New SPS Tank for JBNY

[JBNY]

From Black Friday as well, A new sump to go inside my big sump.

My main sump is a 90 gallon polypropene tank that I had made for me back in 2007 when I did my first big tank upgrade, At the time I chose it so I would have enough room for equipment but mainly so I would have enough room that the sump would never overflow when the main tank's pumps were off. Now I have a good 30 gallons of reserve space when the pumps are off before this sump overflow, so it has worked great.

(sump setup in the fish room. Little sump overflowing to the big sump)​

But over the years I have wanted to put in chambers more like a normal sump instead of one big area that everything goes into. I had the main drain going into a small 5 gallon tank and that kept bubbles away, but the skimmer and other equipment was all in one place.

(sump layout)​

(Drain comes in on the right, skimmer, ozone, Siporx middle, ATO and dosing in the top left, heater on the left, exit to the return pump bottom left)​

(Drains go into 5 gallon tank to catch bubbles.)​

I looked into getting a sump made but the cost of having someone make me a custom sump was a lot more than I wanted to spend. So on Black Friday BRS was dumping the AquaForest Sumps for 50% off. I found one that looked like it would work the AF435. I must have measured my sump and compared it to the AF435 like 10 times. In the end, it's a very tight fit, it but should fit with about 1/2-3/4" to clear. The layout design is almost perfect for what I want. My drains go into the right spot, the skimmer section JUST barley fits the skimmer. It has an ATO reservoir but I think I can convert that to a dosing section. So I pull the trigger, and the new sump arrives, it very nice.

First thing I do is measure everything again, it will fit awesome! So I get ready to convert it to my needs.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

From Black Friday as well, A new sump to go inside my big sump.

My main sump is a 90 gallon polypropene tank that I had made for me back in 2007 when I did my first big tank upgrade, At the time I chose it so I would have enough room for equipment but mainly so I would have enough room that the sump would never overflow when the main tank's pumps were off. Now I have a good 30 gallons of reserve space when the pumps are off before this sump overflow, so it has worked great.

(sump setup in the fish room. Little sump overflowing to the big sump)​

But over the years I have wanted to put in chambers more like a normal sump instead of one big area that everything goes into. I had the main drain going into a small 5 gallon tank and that kept bubbles away, but the skimmer and other equipment was all in one place.

(sump layout)​

(Drain comes in on the right, skimmer, ozone, Siporx middle, ATO and dosing in the top left, heater on the left, exit to the return pump bottom left)​

(Drains go into 5 gallon tank to catch bubbles.)​

I looked into getting a sump made but the cost of having someone make me a custom sump was a lot more than I wanted to spend. So on Black Friday BRS was dumping the AquaForest Sumps for 50% off. I found one that looked like it would work the AF435. I must have measured my sump and compared it to the AF435 like 10 times. In the end, it's a very tight fit, it but should fit with about 1/2-3/4" to clear. The layout design is almost perfect for what I want. My drains go into the right spot, the skimmer section JUST barley fits the skimmer. It has an ATO reservoir but I think I can convert that to a dosing section. So I pull the trigger, and the new sump arrives, it very nice.

First thing I do is measure everything again, it will fit awesome! So I get ready to convert it to my needs.

Very nice! But I also loved the beast sump!

 

[JBNY]

Very nice! But I also loved the beast sump!

No just wait, it comes out awesome!

 

[JBNY]

What I want to do is take the ATO chamber of the sump and open it up so that water can flow through it. I will also use this area as a high flow section to do my doing in. Fist I measure where the sump wall needs to be opened, then drill out 3x 1" holes for the water flow. The area is pretty tight but I can fit a drill in there and get the holes bored out.

Next is the exit from the AF435 ATO chamber to the main sump, I mark off a section of the acrylic window to cut open and cut it with a jig saw easily. OK, now that should work I need to get the sump installed.

(lining up the AF435 sump before I move out the equipment)
​

So I have measured everything a thousand times and the AF435 just should drop in, but of course I forgot something. I forgot I have a shelf that the top sump sits on, and that shelf sticks out a little over the top of the bottom sump, ugh. But it is only a little bit, so I am determined to get the sump in, so I get it wedged in on an angle and use a rubber mallet to bang on the corner of the sump to push through the little bit of the wooden shelf. 1 hour and 15 minutes of hammering on the side of the sump, I finally get it through, Woohoo! It drops in perfectly after that!

