New 305 Gallon Build

[Sdot]

Whelp when it rains it pours as they say. Its been a little while since I've updated this thread..... kind of ticked, embarrassed and frustrated. Long story short...or maybe long. I've heard on soooo many threads to feed more to get your nutrients where they should be.... ive always been against that thought process and here is the big lesson i learned. When you find something that works... stick with it. I've been dosing nitrates in my tank for nearly a year....im pretty dialed in I would say... according to my ICP test... my nitrates are close to 12ppm... Nyos test have me more than 5 but less than 12...according to my eye...which is inline with the ICP test. Rather than buy a cheap dosing pump(ended up doing that anyway)....i decided to feed more to get my phosphate where my corals appear to like them, .06-.1.

I noticed cyano appearing...didnt think much of it at the time, until like over night it exploded. Not looking to go the chemical route, I bought snails (Trochus)..they did a great job, but no matter what I tried the problem only seem to get worse. So a few months later (Which is a week ago on this timeline) I decided to chemiclean the tank to kill the cyano.... It worked! and 2 days after DINO...everywhere. Things have improved bigtime but they have taken a toll on my tank. I've lost a couple of colonies and non of my sea anemones are looking good AT ALL. So that's the rain... here is the pour: last night I received a notification from my apex, my Nyos skimmer was using more watts than normal. Didn't think much of it at the time...although I did notice my PH lower than normal for that time of day. My PH at its lowest is 8.25 and peaks around 8.5,8.52...with the help of a co2 reactor of course...My lights are on from 9-9pm.... its pretty rare for my PH to be 8.3 at 11pm....waaay to low for that time of day. Again didnt think much of it at the time, until this morning.

The notification from the apex never went off! I walked downstairs to find my skimmer making a loud buzzing noise but no bubbles. It appears the needle wheel separated from the impeller assembly...it tore folks. Never saw that ever! Guess what else....no parts available...... so I had to buy another 800.00 skimmer today...and have it overnighted (LFS don't carry high priced items that don't sell fast apparently). You see the skimmer was pulling all of the dead dinos out of my tank. Here is the good news.... I have tried the below regiment with a success with dinos.

1. I performed a water change...with Natural sea water. The thought is adding more diversity.
2. I dose microbater7 (Not sure if this is working or stressing my animals yet)
3. Dose Phyto every other day.

So far every day i see less and less of them...so i do believe this is working...although I'm starting to see cyano come back so....

Before treating with Chemiclean

Cyano out break

Unfortunately i dont have any pictures when the dino was at it's worse...it didnt last more than a day or so.

However everywhere you see cyano was dino!

This was a couple days ago

This was today

Better but clearly my corals and anemones are bothered. Im in the middle of another water change with NSW so we will see what happens. FYI i know it wasnt lack of nutrients that caused dino, but rather the rapid death of the cyano that left the opening. Im hoping to close this chapter very soon.....

Thanks for reading.

 

[AJsReef]

Sorry to hear about the Dinos. They have reared their head a few times for me over the years and recently as well.

I recently ran the elegant corals treatment for them with decent success, although it didn't completely clear them out. Hoping balancing my nutrients will.

 

[rds85]

I feel your pain. I had Ulva take root in the DT which my tangs Idol love, but aesthetically is displeasing to me. When I manually removed 90%... guess what happened. Dinos. So I used the bacteria bottles to address the issue with more feedings of the fish. It worked on the dinos then specifically using the waste away bacteria and the increased feedings the the Ulva bloomed like crazy ( Ulva is your cyano in this situation). Well when the ulva blooms, the algae is so efficient at removing nutrients I bottomed out hard very fast and of course the expensive sticks paled or bleached in some fashion. So now I am also dosing phyto and added a few more fish to the mix and the ulva grows fast with some dino remanence on the sand and tips of the Ulva only which is weird, but the sticks are responding much better to heavy nutrient input and I am just stuck dealing wit the Ulva while the corals recover. Urchins where added to help, but the corals health comes first before my dislike for the appearance of ulva in the DT. I also have ulva in fuge which is where I wanted it to stay.

