Darkrabbit's Red Sea Reefer 250... reef

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darkrabbit

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Water Test Update and Salt Mix Issue

Did a water test yesterday, got this:

Alk: 9.3 (what the heck???)
Cal: 410 (ok fine)
PO4: 0.13 (come on....)

I did a 5g water change a few days before the testing, I am using Red Sea Coral Pro and I think it's driving my numbers up. I don't think I'll be able to get my Alk down to 8, stable, and still use this stuff. RSCP targets between 11-12 Alk which is too high for me.

The other problem is stability, I am currently dosing 1mL / day for Alk however even if I stop dosing, every time I do a water change I am going to get an Alk swing.

As a result I am forced to change salts to something else, and am going to get Tropic Marin Pro Reef. It sucks in a way because TMP costs a wee bit more:

TMP: $130 / 200gal = $0.65/gal
RSCP: $84 / 175gal = $0.48/gal

Which is a 35% price jump. Yikes.

But as an added bonus aside from better parameters (for me), RSCP is terrible in terms of residue. It's basically not possible to keep it in a bucket for longer than 4 hours without getting sediment. TMP remains mixed with no sediment for months. Since I am going Triton, I don't see myself using too much mix so the price difference won't be as painful.

On the topic of PO4, something is reintroducing phosphates after I pulled my GFO, and I suspect it could be the die off of the cyano. It is starting to slowly disappear, SLOWLY, and perhaps it's adding this stuff back in the water. I am going to add some GFO again, maybe half the recommended dose, just to make sure the death of cyano doesn't feed something else.

Triton Update - Dosing Gear

On the topic of dosing, I have decided to wait until Black Friday deals start coming to get the pumps and Triton stuff. If I buy them now and BRS has a sale on them in 2 weeks, I'll be.... displeased. This pushes out my Triton migration a bit but clearly I need the time to get my water parameters a bit more in check.
 
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Just got my teeth kicked in on Black Friday

BRS.... hate you so much right now. dang you and your deals! :)

Black Friday is done (for me) and I made a total of 3 BRS orders over the past week for:

- 5L of Triton reagent (each)
- 2 x Neptune DOS pumps
- Amino acids (and got coral food for free with it)
- 4 x ICP OES Test kits
- Hammerhead float scraper

... and...

- Aquatic Life T5 hybrid fixture! with ATI bulbs (2xBlue+, 1xPurple+, 1xCoral+)

I couldn't resist. The pricing was just too good, and I've been debating T5 hybrid for some time as my AI Primes have a lot of shadow because of my rock layout.

In addition...

Picked up a Neptune EB8 from someone on the forum.

An expensive Black Friday week overall, but it'll be worth it.

I'll probably go get all this stuff on Dec 10 or so from the US mailbox I have.
 
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Blue Tuxedo Urchins are Jerks

Hey paly! Think I’ll wear your children as a hat. That cool?

CC4A3F0F-A294-4A17-85E4-79DA7CBEF0BB.jpeg




Didn’t know they did that. It’s been 3 days and he’s still wearing them lol. I might try and release them onto a plug this weekend.
 
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Going Triton Method

Now that all the gear has arrived it's time to start the Triton method using the Core7 elements. My plan is to do Triton for 1 year and re-evaluate. If it works, great, I'll continue. If it's not for me, I will already have the dosing pumps I need for 2 part and auto water changes.

Why I am going Triton (in order of importance):

  • Fewer water changes / low maintenance. I am somewhat realistic about this, knowing that I'll need to perform them once in a while when commanded to do so by the Triton overlords. That being said I am very much looking forward to eliminating this time consuming, messy task from my list of weekly / biweekly duties.
  • High quality reagents. From what I understand the Core7 Cal, Alk, and Mag additions with the trace elements are very high quality. This means I don't have to worry too much about brands and what the right amount is for each. Speaking of which....
  • Eliminate the guesswork of dosing. I dose 1 part of each into the tank. Simple. Whatever that '1 part' is in terms of quantity, it should be consistent across all 4 reagents.
  • It's been done. Plenty of people using this method to maintain very healthy and stable tanks. So I know it works, and it's just a matter of figuring it out for my tank.
Not a significant factor:

  • Cost savings. I am fairly sure this is going to be the same cost as water changes, especially shipping ICP tests. So I don't see any gains here.

