OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
I am pretty much at tang capacity. I have 3 yellows, 2 purples, a powder blue, a vlamingi, and a dsjardini sailfin
joporeefpro's 1000 gallon TWV build
- Monster Build
- Thread starter joporeefpro
- Start date
- Tagged users None
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2016
- Messages
- 5,348
- Reaction score
- 6,710
Rabbit fish then
Outdrsyguy1
Active Member
I'm personally against having venomous anything in my tank so if you don't like rabbit fish you could try tweaking back the feeding a little to try and get them grazing more. 8 tangs should be able to keep the algae in check. Especially since you've got that huge chaeto mass in your fuge.
I only feed 1-2 cubes mysis, 1 cube reef plankton and a pinch of flake a day for the last 9 months. All fish are maintaining or gaining weight and have done well. It's amazing the range in quantity of food you can feed fish. I have blue hippo, sailfin, yellow, and an Achilles tang and they all graze all day long. Only algae I see is glass film and some brown algae they don't eat
I only feed 1-2 cubes mysis, 1 cube reef plankton and a pinch of flake a day for the last 9 months. All fish are maintaining or gaining weight and have done well. It's amazing the range in quantity of food you can feed fish. I have blue hippo, sailfin, yellow, and an Achilles tang and they all graze all day long. Only algae I see is glass film and some brown algae they don't eat
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2016
- Messages
- 5,348
- Reaction score
- 6,710
While I would agree foxfaces are poisonous I have hardly heard any problems with them. I won't put a lionfish in my tank but the rewards def outway the cons for this fish plus it's just a beautiful fish. Another thing is even if the rabbit fish attacks a fish picking on him it won't kill it or nuke ur tank.
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
I have a magnificent foxface also lol I don't have algae now just to clarify, but the last time I pulled the gfo I did.
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2016
- Messages
- 5,348
- Reaction score
- 6,710
Beautiful fish ain't it
Well i would let the gfo exhaust on its own and see what happens testing po4 daily to get to ur desired levels and see if the algea comes back
I had similar problem with my 10 months old, way smaller tank. Some corals were ok, some dying, dinos then cyano outbreak. Since I did 2 x 15% water changes with nutri seawater things changed for better. In your case it could be very expensive water change so you can try use water from well establish, healthy tank.
Another way is to order some tampabay live rock and put in your refugium.
I believe I had problems in my tank due to biological imbalance, lack of bacteria diversity
Another way is to order some tampabay live rock and put in your refugium.
I believe I had problems in my tank due to biological imbalance, lack of bacteria diversity
Groentje
New Member
Maybe some things could be clearer if we have soms pics. Soms birdviews also please...
Browning Acro's in my experience:
- Nitrates are up ( lack of phosphates let them loose tissue so they would be white, not brown. Especially with +8 DKH)
- Lack of light, with Leds its a lot more difficult to get the spread you would have with T5s. Its possible they colour up on the topside (thats why i ask for birdview pics) while the side is colouring brown due to the lack of light there.
- Flow is also to be investigated. Especially for Acro's, high flow is almost as important as the light and stable parameters. Get Acro's into the highest flow zones or get more flow into the tank. Higher flow does also a lot for the colours.
I read you use an Apex, then for sure you'll want to get the temperature controller by it. Over here, i can control temps easy within the range of .5 degrees, taking 24.5 as the goal.
Hows the salinity btw?
Browning Acro's in my experience:
- Nitrates are up ( lack of phosphates let them loose tissue so they would be white, not brown. Especially with +8 DKH)
- Lack of light, with Leds its a lot more difficult to get the spread you would have with T5s. Its possible they colour up on the topside (thats why i ask for birdview pics) while the side is colouring brown due to the lack of light there.
- Flow is also to be investigated. Especially for Acro's, high flow is almost as important as the light and stable parameters. Get Acro's into the highest flow zones or get more flow into the tank. Higher flow does also a lot for the colours.
I read you use an Apex, then for sure you'll want to get the temperature controller by it. Over here, i can control temps easy within the range of .5 degrees, taking 24.5 as the goal.
Hows the salinity btw?
BluewaterLa
Active Member
I can see your concern about removing the GFO and possibly the bio pellets then having algae start.
What everyone must realize is reef tanks will have algae in some form or another and this is natural and healthy for the tank and critters that depend on it.