I am most curious if using the bacteria's in a bottle cause to much a titer tauter effect on the balance with a young system ( still under 1 year for me). I am to cheap to install a UV for dinos only and truly believe after year 2 this type of outbreaks wont be frequent or happen at all. I also purchased some sponges and gorgs from KP for two purposes. Feed the moorish idol and add some "movement" to the DT ( wife wanted movement). These all come with a small piece natural rock from the FL keys attached to their bases. Hopefully bringing in some more bio diversity. Since live rock seems to be very hard to find and with all the new videos and post coming out about dry rock vs live rock. I am expecting a back order for months in this stuff. I was thinking maybe if you obtain maricultured sps colonies, when you cut the bases off for pests you can dip the bases in high salinity and then but those in a container in the sump to "QT" but allow the bacteria to populate the system.

Sorry for using your thread as a brainstorming blog but like I said I feel your pain so writing ideas down might help both? I was thinking if you could potentially add GHA to the fuge... yes crazy I know, but man is that stuff good a phosphate control and easy to manually remove or use urchins after your cyano is handled. With nori containing a significant amount of phosphate, can you feed the tangs fresh greens? or go get live red ogo and store in the sump and feed them that instead?

I wish you the best. That mag is stunning and want it to stay that way.

 

[Sdot]

I feel your pain. I had Ulva take root in the DT which my tangs Idol love, but aesthetically is displeasing to me. When I manually removed 90%... guess what happened. Dinos. So I used the bacteria bottles to address the issue with more feedings of the fish. It worked on the dinos then specifically using the waste away bacteria and the increased feedings the the Ulva bloomed like crazy ( Ulva is your cyano in this situation). Well when the ulva blooms, the algae is so efficient at removing nutrients I bottomed out hard very fast and of course the expensive sticks paled or bleached in some fashion. So now I am also dosing phyto and added a few more fish to the mix and the ulva grows fast with some dino remanence on the sand and tips of the Ulva only which is weird, but the sticks are responding much better to heavy nutrient input and I am just stuck dealing wit the Ulva while the corals recover. Urchins where added to help, but the corals health comes first before my dislike for the appearance of ulva in the DT. I also have ulva in fuge which is where I wanted it to stay.

I am most curious if using the bacteria's in a bottle cause to much a titer tauter effect on the balance with a young system ( still under 1 year for me). I am to cheap to install a UV for dinos only and truly believe after year 2 this type of outbreaks wont be frequent or happen at all. I also purchased some sponges and gorgs from KP for two purposes. Feed the moorish idol and add some "movement" to the DT ( wife wanted movement). These all come with a small piece natural rock from the FL keys attached to their bases. Hopefully bringing in some more bio diversity. Since live rock seems to be very hard to find and with all the new videos and post coming out about dry rock vs live rock. I am expecting a back order for months in this stuff. I was thinking maybe if you obtain maricultured sps colonies, when you cut the bases off for pests you can dip the bases in high salinity and then but those in a container in the sump to "QT" but allow the bacteria to populate the system.

Sorry for using your thread as a brainstorming blog but like I said I feel your pain so writing ideas down might help both? I was thinking if you could potentially add GHA to the fuge... yes crazy I know, but man is that stuff good a phosphate control and easy to manually remove or use urchins after your cyano is handled. With nori containing a significant amount of phosphate, can you feed the tangs fresh greens? or go get live red ogo and store in the sump and feed them that instead?

I wish you the best. That mag is stunning and want it to stay that way.

Thanks bud, I'm still on the UV sterilizer fence. My situation is improving... so that's good. Cyano is coming back...so think that's what's helping to remove the dino...just need to figure out a way to get rid of the cyano! As confirmed by microscope sludge in my filter socks are dead dino. Right now, I simply need to practice patience and continue to push biodiversity, because its everything

 

[Sdot]

Welp family i decided to bite the bullet and get a UV sterilizer and upgrade my return pump since ill be adding yet another item to the manifold...... ugh. I'm for the natural approach unfortunately not sure how much longer my corals can hold out and I certainly don't want to lose anymore...plus Im sure BRS dont mind at ALL.

 

[AJsReef]

Hopefully the UV knocks them back. It worked decent for me but my rocks are still showing signs or resurgence. Dinos are a royal PITA. Good choice on the pump, I picked up a Varios 8 for mine and 650 GPH is the max I can push through my UV configuration. Would advise a FMM/Flow meter to monitor flow through the UV.