Equipment I needed to get:

  • My sump. A while back I picked up the Crystal Reef Aquatics RSRN250 with the idea that this is a Triton capable sump.
  • Neptune Dos pumps. This is BY FAR the most expensive aspect of this little project. Christ almighty, $400CDN a pop, and I needed 2 of them. My comfort comes from knowing that I can use them down the road for auto water changes and other dosing if Triton falls through. I went with Dos because of the Apex integration and relatively consistent reviews on their quality. They're the size of a cinder block though.
  • 375mL VOSS water bottles. Someone on this forum had the idea to use these for dosing containers, which is frankly brilliant. Rather than spending money on dosing containers, just use these. The Neptune dosing containers weren't even remotely considered due to their cost.
  • 4 x 5L containers of Triton Core7 reagents. I figured if I am going to pay for reagents then I might as well get the large bottles because I don't want to run out and get stuck if they go on back order, which has happened to others in the past. Also, considering the base dose is 5mL / day this should last me ~1000 days IF they don't expire and this is the dose I need on average. If I decide Triton isn't for me, I am QUITE sure I can sell the remaining amount. This stuff is VERY hard to get in Canada.
  • 4 x Triton ICP Tests. I figure I'd use all 4 over 1 year, so snatched these up.

With the sump in my possession I ordered the remaining items (save the VOSS bottles) from BRS on Black Friday. Got some decent deals and had it shipped to my US box. I used this time to get my Alk stable to ~8.0 which is the recommended starting point for Triton.

Unfortunately one of the reagents froze, Core7 3B. Crystallized actually. I thought it was ruined but thanks to the helpful folks at BRS and Reef2Reef, I found out it just needed to sit in warm water for a while. Sure enough, it worked.

Set up

I got to work on mounting the pumps. Did I mention the size of these things? Geez…

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As a result, I had to mount them in different spots. I chose these locations because I had no room left, and decided to stagger the pumps so I could see everything I needed to. I ordered some cable ties / clips so I can make this a lot neater later, so ignore the mess :)

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Calibrating and priming the pumps couldn't be easier really. All you need to do is follow the directions on the Apex. I calibrated using RODI water, then when I was done and needed to prime them for the reagents, I manually pumped dry for 5 seconds to create an air pocket in the line. Then I stuck the VOSS bottle of whatever reagent and ran the pump until the air pocket cleared. Otherwise there's no way to tell where the water ends and the reagent begins.

The initial recommended dose is 2mL / 100L, I estimated my RSR250 with sump had about 247L, which makes the initial requirement 4.94mL / day. I rounded to 5. I have to say setting this up couldn't be easier. It goes something like this:
  • Go into the Apex wizard to set up a dosing schedule.
  • Which Pump? 6 Right
  • How much a day? 5mL
  • Ok done.
Repeat 4 times. Easy.

But it's not all smiles and sunshine. The folks saying these pumps are loud are right. They are. Now you might not notice if the room the tank is in is relatively noisy but if you had these pumps in a quiet room and had no overflow or sump noise, you'd definitely get annoyed by the loud whirring noise every hour or so (x4).

Stabilizing

At this point I stopped water changes completely and dosed only. Now the idea is to maintain a stable 8 dkh Alkalinity, so this is a lot of monitoring and adjusting. With the Dos pumps it's somewhat easy. I wish you could apply a common config to all 4 pumps in one shot as opposed to adjusting each pump individually. There doesn't seem to be, granted I am new at this.

12/10 - Alk 8.0 Starting dose @ 5mL / day
12/11 - Alk 8.5, reduce to 3mL
12/13 - Alk 8.9, back off again, 2mL
12/14 - Alk 8.8, slow drop here, maintain
12/17 - Alk 8.8
12/19 - Alk 8.8
12/23 - Alk 9, rising, need to get back to 8, back off to 1.5mL
12/26 - Alk 9, back off again, 1mL, let drop to 8
1/2 - Alk 8.2, up to 1.2, start to stabilize
1/5 - Alk 7.8, up a bit to 1.3mL
1/6 - Alk 7.8, 1.4mL, a bit more
1/7 - Alk 7.9, good. ICP TEST SAMPLE TAKEN
1/8 - Alk 7.8, still ok.
1/9 - Alk 7.5, oh boy, up to 1.6mL
1/11 - Alk 7.5, up to 1.8mL (want it back to 8)
1/13 - Alk 7.4, ok... up to 2mL

And so on. Good times.