The trick is to keep all of the unwanted / unsightly algae from getting out of control due to lack of maintenance, over feeding or having nothing to graze upon said algae.
A bare tank, void of any algae and being stripped of nutrients by skimmer, filter socks, Gfo, bio pellets, macro /refugium Plus all the living critters trying to eek out some nutrition from dissolved organics will suffer from being too clean / void of nutrients.
Your filtration is excellent without GFO and bio pellets and I would say that it could handle a larger bio load easily and in a nice balance.
When you first take things like GFO and bio pellets off line you will / may see some algae appear, this will be temporary while the ecosystem finds balance between nutrients in the tank and nutrients out the tank via mechanical filtration and the cheato. Plus your tangs and other grazers will thank you for the source of constant snacking.
It wont take much time for your tank to stabilize and the fish to keep the tank looking algae free, I say looking because you will always have algae in the tank though you dont notice it because its not growing due to food sources being stripped to fast and your fish grazing on it constantly.
One to two degrees a day in temperature swing isnt the end of the world as many folks have reefs that swing 2 degrees without any issues though I am one that likes to keep it one degree or so myself.
Others have mentioned that finding the sweet spot for nutrient levels in your tank is key and I cant agree more with this as there needs to be some dissolved organics in the water for the corals to absorb through their tissue for the zooxanthelle and the coral itself.
Keeping reef tanks for over 20 years and trying the zero nutrient route for a little while left me with a tank that was too darn clean to properly maintain coral health long term with sps or lps. Sure adding amino acids and trying to feed more coral foods helped but it was a loosing battle.
I quickly abandoned this new idea that most folks were advocating and went back to what has always worked, keeping low levels of nutrients.
It takes time for you to find the sweet spot for your particular tank as all tanks are different in size, filtration, lighting and of course an important and overlooked aspect, Coral, fish species and amounts of each.
A good amount to start with would be on the lowest end for both nutrients we can test for in a reef hobby wise, Nitrate and phosphates.
Try allowing your nitrate to accumulate a testable range of 2 ppm and your phosphates to be detectable around 0.01 or 0.o2
If you find that things are starting to color up some and look a little better with some polyp extension and you think the tank is still lacking try to up the number on your Nitrates to 3 ppm or 5 ppm.
Some folks find that 8 to 10 ppm works well for their particular tank though I find that 3 to 5 ppm is great even for the most severely loaded tanks of corals.
I dont recall at what percentage you said you are running your lights at, being that your tank is 36'' deep you would have to push the lights pretty high intensity wise to get good penetration down past the half mark of your tank.
Investing in a par meter is a great investment and I would recommend the Apogee 520 as this one is the new model and reads on either side of the spectrum with better accuracy Vs other models which gives you more accurate Par readings.
Target between 250 and 350 for your sps which in that deep of a tank would require you to have super high par at the top few inches of the tank to ensure that you are getting great lights down to the middle depth of the tank and your sand bed is getting between 80 and 150 par.
These are not absolute numbers to live by and you will find your tank will differ due to the depth, water motions and such so having that par meter would be great for you to dial in the lights for your reef taking the guess work out of it.
Everything must be in balance with a reef tank for the long term success of corals and have them ''thrive'' not just survive.
Lighting, chemistry and nutrients are all interconnected tightly.
High powerful light requires lower alkalinity ( 7-8 DKH ) with higher nutrients available to the corals.
Lower light enables the tank to have higher alkalinity ( 9- 11 DKH ) and low to undetectable nutrients.
Some methods are used to get corals to calcify faster while others are used to color up corals.
To color up sps (example) you would lower the nutrient levels No3/ Po4 which would reduce the amount of zooxanthelle in the corals which are brown in color so this reduction would give way to the corals natural pigmentation.
Higher intensity lights usually isnt a good idea to have while coloring up sps due to the lack of sun screen they have now that the zooxanthelle are reduced in their tissue. This is also when supplementing amino acids helps the corals.
Having lower / more normal or realistic par numbers in the 250-350 par range enables you to have a more normal photo period time length wise along with higher DKH to get more/ faster growth from coral frags.
Fast growth from frags using elevated DKH works well for most folks though I wouldnt recommend it for maturing colonies.
Trying to achieve super coloration and accelerated growth at the same time puts your tank on the edge of instability like playing with gasoline and fire its not recommended for several reasons.
