Vette's 180 reef with basement filtration room

[Vette67]

Hey! I also have these in my main display tank and didn’t know what they were! Other than asterinas which you say are eating them, have you noticed these tube worms damaging any corals or causing any issues?

I have had no problem with the mini feather duster tube worms. And I haven’t heard stories about anyone having problems with them either. I probably have thousands of them in my sump. They are harmless and are a good hitch hiker, usually coming in on live rock. I think they are an excellent part of your cleanup crew, and the sign of a healthy, well established tank.

 

[HuduVudu]

So, here's to unintended consequences. I wrote about how I replumbed my biopellet reactor to feed directly into my skimmer, and then noticed a few weeks after that, how much extra skimmate I was getting in my collection cup. I still get an insane amount of skimmate. And here I was thinking that this was a good thing. Turns out that I am completely stripping nutrients from my system, much more efficiently than I thought I was. I bought this one frag about 2 or 3 years ago and it has been growing along nicely. A few weeks ago, I noticed this acro changed from a brownish tan color to almost white. I knew there was a change going on with it. When I bought the frag, it was white, but it turned tan in my tank. So I figured it was going back to it's original color. The tips still had a nice light purple color, so it otherwise looked pretty good. Until today. Now today I can see the flesh falling off around the base, RTN. I think it's dead. I'm going to break off some of the frag tips and see if I can save it, but I have a feeling it's a goner. I turned down the flow through my biopellet reactor to about half of what it was, so that the pellets are barely tumbling at all. I'm debating whether I should take it offline all together. Fortunately, all of my other acros are doing fine. For n ow.

You wanna know what's crazy? My refugium wall (40 gallon breeder), is covered with cyanno bacteria. Even the chaeto has some cyanno growing on it at the surface near the lights. So I don't know what to think. My fuge tells me I have a nutrient problem, and my acro tells me they are stripped... And my Hanna checker tells me my phosphate is undetectable at 0.00. So yeah, I stripped my tank clean....

I ran the biopellet reactor for years, just dumping it into my sump, and not directing the flow at my skimmer. But since re-plumbing the output of the biopellet reactor to my skimmer, and really increasing my skimmate output, that has made the biopellet reactor work WAY too efficiently.

I just recently pulled my anaerobic digester off of my system and I have to say the system does not like it. I was really pumping organics with that thing (two 1/4" balls of beef a day). I really think that organics play a much bigger role than what we think in coral growth. I am glad I put a plenum back on my new system, and now what happened here I am really glad. I also planned to go back to a skimmerless tank now that I have good gas exchange. This certianly seals the deal on high nutrients for me now.

Sorry this happened Vette ... hope that you can at least save some of it for future colonies.

 

[Vette67]

I just recently pulled my anaerobic digester off of my system and I have to say the system does not like it. I was really pumping organics with that thing (two 1/4" balls of beef a day). I really think that organics play a much bigger role than what we think in coral growth. I am glad I put a plenum back on my new system, and now what happened here I am really glad. I also planned to go back to a skimmerless tank now that I have good gas exchange. This certianly seals the deal on high nutrients for me now.

Sorry this happened Vette ... hope that you can at least save some of it for future colonies.

Thanks. Yeah, there has to be a happy medium on nutrients. Too low, and corals die. Too high, and corals die. Got to find the Goldilocks setting. Just right... So much for the ULN theory. I turned my skimmer level way down, and reduced the flow through my biopellet reactor. I knew a biopellet reactor was efficient, but didn’t think it was THIS efficient. I have probably barely over a cup of biopellets in my reactor on around 350 gallons of system volume. So it doesn’t take much... I guess too much carbon is not a good thing.

Rather than going all drastic and taking the reactor offline completely, I am going to see if I can tune it better. I’m hoping I don’t lose the colony, but we will see what happens. I already broke a few pieces off so we’ll see if they make it.

I don’t think I could go skimmer-less. It just seems like a foreign concept to me. I think with the 10 liters per minute of air that I run through my skimmer, that my pH would probably drop. I have no doubt that my skimmer is critical for my gas exchange, beyond just removing skimmate.

