jcolliii's IM25 Lagoon journey - MASTERTRONIC up and running!

[TheWB]

4-13-20 Update.

Having a little bit of an issue with diatoms and cyano right now. A little bit of a light coating on the rocks that is easily blown off, and a bit more of a persistent coating and some light strings on the sandbed. I siphon and stir every other day or so, but it just keeps coming back. I'm starting to think the problem might be low nutrients - NO3 and PO4 are both undetectable (API for the NO3 and Elos for the PO4). I have been trying to increase feedings for both the fish and corals over the past week or so, and my PO4 still hovers around zero and NO3 is right around 1-2.

To try and combat this a bit more effectively, I've ordered a second PO4 test kit - a Salifert - to confirm the Elos reading. I am also going to try and reduce the dissolved organics - just broke down this past weekend and ordered the new version of the IM DC Nuvoskimmer. Saw a couple reviews that said how quiet it was and that it works pretty well. I figure with the low nutrients right now the diatoms and cyano are outcompeting the corals for nutrients because they have plenty of organic carbon and the CO2 is still elevated because it's still pretty cool here - was snowing a little while ago.

So, the plan is:

1. Reduce dissolved organics with skimming to help reduce the available raw material for cyano; and

2. Increase nitrates to more detectable levels (I suppose 5ppm would be good to try and maintain);

3. Confirm that phosphates are, indeed, zero. Salifert kit should be here tomorrow. If the test solution is completely clear like it is with the Elos kit, then I suppose I will feed more frozen food. I have one fish that is so fat right now it can barely swim though!

I previously owned a PO4 checker, and it was awful, so will not be going that route again. Anyhow, corals generally look good and have good color - they all have a strong feeding response, but growth has maybe seemed to slow a little bit in some of them and I am seeing some tissue recession on the anacro - which until recently was my fastest growing coral. I'm not sure if the tissue loss is related to this or not - it's losing tissue in the highly shaded areas and still has tissue on the areas in bright light. And it's coloration is still pretty fantastic vibrant green.

Dunno if I ever did a fish list or not, but I've got 2 cardinals, a purple firefish, a orchid dottyback (the porker of the bunch), and a striped blenny. Love that blenny - he's so inquisitive and is always checking out the nooks and crannies. He sleeps partially wrapped around my little magnet glass cleaner. Have to be super careful when I'm feeding at turn off the Jebao pump - he swims in there and hangs out with just his head poking out. I am trying to figure out some sort of cover for the front so he won't accidentally become sushi.

The final occupant will be a McCorkers or Carpenter's flasher if I can ever find one locally.

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan. I’ll be interested to see how that skimmer works out. I’m liking the aquamaxx for the most part but it has its issues. The IM one would look a lot nicer for sure. I had intended to get one of those two wrasses you’re looking at. That plan got blown up when I ended up with the orangeback wrasse by mistake. It’s very peaceful but it’s 5 inches long and I think I’m at my fish limit.

 

[jcolliii]

Just got the IM DC skimmer and it's a very nicely put together piece of gear. There are lots of other photos online of the skimmer, packaging, unboxing, setup, etc. I will say that the thing I did not care for right off the bat that could contribute to some noise is the fact that the dc pump just 'floats' free on the air tube end in the bottom of the skimmer body. I know from lots of experience with small devices located in the rear chambers of AIO tanks (I have had a Nanocube 12g., a Biocube 14, a BC 16, and a BC29) that anytime a pump can vibrate against the wall of something, *it will*.

So, I took a piece of sponge that I had leftover from something else, and I cut a couple of approximately 1/2" thick strips off of the sponge. I then put one of these strips on either side of the dc pump body so that it will be immobilized and isolated from vibration against the wall of the skimmer body.

installed the foam, then moved my heater to the opposite side of my back chamber, popped this in and plugged it in. It's fairly quiet - a bit quieter with the collection lid on, but I'm keeping it off right now so I can see how long it will take to build up a foam head. Pretty easy to adjust with the heavy duty gasket around the collection cup. Good size collection cup as well, and the best part - the skimmer is just about level with the back wall - it *just barely* sticks up maybe a few mm above the back wall where I have it set right now. Will update later with how long it took to start skimming.

