Mike's 260g Rimless Build

MBSL55 · Dec 11, 2012

Red Sea Colors Program Update:

I was able to test my NSW and got some interesting results in terms of the Red Sea Coral Colors test parameters, especially considering this is their Coral Pro salt:

I = 0.09
K = 430
Fe = 0.00

So it looks like my weekly water changes are enough to replenish iodide and iodate as well as Potassium. What is troubling is iron was undetectable. I tried the test twice to confirm this. First time was after I had let the mix sit for overnight and had some precipitation. I thought that might have been the issue so I tested another batch after it mixed clear. Same results.

I was able to find some Reef Colors "C" at a LFS after calling around to quite a few so I have been able to continue iron dosing. Tonight, I am still at 0.05 so I have upped the daily dose to 150ml to try to raise it to the recommended 0.15 level. If 100ml is required for maintenance levels then I will need a TON of Colors "C" supplement.

Thus, my supplemental regimen and 30-day monthly cost looks like this along with about how many 500ml bottles I need (rounded up):
Reef Colors "C" 3,000 ml (6 bottles) $12/ea = $72
Reef Colors "D" 450 ml (1 bottle) $12/ea = $12
Reef Energy "A" 900 ml (2 bottles) $16/ea = $32
Reef Energy "B" 900 ml (2 bottles) $16/ea = $32
Total Cost = $148.00

Well, I guess at least I have LEDs instead of 1200w of MH eating at my electric bill

How's that for rationalization?

Here are my full parameters from my testing this weekend pre-water change:

Salinity: 35ppt (Hanna Digital Refractometer & Apex Conductivity Probe)
Temperature: 78F (Apex Temp Probe, drain side)
pH: 8.20 (Apex pH probe)
Ammonia: Undetectable (API)
Nitrite: Undetectable (API)
Nitrate: Undetectable (API)
Alkalinity: 8.6 dKh (Red Sea Pro)
Calcium: 435 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Magnesium: 1340 (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate: 0.00 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Iodide & Iodate: 0.06 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Iron: 0.05 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Potassium: 410 ppm (Red Sea Pro)

I wrote to one of the Red Sea chemists regarding my iron levels, dosing, and test results to make sure I am on the right path. Adding that much iron supplement daily just doesn't "feel" right per se especially given the option to dose based on calcium uptake alone which would indicate much lower dosing than what I am doing. I'll update with what they say.

Good news is that Red Sea said they will be shipping 5 liter containers of some of these products and a LFS I spoke with gave me cost estimates which looks be cheaper than buying the 500ml bottles.

Quarantine Update:

I've neglected updating this part as I've been writing a blog entry for Reef Addicts that details my QT process and progress so I can quickly reference it. It has made it to article status and can be found here: Reef Addicts - My "Reef Friendly" Quarantine System It has gone well for the most part but I did unfortunately lose my initial naso to swim bladder disease. The other fish have done extremely well and the Powder Blue eats just about everything even though it initially wouldn't even touch Nori.

The big news is they have now all been in hypo for about two months so I started to raise salinity last night. The end is in sight!!! A quick recap of the timeline is I started hypo around October 19, saw no more spots around November 3 and then waited the requisite 4 weeks plus another week to be safe at 1.008 S.G. (I tweaked it down from 1.009). It has been a long process but hopefully they are now all marine ich free. I will raise salinity by about 0.002 per day until I reach normal salinity levels and watch for another week after that before adding them to the main tank.

Salinity in my QT is now at 1.012 today after my water changes. I am also feeding a full cube of mysis and leaving a 1/4 sheet of Nori for grazing daily for the QT inhabitants as I want to make sure they have all the food they need while they adjust to higher salinity levels.

schooleyosis · Dec 11, 2012

Once again, very good update! That is crazy that you are adding that much Iodine. But like you said previously, if it is like magnesium, as soon as you get it to where you want it maybe you won't have to dose as much. I do like your rationalization though about the halides to LED's... It's always something in this hobby isn't it??? LOL

Keep up the good work. Sorry to hear about the Naso. Based on your timeline of raising the salinity, how long until you get to add the critters to the DT?

MBSL55 · Dec 11, 2012

Thanks, it is actually the iron supplement that I am adding a lot of. I still haven't heard back from Red Sea yet.

I am at 1.012 salinity today and will be raising it to 1.014 tonight. At this rate, it will be at my main tank levels on Monday. Once I get to that point, I'll give them a prazipro treatment in case they have flukes of any sort and they can then go in the main tank on either the 24th or 25th

Kody72 · Dec 12, 2012

I was told by aviad that you test your iron 25min after you dose to get your correct reading

schooleyosis · Dec 12, 2012

Ooops, Iron not Iodine.... My bad. Thanks for the clarification.

Merry Christmas to you and your DT with the new additions. Perfect timing! Hope all goes well and you can get them in the DT as planned!

MBSL55 · Dec 12, 2012

Kody72 said:
I was told by aviad that you test your iron 25min after you dose to get your correct reading

Cool, that is who I e-mailed. I asked some other things as well so hopefully I'll hear back soon.

schooleyosis said:
Ooops, Iron not Iodine.... My bad. Thanks for the clarification.

Merry Christmas to you and your DT with the new additions. Perfect timing! Hope all goes well and you can get them in the DT as planned!

Thank you! And to you as well!!!

hawaii50 · Dec 16, 2012

Good luck with everything and I will look for your progress

zibba · Dec 17, 2012

Still following along, Mike! Great article/write-up on Reef Addicts. Question for you on the Red Sea test kits: Are you titrating until the color matches the "END" color on the card or do you titrate until the color shifts? There's a big difference in my mind. And, I was under the impression that the readings should be taken from right when the color shifts. Hopefully that makes sense. Thanks in advance.

jdpiii3 · Dec 17, 2012

Great looking system!

