ReeferFoxx's JBJ 30

[reeferfoxx]

Tried pulling the sand out until the nutrients are in an equilibrium, so to speak?

I pulled about 3/4 of mine after the dino fight, and the cyano.
For some weird reason I am having to dose less po4 and the cyano seems to be in check for the moment.

*I did add muddy silty sludge and a ton of creatures.

No, I haven't tried pulling any sand. I have an equal 1" amount of sand all around the tank. One thing I noticed is when I was disturbing the sand prior to the water change, a lot of nitrogen gas was expelled. About 5 days later, I didn't notice the nitrogen bubbles trapped in the sand like before. All the while, more cyano and brown growths appeared. I would throw it up under a scope to confirm whats growing but i'm too lazy to grab it from out of the closet.

Rewind 3 weeks or so back and I did add some fiji mud to the tank. I didn't notice any changes other than po4 and no3 were constant at 0.03 and 5-10ppm. Alk consumption increased as well.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

How does your tank stay so skinny?? Lol.

Are you feeding LRS by chance ?

 

[Charlie brown]

Went to clean the glass today and saw this. ;Brb

What am i looking at lol

 

[NY_Caveman]

Snail eggs

 

[reeferfoxx]

How does your tank stay so skinny?? Lol.

Are you feeding LRS by chance ?

Skinny?? lol

No, I only feed hikari mysis, hikari mega marine, ocean nutrition pygmy angel formula and new life spectrum pellets.

What am i looking at lol

Snail eggs :)

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I had forgotten until recently that LRS gives me the cyano.


Yea it’s funny , it seems like you feed a fair amount and never gain an N or a P.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Yea it’s funny , it seems like you feed a fair amount and never gain an N or a P.

Isn't that the goal? :D

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Isn't that the goal? :D

I have no clue at this point anymore. ;Clown

My N’s and Ps are off the charts, and you have the cyano... :confused:

 

[reeferfoxx]

My N’s and Ps are off the charts, and you have the cyano... :confused:

I know it's frustrating. I've tossed around loads of theories in my head. I'm about one shopping cart away of doing a triton test but before I do it, i'm going old school and treating this like a new tank. Not touching the sand and letting the cyano grow out. I've gone through many cyano threads and none of them have a light at the end of the tunnel or least nobody has ever followed up with any success. People make claims that increased flow, reduced feedings, turning sandbed, siphoning cyano, black outs, chemicals have all cured their tanks. No proof or fails included in any of those actions. But what works for new tanks is letting it ride. So that is where I'm at. A 2 year old new tank....

 

[NY_Caveman]

Nice.

BTW, There should be some kind of alert sent to people after a period of inactive thread time that states:

“Please review your thread and see if it has closure. Thank you for your contribution.”

 

[reeferfoxx]

Update:

I've decided to make a New Years resolution for my reef tank. The focus for this resolution is better water quality. It's a little ambiguous because the term better water quality could be different for some tanks and this isn't in regards to stable water parameters but more so cleanliness of my water changes and source water. I have almost zero faith in my cities water as it fluctuates so much. They've neglected to release any updated water tests since January 2016. They also imply that they switch from chlorine to chloramines and ammonia and chlorine at various times of the year with the addition of fluoride. So I have no idea what I'm getting. Also I noticed month by month that the tap water TDS fluctuates between 120 and 250. This to me seems more recent or more fluctuations in the last 2 years than any year before 2016. So what are my plans? Here is what is in the mail..

Upgrading my 4 stage RO/DI to 6 stage with dual 1 micron carbon blocks and dual DI resins with full filter changes. -- Hopefully will reduce chloramines.
3x boxes Tropic Marin Pro Reef -- Switching salts from Fritz to TMPR
Aquamaxx FR-SE Media reactor -- Use for GAC running straight to affluent output line/nozzle
BRS ROX 0.8 -- switching from cheap Marineland carbon

After letting the tank settle for nearly a week now, the brown is almost gone. Cyano has nearly covered 80% of the sandbed, though. I still plan on letting it consume what it needs to. The missing isopods are now on the rise. I'm seeing more of them and copepods. Nutrients are semi stable at 0.02 PO4 and 8ppm NO3.

I've also been doing research on Fritz RPM salt and found some people complaining of high boron. According to Randy, high boron can be toxic. Well, i'm not going to do an ICP test to confirm, instead just going back to TMPR that's provided a flourishing tank in the past. Also, if I do have high boron and amounts of chloramines in the tank, GAC should help with provided (reduced %) water changes. Yes, I'm reducing my bi-weekly or monthly water change from 17% to 8%.

Last but not least; LED spectrum is getting a face lift. Hopefully for the last time. Though, it is fun toying with LED chips (@saltyfilmfolks may not agree lol). This time, since I don't have a spectrometer, I'll be looking at top branded LED light fixtures for percentages of Whites, Blues, cyan, reds, and UV. I'll make some mathematical comparisons between each unit and create a layout that I think would best suit my black box. So, I placed an order for..

410nm - UV
420nm - UV
450nm - Violet
490nm - Cyan

If i could make a guess now as to what will be changed is a reduction in 6500k, 470nm(blue), and an increase of warm white 3500k.

