Mixed Red Sea Reefer 525XL

[DLHDesign]

The depletion of iron in your tank to a miniscule level is likely what has caused the chaeto to crash.

Awesome! I love it when answers present themselves.

After a quick search here (thanks for the lead!), this seems to be a good place to start. I'll look for some Fergon tablets next time I'm out and about.

Or you can just throw a hammer in the tank

Seriously considered it, actually. ;-)

Spring for the Triton test - its worth it.

I'm sure it is. It's on my "to do" list, for sure. We're thinking of buying a new house, however, so right now all non-essential purchases are on hold while we figure out what our "best case" budget could be. Makes for a boring month, but the effort is worth it.

Also - tank updates dont count unless they have pictures!

Fair enough. Though you'll have to settle for a blued-out, un-level iPhone pic; work just picked up and I don't have time to set up the full camera rig and post-processing stuff. :-(

 

[ksfulk]

Awesome! I love it when answers present themselves.

After a quick search here (thanks for the lead!), this seems to be a good place to start. I'll look for some Fergon tablets next time I'm out and about.


Seriously considered it, actually. ;-)


I'm sure it is. It's on my "to do" list, for sure. We're thinking of buying a new house, however, so right now all non-essential purchases are on hold while we figure out what our "best case" budget could be. Makes for a boring month, but the effort is worth it.


Fair enough. Though you'll have to settle for a blued-out, un-level iPhone pic; work just picked up and I don't have time to set up the full camera rig and post-processing stuff. :-(

Glad you found the iron dosing post. I didn't have time between meetings and searching is painful on my phone. Hopefully that helps a bit and gets things going in the right direction.

As a side note, if you haven't already subscribed to Uniquecorals email list, about once a month the send out 10-20% off coupon codes that are good for the triton stuff too.

I'll take blued out tank shots over text keep plugging along!

 

[jsker]

Thanks; appreciate it!

More pictures all around (I'm still working on the removal of the black backing; need to add cable runs and do some more clean-up).

Front:

Note that for the above pic, I only tightened up one of the cables (the right). Were I to actually hold the canopy up for any length of time, I'd do both. But that's why it's not hanging level.

And side:

I that a beer tap that I see in the back ground? If so I am so envious right now, Oh great job on the hood

 

[DLHDesign]

I that a beer tap that I see in the back ground?

Yeah; 4 taps (one which is a "creamer tap" for things like nitrous stouts and cream ales and the like). The wife let me install them when we did our kitchen remodel. The other side of the wall is the garage, so I've got a chest freezer that's been converted to a keg chamber. Before I became a reefer, I brewed about 5-10gal of beer a month. I had a nearly automated system set up, but I tore it apart to clean it and rebuild it better. Instead of rebuilding it, I got a fish tank. I still have my manual brewery, but not the time to brew...
Luckily, there's now 4 micro-breweries in town that I can have my kegs filled at. That, plus BevMo for more tradition keg rentals, and I usually have two beers on tap at any time (currently a pilsner and a brown).

To be honest, I rarely drink beer any more. Oh, I'll have a pint now and then with dinner or the like, but not enough to really justify the taps. If we were doing the kitchen remodel today, that wall would be a fish tank instead. ;-)

 

[jsker]

Yeah; 4 taps (one which is a "creamer tap" for things like nitrous stouts and cream ales and the like). The wife let me install them when we did our kitchen remodel. The other side of the wall is the garage, so I've got a chest freezer that's been converted to a keg chamber. Before I became a reefer, I brewed about 5-10gal of beer a month. I had a nearly automated system set up, but I tore it apart to clean it and rebuild it better. Instead of rebuilding it, I got a fish tank. I still have my manual brewery, but not the time to brew...
Luckily, there's now 4 micro-breweries in town that I can have my kegs filled at. That, plus BevMo for more tradition keg rentals, and I usually have two beers on tap at any time (currently a pilsner and a brown).

To be honest, I rarely drink beer any more. Oh, I'll have a pint now and then with dinner or the like, but not enough to really justify the taps. If we were doing the kitchen remodel today, that wall would be a fish tank instead. ;-)

Wine tap now, I am getting ready to build out my kitchen and I have thought about putting in a tapper. I like my beer, but beer also like my waistline. My resolution is a bigger fridge.

back to fish, I see you went with a combo LED and t5's how do you like it so far?

