First Timer and Jumping In - 55 hexagon build

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RWS6605

RWS6605

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That size tank, now that you’re past the GHA, I bet just a 1-2 mil. dose of Vibrant once a week will keep it looking good. It’s not really that expensive on a smaller than like that. Just my tip. Thanks for the latest photo!
Vibrant is how I got rid of it! Haven’t needed to dose any for the several months now.
 
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I’d say stay away from an acrylic hexagon.
Unless this is a retro 1980 freshwater with some driftwood and mollies ;-)
Well it is acrylic and hex so I guess too late. It was a freshwater tank for a few decades. It is drilled now with overflow and sump. Running great.
 
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Warning LONG POST.
It has been a painful 9 months since this last post. Things were well for a short time and then went south. My poor husbandry skills and laziness got the better of me, or should I say, the worst. I thought things were doing good so I went on cruise control. Well. I was wrong. My salinity was way off because I chose to use a hydrometer instead of refractometer. I failed to clean it and left it sitting on top of my tank. Algae started growing on the float causing me to add more salt to overcome the weight of the algae. My alkalinity was also going down, apparently but I wasn’t testing for it. Calcium sky rocketed but I wasn’t testing for it. Phosphorus was.... you get the idea.

So not so fast forward and I lost my urchin, many snails, crabs, hermits, zoas/blasto and even a few fish including my flame! Oh and to top it off GHA came back with a vengeance!

So I start looking closer. Got a refractometer and alkalinity tester (Hannah) and calc and pho’s tests (salivary). Nitrates you ask....40ppm+.

Started back with doing 20% water changes twice a week for a few weeks. Started dosing bicarbonate after water changes to keep alk at 9dkh.
I have since added a skimmer and have been doing weekly if not more testing.

Also started adding red sea NoxPox to try and help bring the nutrients down while I get things reset. Adding 2ml daily now with nitrates at 0

Current params:
nitrates 0
Pho’s 0
Alk remains around 9
Ph8-8.2
Calc 420-440

Dropped to feeding every other day and have stopped adding AB+ (since corals are goners) well almost I do have a couple zoa head trying to hang in and a small leather coral (cabbage). They don’t look happy and I am not sure they will survive it all.

now the dreaded GHA. I scrub and pick it off the rocks at water changes. There I more than my emerald crab can even begin to put a dent it. I am still using vibrant but only because I have a partial bottle left. Not putting my money (anymore) on that fixing it. Time and laziness got me here. Time and effort will get it back.

I do have a bubble tip nem that appears to be doing fine but my next step is to do a couple blackout days. I hope that if I feed it before the blackout that it will be okay. Thinking maybe a 3 day blackout, 1 day light 3 day

I am running my lights based on the light scheduled the guy ran who I got the nem from. It is a long schedule on a Kessil 360we:
(time/color/intensity)
0700 5 and 5
0900 35 and 80
1500 45 and 80
1805 5 and 80
2100 5 and 50
2205 0 and 0

So there it is. the honest truth. I have nearly failed on my big tank. Any thoughts or advice from anyone even seeing this post any longer?

Oh by the way my 10 gallon AIO is an awesome Little Rock flower garden. 5 healthy growing nems!! Beauties!!
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

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