Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

I’ve restarted the system my wife had running before she lost interest in caring for her own reef. She still loves my reef though so that’s a huge positive for me. She’s been quite understanding and patient, even when I’ve made messes. I do clean my messes asap though which helps but still…

It’s a 20 gallon tall tank with a 10 gallon sump. My goal for this system is to be a lifeboat for the main display. That is to say that I want to take frags from certain corals, like Montipora, Acropora, etc. I’m also going to culture my microfauna in here. I’ve already seeded the system with Collonista snails and pods. Once I get asterina and micro brittle stars I’ll add some in here too.

I started the system with water from the main display tank. This way there was no shock to the micro flora and fauna on the rocks I added. I took some rocks from my sump so there are a bunch of micro feather dusters. There’s also a pineapple sponge growing on one of the rocks. So far it’s been running for three days. It’s already cycled though. I have a frag of GSP in there now. I’ve also added some sand from the sump as well as some new sand.

Eventually I’m going to buy a pair of maroon clownfish. I might even buy more. Of course they’d have to be really little and male. The clownfish I have now would go in the 20. They’ll be the only fish in the system.

While I’ll provide occasional updates on the 20 gallon system I’ll mainly be updating on the main display, Perseverance Reef itself.

 

[Fishy888]

I’ve been busy like crazy lately but tomorrow I’ll be scraping the acrylic and testing ALK, CAL, MAG, PO4 and NO3. I’m also going to make some more RODI.

I’m going to get my ozone generator within the month. I’m excited about having crystal clear water.

My nitrates need to come down though. There’s a bunch of green algae growing in the sand. I now have much more time than I’ve had in months. I’ll be using it to address the algae in the sand bed among other things.

My CUC is doing an awesome job but with my nitrates so high the sand bed still has green turf like algae growing on it. I hope to add some sand sifters to the reef. Diamond and watchman gobies are potential additions. I’ll definitely add a sea cucumber or two. Definitely NOT sand sifting starfish though. They look cool but considering they’d eat all the micro life in the sand bed and then starve to death, I’ll pass!

 

[Fishy888]

I just ordered my ozone generator. It’ll be here on Saturday. It’s been a while since I ran my skimmer last but I want to get the system used to it. I’ll be running my ozone into it. Considering my nitrates have been steady state for several months and are quite high I don’t see any issues running it. I highly doubt dinos will make a return any time soon.

Right now my display is a hot mess. I didn’t clean the acrylic yet. I hope to get it done today though. I also want to clean small sections of the sand really well. I want my clean, white sand back! Even if I got a sea cucumber I’d need to address the crud built up in the sand bed.

Flow is one of the issues. I really need another wave maker like the one I already have on the opposite end of the one I already have. A few behind the rock in the back would help too. That’ll get addressed this fall.

 

[Fishy888]

I started on the Perseverance Reef beautification project yesterday. I started my skimmer up and I cleaned some of the sand.

The skimmer is working but I had to drop the water level in the sump. This is temporary thankfully. I’m going to build a PVC frame and zip tie a small piece of egg crate to it. That’ll let me raise the height of the skimmer so I can get my water level back to normal. Thank you @tbrown!

The water that I took out (and will be taking out more of today) is what I’m cleaning the sand in. There’s a definite difference in the patch that I cleaned but wow is there a ton of crud in the sand! I expected a lot but it was (and is) nuts! I’m glad I didn’t go crazy adding a bunch of coral!

Don’t get me wrong, the corals I have are quite healthy, and I’ve got coralline growth along with spirorbids, micro dusters, pods, collonistas, chitons, even limpets, all doing well. The crud in the sand bed is just too much though. For months I couldn’t buy nitrates in my system and had dinos all over. Now my nitrates are good and steady. And ridiculously high!

