Megabite's 180 Reef - Round 2

[MegabiteOG]

How are these shelves holding up ? Its a cool idea.

Super solid. Used some short stainless steel screws and can take a lot of weight.

These are the ones I ordered. Amazon

 

[Jasonak]

Thanks! They'll be here tomorrow, gotta love amazon!

 

[MegabiteOG]

Thanks! They'll be here tomorrow, gotta love amazon!

Haha! They make it WAY too convenient to buy stuff. I'm sure you'll like them a lot.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Super solid. Used some short stainless steel screws and can take a lot of weight.

These are the ones I ordered. Amazon

"Super solid and can take a lot of weight?"

Oh yeah? Can it hold the weight of a man glued to it?

 

[MegabiteOG]

"Super solid and can take a lot of weight?"

Oh yeah? Can it hold the weight of a man glued to it?

Only if that dude weighs 13 lbs according to the product description.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Update on the Dinos.

After 48 hours of properly dialing in the UV, I'm seeing a big reduction of Dinos. I installed a flow meter that I had hanging around and set it at 500 gph giving me about 3x turnover in the DT. 500 gph through a 57W UV gives about 180,000 μWsec/cm2 of uv dose. Once I get rid the Dinos I will properly install the UV and maybe just run it at night.

In addition, the water clarity is amazing. Running ozone and the UV took it to another level.

48 hour difference

You can see lots of Dinos in the back still.

Flow meter

Side look of the tank.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Mission accomplished. Well, I hope so.

I didn't breakout the chainsaw as previously planned and used a pocket knife and bonecutter. I was able to remove the rock so it was pretty simple. Most of it came out in one piece and re-glued nearby to keep the lighting and flow consistent with where it was. Other than they being a little upset, I think it worked out.

Where it was.

Rock out of water to pry off the coral.

Coral removed.

New position and home.

Update on a coral move.

On April 18th, I moved these 2 corals because they were growing into each other. Had to remove the rock and break off the smaller coral (see above). Almost three months later, here they are doing very well.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Thursday AD update. Despite the Dono outbreak, the AD continues to do well. Just have a little concerned with the discoloring on the right side of the base.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Update on the Dinos.

After 48 hours of properly dialing in the UV, I'm seeing a big reduction of Dinos. I installed a flow meter that I had hanging around and set it at 500 gph giving me about 3x turnover in the DT. 500 gph through a 57W UV gives about 180,000 μWsec/cm2 of uv dose. Once I get rid the Dinos I will properly install the UV and maybe just run it at night.

In addition, the water clarity is amazing. Running ozone and the UV took it to another level.

48 hour difference

You can see lots of Dinos in the back still.

Flow meter

Side look of the tank.

As someone who had a year and a half battle with dinos......

THIS IS AWESOME IMPROVEMENT and in such a short time! Did you vacuum that spot or this was purely the UV doing work?

Any other changes?

Hows it doing today?

 

[MegabiteOG]

As someone who had a year and a half battle with dinos......

THIS IS AWESOME IMPROVEMENT and in such a short time! Did you vacuum that spot or this was purely the UV doing work?

Any other changes?

Hows it doing today?

Thanks Rev. Sorry to hear you've been dealing with them for so long.

I had vacuumed that spot prior to adding UV and the picture. Afterwords it immediately came back I got the UV. After setting up the UV like I have it now, I disturbed the sand right before lights out for the Dinos to go into the water column and these were the results after a couple of day.

Here is how is looks today and I still have plenty of Dinos. I'm considering going nuclear and lightly vac the sand through the UV light into a sock today. I know that will disrupt the microbiome, but I have plenty of rock in the display and sump that it shouldn’t be a problem. There a lot of spots that I will not be able to get to as well that will be undisturbed.

I will report back on how that goes. As a side note, I have a high nutrient tank so I'm not sure why I got the Dinos. I'm guessing something is out of balance. The other thing is I had started dosing Aminos about a month prior and curious if that contributed to it.

Here are the pics from this afternoon. I don't think it has gotten any worse or any better since a couple of days ago.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Went ahead and rigged an inline pump to the intake side of the UV running it at 300 GPH. Hooked up a vac cylinder and lightly vacuumed the bed where Dinos were present. Couldn’t reach it all but hit a lot of it. I assumed the Dinos went through the UV. I will report back if the effort was worth it or it wrecked the tank in the next few days.

