Help! Can't get Tank under Control

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Nearly a year ago, I (intentionally) chemically wiped out Xenia that was taking over the tank. I have been battling getting the tank under control ever since. I finally got the nutrients under control with the help of NoPox. That cleaned up the tank but the corals and RBTAs started suffering when phosphate and nitrate went down to zero. I pulled back on the NoPox and phosphate is now .03 and nitrate is now 20ppm. As soon as I pulled back on the NoPox this ugly brown shading on the sand came back. I'm at wits end. Hopefully, I'll be installing a new 180 gallon in the next few weeks, but I need to keep this tank up and running until the 180 is cycled and I can transfer the livestock. Any ideas on how what is going on and how to get this under control? The headache this is causing is starting to make this hobby not fun and causing me to have some trepidation about the new tank.

IMG_7919.JPG
 

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Diatoms are what it looks like to me, I've been dosing low levels of 3% food grade Hydrogen peroxide with great results- they will eventually die-off when your silicate is consumed otherwise.

Any chemical that creates huge swings in chemistry is going to tick you off, sometimes doing frequent water changes and letting stuff ride out is the best method of attack.

I also use chemipure elite and brightwell plates, I am avoiding any kind of reactor that may cause crashes is something goes wrong (eventhough I DO run ozone).
 

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What worked for me is turning my lights down for three days with the red, green and whites totally off. Periodically turn off the skimmer, scrub any rocks you can and siphon your sand. I did an additional water change a week and did not use chemicals.
 
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Diatoms are what it looks like to me, I've been dosing low levels of 3% food grade Hydrogen peroxide with great results- they will eventually die-off when your silicate is consumed otherwise.

Any chemical that creates huge swings in chemistry is going to tick you off, sometimes doing frequent water changes and letting stuff ride out is the best method of attack.

I also use chemipure elite and brightwell plates, I am avoiding any kind of reactor that may cause crashes is something goes wrong (eventhough I DO run ozone).
I thought diatoms, but they don't go away at night.
 
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What worked for me is turning my lights down for three days with the red, green and whites totally off. Periodically turn off the skimmer, scrub any rocks you can and siphon your sand. I did an additional water change a week and did not use chemicals.
What did you turn your lights down to?
 

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huh? What makes you think the intake is clogged?
Re creature: Are you referring the snowflake eel?
Because I believe there's an inlet under there (at least it looks like an inlet/outlet). Yes, I was referring to the snowflake eel (he's cool!)

inlet.jpg
 

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Completely unrelated, this is what my 200-gallon system (160-gallon display) looks like. I run a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer, 2x Nyos Torq reactors (2.0l for Zeo, 1.0 for carbon/GFO), 4x sock filters (changed out every 4-5 days), AquaUV 57-watt sterilizer and a combination of MarinePure biomedia (blocks, spheres and hexes). I have not scraped the tank with my razor scraper in 2 weeks (although I do use a Tunze strong magnet every 2-3 days to keep things in-check). I have 21 fish currently and they are fed 5x daily (combination of pellet and fresh); corals are fed daily (aminos, phytoplankton) with Reef Roids 2x a week.

I've got a fairly extensive CUC, including: 4x black cucumbers, 4x urchins, 3x emerald crabs, 1x hawaiian crab, 6x porcelain crabs (white, blue, zebra), flame scallop, 20-24x nassarius snails (regular and orange), 2x orange lip conches, 2x spiny conches, 2x queen conch, spider conch, 4x ring cowrie, 20-24x trochus snails, 15x spiny astrea snails, 6x mexican turbo snails, 6x cat's eye turbo snails, 2x really large trochus snails, 1x arrowhead crab, 1x coral banded shrimp, 2x feather dusters (coco and purple), 2x sand-sifting starfish, 4x halloween crabs and probably 20-24x hermit crabs (blue, scarlet, algae, purple claw, etc.).

Nitrates are 4ppm, phosphates <0.05ppm. I don't use NOPOX and the only things I do use are 2.5ml of Nyos Zero and 1.25ml of Nyos Bio Booster daily. I use Fritzyme 460 cleaner every 2 weeks (dose and turn the skimmer and UV off for 48 hours). And that is it. I only mention this in passing because it is entirely possible to have a very low maintenance system if you set it up that way from the outset - and you mentioned you were migrating or upgrading to a 180-gallon system.