Jan 13 update: My consumption of alkalinity is starting to rise, I think stuff is growing as the corals are more used to the change to Triton now (my theory anyway). I've had to adjust my dosing to 2mL and probably will need to go higher.

I would love to give you more data, but Neptune is so staggeringly inept at making a useful reporting system within the Apex, getting a daily dose report is impossible. Can't even export data. Anyway…

It's not until I did this that I truly experienced the pain of a ~small tank, and why people say bigger is better. It really is hard to maintain a stable reading. The Core7 base elements are so concentrated that 0.1mL in any direction results in a drop or increase in Alkalinity over a relatively short period of time (2 days or so). That’s IF you believe the pumps can accurately dose 0.1mL increments. With a larger tank I'd dose a lot more and the percent change would be much lower. I am going to do some diligence and see whether I can add RODI to the elements to dilute and dose more. My concern here is that if the elements are heavier or lighter than the water, the overall solution density might change over a long period of time (@~3-4mL / day) resulting in inconsistent dosing. I think I'll do some searching and some math on the density of the element solution vs RODI. I understand this isn't the only factor in the ability to mix, but it's a start.

Here's the other problem: Some of the solutions react with salt water so they cannot touch it until dosed. Which means if your dosing output 'tubes' are close to the water and you get water splashing on them (which happens), they will react. I can't say for certain whether this causes an issue as the dosing will continually pump new solution in, but it's something to keep in mind when selecting your dosing line placement. I had to cut the plastic dosing tube on my Stealth sump because uncut it actually submerges below the fuge water line for some, IMO, stupid reason.

Triton Testing

With a stable ~7.8-7.9 it's time to pack off a water sample to Triton labs. It's easy, just go to their site, create a profile, enter your label numbers, and ship it off. They include a shipping label to 'a' lab so then you just need to pay for it with the carrier.

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The site is simple enough:

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As a Canadian it's a bit more work for me as I have to send it via Canada Post international, pay $14.42 for a 0.084g package, and pray they somehow don't screw it up in customs. Is an aquarium water sample considered restricted material due to biological content? Who knows. I would have preferred to send to a spot in Canada however trying to find lab information on Triton's website is like trying to measure trace elements by eyeballing your water. Impossible. They say send it to your nearest lab, but neglect to tell you where exactly that is. So I just used the shipping address on the US label they included.

I shipped it on Jan 10 2020. Let's see what comes back! I will post all test results and correction measures when I have them.

Initial impressions

So far I really like where this is headed. I do nothing with water right now other than topping up my ATO and keeping a standby garbage can of 20 gallons of mixed saltwater in case I need it. I haven't used a siphon or carried a water bucket since I started this and I couldn't be happier.

In terms of tank 'reaction', it's still undecided. My zoas and palys seem to be growing but that could be the result of the amino acids and other feedings I've changed up lately. My few SPS aren't looking great, I expect one to die, and I get that. Too many parameter changes due to my small tank. Keep in mind my tank also has nutrient issues, with a reasonable PO4 count (0.07) but 0 Nitrates which isn't good. I need to get that up there.

Also, I have red slime and a few other pest algaes creeping up again. Unrelated to this I am sure, again probably a nutrient problem. I will say my chaeto and dragon's breath look like they're growing so the trace elements feeding the macro seem to be doing their job.

In the end I'll say this, if I had a tank smaller than 50 gallon I wouldn't do Triton. I don't think stability would be possible. This is where auto water changes and 2 part would take the win.

I'll update as this moves along!
 
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PAR Metering

I've never used a PAR meter in my tank before, and with the addition of the T5's and the total uncertainty I have in my AI Primes' power, I decided to rent one. I picked up an Apogee MQ-210 from Fragbox here in the GTA for $25 (~3 days or so). I am going to state now that this was an eye opening experience and if you haven't done this before, just go do it. Allocate 2-3 hours in front of your tank and get readings. It will really give you confidence moving forward in your lighting, coral placement, etc.

Overview

My current setup is as follows:


My lighting schedule follows Saxby's, unchanged, however the T5's aren't on much as I am acclimating the tank to the new lights by doing +0.5 hours / week which will eventually be up to 5-6 hours total.

Now because Saxby has a lot of white, and so do the T5's, I am thinking of swinging to AB+ from BRS's test with the AI Primes, pictured below:

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So this was tested as well.