MBSL55 · Dec 17, 2012

zibba said:
Still following along, Mike! Great article/write-up on Reef Addicts. Question for you on the Red Sea test kits: Are you titrating until the color matches the "END" color on the card or do you titrate until the color shifts? There's a big difference in my mind. And, I was under the impression that the readings should be taken from right when the color shifts. Hopefully that makes sense. Thanks in advance.

Thanks! It has been a busy week so haven't had a chance for real updates. Hopefully this weekend. I wait until the color matches and no longer see a color shift when testing. I guess I'll have to look closer at the instructions and need to give them a follow up call anyway as I haven't heard back yet. I'll see what they say regarding the titration tests.

jdpiii3 said:
Great looking system!

Thanks!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SIII

MBSL55 · Dec 19, 2012

Red Sea Program Update:

So I got a little behind this week and the test parameters are from tonight, after I did a water change on Saturday. I'm just going to list the important ones and ones related to the program as everything else is the same as last week:

Alkalinity: 8.4 dKh (Red Sea Pro)
Calcium: 425 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Magnesium: 1300 (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate: 0.00 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Iodide & Iodate: 0.03 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Iron: 0.00 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Potassium: 400 ppm (Red Sea Pro)

I added a 1/2 gallon or BRS magnesium solution to raise Mg to about 1400 and upped my daily Mg dosing from 50ml to 60ml to compensate a little for the loss. Although my my tank reads 0.00 on Phosphate, I have a small cyano bloom due to me messing around with the fuge when I removed a bunch of macro and stirring up detritus to remove it from there. I took a water sample from the fuge section and phosphates there are reading 0.10 so I'm guessing that's what's feeding the cyano. I'll just siphon some out when I do water changes and wait for it use up the excess phosphate that is being released as it is just staying on my sand bed.

I still haven't head back from Red Sea's chemist but will try to follow-up this week. For this past week, I've just done Iron (Coral Colors "C") dosing based on on Calcium use and gone to 10ml a day. Colors "D" dosing remains at 10ml a day. I am adding 50ml of Colors "C" to my 25g water changes though as the NSW still does not read any Fe. Given the lower readings on Iodide/Iodate and Potassium, I am starting Colors "A" and Colors "B" today also at 10ml a day. I did add the recommended amounts of Colors "A" and Colors "B" to get my Iodide/Iodate and Potassium levels back to Red Sea's recommendations.

So, total daily dosing is now 10ml each of Colors "A" - "D" and 15ml each of Reef Energy "A" and "B"

Treatment Update:

I am happy to note that there have been no signs of Marine Ich after getting the system back to normal salinity. It took a little over a week to raise the salinity in the system from a S.G. of 1.008 to 1.026. I used the Salty Zoo salinity calculator to ballpark my water changes (45 gallon system volume) and had to use a total of 114 gallons of new salt water at a S.G. of 1.026 to reach my target salinity. Here's a breakdown of approximately how much water was used for each change along with the salinity before and after:

1.008 - 1.010 = 5g
1.010 - 1.012 = 5.5g
1.012 - 1.014 = 6.5g
1.014 - 1.016 = 7.5g
1.016 - 1.018 = 8.5g
1.018 - 1.020 = 11g
1.020 - 1.022 = 14g
1.022 - 1.024 = 21g
1.024 - 1.026 = 35g

I administered Prazipro yesterday, which is the final step in my process, and did not notice a depressed appetite at all. I heard that can be an issue with Prazipro treatment but have not experienced it in this case. When I raised the salinity, I also boosted the amount of food everyone gets in order to help them adjust to the higher salinity and their greater energy needs. The tank gets a full cube of PE Mysis a day and a 1/4 sheet of Nori as well. The tangs really love the Mysis shrimp and sit in front of the powerhead catching shrimp as the shrimp get blown toward them.

I will be able to release my fish into my tank come next Tuesday, Christmas day! The Caribbean Blue tang will be adopted out to a friend as I have my heart set on a Achilles Tang and do not want to try to mix 3 Acanthurus tangs in my main tank. I currently have a LFS holding the Achilles and they will have had him for 2 weeks when I pick him up. Assuming he hasn't displayed any signs of Ich when I pick him up, I plan on putting him in preventative hypo for four weeks while I make sure he's eating what I feed my other fish. That will also give me time to put together my game plan as to how to introduce him to the main tank. I'm thinking about trapping the PBT and Purple Tang, which I anticipate would be the most aggressive toward him, and placing them in the QT tank for just a few days while I move the Achilles to the main tank, move around and add some rock, and then put the PBT and Purple back in the main tank. The Blonde Naso and Blue Hippo have been completely passive and are basically swimming chickens so I'm not worried about them.

I did also upgrade the skimmer last week to a Vertex IN-100 but am keeping the Remora Pro around as it has been so handy to have. I'll be replacing or supplementing the Koralia with a MP40W-ES or MP10W-ES to give the Achilles a lot of flow.

schooleyosis · Dec 19, 2012

Great update. Less than a week and the critters get to be moved to their new home!! I'm excited for you and can't wait to see pics of them in the DT. I am still curious what RS will say if and when the respond to you. Especially about the color change of the test kits of when the reading is accurate.

Keep up the good work!!!

zibba · Dec 20, 2012

Sounds like everything is going according to plan! Keep up the great work, Mike. Also looking forward to what you hear from RS.

zibba · Jan 18, 2013

Any updates, Mike?

childress5tyler · Jan 23, 2013

Beautiful system, you've given me a lot of inspiration and ideas for the 80 gallon deep blue rimless I plan on getting next month. Absolutely beautiful system, aquascape, and I am loving the way you have organized all of your equiptment!

Definitely tagging along!!