ksfulk's Red Sea Reefer 525xL

[ksfulk]

Are you filtering the air from outside with carbon that's injected into your skimmer? Just thinking maybe your neighbor didn't spray anything, but the city could have.

I'm also running rox and it's worked well for me at the early stage of my tank. If you do increase the carbon, maybe try and see if the decline changes for better or worse. I know people say rox is really aggressive with Zeovit, so if the decline gets worse, maybe switch over to a different type or reduce the amount further. If the tanks stops or starts getting better, it could something did make it's way into the tank. Worst case is no change at all rough.

I saw you mentioned if you start over you'd go with another nutrient management system, what do you think you'd go with?

Im not filtering the air at all, and our city doesnt spray, but since it can't hurt, I put some carbon in a mesh bag and canister, and added it to the incoming air line just to be safe. I also replaced the carbon in the tank with fresh and put it inside the filter sock (I run a single 7" sock in my set up) for increased exposure. I used 2/3 a cup and replaced with fresh rather than increase the carbon so I maintained at least one parameter of the change. If things get better, I can just replace the carbon every few days, rather than increase and have a chance at going overboard with stripping the water.

As for the nutrient management system - I havent really given this a lot of thought yet. I like ZeoVit, its been relatively hands off and easy to maintain schedule wise. I dont use a lot of "extras" which I think made it nice to prevent things from becoming a "chore". I dont really want to do any kind of refugium - Ive never had much success with them, and they seem to become much more of a mess than I want to deal with - and sump space is already at a premium. I have run Triton before and my nutrients were always much higher in the system as a whole. So that gets rid of most of those systems. Ideally, I would continue to use ESV two part, so maybe something similar to Zeo, a bacterial driven system, but something more like NO4PO3-X or VSV? Im not entirely sure yet. I have to do more research.

I keep thinking that my current issues are exacerbated by the death of the derasa - that clam was probably mopping up a lot of the high nitrates that Im seeing now, and so it was never really a problem prior to its death. Thats not to say that its what caused the acro issue - that was happening before - but if something was already causing an issue, and then there was a big ammonia and/or nitrate spike due to the clam kicking the bucket, it seems logical that the resulting instability would wreck havoc on an already compromised system.

Who knows... maybe this spring, I'll redo the entire tank, when I can afford to have a custom refugium sump built for the tank, and then I can start from scratch - new rocks, new sand, new frags...

I dunno... I feel even worse when I start thinking about that, because I dont want to give up on this guy... hell I set it up almost two years ago to the day

 

[ksfulk]

I managed to borrow a PAR meter from a friend, just to make sure that I didnt have anything weird going on with my lights, plus Ive never really mapped this tank. Data was interesting, but nothing outstanding. Par of about 200 on the sand bed, 400 at the waterline, 220-300 where most of the coral were growing. Alk started to drop a little bit over the weekend, so maybe the coral that are still in there are starting to grow again, maybe. The stony corals that are in there are still declining, so Im going to pull frags of the last ones in there this week and get them to someone else for insurance and then just cut out the skeletons of whats left. Then I can figure out the rest of what I want to do with this tank.

The red lines are to show values on the sand bed going front to back. Any other values are close to where I've taken the readings at.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I managed to borrow a PAR meter from a friend, just to make sure that I didnt have anything weird going on with my lights, plus Ive never really mapped this tank. Data was interesting, but nothing outstanding. Par of about 200 on the sand bed, 400 at the waterline, 220-300 where most of the coral were growing. Alk started to drop a little bit over the weekend, so maybe the coral that are still in there are starting to grow again, maybe. The stony corals that are in there are still declining, so Im going to pull frags of the last ones in there this week and get them to someone else for insurance and then just cut out the skeletons of whats left. Then I can figure out the rest of what I want to do with this tank.

The red lines are to show values on the sand bed going front to back. Any other values are close to where I've taken the readings at.

Nice! Always good to know where you stand!

 

[ksfulk]

So... I started cleaning out the skeletons today and clipped what corals still had live tissue on them, in an effort to maybe save some of them. I spent about two hours working on it, and it’s only about half way done. I’ll need to vacuum the sand when I’m done as there’s tons of little bits now in the sand.