All PAR readings were taken at peak LED intensity. My T5's are not dimmable.

All tests were taken with the pumps off. I tried with pumps on and the PAR went +/-40 in some cases. The average PAR was reached with the pumps off, so that's what I used. The gyre's cause a lot of surface current.

Many tests that seemed odd were taken at least two times to verify. Some I didn't understand, like the sand bed having a lot of PAR, but it's not wrong! I checked the sand bed 4 times.

Note that this isn't a 3D image, so I can't show 3 dimensions of light readings :) but it should give you some idea. I took a somewhat decent pic of the tank and used Goodnotes to write the readings into the image. I got the idea of this format for recording PAR from Butuz in his build thread. Note that the top row of values is at the middle of the tank (where the primes are) and as you go down the values focus more on the rockwork, sand, and specific coral positions.

The tank pic is common between all tests and don't represent the actual light color.

Test 1: AB+ w/T5's

08A42A8E-1AFB-4E44-9A68-C35132B5B505.jpeg


First exposure to the lack of light I have here. At the absolute top at gyre level I am getting between 255 and 283. I expected more, to be honest, but that's how weak the AI primes seem to be. It also showed me the cone and spot lighting that seems to happen with LEDs.
  • The back parallel to the overflow column has negligible PAR. The sand is 90, the very top is 155. I won't be reading this one again.
  • The PAR at the sand bed seems high, much more so than I thought it would be.
  • My torch is getting…. Torched? 237 PAR for that guy, much higher than he needs.
  • My frag rack in back isn't getting much at all.
  • The light spread here, while obviously more intense in certain spots, is pretty even up front. But any corals wanting less than 200 PAR just wouldn't like it.
  • My plate monti is only getting 187 PAR at peak intensity which might not be enough, and maybe why he's not growing well.
Overall a good snapshot of my situation if I went with AB+. Now, let's see with Saxby.

Test 2: Saxby w/T5's

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All in all, the change to Saxby adds ~5-15 PAR, sometimes less. So not significant. I could run Saxby with the T5's and get a little more light, but the white he uses is just too much with my current T5 bulb combo.

Now T5's are here to stay for me, but just for fun, I wanted to try with LEDs only because I've been doing exactly that for the past year. Let's see just how bad this is. I only did a few samples, not as many as the others, as I already guessed where this is going.

Test 3: AB+, T5's off

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Starving! That's what I've been doing, starving them. Yes this is AB+ but Saxby's won't add much if the previous tests are any indication. In some spots it's sufficient light but in others it's outright mean.
  • 67 PAR on the UC Paly's. Wow…
  • 78 PAR on the Monti. You monster!
  • 90-105 on the front row corals, which for LPS isn't too bad I guess.
  • 65 on the Goni's…. Ok I've seen enough.
Summary here is the AI primes just aren't going to do the job on this tank. Right here is the point where I realized I bought the wrong lights.

Just for fun, let's toss Saxby on and see.

Test 4: Saxby, T5's off

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Ok it's a bit better. But still pretty rough.

Well I did everything else so I might as well do T5 only! Gonna get my $25 worth here!

Test 5: T5's on, LEDs off

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The T5's are better in my tank, period. Much better light, even coverage, less hot spots. Still not strong enough but you can see there's a notable improvement in PAR values. It looked good too!

Observations:
  • The high sand bed values at the front I am seeing I think are due to two factors: The lack of rock work shadowing and use of Coral+ which generates a lot of white. White really bumps PAR value it seems.
  • Closer to the surface isn't always closer to the light! The shadowing cast by rock work, such as my right most rock, is deceptive. Gotta think 3-dimensionally, e.g. maybe the coral is under the light but how many lights is he actually under from all angles when you consider the rock work blocks 2xT5 bulbs and 1/3 of the LED's?
  • I need to rethink my coral position with these values. For example, I have to see what the torch likes for PAR and maybe move him. If he likes ~200's then so be it, but if he doesn't he'd be well served by a move.
  • Corals, especially SPS, need light and food, and I wasn't providing either. Coupled with my low nutrients, when they actually GOT food they couldn't do anything with it. This would explain a lot of SPS issues I've had, at least partially.
  • I can experiment with height, and bring the entire light array down further to increase PAR, however this could get way too intense at the sand bed. I would need to try it.
As a result of all this testing I realized I have more testing to do :) I want to know what happens when I lower the lights, how the LED coverage narrows and if the T5's pick up some of the difference enough for LPS, giving a lot of LED coverage to SPS, and I wanted more readings based on time of day.