 

[Sdot]

Good morning or good evening family. I received my order a day ago, been waiting for the other supplies to come in and they finally have. Been working on cutting stuff out and adding to the manifold. There is a huge difference from the L2 and the Abyzz.... which is to be expected...but what a difference. I dont have it installed the way i want, but it will do for now. Im pretty tired but everything is installed...so lets see how things go. Here is how the plumbing looks now.

FYI the pictures are in order of the install...which is now complete.

hanging brackets install:

UV installed on the brackets:

Cutting out some of the old plumbing to route water to the UV:

Installation of ball valves:

Plumbing complete:

UV bulb installed and connected:

All done! Ill tidy everything else tomorrow.....

Abyzz A200

FYI until i build my dream setup with its own fish room.... modular stands are the way to go!!! Saved me so much time. Goodnight! ;Dead;Dead

 

[AJsReef]

Very clean, hard to tell from pictures but do you have the UV mounted with the output side slightly higher? Saw it recommended in the instructions for mine to ensure bubbles were pushed out and didn't settle in the tube which could hinder contact surface area

 

[Sdot]

Very clean, hard to tell from pictures but do you have the UV mounted with the output side slightly higher? Saw it recommended in the instructions for mine to ensure bubbles were pushed out and didn't settle in the tube which could hinder contact surface area

Hey bro good morning. Very valid question, i called Aqua UV before the install. Per their recommendation, install the uv horizontal with the ports facing up....according to them that will push any air bubbles out as air travels up and is best for overall long-term use. Pretty much the same orientation as shown in pics on their site and below.

 

[Sdot]

Hey family.... latest update. So i finished the install just after midnight.... I dont know what i was expecting, but i am very pleased with the results thus far. Roughly 11 hours in, the dino's are GREATLY reduced....and the water is extremely clear.
Before:

After:

Before: Close shot

After: Wide Angle

Overall in 11 hours massive reduction in dino's and cyano. Im curious how things will look in a week.

 

[KingTideCorals]

That sump is beautiful!!!

Loving the build thread!

 

[Sdot]

That sump is beautiful!!!

Loving the build thread!

Aww thanks so much!

 

[AJsReef]

Great to see such an immediate difference!!!

What are your Nitrates/Phosphates at?

 

[Sdot]

Great to see such an immediate difference!!!

What are your Nitrates/Phosphates at?

Phos generally sits between .04 - .09
Nitrates 8 - 12 ppm

 

[Sdot]

Great to see such an immediate difference!!!

What are your Nitrates/Phosphates at?

Yes.. wasnt expected at all. Not complaining though...lol.

 

[AJsReef]

Phos generally sits between .04 - .09
Nitrates 8 - 12 ppm

So strange how these Dinos take off in such diverse conditions. I definitely bottomed out my N/P and got mine as a lovely gift. I think I have amphidinium though, only on the rocks and UV didn't do a whole lot.

Working on trying to get nutrients up for sure, finally close to .05 PPM Phosphate / 5 Nitrate recently. Never been so happy to test and see higher numbers LOL

 

[Sdot]

Boy o boy... when it rains it pours doesn't it. Here is an update...my controller on my Abyzz blew my breaker and now have a strange smell. It worked great for a day... Everywhere i plug controller it would do the same thing... so bad controller? I called @Bulk Reef Supply to verify my options... and i was told to contact Coral Vue....i knew when they said this i was screwed. My options were to send it in a wait... not an option. i offered to buy a temp unit until they get back the original... Nope. Long story short.... i had to buy..yes buy another controller for 646.00, or as the coral vue agent told me... ill have a spare :mad: . I spoke with @Bulk Reef Supply again and explain to them what happened. Im expecting a call from them tomorrow... Ill leave it at that.

 

[AJsReef]

$1,900 pump and that’s the customer service?! Unbelievable, completely rational to expect concurrent RMA service with a credit card hold and over night shipping.

Out of curiosity, are your breakers AFCI? Sometimes these fancy controllers trigger the arc fault breakers.

 

[Sdot]

$1,900 pump and that’s the customer service?! Unbelievable, completely rational to expect concurrent RMA service with a credit card hold and over night shipping.

Out of curiosity, are your breakers AFCI? Sometimes these fancy controllers trigger the arc fault breakers.

They are but its pump controller...it has a smell and it won't power on

 

[t5Nitro]

Bummer, Sdot! It looks like the hard work and effort is starting to pay off. You were never bottomed out on nutrients. What do you think was the root cause for the cyano outbreak?

Sorry to hear about the abyzz pump, man.