Rich's Crystal Dynamic 120

[RMS18]

Nyos Skimmer update, i have been having a problem with water entering the adjustment tube. After a few emails with Nyos they are sending me a new tube as water should not be filling the tube up. Great customer service! They would reply back within a few hours, no hassle to receive a resolution.

 

[RMS18]

Added 3 more bricks of the Brightwell biological blocks into the sump.

 

[RMS18]

In the mean time while i waitng for the tank to clean up from the uglies we started a new tank! This was not by choice rather by default. My 4.5 year old clown who has not been a issue at all decided to start to attack her tank mates that she has been with for years. So she has her very own tank which will include a BTA, maxima clam and some zoas.

 

[RMS18]

Also bought a new fish for the 120, a male square back Anthia and a new crab (new crab on the bottom in the picture, my old crab came to meet the new guy) all from Reef Beauties.

 

[mattzang]

beautiful tank man, love the fish list!

 

[RMS18]

Our latest additions:

 

[raultsu]

awesome looking tank. I just set a 120 from crystal dynamics too

 

[RMS18]

The tank hit 4 months and we have some Coraline growing from seeding. Today we bought some tester corals. No idea the names I forgot what they were. I'm not into the name game, if it looks nice I'll buy it is my motto.

 

[wilsonline]

Any updates?

 

[wilsonline]

Any updates?

 

[RMS18]

Any updates?

Not really unfortunately. It's been on and off with Dino's for almost a year. My sticks aren't really much to show off yet. There is a pattern that occurs for me almost every 2-3 months. Things will be going well Dino's go away everything is stable. Corals grow by the day it seems, colors are perfect then one day some brown appears, then it gets worse and worse until a full blown bloom. Then chemistry in the tank changes affecting alk and nutrient consumption, and that leads to spikes or drops. Color fade/brown, I lose one or two acros. Then things settle back out and stabilize. This pattern has been repeating it's self since last July.

 

[wilsonline]

weird. What parameter spike? Have you tried to treat the dinos? with what? Do you have a substrate?

 

[CJBuckeyes]

Not really unfortunately. It's been on and off with Dino's for almost a year. My sticks aren't really much to show off yet. There is a pattern that occurs for me almost every 2-3 months. Things will be going well Dino's go away everything is stable. Corals grow by the day it seems, colors are perfect then one day some brown appears, then it gets worse and worse until a full blown bloom. Then chemistry in the tank changes affecting alk and nutrient consumption, and that leads to spikes or drops. Color fade/brown, I lose one or two acros. Then things settle back out and stabilize. This pattern has been repeating it's self since last July.

I had Dinos and was in that same pattern as you for more than a year. Blowing off the rocks continually, mechanical filtration and a UV kept it in check, but it would come and go. And acros would grow, alk consumption would increase.. then it would suddenly go the other direction. I finally threw in the towel on that tank. I'm starting over with live rock. I did get bryopsis right off the bat, but have much higher hopes of getting it under control than the Dinos.

 

[RMS18]

weird. What parameter spike? Have you tried to treat the dinos? with what? Do you have a substrate?

Have I tried to treat for Dino's hahaha... You name it I've tried it. In all seriousness yes, I've done dr. Tim's twice, UV, live rock enhance, mb7. Micro bubbling, increase po4 and no3. I battle amphidinium and osper. I'll have a good run, then alk will be consumed slower, which throws off no3 and po4 levels then the brown starts. Cal and mag will also change in consumption. Then ph will start to increase and that's when I know Dino's are coming. When they are in full blown they push my pH to 8.5-8.6 when it normally runs at 8.2-8.3. When pH, alk, and nutrients are all changes it is impossible to keep stability and I always end up with a alk spike or big nutrient bottom out.

 

[RMS18]

In the mean time while i waitng for the tank to clean up from the uglies we started a new tank! This was not by choice rather by default. My 4.5 year old clown who has not been a issue at all decided to start to attack her tank mates that she has been with for years. So she has her very own tank which will include a BTA, maxima clam and some zoas.

However here is a nice update on this little tank:

 

[wilsonline]

Your tank looks great! Corals look good to me.
You mean SPS won't make it, but others will? I hope it's not that hard, bc I just did a blackout for dinos, didn't see it coming back, So added more sps frags here. I don't want to lose those.
Oh ****, I lost one today, my favorite frag I got last time. * I went to a lfs today. Got a tridacna and a few frags, but no sps. The lfs was about to close... Better like that.

 

[RMS18]

Your tank looks great! Corals look good to me.
You mean SPS won't make it, but others will? I hope it's not that hard, bc I just did a blackout for dinos, didn't see it coming back, So added more sps frags here. I don't want to lose those.
Oh ****, I lost one today, my favorite frag I got last time. * I went to a lfs today. Got a tridacna and a few frags, but no sps. The lfs was about to close... Better like that.

The tank I showed was a nano tank, not the 120g sps tank that has the issues. The little nano is doing great.

 

[RMS18]

Been a while with an update but here's a decent one.

So after 9+ ish months of dinos I was able to finally beat them but doing NOTHING. Yup I stopped all the bacteria dosing, silica, reduced lighting, blackouts, dinox, sand stirring, micro bubbles, in display uv, and whatever else we do. I just focused on the big 3 and kept no3 and po4 in good levels and after about 3-4 weeks I started to see a decline. Then cyano came on heavy and last 2-3 months and then that went away. So I started to add corals.

I made some changes to equipment, added a Trident, Tunze Algea Reactor and a Aqua UV which I should have added from the build start.

 

[RMS18]

All sps started out as frags... I did the best I could with my S6 and one Reefbrite. I edited them the best I could to get them to real life appearance but unfortunately most do not show the colors you can see in real life.

 

[RMS18]

Still looking to add more large lps on the sand bed.

 

[RMS18]

I am very sure I placed the acros/millis to close as some have stung others and the corals aren't even mini colonies yet. This was a mistake on my part.