IMG_0814.jpg
 

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Completely unrelated, this is what my 200-gallon system (160-gallon display) looks like. I run a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer, 2x Nyos Torq reactors (2.0l for Zeo, 1.0 for carbon/GFO), 4x sock filters (changed out every 4-5 days), AquaUV 57-watt sterilizer and a combination of MarinePure biomedia (blocks, spheres and hexes). I have not scraped the tank with my razor scraper in 2 weeks (although I do use a Tunze strong magnet every 2-3 days to keep things in-check). I have 21 fish currently and they are fed 5x daily (combination of pellet and fresh); corals are fed daily (aminos, phytoplankton) with Reef Roids 2x a week.

I've got a fairly extensive CUC, including: 4x black cucumbers, 4x urchins, 3x emerald crabs, 1x hawaiian crab, 6x porcelain crabs (white, blue, zebra), flame scallop, 20-24x nassarius snails (regular and orange), 2x orange lip conches, 2x spiny conches, 2x queen conch, spider conch, 4x ring cowrie, 20-24x trochus snails, 15x spiny astrea snails, 6x mexican turbo snails, 6x cat's eye turbo snails, 2x really large trochus snails, 1x arrowhead crab, 1x coral banded shrimp, 2x feather dusters (coco and purple), 2x sand-sifting starfish, 4x halloween crabs and probably 20-24x hermit crabs (blue, scarlet, algae, purple claw, etc.).

Nitrates are 4ppm, phosphates <0.05ppm. I don't use NOPOX and the only things I do use are 2.5ml of Nyos Zero and 1.25ml of Nyos Bio Booster daily. I use Fritzyme 460 cleaner every 2 weeks (dose and turn the skimmer and UV off for 48 hours). And that is it. I only mention this in passing because it is entirely possible to have a very low maintenance system if you set it up that way from the outset - and you mentioned you were migrating or upgrading to a 180-gallon system.

IMG_0814.jpg


That is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL tank!! Very well done!
 
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Thanks - it's still relatively new (4 months), but I've had most of the fish and about half the corals for about a year now.
Ok, wow. I need your advice on how to move my fish and corals to the new tank successfully so it looks like this.

I actually ordered the Nyos Quantum Skimmer and the UV sterilizer already. I have a Torq, although I didn't like it in the past. I used a 2.0 for carbon and gfo and I found that it would always get clogged and was extremely hard to take out of the base and adjust without the entire reactor coming off.

Anyway, tips for the cycle and when to start stocking?
 

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That's why I prefer the 1.0 body for the Nyos Torq reactor. I run the sponge on the bottom, Nyos Phosi-EX, the separator, sponge, Red Sea reef-spec carbon or Nyos Active Carb and finally the lid with the final cone-shaped sponge. I prefer Nyos Phosi-EX over RowaPhos because the GFO pellets are quite large by comparison - so they don't get ejected out the top (you will get the occasional carbon pellet or two, but that's about it). As the GFO pellets are smaller than the carbon, by placing them on the bottom there's almost no way for them to get forced out. I use the 2.0 body for Nyos Zeo, and as these are essentially small rocks there is lots of flow. This drastically cuts down on my nitrates (I also have the MarinePure biomedia, Nyos Zeo and Nyos Bio Booster that I use in conjunction with the Zeo). The Zeo gets replaced approximately every 2-3 months depending on my nitrate levels. Yes, it's definitely a 2-hand operation to get the bodies off the Torq reactors or adjust them - but I always run mine @100% open, so I basically turn the reactor off, remove the body, clean, replenish, replace and turn on again. At some point in the not too distant future I'll get a spare 10 and 2.0 body so I can have these pre-filled for even faster swaps.

I had two smaller IM Fusion Lagoon 25-gallon tanks, so what I did about a month prior is get one of those black rubbermaid tubs around 30 gallons (the ones they use to feed livestock), used the tank water from the IM water changes and used up various bacteria I had, ie: AF, MicroBacter 7, etc. I also added heaters and wavemakers to ensure there was good flow. I ghost fed daily for about 10 days, again adding whatever bacteria I had on-hand (AF Pro and Bio S I think). I also topped up the water in the tub from the IM tanks and placed any used filter floss in as well that would've normally been thrown out.

The new Red Sea Reefer 750XXL got brand new substrate and water (I switched from Red Sea Coral Pro in the IM tanks to Tropic Marin Pro Reef in the new one). Let everything settle for a few days, got all the new equipment setup, then dumped in enough Bio-Spira for 200 gallons. Took the rocks from the tub to make the main rockscape in the Red Sea Reefer, then started moving over individual rocks, corals and CUC from the smaller IM tanks (rinsing and de-bristleworming as I went). Once I had everything out of the IM tanks I could actually catch the fish, and they went it shortly thereafter. This took the better part of a day, but I basically skipped having to cycle the tank and everything worked out better than I expected (no coral, invert or fish losses).

