42G reef - rebuild

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Since I removed the GFO, phosphate is rising. Couple days ago, NO3 is 5ppm, phosphate is 0.15ppm. Today, NO3 is 1 ppm, phosphate is 0.3 ppm. I added back some GFO to the bag of carbon. Still not using the reactor yet.

Also harvested about 1 gallon of chaeto out. It looked like too full that limited it's grow.

Lights are on now, running a 6 week acclimation periods from 40%. I don't have much coral in the tank yet. So far I got 5 acan frags and 2 acro frags. Have an Achilles tang in, about a week now. It's still very skeptical when I'm near by. But the webcam showed he's picking the rock all days.

Thinking back about the talk , I should try carbon dose again, so that bacteria can eat up the phosphate and feed to corals. I do have quite a bit filter feeder in the tank, gorgonian, clam, coco worm, etc.
 

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On existing stuff.

I gave up on training the dragonet to frozen food for now. It's way more shy than the mandarin gobies I have worked with before. It shows no interests in love brine shrimp, so it's hard to lurk it into the flask feeding café. But it did take baby brine shrimp pretty well. So I'll use that as its staple for now and see how it goes. Another reasons are, I started getting more fish, so it's better for it to settle into display before more aggressive tank mate come. Also I need to reclaim the sump space for cleaning. I made a mini baby brine shrimp feeding station, with 50 mesh screen, about 300 microns. But the BBS are able to get out pretty easily. Maybe I should try something finer, like 200 micron (70 mesh). The idea is to make it difficult for the BBS to get out, but still can, so they will get out slowly, feeding the dragonet over the day. This time I also skipped the pipe all the way out of water, because it's slightly. Also it's hard to push the shrimp all the way down the pipe without pushing too much of them out the net. This is what it looks like now.
download_20191001_091541.jpg


Onto the sump, the chaeto is showing some significant growth, after I up the intensity to about 80% on the Kessil H160, and extended photoperiod to 18 hours. It's filling up the refugium space. But also there are some brown diatom growing on it and the side of the sump. It's looking messy. So I decided to empty it out the fully clean the sump and wipe down every spot I can reach. I also trim out like a quarter of the chaeto on top that are covered with algae.

I think the trimming is well responded. The pH this morning was rising from last night. In before pH was continue to drop even when refuge is on, and it was rising during the day with just 5% main light on plus ambient light. So the photosynthesis was getting quite a bit stronger after the cleaning.

The water parameters are, Alk 7.4, NO3 25ppm, PO4 0.02ppm

Last change I did was taking the media reactor offline. The idea of GFO carbon mix didn't work out. The GFO particles are smaller than carbon by too much that it settles down at the bottom, and gradually formed into a hard block, stopping flow and pushed the whole media block up, even with a foam pushing it down on top. Also my phosphate is pretty low right now that GFO is not needed. It might even limiting chaeto growing. Now I just run the carbon in a media back in my overflow tower. My tank only needs 4 tbsp, so like a golf ball size.

Interesting and nice built. Can you share your BBS feeding arrangement as shown. Thank you in advance.
 
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Interesting and nice built. Can you share your BBS feeding arrangement as shown. Thank you in advance.

I use this hatchery. Twice a day, before and after work, I took the harvest cup out, rinse the BBS into a cup, and use a pipet to inject them into the feeder via the tube.

The mesh was not fine enough actually. The brine shrimp can get pushed out when I spraying them in. But now it has been in the tank for couple weeks, it got clogged up a bit and them don't come out as easy. Also make sure the mesh is facing the light so the brine shrimp will try to come out. It went under a rock for couple days, and there are brine shrimp left there after I came back from work. Moved it out and it went empty between each feeding.

I actually don't know how much brine shrimp the dragonet are eating. I only see it went on the mesh once. But I figured even if it not eating most of it, it can still act as a slow release feeder for the whole tank.
 

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I use this hatchery. Twice a day, before and after work, I took the harvest cup out, rinse the BBS into a cup, and use a pipet to inject them into the feeder via the tube.

The mesh was not fine enough actually. The brine shrimp can get pushed out when I spraying them in. But now it has been in the tank for couple weeks, it got clogged up a bit and them don't come out as easy. Also make sure the mesh is facing the light so the brine shrimp will try to come out. It went under a rock for couple days, and there are brine shrimp left there after I came back from work. Moved it out and it went empty between each feeding.

I actually don't know how much brine shrimp the dragonet are eating. I only see it went on the mesh once. But I figured even if it not eating most of it, it can still act as a slow release feeder for the whole tank.
Thanks for your reply, but actually I am looking for the feeding station that you keep inside the tank for dragonet to feed. i want to make one like that. I am using JBL hatching station.
 
