Taking the Plunge

[Gumbies R Us]

2023-12-27 I mentioned hiccups earlier. The first hiccup we ran into was that the ReefWave 25 gyre pump had no power supply in the box. The box was sealed; somebody goofed. And that turned out not to be the only Red Sea goof. I mentioned earlier that the package didn't include the ATO+ setup. Well, that turns out to be wrong. It is supposed to come with it and that also was not on the pallet. My daughter already ordered one from BRS, so now we have to figure out how to straighten it out with Red Sea and BRS. Joy.

We finished up a lot of things today. We repositioned the venturi inlet on the skimmer so it isn't isolated in what is supposed to be the filter box and it all fits together much more neatly. We adjusted the water level and flow rate (like, oh I dunno, 25 times?) and I think we've got that set pretty good. We've got our salinity at 1.025 and our temperature at 79 (I see so many conflicting numbers for this I'm really not sure what to go with. Most heaters seem to come set to 77, but the Red Sea Reef Mature instructions say 26-28 C. Well, 26 C is 78.8 F, so we set ours to 79 F.

The instructions say to "prepare your salt water to 1.023-1.025 at 25 C. Then they tell you to maintain the tank at 26-28 C. So what should the salinity measure at that temperature? Is there a detectable difference? By the time we draw water and put it on the refractometer that little bit is going to equilibrate to the surface temperature anyway, right?

Our return pump is running at 25% and our skimmer pump is running at 50%. The Reef Mature instructions say the skimmer should turn over at least 3x system volume per hour with a water:air ratio of at least 3:1. I don't know how one could possible measure this.

Anyway, we started dosing our Reef Mature supplements tonight. Our starting numbers:
Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.8
KH/Alkalinity: 10
Added: Nitro Bac = 35 ml, BactoStart = 17.5 ml, NoPox = 4.5 ml

Love the aquascape!

 

[rhduggan]

It’s looking very good, can’t wait to see what you do with it! You’re right with the plumbing I always put tap on as an added extra precaution but when it comes with it in already you can’t but wonder.

You won’t know as you said that the back of the scape it flat and now that it’s in place you can see the high is great for sps on the top right. The arches will make it for fun swimming around my old six line wrasse loved to do that and it’s a stunning little fish. I’m currently thinking about a pair of naked clowns, orchid dottyback, striped Blenny and maybe a fairy wrasse.

Some nice recommendations; thanks. We'll be looking for fish and corals that don't require super high maintenance. No hand feeding three times a day or they die type of situation for us. We need to be able to go on vacation for a week or two and have a no-brainer teenager be able to keep our tank alive.

Glad you managed to fit the Reefmat 500 and the skimmer in that tight space shame you’ll not have much room left for a refugium, or much rock medium for extra live rock. Did you manage to also fit your ATO? As I can’t quite see. I may self will be getting the 250 to help with space which will allow me to put a ITC ALR 1 reactor in fingers crossed.

As I mentioned above (but there's a lot of text, I know) Red Sea goofed and didn't include the ATO+ in the package. I was in contact with them yesterday and they're sending it, but my daughter had already ordered one from BRS thinking it wasn't included, so now we'll have to see about sending it back. The person at Red Sea seemed to indicate that there is a transition going on between the standard reservoir ATO and the ATO+. They realize that all this equipment will not fit together in the sump of these small setups. Same thing with the ReefMat 500 vs the 250. I guess they'll be shipping the 250 as standard sometime soon. In our case I'm actually glad we got the 500; it fits, and we won't be going through fleece so fast.

On the FB page I saw a couple of pictures regarding having the space next to the sump for an external ATO reservoir and another one with a cabinet next to the cabinet for a bigger one. I’ll see if I can add the pictures (not mine). As I might do that myself even if I put the food and cleaning stuff and test kits in the top half of the cabinet.

I wish I had the skills to make a glass reservoir like the one in the pics you pointed out, but I don't have the ability to cut glass like that. I wouldn't even know where to start. I can weld, do electrical and plumbing, and lots of other things, but never got into working with glass.

Can’t wait to see your next update and see how you get along with cycling the tank

It's coming. Nothing substantial growing yet, but we keep looking for stuff under the microscope and there's definitely life in there!

 

[rhduggan]

2023-12-28
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 3
Water somewhat cloudy in the morning and clearing throughout the day.
Lights on 10 hours. Testing and dosing at 8PM.
Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
KH/Alkalinity: 8.9
Ammonia 0.30 ppm
Nitrite 0.006 ppm
Nitrate 18.30 ppm
Added: Nitro Bac = 17.5 ml, NoPox = 4.5 ml

 

[rhduggan]

2023-12-29
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 4
NoPoX = 4.5 ml

2023-12-30
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 5

Still nothing visibly growing and hardly anything to be found under the microscope. Removed ReefMat fleece and carbon on the advice of folks in the Facebook groups. Re-dosed bacteria startup solution and nutrient solution.

Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
KH/Alkalinity: 7.7
Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 12 ml
Nitro Bac: 35 ml
Bacto Start: 17.5 ml
NoPox: 3.5 ml

 

[rhduggan]

2023-12-31
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 6

Still nothing visibly growing.

Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.2
KH/Alkalinity: 7.5
Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 15.75 ml
NoPox: 4.5 ml

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-01
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 7

Still nothing visibly growing.

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
KH/Alkalinity: 7.7 dKH
Ammonia 0.23 ppm
Nitrite 0.015 ppm
Nitrate 31.20 ppm
Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 4 ml
Nitro Bac: 8.75 ml
Bacto Start: 17.5 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

At this point I'm beginning to think there isn't enough biota in the tank to start algae growing. The rock is Marco and CaribSea, and the Aragonite sand is CaribSea. The rock is all artificial and, although I read somewhere that it is supposedly "seeded" with bacteria it is not live rock. The sand is harvested from the ocean and I would think would carry some dormant biota. We did rinse it before putting it in, but no amount of rinsing should be able to remove all the microorganisms that could be hiding in it. But, again, it's all dry, packaged stuff. The setup videos I've watched still seem to imply that a nitrogen cycle will start without live rock, and we do see some change in the parameters that seem to indicate something is happening, but no "uglies" have appeared.

I think tomorrow is the day we go with the LFS guy's recommendation and introduce a couple of clowns and a piece of his rock. He and his admirers seem 100% sure this is the way to go, and the clowns will be fine.

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-02
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 8

Still nothing visibly growing.

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 4 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-03
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 9

Still nothing visibly growing. We did a 4 gal water change before testing and learned that testing shortly after a WC is probably not the best time to get new numbers. Ammonia, etc., going up is NOT what we expected!

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
KH/Alkalinity: 7.3 dKH
Ammonia 0.71 ppm
Nitrite 0.057 ppm
Nitrate 49.20 ppm
Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 4 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

We went to our LFS guy's place anyway, but it turned out he was closed, so no new advice or tank occupants today.

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-04
Red Sea Reef Mature process Day 10

Still nothing visibly growing. Today is the day we went back to our LFS (open this time) and decided to follow his advice, and the advice of others on here, and get our clowns and a piece of his live rock. Everyone in his store says his methods consistently produce good results and they have tank pictures to prove it. Here's hoping.

Parameters before heading to the store:
Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
Ammonia 0.34 ppm

Our little guys (one of which will hopefully become a girl) checking out their reflections. They are really tiny and really hungry. Every time we walk into the room, they come begging.

A closeup of some kind of bivalve on our piece of live rock, which also has some tiny feather dusters, some sponge, and some other unidentified crawlies. Hopefully no real baddies! Late last night we watched the sponge release streams of what we suppose are gametes. Daughter marine biologist in training thinks the sponge is stressed and throwing gametes out there in a desperate act of self-preservation (or, perhaps more appropriately, self-perpetuation).

Parameters 8 hours after adding fish, store water, and live rock:
Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
Ammonia 0.52 ppm

Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 4 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-05
Red Sea Reef Mature process (modified) Day 11

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
Ammonia 0.29 ppm

Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 15.75 ml
NoPox: 4.5 ml

Our little clowns are active and hungry. We started feeding frozen brine shrimp today along with the green flakes. They absolutely love those shrimps!

We had the gyre pump running but have shut it off for now. We only had it on 10% random, but it seemed to make the clowns have to keep swimming vigorously all the time and we don't want to overtax them. They seem to prefer to stay in the upper portion of the tank all the time and don't go down where it's quieter much. There are definitely places in the tank where they could get a rest, but they don't seem to want to go there.

We're very happy to see the ammonia falling again, back almost to where it was on day one. I know it's still elevated, but we're going to keep testing every day at 8 PM and only test nitrite again after a bit of watching the ammonia level. Watching Dr. Tim Hovenek's video and reading other posts we've come to understand that elevated levels of some components interfere with other tests, particularly ammonium affecting the ammonia test and nitrite affecting the nitrate test. We are using the Hanna multi-test spectrometer, BTW.

There are a lot of other critters that came in on that one piece of rock. We think a bristle worm and possible tiny sea cucumbers, along with sponge and tube worms. Not sure how much of it will survive with so little stuff floating around in the water, but we don't want to over feed and cause an ammonia spike. Of course, if too many of the critters die that could cause an ammonia spike, too, but the biggest critter is that bivalve, which is still attached to the same spot on the rock and siphoning away. My daughter tried squirting some mysis shrimp remnants near it to see if we can keep it fed. There may also be another one trapped inside a crevice in the rock. It looks like it might have grown in there to the point where it can't escape.

So many things to wonder about, but a lot of very interesting fun watching everything appear and trying to figure out what they are.