Apparently you can skip the Bio-Spira as I already had all the beneficial bacteria in-place, but as this was my first large-scale and cycle-less move I wanted to err on the side of caution and ensure there was enough bacteria and that I didn't screw anything up. Initial nitrates were around 15, phosphates around 0.5 - and they've been going down slightly every month since I started.
 
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That's why I prefer the 1.0 body for the Nyos Torq reactor. I run the sponge on the bottom, Nyos Phosi-EX, the separator, sponge, Red Sea reef-spec carbon or Nyos Active Carb and finally the lid with the final cone-shaped sponge. I prefer Nyos Phosi-EX over RowaPhos because the GFO pellets are quite large by comparison - so they don't get ejected out the top (you will get the occasional carbon pellet or two, but that's about it). As the GFO pellets are smaller than the carbon, by placing them on the bottom there's almost no way for them to get forced out. I use the 2.0 body for Nyos Zeo, and as these are essentially small rocks there is lots of flow. This drastically cuts down on my nitrates (I also have the MarinePure biomedia, Nyos Zeo and Nyos Bio Booster that I use in conjunction with the Zeo). The Zeo gets replaced approximately every 2-3 months depending on my nitrate levels. Yes, it's definitely a 2-hand operation to get the bodies off the Torq reactors or adjust them - but I always run mine @100% open, so I basically turn the reactor off, remove the body, clean, replenish, replace and turn on again. At some point in the not too distant future I'll get a spare 10 and 2.0 body so I can have these pre-filled for even faster swaps.

I had two smaller IM Fusion Lagoon 25-gallon tanks, so what I did about a month prior is get one of those black rubbermaid tubs around 30 gallons (the ones they use to feed livestock), used the tank water from the IM water changes and used up various bacteria I had, ie: AF, MicroBacter 7, etc. I also added heaters and wavemakers to ensure there was good flow. I ghost fed daily for about 10 days, again adding whatever bacteria I had on-hand (AF Pro and Bio S I think). I also topped up the water in the tub from the IM tanks and placed any used filter floss in as well that would've normally been thrown out.

The new Red Sea Reefer 750XXL got brand new substrate and water (I switched from Red Sea Coral Pro in the IM tanks to Tropic Marin Pro Reef in the new one). Let everything settle for a few days, got all the new equipment setup, then dumped in enough Bio-Spira for 200 gallons. Took the rocks from the tub to make the main rockscape in the Red Sea Reefer, then started moving over individual rocks, corals and CUC from the smaller IM tanks (rinsing and de-bristleworming as I went). Once I had everything out of the IM tanks I could actually catch the fish, and they went it shortly thereafter. This took the better part of a day, but I basically skipped having to cycle the tank and everything worked out better than I expected (no coral, invert or fish losses).

Apparently you can skip the Bio-Spira as I already had all the beneficial bacteria in-place, but as this was my first large-scale and cycle-less move I wanted to err on the side of caution and ensure there was enough bacteria and that I didn't screw anything up. Initial nitrates were around 15, phosphates around 0.5 - and they've been going down slightly every month since I started.
Do you run the UV 24/7? If so do you run on low flow for disease or high flow for algae?
 

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Do you run the UV 24/7? If so do you run on low flow for disease or high flow for algae?
Yes, 24/7 unless I'm medicating (off for 1 hour) or using the Fritzyme 460 (48 hours). I run it at a lower flow (which is still around 650Gph) for parasites. I think I can actually run up to around 1,050Gph and still get the 90,000 level of radiation - so I'm probably getting even more exposure than that. The plus side is it generally takes care of algae (except coraline) as well.
 
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Yes, 24/7 unless I'm medicating (off for 1 hour) or using the Fritzyme 460 (48 hours). I run it at a lower flow (which is still around 650Gph) for parasites. I think I can actually run up to around 1,050Gph and still get the 90,000 level of radiation - so I'm probably getting even more exposure than that. The plus side is it generally takes care of algae (except coraline) as well.
How did you measure the flow?
 

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How did you measure the flow?
For the UV? Just a guestimate. I know what the hose height is and how many 90 degree turns, and what the pump is rated for at zero head pressure. I think the best I can get is something like 1250Gph @100%, so as long as I stay under 85% I should be good (currently 45%).
 
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