(wedged the sump in, no turning back now)​

(after about 45 minutes of banging it with a rubber mallet! Almost there)​

(I did it! You can see the marks from the rubber mallet on the wood beam above)​

Set everything up and it all works perfectly, I am stoked!

(All in and hooked up, worked perfectly)​

It actually worked out great, everything fits in perfectly. The water exits the dosing section with very little turbulence, it just flows right out into the main chamber of the big sump. Perfect!

 

[JBNY]

Now the last thing I need to do it move the location of suction intake of the return pump. The old configuration had the drain hitting the sump in the upper right corner and flowing to the return pump in the lower left corner. Now with the AF435 in, the water exits right next to the return pump. So I just extend the 1.5" return line out with a 15" piece of PVC and I put a 90d bend on the end of it.

Then I print out an intake guard that fits into the elbow and is held in place with cable ties routed through the elbow and intake guard so it cannot dislodge during flow, vibration, or maintenance.

Next I make a 3D-printed bracket with PVC standoff to prevent any movement, or sagging on the suction line or the sump bulkhead over time.

So now the return has been moved to the back left, and no dead spots in the sump, and the intake guard prevents anything in the sump from getting sucked into the Abyzz pump.

 

[JBNY]

So with the new sump in sump setup. and the UV on my tank is looking much better. But with the the second phyto bloom most of my acro frags are looking pretty bad. So I will leave them in for a while and see if they recover.

I was able to stop dosing MKP for phosphates in early December and the tank has been able to hold PO4 around 0.03-0.06 I I will leave it there, and just test to make sure it does not drift. Nitrate have been steadily dropping on it's own from tank maturation from 18.2 ppm at the beginning of December to down to 6.2 by the end of December.

One noticeable change is that my alkalinity started drifting relative to my cal/magnesium. Basically the tank is using them in a skewed ratio than it normally does, not uncommon for a new tank. But it's a problem when dosing 2part type solutions. At fist I had been just increasing the Core7 dosing by a few ml every few days but by the time I got to 18ml I noticed that my calcium was rising, but my alk was still dropping. I had been adding 0.4 ppm of alk every time I needed to bump up alk to match the dosing increases. So at this point I decided to bring the Aqauwiz's ability to dose alkalinity online. So I mixed of a solution of Sodium Carbonate 200g into 1 Liter, and used that for the dosing solution. At that concentration I need about 120ml to increase dKH by 1. I set the Aquawiz to dose only if the alk drops below 8.2 dKH, and set the Core7 dosers to16ml and that seems to keep everything steady for now.

Nothing much happens for the rest of December, I just letting the tank recover and get into a better place.

 

[JBNY]

January rolls in with a me having enough of cyano on the sand bed. Tried to get to go away with flow and all that. I have used Ultrareef RSR many times in the past with zero issues, and the cyano goes away from anywhere between 1-3 years. LFS did not have ultareef so I picked up chemiclean.

(cyano on the sandbed before I decided to nuke it with chemiclean)​

Dosed as per directions. As usual the skimmer overflows like crazy. I just shut off, skimmer, UV, and ozone, for the 48 hours.

(adding the chemiclean causes the skimmer to immediately overflow)​

Then did a 40 gallon water change (first water change on the tank!!), and put some carbon in the sump. The chemiclean worked fine, it took longer than I was used to for the cyano to go away, about 5-7 days. But the main problem I had was the skimmer would not stop overflowing at 10+days. So I eventually took matters into my own hands and made an extension to put on the skimmer body and printed a top that I could attached a shop vac hose to and let the skimmer foam flow into a rubbermaid container. After about 5 hours and 8 gallons of tea colored skimmate was collected, the skimmer was working normally again we were back to normal.

(after ten day of the skimmer still overflowing, I rig this up to catch the foam off the skimmer to remove the chemiclean)​

It took another 5-7 days for the sand to look about normal. In the future I would use Ultrareef instead.