For reef tanks it is because all the things we discuss like lighting, chemistry and nutrients are all tied together and affect how they all work well or become a problem one way or another for the corals.
Finding that ''sweet spot'' many talk about is the delicate balance of the mentioned above topics along with flow to provide oxygen to corals as well as bring nutrients to them and wash away their waste and respiration.
When majority of reefers used halides, most only ran the halides for max of 6 hours and left the supplemental lighting on before and after to finish the photo period, this was because corals will get their full saturation of intense light in this time range. More intense lights will result in corals reaching this point sooner.
So once your lighting is dialed in and you get some detectable nutrient levels in the tank I am sure that you will start seeing things turn around and find success with corals that previously withered away in your system.
The amount of fish, the amount of corals you have Vs the efficiency of your filtration is another thing to balance.
Having a tank that is light on fish load/ fish feedings with little corals in the tank will do fine while the same tank overfed will have high nutrient issues and likely algae out of hand.
Take a 200 gallon system with efficient filtration, pack 15 fish in there with all of them fat and happily fed with plenty of live rock and absolutely zero room for another coral and you will likely have a nutrient poor tank needing supplemental amino acids and Nitrate to be dosed. This would be due to the sheer number of corals and colonies that are utilizing the dissolved nutrients in the water as food just as fast as algae can.
This same tank with 20 or 30 coral fragments would possibly need less food added and more water changes.
Each system will differ and most reefers come to realize the tanks needs and care change as the corals grow into colonies and or more corals are added.
I think your build thread is very detailed, I enjoyed reading through and checking out your pictures.
You have a nice tank that is still rather young yet but will keep improving as time goes on thats for sure.
Thanks for sharing the process and the pictures.
Good luck and happy reefing
BluewaterLa/ Mike
What everyone must realize is reef tanks will have algae in some form or another and this is natural and healthy for the tank and critters that depend on it.
The trick is to keep all of the unwanted / unsightly algae from getting out of control due to lack of maintenance, over feeding or having nothing to graze upon said algae.
A bare tank, void of any algae and being stripped of nutrients by skimmer, filter socks, Gfo, bio pellets, macro /refugium Plus all the living critters trying to eek out some nutrition from dissolved organics will suffer from being too clean / void of nutrients.
Your filtration is excellent without GFO and bio pellets and I would say that it could handle a larger bio load easily and in a nice balance.
When you first take things like GFO and bio pellets off line you will / may see some algae appear, this will be temporary while the ecosystem finds balance between nutrients in the tank and nutrients out the tank via mechanical filtration and the cheato. Plus your tangs and other grazers will thank you for the source of constant snacking.
It wont take much time for your tank to stabilize and the fish to keep the tank looking algae free, I say looking because you will always have algae in the tank though you dont notice it because its not growing due to food sources being stripped to fast and your fish grazing on it constantly.
One to two degrees a day in temperature swing isnt the end of the world as many folks have reefs that swing 2 degrees without any issues though I am one that likes to keep it one degree or so myself.
Others have mentioned that finding the sweet spot for nutrient levels in your tank is key and I cant agree more with this as there needs to be some dissolved organics in the water for the corals to absorb through their tissue for the zooxanthelle and the coral itself.
Keeping reef tanks for over 20 years and trying the zero nutrient route for a little while left me with a tank that was too darn clean to properly maintain coral health long term with sps or lps. Sure adding amino acids and trying to feed more coral foods helped but it was a loosing battle.
I quickly abandoned this new idea that most folks were advocating and went back to what has always worked, keeping low levels of nutrients.
It takes time for you to find the sweet spot for your particular tank as all tanks are different in size, filtration, lighting and of course an important and overlooked aspect, Coral, fish species and amounts of each.
A good amount to start with would be on the lowest end for both nutrients we can test for in a reef hobby wise, Nitrate and phosphates.
Try allowing your nitrate to accumulate a testable range of 2 ppm and your phosphates to be detectable around 0.01 or 0.o2
If you find that things are starting to color up some and look a little better with some polyp extension and you think the tank is still lacking try to up the number on your Nitrates to 3 ppm or 5 ppm.
Some folks find that 8 to 10 ppm works well for their particular tank though I find that 3 to 5 ppm is great even for the most severely loaded tanks of corals.
