Reef Rehabilitation 29g cube and equipment room build

[AaronFReef]

Other than some smashed acro tips everything moved over nicely and as a side benefit my sand is sparkly clean! Alk spiked a small amount oddly but that’s it.

dreaming now of what to do with this newly freed up spot….

 

[AaronFReef]

 

[AaronFReef]

Tank is on full cruise control. Still some occasional alk spikes when I am late to refill the doser or when my tubes get air in them but otherwise every other day alk and phosphate testing results in pretty stable params and lots of feeding right now.

 

[AaronFReef]

Growth is becoming a problem! Think I might sell of my zoa and mushroom rocks and start prepping for the big tank by growing my colonies on frag tiles for the last six or 9 months until my new tank is ready. Plans solidifying today with order on a new 225g.

 

[AaronFReef]

I spent Saturday night on the couch sleeping next to the tank getting up every hour or two to check on it and readjust thanks to a power outage and mr miscalculating the length of time the home battery backup would last and the outage would last.

Mylar emergency blankets plus towels and a deep cycle battery and inverter saved the tank. Even the quarantine made it through with nothing harmed. Temps dropped down to only 74 from 78 thanks to the blankets and no need for emergency heating! Once solar started up in the morning I was able to reheat and get everything running until power was restored. Was a little sketchy though.

In other news some acros had outgrown their locations and I decided to place them on frag tiles on the sand. The tank is a full on grow out now for the big tank and not as nice to look at except to me

The big tank is on order! Starting to get serious about planning equipment as Black Friday approaches. I want all my decisions made by then.

Been working every weekend on the remodel for the tank and have electrical and insulation done. Two 100 gallon norwesco vertical storage tanks arrived. Just need to build that mixing station outside and a shed around it.

 

[AaronFReef]

There’s a handful of new corals in the tank after a long quarantine that are settling into the frag rack I was gifted a large frag of bubblegum digitata, an RRC candy land and a PC rainbow that I hope will be easier to keep than my last. It seems finicky already. Space is at an absolute premium at this point.

 

[AaronFReef]

This tank is still cruising though I've removed the zoa and mushroom rock to make room for more SPS and rearranged and added some new SPS. My new tank has nearly arrived and so I've started my build thread for that with my main thread here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/225g-cda-sps-dream-build.888411

and my construction background thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/225g-cda-sps-dream-build-construction-background.888267/

 

[AaronFReef]

The tank isn’t at its prettiest anymore as I’ve removed the zoa and mushroom rock a few months ago and tried to make room to let the colonies grow out even more to move into the new tank which should be here in a few weeks. Still I’m very happy with the look of it and have been able to learn a lot to prepare for my big tank just as I planned. It’s been over three years now instead of the one I planned but that’s allowed it to really mature and become something I’ve enjoyed watching.
Here it is as I look at it right now.

 

[AaronFReef]

Been fishless about a month and same old same old. Alk spikes still happening due to dosing issues. Up to nearly 100 mL a day per Part. Getting hard to maintain elements with the salinity spiking from so much dosing.

New tank is built and nearly here!

 

[AaronFReef]

The tank has been cruising away still. It’s getting awful tricky to navigate the coral overgrowth. I’m dosing 100 mL a day of both Ca and Alk each and another 100 mL of Tropic Marin part c balling method. The salinity just creeps up to 36.5-37 soooo fast. I have to pull a large specimen containers worth of water so the ATO can dilute it about once per week and then lower it during water changes as well. Tank is still fishless but the fish are all through copper and prazipro treatment, so when the 76 day fallow period completes in a couple weeks one or more fish may go back in while I wait for the big tank to come which should be any time now

 

[meermann]

Amazing tank

Sir, what's the key factor that allows your sticks to demonstrate thriving growth and coloration?

I have similar 1-year old setup (not the same, but dimensions are pretty close, except height - but I have my SPS on the top of rocks. I believe relative distance between them and water surface almost the same, like yours). But there's little to no growth Moreover some corals became rot and suffered STN, like an acropora spathulatha in the middle.