Unfortunately during the treatment time period the fairy wrasse sustained an injury near the gill plate, likely from rock work. Initially the damage appeared superficial, just some scales near the gill looked to be pushed out, like the wrasse caught it on the rock work. But the injury progressively worsened over several days, indicating a secondary infection rather than simple abrasion. Despite continued feeding early on, the injury expanded in size. The fish later stopped eating, began resting on rock work, and eventually remained near the surface. So I decided to remove the fish, easily nettable didn't even move when the net came near, and humanely euthanized it by freezing in water to prevent further suffering. Always unhappy when things like that happen.

(wrasse injured himself and it turned into an infection that didn't let up)​

 

[JBNY]

At this point I am considering the tank mostly done with the old phase and start working to stabilize the system as a whole. Getting it ready for more fish and corals. I am going to hold off on the fish to make sure nothing is lingering issues from the wrasse death. Corals, I plan on putting some in soon. So I want to get the tank as close to going forward mode as I can.

The first part is to get the lighting schedule set up. The tank has been on a reduced photo period and scaled back lighting spectrum while it was maturing, now that should be done I set up what will be the schedule and spectrum going forward.

I settle on a ramped day with a short, deliberate midday peak and controlled full-spectrum exposure. Measured PAR is below:
PAR High peak: 410 - Measured on upper portion of rocks
PAR Low peak: 230- Measure at sandbed

This is my Lighting schedule for the ATI Straton Pro G2 153

8:00 - 08:30 — Off / Dawn
Preset: JBNY_Night
Intensity: Ramp from 0 - 20%
Channels: V 0 / RB 60 / B 30 / C 0 / W 0 / R 0

08:30 –10:00 — Dawn Ramp
Preset: JBNY_01Morn
Intensity: Ramp from 20 - 40%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 20 / W 30 / R 10

10:00 – 12:00 — Morning Ramp
Preset: JBNY_02Morn
Intensity: Ramp from 40 - 50%
Channels: V 140 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 30 / W 50 / R 20

12:00 – 13:00 — Midday Plateau
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 50%
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

13:00 – 14:00 — Midday Peak
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 60% (peak ~60 minutes)
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

14:00 – 15:00 — Midday Plateau Return
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 50%
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

15:00 – 18:00 — Afternoon Blend
Preset: JBNY_04Aft
Intensity: Gradual decline from 50% - 45%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 50 / W 50 / R 30

18:00 – 20:00 — Evening Blend
Preset: JBNY_05Aft
Intensity: 45%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 30 / W 40 / R 20

20:00 – 21:00 — Night Ramp / OFF
Preset: JBNY_Night
Intensity: Ramp from 45% - 0%/OFF
Channels: V 0 / RB 60 / B 30 / C 0 / W 0 / R 0


Week of Jan 15th I add 4 acro frags, Miyagi Tort, Strawberry Shortcake, Frosted Blueberry, TIA Lemon Pop. All seem to be doing ok.

Jan 24th I start Nitrate dosing.
Following several weeks of steady nitrate showing a consistent downward trend from ~20 ppm to ~1–2 ppm, phosphate remained detectable and stable (generally ~0.01–0.04 ppm). The decline in Nitrate was interpreted as rising biological demand.

To prevent any nitrogen limitation the intent is to hold NO3 around~5–10 ppm. This is what I have done in the past. So to do that I am going to dose KNO3. This is what I am doing.

• Nitrogen source: Potassium nitrate (KNO3)
• Stock solution: 100 g KNO3 in 1,000 mL RO/DI
• System volume: 330 gallons (1,250 L)
• Dose rate: 15 mL/day (+0.75 ppm NO3/day)
• Dosing window: 08:00–12:00, split into 3 small doses
• Delivery: Hydros dosing pump, dosed into high-flow sump/mixing area of AF435

I chose KNO3 over ammonium sources to provide a predictable, buffered nitrate pool during increasing demand. Dosing is intended to be temporary until fish load and feeding alone can maintain nitrogen availability.

OK that it, I think we are caught up to real time. Here is a video of the tank as it currently looks.