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Thanks for your reply, but actually I am looking for the feeding station that you keep inside the tank for dragonet to feed. i want to make one like that. I am using JBL hatching station.

It's made with a tiny container. The one I used here is for paint color, I think. Any size will work. Cut out the middle of the lid, then use it to hold down the mesh onto the container. I also drilled a hole on the side to put in a 1/4 quick connect fitting for easy refill. I use a elbow one so that the inject hole in the container won't be lighted up, so that the brine shrimp won't get attracted to it and escape that way. Thus I didn't bother to put a cap on that end either.

The other design I see people do is to have a long tube all the way out of water. I tried that way before and don't like it. It's an eye sour and hard to hide. Also it's hard to pushed brine shrimp all the way down the tube. And if they're in the tube, they will swim up to light instead of down to the feeder. So I rather get my hand wet and skip the tube.

I also expoxyed a rock rubble under it to give it some weight so it doesn't fall over.

This is how it looks like now.

IMG_20191015_082615.jpg
 

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It's made with a tiny container. The one I used here is for paint color, I think. Any size will work. Cut out the middle of the lid, then use it to hold down the mesh onto the container. I also drilled a hole on the side to put in a 1/4 quick connect fitting for easy refill. I use a elbow one so that the inject hole in the container won't be lighted up, so that the brine shrimp won't get attracted to it and escape that way. Thus I didn't bother to put a cap on that end either.

The other design I see people do is to have a long tube all the way out of water. I tried that way before and don't like it. It's an eye sour and hard to hide. Also it's hard to pushed brine shrimp all the way down the tube. And if they're in the tube, they will swim up to light instead of down to the feeder. So I rather get my hand wet and skip the tube.

I also expoxyed a rock rubble under it to give it some weight so it doesn't fall over.

This is how it looks like now.

IMG_20191015_082615.jpg
Great writing and love your explanations. Thanks dude.
 
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Tank Update

Phosphate rise to 0.4 ppm. A bit too high for my comfort. So I added back the media reactor with only GFO, 1/2 cup. Should be enough to bring it back down.

As a side note, I really don't like BRS' GFO. It's super powdery and dusty. I used TLF one before and it's particles are more consistent in size, make it very easy to use in media bag.

I have been adding corals now. Maybe a bit too many too fast can't help.

Full tank shot as of today
IMG_20191016_211732.jpg

PS. It's taken with radion at 12000k color temperature, seems like a good option for a quick picture.
 
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Last weekend, I finally got one of my dreamed fish, the sunburst anthias. I had it fed in store and saw it picking at some food items. Though it's not aggressively feeding, it's a good enough start. Once get home, I have him in a social acclimate box in display for about a day. The clownfish initially checked out of him, but besides that, there weren't much other interactions. But after he was released out from the acclimation box, the achillies tang start chasing him from time to time. It didn't happen frequent enough that got me worry, only like twice during the couple hours I was watching them, and it only happened when the anthias get near some part of the rock. It's probably just the tang showing territory. The surprising discover was that, last night, I noticed some white spots on the tang. But by this morning, those spots are gone already. So it's unclear to me if it were ich.

But nevertheless, I reviewed many articles about ich the whole night. By the end I came up with my own conclusion around ich and quarantine. Dicussion of ich will never miss the part of quarantine, because it's really the only way to eradicate it. Many of the discussions come down to ich eradication vs ich management. I have always in the camp of ich management. After last night's research, I reaffirmed my choice.

Simply put, ich management is about not worrying too much about stopping ich from entering the tank, accepting that ich will present, and instead focusing on getting fish in a healthy state so that their immune system can handle the paradises without getting sick.

In comparison, ich eradication is focusing on stopping any chance for ich to enter the tank. My stand with ich management does not mean I don't believe in ich eradication will work. I do think it will work, but it comes down to if the value worth the effort for me. So for ich eradication, there are majorly two things I have to do, quarantine fish, and quarantine everything else (coral, invertebrate, rocks, etc.). Quarantine fish is targeting the paradises' free floating stage, deploying various medicine or procedure to remove them during that stage. It's honestly relatively easy and straight forward with a 20 gallons. That's something I can justify doing for the sake of fish health. Quarantine for everything else is instead concerning on the paradises tomites stage. The paradises can stay in that stage for anywhere between 3 days to 72 days. Any substrates coming in can be a potential host of it, that including coral plug/skeleton, snail shell, or any shell of invertebrates. So basically anything coming into the tank that have any hard surface will need to be in quarantine for 72 days in a fishless setup to make sure all the tomites are released and died. The real challenge is keeping SPS, especially more sensitive ones, for almost 3 months in a quarantine setup that not mean for long running and optimized for stability. The risk of loosing the coral frag in quarantine to the lesser stability is pretty real. To my experience, that is a lot more likely to happen than an ich outbreak in healthy fish. Also in my reef tank priority, coral is definitely higher than fish by good margin. So it's really hard for me to justify to put high risk of new corals to mitigate the last percentiles for ich out break for the fish. Also fish stock are usually done pretty early on, like as of now, I think my tank is already done stocking, while coral will continually be added. So the cost of quarantining all corals for ich eradication, both money and effort, does not worth the value it provide. By that sense, "ich always exists" is basically a fact to me. It makes more sense to optimize for keeping fish health, as in ich management, than subscribe for ich eradication.

