Quietman's RSR 170 Mostly Softie - ATS/UV Only

[Quietman]

Quick Update on my other Baby - 55 gallon planted tetra tank.

Not much going on the reef and while I don't post much on my FW tanks I do have two planted - a 15 gallon and a 55 gallon. This is the 55 gallon. For a planted it's fairly simple, just gravel so I have selected plants that can support that. I do have CO2 which you need with the higher light I run (other wise it's algae city). That's the Tunze diffuser between heater and filter - it's a little pump that pushes flow across the bubbles in that tube. Great diffusion method. Those bubble diffusers may look nice but clog with algae all the time. Only filter is that Tunze in the corner with some GAC and a sponge filter, no canister. 125 Watt heater - no controller as it's not ever going to overheat (and I just haven't got one yet after my old one broke). Small little hydor for some flow.

Mostly South American tetras and plants but it's not a biotope and some Asian plants (Java ferns) and a Hill Stream loach. Others are Black neons, Brown pencilfish, Neon Tetras, Bloodfins, Silver hatchets, Corys, Ember tetras, Otos and an Apistrogramma pair.

 

[Quietman]

Frag/Rock Dipping in H2O2

The new coral frags I purchased developed some GHA on the skeleton and the rock I have in center of tank for GSP/Xenia had a very stubborn patch of GHA I couldn't scrub effectively so I decided to dip in H2O2. I've done it before but only the frag and was careful not to dip the coral. That's not going to work this time. Found Justin Credabel's dipping regimen on here (from a Macna 2014 I believe) so it's not new just new to me. It worked very well. I'll post it again here to save anyone from searching.

I took two (one for dipping, one for rinse) one liter square low side containers (what I use for all dipping) and filled each with one liter of tank water. First I added 40 ml H2O2 and then dipped my Duncan for 5 min an moved to rinse, then added 40 more ml of H2O2 and dipped my Candy Cane for 5 and moved to rinse, added 40 ml more and dipped the Xenia rock and my polyp frag for 5 min and moved those to rinse.

All after pics are taken 4 days after dip. Wanted to make sure everything was stable.

Before/After of Xenia rock. The rock has Red Xenia, a snowball toadstool and GSP. GSP is suppose to be sensitive to H2O2 but it was so covered and unhealthy I had nothing to lose. Plus...GSP. Not exactly rare and valuable. Everything got dipped on the rock. The toadstool wasn't thrilled at all and took a couple days to open up again.

Before

After


Frags after (no before pics but had some GHA that was irritating corals). The bleached head of Candy Cane happened a week after purchase and is unrelated to GHA or dip. The remaining head looks a bit worse for wear but have hopes it recovers. The duncan came through fantastic.

Interesting note...had 3 bumblebee snails under the rock I missed so they got dipped for about 10 sec. They survived appearing to be none the worse for wear but will be a bit more careful in the future.

 

[Quietman]

Update on tank - 4 months into my no skimmer, no water change running ATS and GAC only method.

Most of my ATS updates are in the thread dated June 11, 2021. I'm tracking all progress there until about the 6 month point where I'll decide to revert to skimmer use/water change or just keep going with this.

Something clicked in the last few weeks of my tanks journey. The GHA in display got to the point where it needed some cleaning but I noticed (no substitute for really paying attention to details in your tank) that the GHA was leaving the rocks and sand and moving to the back panel. I decided to let it go and see if that continued. Well, it did. After another week or so, my rock work was almost completely devoid of GHA and the sand only had GHA on snail shells (go figure). So once all gone, I did a quick cleaning of the back panel and snail shells and my tank looks better than it has in months/years. Since before my dino outbreak. Not sure what caused this. I don't have coralline covering everything and my parameters have been stable for months. Is it the ATS? I don't know. Some 2 year level of maturity? No idea. I'm just amazed at how good my tank looks. Almost pristine sand, clean rock and happy corals. Sending in my next ICP in the next couple days, maybe that'll have some insight.

 

[Quietman]

Update 11/13/21.

I haven't cleaned the tank since the above pics were taken a month ago. I wanted to provide an honest view of what I'm looking with my GHA. There's one spot on back of tank, some on the left lower power head at a couple tufts that haven't spread out on the rock. It'll take me less than a minute later on today to remove it with my scraper and turkey baster.

