Trying to "do it right": My RedSea Reefer-S 850

[jmichaelh7]

Of course it’s probably mentioned… “Quarantine”

 

[beesnreefs]

Big week in our reef keeping journey...

A little over two years ago a local family opened an LFS a mile from where I live. It's called Biggs Lagoon. The Nelsons are kind, helpful, dedicated, and very much out to help people like me succeed. That's what gave me the courage to start getting serious about keeping a reef tank.

I bought a whole setup from them shortly after they opened shop, a JB 65 tank and stand. Here's how it looked about a month ago:

I put a lot of hear and soul into that tank. I also outgrew it and learned a ton in the process. Which is why I decided to pull the trigger on my RS Reefer 850 G2.

I also promised my wife our house wouldn't ever look like the downtown aquarium...and, in truth, maintaining one tank brings me a ton of joy but with my schedule having to maintain two would be too much. So I decided to sell the JBJ 65. First, I moved all my "nicer" corals to the RSR 850. Then, this past Tuesday, the Biggs boys came over and helped me tear down the JBJ, catch the fish, and move them to the bigger tank. That evening a young reefer came over and bought my entire JBJ 65 setup off me so he could start his journey keeping corals.

So now that space looks like this:

Bittersweet, for sure.

But with every bitter moment comes a sweet one....

I now have my first of 3 tangs in the 850! Mango the Tango (my white-tailed bristletooth) was moved from the JBJ along with Melton the Melanurus wrasse and Graham the world's biggest Royal Gramma (he's easily 4+ inches and looks like a swimming cigar).

I also got my replacement Exquisite wrasse from @Dr. Reef yesterday. He looks great today!



Next week I'll be getting a Gem tang and Blonde Naso tang from @tsmaquatics (they were supposed to arrive the same day of the JBJ tear down so all 3 tangs would go in together but TSM had an emergency on the shipping day and had to delay it.)

It's all coming together! Now to fill that rock space with my favorite corals...when's the next coral show???

 

[beesnreefs]

I’m proud of myself for the restraint I’ve had with this tank. With my last tank I often feel victim to my desire to “futz with things”.

Uglies? I should be able to intervene. Algae? There’s got to be a quick fix. Nutrients not “perfect”? Dose, dose, dose!

I had a plan with this tank to get it up and running, healthy and stable. I’ve stuck to it and it seems to be paying off.

The little bit of uglies I’ve had in the last few weeks seem to be resolving. The sand bed has stayed quite clean throughout (most of the uglies have been on the dry Marco rock, which was expected).

Corals are happy and showing signs of resuming new growth. In my last tank I couldn’t even keep a digi frag alive until well past the year mark. In this one I’ve got some acros fluffy and coloring up at just three months.

Nothing good happens fast in reefing. Slow, steady, and intentional seems to be the way to go.

 

[beesnreefs]

With my two final fish coming from @tsmaquatics today, I’ve been watching my other 12 fish the past few days. I started to worry I might have done too much NSA and not enough H in my HNSA aquascape. There’s a spot beneath an arch I’m not likely to put corals. It’s also open sandbed. So I built a fifth rock structure last night to serve as an additional cave.

Just added it to the tank:

I’ve already seen my white-tailed bristletooth tang exploring it. That’s good because I’ve got a gem and blonde Naso tang coming today. The WTBT tang has established a sleepy hole in a similar structure on the other side of the tank. Hoping this structure becomes a home for one of the other tangs.

Here’s a little vid of the new structure:



Stark difference in color between the new Marco rock and the stuff that’s been in the tank for three months!

 

[beesnreefs]

Big day today. 24 hours late…but the fish list is complete!

So my tangs were supposed to arrive yesterday. Until they weren’t. A delay from UPS meant the sat in a warehouse somewhere until today. 48 hours from boxing up to making it my home. I was a mess waiting for the them to arrive, terrified they would show up DOA.