I dont recall at what percentage you said you are running your lights at, being that your tank is 36'' deep you would have to push the lights pretty high intensity wise to get good penetration down past the half mark of your tank.
Investing in a par meter is a great investment and I would recommend the Apogee 520 as this one is the new model and reads on either side of the spectrum with better accuracy Vs other models which gives you more accurate Par readings.
Target between 250 and 350 for your sps which in that deep of a tank would require you to have super high par at the top few inches of the tank to ensure that you are getting great lights down to the middle depth of the tank and your sand bed is getting between 80 and 150 par.
These are not absolute numbers to live by and you will find your tank will differ due to the depth, water motions and such so having that par meter would be great for you to dial in the lights for your reef taking the guess work out of it.
Everything must be in balance with a reef tank for the long term success of corals and have them ''thrive'' not just survive.
Lighting, chemistry and nutrients are all interconnected tightly.
High powerful light requires lower alkalinity ( 7-8 DKH ) with higher nutrients available to the corals.
Lower light enables the tank to have higher alkalinity ( 9- 11 DKH ) and low to undetectable nutrients.
Some methods are used to get corals to calcify faster while others are used to color up corals.
To color up sps (example) you would lower the nutrient levels No3/ Po4 which would reduce the amount of zooxanthelle in the corals which are brown in color so this reduction would give way to the corals natural pigmentation.
Higher intensity lights usually isnt a good idea to have while coloring up sps due to the lack of sun screen they have now that the zooxanthelle are reduced in their tissue. This is also when supplementing amino acids helps the corals.
Having lower / more normal or realistic par numbers in the 250-350 par range enables you to have a more normal photo period time length wise along with higher DKH to get more/ faster growth from coral frags.
Fast growth from frags using elevated DKH works well for most folks though I wouldnt recommend it for maturing colonies.
Trying to achieve super coloration and accelerated growth at the same time puts your tank on the edge of instability like playing with gasoline and fire its not recommended for several reasons.
For reef tanks it is because all the things we discuss like lighting, chemistry and nutrients are all tied together and affect how they all work well or become a problem one way or another for the corals.
Finding that ''sweet spot'' many talk about is the delicate balance of the mentioned above topics along with flow to provide oxygen to corals as well as bring nutrients to them and wash away their waste and respiration.
When majority of reefers used halides, most only ran the halides for max of 6 hours and left the supplemental lighting on before and after to finish the photo period, this was because corals will get their full saturation of intense light in this time range. More intense lights will result in corals reaching this point sooner.
So once your lighting is dialed in and you get some detectable nutrient levels in the tank I am sure that you will start seeing things turn around and find success with corals that previously withered away in your system.
The amount of fish, the amount of corals you have Vs the efficiency of your filtration is another thing to balance.
Having a tank that is light on fish load/ fish feedings with little corals in the tank will do fine while the same tank overfed will have high nutrient issues and likely algae out of hand.
Take a 200 gallon system with efficient filtration, pack 15 fish in there with all of them fat and happily fed with plenty of live rock and absolutely zero room for another coral and you will likely have a nutrient poor tank needing supplemental amino acids and Nitrate to be dosed. This would be due to the sheer number of corals and colonies that are utilizing the dissolved nutrients in the water as food just as fast as algae can.
This same tank with 20 or 30 coral fragments would possibly need less food added and more water changes.
Each system will differ and most reefers come to realize the tanks needs and care change as the corals grow into colonies and or more corals are added.
I think your build thread is very detailed, I enjoyed reading through and checking out your pictures.
You have a nice tank that is still rather young yet but will keep improving as time goes on thats for sure.
Thanks for sharing the process and the pictures.
Good luck and happy reefing
BluewaterLa/ Mike
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
I cannot thank you enough for this extremely detailed and customized synopsis I plan to use it as my guideline! Thank you I will keep you updated! Here are some not so nice photos for those who have been asking
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
I cannot thank you enough for this extremely detailed and customized synopsis I plan to use it as my guideline! Thank you I will keep you updated! Here are some not so nice photos for those who have been asking
Please keep in mind these are not before and after, all of the photos were taken the same day at the same time so for instance the beautiful orange plate is still a beautiful orange plate, however on the opposite side of the tank I lost a green plate while a green tounge next to it is still beautiful
Outdrsyguy1
Active Member
Looks like low nutrients to me causing lack of color. The stn can happen from that too. The die back on the lps happened to me too in my old tank when it was low nutrients. The other mistake I made was having some piping that flow was stopped intermediately. I was running a chiller with apex and only turning it on when needed. Well the water in the piping would go septic and dose the tank with ammonia when it turned on. Killed random things randomly and also caused a lot of stn. I noticed you had an alternate pump I assume is only one is running and not some sort of alternating thing. It took me 6 months of chasing ghosts before I found the problem. Learned a hard lesson to never have stale water anywhere.