I do clean the glass but that has dropped to once every 4-5 days, sometimes more. I've stirred the sand bed about the same (since I do that together now). Still no water changes. I'm only running UV and an ATS along with a sponge in my filter sock holder. The GAC hasn't been changed out in 6 weeks so it's effectively used up - just haven't pulled it out of the sock holder yet. The ATS screen needs cleaning at least weekly (sometimes more if growth causes a local stream of flow to develop). The ATS screen isn't all vibrant green like earlier but I'm only feeding 1/2 cube a day now so it's expected.

I haven't sent in the ICP but will at 6 months point.

Still not saying it's all ATS but I'm started to lean heavily that way. Since I'm only running that and a UV (which doesn't do jack for GHA) I'm sure it's a significant contributor to current tank appearance/health. So much so that I'm planning for an upgrade (Black Friday here I come) to a 70-90 gallon that will only have UV and ATS. But I will wait until 6 month ICP for a final report on what I've found with current method.




One tab on my ATS broke off the other day. Luckily being a good reefer I have an infinite supply of tie wraps. Honestly, I like the tie wraps better and when I get a new screen might just go with that initially. This is 7 days growth and needs cleaning again. You can see some local flow streams instead of even across screen.


Also noticed under the big arch rock on left side of tank is now covered in sponges which is good and coralline is starting to spread elsewhere.


It's not all good news though. Seems I've lost my firefish that I bought with a Yasha/Pistol shrimp pair a few months ago. I know it was having a hard time getting food but didn't look like it was starving, sides were full, it was alert and active. Maybe the chromis or blenny were picking on it while I wasn't looking. Maybe it's still in there and I can't find it. Still think that's what's going on with my Yasha goby. I saw it for one day and then again three weeks later hiding in snail shell and haven't seen it since. Hear the pistol occasionally. Wouldn't be huge loss to me, it was a just a plain old firefish and the Yasha just too small. If they're gone, I'll briefly morn and start looking for fish that add a bit more to tank then they did. Maybe get another YWG and tiger shrimp. Can't lose those in a 34 gallon tank.

Later - Qm

 

[Quietman]

Update 12/12/21

Went on vacation end of November for 10 days on the beach in Florida Atlantic coast. We find if you're not in town for Thanksgiving, there is no chance for family drama. A very mixed family here and that holiday is a lot more important to others than us so we just make it easier on the kids (all grown) to arrange their time. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner buffet at nice upscale hotel restaurant with lamb, stuffed sole prime rib, crab legs, shrimp, turkey (which I skipped) and some amazing bread pudding. All in all a very nice holiday.

Point of all that is that I left my adult son in charge of the tank while we were gone. He stopped in once a day or so. Since I only have the ATS running then only thing to do was add water to ATO once and feed the fish. Very easy to teach someone how to manage this system. I came back to some minor film algae on glass (he forgot that) and a couple tufts of GHA I had left to see if they would remain small. With 10 days of no sand bed stirring with the turkey baster I had zero algae on the sand. When I cleaned the tank a few days later I had all kinds of detritus billow up from the sand bed, but there was not one spot of algae, diatoms, dino, cyano anywhere on the sand bed. Just that film (which I cleaned soon as I got home) and those 3 tufts of GHA the same size there were when I left. The pumps were even clean. It took me almost no time at all to clean the tank last weekend. Those GHA tufts came out as one piece with just the gentlest tug. I can't say enough good things about this tank management methodology I'm using.

I'm about to wrap up the tracking post (page 5) next week after getting my 6 month ICP test back. Once I do that I'll have a summary write up to post. Short summary now is that me and my wife are really enjoying tank. It's not "no maintenance" but it's what I expect based on what most reefers say is 'normal' and maybe a tad less. Still no water changes after 6 months so anxious to see the ICP. Everything is growing wonderfully and I have to stop myself from getting some SPS and more fish. But I'll be shifting to new tank soon and don't want to add until then.