It's of course possible to setup a separate fishless long run frag tank that can also be used for quarantining coral, but it's way out of my league currently that it's basically impractical. To have a full quarantine setup, I will need at least a 20 gallon for fish, and another 40 gallon system for coral, all run completely separately. It might make sense when I upgrade to system of several hundred gallons. But for now that my display is only 42 gallons? nah. In my opinion, if I were to quarantine coral, the most value I see is not ich eradication, but to grow the frag into mini colony before putting it in its permanent place in display. It's invaluable to experience its grow form, color, and aggression, to make the informed decision on placement. Maybe when I finally get the chance to upgrade, my current system can be migrated to a fishless tank for quarantining coral, or I should say, as coral grow out tank.

In conclusion, I think ich is manageable enough it does not worth the effort for the eradication route. I'm not against quarantine fish, getting it to eat and quarantining for other more deadly diseases are still valuable. Just won't do it for the purpose of ich eradication.
 
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Sad update, I lost all but two wrasses in my tank, from marine velvet. This is the first time I encounter it. Now that I realized, I was not informed enough of it vs ich that Initially I thought it was just ich. So I failed to take proper action to the problem until it's too late.

What I tried was use some in tank reef safe treatment for ich (Kick ich). I didn't expect it to be capable of eradicate the paradise completely, but hoped it would weaken the outbreak enough that the fish's immune system can take care of the rest. But given marine velvet, that was not an efficient approach. Also I was having too many fish in the tank I think that also caused added stress. It would probably be fine if there was no outbreak going on. But it surely didn't help to get the fish's immune to fight off the disease.

Also ironically, since I felt quite depressed by all of those, I now feel less motivated on adding new stuff to the tank, either fish or coral. But looking back, I think I was doing it too fast, and really need a break to slow down. So that's some bright side of thing.

Since now there is no algae eaters in the tank, and the light is almost done ramping up to full power, algae is starting to appear. There are still other clean up crew like snail and emerald crabs, but looks like they're not faster enough to catch up. But I'm also hesitate on adding more fish for algae control just yet, especially the only ones that are efficient are tangs, and they're more prone diseases. I still have the Vibrant that I got from BRS sales, so I think for now I will just try use that for algae control to see how it's going. Also GFO is back online and phosphate is under control for now, though it would take some time to lower it back from 0.15 ppm currently.
 
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Hair algae is really seem to start taking hold. I think I will need to implement more counter measure before it takes over.

One thing I realized is that there are not a lot of snail left. I have only added 6 to begin with. But with some eaten by hermit, I'm pretty sure, maybe some just died too, there aren't that many left. I think I will get 10 more to use them as the primary algae mower.

If I see the lettuce sea slug again, I'll probably want to get one again. The one I got before died, but that's during the light still running low and several herbivores fish in the tank. So it's probably starved. But now it's probably enough algae to sustain one.

Also I just realized my fuge light was running only at 60%. So I turned it up to about 90%. It should do better job at competing for nutrients.

I'm seriously considering adding sea urchin again. I don't really like them because they eat coralline algae too fast. But in the lack of algae eating fish, they're the most efficient algae eater for sure. So Matt I can put one go the tank to make a real dent to the algae, then move it to the sump afterwards. Still not completely sure, but a seriously tempting idea.

Oh also, there are dots of coralline algae appearing on the bottom now. That's a good sight.
 
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Review of Maxspect Biospheres

TLDR; it's not one of the best bio media, doesn't worth its price.