So I said screw it and bought a Seneye Reef when I returned the PAR meter :) It has a lot of functionality I don't care about (i.e. all of it) but it is reputed to have one of the most accurate PAR readings of a hobby-grade kit according to a BRS Investigates episode. For $200CDN, worth it to me.

In the meantime I decided to switch to AB+ as planned and make some photoperiod adjustments. I'll post when I have them figured out.

Expect an entirely new array of readings in the coming weeks / month :)
 
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Quick Updates

Triton going along...


Been maintaining a stable alk @ 7.8-7.9 with 2.0mL of reagent. Calcium just seems to sit right where it should in the 400's. Getting some decent growth with the zoas, palys, and I think my torch is starting to split. No comment on the plate monti... he's just not doing all that great. I'll give him at least another few weeks there though. He's had to deal with all my parameter changes.

I am going to bump my dose SLIGHTLY (by 0.1mL) just to get up above 8 alkalinity. Then that's it. No more changes!

Picked up some sticks!

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I don't know what these are lol, I forgot to ask the LFS but I picked up some SPS to see if I can keep them. Love the color! I am going to do a bit of a different acclimation on them though, now that I know my PAR values and read some more posts on the subject... speaking of which...

Coral Acclimation, am I doing it wrong?

Whenever I acclimate a coral, I do a drip first, then a dip with CoralRX, then I put it near the bottom of the tank and slowly raise it up over time until in a relatively good spot, then I put them where I think I want them, and then fasten them down. Reading a lot of posts, many SPS keepers just put them right where they want them off the bat, no light acclimation or anything, and are very successful. Because SPS are so sensitive to change and movement, moving constantly might stress them more than just putting them in one spot right away, which makes sense. I am going to try this with the sticks, well something similar. Gonna keep them at moderate height on my frag rack for a few days, maybe a week, then pop them off the plugs and put them in their permanent home. Knowing my PAR values I have a good idea where they'd be happiest, then it's just a matter of flow. Let's see how it works!

GSP, you sneaky...

I recently got some GSP and a cyphastrea, acclimated them and stuck them to the back glass, along with some extra Xenia (who has Xenia and doesn't have extra of it? :) )...

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Well this little thing showed up on my rock today, sorry for the blurry pic:

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The GSP must have floated some of his brood away. He would have gotten away with it if he didn't glow so well under my lights. I'll likely have to remove it, though part of me wants to drop a plug there and see if I can pick up a frag :)
 
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Found a Six Line!

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He’s getting acclimated :) blurry picture but yeah, very small and looks amazing! I added him into the tank with the lights off, he’s already found a great hiding hole right where my goby used to live. His size I think will help him acclimate to the other fish better, apparently six line wrasses can be aggressive. Speaking of gobies though...

Another Goby jumps to his death :(

My lid was off the tank slightly, like 1” and he managed to find the hole. Sucks. But he was so useful and fun to watch I immediately got another one. He went in the same time as the wrasse.

I think with the wrasse that might be it for my fish. I want 2 cardinals (mated pair) but I don’t think I should. That’s a lot of fish for a 55g display, considering what else I have. We’ll see, but for now it’ll be corals and CUC only.
 
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ICP Test Results

I got my ICP results from Triton, very very quickly. This was the sequence of events:

1/10 - shipped ICP test to US
1/20 - arrived at Triton (I assumed from here it goes to Germany)
1/20 - notified testing was underway
1/22 - notified my test results were in

Well turns out they have a lab in the US now! A while after I got my results they announced it. Excellent!

You are welcome to see my results:


Not as bad as I thought! I have issues but they are very manageable from what I can tell.

I'll post the 'key points' here:

  • Overall 1 red and a few yellows. I can deal with that!
  • Aluminum detected... interesting
  • Excessive Boron (this is the Red). Sounds bad..?
  • Low iodine
According to Triton, this is the first set of issues and corrective actions under "Help" which doesn't show under the link (odd):
  • Detected harmful elements, recommend 6 x 15% water changes over 6 weeks.
  • Detected aluminum, use ROWAPhos to remove
  • Detected elevated PO4, use media or feed less to remove (essentially) -- This makes no sense because the PO4 is 0.037 and RIGHT in the green area.
The report has more verbiage but you get the idea.