I'll be wrapping up this build thread in the next month or two. About to purchase my new tank and I'll be starting another build thread. That will hopefully be much more on the livestock and growth areas instead of all learning the basics and handling issues and recovery I covered here.

Anyway, here's a quick vid of the tank I just took. This is without any pre-cleaning anything for the past week. This is how my tank looks all the time now. What a joy!

Later - Qm

 

[rishma]

Update 12/12/21

Went on vacation end of November for 10 days on the beach in Florida Atlantic coast. We find if you're not in town for Thanksgiving, there is no chance for family drama. A very mixed family here and that holiday is a lot more important to others than us so we just make it easier on the kids (all grown) to arrange their time. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner buffet at nice upscale hotel restaurant with lamb, stuffed sole prime rib, crab legs, shrimp, turkey (which I skipped) and some amazing bread pudding. All in all a very nice holiday.

Point of all that is that I left my adult son in charge of the tank while we were gone. He stopped in once a day or so. Since I only have the ATS running then only thing to do was add water to ATO once and feed the fish. Very easy to teach someone how to manage this system. I came back to some minor film algae on glass (he forgot that) and a couple tufts of GHA I had left to see if they would remain small. With 10 days of no sand bed stirring with the turkey baster I had zero algae on the sand. When I cleaned the tank a few days later I had all kinds of detritus billow up from the sand bed, but there was not one spot of algae, diatoms, dino, cyano anywhere on the sand bed. Just that film (which I cleaned soon as I got home) and those 3 tufts of GHA the same size there were when I left. The pumps were even clean. It took me almost no time at all to clean the tank last weekend. Those GHA tufts came out as one piece with just the gentlest tug. I can't say enough good things about this tank management methodology I'm using.

I'm about to wrap up the tracking post (page 5) next week after getting my 6 month ICP test back. Once I do that I'll have a summary write up to post. Short summary now is that me and my wife are really enjoying tank. It's not "no maintenance" but it's what I expect based on what most reefers say is 'normal' and maybe a tad less. Still no water changes after 6 months so anxious to see the ICP. Everything is growing wonderfully and I have to stop myself from getting some SPS and more fish. But I'll be shifting to new tank soon and don't want to add until then.

I'll be wrapping up this build thread in the next month or two. About to purchase my new tank and I'll be starting another build thread. That will hopefully be much more on the livestock and growth areas instead of all learning the basics and handling issues and recovery I covered here.

Anyway, here's a quick vid of the tank I just took. This is without any pre-cleaning anything for the past week. This is how my tank looks all the time now. What a joy!

Later - Qm

Video wouldn’t play for me

 

[Fasthandsslowmind]

Any updates? Still just running ATS / UV?

 

[Quietman]

Any updates? Still just running ATS / UV

Yes indeed and things are still looking great. I just took my 7 month ICP on this tank running just ATS/UV and no water changes (just minor adds for salinity). The ATS is no longer producing green on both sides. A lighter brown/yellow on one, green but thin on growth on the other side. I dialed down lights to 15 hours/day. I've heard I could add iron but I'm not doing this to grow green algae but control nutrients and mine just tested at N/P 1/.02 ppm so not fixing what ain't broke yet.

Couldn't be happier (at least until my test results come back).

I'll post my home testing now and then update with pics and ICP results when I get them.

 

[Quietman]

Update:

I know, it's been thin on updates and this won't be much either. Just sent off my ICP tests (a month late) and wanted to capture my weekly (hah - monthly) testing results for comparison.

Temp 75, pH 8.1, Alk 8.5, NO3 1.0, PO4 .02, Mg 1425, Ca 500

Notes
pH -Cleaned the probe and calibrated it this morning - first time in months - maybe a .02 decrease. Was curious because pH has been climbing with a high daily of over 8.2 close to 8.3 being the norm now. Is that due to ATS?

Mg - Finally seeing some uptake from coralline.

Ca - Ugh - still pegged high. The joys of a softie dominant tank I suppose. I'm only adding maybe 5 ml of All for Reef every few days. Alk is where I want it so locked into Ca since it's one part. Everything looks good so not mucking with it. Maybe get some SPS - maybe not, plans for new tank next few months are getting solid.

