Questions Re: 225 Gallon Mixed Reef Tank

[SFMAquariums]

Hello all!

I purchased a home last year that came with a 225 gallon tank built into the wall of the basement. That spurred my interest in the hobby & things have taken off since!

My tank has been running now for ~5-6 months & I think things are going pretty good for the most part. I currently have a clean up crew (snails, hermits, urchins, brittle stars, sand sifting stars, feather dusters), a few fancy shrimp (skunk, blood), 1 donkey-ear abalone, 1 decorator crab, 7 blue-green Chromis, 1 foxface rabbitfish, 2 ocellaris storm clownfish, 2 bangaii cardinal fish & recently introduced a mandarin dragonet (as we were noticing an insane amount of copepods in the tank). I also have quite a few corals (mostly euphyllia & LPS).

Everything mostly seems to be doing well. We lost 2 shrimp during their moults some time ago now. We have one hammer frag that looks a bit deflated but wasn’t the healthiest specimen to start with. 1 of our rock flower anemones isn’t doing as well as the other 2 for some reason - it’s smaller, less active & not as colourful. Everything else appears quite healthy, however, I am encountering a few issues I could use some guidance/feedback on.

For context, I have the following equipment in my tank/sump:
-2 x RedSea LED G2 115
-2 x RedSea Reefwave 45 (running alternate patterns - random wave @ 60%/80% power during day & uniform wave @ 30%/40% power during night)
-1x Nero 5 wavemaker (random wave @ 80% during day, 40% uniform wave during night)
-1 x RedSea Reefmat 1200
-1 x RedSea DC Protein Skimmer 600
-1 x RedSea G2 8000 return (running at 80%)
-1 x Refugium (miracle mud, bio blocks, live rock, chaeto algae, light)

My return enters the tank via 2 random-wave nozzles & feeds back to the sump via an internal overflow box that houses 2 heaters (connected to a smart controller) & a Durso standpipe that connects to the ReefMatt.

1) Flow & Filtration Rate: I’ve found that my ReefMatt is dispensing quite a lot recently - averaging ~70 inches/day. Based on what I’ve read, that’s about double the rate that should typically be expected. I feel like the rate increased when I added more flow to my tank & am wondering if I have too much flow right now? Is their something else that could be causing this?

2) Flatworm: I have started to notice a large number of what I believe are acoel flatworms. I’ve attached some photos below. They are starting to form matts on the rockwork in some places. I’m not sure how much of an issue this poses? It seems like there are different opinions on them. Most management options I have seen involve either manual removal (would be a huge pain in my tank) & introduction of a wrasse. I was looking at the yellow corris wrasse as an option. Does anybody have thoughts on this?

3) Water Parameters, Feeding & Regularity of Water Changes: Our water parameters seemed stable for the longest time, however with my addiction to adding new corals we’ve noticed that we have had to supplement alkalinity & magnesium a lot more frequently. This may also be attributable to the fact that we recently upgraded to Hanna colorimeters & maybe were getting less precise readings before. I am planning to get a dosing machine to keep up with these requirements, however, where we are currently seeing a bit of a spike is in our nitrate (10.3 ppm) & phosphate (0.48 ppm). The phosphates were even higher before but came down with a small water change we did last night. The nitrates didn’t change much. I am planning to do a bigger water change tomorrow but was wondering if anybody has insight on these spikes. Was wondering if it could be due to overfeeding - typically give ~6 cubes of mysis/brine per day in 2 feedings. I am also wondering how often I should be doing water changes? What % of water should typically be removed?

Any opinions or feedback would be awesome! And sorry for the lengthy post, just wanted to make sure I had all the information people might need!

 

[KrisReef]

Siphon up the flatworms, target them! Use a sock in a bucket and recycle the water if you need to in order to knock their population down significantly since you are seeing mats of them. A good cleaning of gravel and debris along with their physical removal can be enough to get them to recede and disappear, in some cases. Might take a few weeks and subsequent cleaning efforts but they can be eliminated with targeted removal, ime.

More importantly, don’t let the current phosphate and nitrate (“OMG!”) numbers cause you to make war against nutrients. The current numbers are what your corals and fish are now comfortable with. The tank is ok, feed the tank less and the rollermat issues should also trend towards the speed of spinning that you are expecting.

Don’t make sudden changes to fix everything or you will likely find yourself dealing with new issues created by the rapid changes. Move slowly and observe the critters and their responses as you go.

You don’t want A flatworms, deal them a population crash via siphoning and water change, then observe, test numbers and see how it looks next week, or later.

 

[BryanM]

May be just the pics, but the tank looks dark. You might want to invest in a par meter (approx $100 from amazon).