Thanks to the excellent care and packaging by the awesome people at @tsmaquatics both fish showed up alive! The gem tang was fairly stressed but bounced back quickly. Naso seemed unfazed by the entire adventure.

After a little minor to moderate hissy fit by my white-tailed bristletooth tang, everyone seems to be settling in just fine



My 14 happy, healthy fishies means my fish-plan has been achieved. I’m delighted.

Now I can focus on building up my coral collection!

 

[beesnreefs]

Well, the blonde naso died this morning. I’m a bit heartbroken

Arrived Wednesday after a 2-day trip. Like I shared above, it was the Gem who seemed stressed by the trip. The Naso seemed perfectly fine. All day Wednesday and into Thursday he continued to seem fine.

I had to leave for a work trip Thursday afternoon. Friday my wife mentioned that she hadn’t really seen him eat. Saturday she sent me a short video that he was hiding in a cave. I got home Saturday night. Sunday morning we found him lying on side on the sand, motionless. I thought he was dead. He wasn’t.

All day Sunday he bounced between slow swimming and laying on the sand. Based on advice from from HumbleFish experts we thought it may have been a delayed reaction to ammonia poisoning so we moved him to a hospital tank with methylene blue.

This morning he died.

I feel like I let this fish down. Maybe I should have been more proactive about the hospital tank? It sucks. Was so excited to get these two tangs.

Gem is doing great. Active, plump, eating nori…gorgeous fish.

One small bit of good news. A couple months ago I asked Dr Reef about getting a supermale Lineatus wrasse. Informed over the weekend they got one and he successfully completed full quarantine! So I’m getting him in a couple of weeks.

Debating on if I wanna try a naso again…by the time I get one I’ll have two established tangs in the tank (and a big genicanthus male Angel)…not sure if I wanna risk rocking the boat…

Mostly for my own knowledge in tracking things…I also glued down my 15 SPS frags…these were holdovers from the old tank. Really excited to see them grow and color up under the Stratons

 

[RockyMountainReefing]

Big week in our reef keeping journey...

A little over two years ago a local family opened an LFS a mile from where I live. It's called Biggs Lagoon. The Nelsons are kind, helpful, dedicated, and very much out to help people like me succeed. That's what gave me the courage to start getting serious about keeping a reef tank.

I bought a whole setup from them shortly after they opened shop, a JB 65 tank and stand. Here's how it looked about a month ago:

I put a lot of hear and soul into that tank. I also outgrew it and learned a ton in the process. Which is why I decided to pull the trigger on my RS Reefer 850 G2.

I also promised my wife our house wouldn't ever look like the downtown aquarium...and, in truth, maintaining one tank brings me a ton of joy but with my schedule having to maintain two would be too much. So I decided to sell the JBJ 65. First, I moved all my "nicer" corals to the RSR 850. Then, this past Tuesday, the Biggs boys came over and helped me tear down the JBJ, catch the fish, and move them to the bigger tank. That evening a young reefer came over and bought my entire JBJ 65 setup off me so he could start his journey keeping corals.

So now that space looks like this:

Bittersweet, for sure.

But with every bitter moment comes a sweet one....

I now have my first of 3 tangs in the 850! Mango the Tango (my white-tailed bristletooth) was moved from the JBJ along with Melton the Melanurus wrasse and Graham the world's biggest Royal Gramma (he's easily 4+ inches and looks like a swimming cigar).

I also got my replacement Exquisite wrasse from @Dr. Reef yesterday. He looks great today!



Next week I'll be getting a Gem tang and Blonde Naso tang from @tsmaquatics (they were supposed to arrive the same day of the JBJ tear down so all 3 tangs would go in together but TSM had an emergency on the shipping day and had to delay it.)

It's all coming together! Now to fill that rock space with my favorite corals...when's the next coral show???