So far so good on the ATS/UV only. I haven't even run GAC in a few months. Everything is growing nicely and looks great. My duncan is back from the brink (arrived with only 1 1/2 heads). Still only 2 heads but it's looking healthy. The blasto just keeps getting bigger and the anemones both have nice bubble tips. No algae on sand and I'm less than diligent about stirring the bed - maybe once a week. Still have my three little patches of GHA in the display but they are very slow growing and come off very easy. I'm sure those places have their rhizomes under the rock surface.

Well, this will be it until I hear from ICP unless something great or really bad happens. Fingers crossed. No skimmer, no GAC, and no water changes for 7 months.

Later - Qm

 

[Quietman]

Algae Turf Scrubber - Results

Hard to believe it's been 8 months since I started - for a running commentary see my earlier post where I updated/edited over time (up until today which will be my last edit to that post). This will just be a start/end summary without any of the drama or excessive explanations. So let's get right to it without any further preamble.

Before (6/12/2021)


After - today (2/8/2022):


Initial conditions: First test - removed skimmer (Tunze 9410 DC). GHA had taken over tank after I successfully controlled dino (UV addition). Installed RAIN2 ATS. Water changes have not been performed since 6/12/21 other than small additions to make up for minor salinity adjustments.

Overall I'm very satisfied with the ATS. It removed/out-competed most of the GHA that was choking my display and/or required constant manual removal. The ICP testing showed it to be as effective as my skimmer and wc schedule in maintaining nutrients.

Start date 6/12/21 - end date 1/22/22 (actually I have not changed anything at this date (2/8/22) but do not have any test results.

Here's my start/end testing and results. My notes are self-explanatory.

Nothing terribly dramatic. Considering no water changes though, it's pretty impressive.

Conclusion:
Can i definitively state that my ATS turned my tank around from the GHA outbreak and was effective in maintaining nutrients with no water changes? I think I can based on the results I saw (and documented in picture and test results). In addition to the GHA control I've noticed the following additional effects. The sand bed is always free of algae (never the case before) and it can go weeks without cleaning with no ill effects other than a detritus cloud when I do stir it up. My glass needs scraping (Tunze plastic - no metal blades) maybe 2x a week. I do have a few places in tank where GHA is growing but it's very manageable and what I would consider 'normal'. It'll get to maybe 2" in diameter and I just remove it (any shorter and it's hard to get hold of). It doesn't spread (hasn't yet anyway) and suspect if I had tang/algae blenny I'd never see it.

Limitations on assumptions:
My tank did hit a certain level of maturity during this time. I think the ATS allowed that to take place and now I suspect if I take out the ATS and re-install the skimmer everything would continue just fine. I may do that...I may not. Too many stories of "I'll tried something new and lost everything". I didn't install the ATS as as experiment I installed it because nothing else was working on the GHA.

I am unsure on the effect of no water changes to the ATS performance. Does it mean that it actually did better without help of water change? Was my tank mature enough with a low bio-load to support no water changes regardless of export method? No idea. It was nice not doing water changes or should I say it was nice not feeling guilty about not doing regular water changes. I will say that my next tank for the first year will be seeing regular 10% weekly water changes (if not more). How I manage a tank less than a year is not the same as managing 2 or 3 or more years on.

I did lose some fish after I installed ATS. My Yasha Goby (unless still hiding) and the banded pistol shrimp along with the firefish. Now I did manage to keep a cardinal alive (first out of three attempts). Doubt if ATS or no water changes are directly at fault but thought I'd mention it.

Was the original GHA problem avoidable? Probably. I firmly believe it was result of actions taken to eradicate dino (or manage them). Tank was out of balance and the GHA stepped right into the niche. If I'd had the UV filter on initially - I probably wouldn't have had dino outbreak and then the subsequent GHA issue. UV for me is not optional from day 1 of any future tank.

Also since I have a nano tank I couldn't have good algae eaters - tangs. A blenny or hermits just aren't enough if the tank is out of whack. A tang or two might have kept up long enough for me to address GHA without the ATS.

Was also dosing very small amounts of All for Reef. Perhaps 5-10 ml / week. Just for alk mostly. Since running mostly softies, this makes sense but don't feel it had much to do with any test results.