The biggest problem has been having the time to maintain the system consistently. Since business slowed to the point that I was making less than minimum wage and my health issues are being aggravated, I quit my job. I’ll look for another one but for now anyway I’m unemployed. As a result I’ll have much more time than I did to dedicate to my system and the animals that live in it!

As I said yesterday I want to add flow so that crud can’t just sit in the sand bed. My skimmer’s a beast! It just needs access to the crud in order to be able to remove it.

I’m also looking at some budget options for a pH, ORP monitor, temperature gauge all in one. I’ve seen some I like the looks of but I’d want longer lasting probes than the budget monitors have.

 

[fishguy242]

Are you using the ASM skimmer ? if so no need to raise in sump.

 

[Fishy888]

Are you using the ASM skimmer ? if so no need to raise in sump.

No it’s an aquamaxx skimmer. If I knew I’d have this system when I took my old reef down I’d have kept it but this skimmer still does a great job.

 

[Goaway]

I am happy it is moving along for you and you are able to get all salty again. Aquariums bring their own kind of stress and comforts.

PSST, for my skimmer, i just put white legos under it.. I only need a couple of inches to raise it. The pvc and egg crate is a much better idea. I never said nothing.

 

[Fishy888]

I am happy it is moving along for you and you are able to get all salty again. Aquariums bring their own kind of stress and comforts.

PSST, for my skimmer, i just put white legos under it.. I only need a couple of inches to raise it. The pvc and egg crate is a much better idea. I never said nothing.

That’s not a bad idea either!

 

[Goaway]

That’s not a bad idea either!

I have toddler and a 6 yr old. So, they are the mega blocks. Not the micro legos.

I couldn't imagine how much it would cost to build a skimmer stand out of the smaller ones...

 

[Fishy888]

I’ve been running ozone for about an hour now. I estimate that I have 130 actual gallons of water. That’s total system volume. I’m running at 20 mg/hr right now. No ozone smell thankfully. There’s definitely an ozone smell if you do the sniff test directly on the output when not attached to the skimmer.

Don’t worry, I quickly shut it off right after I quickly sniffed it. Coming from a big city environment I’m probably more used to ozone than people here would be, but that doesn’t mean I want to breathe it in constantly, nor do I want anyone else, including the dogs, breathing it in. I did want to verify it worked however.

So far no effect on my animals, in the tank or out, but I’ll be watching things closely. I’m leaving everything the way it is for at least 24 hours. The lower setting should be safe. I will only move it gradually until I see the water start clearing.

Hopefully the increased ORP will help my fish be even more lively. More importantly I hope it leads to much increased longevity of fish and inverts. I’m really excited about the changes that are coming!

 

[Fishy888]

I have toddler and a 6 yr old. So, they are the mega blocks. Not the micro legos.

I couldn't imagine how much it would cost to build a skimmer stand out of the smaller ones...

They might be safer too in saltwater. Toddlers put stuff in their mouths all the time so the bigger blocks have to be made for that.

 

[Fishy888]

It’s now been 5 hours with ozone. I promise I won’t post about it every hour, but I noticed something interesting. Normally when I feed my fish I feed them by hand at first then I just break up the rest and give it to them. They eat like pigs but tonight they ate like sharks! I read that the extra oxygen can boost fishes’ activity levels but I wasn’t expecting it that quickly!

My RBTAs look great tonight too. The effect on them seems minimal so far but time will tell. I’m not changing anything like I said earlier. Not until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

I could almost swear the water has less tint now but I might just be seeing what I want to be seeing. It’s not a huge change by any stretch if there’s any yet. That’ll change soon enough. The animals’ health must come first.

 

[Fishy888]

All my animals made it through the night and I don’t have any ozone smell, even close to the sump. I have been running at 20 mg/hr for about 21 hours now. There is definitely a difference but there’s a way to go yet.

I just turned it up to 25 mg/hr. I’ll leave it at that level until noon tomorrow. In a bit I’ll feed the fish and see if they respond like last night. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but I think my powder blue tang looks a deeper shade of blue. Again, oh so slightly, but there.