I live in Brighton, Bigs set met me up with my used Redsea 260, good people. Anyhow I’m following your journey. I’m cycling my rock in a tub now about ready to fill the tank just waiting for aquaBiomics to get some rock/sand back in stock. I’m really hoping ur ugly stage goes by fast.

 

[beesnreefs]

I live in Brighton, Bigs set met me up with my used Redsea 260, good people. Anyhow I’m following your journey. I’m cycling my rock in a tub now about ready to fill the tank just waiting for aquaBiomics to get some rock/sand back in stock. I’m really hoping ur ugly stage goes by fast.

Thanks for following! Biggs is the bomb. Just love them.

Im excited for your new setup! So fun setting up a tank. What kind of rock are you cycling? What did you seed it with? I hope you can get the AquaBiomics sand/rock…just love what they doing to help us develop a healthy biome in our tanks. Do you have a build thread?

I’ve been pretty happy with how the uglies have gone in my tank. A couple of weeks ago I increased my lighting intensity…I’m slowly trying to get all my sticks to 300ish PAR. Definitely seeing more film on the glass as the tank adjusts to the more intense light but the uglies haven’t really gotten any worse.

Thinking back I might have gone two months with no light instead of one but overall I’m happy with how things are going.

 

[RockyMountainReefing]

Thanks for following! Biggs is the bomb. Just love them.

Im excited for your new setup! So fun setting up a tank. What kind of rock are you cycling? What did you seed it with? I hope you can get the AquaBiomics sand/rock…just love what they doing to help us develop a healthy biome in our tanks. Do you have a build thread?

I’ve been pretty happy with how the uglies have gone in my tank. A couple of weeks ago I increased my lighting intensity…I’m slowly trying to get all my sticks to 300ish PAR. Definitely seeing more film on the glass as the tank adjusts to the more intense light but the uglies haven’t really gotten any worse.

Thinking back I might have gone two months with no light instead of one but overall I’m happy with how things are going.

I’m just using XLM, cycle is complete. I’m think of just ordering live rock rubble from Tampa Bay Saltwater and risk it. Get the tank going and leave lights off for 2 months with only 2 clowns so the biome can seed. I’m using dead Marco rock that I acid bath and cured. I don’t have a build thread I’ll start when the tank is filled. Man U are sure hitting your tank hard I wish u best of luck.

 

[beesnreefs]

Been out of town most of the week for work but back home now. Last weekend I glued down the 15 SPS frags I’ve been holding for this tank. Today I was just enjoying the fish all happy soon shot a little video:



Kinda funny…when they were on the frag rack it looked like so many sticks! Glued down in the is beast it looks like almost nothing. Grow little guys…you can do it!

 

[Bwow]

Been out of town most of the week for work but back home now. Last weekend I glued down the 15 SPS frags I’ve been holding for this tank. Today I was just enjoying the fish all happy soon shot a little video:



Kinda funny…when they were on the frag rack it looked like so many sticks! Glued down in the is beast it looks like almost nothing. Grow little guys…you can do it!

Looking good man! I've started my 3xl 900 tank late September.. Still working out the kinks of the valve, diatoms are just starting so I got some rowaphos to help with phosphates and taking it steady.. only a few clowns, a duncan an elegance some zoas (which i think are beginning to die :\ ) and green star polyp. Lost a clown somehow, cannot find it at all, some crabs killed other crabs... but baby steps

 

[beesnreefs]

Well, things sure went south on me. I've learned a lot these last few weeks...

This is a long update because a lot has happened. This past month has been a litany of issues.

Dino's: My nutrients bottomed out in October. Slowly, but surely, dinos took over. I finally got a microscope and confirmed I had a breakout of small cell amphidinium. It got bad enough to impact corals and I lost a head from my old Todd's Torch colony. Eventually, two other torch colonies succumbed to the mess. I think they were stressed enough to have BJD take over them.

The tank got SUPER ugly, including the water column looking like a bacterial bloom (which I now believe was just the dinos).

