Rich Ross - Home Tank - guess the phosphate

Travis Stewart · Oct 24, 2018

Thales said:
I started playing with bringing down the phosphate, all was going well until I got real busy and salinity got out of hand three months ago - LARS on crack. Alk dropped too. SPS started losing tissue on the tips and, what seemed to protozoans started popping the polyps off of LPS. Lots of colt coral disintegrated and likely released all kinds of nasties, and shot the nitrate through the roof, which likely means ammonia too. Some stuff was rock solid all the way through, some wasn't. It was not a happy time.

This put a dent in the phosphate work, so we will see if I become aggressive on that front again - is't down from like 1.8 to around .4

It seems like the tank is back on track now, with new stuff holding fine, and old stuff recovering. Just my luck, I am off to the field and MACNA for two weeks, so hopefully everything holds.

Here is a quick video using one of the new phone filters

Stunning!!!

Thales · Feb 2, 2019

Let's call that a candid shot before everything is open.

Recent Test results.

Screen Shot 2019-02-02 at 8.35.12 AM.png

Thales · Feb 2, 2019

Thales · Feb 2, 2019

Nitrate and Phosphate are down. hehhee

Rybren · Feb 2, 2019

That's a nice looking tank. What's your secret to keeping the sun corals happy?

norfolkgarden · Feb 2, 2019

Beautiful tank!

Thales · Feb 2, 2019

Fl

Rybren said:
That's a nice looking tank. What's your secret to keeping the sun corals happy?

Thanks. Flow and food. PE calanus is great to get them open and feed them. It takes them a bit of time to 'learn' to open, then you can start to feed them more. I like food going in over several hours at least, but also sometimes flood feed a lot once they are open. I have lots of recruits of tubastrea and some dendro. I feed a lot - here is a video from a while ago

Here is the auto feeder I made from an old hang on back skimmer.

Fish snacking while the auto feeder is feeding

Thales · Feb 2, 2019

I have stepped up my game on vermetid snails.

Tools

Rybren · Feb 2, 2019

Thanks. I thought that I fed a lot. Guess I have a ways to go

Guess I also have to up my flow game as well.

Your auto-feeder is ingenious. Now I have to go hunting for an old HOB skimmer.

It looks like you're going after the vermitids in the dark. Any particular reason?

Thales · Feb 7, 2019

Rybren said:
\

Your auto-feeder is ingenious. Now I have to go hunting for an old HOB skimmer.

You could do it with anything. @trido made with with an RO filter housing, or you cold you use any HOB filter you have laying around.

It looks like you're going after the vermitids in the dark. Any particular reason?

That was on the side of the tank where there isn't that much light. I think. Maybe the light were just doing their cloud thing. Anyway, no reason I can see to do it in the dark.

Dr. Dendrostein · Feb 7, 2019

Thales said:
Fl

Thanks. Flow and food. PE calanus is great to get them open and feed them. It takes them a bit of time to 'learn' to open, then you can start to feed them more. I like food going in over several hours at least, but also sometimes flood feed a lot once they are open. I have lots of recruits of tubastrea and some dendro. I feed a lot - here is a video from a while ago

Here is the auto feeder I made from an old hang on back skimmer.

Fish snacking while the auto feeder is feeding

Auto feeder, now thats thinking outside the box. Thanks for sharing

dantimdad · Feb 7, 2019

I was wondering, I know we are reefers and we mess with a good thing, but, why bring down phosphate and nitrate when your system looked so amazing and you didn't really have algae issues?

I am at a loss on this one.

Thales · Feb 7, 2019

Jomama said:
Auto feeder, now thats thinking outside the box. Thanks for sharing

Thanks, but it isn't!

The idea has been around forever, people have been dripping bbs into tanks since at least the 1980's. Matt Wandell made really great, specific autofeeders in small ice chests that are cooled with bottles of frozen water, but aren't flow through. We built this for the 212,000 gallon tank at Steinhart and published it in 2012.
http://packedhead.net/2013/two-arti...d-aquarium-cleaning-using-melamine-foam-pads/
For my needs at home I realized that I didn't need to keep the food cold and dosing all day - I would leave a cup of thawed food in sea water and feed it over the course of several hours, and when I found the old HOB skimmer it took a minute to throw together (I wonder if I'll ever clean it up!).

ReefEngr · Feb 7, 2019

That's a beautiful tank. I love how you mixed the different colors of trumpet corals together. It looks really cool.

Thales · Feb 7, 2019

dantimdad said:
I was wondering, I know we are reefers and we mess with a good thing, but, why bring down phosphate and nitrate when your system looked so amazing and you didn't really have algae issues?

I am at a loss on this one.

It isn't really down much yet. .92 phosphate still makes people's heads explode.
But I get you, why mess with it? Two reasons. 1) technology has pointed to easy ways to to lower it. Remember, it go so high because I hated using gfo, and when I stopped, the animals didn't seem to care. If it is easy, I might keep up with it if it makes a difference, and what I am trying isn't new fangled with no support 2) I want to know if it makes a difference. But I think mostly you are right and I am an idiot.

My not asked for opinion about algae problems -
I wouldn't bring levels down to try to combat algae, I think that doesn't do much - there are lots of tanks with algae issues and low nutrients and lots of tanks with high nutrients and no algae. I think algae is mostly completion for living space and herbivory. When I am down on herbivores, algae become an issue. When I have the right herbivores, no algae problems. I think people get into trouble when they a system starts to phase change to an algae dominated reef, and just link in nature when that happens it is really really hard to reverse. I recommend not letting algae get out of hand, and if I starts too, I start pulling problem rocks.