Overall the tank looks a bit “brighter” for lack of a better way to put it. It’s like there’s even more vitality. Just seeing that, knowing my animals have better conditions, that makes me happy! They deserve the best of the best!

I’m going to clean a bit more of the sand later today. That’ll help with nitrates and it’ll make the tank look better. It’ll also be healthier for the system overall.

I haven’t run any tests on water quality lately but I’m low on nitrate reagents so I’ll wait until I do another water change to measure that. I already know they’re crazy high so I can afford to wait a bit longer.

I’m more worried about phosphates right now. I don’t think they’re too crazy high but they’re creeping up, so I need to get them down. I have LaCl but I don’t have a sock to drip it into. Not a 5 micron sock anyway. I might be able to run an airline through the collection cup down into the bubble chamber.

I’d prefer to get more light over the sump though. I have enough nitrates that I should be growing macro faster than I am. It’s not that there isn’t growth but my growth should be fast enough to use up my phosphates without using LaCl. It’s also more natural and less risky than LaCl with my tangs especially.

 

[Fishy888]

I’ve been running ozone for about 46 hours and change.

This is how the DT looked just before I started ozone.

Here’s how it looks now.

That’s not bad for just 2 days, especially considering I started at 20 mg/hr. I estimate that I have about 130 actual gallons of total system volume right now. I bumped it up to 25 mg/hr for a while yesterday then I bumped it to 30 last night. Everything looked great so I bumped it to 35 mg/hr this morning. If everything continues looking good I’ll bump it to 40 this evening. Once I get to 50 mg/hr I’ll move much more slowly. I’d imagine that if all the DOCs get oxidized that more oxygen will accumulate in the water. In a way it would be like I was still turning the dose up even though it’s still the same, unless I was literally adding just enough oxygen to oxidize the DOCs being generated. That might be the case but I’m going to err on the side of caution here.

If an average of 30 mg/hr got me this far I’d think 50 would get me to crystal clear or insanely close to it. I’m about halfway to crystal clear water from the looks of it.

I realize I’m moving faster than I originally was going to but with such a healthy change in my fish and inverts, and the water starting to clear, I’m a little less apprehensive but as I said I’ll move much more slowly once I hit 50 mg/hr.

As you can see in the latest picture my soft corals are doing great. If anything they look better. They’re one of the first things to go when there’s too much ORP. I’m not using an ORP controller nor do I intend to. After researching them it turns out that they’re woefully inaccurate. The probes have to be changed out constantly and they’re STILL woefully inaccurate. If you’re fortunate you might be able to spot trends. I do intend to get a monitor for ORP for the purpose of spotting trends eventually but it’s not high on the priority list. I just don’t want to run ozone based on a measurement that’s inaccurate at best. That might change if significant improvements are made to the probes we use. Otherwise, no thanks.

 

[Fishy888]

I just noticed something. I don’t know if ozone played a role in this but it’s quite a coincidence if not. I’ve got very new coralline specks growing on the sides. I’m going to let them grow for now. They weren’t there a couple of days ago. I’ll be looking to see if other planktonic life is being affected the same way but this is the healthiest I’ve seen my system yet, and it was doing pretty good before this.

I also noticed my favorite sponge seems to be growing again. It’s the only green sponge I’ve ever had. I thought it was chaeto when I first saw it. It was half this size at that point. It’s had little growth for a while now but it has developed a couple new “tubes” on top. The largest one, which was already there, has grown enough that I can see it.

 

[Fishy888]

Things are looking up! My water hasn’t been this clear in ages. My fish have that extra enthusiastic reaction to food still, they’re even more lively, and my inverts are looking awesome too.

There’s still some yellow tint, especially when looking longways through the tank. It’ll be gone soon enough though.

