Lubeck’s 32 gal SPS (mostly) build

[lubeck]

I’m on my second week of carbon dosing. Corals look good. Tank looks “cleaner”.

A few updates. My mandarin goby past away a few weeks ago. Even with a fuge and buying 10000 pods every six weeks it wasn’t enough to keep the goby fed. Lesson learned.

I also lost my peppermint shrimp the last few days. I think the cleaner shrimp took it out.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to restock or not.

Th peaks/valleys with the PO is me dosing phos ban.

 

[Reef Psychology]

I’m on my second week of carbon dosing. Corals look good. Tank looks “cleaner”.

A few updates. My mandarin goby past past a few weeks ago. Even with a fuge and buying 10000 pods every six weeks it wasn’t enough to keep the goby fed. Lesson learned.

I also lost my peppermint shrimp the last few days. I think the cleaner shrimp took it out.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to restock or not.

Th peaks with the PO is me dosing phos ban.

Was the mandarin from biota/ora or was it wild caught?

 

[lubeck]

Was the mandarin from biota/ora or was it wild caught?

Good question. I’m not really sure. I know I had it in the tank for more than 2 yrs.

RIP Mandy

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

Man, this has to be the most impressive biocube I've seen. Well done.

 

[lubeck]

Man, this has to be the most impressive biocube I've seen. Well done.

Appreciate it!

 

[lubeck]

Finished my third week of carbon dosing. Coral color has improved significantly, especially for the yellow wild acro. Happy with results so far. I will need to continue to dose phos ban twice per week to keep PO4 around 0.1.

 

[lubeck]

Unfortunately there is something wrong with the parameters in the tank. Most of my sps have started browning out and most zoa and mushrooms have been closed for the last few days.

The only thing I did differently is add 6 drops of zeofood plus each day this week

Another theory, a few days after the above post I lost the cap of my Mp10 inside the rock cave and tried to blow it out stirring up sand that hasn’t been moved in over a year. Some of the corals immediately started expelling algae.

My alk is about a 1dkh higher than normal. See the slimmer below. It’s tips were white growth tips now turned brown.

 

[reef’r]

Let us know when you get it figured out

 

[lubeck]

I’m traveling today and my wife says the tank is cloudy and stinks!!! Yikes. So sad the tank was rolling for a solid year and now this. I’m having to do an emergency water change now.

 

[lubeck]

Did a small water change tonight. The tank is crashing will get pics in the morning. Wish I knew what happened

 

[lubeck]

I stopped dosing as of Monday all items. I turned off alk cal and mag on Tuesday as there is no consumption other than kalk.

Here is some chunks of slimmer that was removed yesterday

 

[lubeck]

Did a 60% water change today and removed some dead corals. The gold hammer had over 30 heads.

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Great thread. Following along. Awesome tank!

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

Good question. I’m not really sure. I know I had it in the tank for more than 2 yrs.

RIP Mandy

So sorry, I just lost my clown grouper a few hours ago, it’s so sad!

 

[lubeck]

Well I think the die off has stopped over the last week. Lost about 35% of the tank mostly sps. I still don’t know the cause but would say it was from my carbon dosing regiment, spawning of bristle works or something toxic from outside air.

I’ve started dosing carbon again but at 50% what I was doing before. I’ve also stated dosing zeofood plus but only half the dose and only twice a week.

I’ve seen a little PE in a couple sps but otherwise coloring and PE is nonexistent. I’ve lost all my ricordia but luckily my jawbreaker’s survived and have slowly started to open.


I’m guessing the tank will be back on track by august. The silver lining is I now have room to buy more corals I’m going to wait another month before stocking anything.

 

[lubeck]

This is what the tank looked like before the crash. Best it’s ever been. And that’s with 3-4 weeks of carbon dosing.

Color and growth was amazing

 

[Project]

Took some time and looked thru the posts and there are few things i would consider checking.

- Have done icp tests? That might be ther qickest to see if you have any elevation you cant detect and give you some directions as well

- What food are you feeding? You had large colony of SPS's. When you start bringing down Po4 and No3, Your corals food amount they were getting may decrease tremendously while other bacteria's were forming from your carbon dosing solutions interacting with your fish food and coral food and such.

I think your tank went thru shock and in the process of collecting, corals and livestocks got stressed out. Thats what ive experienced with my tank.

 

[lubeck]

Maybe I should get an icp. Don’t know which brand though? Not sure what would show up since I’ve done so many WC. Probably turned the water over 3-4 times

I make homemade fish food with shrimp, clams, oysters, scallops, garlic.

An interesting observation though, my alk consumption started to take off last week to the point I had to start dosing alk and kalk. At this point I was carbon dosing at half the amount.

When I did my water change on Sunday I also added coral snow with 3 drops of zeofood plus AND 1 drop of zeobak. Since this I’ve had zero alk consumption and had to turn off the alk ( which I did on Sunday)

I did not refrigerate the zeobak after opening and have refrained from using it since the crash until Sunday. Could this be the culprit

 

[Project]

I use ICP Ms 3 times so far. Every 3 month since 1yr mark (when I had massive die out). I get general ideas and it definitely is a piece of tool that helped navigate the system better. I also didn’t think it was necessary but it is a valuable information to have and easier to tinker with the tank.

I think your tank went thru a “diet” and perhaps those additions you are adding had negetive effect to your system and now, when you dose them, your corals probably is being effected as before in a negative side of the things. Your tank was full of nutrients. Don’t lower it too fast. And that lithium chloride is dangerous.

Carbon dosing need to be regulated and slowly done so the bacterias don’t throw off the balance of the tank. I am using little viniger in the kalk solution (25ml to 5g) and biofuel. Biofuel is only added 1.5ml daily by doser. I think I dose very little and it’s not for reduction of nutrients but as coral food. I use algae turf scrubber skimmer and filter roller and water change as export.

 

[Project]

I think your tank initially tank you for lowering the nutrients. And using carbon maybalso helped. Until it tipped over and went on a too much or too long of it.