Weazl's 50g mixed, uhh, something

[madub03]

Those pictures of your anemone are so detailed, I can't get my anemone's colors to come out like that in pictures. 

[madweazl]

Those pictures of your anemone are so detailed, I can't get my anemone's colors to come out like that in pictures. 

 

That was with the Pentax in aperture priority and a lot of fiddling around with the white balance to find something that worked.

[madweazl]

Deltec 1350 arrived today I have it sitting in 7 5/8" water at the moment; hopefully the tuning process is much easier than the Curve 5. It is considerably noisier than the Curve 5 but I also have it resting on PVC couplers vice it's rubber feet. After I find an appropriate water depth, I'll have a nice acrylic block made for it which should squelch a lot of the noise being produced (one can hope any ways).

 

[madweazl]

Three new heads and a fourth not visible on the other side.

 

[madweazl]

Alkalinity consumption has remained steady at .3 dKH per day for about a week now which works out to a "dash" of baking soda to each gallon of RODI ATO water (roughly 24 hours).

[madweazl]

Approx. 43 hours after turning it on.

 

[madweazl]

Uh oh, PO4 up to .095. I've been holding off on the water changes so I could get the Ca levels down but it's a double edged sword. I havent trimmed any of the macro out of the sump in about a month either so that isnt helping. Gotta quit being lazy!

[madweazl]

Poor guy never gets to keep his limbs very long (dont think they had fully grown back more than a couple days before he lost this one).

 

Edited October 29, 2016 by madweazl

[AlanM]

The skimmer looks like a quality piece of hardware.  

[madweazl]

Pulled out about three times more than what I started with and still have at least twice as much as when I started.

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by madweazl

[madweazl]

Tank turned five months today

 

Maintenance performed:

 

10g water change (vacuumed the sand)

Alk - 8.68 (increased ~.5)

PO4 - .009 (yesterdays test was performed right at feeding time but I cant remember if I fed before or after the test so that is a possible explanation)

NO3 - ~5 (look into a more accurate low range kit if this is something I actually want to monitor)

Ca - 444 (was 445 five days ago so there wasnt much change here)

 

Also drained the skimmer cup; the entire room stank this morning and I wasnt quite sure what it was until I opened the lid to the skimmer. The smell could gag a maggot. I forgot to add a delay to the skimmer start up in the script so the skimmer filled the cup instantly at startup. Two minutes will be more than adequate to allow the water level to normalize in the sump. Also made a half turn adjustment on the skimmer to dry the effluent out a bit.

 

The duncan is starting to open up again but I'll likely move it to an area of less light so I can bring the intensity back up for everything else. I really epoxied this guy in there so it will probably be quite a chore.

 

No noticeable changes on the acroporas since introduction.

[madweazl]

Gave the skimmer a thorough cleaning today and also cleaned up the sump. The carbon reactor is being bleached; flow through the media canister slows after about three weeks because of algae growth since it sits right next to the refugium lighting. I'm leaning towards grabbing a Kessil H150 Purple to light the refugium instead of the CFLs I'm currently running so the lighting is directed where appropriate. 

 

Edited November 11, 2016 by madweazl

[Dr.eclipse]

That sump is clean as H-E-double hockey sticks. Looks great!

[madweazl]

Was checking out the tank today and noticed that the red monti has turned much more pink (a rather vibrant pink). I dont recall this being the case on the 11th but I was caught up doing other things. The Capps undata seems like it may be a bit more pale in color. 

 

Things that are outside the norm the past week:

No carbon reactor (decided to see how things looked without it)

Light intensity increased 2% (highly unlikely to have caused any issue 

Window has been closed the last week so the pH has come done to about 9.17-9.27 (should cause any issues)

Feeding has been reduced to twice a day for two weeks now (wife didnt want to over feed while I was out of town). 

Alkalinity dosing was decreased while I was away just to avoid any surprises the other direction. This made a difference of .55 (highly unlikely for this to be the cause.

Moved most of the nerite snails to the sump because about five of them were on there way down there anyways (choked the main line a few times waking me up in the middle of the night on work nights naturally). A milky film collected at the top of the aquarium; I cleaned this off and the tank was cloudy the next day giving me the impression of a bacterial bloom. Cleared up on its own after two days. No other observable issues from this.

 

dKH - 8.68

PO4 - .04 (I fed the tank about an hour before the test so this may explain the increase but there may be an interesting correlation with less feeding too, I'll have to check out nitrate though my test isnt very good in the low range). 

Mg - 1380

[madweazl]

Another thing I forgot about is the pistol and goby started trekking across the tank Thursday too. He kicked up a lot of sand until Saturday (nothing that rested on the corals but there was plenty of debris floating all over). 

[madweazl]

Both montis continue to show loss of color. PO4 has continued to climb and is now .046 so I've exceeded the capabilities of the refugium to maintain the range I've been targeting (=<.03) while feeding three cubes per day. I dont want to cut this back as the fish look great (which was the original goal for the tank to begin with). Water changes are a bit of a double edged sword because of the alkalinity boost with a change large enough to mitigate PO4 levels. For now, I'll begin some vodka dosing. With this said, I believe the coloration of the montis has more to do with the lighting than the PO4 or NO3 as the intensity was reduced significantly a few weeks back to accommodate the upset duncan. The duncan has rebounded and intensity was increased again this morning by 3% for a total of 40% at peak (everything else was fine above 50%). The acros still look good but they're considerably higher in the water column too.

 

Maintenance performed:

PO4 - .046

dKH - 8.51 (less alkalinity being consumed over the last couple weeks confirming things arent doing as well as they were a couple weeks ago)

Lighting intensity 40% (12 hour parabola)

Vodka dosed at .25ml

Edited November 20, 2016 by madweazl

[madweazl]

Went back through some journal notes to make sure I wasnt jumping to any illogical conclusions. 