 

[Vette67]

I have been reading some other forum members talking about how much air flow they get through their skimmers (much bigger skimmers than mine), so I figured I'd try to see if I could figure out mine. I went on Amazon and purchased a flow gauge. And pretty much guessed on what size to get, because I had exactly no idea what my flow rate would be. Well, it turns out that I put about 10 liters per minute of air through my skimmer. Seems like a lot to me, but what do I know?? At any rate, I just thought I'd share. It's another fun little toy to answer a seemingly useless question, right? But at least now I know. I would be curious to know how the different skimmers compare to each other. Because I think that is really the main objective of a skimmer is to inject air into the water column. And I would think more air would be better than less air.

 

[Smarkow]

Fascinating. Playing with fire
As you know I am pro-ozone myself and have considered a biopellet reactor many times. Have you thought about having your biopellet reactor directed more towards your return pump intake, so that your sticks could feed on the bacterial mulm like in zeovit? That would let you have near-zero nutrients (I agree zero not ideal) but give the corals a sort of “first pass” chance at a meal before the skimmer gets them? If I have the biology of this wrong, someone please correct me, but I think this is how corals uptake much of their phosphate for tissue growth (phosphate being key for nucleic acid synthesis and corals being unable to fix inorganic phosphate from the water column).

Sorry for your lost stick :/ but also plan to get an airflow meter and test mine!!

Any updates?

 

[Vette67]

Well here’s the most recent tests. I have zero nitrate and .02 phosphate. So phosphate is at least detectable! Last week it was zero.

You are probably right about the mulm. I have read though, that for the most efficient nutrient removal, it was best for the biopellet reactor output to go directly into the skimmer. And that appears to be the case! Unfortunately with the way my manifold is set up, It is difficult to control where any output gets sucked in. It would be luck of the draw. But at least if I put the hose back over the top of the sump, instead of feeding directly into my skimmer, there’s a chance some will get sent upstairs to my DT. Unfortunately, this was an expensive exercise, only to shut it down within a month. But oh well, I’ve spent more on dumber things.

I used to run the biopellet return over the top of my sump for years, and didn’t have problems, so I think I came up with a solution in search of a problem, and only created more problems!

I will say, I don’t think the coral died. The part at the base where the flesh looked like it was coming off, stopped receding. I think the coral mostly survived. It does appear to be getting a tanner color, but it isn’t as tan as it was.

.

 

[HuduVudu]

Unfortunately, this was an expensive exercise ...

I think this should be the mantra of every reefer.

I will say, I don’t think the coral died. The part at the base where the flesh looked like it was coming off, stopped receding. I think the coral mostly survived. It does appear to be getting a tanner color, but it isn’t as tan as it was.

I hope that you didn't lose it. It was a large colony and those are hard to make.

 

[Smarkow]

But oh well, I’ve spent more On dumber things.

 

[Stang67]

Nice build!

 

[Vette67]

I've been wanting a blue coral for a long time. I haven't pulled the trigger, so I thought I would try this one. And today, I got my HOTO coral. It is Peng's Heart of the Ocean. Got it from @jda so it should be the real deal. He packaged it well, of course, and it arrived right on time. I pretty quickly got it out of the box, so I didn't take any pictures there, and then just dropped it in my tank to temperature acclimate.

After a while, I grabbed a piece of rock from my sump and stuck the frag there with some epoxy. It didn't take long, but polyps already started to extend. It is definitely a cool piece, but of course since I don't run any LED's, it's not as vibrant blue as it is in other people's tanks. Looks more purple under 14,000K halides. But it is still quite a cool color, and I am not disappointed.

I am going to leave it on the bottom of my tank for at least a few days, to let it get adjusted to my lights. So we will see how this one grows out. I hope it does well in my system.

 

[DC Reefer]

Just been going through this thread for the first time - thanks for sharing your build, it is really cool to see old school kicking butt!!!

 

[Vette67]

Just been going through this thread for the first time - thanks for sharing your build, it is really cool to see old school kicking butt!!!

Thanks. I'm going down kicking and screaming! I mostly don't see a point in replacing things that still work, and work well. So that's why I keep the old school stuff going. Plus now, it's almost a point of pride.

 

[Smarkow]

Thanks. I'm going down kicking and screaming! I mostly don't see a point in replacing things that still work, and work well. So that's why I keep the old school stuff going. Plus now, it's almost a point of pride.

Seriously. I regret basically every change I have made in the past 3y!!!! Once you are at a place that you like, stability is king

 

[Vette67]

Oh boy... I noticed this yesterday. Not sure what happened. All I know is it wasn’t me. Perhaps a clumsy tang knocked into it? I don’t know. or maybe an urchin skimmed over the top and took a bite. I do have 2 rock urchins in my 180. But the coral otherwise seems fine. Plenty of polyp extension and even seems to be encrusting around the base. I have heard of people clipping the tips of their acros to encourage growth, so maybe that is what will happen...

 

[HuduVudu]

Hopefully everything is good.

 

[Vette67]

I can’t seem to get my nitrates up to detectable levels. Most recent test is somewhere between zero and 1 ppm of nitrate, so I have to ask myself why I’m running a biopellet reactor. I have had this reactor running for years now, and things seemed to be going well, so I didn’t question it. My reading today:

So now the biopellet reactor has been removed. I have to empty out and dry the pellets before they start to stink, because they will start to smell nice if they stay wet.

I was noticing that whitish acro colony I’ve had for years was starting to STN again, more of its flesh is starting to fall off. I had this issue before, and it stabilized, and the acro even regained some of its tan coloration, but today I noticed more of the flesh coming off. Weird, because for as long as I’ve had this colony, I’ve been running biopellets. So it’s nothing new for this coral to be in a low nutrient environment.

You can see the center where it’s real dark, is where the death was from earlier and the bright white part is the new death.

I’m going to have to keep en eye on N and P in the coming days and weeks to make sure things don’t tank completely in the opposite direction. But if I have to make minor adjustments using some vodka, I can do that until I see where my levels stabilize.

 

[Vette67]

March 1, 2016: Petco find....

December 11, 2020:

Hard to believe it is the same coral....

 

[Vette67]

Onto today’s pseudo problem and fix. The 1” vinyl hose here is the overflow from my refugium back to my sump. The 1.25” vinyl hose is the overflow from my 75 to the sump. I haven’t been a big fan of the zip ties holding the 1” vinyl hose in place so why not fix it today?

So fist is to drill the hole. Drawings say the bulkhead is 1.77” diameter, so I got a 1-3/4”Hole saw to drill for the bulkhead.

They weren't kidding about 1.77” on the bulkhead. It had to be threaded into the hole, reverse threading, of course, using a pipe wrench, Then the jamb nut onto the back. But inside of 30 minutes, all installed and working, with the overflow overflowing :

Nothing special. Just looks cleaner on the install. Now I have to turn off the recirculating pump and make sure it doesn’t leak. Flat bulkhead on a rounded sump. I hope the bulkhead gasket is thick enough to seal it.

 

[count krunk]

Have you ever used uniseal bulkheads? Those are designed for rounded surfaces.

This entire time I've been on the forum, I thought @Vette67 and @vetteguy53081 were the same person!

I just read through your build thread and went into it thinking "oh a 180 for vetteguy guess his 450g just isn't enough for him!" Then after reading your first post I was like "wait is this the same guy?" And then when I read Vette guy's comment it was obvious you guys are two different dudes!

Nice build thread! Love the big beckett skimmers. I want a big one someday on my future large reach.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Have you ever used uniseal bulkheads? Those are designed for rounded surfaces.

This entire time I've been on the forum, I thought @Vette67 and @vetteguy53081 were the same person!

I just read through your build thread and went into it thinking "oh a 180 for vetteguy guess his 450g just isn't enough for him!" Then after reading your first post I was like "wait is this the same guy?" And then when I read Vette guy's comment it was obvious you guys are two different dudes!

Nice build thread! Love the big beckett skimmers. I want a big one someday on my future large reach.

450g- that's small. . . .LOL
My biggest tank is 660g