The only stuff growing fast in my tank are nuisance algae

I have the equipment with which you had success: 2 x Gyre 330 pumps (but aligned vertically), AquaticLife T5HO fixture (like yours, but white-coloured) and Hydra 32 (I believe it even more powerful than Kessil), so I have between 280 and 380 PAR on my SPS. I suppose it's enough.

But: I have no sand on bottom (not sure if it affects anything).

Which supplements do you add except AB+? Some bacteria like MicroBacter Clean etc.?

 

[AaronFReef]

Amazing tank

Sir, what's the key factor that allows your sticks to demonstrate thriving growth and coloration?

I have similar 1-year old setup (not the same, but dimensions are pretty close, except height - but I have my SPS on the top of rocks. I believe relative distance between them and water surface almost the same, like yours). But there's little to no growth Moreover some corals became rot and suffered STN, like an acropora spathulatha in the middle.

The only stuff growing fast in my tank are nuisance algae

I have the equipment with which you had success: 2 x Gyre 330 pumps (but aligned vertically), AquaticLife T5HO fixture (like yours, but white-coloured) and Hydra 32 (I believe it even more powerful than Kessil), so I have between 280 and 380 PAR on my SPS. I suppose it's enough.

But: I have no sand on bottom (not sure if it affects anything).

Which supplements do you add except AB+? Some bacteria like MicroBacter Clean etc.?

Thank you for the compliment. I would say that the key to my tank was patience as my first year to year and a half was a lot like you described. You can see that in the first parts of this thread if I documented it correctly. It took a long time to find biological stability because of dinoflagellates and overfeeding amino acids. I’d say think less on supplements and more on just maintaining ideal water parameters through daily testing and dosing nutrients as needed or using GFO and water changes to reduce them to maintain nutrients at about PO4 0.05-0.12 plus or minus a few hundredths on the upper end. Nitrates between 2-20 ppm. My tank has always decided it wanted to be PO4 0.05 and NO3 2-10, with Nitrate dosing needed to maintain it that high usually. If I had to guess your difficulties it is insufficient biomass of coral to let it be doing the nutrient handling at this age (which isn’t easily solvable) combined with bare bottom just being awfully difficult. I have a coral quarantine that is bare bottom and I can’t seem to get its biology stable either and even my zoas are never happy. So perhaps try adding more biological substrate so the sump such as ceramic media or more live rock. Live rock from a mature system is a gamble but if you can trust it will be worth gold it’s weight in gold I’d wager. Other than that, again I’d say avoid the additives and just weekly feed some reef roids and Benepets coral food. ICP testing should be used as well to check for anything slipping by. Also verify your salinity!!! Measure it in triplicate. I recommend the Tropic Marin hydrometer for absolute testing.

 

[AaronFReef]

While I’m here I took some more recent pics a few nights ago. Possibly the last set I will take before this system migrates into the new tank next month or later this month.

 

[AaronFReef]

Well I can with mixed emotions report that this tank was finally “un-stocked” this past weekend. The last of the inhabitants have been moved out and most of the equipment has been removed and cleaned for their next usage. The tank is still circulating through the sump to prevent it stinking up the house but it’s now reached end of life. It certainly did its job (perhaps 4x its job if you consider I wanted one year of life and had it for four while my dream tank was postponed!)

I look at all the coral in the 220g now and can’t believe it all fit in this little 24g lagoon tank. Simple seems to have been good enough for this setup. That’ll be the last post for any updates on it.

My parting analysis of how it worked is that it did it’s job but that I definitely would do a lot more bonsai trimming of the corals if I intended to have a tank of this size again. Coral warfare cost me at least 3-5 colonies of acros that I no longer have due to them slowly being shaded/engulfed/murdered. It was a great way to view acros with the top down view and the nice sense of depth that 24x24 gives when shallow and layered horizontally. If you have any questions I’ll still be around working on the 220! Thanks all that followed along!