Looks really promising.

 

[jcolliii]

First couple ounces of pale tan skimmate around 1am. It's starting to build froth well. Raised cup slightly.

The brown grunge on the sand turned stringy today. Think I may have dinos on the sand. If so, I think the skimming will help and I've got the IM UV coming later this week. Will continue changing filter floss daily, while trying to elevate nitrates a bit. Some esv nitrate additive should show up late in the week as well. Might take a sample of my filter floss in to my lab if I go in to work this week and take a peek.

Tank is still looking great, corals holding color. Just a lot of scrubbing, siphoning, and filtering the siphoned fluid before adding back to the tank to keep it looking that way. Sorry no pics, phone in the bedroom, wife asleep.

 

[jcolliii]

;Vomit

 

[jcolliii]

Nice big box from AquaSD showed up via Fedex around noon. Just a heads-up for any of you UPS-phobics out there like me: ASD will gladly ship Fedex if you just ask them after purchasing your shipping. After that last fiasco where UPS took 5 days to deliver an overnight box of cold, slimy, dead corals, I will never buy corals again if I can't get Fedex shipping.

Box arrived in great shape, very nicely packaged with the dragon soul floated in a big bag attached to a styro block. Lots of packing peanuts. Two heat packs - water temp was around 75 or so. I texted them to get an idea of their water params which are identical to mine - 1.025, 8dkh, 420Ca and 1350Mg. I still acclimated slowly for around 1.5 hours. I brushed the skeletons of the torches and the lobo really well to dislodge any critters, and put them in the tank. All of the remaining corals got a 5 minute dip in Melafix at 10ml/quart concentration. Not much came off of any of these guys even with pretty aggressive agitation. A couple slender elongated arthropods about 2mm long, and some small indeterminate specks. No flatworms on the monti or the acros that I could see.

Acclimated, awaiting dip.

 

[jcolliii]

A few shots before the lights really came on. Sand is a bit grungy looking because of the sun coming in the window - diatoms or dinos (or both) start to spread out a bit around 10am. Can't wait for my UV to get here tomorrow.

There is a whole lotta skeleton under that lobo. Anyone ever cut that down somewhat?

Torch starting to open.

Can't wait to see the colors of that acan under the tank light later.

 

[jcolliii]

Well, the brown grunge continues to come back each morning when the sun starts coming in the window adjacent to the tank. I have been kind of thinking this might be related to dinos and low nutrients, and not cyano and low nutrients or diatoms.

I had siphoned this out and strained the water through filter floss two nights ago. The IM skimmer has broken in nicely and is producing a dark tan to pale brown skimmate, so some of the dissolved organics are beginning to be exported.

Anyhow, fearing dinos and low nutrients, I ordered IM's UV sterilizer earlier this week, and got that installed today. Pretty simple device - a plastic sleeve with the UV tube inside and a plastic hanger (similar to the IM filter sock holder) at the top with a small lip on the back to help channel water through the device.

At only 9w, I have dialed back my flow to allow the water to move slowly through the device. It does have some front to back play installed in the left side intake chamber, so I cut a small piece of charcoal sponge material and added that behind the device to stabilize it and stop it from moving backward allowing water to fall between the front wall and the device.

My sand bed does get really pretty clean toward the end of the photoperiod when the Maxspect shifts to a very blue-heavy spectrum, so a lot of these protists (assuming dino) are definitely getting into the water column as I am catching a lot of them in my filter floss. Anyhow - will run this probably 24/7 for a week or so, and then switch over to 6 hours or so after lights out and see what impact I can make.

I also confirmed my nitrates are at zero with a new Salifert kit, so this is almost certainly part of the problem with the brown grunge. The yellow from the API kit was just too tricky to read, and even when I tried a standard with the API kit I did not get a convincing result. Anyhow, the Salifert NO3 kit gave me a dead solid zero, even when viewing the test solution from the side. I ran a 10ppm standard through the kit afterward and confirmed it is reading correctly. So I have near zero nitrates. To address this, I began dosing ESV's nitrate soln this afternoon. They say 1ml of soln will increase 20gal by 1ppm. So I will dose 1.4ml per day for the next 5-10 days (testing each day) and see where that gets me. I've been feeding a bit heavy as well, but I don't like that because ti will also increase dissolved organics - although, I am pretty sure my PO4 is above zero now as well. So... that's where I am at right now.