 

[JBNY]

Finally got a few more frags in the tanks. 3 weeks ago I picked up a few locally and initially they were doing great. I think I was still tweaking too much with them in the tank. One that was a really nice size I think I just mis handled and did a poor job acclimating, it started having issues within a few days. Probably due to me moving it around too much and letting it get knocked over. I had to cut it down to the base due to recession. The other two looked pretty good until this morning I noticed one of the tips on the yellow/green frag has some issues. Again probably my fault I was cleaning my aquawiz and moved the wrong dosing line, When I took the line off the aquawiz, the alk solution was supposed to go into a cup, instead I pulled the wrong line and dumped it in the tank. Not a a lot but probably enough to increase the alk by +0.2. I also fixed my lighting schedule a week after getting these frags so maybe that had something to do with it too. No changes since last week though.

Finally here are some frags pictures.
This one is doing fine.

But this one is having some tip issues, just started, hopefully it makes it.

I also put a big group of 15 frags from WWC in the tank on Friday. All the changes happened a few days before they went in, so all is stable for these guys, hopefully they do well, they look good right now after 3 days in the tank.

 

[JBNY]

Finally got around to cleaning the UV Sterilizer. I have never had one on the tank before so the maintenance was new to me. But it was very easy to maintain, here is what I did

• Shut off the UV sterilizer
• let the bulb cool down in the water flow for a few minutes
• then pull the feed so the water drains from the unit
• Next just remove the UV bulb and set aside
• then open the unit so the quartz sleeve comes out
• Soak the sleeve a mixture of Citric acid and water for 20 minutes
• Wipe and Rinse the sleeve
• Put everything back together and turn back on

I used 6 table spoons of citric acid to 1 Liter of warm water. I have a 2" PVC pipe caped at one end I use to clean heaters, so I soaked it in that. Came out crystal clear when I was finished. Which surprised me because the sleeve was pretty almost covered with calcium carbonate scale. I am sure the UV was being reduced a lot from this, so I decided to put it on the maintenance schedule for every 6 weeks.

 

[Tahoe61]

At this point I am considering the tank mostly done with the old phase and start working to stabilize the system as a whole. Getting it ready for more fish and corals. I am going to hold off on the fish to make sure nothing is lingering issues from the wrasse death. Corals, I plan on putting some in soon. So I want to get the tank as close to going forward mode as I can.

The first part is to get the lighting schedule set up. The tank has been on a reduced photo period and scaled back lighting spectrum while it was maturing, now that should be done I set up what will be the schedule and spectrum going forward.

I settle on a ramped day with a short, deliberate midday peak and controlled full-spectrum exposure. Measured PAR is below:
PAR High peak: 410 - Measured on upper portion of rocks
PAR Low peak: 230- Measure at sandbed

This is my Lighting schedule for the ATI Straton Pro G2 153

8:00 - 08:30 — Off / Dawn
Preset: JBNY_Night
Intensity: Ramp from 0 - 20%
Channels: V 0 / RB 60 / B 30 / C 0 / W 0 / R 0

08:30 –10:00 — Dawn Ramp
Preset: JBNY_01Morn
Intensity: Ramp from 20 - 40%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 20 / W 30 / R 10

10:00 – 12:00 — Morning Ramp
Preset: JBNY_02Morn
Intensity: Ramp from 40 - 50%
Channels: V 140 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 30 / W 50 / R 20

12:00 – 13:00 — Midday Plateau
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 50%
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

13:00 – 14:00 — Midday Peak
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 60% (peak ~60 minutes)
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

14:00 – 15:00 — Midday Plateau Return
Preset: JBNY_daytime
Intensity: 50%
Channels: V 190 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 90 / W 70 / R 20

15:00 – 18:00 — Afternoon Blend
Preset: JBNY_04Aft
Intensity: Gradual decline from 50% - 45%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 50 / W 50 / R 30

18:00 – 20:00 — Evening Blend
Preset: JBNY_05Aft
Intensity: 45%
Channels: V 90 / RB 255 / B 255 / C 30 / W 40 / R 20

20:00 – 21:00 — Night Ramp / OFF
Preset: JBNY_Night
Intensity: Ramp from 45% - 0%/OFF
Channels: V 0 / RB 60 / B 30 / C 0 / W 0 / R 0


Week of Jan 15th I add 4 acro frags, Miyagi Tort, Strawberry Shortcake, Frosted Blueberry, TIA Lemon Pop. All seem to be doing ok.

Jan 24th I start Nitrate dosing.
Following several weeks of steady nitrate showing a consistent downward trend from ~20 ppm to ~1–2 ppm, phosphate remained detectable and stable (generally ~0.01–0.04 ppm). The decline in Nitrate was interpreted as rising biological demand.