Here's the next set of issues which show up on the link above so I won't restate exact words:
  • Very important: Low Calcium and Magnesium
    • Calcium is 433 vs 440 and Mag is 1359 vs 1370. Not a panic :)
  • Important: Low Iodine
    • Fair enough! I might correct this one
  • Not important but beneficial: Lack of sulfur
    • Interesting... maybe
  • Fine tuning: Lots
    • Not quite there yet!
It's fantastic to get this level of detail and such helpful advice for sure. I nerded out on the report for some time, googling everything. When BRS did a video where they talked about Triton, they recommended addressing the red and ignore the yellow if you like. But follow the recommended actions. So I think I am going to do something similar here, and address the Very Important, Important, and all the "Help" corrective actions:
  • Do 6 x 15% water changes over 6 weeks with TMPro
  • Buy the Triton Calcium, Magnesium, and Iodine supplements and dose as recommended
  • Buy some ROWAPhos and use this to remove the Aluminum as well as replace my GFO.
It's interesting that the results don't seem to care about the one thing I have red in my tank (Boron). Perhaps the water changes will take care of it too.

With these in mind, I plan my next Triton test in 3 months time. Now to try and source Triton elements from Canada :(

-J
 
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Holy Nitrate Spike!

Did a nitrate test and saw this, keeping in mind I usually test zero.

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I've been trying to raise nitrates but geez! ~20ppm? Too much (I think, these API test kits suck donkey butt for color identification). I didn't understand how, then I realized I put in a new Goby who has sifted up a LOT of the deep sandbed. The last goby was quite settled so he didn't dig deep but this new one is just starting to explore so he's been tearing the tank apart. Seems the likely culprit.

So two things:

1) Wait, it will go down in time.
2) Back off feeding to 1x per day from 2x, just for now.
3) Get a new test kit, I just don't trust this one.

-J
 
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Been a busy month, but some quick updates

My six line is gone...

Gone... disappeared. No body, nothing. My top was on, so I don't see how he got out. There's NO SIGN of him in the tank. Nitrates aren't spiking as much so not sure if he's dead in there. Did he get out and flop around and go under my stand? Maybe. I have a camera snake so I am going to use that to look under the tank soon.

So are my Nitrates

Gone. Zero. Which I was hoping wouldn't happen. I think it's because I haven't been feeding as much combined with my chaeto exploding in size. Gotta up that feeding!

Torch is f'd and I learned how to resize

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He's been going south for some time but now he's pretty much finished. I moved him, tried to feed him, help him recover, but nothing worked. Shame... but he's been through hell with me this past year and a bit as I learned this hobby so... I get it. As you can see from the pic I also learned how to resize images. It's easy, and I'm a moron :).

Alk is getting sucked up!

Stuff's eating! Here's a general timeline of my alk over the past while:

Jan 30 - 7.9 (2.0mL Core 7 dose)
Feb 7 - 7.5 (Up to 2.3mL)
Feb 8 - 7.4 (Up to 2.5mL)
Feb 12 - 7.5 (Up to 2.7mL) - Noticed substantial healing and partial growth on SPS
Feb 17 - 7.4 (Up to 3.0mL)
Feb 20 - 7.2 (Up to 3.5mL) - This is really too low
Feb 22 - 7.4 - Ok slow climb to 8, good.
Feb 26 - 7.5
Feb 28 - 7.5 (Up to 3.7mL) - Want to get to 8!

My plate coral was doing very poorly up until a month ago when it started recovery. I'll take a pic later but he's now looking fantastic! Same with the sticks, even though I shattered my Forest Fire monti and he's now in 4 pieces, each piece is looking good!

Other corals too, paly's and zoas are growing new heads like mad, the open brain coral is a monster, I still can't get my hammer looking how I want but it's a game with him. I MAY get another torch or LPS but TBH I think if I can keep SPS I am going to get some more of them. I love the variety of a mixed reef but I am starting to think SPS dominant might be my world in a year or so.

Triton is looking good!

Speaking of Triton....

I am down to my last water change this weekend as a corrective action. I have not had time unfortunately to get the other supplements yet, so I will do that soon. What I MIGHT do is send another test off in late March or early April and see if I still need them though. They're expensive, and since I can't source locally it's a whole thing to get them via BRS to my mailbox in the US and then go get them.

