Waterbox 220 build thread, fully automated

[NewReefer42]

Turns out LFS was open today and the hawks didn't play, so picked up a few tester frags. Dipped in 10% (v/v) Bayer then into the frag tank.

 

[NewReefer42]

Disaster struck! I came home from work yesterday and the blue tang was at the surface breathing quickly. Purple tang and clown didn't look too hot either. I looked in the sump, and the skimmer wasn't aerating, just flooding. Ok, low oxygen I thought. I immediately fed an air stone into the return pump intake, the tank was a bubble typhoon immediately. However, no one got better, in fact, the blue tang got worse, started hiding, breathing faster. I netted him and moved the net back and forth at the top of the tank to pass freshly aerated water over his gills for like 30 mins straight. No luck, he siezured up and died. Then the purple tang started losing color and swimming sluggish. I netted her and let her go 3 times. You know there's a problem when you can net and release a tang multiple times in a 5 min period. She progressively lost color over the course of about 30 mins to 1 hr starting with the rear of her dorsal fin, and I pulled her and put her in one of my QT tanks. She just got worse (lost more color, stopped swimming) then died about 30 mins later. The clown was hanging in there, dodging the net, so I let him be. I did a 40 gal manual water change w 5 gal buckets. This morning clown was dead. The nems are all doing fine, the water is clear, there's 1 hermit crab who's bumbling along as usual. Only other life in the tank is sea lettuce in the sump. I checked the salinity, 1.025. Temp has been 78+-0.5F for weeks. I tested ammonia before the blue tang died, 0 (API). I cannot understand what happened. Sunday I swapped out a filter sock, installed a new fleece filter roller, and started Calcium dosing, literally 1 minute (1.1mL). The DOS has been auto water changing 2 gal/day for a week or two now. No fish showed any sign of disease, no behavioural or eating changes, literally everything was perfect sunday night when I did my usual testing (all params were fine, except phosphate which I haven't tested yet bc didn't get new checker). RODI resin needed a change, which I did tonight, but thats nbd. I just don't get it.

 

[NewReefer42]

I'm still trying to figure out what caused the fish death. However, in the meantime, I can still purchase and QT coral. Picked up 5 frags today. I couldn't think of a good way to get the one guy off the frag plug, any ideas?

Also, installed a carbon reactor into the sump, just in case.

 

[MERKEY]

So sorry for your loses!

Not sure how to remove the coral after it's been encrusted over the plug like that.

You could just cut the plug so it is flat.

 

[NewReefer42]

So sorry for your loses!

Not sure how to remove the coral after it's been encrusted over the plug like that.

You could just cut the plug so it is flat.

Thanks. Yea I thought about that. I'm going to QT it for a little while so we'll see what I come up with.

 

[NewReefer42]

Moved over this weekends and last weekends coral batch into the display. I thinknthe risk of death is much higher than disease, especially since I dipped them, replugged them, and QT them for a little bit. Left the overgrown guy out for now while I decide how to deal w him, if at all. Also moved over the inverts that made it through the entire process: 1 crab, 3 shrimp, and only a handful of snails and a couple hermits.

 

[NewReefer42]

Well, I got my ICPMS results. NO major insights. This method didn't test every element like the triton does, so I might try to add some more elements in the future if I can.

 

[NewReefer42]

No post for a while because not much action on the tank, just usual maintenance stuff. I did get the sampling kit from aquabiomics so I will be doing that, and I also I also an order from WWC. Dipped and recounted them and put them in the coral QT tank.

 

[NewReefer42]

Moved the frags from QT last week, then today got a few from LFS. Microbial results due back June 9th iirc, after that (and my brother moves out of my guest/fish QT room) time to start fish shopping!

 

[NewReefer42]

The QT frag system water was really cloudy, and I've been struggling to keep the dKh up (it's been hovering around 6) so I decided to move the frags over a few days early. Sunday would be two weeks, enough time to see aiptasia polyps, but I didn't see anything today so I think I'll be ok. I'm also setting up the fish QT tank(s) (1 now, maybe up to 2 more later) to start restocking. I'm going to start with a pair of clowns (looking for black ice snowflakes), then move on to a flame hawkfish, foxface, and the tangs (purple, naso, desjardini, blue, maybe tomini or kole) to round it out.

 

[Lavey29]

Wow, this thing reads like an exciting novel that you can't put down. All of your highs and lows, you just starting rooting for you to complete your dream build in the end. I admire your determination and hope you get everything sorted out and stabilized so you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

 

[NewReefer42]

lol, thanks. I have a few updates to make (got micro results), but just have been too busy to post them. also got a pair of clowns in QT. will update soon.