Flukes: I've been careful to only get fish from reputable, quarantined sources. The three fish that moved to this tank from my old tank came from quarantined sources and I had an AquaBiomics eDNA test run on my old tank prior to moving, confirming no detectable diseases or parasites. In early November I had two tangs (a gem and blonde naso) shipped to me from TSM Aquatics. The shipment was delayed so they were in transit for over48 hours. They arrived stressed but generally OK and bounced back quickly in my tank. However, 3-4 days later the naso started looking bad...hanging on the sand bed beneath an outcropping and not really eating. Over the day he got worse so I moved him to a small hospital tank with supplemental oxygen and methylene blue. He died several hours later. That's when the badness began, fish-wise.

The next weekend my royal gramma, who I've had for over 2 years and is as fat and happy a fish as anyone, started behaving oddly one evening. The next morning he was laying on the sand bed, no motion. I thought he was dead but when I went to remove him he jerked and started breathing heavy. So I moved him to a hospital tank where he died a few hours later.

The next morning I woke up to find my female bellus angel dead on the sand. Later that morning my male lyretail anthias quickly declined and died. A day or so later my bristletooth tang started showing clear signs of black ich (flukes).

Mystery disease: I'm fairly certain now I have some sort of secondary disease in my tank. Not sure what or where it came from (I suspect that blonde naso brought something with it). As you'll read below, I treated the flukes with praziquantel multiple times and still lost my midas blenny afterward. That, combined with how the other fish died, has me convinced there is something else (perhaps velvet?) going on.

Torches/Gonis: Just before the dinos got really bad my torches and gonis started acting upset, not really extending, and I lost a head of a Todd's Torch. I'm certain this was stress from both the bottomed out nutrients and the dinos growing everywhere. However, in the past 3 days I've lost two torches (the two that were most stressed during the bad dino phase) to BJD.

WHAT I DID:

For the dinos...

• Got a microscope and confirmed SCA
• Stopped water changes
• Ran an ICP test and corrected all trace elements
• Stopped dosing liquid aminos
• Continued dosing live phyto daily
• Added 128 oz of 7-species blend copepods from Jay's Reef Bugs
• Testing nitrates and phosphates daily, dosing NeoNitro and NeoPhos to maintain 100:1 ratio of 3-5 nitrates, 0.03 - 0.05 phosphates
• Dosing beneficial bacteria daily, rotating between Microbacter7, EcoBalance, and AF LifeSource
• Ordered 8 pounds of Tampa Bay Live Rock rubble, arriving in 2 days

In just 2+ weeks of this I've seen significant improvement. My sand bed is probably 80% white now and I bet I've eliminated roughly 70% of all dinos. I do have some patches of cyano now but nothing terrible and I think if I stay the course that will resolve eventually as well. The tank is so much cleaner...I can see through the water column from end to end now!

For the fish....

• Dosed PraziPro to the tank according to instructions. Planned on dosing 7 days later per typical recommendations.
• On Day 6 my midas blenny began actively flashing, "chasing his tail", and swimming primarily at the top of the water column. Later that day I found noticeable white "salt" on his body.
• Thinking it was a resistant strain of flukes, per advice, I dosed PraziPro again on Days 6, 8, and planned for Day 10.
• On Day 9 the Midas Blenny deteriorated quickly - laying on the sand, breathing heavy, pale - and died within a few hours.
• At this point my tang had improved significantly. No visible signs of flukes at all, better appetite, more active...but still acting a bit odd (mostly staying in caves and under ledges, very jumpy, still a bit pale in color).
• Instead of dosing PraziPro, I applied carbon to the tank and started this regiment of hydrogen peroxide dosing.
• Planning on dosing the peroxide for at least 8 weeks.
• I'll also be running both Aquabiomics biome and eDNA tests this week and then again after the 8+ weeks of peroxide dosing.