 

[DLHDesign]

Wine tap now, I am getting ready to build out my kitchen and I have thought about putting in a tapper. I like my beer, but beer also like my waistline. My resolution is a bigger fridge.

Not sure you can tell, but below the beer taps is the wine fridge. ;-)

After having done it, beer taps are not something I would suggest putting into a kitchen. It's far easier (and cheaper) to just put a kegerator (fridge converted to include beer taps) out in the garage or the like. That way, if/when you need to move, you can take it all with you without having to demo the kitchen again.
A bigger fridge sounds like just the trick. We ended up with a "counter depth" fridge when we did our remodel and it's about the only thing we've regretted. It forces us to keep the fridge cleaned out, but that's of little comfort when struggling to fit things in when we come back from Costco...

back to fish, I see you went with a combo LED and t5's how do you like it so far?

So far, so good. I've rejiggered the programming a few times (above). I'm planning on changing up my bulb configuration, but that won't happen for some time (until the bulbs I have start to reach EOL). I also haven't done a PAR/PUR check of the result. I've got the Seneye already, so my only excuse for not doing so is... kids? Work? Life? Yeah - all of that. I'll get to it soon and will be sure to post up the results.

 

[jsker]

Not sure you can tell, but below the beer taps is the wine fridge. ;-)

After having done it, beer taps are not something I would suggest putting into a kitchen. It's far easier (and cheaper) to just put a kegerator (fridge converted to include beer taps) out in the garage or the like. That way, if/when you need to move, you can take it all with you without having to demo the kitchen again.
A bigger fridge sounds like just the trick. We ended up with a "counter depth" fridge when we did our remodel and it's about the only thing we've regretted. It forces us to keep the fridge cleaned out, but that's of little comfort when struggling to fit things in when we come back from Costco...


So far, so good. I've rejiggered the programming a few times (above). I'm planning on changing up my bulb configuration, but that won't happen for some time (until the bulbs I have start to reach EOL). I also haven't done a PAR/PUR check of the result. I've got the Seneye already, so my only excuse for not doing so is... kids? Work? Life? Yeah - all of that. I'll get to it soon and will be sure to post up the results.

LOL , you will get it

 

[DLHDesign]

3/6/17 - Day 302 - On the edge of a knife, perhaps?

I swapped out the "white" LED I had over the fuge with an LED grow-light last night. I'm hoping that the grow light will help the chaeto stay around; it seems to be struggling again.

Not sure this worked out all that well. :-\ The chaeto has mostly died off at this point. Numerous corals are suffering - most notably my largest bird's nest; which has been doing well since I first got it. My elegance coral was doing well for a bit, but has seemed to retreat back in on itself. Good news is that my acans are still fluffy and healthy-looking; zoas are doing well, and nothing seems to have gone past the point of no return. All of that may not be the sole result of the light change, but (as last time), the chaeto die-off has triggered a spike in nitrates and ammonia beyond what the system seems able to handle.

I've just finished a 20gal water change as well as putting the old (white) LED back above the fuge to try and save what chaeto I can. I thought about removing the chaeto entirely, but I'd still like to see the benefits of having it in there. Cleaned out as much of the dead stuff as I could, so I'll keep an eye on it in the days ahead.

I also think that my feeding method was not helping. My process was to half-fill a squeeze bottle with tank water. Into this, I would add 10-12 frozen cubes of various types and a good squeeze of VitaChem. Sometimes I would also add in some coral food (Reef Chili, etc.) The bottle would go into the fridge. To feed the tank, I would shake it up and bit and squeeze in about 2-4oz of the resulting slurry. Each bottle would last about 3-4 days (two feedings per day). I've no way to know for sure (okay; I suppose I could test a bottle), but I suspect that the food and such would begin to break down in the fridge; resulting in me adding stuff I'd rather not have into the tank with every feeding - or at least the ones latter in the life of the bottle.
I've since stopped using the bottle and just add the cubes and such directly into the tank. I've noticed more food in the filter socks as a result, so I'll likely thaw the food in a small cup and then add the result into the tank instead - which is what I did when I first got the tank... Hopefully I'll be able to find a balance between something that is good for the tank, yet also manageable 2x per day (time is a luxury in our house).