I bought this along with brightwell bio block as the tank's major bio media to supplement the lack of sand bed. The thing that surprise me the most is how heavy these balls are. It's basically more dense than a base rock. The difference is very obvious between this and some other super porous media like marine pure. When I lift them up from water, there aren't a lot of water dripping down from them either, as opposite to marine pure. Therefore, I don't think it's really that porous that will provide lots of surface area. So, they're basically paperweights for me now. But hey, paperweight can be useful too, if what you need is holding down paper. That's exactly what I used them for. In my filter sock, I put 4 inside to hold it down to the ring. In my refuge I used them to make a thing to hold down the cheato.
IMG_20191118_215205.jpg

It's actually not easy to find something that heavy and reef safe. So I'm actually glad that I have them as my reef paperweights.
 
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Update with a full tank shot. I finally decided to up my light intensity to SPS level. Tuned the center spot, where the cali tort is, to 230 PAR. It's about 150 by the bottom edge. This equal to 80% power of the two Radion 15XR. Previously I was only running it at 30%. So I set it to a 4 week acclimating period starting from 40%.
IMG_20191118_215136.jpg

The algae problem will probably get worse before getting under control. I added 10 new snails. They seem to do a pretty good job at cleaning out the place they been to. But they are slow like, well, snail. So I don't expect them to be fully wipe out the algae. I put more of my hope in Vibrant now, doing weekly dose as the dirtier tank instruction. I also did a round of manual removal. I'll see how it will go from here.

new frags from last weekend before I glued them down tonight
IMG_20191117_201205.jpg


I still haven't decide where to put these. My tank don't really have a shady corner. I also need to have easy access to them for feeding. So for now, I just put them on a tiny frag rack up close to surface. For one the light intensity is lower at the high up corner, for the second, it's super easy to feed.
IMG_20191118_215053.jpg
 
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It has been quite a while since my last update. It had been a tough time on my reef keeping journey.

Since the last wipe out, I started to exercise quarantining. Also I have finally found the place to setup a quarantine system. But the journey of quarantining new fish did not go as smooth as I hope it would be. I bought total of 5 fish since, and only one made it out of quarantine. ;Bored

After some real scratch on my head I finally came to realize that, the problem is cycling. ;Facepalm I have been using the seachem ammonia alert badge. But since I never used one before, I were not clear what actions to take according to it. So for majority of the time, the badge stay at light green, and I thought it was fine. So the ammonia slowly eat away the fish until it's too late and some other stuff pops up on them, and I was too busy researching what was the cause and forgot to take a step back. I also "prepared" the bio media in my main tank for about a week or two, so I just take it as granted that cycling problem is solved. I was too comfortable and keeping aquarium for too long that I forgot how bad even a bit of ammonia could be.

By the end of the only surviving fish out of quarantine, the niger trigger, the badge was still swinging between light green to yellow day to day. I think it only survive because it's hardy.

Since the last fish died in quarantine, I just left it running. During the Christmas sales, I also got a bottle of MicroBacter Start XLM. I am happy to witness that it actually works. I got it the day after Christmas. I dosed it in, and added some ammonia to raise it to 0.2 ppm. Yesterday, exactly a week after, the badge turned to yellow the first time ever since the tank it's running.

Also an interesting discovery is that, the tank was full of copepods, even before the cycle is finished, about a week of running without any fish. They populate a lot faster than I thought.

I got an order of fish coming in tomorrow from AquaLocker. It's the first time I buy fish online. With a cycled quarantine ready, hope it will do well.

Take away:
  1. Prepare biomedia in display tank for at least a month, otherwise, start as if with no seeding media.
  2. For everyday, if ammonia badge is green, do water change, as simple as that. It's better to run though dozen gallons of water than a dead fish.
  3. MicroBacter Start XLM really works.
 
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Latest full tank shot
IMG_20200101_200250.jpg

I added quite a bit of frags during varies of sales in Christmas season. The tank it's looking pretty full. Now starts the waiting game, for them to grow out.
 
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Of course I got several new gadgets as well.

The most exciting one is the Apex Trident. The ability to see alkalinity change through out the day is so useful and I didn't know I need it. I was able to adjust the alk/ca dosing so precisely. Also it's very clear that alk consumption during lights on are a lot higher than during lights off. So after I done tuning in the daily dose amount, I am thinking about changing the dosing time to only during lights on. Currently it dose 15s every hour, on the 1.1 ml/m dosing pump. So that's 0.275 ml per hour, 6.6 ml per day.
Screenshot from 2020-01-02 15-44-03.png


Second piece is the apex flow meter and Aqua Ultraviolet Advantage 2000 Inline Sterilizer. It's a 15 Watt UV, with Flowrate - 233 gph for 90,000 µw/cm2. According to the BRS info, power for algae and bacteria is 30,000 µWs/cm² and power for protozoa is 180,000 µWs/cm². With the light being constant, that power is linear with flow rate. So it means, for this UV, flow rate for protozoa is 166 gph and flow rate for algae is 699 gph.