I do not have copepods in my tank and am unable to comment on population impact with ATS.

Last thoughts

Algae Turf Scrubbers are a very powerful and effective tool for controlling nutrients and GHA in a reef tank. I do not see a need to have both a skimmer and an ATS. However,if I had a skimmer in use on a stable tank without GHA issues with well managed nutrients I would not purchase/install ATS. Without the GHA issue the nutrient mgmt of skimmer to ATS seems pretty much the same. If I was starting up a nano tank (tanks too small for a tang) I would definitely pick an ATS over the skimmer. Same goes for tanks with a skimmer that have long term established GHA issues. A properly setup ATS is simply that good at out competing display tank GHA.

 

[Downfall]

What an amazing build and thread documenting this tank. Following along

 

[Quietman]

My First Tang

I've been making preps for my new tank (It's down to an SCA 75 gallon or a Custom Aquariums with same dimensions - 36L/24W/20ishH but that'll be another thread) and saw that White Tail Bristletooth tangs were available. This is one of the fish I had planned on but one the benefits of having a system already is that you don't have to wait if you see something available. It's a juvenile of course, maybe 3 1/2" currently with a max of 6-6 1/2" full grown in a year or two. Beautiful fish! It initially 'paced' back and forth but it was wild caught so I simply (and hopefully) felt an adjustment period was all that was required. It has settled down very nicely, gets along with current inhabitants (more on that below), roams the tank very naturally, tanks full advantage of caves and tunnels and loves the nori I feed it every other day. Simply a joy to have in my tank.



When I initially got it (gender neutral because I really can't tell) on Feb 10 things were a bit more stressful. The following day my clownfish decided to do what I feel all clownfish will do at some point...be a complete jerk. It started nip at the sides of the tang taking pieces out and severely stressing out the tang.

I had really thought that getting a known 'peaceful' clownfish (ocellaris - captive bred) and only a single one to reduce mating/breeding aggression would prevent all that. To be honest, it did for quite some time. I've added two new fish since the clownfish matured into female as evidenced by the size increase and it got along fine. Probably just something about the size/color of the tang that triggered aggression.

So seeing my new beautiful $300.00 tang getting destroyed by a $15.00 clownfish that I only got mainly because my wife wanted one did not exactly illicit a mature response from me. If that orange and white little devil had found it's way into my net over the next 15 min very likely the world would have been down one clownfish and I'd have been fine, even delighted, at that result.

Luckily for the clownfish, my wife came home from her errands to find me in quite the state. I had given up on catching the little bugger (you can't catch a fish when you're stressed out and supremely ticked off, don't even try) and was watching the new tang getting destroyed.

She immediately agreed that $300 beats $15 and that the clown had to go, but unlike me she remembered something else, "Don't you have a bunch of tanks in the garage just sitting there?". Oh yeah, brilliant!

So here's the part where "lizard brain" went back to making sure I eat and drink and making sure I don't soil myself and not drive the emergency response systems and I got to being a reef keeper again.

In less than an hour, I had a fully cycled (with no additives, thank you very much) tank with new saltwater up and running. A couple things allowed me to get this done. One is having a great wife who went out an got a light for the tank (tanks I got, lights I seem to have a habit of dropping into water). She also has some fish whisperer thing going on in getting fish to almost jump into little nets. Took her about 90 seconds and she goes "Here ya go!" She's the best (and now the designated fish catcher). The other was having a mature tank up and running. There is just no substitute for having a bag of pond matrix in your sump and an extra rock with some big fat softies on it to make sure you don't have an ammonia problem. I checked ammonia a few times and it never moved off 0.

If you're a beginning reefer and this happens to you, make sure you have a bottle of Dr Tims and a bag of Polyfilter on hand and be ready for 50% water changes for a while.


Temp home for clownfish - matrix bag in back. Using Aquaclear 50 (or 70).