I've still got all the same fish. The smaller cardinal still causes me concern - more-so now that I can't target-feed it with the squeeze bottle. Perhaps I'll defrost the food in a squeeze bottle instead of a small cup. A bit more of a pain to clean each time, but not much more.

300 days old (give or take...). Despite the above, I'm happy with the status of the tank. At this point, there's not much more I plan for the tank in terms of fish or coral. Perhaps a wrasse or two, once we get the lid fixed. Likely some more acros if I ever get the ones I have back to where they should be (they are all still more brown - or dead - than anything else). But I'm in no rush to get more of either. The only thing I've got ahead in the near-term is to build out a backup system. My initial plan was to just install a Powerwall 2 (whole-house battery backup, basically) into our solar system and rely on that in the case of an outage (not to mention reducing our night-time energy draw). But the $7k price tag is a bit more than I'm thinking we'll want to spend. We would very likely recoup the cost before the battery's 10yr warranty ends, but the wife isn't sold on the idea just yet. Meanwhile, the wife asked me to figure out how much a backup system for just the tank would cost me. Best I can figure, that means adding IceCaps to the two Gyres and getting a battery backup on them. (Bonus: Apex control for the Gyres). I don't have a solution for the heaters, however. The house itself doesn't get that cold normally, but I've no real faith that it would stay warm enough on a cold night if the power went out, so something still needs to be sorted out there...

 

[seastar]

Are you happy you converted the ATO to a refugium? The ATO in my 525xl gets clogged constantly and is next to useless but I am still hopeful I can find a way to make it work because I don't want to have a 5 gallon jug outside of the tank.

Everything is looking fantastic btw!

 

[stevo01]

Are you happy you converted the ATO to a refugium? The ATO in my 525xl gets clogged constantly and is next to useless but I am still hopeful I can find a way to make it work because I don't want to have a 5 gallon jug outside of the tank.

Everything is looking fantastic btw!

+1 Too small and just not enough room to be able to easily fill it up. I pulled mine out and am using the first chamber as a macro algae fuge. By removing that ATO it allowed me to use an LED wavepoint clamp on light too.

 

[stevo01]

 

[stevo01]

Thinking I'll get a hob filter and use the ato as a mini coral QT.

 

[jsker]

3/6/17 - Day 302 - On the edge of a knife, perhaps?


Not sure this worked out all that well. :-\ The chaeto has mostly died off at this point. Numerous corals are suffering - most notably my largest bird's nest; which has been doing well since I first got it. My elegance coral was doing well for a bit, but has seemed to retreat back in on itself. Good news is that my acans are still fluffy and healthy-looking; zoas are doing well, and nothing seems to have gone past the point of no return. All of that may not be the sole result of the light change, but (as last time), the chaeto die-off has triggered a spike in nitrates and ammonia beyond what the system seems able to handle.

I've just finished a 20gal water change as well as putting the old (white) LED back above the fuge to try and save what chaeto I can. I thought about removing the chaeto entirely, but I'd still like to see the benefits of having it in there. Cleaned out as much of the dead stuff as I could, so I'll keep an eye on it in the days ahead.

I also think that my feeding method was not helping. My process was to half-fill a squeeze bottle with tank water. Into this, I would add 10-12 frozen cubes of various types and a good squeeze of VitaChem. Sometimes I would also add in some coral food (Reef Chili, etc.) The bottle would go into the fridge. To feed the tank, I would shake it up and bit and squeeze in about 2-4oz of the resulting slurry. Each bottle would last about 3-4 days (two feedings per day). I've no way to know for sure (okay; I suppose I could test a bottle), but I suspect that the food and such would begin to break down in the fridge; resulting in me adding stuff I'd rather not have into the tank with every feeding - or at least the ones latter in the life of the bottle.
I've since stopped using the bottle and just add the cubes and such directly into the tank. I've noticed more food in the filter socks as a result, so I'll likely thaw the food in a small cup and then add the result into the tank instead - which is what I did when I first got the tank... Hopefully I'll be able to find a balance between something that is good for the tank, yet also manageable 2x per day (time is a luxury in our house).