FYI phosphates are stable! 0.06 to 0.08, and I am seeing HUGE macro algae growth. I'll post a pic or vid of it, so I might not need to keep using GFO. I've stopped using it entirely for a month and the numbers still look good, maybe my fuge is finally starting to work properly :)

-J
 
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darkrabbit

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It's been a while....

I've been so incredibly busy with work and life I haven't had a chance to update in a while, but the tank is alive and... somewhat well. I've made one very large change though.

No more Triton Method

I know I said I'd stick it out for a year but I am not willing to let my livestock die for the experiment. Triton has been... I don't want to say a disaster... but things have NOT been going well.

Corals aren't happy

My zoas and LPS have not liked Triton.. at all. SPS are okay but LPS and zoas haven't grown much and I've actually lost half my hammer coral. Looks like my open brain coral is days from death too. I can't say it isn't something else, but Triton hasn't helped.

I still have to do water changes

To try and deal with some issues I've still had to change water. So I am doing Triton and.. doing water changes. If I do a large enough change, within a few days I notice a huge difference. So what the F am I doing Triton for?

My readings have been relatively stable...

My nutrient and element levels have been pretty stable... so there's a plus. But I can do that with 2 part and auto water changes so again... what's the point?

Still have nasty algae....

I still have cyano and turf algae, though not much. My GHA is basically gone.

I may be getting too much of some elements or not enough of others

I am concerned that I am getting too much of an element... say too much of something that's part of 1, 2, 3a or 3b, which is causing my issues. Or too little. But which one do I address without constant testing?

Plus... I just can't get these elements!

It is EXTREMELY difficult to get the individual dosing elements in Canada. Almost no LFS here carries anything Triton, and the ones that do sure don't carry the individual elements. When the COVID-19 thing happened, I could no longer get to the border to go pick up a BRS order to get elements even if I wanted to!

Reality is: Water changes seem to make everything happy and my tank is young.

I don't think my tank is old enough or established enough for Triton. I jumped in too quick. People have had success with 5yr+ tanks, and yeah some that are younger but not as much. So I rolled the dice, I tried, but it just isn't for me right now.

Bonus: I now have everything I need for automatic water changes and 2 part :)

At no extra cost to me (essentially), I can easily switch to automatic water changes and dose Ca and Alk as needed. So that's a big plus that came out of this!

Plus I've learned a lot in the process which to me is of significant value. Especially the testing results, which I might still continue because the data on my tank's water is very valuable! I am not done with Triton forever, but I think for now AWC and 2 part is more my tank's speed. Water changes just seem to make everything happy.

Anyway there we go! I hope to post an update again soon once I get the Neptune DOS pumps going on AWC's.

-J
 
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darkrabbit

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State of the Reef 10/16/2023

It’s been a while since I posted here but life has massively gotten in the way. This being said, I am going to start taking better care of the tank, I really dropped the ball over the past year, and if I plan on keeping the tank I need to pick it up. Most things are automated like WC, dosing, etc. but things I’d miss were:

- Salt water mixing for WC’s resulting in having to turn the WC’s off
- Feeding enough
- Testing Alk, Cal, etc. more
- Glass scraping, cleaning of pumps, etc.

I watch forums, posts, FB, etc. and I always see people dropping out of the hobby for the reasons I have, just too busy and unable to maintain. But I don’t want to do that, I love having a tank and I feel it’s of great value to my kids in learning about marine life as well. In fact, I want to eventually expand to a larger tank in a more interesting location than my office. This is currently cost prohibitive (as I would want a 200gal+ tank in my basement), so what I need to do is work on the one I have, get it stable, healthy, etc. then take that knowledge to the new one. But I digress.

To address the area of being very busy, I am still of the strong opinion that automation plays a key role in removing 90% of the labor involved in maintaining a tank. While yes you need to have some touch and feel with it, I’ve learned over the years that if I just left it alone (once stable), it would do a lot better. The more I put my hands in and try to change a lot of things, the more it would go sideways. I also strongly feel that 'systems' solve problems that can be solved much cheaper just by doing good practices, and are really just product sales initiatives. I learned my lesson with Triton a long while ago.

The next step really is to get more automation done so when I am busy I don’t have to worry much, and to schedule time to do regular tasks as part of a solid routine. This should introduce anything impactful to the tank itself, just positive things to sustain life and make the tank a pleasant place to be / look at. The following are my short term “correct the situation” goals.