For the plumbing, I decided to chain it to my recirculation skimmer. The recommend feed pump for the Skimz SM-122 is 211 gph. With the flow meter I am able to fine tune the flow to my desire. I think going between 150 to 200 gph will be good, since I mostly using it for lowering risk of diseases. Also whatever get killed by the UV will get right into the skimmer and get removed, win win.

This is how my Apex dashboard look now.
Screenshot from 2020-01-02 15-42-43.png


Another interesting observation is, how much the flow rate change over time. Since the last time I adjust anything in the plumbing and pump, the flow rate was about 230 gph. In less than a week it dropped to 180. I knew the flow rate will change over time because of stuff growing inside the pump and plumbing, but I didn't realize it change that fast.
Screenshot from 2020-01-02 16-55-51.png


Oh also, the return pump is new. I upgraded it to the COR 15. So I guess most of the slowing down is in the pump and its impeller.
 
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The Aqualock shipment arrive nice and alive this morning. It's a tiny purple tang, the body about the size of a quarter. It looks pretty healthy for that small of size. The water temperature out of the box is 69F, salinity 1.020. I got the quarantine tank to match the salinity, and float the bag for temperature, then drop it in. It looks pretty relax even still in the bag. I put a bit of live baby brine shrimp to the tank for it. Planning to start coppersafe tomorrow.
IMG_20200103_100904 - Edited.jpg

IMG_20200103_102345 - Edited.jpg


Out of curiosity, I tested the ammonia in the shipping bag, and it's undetectable. So basically I was running quarantine with water worst that shipping bag ... let that sink in a bit.
 
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Over the holiday I digged up an old toy out, a CO2 logger for agriculture. I was shock to find out how high my indoor CO2 level is.
IMG_20200101_134532.jpg

For reference, usually the green house target for CO2 supplement is 900~1500. So my 1050 is supplemented level. No wonder my pH is only get to 7.9 at the highest in the day.

I also take it outside. It's only 460.
IMG_20200101_134354.jpg


So I tried to open the windows, and in an hour the co2 level drop to around 600, and the pH of my tank is already rising.

I then tried to hook my skimmer intake to outside. Today is the first day I have it run from outside for the full day. The pH is 8.04 to 8.11. the alk is dropping a lot faster. This is the graph between pH and alk. It's pretty interesting.
Screenshot_20200106-183850~2.png
 
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FTS
IMG_20200128_183846.jpg

I got quite a lot of new corals, mostly from the local frag swag recently. The tank is basically full now. Hard to find another spot to put new frags. But there are still quite a bit of high end frag I want to get ... All acroporas are growing well, starting to encrust from the base.
Both fish are getting through quarantine safe and sound, eating well with full belly.
The first day in the display tank I still use acclimation boxes for them, in case there are aggression towards them.
IMG_20200126_121048.jpg

I'm mostly worried about the solan wrasse towards the pintail wrasse and the trigger towards the purple tang. But neither happened. So the next day I tried to let them out by tilling the box down so that they can swim out. The tang just ran out and not looking back. The wrasse went back to the box several times. That night, it went back to the PVC inside the box to sleep.
IMG_20200128_083041.jpg

On the third day I removed the second box as well. They're all doing fine since.
 
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About two weeks after the introduction of the new fish, the pintail fairy wrasse suddenly when missing one day. Couldn't find a trace of it, no body inside or outside the tank. The only theory I can think of is the solon wrasse finally decided to kill it, and it was consumed totally by clean up crew in several hours.

The refugium is doing worse and worse now. I added a powerhead to see if it help to reduce the bad film stuff grow on the chaeto. It didn't. But nutrient levels are still within range. So I'm start to wonder if I need to run a refugium now. The only reason I have it now is to raise pH. So I turned off the refugium light last night for testing. This morning, the pH is at the same level as it was before, 7.9. So the refugium didn't really do anything now. I think when I do water change this weekend, I will decommission the refugium. Maybe I can put the skimmer back there now.

For pH, I want to try something new: dosing kalkwasser. I have been taking note on ato refill and it seems to consume about half a gallon every day. And my calculations show that it will take about 1L kalkwasser solution for my current alk consumption. That means I have enough head room to use purely kalk. Also I'm not putting kalk to ATO. I'm going to dose it via dosing pump. There will be a water level sensor in the sump to make sure it don't over fill the tank by too much, a bit is fine. The rest of evaporation will continue to be taken of by ATO. If this goes well, I'll probably invest in a kalk stir.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 68 37.6%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 60 33.1%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 13.8%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 28 15.5%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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