Sorry for the long update. I'm hoping 2018 will be a year of a clean, dino/cyano free, and flourishing tank. ;Happy

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Have you looked at the simulators ?
They produce the curve and graph for you in belive.

I have some I my bookmarks.

The $4 spectrometer can also confirm the NM range of an led (don’t look directly into the Light ! ) as will a prisom.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Have you looked at the simulators ?
They produce the curve and graph for you in belive.

I have some I my bookmarks.

The $4 spectrometer can also confirm the NM range of an led (don’t look directly into the Light ! ) as will a prisom.

Send me some links. I have the one spectrum calculator from that previous thread but its difficult to use with epistar and bridgelux. Plus the Sun and Moon catagories are confusing.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Will do. I’ll have to look. I belive there are two.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Ok, don't be frightened but I'm calling this a starting point of doing nothing to cyano. Let's see what happens ;Shy

BTW doing nothing is just that. So it's pretty dirty looking.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

That’s just madness.

How is the other tank doing?

 

[Tahoe61]

Girl have you tried Chemiclean? I have to applaud your patience!!!!!

I reviewed pretty much every thread about Chemiclean, I know that it's Erythromycin and that chronic use can lead to resistance ( I am not worried about that). I use it, and I use it as part of my tank's regime. Roughly every 2-3 months I dose a tank, vacuum out all the cyano, add air stone/pump walk way and do water change 48-72 hours later. I know some people are reluctant to use "chemicals" but I just do not see a down side to trying it as long as you follow the directions.

Honestly I think cyano is 50% lighting and the rest flow and nutrients. Hopefully the lighting change will provide positive results.

Have you considered removing the sand bed. I am not a fan of BB, but I do like the Starboard look.

Your corals look to be thriving. :D So I am doubtful it a nutrient or other chemistry issue.

 

[reeferfoxx]

That’s just madness.

How is the other tank doing?

I'm been neglecting it. Well, not entirely. I dose two drops of ammonia chloride once a week and about a pencil eraser worth of reef roids once every two weeks. I need to top it off. So far only 1 aiptasia in it. Not seeing any pods or amphipods. Not sure what to think about it. All-in-all I don't have time for it and it's intentions were to be temporary.

Girl have you tried Chemiclean? I have to applaud your patience!!!!!

I reviewed pretty much every thread about Chemiclean, I know that it's Erythromycin and that chronic use can lead to resistance ( I am not worried about that). I use it, and I use it as part of my tank's regime. Roughly every 2-3 months I dose a tank, vacuum out all the cyano, add air stone/pump walk way and do water change 48-72 hours later. I know some people are reluctant to use "chemicals" but I just do not see a down side to trying it as long as you follow the directions.

Honestly I think cyano is 50% lighting and the rest flow and nutrients. Hopefully the lighting change will provide positive results.

Have you considered removing the sand bed. I am not a fan of BB, but I do like the Starboard look.

Your corals look to be thriving. :D So I am doubtful it a nutrient or other chemistry issue.

Believe me, my patience is wearing thin lol. But every week I go without tinkering, I pat myself on the back. My hands haven't physically touched the water in 3 weeks.

I would consider chemiclean if my tank wasn't so finicky. In the past, I've gone months without cyano only to have some other issue pop up and then, 'surprise!'...cyano. One common occurrence after dinoflagellates is cyano. So, it was to be expected yet I didn't think it would grow this much and for so long. The other concern with chemiclean is people experiencing dinos post chemiclean treatment. The thought is that E.M. kills off competitors and allows the more invasive and resistant species to thrive.

I believe lighting is a factor also. I've been looking a many "successful" reefs and the lights utilized. I was surprised to see that most reef lights aren't using the warmer 5,000-6,500k leds. I'm disappointed in myself for not noticing before. Even when I went to try and match the SBreef lights, I noticed they used 14,000k and 20,000k diodes. I was deficient of the 14,000k but had some 20,000k. So, I supplemented with more 20,000k and some 6,500k. Anyway, if that isn't confusing enough.

I do think my water source was of concern as well. Though, I've been pretty hard headed about it. Mostly because my TDS(tested with two different HM meters) always reads zero. However, I've neglected to test chloramines and always procrastinate purchasing prime to supplement the lack of filtration. Speaking of filtration, I just installed the upgrade from a 4 stage to 6 stage with chloramine buster carbon blocks. Crossing fingers.

I've considered removing the sand. Most of the cyano is growing on the sand. However, my shrimp and goby would be ticked and neglected in that fashion. Since, I have about 38lbs of dry sand at hand, I've considered removing portions and replacing the sand to eventually refreshing the entire sand bed itself. Though, if po4 is leeching from the sandbed, I fear I wouldn't be able to replace the portions at a fast or safe enough rate without the new sand absorbing those nutrients.

Let me know if you have any more input or advise. I really over think things and might be scaring myself into not doing enough.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So the second tank shows no signs of anything weird ?

 

[reeferfoxx]

So the second tank shows no signs of anything weird ?

Well, I haven't used the light in the 2nd tank. It was growing some diatoms and hair algae so, I just kept the light off. That tank and next to the freshwater tank does get about roughly 2 or 3 hours of ambient sunlight. So there is some brown on the glass. Hmmm.. maybe I should scope it?