I've still got all the same fish. The smaller cardinal still causes me concern - more-so now that I can't target-feed it with the squeeze bottle. Perhaps I'll defrost the food in a squeeze bottle instead of a small cup. A bit more of a pain to clean each time, but not much more.

300 days old (give or take...). Despite the above, I'm happy with the status of the tank. At this point, there's not much more I plan for the tank in terms of fish or coral. Perhaps a wrasse or two, once we get the lid fixed. Likely some more acros if I ever get the ones I have back to where they should be (they are all still more brown - or dead - than anything else). But I'm in no rush to get more of either. The only thing I've got ahead in the near-term is to build out a backup system. My initial plan was to just install a Powerwall 2 (whole-house battery backup, basically) into our solar system and rely on that in the case of an outage (not to mention reducing our night-time energy draw). But the $7k price tag is a bit more than I'm thinking we'll want to spend. We would very likely recoup the cost before the battery's 10yr warranty ends, but the wife isn't sold on the idea just yet. Meanwhile, the wife asked me to figure out how much a backup system for just the tank would cost me. Best I can figure, that means adding IceCaps to the two Gyres and getting a battery backup on them. (Bonus: Apex control for the Gyres). I don't have a solution for the heaters, however. The house itself doesn't get that cold normally, but I've no real faith that it would stay warm enough on a cold night if the power went out, so something still needs to be sorted out there...

How is the system doing?

 

[DLHDesign]

Are you happy you converted the ATO to a refugium?

Actually; no. I found that - because of the way my manifold worked - by the time the water reached the fuge chamber, it had been "cleaned" too much for the macro to have anything to pull. The result was that I could grow algae in my DT, yet anything I put into the fuge would waste away and die off within weeks.
I've since removed the ATO/fuge. Instead, I did what @stevo01 did - took out the ATO tank entirely and use the drain chamber as my fuge. I also added a chamber to hold my mud, some rubble, mangroves, etc.

I'll post a full update in a day or so (can't get pics right now), but I've got some more to add beyond the above... ;-)

 

[DLHDesign]

How is the system doing?

In brief; better. More soon - promise (in a work training all day, so can't get pics to post till I get home...).

 

[jsker]

In brief; better. More soon - promise (in a work training all day, so can't get pics to post till I get home...).

Ha Ha day dreaming tank while being board

 

[stevo01]

Actually; no. I found that - because of the way my manifold worked - by the time the water reached the fuge chamber, it had been "cleaned" too much for the macro to have anything to pull. The result was that I could grow algae in my DT, yet anything I put into the fuge would waste away and die off within weeks.
I've since removed the ATO/fuge. Instead, I did what @stevo01 did - took out the ATO tank entirely and use the drain chamber as my fuge. I also added a chamber to hold my mud, some rubble, mangroves, etc.

I'll post a full update in a day or so (can't get pics right now), but I've got some more to add beyond the above... ;-)

You'll have healthy macro now! Good job.

 

[DLHDesign]

5/1/17 - Day 358 - It's been HOW LONG since my last update?!?

Answer: too long. Shame on me. Shame!

First things first; a FTS:

The biggest changes (aside from my ability to use the real camera and post-process the picture) would be, sadly, in things that have died. No fish, thankfully, but several corals have turned into fancy places for coralline algae to grow; most notably all three birdsnest trees (mid-right amongst the still thriving pocillopora colonies) and the plate coral (center under the smaller bubble). A few other colonies that have been struggling finally threw in the towel as well. I'm pretty sure that my imbalance/overfeeding issues are what caused the problems there, but it could also be a light issue - I'm noticing that the undersides of most of my micromussas seem more colorful (healthier?) than the tops. For example:

I'm thinking it's a pretty good indicator that my lights may be too intense? My (few remaining) acros have started to recover and show a few shades of their "new to me" selves, but nowhere near what they were originally. I'm thinking that is related as well. Not really sure, however; I've not yet worked up my courage to fiddle with the lights (opening Pandora's Box should be done with care, after all). I may lower the intensity by a few degrees tonight and see what happens in the days ahead...

