Rick and Marina's 225G SPS tank

[marinap]

It has been 6 months since we tore down the tank.. Everything seems to be getting back on track, but not just there yet.  The biggest mystery is magnesium consumption, which is enormous.  I have no explanation for that.

 

 

 

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Edited June 5, 2013 by marinap

[nbgen12]

These look like magazine photos the colors are so incredibly vibrant.....

 

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[yauger]

Sweet sps tank... inspiring

 

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[fscbishop]

Wow best tank I have seen thus far

[YHSublime]

Hey guys!

 

How is the tank doing now? I wanted to ask if you had any trouble after removing a significant amount of live rock? Did you find that you had to make up for any levels in your dosing regimen? Did you ever figure out the magnesium mystery? Your tank is truly a living art piece!

[marinap]

The tank is doing fine.  We were away for 2 weeks, and our tank sitter did a fantastic job taking care of the critters (if anybody needs a contact number, feel free to PM me).  

 

 

 

My main concern, associated with LR removal is stubborn presence of phosphates at 0.06-0.08.  I just cannot figure out where they are coming from.  My previous setup was run without GFO, and here we are changing GFO weekly :(

 

Mag is pretty stable right now, dosing about 100ml daily.  i read somewhere that new tanks sometimes have enourmous mag consumption. There was no explanation provided.  All in all, I think these issues are related to "new tank syndrome" and hopefully will go away in a year or so.

 

Thank you for the kind words about our system!

[Der ABT]

i love your blue face....such a cool fish.

tank looks great as always, im sure its even better in person (as it was last time i saw it)

maybe those butterflys are actually building a magnesium pyramid.

 

Do you have any chloramine filters in there (activated carbon etc) for your RODI....when i was having that issue as soon as i added the extra stage of filtration with the activitated carbon it was just a matter of days till i saw a drop in the phosphates

for phosphates id be looking at top off water, salt water change water, containers, possibly plumbing....or foods...gotta be somewhere.

[marinap]

Thanks for the feedback, Evan. We added an extra stage to ro/di, TDS is 0. Measured nsw, phos at 0.01, topoff measured at 0..

 

Yesterday we had to drain the sump, that resulted in a 40g waterchange, changed GFO. Before the wc phos was 0.08, today it is 0.07. I am at a loss here, there is no logic. Can LR (real live rock from LA) be leaching phos for 8 months? There is no hair algae on LR anywhere. GFO is set up correctly, and will bring phos down quickly, if they get out of hand. They just do not want to drop below 0.05. I am fine with that level, but it should not involve weekly gfo changes.

 

Hanna is working fine, reads correctly and i just can tell by looking at the tank that phos are there.

[TheyCallMeMr.703]

Could be... but Looking Amazing.

[Gadgets]

Amazing tank!

 

How are you running the GFO? What are you feeding and how often?

[marinap]

How are you running the GFO? What are you feeding and how often?

About 300g in a reactor, medium tumble (high or low does not make a difference). Feeding is the same as in the previous setup about 2 teaspoons of hickari mysis twice a day, some frozen homemade stuff, quarter of nori sheet every other day, a little bit of cyclopeeze twice a day. There is no detritus, very strong flow, wet skimming, socks are changed twice a week.

 

I am entertaining an idea of adding a few mls of Zeobac, but that scares me.

[BowieReefer84]

Tank looks spectacular.  I wouldn't change anything.  Maybe try high capacity GFO if looking to make a small change?

[Der ABT]

ive definately heard of live rock leaching for longer than you can believe but that was also in a tank that did not do a ton of water changes (as in one every month or two and even that was less than 10%.) he had a very small biload and did not feed much at all..ask in the fish were borderline starving before i started helping.

 

a good way to check would be to take a rock out (hopefully you have one in the sump thats from teh same batch, and stick it in a 5g bucket with a heater etc and just creat a little closed system experiment where you either use fresh salt or lanthium chloride or soemthing to get the phos down to near nothing and see what happens after a few days....with no food etc going into you could start ruling out variables and if you lucky it just ends up being the food.

 

wish i had a better anwser, im sure someone may have a better way to test as well.

[Gadgets]

I've seen too many crashes and bad stuff happen from starting carbon dosing and bio pellets. I would recommend cutting back on the cyclopeeze and homemade food. What is your water change percentage and how often do you change it?

[marinap]

We have always stayed clear from carbon dosing and biopellets... Zeobac, as far as i understand, is bacteria in a bottle, but who really knows what's in that bottle. I also remember Eric Borneman saying that it is not technically possible to get bacteria in a bottle, because of the tremendous reproduction speed of these organisms.

 

Water is changed weekly, 10-15%.

 

I am going to feed them mysis only for a week and see what happens. It has to be that the tank does not have bacterial population strong enough to convert phos efficiently.

 

Evan, i will put your idea to the test, thank you for suggesting that bucket and a piece of LR experiment.

[zygote2k]

Can you notice a difference in coral growth with the levels of P04? If not, why bother? 

Sometimes it seems like we are chasing an ideal rather than let the tank sort itself out. This also may be an indicator of new tank syndrome.

Tanks looks spectacular with the nicely contrasting colors of the fish and corals.

[marinap]

Can you notice a difference in coral growth with the levels of P04? ls.

I can, and that's exactly the problem. I do believe in letting things sort themselves out, but it has been 9 months of battling this issue, i am tired.

[Gadgets]

Can you notice a difference in coral growth with the levels of P04?

Definitely. In both growth rate and color.

[Sahin]

Marina, how is the tank doing?  How is the phosphate issue?  Unless you you do as Der ABT, you will just have to continue to use the GFO.  I would probably get high capacity GFO.  Unfortunately it does mean weekly changes and the cost issue.  

 

I take regular photos of a few selected coral in my tank and noticed that colours worsened at a certain point.  I looked back through my logs and discovered that it was right after I added a small selection of rocks to my sump.  The other thing I noticed was that I was fighting a long phosphate battle, which I first thought was due to my fish load and feeding.  So I was feeding less for many many weeks and the phosphate wouldnt really go down.  

 

Like you I was using lots of GFO.  A couple of weeks ago I removed these additional rocks from my sump and BAM!  My phosphate levels dropped to less than 0.03ppm.  I know its not feasible to remove all your rocks, but I think eventually the rocks have to stop leaching.

 

You can buy Lanthanum Chloride and use a 10micron filter sock to treat selected rocks in a vat or something...but its hard work.

 

Your corals still look amazing, and reefkeeping is just like this sometimes...but its worth it.  

 

Anyway, I actually came and joined WAMAS because you have an amazing tank and you didnt have a build thread over at Reef Central.  

[marinap]

We installed new sump by ArtfullyAcrylic last December. We are vey happy with this sump, tank is doing well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[YHSublime]

Oh wow! I'm always blown away, your tank is silly nice!

[dmatt56]

Beautiful tank!

[makai531]

So beautiful!

 

 

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[Sharkey18]

That is just really an insane tank.

 

Amazing. 

[pizzaguy]

Stunning tank. How long have you been growing out most of your coral?