To prevent any nitrogen limitation the intent is to hold NO3 around~5–10 ppm. This is what I have done in the past. So to do that I am going to dose KNO3. This is what I am doing.

• Nitrogen source: Potassium nitrate (KNO3)
• Stock solution: 100 g KNO3 in 1,000 mL RO/DI
• System volume: 330 gallons (1,250 L)
• Dose rate: 15 mL/day (+0.75 ppm NO3/day)
• Dosing window: 08:00–12:00, split into 3 small doses
• Delivery: Hydros dosing pump, dosed into high-flow sump/mixing area of AF435

I chose KNO3 over ammonium sources to provide a predictable, buffered nitrate pool during increasing demand. Dosing is intended to be temporary until fish load and feeding alone can maintain nitrogen availability.

OK that it, I think we are caught up to real time. Here is a video of the tank as it currently looks.

It's stunning. Job well done!!

 

[JBNY]

Having a tough time with fish and SPS in the tank right now. Those SPS that I got from WWC, I lost 80% of them, tank is a still new, going into it's 6 month. and was a dry rock dry sand. I am thinking for the SPS that it might be a phosphate issue, with phosphate being too low in the evening and morning. So I am working through that. I have another group of SPS and LPS now in the tank, the LPS all seem to be doing fine, I have two hammer corals that have been in the tank for almost 4 months and they are doing good. So it's looks like it is just acros, and that was the same problem I had when I last restarted my old tank with dry rock, it tool about 9 months before acros would survive. So trying to work it out.


Fish are frustrating. I put a group of eight Lepidozygus tapeinosoma (Fusilier damselfish) and a Juvenile Hippo Tang in the tank middle of February. The Hippo seemed fine at first but only lasted two days before started having issue one day, was hiding, had ich and wouldn't eat. Then I found him on the sand bed dead the next morning. All the fusillier damselfigh are doing great though. Now today I come downstairs and my coral beauty that has been in the tank for almost 4 months looks to be in distress. Pectoral fins are moving rapidly and he has got his head up to the top of the water line, fins looks shredded. He doesn't look good. He looked fine yesterday and did eat this morning, but I was in a rush and didn't observe him carefully. I don't know what is going on, I feel I am going to loose him.

Frustrating, but I remember almost the same problem with getting fish established in the last tank.

Oh yeah, and now out of nowhere two days ago I notice another green water bloom happening in the tank, it's not that bad, but definitely noticeable when looking at the tank from end to end.

 

[JBNY]

Few updates. I lost the Coral Beauty. I don’t know what happened, he must have been being chased around and slammed into the rock work or something. He had been in the tank for about 4 months and had no issues the day before and even in the morning of looked fine. Within 12 hours was unable to swim, floating around upside down.

All other fish are doing fine.

BUT, the corals might be doing better, I’m not sure. All the LPS are doing fine still. It is just the acros that are struggling. The acro frags look ok, going on the 2 week mark for the new additions, they have minor recession around the base on a few but overall they look ok. I lost one to RTN a few days ago but none of the others seem effected. A few of the frags from last month look to have stopped receding. No new growth on the older ones yet, but at least they are not getting worse.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Few updates. I lost the Coral Beauty. I don’t know what happened, he must have been being chased around and slammed into the rock work or something. He had been in the tank for about 4 months and had no issues the day before and even in the morning of looked fine. Within 12 hours was unable to swim, floating around upside down.

All other fish are doing fine.

BUT, the corals might be doing better, I’m not sure. All the LPS are doing fine still. It is just the acros that are struggling. The acro frags look ok, going on the 2 week mark for the new additions, they have minor recession around the base on a few but overall they look ok. I lost one to RTN a few days ago but none of the others seem effected. A few of the frags from last month look to have stopped receding. No new growth on the older ones yet, but at least they are not getting worse.

So sorry about losing the coral beauty. Hoping the best for your corals!

 

[tripdad]

Gotta love those temperamental acros. I have about 1/2 doing great and growing well and the rest are just mocking me, lol. Love the new builds progress.

 

[JBNY]

So sorry about losing the coral beauty. Hoping the best for your corals!