 

[NewReefer42]

Long time no post, haven't done a real lot w the tank besides maintenance. Added the clowns to the display, so far so good. Got micro results back from Aquabiomics, unfortunately no indication of any particular pathogen, so I guess the conclusion is going to be some sort of unmeasured and unknown environmental pathogen. Had a pmup fail on me, which neptune was very helpful in diagnosing and replacing under warranty. Got that a week or two ago and installed it today. Was using my frag tank osomolator in the meantime, its great having backup gear. I also spend 6 days on vacation and left the tank on autopilot, during which it did fine. I did overfeed while I was gone (1 min/day of Plank autofeeder too much food for 2 measly clowns) so I got a small algae outbreak. Not a huge deal, pH is great now though lol. Picked up more snails, a naso tang (for the algae) and 5 blue green chromis today, and are in QT. Currently running 2 QT systems, and will probably bring the frag QT back online soon. Oh, and I removed the filter roller from the system, each roll only lasted like 1-2 weeks. Maybe I didn't have it configured right, or maybe I just have a high particulate system, but I'm going back to socks for now. Just running double 7 inch socks until I have enough fish to keep the algae under control.

 

[NewReefer42]

Well, lost a few fish in QT. Two chromis and the naso. The chromis I can't explain, I wonder if they picked each other off. I didn't see any aggression and was feeding daily, so not sure why. Didn't see any uronema wounds, so I dont think it was that. The naso never behaved well when I got him home. He just hid in the corner camouflaged most of the time, never ate, didn't swim around. I think he might have either been too stressed from shipping, or was just too little. I didn't see any signs or disease, so I'm not really sure. Good news, though, is that a really nice LFS just opened up literally 5 mins from my house. They had good looking, healthy fish, reasonable prices, and from my conversations with the personnel, a reasonable amount of experience. So, I bought another naso and a small foxface, who are now in QT. The naso is 4 inch, and when I released him into the QT tank he swam into the net and jerked it, so he's got some vigor, I'm hopeful for him. Hopefully in 60 days I'll have 5 fish to add to the display! Time for the tangs! (Sorry for the ****** pic, I didn't want to stress them too much after acclimation).

 

[NewReefer42]

Got some new frags today from a local reefer. Put them in QT, AND he had some asterina to share so I started the asterina farm, for future harlequin shrimp which are on order. Fish in QT are doing well, the naso eats like a horse!

 

[fergusk]

Wow. Lots of ups and downs. Did you rule out stray voltage for the fish deaths? If the pump failed then maybe that was the stage beforehand. Hopefully things keep looking up! Definitely following this build - similar sort of thing to what I'm aiming for atm. Do you have any recent full tank shots?

 

[NewReefer42]

Wow. Lots of ups and downs. Did you rule out stray voltage for the fish deaths? If the pump failed then maybe that was the stage beforehand. Hopefully things keep looking up! Definitely following this build - similar sort of thing to what I'm aiming for atm. Do you have any recent full tank shots?

Thanks. I didn't rule out stray voltage, but all of the equipment is brand new, plugged in to EB8 32s with energy monitoring, and I never zapped myself, so I don't think its that. Also, the purple tang continued to decline after I removed it from the system, so that's another point against the stray voltage argument. As for FTS, not recently, but I can probably get one soon. However, because of my vacation, fish autofeeder going off daily, and lack of tangs, I have a bit of an algae issue. It's not awful, but not ideal.

 

[NewReefer42]

Few good updates. The frags came out of the frag tank, after living at 5.0-5.5 dKH for a month. I did lose one though. Also, the naso and foxface made it through QT0 in good shape, and are now in the display. Picked up a sailfin and tomini as next batch of tangs. 3 chromis are still in QT, I didn't really get to observe them enough bc of poor lighting and water quality, so they're gonna hang out a bit more.

 

[NewReefer42]

More pics

 

[NewReefer42]

Lots of news. 1) I stated dosing nitrate (Brightwell nitrat) so work on the coral colors. Was doing half of recommend dose to bring the total to 2ppm. After about a week, it worked fine. Then I got sick. Didn't dose for a few days in a row. Nitrate dropped to zero and had some coral death. Didn't know that was an option. It was only at 2ppm, so surprising. I have installed a new dosing pump to automate that, now that I know that 1) it works and 2) absolute levels, and delta level, matters.

2) the foxface just wasn't eating. Just floating around, hiding a lot. No scratching, gasping for air, no clamped fin, color was ok. I decided to freshwater dip him. His color immediately got better (no black stripe along back) and started eating post-dip. I'm going to have to guess flukes, altogether I didn't see anything in the bucket post dip. Per humble.fish 2 out of 3 species can't be seen naked eye iirc, so I guess that? The naso is an eating ******** machine, so thata good. He's been working on my algae problem.

3) I removed thr BRS doser from the frag tank and installed a kamoer, bc using the apex I can only do 1 min increments, and I dont wanna mess around with OSC code. To raise the dKh of that tank by 0.4dKh it was literally 6 drops of the BRS sized tubing, which was like 10 seconds of time. This way, I'll be able to better fine tune the dose, in volume, rather than in time. I also swapped out the powerhead in that tank bc the tunze was stupidly too strong and splashing everywhere. Just grabbed a cheap sicce.

4) something is up w the sailfin in QT. He's got spots, but not scratching. I'm going to treat the whole tank w copper. Also, one of the chromis as stringy poop, so after copper ita getting prazi. This is going to be a long QT.