I found my sand sifting star torn apart in the sand - not sure what decided to go after it after a year in the tank, but it was aggressive, taking four of the legs off the body! I’ve also had a large section of zoas recede to almost nothing. If I had to guess, I’m betting the filefish is getting belligerent.

 

[Reef of Fillory]

So... I started cleaning out the skeletons today and clipped what corals still had live tissue on them, in an effort to maybe save some of them. I spent about two hours working on it, and it’s only about half way done. I’ll need to vacuum the sand when I’m done as there’s tons of little bits now in the sand.

I found my sand sifting star torn apart in the sand - not sure what decided to go after it after a year in the tank, but it was aggressive, taking four of the legs off the body! I’ve also had a large section of zoas recede to almost nothing. If I had to guess, I’m betting the filefish is getting belligerent.

So sorry to hear about you having problems in your tank!

The pieces that I have in my tank from you are still pretty small, but if you'd like me to cut off a piece or two of any of them, just let me know, i'd be happy to send some pieces back over to you when you get things sorted out!

 

[ksfulk]

I appreciate it! Im still trying to figure out whats going on... things seem to be *good* one day, and then worse the next... I'll likely just wait it out a bit for now and as we get into the inside months and more focus can be put on the tank and I'll either completely reboot the tank or something. Hopefully I can get back to where I was in a year or so... God thats depressing even typing it.

 

[ksfulk]

Still having recession issues, but mostly everything is gone out of the tank now. Im working through what to go through with the tank and what to cut and what to keep. Definitely getting into rebuild mode here. Trying to figure out what way to go with things and if I want to just kind of soft reboot things, or if I want to pull out the sand and start with new rock entirely.

Either way... I ordered a KH Guardian tonight... Im hoping that a better insight into Alkalinity and hopefully this will give me a better handle on the tank when it starts over again.

 

[ksfulk]

Smoking gun? Maybe - these certainly didn’t help things. Found them in the bottom of my saltwater holding tank (for water changes).

I got my KH Guardian on Monday and it looks super neat - but I decided I’m going to overhaul the electronics of the tank and replace some things before I hard reset this tank. So it will sit in the box until next weekend. I finally picked up a battery backup, two brand new heaters, new marine pure block, new sets of filter socks, 80 lbs of new rock, new probes, 80 lbs of sand and some new zeo supplies. Lots of work ahead. I thought about picking up a second DOS to run automatic water changes, but I want to see how full my cabinet is before I buy more crap. I do need to pickup a new holder for my dosing lines - I’m not taking chances with magnets now.

And... since I’m gutting the whole tank, I’m getting rid of some of my more obnoxious fish (filefish, blennies, maybe my desjardanni sailfin) and I had a local guy bring in a trio of pyramid butterflies and a fat pintail fairy wrasse. I don’t pick them up until tomorrow, but they’re all eating and my 40gal QT is up and running. So they’ll all get to spend a few weeks in there until the construction is done.

Am I turning the corner? It’s possible - at least I don’t hate the tank the moment I see it. There are still five acro colonies that are alive and not receding, so there’s that, I guess

 

[Reef of Fillory]

Smoking gun? Maybe - these certainly didn’t help things. Found them in the bottom of my saltwater holding tank (for water changes).



I got my KH Guardian on Monday and it looks super neat - but I decided I’m going to overhaul the electronics of the tank and replace some things before I hard reset this tank. So it will sit in the box until next weekend. I finally picked up a battery backup, two brand new heaters, new marine pure block, new sets of filter socks, 80 lbs of new rock, new probes, 80 lbs of sand and some new zeo supplies. Lots of work ahead. I thought about picking up a second DOS to run automatic water changes, but I want to see how full my cabinet is before I buy more crap. I do need to pickup a new holder for my dosing lines - I’m not taking chances with magnets now.


And... since I’m gutting the whole tank, I’m getting rid of some of my more obnoxious fish (filefish, blennies, maybe my desjardanni sailfin) and I had a local guy bring in a trio of pyramid butterflies and a fat pintail fairy wrasse. I don’t pick them up until tomorrow, but they’re all eating and my 40gal QT is up and running. So they’ll all get to spend a few weeks in there until the construction is done.

