Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Minifoot77]

One thing I learned about chemiclean from sbb corals is to do your waterchange from your skimmer after your treatment is over... works for me after about 5 gallons out of the skimmer cup

 

[X-37B]

I am not sure why but alk useage drops when I have dosed chemiclean. Alk increases every time I have dosed it. Its more prevalent in a small system like my 15.
Any idea as to why useage would drop?
Online many say it does not effect alk.
I cant explain it but I have observed it every time I use the product.

 

[rayadog]

I didn’t catch everything you’re running but is there something you could do to bind toxins? (Probably not while running Chemiclean)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I didn’t catch everything you’re running but is there something you could do to bind toxins? (Probably not while running Chemiclean)

I do use GAC (ROX 0.8) and recently upped it, but I agree that’s a good point and I might go more aggressive on organic binding in the future.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I am not sure why but alk useage drops when I have dosed chemiclean. Alk increases every time I have dosed it. Its more prevalent in a small system like my 15.
Any idea as to why useage would drop?
Online many say it does not effect alk.
I cant explain it but I have observed it every time I use the product.

The whole process may be stressful for corals. Killing bacteria that are on them and in them, and exposing them to the burst of toxins and other things that may come from dead cyano may stress them. Maybe even a rise in phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

One thing I learned about chemiclean from sbb corals is to do your waterchange from your skimmer after your treatment is over... works for me after about 5 gallons out of the skimmer cup

Thanks. I’m not sure I can do that without messing with the way the skimmer sits in the sump, but I may try temporarily lowering it.

 

[Minifoot77]

Thanks. I’m not sure I can do that without messing with the way the skimmer sits in the sump, but I may try temporarily lowering it.

Mine has the drain on the bottom of the cup its just to get your skimmer to settle down after treatment

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

3 h update.

It takes time for antibiotics to have an effect, but so far no problems are arising. There is more sediment suspended due to the higher return flow and turbulence in the sumps, but nothing appears stressed. Fish are behaving normally and corals and the magnifica appear normal.

 

[dwest]

Randy, do you have plans to reestablish bacteria in any way?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy, do you have plans to reestablish bacteria in any way?

I do not. I have some microbe lift special blend, but its too smelly to use when we are around. There may well be reasonable amounts of it in the system since I've added it a few times. I would add it if I could be away for the day.

I suspect that the rocks that are all coralline covered were mostly stripped down to a thin biofilm by the turkey basting, and then the tylosin can kill any remaining cyano on that coralline, and maybe some other but not all bacteria present since it has a fairly narrow spectrum of action against gram positive bacteria and certain other species such as cyano.

Anyway, the hope is that the other types of bacteria will now dominate the biofilm on top of the coralline.

 

[picea]

I'm curious what you consider a lot of food in your tank? My phosphates got really elevated in my 115-gallon system, feeding two cubes a day, and one feels like a really small amount of food for my fish load.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm curious what you consider a lot of food in your tank? My phosphates got really elevated in my 115-gallon system, feeding two cubes a day, and one feels like a really small amount of food for my fish load.

The discussion below is what I do, but I cannot really quantify the amounts well.

Aside from the Mandarin that does not eat foods I add, I have two azure damsels, three green chromis, a yellow tang, a trio of ocellaris clowns, and a one spot foxface. Another mandarin and about 5 anthias will be added before long.

I am often away from the tank, and so have 3 autofeeders (2 Eheim and one Lonza) that dispense either Prime Reef flake or tdo chromoboost pellets. Each dispenses 2-4 times a day at different times, but not that much each time. Dispensing is into feeding rings to keep it from just washing into the overflows.

I watched when one dispensed Prime reef flakes yesterday. Maybe 30 flake bits went into the ring. The one spot foxface and the largest chromis came up and were crazily chomping on the little floating flakes. Some of the flakes got into the bulk water and other fish got some, but I worry most about the clowns since they do not leave their anemone and so have to wait for food to come to them. THey seem to be thriving, but I just worry about them.

For that reason, when I am home I feed one of these same foods 3 times a day in a way that I can see the clowns getting some. When I feed the TDO chromoboost, I might be feeding 30 of the small size pellets at a time. Wild estimate. never tried counting them. They are quite small.

i also sometimes replace one of those feedings with grated frozen human food clam or scallop, and yesterday I bouth some mysis that I tried and they liked it. I also bought some frozen formula 1, but have not yet decided how to feed that.

I also add macroalgae of various sorts for the tang and foxface, either ulva from my refugium, or dulse I bought a bunch of, or nori. The foxface and tang, and sometimes the others pick at the rocks too.

Finally, I do see them eating floating particulates of I don't know what all the time. Much of the time they do not spit it out, so it gets directed whatever it is. I do not use substantial mechanical filtration so there are potentially many floating things.

For the mandarin, I dose live phytofeast nightly to help the copepods it eats, and that seems to be working well (though I cannot say what, if anything, would happen if I stopped dosing it since I have not tried).

I know this doesn't help much with amounts, but I don't actively measure out foods.

 

[picea]

I appreciate you sharing your feeding habits! I'm probably a little overstocked with 7 lyretail anthias, 4 chromis, 2 firefish, a stary blenny, a purple tang, and a foxface, but they're all pretty immature and on the smaller size. My thought is to trade the foxface in at some point as the other inhabitants grow out, and I'd like to add a mandarin once I feel more confident in my pod population.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I appreciate you sharing your feeding habits! I'm probably a little overstocked with 7 lyretail anthias, 4 chromis, 2 firefish, a stary blenny, a purple tang, and a foxface, but they're all pretty immature and on the smaller size. My thought is to trade the foxface in at some point as the other inhabitants grow out, and I'd like to add a mandarin once I feel more confident in my pod population.

What size tank? Foxface are generally great to prevent or solve algae issues. In my old tank I got one to solve a caulerpa infestation, which it did as well as eliminating any valonia (bubble algae).

 

[56longroof]

I hope they do ok. One concern is one jumping and landing on the glass crossbar across the tank middle. The canopy covers most of the possible escape routes, though the back is partly open if they get over the overflows. But the cross bar is hard to protect except possibly with netting. Hopefully if one jumps onto it, it can flop around till it gets off of it.

I had read that they can sometimes do better with more around to spread out any aggression and give more females to the one that will become male.

I have a small school of Ignitus anthias in my tank. No issues with jumping that I've noticed and the dominant males interactions with the sub dominant male is fun to watch.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have a small school of Ignitus anthias in my tank. No issues with jumping that I've noticed and the dominant males interactions with the sub dominant male is fun to watch.

Maybe not fun for the subdominant male. lol

 

[picea]

What size tank? Foxface are generally great to prevent or solve algae issues. In my old tank I got one to solve a caulerpa infestation, which it did as well as eliminating any valonia (bubble algae).

90 gallons in the tank. I had a little hair algae that it took care of when it went in, but it didn't care about my horrendous turf algae outbreak at all, though neither did the tang. I love the starry blenny the most. He like like a little water dragon, has personality, and pecks at algae.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Chemiclean Update

24 h after the chemiclean was added, water was cloudier than usual, and I woke up to my wife complaining about the tank smell (I did not smell it), but the cyano was only marginally reduced that I could tell tell. Still red chunks present and bubbles on them late in the day to suggest it is alive. The gigantea did not look great (mouth slightly everted) and it released from its rock. I replaced it there. Fish and corals all seemed fine. When i treated years ago, I was much more impressed with the cyano removal.

48 h after the dosing, and cyano is likely a bit more depleted, but still present. If I had to judge right now, I'd say the treatment is not worth the time, money, effort and stress on organisms, but I'll make that final determination in a few days.

The gigantea anemone was released again this morning. Only time it happened two days in a row. Might be due to any of several reasons, or even coincidence, but it is suggesting that toxins in the water (now from all the dead cyano) may well be a factor and whatever happens in the coming days, I will ramp up organic export and/or degradation methods.

I restarted collecting from my skimmer, and it is flowing out nicely. Since my last salinity measurement was a bit higher than 35 ppt, wet skimmate collection will kill two birds with one stone: organic export, maybe even reducing toxin and antibiotic concentrations as well as salinity reduction.

Skimmer outflow video when restarted at 48 h after dosing:



Anemone issue 24 h after dosing

Foam and boosted aeration in Brute# 1 24 h after dosing

 

[Tradevg]

I tried Chemiclean a few years back it turned my water a reddish tint from the cyano. I think I did a WC and carbon after 24 hours - I don’t have a slimmer. It did take care of the cyano however. Hope this works for you.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Future Organic Mitigation Plan

Once the chemiclean situation stabilizes, I'm planning to go all in on organic export and mitigation to try to reduce cyano in the future and potentially help anything (such as the magnifica) that might be impacted by organic toxins.

The plan will be somewhat unusual. lol

I have a tee built into my return line that just sits idle, with the exit end in Brute #1, at the start of the Brute train sump. I added it in case I ever wanted to keep the refugia systems running without being connected to the display, but it will be perfect for this application.

I want it to be idiot proof, so if something unexpected happens, I cannot get an overflow situation, and I'm basing it off the ozone and GAC DIY system I used years ago.

One thing I have in abundance are salt buckets. I will use three of them, nesting one in the other.

The bottom one (#1) just collects water from the next in line above it, and has a bulkhead in the bottom. It will be sitting on Sump Brute #1 lid, and the bulkhead will aim straight down, through a hole in the Brute lid, and into the sump.

The next one above it (#2) will contain the GAC and possibly a polymer resin such as Purigen (don't want to support Seachem so I will look for alternatives, hobby or not, and suggestions are welcome). It will nest down into #1. There will be a lot of GAC in mesh bags. Enough to provide a about 2-4"inches across the entire bottom of the second salt bucket.

This salt bucket has a bunch of 1/4" holes drilled in the bottom to allow plenty of easy and rapid flow out of the bottom (more rapid than the planned inflow of water) and into the space between it and the bottom of Bucket #1 below it, and then on to the sump. I think I may put a small section of egg crate on the bottom of this one, below the bags but above the holes, to allow water to find any open holes.
This is where all of the binding action takes place, and these bags will be removable for replacement as needed. I don't expect the holes will ever clog, but I will monitor that.

The top nesting bucket (#3) will be for an ozone reaction area. I don't plan to use a lot of ozone, and may even stop after a while, but ozone may degrade toxins that are not bound, making them less toxic even if they remain in the water. I still have to work out details of this area, but it will likely have some bulkhead standpipes in the bottom set to allow a few inches of water in this bucket. I may also drill some other holes on the sides of this bucket as emergency overflow into bucket #2.

Water will enter from the top of #3, using my return line tee, , fill a few inches, then go over the bulkhead standpipes like small overflows. I will then have a couple of air/ozone bubblers in this section. I was thinking of a amazon home product like this one (need to be sure to get one without a forced manual timer, I'd prefer no timer and just use an AC timer to control it ).

https://a.co/d/07UeQVpy

The overall idea is that tank water will get ozonized in #3, get organics bound and ozone oxidants removed in #2, and then collected in #1 and sent back to the refugium system.

Prototype bucket #1, looking at outside bottom

Prototype bucket #2, looking at the inside and outside