New Sonoran Nano Reef

[sonoransurvivalist]

It's been a few days, my clean up crew has basically eliminated the majority of the visible algae that has popped up. Now I'm left wondering what food I can give them so they don't starve while more algae forms.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

Parameters
78.5°
Salinity 1.025
PH 8.2
alk 8.288
Nitrates 10
Phosphates are still unmeasurable (getting nothing from hanna checker). Got a bottle of brightwell Neophos and am planning to VERY SLOWLY increase phosphates by .01 a day to see if I can get at least a reading on a test.

Currently dealing with a diatom bloom. I'm assuming it's from trace elements leeching from the dry rock used but will eventually work itself out as it depletes those elements and ultimately they fall in line.

Added the Red Sea Nanomat fleece roller, and picked up a Danoplus PAR meter... will be waiting for the water to clear up from the diatoms to start tracking PAR levels across the tank.

Refugium is not working out, I got a 3D printed basket to hold the Chaeto, which was dead by the time I got the basket, it basically was a pile of mush when I tried to put it into the basket. But even with that, the Basket is incredibly difficult to get into place, the fleece roller has to come out, the skimmer has to come out in order for me to access the area where the refugium would be. So, I think I'm going to move to a more permanent solution to provide some structure that copepods can move into that won't rely on me having to dig out regularly to maintain. Plus, this opens up the oportunity to use the Red Sea Complete Reef care dosing kit which will plug right into my red sea doser.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

Day 2, parameters are pretty stable. Checked Alk and phosphates after I dosed .01 worth of Neophos from brightwell aquatics. Readings are still showing zero. Dosed .02 worth of Neophos and re-checked several hours later, still reading zero. Will probably up my dosage to .03 tomorrow and see what happens. I've read that rock work can absorb phosphates, so not uncommon to see this happen but I would have expected to get at least *a* reading several hours after dosing .02 worth.

Corals are still looking good, all extended, I have two new polyps of zoanthids forming as well on what was originally a plug with 3 heads.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

Just returned from a 17+ day vacation. Did a 5 gallon water change the night before I left, and setup a camera that I could view the tank from while away. I also adjusted the lights, reduced day time by 3 hours, reduced light intensity by 30%. I'm very happy with the results upon my return. No real surprises, Nitrates are holding at 10, phosphates still zero (I opted not to setup any phosphate dosing while away as I didn't want some run away issue and expect to only need to dose phosphates until things stabilize). PH at 8.2, alk at 6. I've started dosing alk to bring it up by .5 a day until I can bring it back to 8+ alk which is where it likes to hover when I'm doing normal water changes.
Fish are looking healthy, no aggression, and corals have grown.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

Some new members of the sonoran reef.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

Been a while since I've updated this post. I had a cyanobacteria (I think it was/is cyano) across the substrate. Not terrible, but across a lot of the sand. I cut my lighting by several hours a day, changed the spectrum to nearly all blue (23k). The core of the problem, as I believe, was the bottomed out phosphates. I was beginning to believe my hanna checker was broken, I was dosing the equivalent of .06ppm of phosphates to the tank a day and still getting a zero reading. I doubled this, adding .06ppm every 12 hours and adding in 5ml of phytoplankton and 5ml of microbacter7 every day. As of today, my phosphates are now finally registering at .05ppm and stable without any additional dosing in 3 days. the cyano, while still in some areas has stalled.

Current parameters -
Temp - 79
Salinity - 1.025
Ph - 8.2
Alk - 9.1
Nitrate - 4.1
Phosphates - .05

Ordered Tropic Marin Cyo-Control to add in a natural barrier against cyano going forward. I also added in a Pink & Purple Live Coralline Algae Kit, hoping to see results in the coming months.

Added an algae eater to the group.

 

[sonoransurvivalist]

My tank is now 4 months old, and I have finally gotten my phosphates to start to register two weeks ago. Now that my rock work is no longer consuming all of the phosphates, I have rubberbanded. I went from a constant 0.00 reading to today it's at .12ppm phosphates. Now that things are in the opposite direction, I can increase the skimmer, which until today has been set to the lowest possible setting. I have also reduced my avast auto feeder from 45 seconds twice a day to 30 seconds twice a day. None of my corals are showing signs of distress yet, but will be watching them closely. I did a 15% water change yesterday as I always do on the weekends. Now I understand why we are supposed to take these tanks so slowly. Every few weeks, something new happens that I have to get under control. I also added a tiger conch to the tank to help stur the substrate and they've been doing a fantastic job.