SuncrestReef's Red Sea Reefer XL 425 build

[SuncrestReef]

Today I thoroughly cleaned my Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer for the first time since starting my tank. It's been running continuously for 8 months with no problems, but in the past few days I started to notice the skimmer struggled to start up when turning it on. The motor was turning, but the air intake seemed to be restricted so the bubbles didn't start forming for about 20 seconds after turning it on.

I followed the guidance from this YouTube video:

I also was sure to turn off my ATO since removing the skimmer causes the water level in the sump to drop below normal.

Here's how it looked before cleaning, covered in sponges, calcium deposits, and detritus:







I completely disassembled it and cleaned every part:

I also took this opportunity to siphon out a lot of the detritus from the bottom of my sump:



The skimmer is now running smoothly, and starts up right away without the delay I've seen recently.

 

[SuncrestReef]

After stirring up the sump detritus while cleaning it out, a few of my corals closed up a little. However, with acans this can reveal some of the colors that are normally hidden whey they are fully open. I love the color range on this one:

 

[SuncrestReef]

I did a lot more maintenance today in preparation for being out of town over the holidays. Thankfully I have a house sitter/tank sitter/dog sitter arranged for the two weeks we'll be out of the country, but I also wanted to make sure all major components are in top working condition before I leave. Last weekend I did a complete breakdown and cleaning on the skimmer. Today, I did the same for my Gyre XF-230 powerhead and COR-20 return pump.

The Gyre is relatively easy to take apart and clean, but there are a lot of slots and tight spaces to get to with the brush.


The COR-20 was not nearly as dirty as the skimmer. It goes to show how much detritus is captured by the foam filter between the skimmer chamber and the return chamber.










The COR-20 was actually the easiest to clean. It has mostly smooth surfaces with very few tight spaces to get into with the toothbrush, and with just 4 screws the disassembly and assembly is simple.

 

[erichuyn]

Nice writeup! At least some peace of mind while you're away.

 

[SuncrestReef]

I posted this yesterday in another thread, but wanted to document it here as well. It was amazing to see my torch coral spawning yesterday! As soon as I noticed it, I turned off the powerheads to get a better view and started recording. It went on for about 4 minutes.



The torch normally looks like this, and today appears to be back to normal:

 

[NY_Caveman]

I posted this yesterday in another thread, but wanted to document it here as well. It was amazing to see my torch coral spawning yesterday! As soon as I noticed it, I turned off the powerheads to get a better view and started recording. It went on for about 4 minutes.



The torch normally looks like this, and today appears to be back to normal:

Wow, do not see that too often. Nice catch!

 

[SPR1968]

I don’t know how I missed your thread, but you have a beautiful tank and the photography is stunning!

Following along now

PS. Did you manage to clean inside the rear tube on the NYOS. As far as I can tell it’s sealed ?

 

[SuncrestReef]

I don’t know how I missed your thread, but you have a beautiful tank and the photography is stunning!

Following along now

PS. Did you manage to clean inside the rear tube on the NYOS. As far as I can tell it’s sealed ?

Welcome! Glad you found it, and thanks for the kind words.

It seems that the Nyos tube is sealed so there’s no way to really clean it. It did have a little detritus inside at the bottom, but was relatively clean compared to the rest of the skimmer. It was mostly just dirty on the outside.

 

[RJ Murphy]

Awesome Build. I will be following along. I love the variety of photos, especially the night and day comparison shots. How is your sun coral doing? When i took my wife to the LFS she fell in love with one and of course I had to buy it, LOL. Mine is doing well under an overhang, and the polyps start to come out about 2 hours before the lights go down.
Upgrading to a 150 gal soon, and will be doing a build thread, probably steal an idea or 2

 

[SuncrestReef]

Awesome Build. I will be following along. I love the variety of photos, especially the night and day comparison shots. How is your sun coral doing? When i took my wife to the LFS she fell in love with one and of course I had to buy it, LOL. Mine is doing well under an overhang, and the polyps start to come out about 2 hours before the lights go down.
Upgrading to a 150 gal soon, and will be doing a build thread, probably steal an idea or 2

Thanks for following. Yes, the sun coral is pretty cool, and mine is doing well in a shaded spot near the bottom. It really opens up at night:



Feel free to steal any of my design. Most of it I got from others as well!

