SWISS1939's Reefer 170 - DSR EZ System

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swiss1939

swiss1939

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Annnnnnnndddd..... we're off!

Finally set up the jebao doser with EZ-Buffer and EZ-Carbon. Split up into 4 doses per day each. Every 6 hrs. Starting at midnight with buffer, then an hour later 1am with carbon, and every 6 hrs thereafter. Each dose is 2ml for buffer and 1.5ml for carbon. Any inconsistencies in accuracy from the jebao I figure will get sorted out and accounted for by minor adjustments in total calculated dosing.. meaning the calculator will probably say something like 8.7ml/day but if I were to measure the real dosing per day from the pump it would be like 9.6ml/day, and over time it will find the sweet spot.

Still have not started calcium or trace yet. Not needed at this point.

Some photos of auto dosing and my 5 gallon ATO container that won't fit next to the cabinet! I drilled holes in the screw lids for the ez chemicals to same size as an acrylic tube, then connected some quick connectors to the acrylic tube and the santoprene tube that goes to pump. This way I use the ez chemical bottles as reservoir, and have no leaking connections!

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swiss1939

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I noticed once i added my hammer that this return pump acting as power filter on the right side of tank was blasting this side of the tank with constant boring and strong flow because my tank is a smaller reefer 170 with only 20" deep back to front. So i ordered and just installed a random flow generator with threaded adapter to fit the return pump output. As soon as I did that, both my hammer and the clownfish seemed much happier with the flow!

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The hammer with a fractured skeleton seems to be thriving regardless!

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Rainbow Yuma also fully recovered and moving itself towards the light
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and more coral additions yesterday...

bubblegum digi
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JF Fruity Pebbles (I am not sure this is though as it looks completely different)
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Ultra Gold Hammer
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Tubbs Stellata
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Listed as 24k Psammacora, but I believe it is a 24k leptoseris ? (broke when removing from plug. so now I have two small pieces)
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Meteor Shower Cyphastrea

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swiss1939

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Just spent 4 days treating for those dinos that I've had slowly growing. 4 Days with no lights on (still got ambient daylight coming through light colored shades in the room), with 4ml of peroxide dosed every night and 4-10ml of microbacter 7 dosed every morning. Lights went back on at 30% today acclimating back to 100% in a week. Dinos gone off surfaces and I had to blow out the few spots of sand where dinos were visible deep along the glass. Hoping this works long term as everything looks clear now.

Almost everything made it unscathed. One exception being the rainbow stylo which has lost half its polyps either from the light/peroxide or from amphipods eating it which I saw crawling all over it the whole time. Hoping that it can recover as its still got half its skeleton covered in polyps on the underside.

Picking up an orange octospawn tomorrow to add to my euphyllia rock which I hope eventually the clowns will host in, cause currently they are hosting the corner glass!
 
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Updating to mention that I've learned a hard lesson. Don't mess with things trying to solve problems when those problems aren't actually affecting the health of livestock. I tried to beat the dinos I was dealing with by a treatment of lights off for 4 days with daily peroxide and nightly good bacteria dosing. I paused on the DSR EZ-Carbon dosing during this time as I thought it was feeding the dinos. After the dino treatment was over, I quickly started the DSR EZ-Carbon treatment skipping every other dose amount to quickly get back up to my previous dosing amount D12 over a few days instead of 12 days. Lighting I probably rushed back up to 100% from 50% over 7 day acclimation. I also had a small salinity spike during this post-treatment return to normal of about 1.5ppt which was returned to normal in a day.

Not sure what it was, but basically all my sps died in about 2 weeks post peroxide treatment, culminating with a healthy octospawn dying 3 weeks post treatment. This wiped out half of my new frags added to tank. Only the first frag leather toadstool, two hammer corals and a yuma seem to have survived unaffected through this past month. Both my clowns also have been unaffected, perfectly happy this whole time.

Tank is 4 months old, but all coral were looking great and seemed to be growing at 3 months mark (prior to peroxide treatment). It could have been peroxide treatment. It could have been 3-4 month old tank too new for sps. It could have been burning the coral with too fast light acclimation. It could have been salinity spike. It could have been too fast return to full carbon/iron dosing for the DSR system.

