Redo Taking Lessons From My Failures - The Dino's won Round1

[Flippers4pups]

Yes. Blues at lowest intensity for awhile.

Been adding bottle bacteria, UV and will be adding phytoplankton and pods soon when they show up.

Don't expect the black out to do wonders other than knock back their numbers. Other than that, the sand bed looks white again, as expected. Corals where very healthy before the black out.

 

[NS Mike D]

@Flippers4pups What bacteria are you dosing?


blues at low is what I was thinking. I have no high light corals right now and have some corals arriving next week that will benefit from a low blue acclimation. Plus I have a PAR meter (r2r supporter loaner) that should arrive the following week, so I can map a bunch of different scenarios and remove the light guessing game

 

[Flippers4pups]

@Flippers4pups What bacteria are you dosing?


blues at low is what I was thinking. I have no high light corals right now and have some corals arriving next week that will benefit from a low blue acclimation. Plus I have a PAR meter (r2r supporter loaner) that should arrive the following week, so I can map a bunch of different scenarios and remove the light guessing game

Have been dosing Microbe lift special blend.

 

[NS Mike D]

lights back on. 50% blues and 50% violets. No sign of dinos today. sand, rock and glass clear. HOB may have some dino film left. I haven't touched it because pods are all over it. Moonlights on HOB. Regular lights in sump.

Zoas opened. Kenya opening. Nem looking fine. dosed more phyto feast

NO3 6ppm
PO4 0.12ppm
Alk 9.0
CA 475

 

[NS Mike D]

No visible signs of dinos after the outbreak, which were likely prorocentrum . Some are still in the tank, but not in groups that can be seen by my eye.



Started dosing Microbe Lift Special blend. Started with 30 ml. Will go to maintenance with 10ml every 2 weeks, since after the initial dose I concluded this is not a start up.

Been dosing the phyto culture, about a capful a day to keep nutrients up and feed the pods and frags. NO3 16ppm, PO4 0.16ppm Alk 8.1 dkh. Dosed Fluval Alk and changed the carbon and GFO in the media reactor. Set up maintenance reminders in Fusion for the MicrobeLift dosing and carbon/GFO.

Clean up crew is arriving Friday and I think that is the last order establishing the tank for a while. We'll let mother nature take over for a while, with a littled

Still taking it easy with the lights, although I will fun the full spectrum at 20% for two hours for my viewing.

WWC frags arrived yesterday

Scramble Egg Zoas

WWC Firefly Zoanthids

Red Montipora Cap

WWC Tasers Zoanthids

Jason Fox Sector 001 Favites

Frozen Goniopora

Green Birdsnest

 

[NS Mike D]

The new clean up crew arrived yesterday from Reef Cleaners to join the survivors, and the loaner PAR meter also arrived to take the guess work out of my settings.

The clean up crew

26 Dwarf Ceriths
11 Nassarius
10 Florida Ceriths
8 Nerites
6 Assorted Hermits

I am posting the par meter results in this thread

Rapid LED Corona

I bought mine used in Fed 2018. I think they were 2 years old at that point (i'll note tge age again when I post my numbers). I will be reconfiguring my settings. I have somewhere a spectrum balance from Dana Riddle, if I can find it I will repost that I used to ballpark my settings...

www.reef2reef.com

I have upped the lights V,B,W ramping up to 60% while R&G to 30% for midday and then ramping down. I did add some pods (whatever got scooped up in two pipette drawings from the culture to the HOB fuge and was able to transfer some cheato from the sump to the HOB to help it along.

FTS

 

[NS Mike D]

Did the first water change yesterday (5gals). Starting to see coraline speckles

pods and cheato continue to expand

 

[NS Mike D]

NO3 was over 64ppm so I stared carbon dosing 3 mls of a DIY NOPOX v&v recipe. I could not find a replacement impeller (been looking for more than a year) for the discontinued model of the hydor nano skimmer so it's been permanently retired. The 200micron mesh filter socks appear to be catching enough of the flocculant to clog up after a few days. Since I am looking to bring down NO3 slowly, no skimmer may be the best way for me as the cheato is growing strong. I may add some filer feeders.



More good news, the clowns spawned last weekend. The male is still caring for his clutch, and they hatch later in the week. I can't get my hands on rotifers and a nursery tank set up before then so I'll let nature take her course.

Like clockwork my annual kill a birdsnest ritual is under way. When will I ever learn that me and birdsnests are not meant to be. I'm like oh-for-six with these. After a month of nice polyp extension and bright colors, it started shedding its polyps over the weekend so I moved it to the other frag rack. The last of the hanging polyps fell off yesterday so my fingers are crossed that it may survive, but I am realistic about that unlikeliness.

I have 5 more frags arriving Thursday so i need to start mounting the zoas to clea rup frag rack space. Here is the order

Bonsai

Awesome Favites

Sanjay's Leprechaun's Beard

Burning Banana Stylo

Anthony's Pink Granulosa

 

[NS Mike D]

Todays update.

NO3 is down to 10ppm and PO4 at 0.08ppm, so the 3ml daily of the DIY nopox v&v is working. I cut back to 2.5 ml. I harvested more cheato out of the sump and moved it into the HOB so the HOB is about 60% full of cheato for the pods and nutrient export.

The frags arrived yesterday. these aren't the easiest to raise so fingers crossed.

ALk was low so I was dosing Reef Fusion2 as per a reef calculator. It was 8.4 dkh so I dosed 5mls targeting 9dkh.

Nerites leaving eggs all over the place

And there is a clove polyp hitchhiker under the Kenya tree

The polyp birdsnest bailout seems to have stopped for now as I moved it to the other rack.


It's time to start mounting the zoas to the left rock.

Still no signs of dinos, nor diatoms, cyano, hair algae or turf algae. A little green hue/slime of some of the rocks, otherwise the CUC is doing their job.

I took one of the phyto bottles off line. I am producing too much phtyo for now.

The pod culture is pretty much crashed, a few tiggers still around, but I doubt enough to be a healthy culture. I ordered more tiggers. I will dose the existing ones in the tank and start a new culture. I have a thermostat controlled heater I will use - I think the temp swings, including over 85° was no good for the pods.

I set up a DIY brine shrimp hatcher and feeder. The eggs arrive Monday. This should help me cut back the over feeding for the mandarin if it works. I also so a study that aquariam water with baby brine (in a controlled test) results in better sps coral growth (not as good a natural sea water, but better than plain saltwater and water dosed with reef roids).

FTS

 

[Katrina71]

I'm honestly trying to remember if I've ever seen clove polyps in person. I don't think so.

 

[Miller535]

Glad to see things are turning around for you.

 

[fishguy242]

things are looking up!

 

[NS Mike D]

@Miller535 and @fishguy242 Thank you. I'm still not at ease with the heavy feeding and the NO3 and wondering if I am rushing things with the sps , but there is only one way to tell and set backs are part of our learning experience - and I think we might be able to advise people to go slow better than we do it ourselves. Part of my rush is I believe the corals are a critical part of the balance that keeps the ugly stuff away and this isn't a true new start since I had kept the sump rubble rock and cheato and most of the original water.
Even if I lose an sps or two in the process, the spawning activity is a massive improvement and I am finally at the point where the cheato and pods in the sumps are back to normal and will do some heavy nutrient export lifting.


If it wasn't for the mandarin and the extraordinary steps to keep it fed during the redo, this would have been a million times easier. But that is the hand I dealt myself and it's been both stressful and enjoying threading the needle so far.

A lot of help from you and my R2R support team deserve the bulk of the credit.

 

[Miller535]

@Miller535 and @fishguy242 Thank you. I'm still not at ease with the heavy feeding and the NO3 and wondering if I am rushing things with the sps , but there is only one way to tell and set backs are part of our learning experience - and I think we might be able to advise people to go slow better than we do it ourselves. Part of my rush is I believe the corals are a critical part of the balance that keeps the ugly stuff away and this isn't a true new start since I had kept the sump rubble rock and cheato and most of the original water.
Even if I lose an sps or two in the process, the spawning activity is a massive improvement and I am finally at the point where the cheato and pods in the sumps are back to normal and will do some heavy nutrient export lifting.