Will be working on wire management if some chase I ordered gets here before friday, and I have another Jebao SLW-10 (the non-wireless version) coming in some time soon as well. Really, I cannot say enough good things about that pump. It works, it's nearly dead silent, and it pushes a TON of water. Can't wait to play with two of them!

 

[jcolliii]

Well, I discovered that ESV Nitrate raises ALK q fairly decent amount. Dosed enough to raise NO3 by 1ppm today and that raised ALK by 0.3dkh. I think I can suspend ALK dosing for the next few days. Now I'll have to check Ca every day...

Anyone out there have experience fragging Lobos? I don't want to cut the heads apart, but this awesome piece I got from ASD earlier this week has a *very* deep skeleton - it was obviously fragged from a very large colony. I would like to reduce the thickness so I can more easily mount the colony to my rockwork.

I'm wondering how far down the skeleton would be safe so that I'd miss all of the live tissue? Any ideas?

 

[jcolliii]

The ESV nitrate brought my NO3 up to 4-5ppm according to Salifert and only added 0.15dkh to my ALK today, so that is good. Free NO3 is now available to the corals! Skimmer has really started doing its thing now as well - it was sort of on and off for the first two days, but all morning it's been producing consistent frothy foam - I feel positive about how things are going.

Do you guys think that 5ppm is high enough for NO3, or should I go to 10? I've got a mixed reef with Acros, a monti, lots of favia, a lobo, and a euphylia or two. The SPS make me think 5ppm would be better. Thoughts?

 

[jcolliii]

It seems a lot of people run mixed reefs at between 5 and 10ppm NO3, so I'm going to add another 0.5ml of the ESV nitrate tomorrow - if that gets me to a solid 5ppm, I'm going to see if I can maintain it there and see how things respond.

Every couple of days - I guess I've been doing this every third day or so for awhile now, I siphon the gravel, stir it up a bit, and then filter and reintroduce the water. This is the hack I use to do that - I have a 2 gallon covered bucket, and in one side I made a hole by punching through with a knife in a star pattern so that when the back of my siphon is pushed through, the compression of the plastic 'fingers' hold on to the back extension on the siphon and holds it there in place pretty securely. So I siphon the sand until my large 4 gallon bucket is full, and while that settles, I take the head off of my siphon, add a good handful of filter floss, ram it down toward the bottom, and stick this assembly in the lid-hole of my smaller bucket. Then I use a small 2 quart plastic pitcher that is for reef duty only and pour a few quarts at a time from my siphoned water down through the makeshift filter. Takes a few minutes, but the water that goes back in is very clear.

Ick - it's red. Red slime (cyano)? Dinos? Gotta bring a sample in to the lab some time. I'm leaning toward dinos. Anyhow, tonight will be the second night with the UV running, will turn the flow way down after the lights go out to increase contact time.

Been thinking about building a DIY powered grave vac that filters and dumps back into the tank so that I don't have this extra step...

Lights out now, so no FTS tonight.

 

[jcolliii]

IM NUVOskim DC Desktop update.

Only been 4 days since I added the skimmer, and I continue to be impressed. It started skimming within 24 hours - although the early skimmate was very pale. That was due to having the cup adjusted too low and the skimmer not having broken in yet. Day 2 skimmate was a slightly darker amber, and I think I really got close to the sweet spot on day 3 when it started pulling out stuff that is a pale brown color now. This morning the skimmate was even a bit darker still.

The noise level is not super quiet, but also not super loud. It's a quiet combination of mechanical pump noise and white noise from the bubbles popping (which can be heard from where I typically sit, which is right next to the tank maybe four feet from the skimmer). From across the room, the sound is quieter, but still noticeable. Right now, I am getting about 1/5 cup skimmate per 24 hour period, so cup should easily hold several days of skimmate. One of the nicest things about this skimmer is that it just disappears into the 'tankscape' - it is unobtrusive and the eye does not seem to linger on it very long - it appears to belong there.