Thanks, it was an unhappy day. I was just pointing out how well the fish looked and was doing the day before.

Hopefully I get the corals worked out soon. I think I am on the right path now.

 

[JBNY]

Gotta love those temperamental acros. I have about 1/2 doing great and growing well and the rest are just mocking me, lol. Love the new builds progress.

Yeah acros are the nut to crack with new tanks. I always am amazed when I start a new tank off that is not just an upgrade from a previous tank, how hard the beginning can be. Even years ago when I had an established tank doing well and I had to swap out the live rock to dry rock, I was unable to get acros to thrive for a long time. It’s that dry rock that really messing things up. This tank is even worse as it is all new everything. I picked up about three pieces of live rock from a LFS which probably helped, but still that dry sand, dry rock combo takes a while to get the tank humming.

That all said, I started dosing phosphates back in mid February after morning PO4 tests were showing 0.00 consistently before lights on. I had been testing in the evening, and was getting around 0.05 but with the acros having issues I suspected the rock might still be sucking up phosphates over night. Acros do really poorly with zero phosphates. So after finding that pO4 was bottoming out over night, I started dosing every 3 hours from 11pm to 7am and then at a lower amount in the day from 9am to 6pm. The target was to eliminate the 0.00 morning floor and keep PO4 roughly in the 0.05-0.07 ppm range. After about a month of starting with 40 mL/day total, Overnight: 30 mL, Daytime: 10 mL, approximately +0.04 ppm PO4/day and stepping it down in the last week and a half, I finally have had the phosphate doser off now for 3 days and the system has held steady for that last 3 mornings at 0.07ppm. I am hopeful that this helps with the acros having issues acclimating to the new tank.

A few weeks ago I also started dosing my blend of Manganese and Zinc that I have been using for over 10 years. This was the first time adding any trace elements to the tank so I sent an ICP off the day before I started the Mn/Zn supplements. Hopefully that helps with the acros as well.

Also got my ICP back the other day and overall pretty good. I did correct Iodine and Strontium based on the results but other than that, left everything as is. I raised iodine to approximately 25 to 30 ug/L and strontium to approximately 8 mg/L dosed over 3 days. I used potassium iodide and strontium chloride.

Here is the ICP I sent on Feb 23rd. I should note I was happy my Refractometer read 35ppt, and my Hanna Calcium read 436 the day before I sent the sample out.

 

[JBNY]

After only 3 months of having the tank set up, I noticed aptasia in the tank. I'm not sure how that even happened I has three live rocks a total of 5 lbs that I put in with the dry rock when first setting up the tank. I have to guess that it came in on that. Ove the last few months the aptasia have multiplied and a few are now pretty big. In the past I have tried everything from fish to eat them, injecting the aptasia with different poisons, to removing the rocks and scrubbing it with toothbrushes. Nothing ever seemed to work the aptasia always seemed to come back or at least still exist. In the tank last time had a copperban that did a very good job of keeping the aptasia at bay, but I still had aptasia in the tank.


This time I decided to get some Bergia Nudibranchs. I got them from Salty Underground online and ordered 12 of them and added them to the tank. Wow! they're so much smaller than I thought they would be, I ordered ones that were about a quarter of an inch and they had to be delicately placed in the tank on rock, once there they quickly disappeared into the rock work and that was it. Over the next few weeks I've noticed aptasia disappearing and some of the large sections that had multiple heads of aptasia have all disappeared so they are working their way around the tank. I'm looking forward to aptasia free tank for the first time.

 

[Featherweight]

Cool tank. Tough time you seem to be getting through. Tanks are weird. Mine was doing great from months 4 to 6 then thinks got wonky, but now at just about 1 year it's humming again.

 

[JBNY]

Cool tank. Tough time you seem to be getting through. Tanks are weird. Mine was doing great from months 4 to 6 then thinks got wonky, but now at just about 1 year it's humming again.

Thanks, it's getting there. This tank is just turning 7 months in a week. Really for the most part the tank is doing ok, I am just bummed when I don't get a 100% survival rate. Especially when fish are doing fine for weeks or months then take a quick turn. But overall it it doing well. I try not to put things in too early so the tank might be as stocked as someone else's. Also when I have a problem I tend to wait a few weeks before trying again just to make sure there is nothing wrong with the rest of the tank.