Just and FYI: Copper pipes are in use in most homes. Copper pipe typically do not leach copper into the water carried in them. Partly due to typical water chemistry and partly due to the protective oxidized layer that rather quickly forms inside of water pipes.
I don’t think you should quit, especially since you’ve been going at it so long, it is probably worth it to get the type of tank you’re proud of. I know this advice probably sounds unusual because most people recommend starting out large but I would get a 25 gallon and some Fiji or Australian live rock and cycle it and do all that and then add softies like pulsing Xenia, wait a while until things are stable then add other corals. Over testing and trying to battle everything I think has the opposite affect.
In general the smaller the tank, the harder it is to maintain water quality. If you pee in the bathtub you are bathing in pee water. If you pee in the pool, nobody notices.
Having gone from not being able to keep corals alive to this I was offering anecdotal advice on what helped me. He doesn’t have to listen to me. For me once I learned to keep corals in my smaller setup it was so easy to go back to my main setup and make a great reef. That’s just how it worked out for me. The guy who taught me this at the LFS called it the tidepool method, create a smaller aquarium ecosystem and it’ll be easier for you to create a large one. I have mostly fish only tanks, but my reefs are beautiful. I was just offering my two cents.
There's a group on facebook AI Prime/Hydra Reef Group
Having gone from not being able to keep corals alive to this I was offering anecdotal advice on what helped me. He doesn’t have to listen to me. For me once I learned to keep corals in my smaller setup it was so easy to go back to my main setup and make a great reef. That’s just how it worked out for me. The guy who taught me this at the LFS called it the tidepool method, create a smaller aquarium ecosystem and it’ll be easier for you to create a large one. I have mostly fish only tanks, but my reefs are beautiful. I was just offering my two cents.
Your bathtub analogy, hahaha, thanks for the explanation. In my opinion in a smaller system there microorganisms are so much more concentrated everything just works better. Sometimes I think people do too much. Too much testing and using all these things to get perfect stats when what’s most important is stability. I’m no scientist, but everything I get survives. Every coral, every fish…(except a couple snails that were killed by a crab) when I couldn’t keep a mushroom alive in my first tank.
The one tank I have problems with is my newish larger setup where the coralline has issues. This is what works for me.
I also think adding tons of pods somehow helps. I do that every other week or so.
Take it easy on your self. You have fought all that time and didn’t give up. So, why now! its frustrating for sure. I have killed every coral you could imagine (Xenia-gsp-zoas-leathers-mushrooms) when every things was pointing that shouldn’t happened. But, I love this hoppy and I will keep trying.Thank you so much for all the advice. I don't even know where to start.
Testing I tried to download the Aquarium Note to a form everyone could read. I can't figure it out. PH has been 8.1 to 8.2 since 11/2022. After the tank cycled my nitrates started at 25 and stayed there, lowering after water changes to 10, dropping to 2 while I started doing 2 water changes a week and rose steadily to 25 until I started adding vodka. I tested Monday, nitrates are 15. Phosphate since 11/2022 started at .03 and has held steady at .025 since. Alkalinity has been 8.3-8.7 since 11/2022. Magnesium 1420-1440...however when I was fighting this hair algae I purposely elevated magnesium to 1520. It is currently 1440. The ICP test, the last one was in the green for everything but arsenic. I am mailing off my water tomorrow. New test. Both RO and Main.
I am using Nyos salt. They send each bath off for ICP testing. I have used IO, Kent, Brightwell, and Red Sea. Red Sea was so horribly inconsistent. Unless you take that bag out and roll it all around then it's bad. Also left a brown substance on everything. Like a mud. I was cleaning out that brute monthly or more!
I am using the Reef Breeders Photon V2. Par readings before coral were 300 at surface, 210-235 in middle, and 95-110 at sand bed. It ramps up and down and is on for 12 hours with a four hour peak of 35 blues 10 white.
The GFO and vodka dosing is because my tank was over taken with hair algae. The corals were suffering. Although nitrate and phosphate looked ok I knew that the algae was sucking it up. All the efforts I made actually really worked. Corals appeared to respond favorable until they didnt...
I have tested for copper. It's not showing up in main or ro water. Our house was built in 1895. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was arsenic and copper and crap. This is the red sea copper test.
The reef is mixed because I got a bunch of free crap. I always had softies and montipora and everything was fine. The xenia lived on an island, the clowns hosted it, until the first crash. In all these years there has been times when the tank was perfection. I look back at all my notes and see NOTHING that would explain the crashes. Old notebook I flipped through, I was using IO and kent back then. Mag was 1500+ and calcium was 500+ but everything looked great. The first crash was sudden. I moved the fish to a rubbermaid and watched as overnight all my corals died. This would happen over and over again.
I really don't want to dose carbon, I was just hoping that maybe it would knock this algae down so these corals can breathe. It has but the corals are no better for it.
So I took some photos of the tank. Well what's left. Much easier with lights off.
