davjbeas

Thanks Aquamom.

Worked Monday on the tank as I was home because of the snow. Moved some frags and mounted some corals into the rock work. I am not dosing anything. Just water change every 2- 3 weeks with Reef Crystals. I am very happy with the tank. I have some room for a few more corals and might get a skunk cleaner shrimp from Sri Lanka. I am considering some Stylophora or poccilipora or some the ORA sps.

I have never used one. If the pump stops working you could have water syphon from the display down to the sump. You could drill a hole in your return nozzle just above the water level in the display so there won't be much water back flowing to the sump in the event that the pump stops.

Salifert test kits Mag 1260-1320 Ca 450 Alk 7-7.3 dkh

The tank is a good tank. There is no sump but the back compartment does most of what a sump would do. I mean holds a heater, filter socks, skimmer, media reactor. I ordered a back up battery back up the vortech MP40. I was worried that I was unprepared for the blizzard if the power went out. which it did not. I plan to test Magnesium, calcium, alkalinity tonight.

Update- Bubble coral did not make it. It was dying so I removed it before it polluted the water. Maintenance is still the same. I am lucky to have no cyano or other unwanted algae. The Kole tang is probably keeping algae in check and there is a lot of flow in the display section. I am feeding him the Julian Sprung green algae sheets on a lettuce clamp about a 2"x2" piece daily to make sure he gets his vegetables. The Mystery wrasse is eating well. I am amazed at the size of food he can swallow in one gulp. I am feeding Rods reef food. I picked up some amazing corals from Valeria in Woodbridge. She was taking down a propagation tank. I got some hammer, torch, Blue trumpet. They were so healthy they opened up quickly after acclimating and placed in the display, I recommend buying from her. I plan to install a Reefkeeper lite on Tuesday. I want the redundancy of shutting off power to the heater at 79 degrees in case the thermostat on the heater fails. Also I will remove the timer for the lights and have the controller turn off and on the lights. It is interesting to see the LPS corals extending feeding tendrils. Mostly the green trumpet but also the acans. I haven't seen any on the galaxia yet but maybe it does after the lights go out. It is exiting to look at the corals and see them doing so well.

Sending PM

I tried dr. Tims too. Didn't work for me. I did wait 3-4 weeks. I added some live rock from the lfs and the cycling got done quick.

More pics some frags Bubble coral not doing so good Sarcophyton Galaxia Some grass growing Mystery wrasse Midas Blenny

I have been doing water change every 2 weeks and changing the filter socks out every week after scraping the glass. The rocks are clean. The back panel is clean. There are no worries other than the new bubble coral may be in a too much flow area. I wonder what is the best algae to feed my Kole eyed tang on a lettuce clip. I see Julian Sprung has red, green and another one. Is any one best for the tang? I took advantage of the BRS 10% off sale and bought 20 filter socks yesterday. I might pull out the socks for a week and see if the corals respond to dirtier water. Thanks, David

Thanks for looking

Time for an update. I have been running the tank with 200 micron filter socks in the 2 back compartments. Before I change the socks I blast the rocks with a maxi jet 1200 and scrape all the glass panels, when the water clears I change the socks. I got a new sealed lead acid battery from amazon to replace the one in my vortech battery back up. I read how to do it in the general discussion forum. The old one i have does not hold a charge. Tuesday is my day to maintain my tanks and do water changes. I have added some more corals. My wife and I like to go to Incredible corals and blue ribbon koi on Sundays and Marine scene on tuesday. Just got a nice galaxia coral I have had my eye on. pics to follow

Salifert for mag, KH, Nitrate, nitrite, API for ammonia, nitrite, DKH

I AM DOING THE SAME AS EPLEEDS

Ozone is a gas that oxidizes what ever is in the water. Makes the water crystal clear. you need to put the water through carbon after it mixes with the ozone as it is toxic. Some people hook up a ozone generator to the air inlet of the skimmer.

Great, I need one too.

Yes, I only have lps and softies. I am running berlin style now. The filter socks are removed. David

Thanks for the attention. I will cut back on the iodine. There is not too many stony corals so I think water changes will be enough to replenish calcium for now. Maybe I should just stick to water changes and forget the dosing. David

Well, I started dosing a week ago or so because the corals did not look happy. I have used these products before when I had a 75 gallon reef. If I was to minimize the dosing I would cut back to just the mag and DKH buffer. The flow I had before I put the 2nd return pump online was a old MP40 from a previous tank , A maxijet 400 with the propeller pump mod and the one return pump and that was it. I think the slime/ bacterial was using up a lot of the dissolved oxygen. I plan to do water changes every 2 weeks now.

I finally got some time to work on the tank. I lost the shrimp two days ago. My thinking is either lack of oxygen or a dying 3" zooanthid frag What I have done is checked parameters Ammonia 0 Nitrites 0 nitrates 0 alk 7-8 DKH Magnesium 1350-1380 I have plugged in the other return pump which I should never have low oxygen levels now. It added a lot of surface agitation. I didn't use it before because I was worried it would be to much flow through the back chamber. My thinking now is that it was designed to work with the two pumps running. What I did is put 2 200 micron filter socks in the two overflows and the blasted the rocks manually with a maxijet 1200. It blew all the slime off the rocks. and all the detritus got trapped in the filter socks after 20 minutes. I waited 3 hours and repeated the process with the power head. Same thing, there was a lot of detritus. like a blizzard. after 15 minutes the water was perfectly clear I waited another 2 hours running the filter socks and prepared new water while the 2 hours waiting. I then removed the dirty filter socks and did a 17 gallon water change. As of now the tank is running berlin style which is no mechanical or chemical filtration, only a skimmer running. I have decided to put new filter socks in tonight though. Everything is very happy now , the fish are swimming and look very happy, and the frogspawn and hammer are opened and looking incredible. I did throw out the dying zooanthid piece. I used tweezers to handle it and washed my hands well also very well because of the toxicity with that type of coral. I have a dosing regimen of kent marine products I dose Iodine 30 ml /week strontium & molybdenum 30 ml Magnesium 2x / week Super DKH buffer to raise alk Happy Reefing

Slime has come upon the tank. Not sure what to do other than keep changing my filters every week and changing the carbon. Here are pics from a few minutes ago David

You have the feather caulerpa. Once it takes hold in a tank its hard to get rid of. Bryopsis is more furry looking.

Wow, I can't imagine how it got between the over flow slots. They are only 1/4" wide. I guess being a slimy fish helps. Now I know where to look if it goes missing again. My wife is at home and saying the fish is swimming all over. Can't wait to see that. Before it barely had its head out from under a rock.