I'm going to hold off on adding any more coral for months while I see if the remaining ones start to really take off. I'll just continue stocking fish/inverts as I have a tailspot blenny and a fire shrimp to pick up from TSM Aquatics next tuesday.

First difficult hurdle met this month, making me question if I just crashed everything or if it was just an effect of too new system. I'll save my money for now and just let things play out for 4-6 months and revisit coral stocking when the tank is 8-10 months old. As mentioned.. lesson learned. Don't mess with things trying to fix problems that aren't actually causing problems with livestock. I only made it worse and probably set myself back a few months in being able to sustain a broad range of coral.

Regarding DSR system, I am dosing quite a bit of EZ-Carbon at 12.8ml/day (D13). EZ-Buffer I am only dosing .4ml a day just to keep the pump working every day, as I don't really have any alk demands with only softies and two lps after all the sps died. Still haven't started dosing cal or trace for the same reason.. not enough consumption of anything yet. I am churning through power filter media as my power filter starts spewing micro bubbles within 2-3 days and gets bad by the end of day 3, requiring a change by 4th day latest otherwise its spewing micro bubbles constantly.
 
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Drove an hour and a half down South Jersey to TSM Aquatics for the first time today and picked up some livestock I ordered over a month ago that finished QT. Got a Tail Spot Blenny and a Fire Shrimp. Both seem to be inquisitive of their new home!

I'll be avoiding adding any new coral to my tank for a few months and only adding hopefully two more fish during the first year, Rainfordi Goby and a Pink Streaked Wrasse. Waiting another month to add these two fish so that everything else has plenty of time to stabilize. Don't want to cause any other major problems to the coral that are still doing well.

TSM is huge and really nice business! Also very helpful as they held onto my fire shrimp for a few weeks while i waited for the tail spot to finish qt. They also held both for an extra week until i was available to drive down and pick them up, instead of forcing me to ship!

Very pleased with tsm and will be using them solely for fish from now on!

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Tail spot has staked his territory claim to a nice hide hole right in the middle of the clowns territory and is not afraid to defend it! Clowns just look confused and unsure how to respond! Meanwhile the fire shrimp molted already, the first night!

Also showing the bubblegum monti and tubbs stellata that have died/dying from either the peroxide dino treatment or just from tank being too new. And im not sure but it looks like my leptos are also struggling with a loss of color and one of them has a whiter spot forming.

Parameters are stable enough for coralline to form on one power head, but it really refuses to spread beyond this one power head right now.

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Another shot of the tail spot which seems to be very happy. He goes crazy when frozen food dropped into the tank. Same with the fire shrimp who runs out from the cave to grab some!

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Another shot of the clowns looking confused as to how to deal with the new addition that does not care about their territory claims!
 
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Tail spot chose a new home and now i have less coral placement real estate due to his excavation pile of sand!




Broke out one of my 4K cameras and yellow filter to get a better vid of him doing his work.

 
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It has been 84 days since I started DSR EZ system and think I have found my baseline daily EZ-Carbon dosing at D14 (15.6ml/day) for my 170L system. My nutrients seem to hold steady on this daily dosing with 0.04ppm Phos and 10ppm Nitrate. I'm assuming this means I most likely feed heavily and should slowly reduce the amount of feeding every day? Tank had no fish in it for the first month of dosing, then two clowns added. Two weeks later a blenny and shrimp added. Now I have two clowns, a goby, a blenny and a shrimp (second shrimp coming tomorrow). I'm curious if I should expect this ratio of phosphates to nitrates to stay stable or if the relationship between them will fluctuate over time?

I've also had to stop dosing EZ-Buffer as I have no alk consumption with minimal corals currently and my alk was climbing even with 0.4ml daily dosing. Haven't even started dosing calcium or trace yet. Tank is 4 months, 9 days old. Last large water change besides ATO/small additions was 64 days ago. As you can see.. I'm heavy into the ugly phase!

Coralline has taken over my small jebao power head and started to form on the random flow generators on my return nozzles, but has only just started to form a few spots at the top of the highest rock. I'm guessing I won't have strong coralline growth everywhere until the tank is about 8 months old.

pH has held rock steady at 8.2 for weeks.. since the heat in NYC broke and I was able to open windows again.

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