Although I am still ramping up the H2O2 and have not reached "therapeutic" levels yet I can see improvement in my fish. They are more active, out and about, no more flashing, color returned, appetite strong.

For the torches...

• I started a round of ciprofloxacin yesterday.
• I have carbon in the tank now - that combined with the peroxide dosing will reduce efficacy of the cipro. But with two cases of BJD close to each other and no other coral hospital option, I felt the need to do something.
• I'm dosing at a little higher than 0.125 mg/L (more like 0.14 mg/L) to try and compensate.
• I'll dose every other day for 4 treatments unless I see more BJD

This past month has been a rollercoaster. I feel like I've learned some hard lessons:

1. It is critical to establish a healthy biome in a new tank. Starting from dry rock is possible if it is supplemented by a source (or sources) of healthy, diverse, balanced biome elsewhere....and that biome has enough time to fully establish
2. It is critical to track nutrients closely while a new tank establishes and equalizes. Do not let nutrients bottom out!
3. Having reputable, trustworthy sources for "clean" fish is important. And nothing is 100%. I see the value in having an at-home QT setup. I also see the value in having a QT vendor who doesn't just treat fish for 30 days, but holds them a few weeks after treatment to be sure they are solid.
4. It's helpful to have a microscope. At first I thought the brown stuff in my tank was crysophytes and figured it would resolve on its own over time as the fuel from the dry rock was consumed (I went through this with another tank). Our eyes cannot replace a microscope. Perhaps if I had confirmed dinos a few weeks earlier I could have avoided the loss of coral.
5. Despite our best efforts, something will eventually go wrong. It's discouraging, heartbreaking, and emotionally expensive. Persistence and perseverance is critical to this hobby. So is a supportive spouse

 

[CoralDanimal]

Well, things sure went south on me. I've learned a lot these last few weeks...

This is a long update because a lot has happened. This past month has been a litany of issues.

Dino's: My nutrients bottomed out in October. Slowly, but surely, dinos took over. I finally got a microscope and confirmed I had a breakout of small cell amphidinium. It got bad enough to impact corals and I lost a head from my old Todd's Torch colony. Eventually, two other torch colonies succumbed to the mess. I think they were stressed enough to have BJD take over them.

The tank got SUPER ugly, including the water column looking like a bacterial bloom (which I now believe was just the dinos).

Flukes: I've been careful to only get fish from reputable, quarantined sources. The three fish that moved to this tank from my old tank came from quarantined sources and I had an AquaBiomics eDNA test run on my old tank prior to moving, confirming no detectable diseases or parasites. In early November I had two tangs (a gem and blonde naso) shipped to me from TSM Aquatics. The shipment was delayed so they were in transit for over48 hours. They arrived stressed but generally OK and bounced back quickly in my tank. However, 3-4 days later the naso started looking bad...hanging on the sand bed beneath an outcropping and not really eating. Over the day he got worse so I moved him to a small hospital tank with supplemental oxygen and methylene blue. He died several hours later. That's when the badness began, fish-wise.

The next weekend my royal gramma, who I've had for over 2 years and is as fat and happy a fish as anyone, started behaving oddly one evening. The next morning he was laying on the sand bed, no motion. I thought he was dead but when I went to remove him he jerked and started breathing heavy. So I moved him to a hospital tank where he died a few hours later.

The next morning I woke up to find my female bellus angel dead on the sand. Later that morning my male lyretail anthias quickly declined and died. A day or so later my bristletooth tang started showing clear signs of black ich (flukes).

Mystery disease: I'm fairly certain now I have some sort of secondary disease in my tank. Not sure what or where it came from (I suspect that blonde naso brought something with it). As you'll read below, I treated the flukes with praziquantel multiple times and still lost my midas blenny afterward. That, combined with how the other fish died, has me convinced there is something else (perhaps velvet?) going on.