 

[SuncrestReef]

I added some labels in my sump to help the tank sitter while I’m away for the holidays.





I’m still writing up last minute documentation and instructions. I’ve been putting this off for months, but this trip is forcing me to finally do it!

 

[SuncrestReef]

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm in New York with my wife to visit her family, and this is the first time I've ever been away from my aquarium. (a little stressful, but I have a competent house sitter looking after things).

To keep my mind off it, I'm cooking a fabulous dinner of beef tenderloin roast with a port reduction sauce, au gratin potatoes, and green beens with pancetta & almonds. And wine...lots of good wine!

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday with family & friends.

 

[SuncrestReef]

My tank has suffered a setback. About a week prior to leaving for the holidays I started noticing a few corals browning on the tips and a bit of tissue loss. I returned today and found several corals dead or with large sections dying. After some research and consulting my LFS, I believe it is Brown Jelly Disease. I'm planning to siphon off as much brown jelly as possible, trim off the dead areas, and dip each coral. I'll also examine the brown jelly under the microscope to see if I can confirm the ciliates associated with brown jelly disease.

 

[erichuyn]

That sucks!
Didn't know it also hit sps, always thought it as a lps disease.

 

[acabgd]

That sucks!
Didn't know it also hit sps, always thought it as a lps disease.

Yeah, me too. Does it really affect SPS as well?

 

[CDavmd]

Sorry

That looks more like the stringy brown of dinoflagellates. What are your phosphates running at?

Look under the microscope. Twirling sesame seed shaped will be ostreopsis species. There are other species but that particular one creates a brown stringy mucous that can kill coral.

 

[Reef man 89]

This tank is absolutely beautiful!! You did an awesome job build the sump Area. You sure did go all out with this build. Thank you for sharing. Happy holidays to you and yours.

 

[SuncrestReef]

I think my LFS nailed it with the Brown Jelly diagnosis. Here's a view of the ciliates under my microscope, and they appear to match the Helicostoma nonatum described in this article: http://aquariumcoraldiseases.weebly.com/brown-jelly-syndrome-bjs--brown-band-disease-brb.html



When I first saw it on a frag early this month, I used a turkey baster to clean it off, thinking it was just detritus. That likely spread it around my tank to all the other corals.

 

[SuncrestReef]

I think I have stabilized my tank for now. All told I lost 7 corals and suffered damage to at least 5 others due to the brown jelly outbreak. I have removed the dead corals and trimmed off infected sections on the damaged ones and dipped them to hopefully save those frags. I had not been cleaning my substrate for quite a while and the top layer was solid green in some areas, so I discarded some of this foul sand and siphoned the rest. Afterwards, I did a 20% water change (the first manual water change since setting up the daily auto water changes 8 months ago) and replaced my carbon media and filter fiber. While the tank looks a lot less populated now with those corals gone, it looks so much healthier than it has for the past month.

I'm not sure I'll ever know what caused the brown jelly syndrome, but at least now I know what to look for and to take swift action if it ever happens again. Some of the corals went from healthy to dead in a matter of 2 or 3 days. Any time I see some damaged tissue I will know to quickly examine the tissue under the microscope.

I'm hoping 2019 will be more successful. I had a really good run from June through November 2018, but December was a bummer.

 

[SuncrestReef]

Over the past few weeks my tank suffered a setback with the loss of about 10% of my corals to brown jelly syndrome. Things have stabilized, and I'm glad to see my fish, inverts, and remaining corals seem to be happy and healthy. In the big picture, I'm just glad to have such a beautiful piece of living art in my living room: