Jon’s bucket build thread

[CoralClasher]

So I’m a little late with this build thread. My reefing keeping started 20 years ago with all live rock and sand from the LFS and from what I can remember it was high quality LR. At the time I was living at home with two older and very jealous brothers. I had the tank running with MH lights and wet dry system with bio-balls for filter no skimmer no GFO for a few years and I couldn’t keep things alive and GHA filled the tank. When I moved out in 2007 I decided to shutdown the tank. I knew it would be awhile before I could restart the tank so I used the garden hose and cleaned the rocks I didn’t keep the sand. As I was cleaning the tank I found dryer sheets or cleaning wipes stuffed in between the double wall of the overflow boxes. Still today no one will confess. I let the rocks dry for a few years then I got the reefing bug again. This time I was going to do it right and did some research on how to clean the rocks. I used lots of buckets and did the acid dip. All the rocks were clean and white. I soaked them in buckets of saltwater for months and my wife started calling it Jon’s buckets of rocks. She still giggles and asks me how’s my bucket is doing. After setting it up letting run for awhile checking all the parameters everything looked good added some cheap fish and no corals but was running the MH lights. It didn’t take long for the rocks to turn green and then got some advice from LFS said my phosphate was too high. So I got GFO reactor and bio-pellet reactor. It didn’t take long for Dino to set in. I didn’t know Dino wasn’t an algae so I kept the phosphate fight going. So after fighting Dino for about three years I joined reef2reef one year ago now. I finally feel like I have a reef tank that is alive. If it wasn’t for the great people here I would of pulled the plug on my bucket again.
Tank is 120 gallon DT 55 gallon refuge
Temp 81
pH 8.2
Salinity 1.026
Ca 450
ALK 8.5
Mag 1440
No3 10ppm
Phosphate 0.22
Lights are 2 giesemann Vervve on DT running reef 1 presets. Refuge is maxspect recurve running opposite of DT on preset 1.

 

[SPR1968]

That looks a great set up and tank Jon and thanks for sharing the pictures with us!

 

[CoralClasher]

That looks a great set up and tank Jon and thanks for sharing the pictures with us!

Thanks it’s been a struggle for me but it’s now looking better.

 

[CoralClasher]

Now that the tank and stand are 20 years old and moved three times I can see a new build coming soon.

 

[CoralClasher]

I got a new phone a few months ago and lost all my old pictures.

 

[CoralClasher]

Time to feed the starfish

 

[CoralClasher]

It’s been a few months since my last Dino bloom and I think it’s time to let my nitrogen drop back down to 5ppm.

 

[CoralClasher]

With my nitrogen about 10 and phosphate at 0.25 my ratio is 40 to 1. I’ve heard so many different ratios but 40/1 seems wrong? Should I try bumping the phosphate up?

 

[btmedic04]

If your corals look happy, and you aren't growing algae, leave the phosphates and nitrates alone as is. My nitrates run at about 20 and my phosphates at 0.02 which is about 1000:1 and my corals and tank look great

 

[CoralClasher]

If your corals look happy, and you aren't growing algae, leave the phosphates and nitrates alone as is. My nitrates run at about 20 and my phosphates at 0.02 which is about 1000:1 and my corals and tank look great

How did you get No3 that high? Does your nitrogen drop by itself? My tank is still green and starting to see Cyano. Here are some pictures with just white lights.

 

[CoralClasher]

Right now I’m 30 days in fallow period because I didn’t QT a copper band butterfly. I can make my nutrients any levels I want but would like to get it lower so I can feed the corals more without causing more algae.

 

[CoralClasher]

Well good thing I took those pictures with just white lights. I noticed I have two white LED’s out on my master light.

 

[btmedic04]

I attribute my nitrates being that high because I dont run filter socks and my tank has only been running for 4 months. About half of the rock was a year old (carried over from my nuvo 20) and I do have a little bit of cyano that I turkey baste off the rocks and remove during my weekly water change. The issue I've been having is keeping detectable levels of phosphate which I also attribute to my elevated nitrates

 

[CoralClasher]

I attribute my nitrates being that high because I dont run filter socks and my tank has only been running for 4 months. About half of the rock was a year old (carried over from my nuvo 20) and I do have a little bit of cyano that I turkey baste off the rocks and remove during my weekly water change. The issue I've been having is keeping detectable levels of phosphate which I also attribute to my elevated nitrates

Nice looking tank! My Dino was so bad anytime I got close to 0.08 phosphate they would bloom. So I’ve been dosing phosphate way more than nitrogen to keep the levels I have now.

 

[CoralClasher]

I attribute my nitrates being that high because I dont run filter socks and my tank has only been running for 4 months. About half of the rock was a year old (carried over from my nuvo 20) and I do have a little bit of cyano that I turkey baste off the rocks and remove during my weekly water change. The issue I've been having is keeping detectable levels of phosphate which I also attribute to my elevated nitrates

Do you run any filters? I pulled my skimmer one year ago and stopped using fleece in my roller mat four months ago.

 

[btmedic04]

Do you run any filters? I pulled my skimmer one year ago and stopped using fleece in my roller mat four months ago.

Thanks! I run a refugium with chaeto and ulva, a reef octopus essense s130 skimmer and an innovative marine minimax reactor with rox 0.8 carbon. For a while I was trying to chase 10ppm nitrates and was dosing phosphate heavily to achieve that. My macros were growing like crazy, but i started getting cyano in the display

 

[CoralClasher]

I’m currently dosing Triton core7 by hand 5ml in the morning and 5ml at night. I had a Bubble magus dosing pump dosing for me but my parameters kept changing and found that it wasn’t dosing the same amount every time. Now it’s been three weeks of hand dosing and the tank is using more ALK and Ca than ever before. I’m not sure if I should increase the dose or add a third dose?

 

[CoralClasher]

7 month update. Sorry for the blue pictures I lost the ability to adjust my lights so I’m stuck with the preset schedule.

 

[CoralClasher]

Like I said in post #4 I have a waterbox 6025 on the way!!

 

[CoralClasher]

My cover picture to this in 7 months.