Torches/Gonis: Just before the dinos got really bad my torches and gonis started acting upset, not really extending, and I lost a head of a Todd's Torch. I'm certain this was stress from both the bottomed out nutrients and the dinos growing everywhere. However, in the past 3 days I've lost two torches (the two that were most stressed during the bad dino phase) to BJD.

WHAT I DID:

For the dinos...

• Got a microscope and confirmed SCA
• Stopped water changes
• Ran an ICP test and corrected all trace elements
• Stopped dosing liquid aminos
• Continued dosing live phyto daily
• Added 128 oz of 7-species blend copepods from Jay's Reef Bugs
• Testing nitrates and phosphates daily, dosing NeoNitro and NeoPhos to maintain 100:1 ratio of 3-5 nitrates, 0.03 - 0.05 phosphates
• Dosing beneficial bacteria daily, rotating between Microbacter7, EcoBalance, and AF LifeSource
• Ordered 8 pounds of Tampa Bay Live Rock rubble, arriving in 2 days

In just 2+ weeks of this I've seen significant improvement. My sand bed is probably 80% white now and I bet I've eliminated roughly 70% of all dinos. I do have some patches of cyano now but nothing terrible and I think if I stay the course that will resolve eventually as well. The tank is so much cleaner...I can see through the water column from end to end now!

For the fish....

• Dosed PraziPro to the tank according to instructions. Planned on dosing 7 days later per typical recommendations.
• On Day 6 my midas blenny began actively flashing, "chasing his tail", and swimming primarily at the top of the water column. Later that day I found noticeable white "salt" on his body.
• Thinking it was a resistant strain of flukes, per advice, I dosed PraziPro again on Days 6, 8, and planned for Day 10.
• On Day 9 the Midas Blenny deteriorated quickly - laying on the sand, breathing heavy, pale - and died within a few hours.
• At this point my tang had improved significantly. No visible signs of flukes at all, better appetite, more active...but still acting a bit odd (mostly staying in caves and under ledges, very jumpy, still a bit pale in color).
• Instead of dosing PraziPro, I applied carbon to the tank and started this regiment of hydrogen peroxide dosing.
• Planning on dosing the peroxide for at least 8 weeks.
• I'll also be running both Aquabiomics biome and eDNA tests this week and then again after the 8+ weeks of peroxide dosing.

Although I am still ramping up the H2O2 and have not reached "therapeutic" levels yet I can see improvement in my fish. They are more active, out and about, no more flashing, color returned, appetite strong.

For the torches...

• I started a round of ciprofloxacin yesterday.
• I have carbon in the tank now - that combined with the peroxide dosing will reduce efficacy of the cipro. But with two cases of BJD close to each other and no other coral hospital option, I felt the need to do something.
• I'm dosing at a little higher than 0.125 mg/L (more like 0.14 mg/L) to try and compensate.
• I'll dose every other day for 4 treatments unless I see more BJD

This past month has been a rollercoaster. I feel like I've learned some hard lessons:

1. It is critical to establish a healthy biome in a new tank. Starting from dry rock is possible if it is supplemented by a source (or sources) of healthy, diverse, balanced biome elsewhere....and that biome has enough time to fully establish
2. It is critical to track nutrients closely while a new tank establishes and equalizes. Do not let nutrients bottom out!
3. Having reputable, trustworthy sources for "clean" fish is important. And nothing is 100%. I see the value in having an at-home QT setup. I also see the value in having a QT vendor who doesn't just treat fish for 30 days, but holds them a few weeks after treatment to be sure they are solid.
4. It's helpful to have a microscope. At first I thought the brown stuff in my tank was crysophytes and figured it would resolve on its own over time as the fuel from the dry rock was consumed (I went through this with another tank). Our eyes cannot replace a microscope. Perhaps if I had confirmed dinos a few weeks earlier I could have avoided the loss of coral.
5. Despite our best efforts, something will eventually go wrong. It's discouraging, heartbreaking, and emotionally expensive. Persistence and perseverance is critical to this hobby. So is a supportive spouse

What a rough turn of events! Seems like you're being as thoughtful and level-headed about all of it as possible. How are things now a few weeks later?

 

[beesnreefs]

What a rough turn of events! Seems like you're being as thoughtful and level-headed about all of it as possible. How are things now a few weeks later?

Thanks! Certainly trying my best to stay level-headed and work through things.

A few weeks later and I'm more hopeful. Some updates:

• I've been at full therapeutic levels of peroxide for 2 weeks now and it's going quite well. No more fish loss! My WTBT tang is better than ever. He looks gorgeous, as if nothing ever happened to him.
• All other fish seem healthy, fat, and active. One of the remaining female lyretail anthias is starting to transition to male.
• Corals are a bit of mixed bag. No more torch loss - in fact, the torches look to be 100% back to fully happy. Two of my gonis are coming back (slowly), including my amazeballs colony. My highlighter goni and a bernado colony are still quite cranky, though neither has died. I recently moved them to lower light in hopes that might help them recover. I lost 4 small SPS frags. All other sticks are doing very well with great polyp extension and signs they are starting to grow again.
• Dinos are continuing to recede. I still see them under the microscope but in significantly fewer numbers. I can also tell they are receding based on my ReefMat roll usage. At one point it was cranking through 12 feet of roll a day!!! Yesterday it used "only" 58 inches.
• I do have a bit of red cyano now but I'm trying to go the slow and steady route with it. Sucking the mats out once a week or so, adding bacteria daily (a rotation of MB7, EcoBalance, and LifeSource), and letting the tank mature.
• I continue to test nitrates, phosphates, and alk daily. In the last week I've noticed alk is finally going down indicating coral growth so I restarted All For Reef daily. Nitrates/phosphates are slowly starting to stabilize - at the beginning I was dosing both every day, sometimes in pretty big amounts. I now go 2-4 days without having to dose. I also test magnesium at least once a week and calcium every couple of weeks.

Overall, I think I am getting ahead of all these issues. Reallllly curious to see what the @AquaBiomics tests show. Looks like I should have results back mid-January.

I had ordered some fish from Dr Reef but asked him to hold them while I figured things out. Pretty confident I can add healthy, QTd fish again so I've got 2 wrasses coming next week (lineatus and blue streaked cleaner). Hoping to be back to my full fish population by mid-March.

Now if I can just get the WiFi/new app figured out for my @ATI North America Stratons.....

 

[ATI North America]

Now if I can just get the WiFi/new app figured out for my @ATI North America Stratons.....

[email protected]

 

[beesnreefs]

After two months of battling dinos and the peroxide dosing to try and bounce back from the horrible loss of fish I was enduring I finally turned a corner. Fish seem to be doing great, dinos are almost gone, and corals are starting to thrive again (visually and as evidenced by increasing daily consumption of alk). I do have a moderate cyano issue but I’m confident if I stay the course with everything I’m doing now it’ll resolve in time.

It’s given me renewed confidence so yesterday I got three new hammers to start my hammer garden. I also ordered some new QT’d fish.

The water is clear again!


Torch island and hammer garden looking nice:

 

[Subsea]

I will follow with some questions.

 

[Subsea]

Talk to me about your systrn biological filtration.

 

[beesnreefs]

Talk to me about your systrn biological filtration.

Started with Marco dry rock for the aquascape and around 120lb of OceanDirect live sand. Seeded after cycling with mud and sand from ISPF.

When I had dinos (because I let nutrients bottom out so totally my fault) I added around 10 lbs of live ocean rock from AquaBiomics and Tampa Bay Saltwater. All in the sump. I also add live bacteria every day - a rotation of 10 mL MB7, 10 mL EcoBalance, and 10-20 mL LifeSource

 

[Petcrazyson]

Following