I looked around if anyone has done this before and was surprised not to find anything. I’m sure it’s been done.

 

[TDehler]

Yes, but it’s a bit more difficult for me as I have to stand back some due to a narrow FOV and I have a lot of reflection from windows. It’s easier with my R6 being a full frame as I can be a little closer. My 7D (like the 70D) are not full frame bodies and have a crop factor of 1.6x making 100mm lens shoot as a 160mm. You have the benefit of more reach but at the expense of FOV. There are plus’ and minus’s to both types.

Full tank shots you want lots of FOV and for corals you usually want narrow FOV.

Both the pictures below were shot with the 100mm macro.

The FTS was from 15’ to 20’ from the tank. The fish pic from a foot or two.

Your totally right, I pulled the trigger on a 100mm macro lens for my 70D as a slightly early birthday gift and its awesome! These are just a couple pics while playing around with it today. I certainly have a lot to learn but this lens is amazing.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Your totally right, I pulled the trigger on a 100mm macro lens for my 70D as a slightly early birthday gift and its awesome! These are just a couple pics while playing around with it today. I certainly have a lot to learn but this lens is amazing.

Congrats and nice shots. Next step for pictures of the tank is to get a filter to help cut the blues. Here’s the one I’m using and it’s not expensive at all. I assume that lens takes a 67mm filter. If so, this is the one Tiffen Filter.

Also, if possible, take some pictures with filter/ lens straight up against the glass. Removes all reflections and distortion. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Dino update.

I’ve done two UV vacs of the bed and have been running the UV in the DT 24/7. Although they are still there, the population has reduced substantially. I’ve also been dosing silicates to improve my Diatom population to out compete the Dino’s. I put a water sample under the microscope and saw some diatoms for the first time. Here’s a pic of the setup and video of the tank and bed. Much improved.

 

[TDehler]

Your totally right, I pulled the trigger on a 100mm macro lens for my 70D as a slightly early birthday gift and its awesome! These are just a couple pics while playing around with it today. I certainly have a lot to learn but this lens is amazing.

Congrats and nice shots. Next step for picture of the tank is to get a filter to help cut the blues. Here’s the one I’m using and it’s not expensive at all. I assume that lens takes a 67mm filter. If so, this is the one Tiffen Filter.

Also, if possible, take some pictures with filter/ lens straight up against the glass. Removes all reflections and distortion. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

I think you’re right although with a lot of the pics I couldn’t get it right up against the glass because it was too close to focus in many cases. I think I saw some article on here a while ago about to lens extension you can add to help with this. I do probably need a tripod too because I’m noticing how much more importance it is to get it steady with this lens. I also will get that filter at some point, I just don’t have a ton of coral at the moment because I’m still battling bottomed out nutrients even with dosing a little bit of nitrogen and I don’t want to get more coral until I reach some stability. I’m afraid I’m going to get a Dyno issue like you have going on.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Thursday AD update. Despite the Dono outbreak, the AD continues to do well. Just have a little concerned with the discoloring on the right side of the base.

My first thought is that moving the light bars to the new angle could have caused the color change on the base.

 

[MegabiteOG]

My first thought is that moving the light bars to the new angle could have caused the color change on the base.

Thanks for the thoughts, Chris. I think I found the issue though. Looking more closely, I discovered a small matt of what I think is cyano growing near the base in that area. I blew it off and we'll see what happens.

 

[skey44]

So you’re vacuuming straight into the uv? That seems ingenious.

 

[MegabiteOG]

So you’re vacuuming straight into the uv? That seems ingenious.

Thanks, Scott. That's exactly what I'm doing and didn't even put a sock on the outlet back into the DT. I am however running a bag of GAC in the sump in case there are toxins to help mitigate them.

I vacuumed twice this way. First time was most of the tank and the second time was just left and middle. Then run it 24/7 how it is in the picture. Looking at the tank today, I don't think I need to vac. If I do, it will be tomorrow if I see an increase.

 

[skey44]

Thanks, Scott. That's exactly what I'm doing and didn't even put a sock on the outlet back into the DT. I am however running a bag of GAC in the sump in case there are toxins to help mitigate them.

I vacuumed twice this way. First time was most of the tank and the second time was just left and middle. Then run it 24/7 how it is in the picture. Looking at the tank today, I don't think I need to vac. If I do, it will be tomorrow if I see an increase.

That’s a massive UV. I can’t imagine it not doing the trick.!