My system is getting used to ozone, and while things look better, it’s a change the system needs to get used to. I figure a couple of months should be enough but of course if it appears that things aren’t as stable as they should be by then, then I’ll wait until they’re stable enough.

I found even more new coralline growth today on the sides and under the top frame of the tank where the water is in constant contact. It’s still spreading at a decent clip. That and the increased activity and curiosity my fish are showing makes me think that at the very least I haven’t moved too fast and shocked the system.

I have had the tendency to move far too fast when changing things in my system. That’s led to coral loss and a near tank crash in the past. Thankfully I’ve made strides towards being more measured when changing things. It’s helping big time here!

My first attempt at Montipora in this system failed spectacularly because I had them under too much light. Now that the lamps are higher up I should be good to go. My next coral purchases will be some Montipora and if they do well I’ll try a green slimer. I won’t be buying them until October most likely.

Research is my friend! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve researched Acropora in general but I’m going to narrow down which Acropora I want to keep and research them like gangbusters. I love the staghorn and birdsnest corals but I also want a tabling acropora or two.

There’s a high likelihood that my system will end up with equal amounts of Montipora and Acropora. They will dominate but I intend to keep several of my soft corals, and I intend to get some brain corals, and at least one Christmas tree worm rock if not two.

 

[Fishy888]

At this point the water is clear enough that you almost can’t tell there’s a tint at all. Looking longways through the tank though it’s definitely still there. It’s nowhere near as bad as it was and it keeps getting clearer.

All my animals are doing well although there’s a shrimp I haven’t seen in a couple of weeks. I’ve only had the ozone generator for a week as of tomorrow. It might still be ok and I just haven’t been around at the right time. I’ll keep watch for it though.

I’ll post another pair of before and after images tomorrow. There’s definitely more PAR. It’s visibly brighter. My Montipora will all have to start at the bottom of the tank and might have to stay there. It’s that bright.

My sand looks better too since I’ve been cleaning it. I use tank water to clean it and I only clean a little bit each day. It’s taking a lot of water to clean it good but it’s more efficient than a gravel vac. My plan is to get some more sand because I’ll need it for when I get my yellow Coris wrasse(s). I want to get a pair but we’ll see how that goes. I’ll also need it so sand sifters will have something to sift. The more sand the more likely light can’t penetrate the lowest layer of sand and any algae etc will die off and/or be eaten as sand gets sifted and sea cucumbers eat the dirty sand, pooping out clean sand.

 

[Fishy888]

I’ve been running ozone for a week as of yesterday. There’s a night and day difference. Considering how much macro I have growing it’s amazing how clear the water is.

The amount of yellow when viewing the tank longways continues to decrease. The last bit of yellow may take a while to decrease since not every molecule of yellowing compound gets oxidized immediately. It’ll happen eventually though. Even if it didn’t I’d still be quite happy with how clear the water is now. It looks crystal clear front to back.

Even more coralline has taken hold. I’m getting it on the Lok-Line and nozzle from the return as well as on the sides.

My fish are quite active and healthy. They’re more lively since I started ozone. They eat even more. My anemones are opening wider and have grown a bit. Their colors are really coming through with the clear water. My shrimps are doing good. So are my snails. All my animals are doing well.

I’m continuing my sand cleanings and they’re making a difference. The conchs are helping too. There was just too much crud built up in the sand bed (still is but not as badly as before I started) for them to be able to keep it clean by themselves.

These are my next goals for the system dry goods wise. I need to get my ozone generator and air pump permanently mounted to the stand. I’m going to add another outlet or two at the same time. Next month I need to buy 40 lbs of sand. After that I need to get another wave maker and some smaller gyres. Hopefully I’ll have them by winter. Then I need to cobble an ATO together.