 

[Luckki]

Reading on here I learned the first thing we need to worry about is getting the water right. So here is our RODI setup, which we plumbed into an unused closet where the septic line runs out of the house. Conveniently, the backwash lines from the main water treatment system run right through that closet and out to a sump we have to dispose of the brine from the water softener (saltwater is NOT good for your septic system). So I tapped into the line to run the waste water from the RODI to the same sump. Our first 30 gallons of DI is already made and waiting for us to get the tank set up. You can see the DI resin is being depleted rather quickly because of the CO2 in the well water. Since the tank/sump volume is only 52 gal total I think we can live with that rate of depletion rather than getting more complicated.

you sir are a genius, I am building a shelf for my brute and installing a hull flange and ball valve. today!

 

[rhduggan]

you sir are a genius, I am building a shelf for my brute and installing a hull flange and ball valve. today!

Genius? Uh, no. But glad to have helped!

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-06
Red Sea Reef Mature process (modified) Day 12

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 7.9
KH/Alkalinity: 7.3 dKH
Ammonia 0.17 ppm

Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 19.25 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

The clowns seem to be doing well and eat heartily. We are feeding them green flakes a few times a day and frozen brine shrimp every other day.

The other hitchhiker members of our biome continue to live, for now. The algae on the rock seems to have died back a bit and we continue to run with the lights out except on low when we are working on something and feeding the fish.

We have a bit of mystery with alkalinity. The Reef Mature instructions say to calculate the amount of KH Coraline Grow to raise the alkalinity to 8.4 dKH, but no amount seems to budge the number much above 7. Today we discovered that it's precipitating as soon as it's dosed into the pump chamber (as recommended). Cecily stirred up the precipitate so that it would be conveyed into the DT but, as you will see on the next day, it's not moving the alk much at all.

 

[rhduggan]

2024-01-07
Red Sea Reef Mature process (modified) Day 13

Temp: 79 F
Salinity: 1.025 SG
pH: 8.0
KH/Alkalinity: 7.6 dKH
Ammonia 0.14 ppm
Nitrite: 0.095

Added:
KH Coraline Grow: 4.0 ml
NoPox: 5.25 ml

The alkalinity mystery continues. We dosed the KH Coraline Grow directly into the DT today and watched it precipitate immediately and float around the tank in little bits before settling or being skimmed. Is this at all normal? We don't know. You can see that the massive (but correctly calculated) dose yesterday barely budged the dKH, although the pH did come back up to 8.0. I'm going to post the question to the Red Sea Owners group on Facebook and see if anyone has answers. If not, I'll move on to Red Sea Support.

The fish continue to thrive (apparently) and all other parameters seem to be falling into place. According to Dr. Tim's video, we only need to be concerned about the developing bacterial colonies if the nitrite rises above 5 mg/L / 5 ppm. Right now, the ammonia is falling nicely, and we can see that the nitrite has risen slowly from a starting point of .006 ppm to .095 ppm. I can't say enough about how informative and straightforward his video is. If we had come across it before starting, we would have followed his process to the letter. As it is it's very valuable just to heed his general guidance to the effect of (paraphrasing), "Is the ammonia indicator yellow or green?" (ours is now light yellow), "Is the nitrate indicator dark purple? You've got a problem." (ours is light pink). I think we're well on the way to a healthy bacterial biome, but we're going to add some Dr. Tim's All for One anyway, to help our chemolithoautotropes outcompete the heterotropes. If you don't know what that means, you really need to watch that video!

 

[rhduggan]

I have been neglectful of our build thread and need to catch up. We have given in to temptation and added some livestock ahead of recommendations. May the reef tank gods forgive us! I need to make some other posts, but here's a current situation:

Meet Front Fish (Chrysiptera parasema). Front Fish used to be buddies with Back Fish (also Chrysiptera parasema), who you can see in the first picture. Then Front Fish decided he/she did not like Back Fish anymore, and now Back Fish must stay in the back corner if he/she does not want to be constantly picked on. Front Fish has decided that he/she owns the center portion of the tank. Front Fish also tries to bully Mimi (Gramma loreto), but Mimi ain't havin' it. Although Mimi used to be scared of everything, she/he opens her/his mouth and flares her/his fins and gill plates and stands her/his ground. Meanwhile our two Amphiprion ocellaris ignore all the drama and pal around and Front Fish leaves them alone. Occasionally, Back Fish will come out anyway and try to pal around with Front Fish like old times. Front Fish will tolerate it for a bit, then chase Back Fish back to the corner.

What gives? What the heck is Front Fish's problem? We have considered several options:
a) Giving Front Fish a ride on the Porcelain Express (seriously, but not seriously).
b) Taking Back Fish back to the LFS
c) Getting another Chrysitera parasema so we create a triangle for Front Fish to try to deal with.
d) Just letting them work it out.