Install a Neptune Trident
This is to deal with automatic monitoring of Alk and Cal and to a lesser extent Mg. This is a big leap of faith to me, because I don’t trust Neptune probes at all, but the feedback people have seems to indicate it is accurate and works very well. So I’ll take the dive.
Monitor pH just to make sure it’s okay
Mine is at 8.2, and seems to be stable, I dont have growth issues, so I think it’s ok. But I’d like to be able to watch this better.
Clean the glass regularly as well as the pumps.
The glass is abhorrent, with coraline algae everywhere and algae growing. I need to keep this up. I also need to schedule pump maintenance consistently.
Address the issues of algae and cyano that’s in the tank
Gotta get those nitrates up. They have been zero for some time.
Get the plate coral and scrambled egg zoas under control
They (zoas) are on the glass now and need to be removed. The plate coral in particular has turned into a freak of nature.
Growth of Zoas and the plate are a non-issue for me, but it’s getting a little out of hand. I need to break these down some, and sell / trade the frags.
Feed more
I can’t keep missing feeds as the fish won’t do well and the crabs will think the snails look pretty good. To say nothing of the corals, who need more nutrients to grow and keep healthy.

Lastly:
No more coral purchases until all this is done.
I’ve had some corals die, horribly, that were very expensive and I need to stabilize my situation before adding any more and flushing money down the toilet.

The end goal here is to do a SOTR report every few months or quarter where I can update on the status of the tank. This is more for myself to log goals and progress, but perhaps it will be useful to others as well. I’ll post as well when I make changes or see significant progress... I hope.

Pics have been added to track. Now to go clean my glass and feed the tank.

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OctaviusBrine

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Following along great write up. I’ve been going through a lot of different changes on my 250 as well. Best of luck to you!
 

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darkrabbit

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This has been quite a week. Things were done.

Trident Installed
My feelings about Neptune stuff I've made clear before and I haven't changed that opinion much but this Trident is going to save me a LOT of time and concern. I did everything they told me to do, calibration, ensuring the tubing isn't cut, kept within their specs, etc. but it still reads Alk quite low compared to my hanna, up to 0.5 dKH difference. Ive realized I don't care :) as what I need is stability, not an exact number. For me the difference between 9.0 and 9.5 isn't significant enough to worry about. Calcium seems pretty close though, and Mg is bang on. In fact, Mg is LOW! 1190! Didn't know that... probably my lack of WC's for a while.

Eventually I am going to let the Trident manage my DOS pumps, for now though I'll just wait until my params are back where I want them.

I am going to have to dose Mg for the first time ever.

Feeding more
Gotta get those nitrates up. My tank is just too dang good at eating Nitrates... weekly Reef Roids, daily pellets or reef frenzy, and semi-daily Reef Energy AB+

Cyano
I am starting to clean it off and keep it off the rocks. I don't vacuum it, I use a toothbrush, I don't know if this will work. If not I'll start vacuuming, it just means I have to do incidental WC's I guess.

Zoas and Plate on glass
I am getting these off the glass slowly using a razor, and trying not to die. Using gloves, etc. in case they release any toxin. Trying my best not to cut them. Plate is a non-issue. I am getting them onto plugs and now trying to figure out what I am going to do with all these frags. Maybe people would be willing to buy, or take. Perhaps trade but space is an issue now in my tank. Maybe that plate needs to be 'shrunk' a bit.

Bought new cleaners
Since some of mine have died over time I bought new ones, including:
- Blood shrimp
- Blue Tuxedo urchin
- Emerald Crab
- Porcelain Crab

Seem to be well so far though the crabs disappeared in my rock work or plate coral. I'll have to look for them at night.

This week I'll be working on getting the parameters slowly back in line as well as general maintenance.
 
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darkrabbit

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Following along great write up. I’ve been going through a lot of different changes on my 250 as well. Best of luck to you!
Wow... you have some great corals there, I love the equipment layout too! I need to work on that, mine is an embarassing mess.

How do you keep the sump so clean? :)
 

OctaviusBrine

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Thanks it’s been a struggle sometimes for sure. I loved the layout when it was all under the cabinet. But I have outgrown that. The side cabinet is so much easier now.

Lol I use a shop vac every few months and clean it out.
 
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