Fish and invert wise I hope to get my maroon clowns and some digis in September. Assuming they do well I hope to get a green slimer and a clam in November. Somewhere in there I hope to add in a tiger tail sea cucumber or two, some Hawaiian feather dusters and several coco worms. I also want a pair of yellow Coris wrasses. I may want a larger wrasse too but it would have to be no more than semi aggressive. I’m going to get a bunch of green chromis. They’d get treated for uronema whether they showed symptoms or not. I’ll make sure they have loads of hiding places before I add them.

I’m excited that my reef is doing well. I feel like everything is going perfectly. Of course that can change at a moment’s notice. I’m not rushing to change anything else right now, except some water here and there. Hopefully, as long as my actions are measured in regard to maintaining my reef system, no crashes or other disasters occur.

 

[Fishy888]

The last several days I noticed my drain gurgling more and louder than usual. I figured another snail got into the drain line. I looked and there weren’t any snails in the line but my chaeto has been growing out of control. It was growing right under the drain. I fixed that situation and I throttled back the return pump. It’s definitely quieter.

At some point I might drill a couple more holes and run a couple more drain lines but I don’t want to dedicate a ton of space to the overflow box I’d have to install, unless I did two 1 inch lines. I have an internal overflow box I could use potentially but I need to measure it again. The drain line I have on there might stick out too far. Running two more drains might help quiet the line some though I have my doubts.

I got my air pump and ozone generator mounted to the stand. I’ll be adding another outlet to the stand today. My goal is to have most electrical devices plugged in at a level higher than the tank while not looking tacky. The outlets are/will be mounted above both the sump and the tank. Some things though like the skimmer and the return pump have cords far too short to plug in at a level higher than the tank. I have power strips that are currently mounted inside the stand but I will eventually mount them to the stand above the level of the sump. The sump is much more likely to flood than the tank, especially since the sump is glass and the tank is acrylic. With power strips, outlets and plugs above the sump’s height, things should be pretty safe. At the very least, much safer than having power strips on the floor or under the stand.

In a little while I’ll be prepping water for a partial water change. I’ve been using tank water to clean the sand. Since I started cleaning it I’ve likely used 5 or 6 gallons. That’s going to get replaced as well.

 

[Fishy888]

Last night I finally got around to mounting two sets of zoanthids to a couple of different rocks. An aiptasia anemone made its home on one of the plugs so I took the zoanthids off and glued that set to a rock. The other set was getting engulfed with bubble and some hair algae. I got those zoas and glued them to another rock.

I know zoanthids secrete a lot of mucus so if they don’t like it where they are they can detach themselves. I think they’ll like it where I put them though. They were opening up tonight a bit despite everything they’ve been through.

After cleaning the plugs I left one zoanthid on each. They’re in the 20 gallon tank. One opened up fully and the other was partially open. The aiptasia is pushing up daisy polyps now.

Hopefully I’ll remember to take a picture of the display. The water is crystal clear and the sand looks so much better now. Since I cleaned it with tank water no dinos have come yet and I don’t think they’ll come back again. If I just rinsed the sand with tap water then I’d have reason to worry. That said there’s still a lot of crud in the sand bed and I’ve been doing small portions of it each day. I’ve done the front but I need to get the sand in back cleaned up too. I think more flow will help to a point but I don’t want sand blowing everywhere. Then again if I want acros I’ll have to have higher flow. No getting around that.

I have a small Nannochloropsis culture coming. It’ll be here tomorrow (Wednesday). I bought a sun tea pitcher with a spigot to culture it in. I hope to culture Tetraselmis and Isochrysis as well but the last time I tried to culture Tetraselmis it almost immediately crashed. It’s said that Nannochlorosis is easier to culture than the others. I figure that’s a good starting point. If I do well with Nanno I’ll try Tetra again. One difference is that this time my pitcher is 2 gallons instead of just 1 gallon. To start though I’ll only have enough to make 16 oz worth. It shouldn’t be long before that becomes a quart, then a half gallon, etc.

Edit: The Nannochloropsis culture I’m getting is enough to make 32 oz., not just 16.