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
Yes that pump is just a backup I had something similar in my last system when I shut down a gfo reactor due to a leak. Luckily I didn't dump it back into the system
danielsalt
Community Member
Nice looking tank man.
A bit shocked that you talk about not keeping an eye on nutrients though but each to his own i guess
A bit shocked that you talk about not keeping an eye on nutrients though but each to his own i guess
BluewaterLa
Active Member
@joporeefpro Your very welcome. I am known for being long winded on our local forum, some appreciate the detailed answers while some do not and its all good either way I try and explain things in a manner that most folks can understand no matter their experience or current knowledge.
I've come to note that some folks either dont get my wording or appreciate that I dont use exact scientific wording all the time, and this is fine by me as well.
My intent is trying to help as many folks willing to give success a chance. I absolutely love to pass reefing knowledge on that has taken me over two decades to understand many of the details and relations within our hobby and my personal tanks.
I keep a detailed log book on my tanks and I find that this allows me to not only go back and see trends with my tank, it allows me to make connections between two different systems from different times in the hobby.
The great thing about coming up without things like the internet and forums is we had to figure out a ton of things on our own and learn through lots of mistakes. There wasnt too many outlets or ways to get information back and forth between reefers So this is another reason why I like to help folks understand what I do about our great hobby.
I am still learning something new all the time and making connections here and there that tie up some loose ends that seem to linger.
I would also like to say that I am a firm believer in this saying, There is no Wrong way to reef Only Better ways to reef.
In time you will come to know your tank on a more intimate level, knowing when something looks off to your eye. This is always the Hmm.. moment that makes you grab a test kit and take a deeper look or start looking at the equipment/ checking things over.
I'll leave you with this as well, your tank will not always look pristine. The sand may get a little funky or some algae may appear, remember this is normal and with a little work and guidance your tank will come back right for sure.
Keep on enjoying the ride, there are ups and downs to this learning curve filled hobby.
I've come to note that some folks either dont get my wording or appreciate that I dont use exact scientific wording all the time, and this is fine by me as well.
My intent is trying to help as many folks willing to give success a chance. I absolutely love to pass reefing knowledge on that has taken me over two decades to understand many of the details and relations within our hobby and my personal tanks.
I keep a detailed log book on my tanks and I find that this allows me to not only go back and see trends with my tank, it allows me to make connections between two different systems from different times in the hobby.
The great thing about coming up without things like the internet and forums is we had to figure out a ton of things on our own and learn through lots of mistakes. There wasnt too many outlets or ways to get information back and forth between reefers So this is another reason why I like to help folks understand what I do about our great hobby.
I am still learning something new all the time and making connections here and there that tie up some loose ends that seem to linger.
I would also like to say that I am a firm believer in this saying, There is no Wrong way to reef Only Better ways to reef.
In time you will come to know your tank on a more intimate level, knowing when something looks off to your eye. This is always the Hmm.. moment that makes you grab a test kit and take a deeper look or start looking at the equipment/ checking things over.
I'll leave you with this as well, your tank will not always look pristine. The sand may get a little funky or some algae may appear, remember this is normal and with a little work and guidance your tank will come back right for sure.
Keep on enjoying the ride, there are ups and downs to this learning curve filled hobby.
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
Updated stats Ca 471 dkh 10.7 phosphate 0 mag1480
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
accidental upload removed
Last edited:
OP
OP
joporeefpro
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2017
- Messages
- 145
- Reaction score
- 273
Alright everyone here is the long awaited results let me have it!
Outdrsyguy1
Active Member
I can't find your nitrate levels. Am I blind?
Similar threads
- Price: 15,000
- Shipping NOT Available
New Posts
-
-
AIO Build steveschuergers 90 gallon Goni heavy mixed reef.- Latest: Reefing_addiction
-
-