Am I turning the corner? It’s possible - at least I don’t hate the tank the moment I see it. There are still five acro colonies that are alive and not receding, so there’s that, I guess

I'm excited to see how that KH Guardian works out for you, and what you end up doing equipment wise. So far i've had to dose aminos/nitrate/phosphate into every tank i've ever had. Have you thought about running a fuge rather than going with the zeo method?

Red Sea has a pretty cool colors and coral care program which utilizes NoPox for nutrient reduction if needed. In my experience, I haven't needed anything other than the refugium to control nutrients. I even overflow my skimmer back into the tank, and leave my filter floss for 10+ days before changing.

Either way, I hope those butterflies don't wreak havoc on your SPS! A trio should be pretty darn cool!

As I said before - if you need a hand moving things around or anything like that, shoot me a pm/text - i'd be happy to help out!

 

[ksfulk]

I'm excited to see how that KH Guardian works out for you, and what you end up doing equipment wise. So far i've had to dose aminos/nitrate/phosphate into every tank i've ever had. Have you thought about running a fuge rather than going with the zeo method?

Red Sea has a pretty cool colors and coral care program which utilizes NoPox for nutrient reduction if needed. In my experience, I haven't needed anything other than the refugium to control nutrients. I even overflow my skimmer back into the tank, and leave my filter floss for 10+ days before changing.

Either way, I hope those butterflies don't wreak havoc on your SPS! A trio should be pretty darn cool!

As I said before - if you need a hand moving things around or anything like that, shoot me a pm/text - i'd be happy to help out!

Pyramid butterflies are planktavores, so they dont go after SPS at all, although right now it doesnt really matter... lol

As for the fuge bit... well, Ive run one before and it was ok, but really its more work than I want to do. Plus, I dont really have extra real estate in the sump area. Ive had issues with maintaining a refugium as well, as mine have a tendency to cultivate a stupid amount of cyano. Zeo has been an interesting experiment so far, and I havent had any direct issues (that I know of) thats attributable to the system itself. But we'll see - if I suck up this tank again then maybe I should switch

 

[ksfulk]

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Hopefully removing those rusted razors helps with the issues you're having! I'll be following along, and hope to see positive things soon!

 

[ksfulk]

Working on cleaning up the electrical side of the system... two days worth of work and it’s cleaning up nicely...

 

[Reef of Fillory]

Looking good! Wish I had room for an equipment area in my stand, everything's going to be screwed to the back of the hood because the sump takes up the whole stand.

 

[ksfulk]

Its working so far... still have to work on calibrations this evening - I ran out of time yesterday. But I hooked it up with relatively little issue and had to working within an hour or two. I do need to order some new fittings for the lines, as I only had the larger JG fittings for my reagent and waste bottles, and the lines that come with the KH Guardian are very small in diameter.

 

[Stpatrick]

Tagging along

 

[Velcro]

Wow those electronics look night and day. Your before picture is what mine currently looks like if you add a cat occasionally napping on top of it.

 

[ksfulk]

So... it’s been a minute since the last tank update. Basically since all of the coral died, I’ve been doing the bare minimum to keep the remaining livestock alive - though there’s been some failures there as well - and generally life hasn’t let me invest any sweat equity in my tank. I finally got a weekend where I’m not traveling for work or the family, so tonight I started the big tear down.

I pulled all of the rocks out, pulled off all of the snails, crabs and shrimp off that I could, then I netted out all of the remaining fish, set them up in a 40b for a few days, and performed a 50 gallon water change.

Tomorrow I will vacuum out all of the sand and remove any left over rubble rock. I have another 70lbs of sand I’ll rinse and add afterwards as well as a brand new ceramic media plate and some new dry rock. I’ve got all but one of the pumps soaking over night and they’ll get a good scrub and be back in operation as well.

Assuming that goes well, I’ll work on new rock work tomorrow and into Sunday and then move the fish back into the tank before the work week starts anew. I’m still trying to determine what nutrient management system I’m going to be using this go around - I might try an algae reactor and see how that goes for a while.

 

[Elias Kalogiros]

Why did everything die? What happened???

 

[Elias Kalogiros]

Why did everything dies? What happened??