If it wasn't for the mandarin and the extraordinary steps to keep it fed during the redo, this would have been a million times easier. But that is the hand I dealt myself and it's been both stressful and enjoying threading the needle so far.

A lot of help from you and my R2R support team deserve the bulk of the credit.

I am coming to the same conclusion about corals. I recently bought 2 montis for this reason. Thinking they grow large fast.

 

[NS Mike D]

update:

I could no save the birdsnest. That species and me as just not meant to be.

I figured out the cause of the tigger pod culture crash.

I reset with new Tiggers that arrived today and will be better monitoring NH3 and will put some rubble rock from my sump into the culture.

I am picking up Apex pods today. I think 2 bottles, one to add to the tigger culture and the other to seed the DT for the mandarin.

 

[Miller535]

update:

I could no save the birdsnest. That species and me as just not meant to be.

I figured out the cause of the tigger pod culture crash.

I reset with new Tiggers that arrived today and will be better monitoring NH3 and will put some rubble rock from my sump into the culture.

I am picking up Apex pods today. I think 2 bottles, one to add to the tigger culture and the other to seed the DT for the mandarin.

What happened to cause that much ammonia?

 

[NS Mike D]

What happened to cause that much ammonia?

had to be dying phyto, even though the container was getting good daylight. I did add a thermostat controlled heater and moved it out of direct sunlight because a huge temp swings, initially.

 

[NS Mike D]

Tank Update

I added the Fluval PS2 Mini Skimmer. I gave up trying to find a replacement impeller for my old Hydor nano skimmer that didn't fit in the sump anyway. The Fluval is rated for 20 gals, but since I have two sumps full of cheato, and kept NO3 and PO4 very low in the past without a skimmer, I'm not looking to do heavy skimming, just some assistance bring down NO3.

This is a rare find in that it fits in my CPR HOB. Since the CPR does not have filter socks, I prefer the skimmer to be in it.

Probably the last batch of cheato I moved from the sump to the CPR. Both fuges are now pretty full of cheato upping the nutrient uptake capacity.

Added three frags, candy cane, duncan and fire and ice zoas (no pic). I'm concerned that the acros added last week still have no PE. Watching them closely but leaving them be to acclimate to the higher nutrients in my tank.

 

[NS Mike D]

Pod update. Two days ago, I did a massive water change (80%), harvested the new pods) and added a few pieces of rubble rock from my tank. I also does a little Biological Booster. The NH3 was 0 after the cleaning and I dosed about 10ml of phyto. ( I ended up dosing the Apex pods directly into the DT).

Today the NH3 crept up to .25

I think that the container is not getting enough light during the day causing phyto to die (container clears fast and phyto settles on bottom), so I dosed 1ml of microbe lift and moved the brine light to shine on the pods along with the indirect sunlight ot keep the phyto going.

I'm monitoring NH3 closely for now, and have salt water standing by for quick water changes.

 

[NS Mike D]

Sometimes you just need to admit defeat and walk away. I took down the pod culture this morning as added the remaining pods to the sump and DT.

Even with massive water changes dosing Biological Booster and Microbe Lift, using rubble rock from my sump and using a thermostat heater, for some reason something is creating ammonia and killing the pods.

In 24 hours after the water change, dosing bacteria and dosing 10mls of live phytoNH3 spiked up again.

Since the sumps are doing well with pods, and a good source of pods from the LFS and on amazon, I think I will just budget $30 month and dose the DT with purchased pods.


Now I need to focus on figuring out a way to make a @PaulB baby brine shrimp feeder that won't either trap the shrimp nor let them swim right out. I had yet another design fail.

I'm thinking the key might include a way to drip the harvested brine to the feeder over the course of the day.