Occasionally, there are microbubbles in the display - not sure why this happens only sometimes, but I may add a small piece of carbon filter material (you know that stiff black filter mat that is fairly robust and stiff) to the transition from the chamber the skimmer is in to the return pump chamber to see if that eliminates them. Not sure how important this will be to me though because after the first or second week, my plan is to skim only from midnight to 3pm or so each day to minimize noise when we're in the living room where the tank is. If that's the case, microbubbles will not be an issue.

Anyhow, thought a quick update on the skimmer might be good.

 

[TheWB]

I do miss the way my Ghost Skimmer blended in with the lower profile. It’s definitely a great feature. I wish mine skimmed better and was easier to maintenance, I’d still be using it. The location of the airline connection to the pump just sucks. I’m sure the new dc version you have is much better since they’ve had time to work out the kinks.

 

[jcolliii]

I'd like to see someone (HINT @Bulk Reef Supply) do a side by side comparison between the ghost skimmer and the new version to see the changes that were made - that might allow some of the folks with the ghost skimmer to make some of the upgrades that IM put into the new model.

I just came up with a quickie hack hodgepodged gravel vac using some parts I have laying around. It worked okay, but is a bit too tall - have to tilt it to get the MJ900 to prime. Just inserted a clump of filter floss inside of the vac end to catch all the grunge. Flow is controlled with a small ball valve. It worked surprisingly well other than a small leak in one of the push fittings from the pump. I may put together a more permanent diy gravel vac - as this thing worked great. I can really pause over one clump of gravel and let the pump do its thing for 30 seconds and then move on to the next without worrying about my siphon bucket filling up. Water that came out the end was nice and clean. Doesn't get into tight areas very well, so if I do make a more permanent solution, I would probably use a smaller diameter pipe, and shorter to get the pump below the waterline without having to tilt to prime it. Anyhow.

Short video of the vac in action.

Collected grunge.

 

[jcolliii]

Well, I discovered that my torch does not at all like something in my usual weekend dosing schedule.

UGH - always something. My normal non-WC weekend dosing is to bring Ca up to around 410 - it was at 405ppm this morning, so it was about 2.5ml of Ca soln. Then I do 2ml each of KZ system 2 and 3, and I'm on week 3 of vibrant. All dosed approximately 5 minutes apart. All dosed in the back return chamber a few drops at a time.

Are torches this sensitive where a 5ppm change in Ca could induce such a mad/sad response? Man - I used to think SPS were sensitive. No one else in the tank is behaving this way. The Acros that typically have polyp extension have PE. All other LPS look the same as they do during the morning no-light period. Weird.

 

[TheWB]

Well, I discovered that my torch does not at all like something in my usual weekend dosing schedule.

UGH - always something. My normal non-WC weekend dosing is to bring Ca up to around 410 - it was at 405ppm this morning, so it was about 2.5ml of Ca soln. Then I do 2ml each of KZ system 2 and 3, and I'm on week 3 of vibrant. All dosed approximately 5 minutes apart. All dosed in the back return chamber a few drops at a time.

Are torches this sensitive where a 5ppm change in Ca could induce such a mad/sad response? Man - I used to think SPS were sensitive. No one else in the tank is behaving this way. The Acros that typically have polyp extension have PE. All other LPS look the same as they do during the morning no-light period. Weird.

I don’t think they are that sensitive. Maybe it was something about the combination of those additives together? Maybe its kinda like what’s going on with my Favia and we just may never know. It’ll probably bounce back.

 

[jcolliii]

It's gradually reinflating. Phew. Next Sunday I'll have to add things one at a time and wait 30 minutes between to see if I see a response.

 

[PR_nano]

Following along, I have a IM20 and like to get ideas from other reefers.

How many pounds of branches you ended up getting?

I like what you did to the DC skimmer. I had to take mine out yesterday as it wasn't skimming for a few days. When I pull it out it was covered in spirorbid, did a good cleaning and it's working great. Need to clean the other 4 back chambers.

 

[jcolliii]

Following along, I have a IM20 and like to get ideas from other reefers.

I got the only size BRS offers - the 20lb box - I think it was just over 100 bucks. I'm pretty certain there was more than 20lbs in that box though. It was really well packed, and I did not have a single broken piece. Good variety of shapes as well - some 2-branch, some 3-, and some 4-branch ones.