I've changed up my sump. Again. This time to something roomier:

As I mentioned in an "unofficial" update above, the first chamber (which has always been buried by the ATO/Fuge box) is now populated with some rubble and two flavours of macro (green and red). The filter socks (which I change out every 3-4 days still) run next and then the "lettuce and mangrove" chamber. In this area is some fuge mud covered in a layer of rubble, old plugs, and dead coral (sad face). There is also some leafy macro that I pull out from time to time to put into the DT as a snack. Some water leaks out around the "mangrove wall" (I don't really care), but most of it then flows back through the 3 MarinePure blocks and out into the skimmer chamber. Then on to the standard bubble-trap and return chamber.
I also moved the Apex sensors into that first chamber to give me a better view of the DT water (rather than the filtered water is used to get). Not really much of a difference, but it helps get a truer temp reading, at least. The heaters were moved off the back wall for no particular reason. The "cooling" fan is aimed straight onto the first chamber and filter socks. It runs 24/7 and seems to knock the system temp down by about a degree or so.
Speaking of temp; I'm pretty sure I have a heat "problem". The tank sits around 79-80F these days. I used to be able to keep it around 77-78F and I feel like things were happier. Yet with the warmer weather outside these days, the kiddo likes to play outside (can't blame her) and we just leave the back door open - shutting off the A/C that is my tank's main method of cooling. So I don't really see a way to get the tank's temp down without more equipment (eg; a chiller). Adding a chiller is undesirable for multiple reasons; it's more equipment to buy and I have nowhere to put it inside the cabinet (the "chiller compartment" that I thought I would never need is the electronics and dosing chamber storage). It could fit to the left of the cabinet, but that's where we feed the dog. Those (and other) reasons aside, I'll likely pull the trigger on a chiller before we get too much farther into summer. I cringe seeing the temp read in the 80's every time I walk by the monitor...

My initial plan was to just install a Powerwall 2 (whole-house battery backup, basically) into our solar system and rely on that in the case of an outage (not to mention reducing our night-time energy draw). But the $7k price tag is a bit more than I'm thinking we'll want to spend.

So, it turns out; that's not more than we want to spend:

We had the Powerwall 2 installed last week. During the install, we had just about every SolarCity (Tesla's solar company) installer out to our house to "help". At one point, I had a dozen people standing around watching two guys pull wires through some conduit (I'm glad I wasn't paying labor costs, for sure!). It makes sense, though - this was the first A/C model that was being installed in a non-employee house. So we're very much an early adopter here. So early, in fact, that they've not yet figured out how to bill me for the thing (free battery!). (Okay; not really - I put down a deposit and they'll collect once the city has done it's inspection and the job is done.) We tested the unit and it does take over in the case of a power outage, so "yay" there! However, one of the main selling points for us - that it would provide power at night - has not yet proven true:

That graph shows all the pieces involved - consumption (blue), solar production (yellow), grid use (grey), and battery use/provision (green). What I would hope to see in there is that the green line would fill to cover the blue any time the yellow was not. Eg; The battery would cover our power needs when the solar was not generating.
That's a software thing, however. Having worked in software for 25+ years, I'm not overly concerned that the "1.0.0" version (which is what is showing above) is not doing everything I would expect it to. I'll work with them and am pretty sure that we'll get it sorted out (and I've got a few feature suggestions for them while we're at it... <grin>). But in the meantime, at least I don't have to worry about the tank loosing power. So long as we don't flip on the oven during a power outage, the battery will provide what the tank needs to remain fully operational indefinitely (the solar would recharge it before it would drain out). (We can't use the oven - or other large devices - because the battery has a 30amp limit; if we go above that, the battery shuts down until the power comes back on.)

So that's where everything is at. The tank will hit it's 1 year anniversary in a few days time, so I'll be sure to update with another FTS then (one where I spend more time cleaning the sand, most likely)!

 

[stevo01]

Beautiful!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Awesome detailed thread! Following!