 

1) While I was out of town, my wife reduced feeding from three times daily, to twice because she was worried about over feeding

2) We changed what we feed; from Rod's to LRS (Reef twice a day and Herbivore once a day)

3) PO4 and NO3 have risen since the change to LRS

  3a) The frequency of feeding changed (noted in item 1)

  3b) The amount of food at each feed has also increased

4) I had stated we were feeding about three cubes a day but that was probably exadgerated; somewhere around two cubes is probably more realistic

5) I havent done a water change in three weeks and that change was 10g vice the 20g I typically performed in the past. I think it was roughly a month between the last two changes

6) Lighting was changed about five weeks ago. 

7) Protein skimmer changed

8) A child (~10) was left unsupervised in the room a week and a half ago

 

I believe the issue I'm having with the montis is because of the NO3 and PO4 levels being elevated (and climbing). I also believe the water changes I was performing every two to three weeks were doing far more good than harm (something I've always stuck to in the past but I started trying some different things). Origami mentioned something about an incomplete nitrogen cycle but I dont believe that is the case here but still a possibility so I'll continue to keep that in mind. While the lighting was changed about five weeks ago but I dont believe this has anything to do with the lighting. While this may be an issue in the future, I dont believe it has caused the rapid decline in the health of the montis (and probable death of the Capps undata but hopefully I can save it). The Cali tort is showing signs of stress as well now. I dont believe the child did anything to the aquarium but some sort of foreign object/agent is a possibility.

 

Measurements:

 

Sg - 1.025 (very stable with ATO)

Temp - 78.8° (extremely stable)

pH - 8.27 (generally fluctuates between 8.2-8.3)

dKH - 8.57 (dosed with ATO and pretty stable)

PO4 - .058 (increasing at faster rate the past two weeks)

NO3 - 7.5 (also increasing at a faster rate)

Ca - 440 

Mg - 1365

 

My logical conclusion is that PO4 and more likely, NO3 are the cause of the issues. Today was the third dosing of vodka to the system. I'll be performing a 20g water change as well. 

 

I still need to pick up a quality NO3 kit (currently Salifert); any recommendations? 

[madweazl]

Bah, heater failed and I'm out of town. Glad I have a controller that let me know; hopefully nothing leaked. Wife disconnected and removed the old unit and is grabbing a replacement now.

[Bruleyii]

Good catch. Thankfully it happened closer to wake up call than earlier. 

[madweazl]

Well, I think the chaos in the tank has subsided, unfortunately, work has not. While I was out of town my wife continued the vodka dosing on a plan we had made. My wife measured the phosphate at .058 about a week and a half ago and when I got home I measured it at .015. The macro algae also took off and had at least doubled in quantity if not more. Hard to say which one had the largest affect but they got the job done. Nitrates are still on the high side at roughly 5ppm (still have bought a quality test kit for this so the measurement is highly subjective to my eye sight). On the negative side, the death toll was substantial; the Cobbs undata is dead, the red monti cap is likely dead (hoping there is enough to salvage), the RR wolverine is just about dead, and the cali tort took a huge hit (possibly salvageable). The Jason Fox jack-o-lantern is in bad shape but may pull through. The anemone is on the run but looks pretty good all things considered. There were no undesirable algae blooms in the display or the sump however, there was a bit of cyanobacteria growing on the macros which surprised me.

 

It doesnt look like the seals on the heater were compromised and the temps never got bad (low of 75°). I replaced it (300w GEX from Japan) with a pair of 150w Visitherms. We drop the thermostat to 66° at night but the heaters arent quite capable of keeping the temps steady with the lower temps which I found surprising since the 300w GEX was rock solid and only had to stay on for a 2-3 minutes to get the temp back in range (these stay on for 30-40 minutes).

 

Pretty bummed about the sharp decline in health and subsequent killing of some beautiful corals but I have no one to blame but myself. I should have stuck to my normal maintenance schedule. The only plus is that the parent colonies of all these corals are still alive in other members tanks so this was a major setback vice extermination of a colony. Big props to the members that are maintaining healthy tanks and willing to propagate others from their colonies to keep this a sustainable hobby. I wasnt able to take a pic for the five month mark of the tank but should be in town for the sixth month anniversary on the 30th Hopefully it isnt as desolate looking as it is right now.

[madweazl]

Discovered one of the heaters was shutting off a little prematurely from the internal thermostat so I adjusted that; hopefully this stabilizes the temp a little better. The red monti does have some life on it still, really hoping I've got things in good enough shape for it to come back now. The RR Wolverine and Cali tort were lost. The anthias has a bulging eye (yesterday at some point); no clue what happened here. Other than the swelling, it appears otherwise fine (nice and clear).

[madweazl]

The red monti is recovering rapidly! I cant believe it even survived but the recovery rate is unbelievable! On the downside, the anemone is MIA :(

[madweazl]

Last week 90% of the monti was covered in algae and there were no visible polyps. There was a tiny spot around the epoxy in the upper right that was still visibly pink that gave me hope that I might be able to save it but the last couple days have been remarkable. The anthias' eye looks much better and has almost completely healed too (very slight bulging). The yellow assessor finally started coming out when the lights were on a few weeks ago and is now out constantly but rarely swims upside down now which is a big reason it went in the tank to begin with. Oh well, at least I get to see it now.

 

Not pretty but a huge improvement from last week!

[madweazl]

Had company over Christmas; guess we were heavy breathers LOL. 

 

[madweazl]

Looking better every day!