 

[jcolliii]

Have been so ecstatic with the performance of my Jebao SLW-10 that I just added a second one! I can't hear the second one operating just as much as I can't hear the first one! This makes it tough to tell where in the wave cycle they are when trying to get slave sine mode going. With the MP-10 I used to have on my old 60g cube, I could hear *exactly* what that pump was doing at all times. Even with the skimmer and return pumps both off, I still can't hear the sound these things make. It took a few minutes to get set up, and me sticking my hand into the tank to be sure the pumps were in opposite phases, but the setup was pretty simple. Set one pump how you want it, then set the wifi mode to 'master'. On the other pump, the controller goes on 'C' and the wifi mode gets set to 'slave'. I have one set in the middle of the tank about 4" down from the top. On the other side it's positioned a bit more toward the back and bit lower to get some flow behind the rocks. No standing wave due to them not being exactly opposite, but definitely better flow especially behind the rockwork.

Magnets are definitely well-sealed. I'm thinking of putting one of these on either side of the rear wall to get more of that standing wave effect - but not sure. Anyone put their powerheads on the back wall? Like it? Hate it? Experiences?

 

[jcolliii]

Well it looks like the red/brown goo is on its way out. I think it was probably a combination of diatoms and dinos. The filter floss in my floss holder is a red-brown each morning.

For others battling dinos and/or diatoms simultaneously (and for myself in the future), this is what I did...

1. Start skimming. Before this began I was going to try and run this tank low-gadget. Turns out that for this tank with my lifestyle and maintenance regime, that was probably not great. I feed corals 2x per week, so the dissolved organics were probably fueling the diatoms/dinos;
2. Change filter floss every single morning. This catches a lot of the free-floating or motile badies, and really keeps the water very clear;
3. Run UV. Don't know if this helped or not, but I did it. I turned the return pump down as low as possible when running UV, and for week 1, I ran it 24/7;
4. DIY gravel vac. This has really helped out. I had been siphoning the gravel to get rid of the red/brown stringy goo every 3rd day, and by later in the day that day I'd have a red-brown haze on the sand. Day two was a bit of a mat and short stringers and day 3 was long stringers and a good binding mat - especially in the corners and low flow areas. At first I just let the water settle and then slowly decanted back to the tank, but I began to pour the water through floss, and then I stopped siphoning altogether once I put the vacuum device together. That thing catches just about everything in the dense packed ball of floss I pack in. Once I started vacuuming, the gravel started staying clean for an entire day. Now I am up to clean sand for 2-3 days following a vacuum. Definitely helped.
5. Elevate nutrients. When I began fighting this stuff a few weeks ago, my PO4 and NO3 were both very very low. PO4 was undetectable and I was only reading 0-2ppm for nitrates. I don't worry about PO4 all that much because I do feed heavy, and that one was mostly the Elos kit I had been testing with. Salifert kit reads between 0.05 and 0.3 depending on how much I feed. BUT, the low nitrate was probably slowing coral growth and allowing things that are betterin low nutrients (like dinos and diatoms) to outcompete the stuff I wanted to do well. So I dosed ESV B-Ionic Nitrate a couple days and brought it up to around 10. I noticed cyano start to grow around this time;
6. I started dosing vibrant once a week at the recommended dosage every Sunday about 3 weeks ago when I first noticed this stuff creeping in. Dunno if this helped or not, but more strains of bacteria are good as far as I'm concerned.
7. I added four astrea snails. Man oh man do those guys work well and work hard. They mow down *everything*. I am amazed at how much crud they eat! They are not fond of traveling over the sand though, so I help them from place to place when I want something cleaned.

Pretty sure the red-brown stuff is on its way out. I do have some patches of red slime cropping up here and there and some bright green cyano patches as well, but this stuff blows off of the rocks pretty easily and makes its way into the filter floss. I have definitely put more time into the tank lately than I normally would have thanks to working remotely. Things have improved rapidly in response to the multi-pronged approach I took. Hope this might help some other folks fighting dinos and/or diatoms. More likely than not, this will be here for me to look at if/when this happens to me again!