosing regiment. I have a local source of very high quality live phyto. Goal is to beef up the food chain from the bottom up over a long sustained period of time. Will see how that does. I will also forego any wrasses for the time being as to avoid decimation of pods and filter feeders. I’m enjoying seeing feather dusters flourish. Never had that before. Starting to get heavy heavy sponge growth which is a good sign as well. Cerith and margarite snails have nearly cleared my nuisance algae entirely which I am pleased to report. I scrub the back glass every couple days and the snails keep the entire weir spotless. Not even any biofilm.

Pics for attention.

 

[Bpb]

Well that didn’t age well. Guess the tank just still isn’t ready. Most the acros are dead or dying. So it goes. Beginning to go with what the tank is giving me and stocking lps and zoas for now. Will fill it out the best I can and try again with sps in a year or so. Just don’t have the biological diversity and stability yet I guess. Here’s a few new pickups from today. These were shortly after dipping and adding. Will need some time to inflate more

 

[biecacka]

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