I don't mind the nitrates at 10, or even 20 or 30. The phos is "high", but depending on wether it continues to get higher is more important. If it did I would run GFO in a reactor to control this.

6 cubes per day seems like a lot. I spot feed mysis 1x a week, and feed flakes 3x a day otherwise.

I think your flow is fine. Seems around 5x sump to tank turnover per hour. You could halve that if you wanted to, but this is more personal preference than anything else, we rely more on the in DT wave makers for flow rather than the return pump.

OH, and I think the wrasse is a great idea for flatworms. Also the manual removal since you seem to have a lot of them.

 

[SFMAquariums]

May be just the pics, but the tank looks dark. You might want to invest in a par meter (approx $100 from amazon).

I don't mind the nitrates at 10, or even 20 or 30. The phos is "high", but depending on wether it continues to get higher is more important. If it did I would run GFO in a reactor to control this.

6 cubes per day seems like a lot. I spot feed mysis 1x a week, and feed flakes 3x a day otherwise.

I think your flow is fine. Seems around 5x sump to tank turnover per hour. You could halve that if you wanted to, but this is more personal preference than anything else, we rely more on the in DT wave makers for flow rather than the return pump.

OH, and I think the wrasse is a great idea for flatworms. Also the manual removal since you seem to have a lot of them.

That’s great advice, thank you so much.

I think the photos might just look dark? When I was researching which lights to purchase for my tank size (already had some RedSea equipment so decided to stick with that brand) it recommended 3 x RedSea G2 115 or 2 X RedSea G2 170. The 170’s were a little pricy for me given all my other setup costs & I found 115’s that were $200 off so I elected to go with them to start. Was planning to add a third light down the line. I am regretting that a bit as my tank has a large glass brace in the middle & probably would have made more sense to do two 170’s & angle them inward toward the middle of the tank/under the brace but alas. Too late now. Anyhow, good to know about PARR meters to help make future decisions for lighting & also would probably help figuring out ideal coral placement!

We won’t worry too much about the parameters then. Will continue to trend things & will cut back on feeding - I figure that alone should help with phosphates. Curious how frequently you do water changes? Do you have a regular schedule or base it on parameters?

I just ordered a clear view lid so I think a wrasse is in my future! Do you have any experience with them? Seems like the yellow corris may be the best option - appears least likely to mess with my inverts & would target the flatworms. My only worry would be competing with my mandarin dragonet for copepods but feel like my system is big enough to deal with this & can always supplement pods if I’m noticing a drop in numbers.

 

[SFMAquariums]

Siphon up the flatworms, target them! Use a sock in a bucket and recycle the water if you need to in order to knock their population down significantly since you are seeing mats of them. A good cleaning of gravel and debris along with their physical removal can be enough to get them to recede and disappear, in some cases. Might take a few weeks and subsequent cleaning efforts but they can be eliminated with targeted removal, ime.

More importantly, don’t let the current phosphate and nitrate (“OMG!”) numbers cause you to make war against nutrients. The current numbers are what your corals and fish are now comfortable with. The tank is ok, feed the tank less and the rollermat issues should also trend towards the speed of spinning that you are expecting.

Don’t make sudden changes to fix everything or you will likely find yourself dealing with new issues created by the rapid changes. Move slowly and observe the critters and their responses as you go.

You don’t want A flatworms, deal them a population crash via siphoning and water change, then observe, test numbers and see how it looks next week, or later.

Awesome! Thank you for the advice, I really appreciate it. We won’t get too worked up about our parameters then, will continue to trend things. The water change yesterday seemed to help with phosphates so will keep a close eye on things.

Sounds like tomorrow will now be flatworm removal day!

 

[BryanM]

We won’t worry too much about the parameters then. Will continue to trend things & will cut back on feeding - I figure that alone should help with phosphates. Curious how frequently you do water changes? Do you have a regular schedule or base it on parameters?

I just ordered a clear view lid so I think a wrasse is in my future! Do you have any experience with them? Seems like the yellow corris may be the best option - appears least likely to mess with my inverts & would target the flatworms. My only worry would be competing with my mandarin dragonet for copepods but feel like my system is big enough to deal with this & can always supplement pods if I’m noticing a drop in numbers.

So I'm the wrong person to ask about water changes as I do not do them. If I did I would probably do them every two weeks. best bet for bigger systems that want to do water changes IMO is setting up an automatic water change system where you can change 1% a day or something like that.

Your system is definitely big enough to support a yellow coris wrasse and a dragonet... You just have to make sure you have a continuous supply of copopods. Look in to setting up a refugium if you haven't already, and read up on how to continuously provide pods.. .they will breed in the fuge provided you feed them phyto.

I refuse to get a mandarin because of the amount of work I consider them to be, and while pretty, I think I would get bored of one fairly quickly.