This has been setup for over a month now and I'm actually very proud of it. Not because it's gorgeous but because it runs so darn well. Nitrates never got above 3 ppm. PO4 hit .1 ppm but I put two drops of PhosphateRx to knock it down to about .08, added bit of Phosguard to keep it there and them some sea lettuce (thanks for the quick shipment Algaebarn) to do it all naturally. Worked like a charm. PO4 is now .04 and dropping, NO3 still 3, no algae other than some film and a bit of diatoms and I haven't done any water changes since I set it up. Setting up a tank this fast and having it run this well has made me feel more like a reefer than anything else over the last 3+ years. I even felt confident enough to drop one of my BTA small divisions in here (it's behind the xenia).

Few notes: picked sea lettuce in hopes tang would like it (it doesn't...at all) and because I want to setup algae display tank. Also using GAC. Put a couple tablespoons each GAC and Phosguard in a small media bag in the filter.

So plans are to let the clownfish continue to serve time while new tank gets setup. Once I have that done and fish transferred/purchased I want (assuming I'm not getting any more aggressive fish like a dwarf angel) I'll put clown back in main display and hopefully she'll behave. if not, I'll have that other algae tank (thinking 29 gallon) for her. I'm afraid that if I move back to old system now, the behavior will just repeat.

So back to planning new tank. I've got everything decided except the actual tank. The SCA is a pretty tank and pretty good deal with shipping, but it's a rimless and the one thing I really dislike about the RSR 170 are the drips down the side every time I touch anything. But we all make compromises at least those of us without a bunch of extra space for the hobby.

Later - Qm

 

[Quietman]

Quick update: This is the weekly amount of algae I get off my ATS (actually I think it was only 5 days - I change it when I hear the water spray hitting the cover). Still very impressed with the ATS. After really increasing my feeding for the tang with Nori and additional herbivore specific frozen the nutrients in my tank are still rock solid at 1.0/.02 (N/P) with no water changes, no skimmer, no chemical other than a bit of GAC. Scrape glass maybe every 3/4 days, very little GHA in tank and two of the spots where it was stubbornly staying are now free. Plus there's something more satisfying about taking 2 min to scrape off the screen (with the tool in pic) than dumping out a skimmer cup.

 

[SantaMonica]

Very nice. This awakening to how nutrients can be removed by green stuff reminds me of thoughts during 2008, and maybe even 2007.

 

[V A R I A N T]

Any updates?

 

[Quietman]

The ATS has been working great. I'll be posting a bigger update with pics to close out this tank soon (starting to order stuff for the upgrade) but that ATS and UV are the best things I've purchased and really changed how I think about reefing. Haven't considered adding the skimmer back, just don't need it. I'm so much a proponent that new tank is being designed with just an upflow ATS (HOG 3x from Santa Monica) for nutrient control. I'll also get a last ICP test in this week or next on current tank. Still haven't done a water change since I stopped and want to verify all trace elements are where they're supposed to be.

Going with upflow on new tank because I'm going sumpless. With no skimmer and no refugium (don't need refugium if have ATS) there's really no need as equipment is minimal in tank. I bought a smaller upflow ATS (HOG1x) for my freshwater tank mostly to test if I can run air pump with bubbles silently. Turns out you can and if you go that route I'm happy to tell you how I made it silent. But if you have sump, the waterfall ATS is fantastic.

Good luck!

 

[Quietman]

Well, sad news. First fish loss in 18 months. Lost my Green Canary Blenny yesterday in the early hours of the morning. No idea why. Parameters are good, tank looks great, all other fish are just fine and dandy. Been keeping up with maintenance and making sure all the inhabitants were eating and being peaceful. My wife said she head a fairly loud "clunk" late in the evening the night before, so it's possible it got startled or maybe a little pushing match with one of the other fish and the damage caused a fatal injury.

I owe a bigger update on the tank and the new tank plans. My wife is now in favor of a 120 gallon in the living room which is replacing my planted 55 gallon (same width). Glad I delayed in upgrading because the original plan was an 70 gal 36". The RSR170 should make for a very nice planted setup at least in the short term.

It's been 18 months since my last water change (and conversion to the ATS) so sending in another ICP test sounds like good timing. When I get those results back I'll do a much more formal update with pictures. Looks very good though, corals are full and spreading and my BTAs are multiplying (need to start selling them off).

Later (hopefully not too much later) - Qm

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Can't wait to see the new tank if you get the 120. Sorry about the loss of your fish!!