DaJMasta's 45G AIO Cube Mixed Reef

[roni]

Love the time lapse... How did you set it up?

[DaJMasta]

Thanks, the short answer is I hooked up a camera over USB to a computer, then set it before bed to take one picture every 5 seconds.  After the lights went down the next day, I stopped the capture, put the whole folder of images into a video editor, and basically told it to just use the images as frames of video - 30 images per second.

 

The longer answer is I used a 'machine vision' industrial camera by Imaging Source and their connection software made it pretty easy to full adjust image settings and setup the capture.  I picked a midpoint in the day to try to get reasonable exposure/color settings, then I told it to lock a specific gain value and auto control exposure by changing exposure time, with a minimum set to reduce blurring.

 

The software had a built in 'take an image on a timer' feature, but for whatever reason, when saved as a jpg, it looked really blue.... where as bmp or tiff looked normal... so I saved about 10600 bitmaps at 4k resolution and burned through something like 310GB in the capture.

 

Then I used irfanview to slightly crop the image and convert it to jpg (now about 30GB in total), and imported it into premiere as an image sequence.

Not terribly difficult, but a fair amount of conversion time and of course a long capture time.  I hope to do it again sometime, but maybe with the camera slightly higher and looking down slightly more - I think the vague haze in the center of the frame is from the lens catching just a bit of stray light from the fixture, and I can probably get rid of that with a little better positioning.

[roni]

haha, that is certainly beyond the scope of things I can probably pull off.  I'll settle for enjoying yours   

[YHSublime]

That time lapse was sweet! 

[DaJMasta]

Thinks have been going along relatively smoothly - adjusting dosing to be more Soda Ash than Calcium Chloride as my Ca was high and my dKH was low earlier in the week.  Also had a bit of nitrate (20ppm) and a lot of phosphate (1.5ppm) so the vodka dosing is back up to 3mL a day from the 2 it had been for a month or so and Phosphate Rx will probably go in again tonight (10 drops two days ago and today).  I've resumed harvesting the turf algae scrubber, since it's grown in.... but it's all Ulva.  Grows mostly in one scrunched up big sheet, but seems to grow pretty quick.  I assume actual GHA would be more efficient for nutrient export, but I'll take this as long as it keeps up.

The real reason for this little update... my ruby longfin fairy wrasse arrived as a subdominant male, with a clear dark stripe down the middle and white underneath, but in the last couple of weeks I've seen his dorsal fin get longer, and yesterday he had a distinct tinge of iridescent blue in the evening and was showing off (and jumped after swimming vertically, bouncing off the top).  This evening it was all showing off and occasionally harassing the firefish or the possum wrasse.  This guy is especially goofy because while he'll show off, he'll get spooked and just hide looking out nervously for a while afterwards - a very nervous seeming fish with the constant fin flapping and eyes darting around.

 

Couldn't get a non-smeared shot of him with the low fins down, but they lower and the top fin sticks up when making a pass at something and he does look impressive.

[DaJMasta]

Been a bit for an update, so here's a "little" one:

I lost I guess three of the larger corals pieces to dumb reasons in somewhat short succession and for totally different reasons.  I had those two green monti caps growing together on the top hoping they would graft together, but they grew into each other and stopped, so I just let them be.  The darker cap shaded the lighter one, so I broke some off, they were fine, and it started overgrowing it again.  I think it was shading enough live flesh of the lighter one that it got stressed to the point of dying, so the lighter green one went into STN, then touching the darker green one, and both are no more.  I did break off some pieces, but as I didn't really have places to put them, I think they mostly fell into the sand bed in the back and didn't make it.  Stupid mistake, didn't save a frag, and sad but not heart breaking.

Number two, I broke a branch off the bubblegum digi when cleaning the tank, no big deal, I left it in the sand because it was likely needing to be pruned.  The next day, it showed up on the sandbed..... on the other side of the rockwork.  I think it fell into the tunnels underneath, then was kicked out by a pistol shrimp overnight.  I figured it was fortuitous and picked it up and glued it next to the mini colony.... this was the mistake.  From its trip under the rock, the chunk wasn't healthy, it died the next day, and then infected the colony with STN.  It even effected some corals around it, and I broke off two twigs, but only one survived.  So I now have about an inch of bubblegum digi glued onto the old colony skeleton... oopsie.

Also found that a zoa frag I added a while back had aiptasia, and though I've got peppermint shrimp in here, the frag was on a rock in the front corner, where the shrimp never go (they stick to the caves, mostly), so I've been hosing things down with F Aiptasia for a couple weeks now.  It's not a massive infestation, just a handful spotted each time, but they have spread a bit, and while it works great to kill them, it doesn't work well on the underside of rocks, and it will kill zoas I accidentally get it on... so some of the zoa growth on that rock has been undone in the fight.  Probably a couple more rounds of treatment to go, but at least it's easier to do.

 

Replaced the Reef Breeders RP-Ms with AI Nero 5s.  The rust I spotted on the impeller came back, but I found out it was actually coming from the motor housing, so it was either replace it or change to something.  The RP-Ms have been fine, but because you can't change the power setting as part of the timer mode, I never could quite configure it as I liked, and though I didn't like the Nero's lack of physical controls, the app control for other things has been easy enough, so I went ahead when I found them in stock.  Now I've got a bit more power (but I don't use it because it blows around the sand), but can also set the evening cycle to be overall lower flow.  My thought is that it will encourage different behavior from the fish, slightly increase larva survival time if I miss turning off the powerheads for a spawn, and that the corals shouldn't need the same level of flow at night because they're not photosynthesizing.

 

Otherwise, stuff has been growing and doing well.  Got three flame scallops, one huge, all seem to be happy.  The bigger feather duster worm has a crown that could be 3-4" when fully extended and also seems happy.  The fish seem happy but I think spawn rates are slightly down across the board for fish and inverts - not really sure why, I think parameters have actually been somewhat more stable than before.  I tried to get a companion for the possum wrasse and they did not get along...

I got a ruby red scooter dragonet (because they look amazing), and trained him to eat frozen using the same method I used for the mandarins, and he's been adorably scooting around the tank for the last week or two.

 

 

And the fairy wrasse continues to be a menace about half of the time, while then hiding nervously under a ledge whenever any of the fish he's harassing doesn't just run away from his little dive bombs.

 

 

Got some ulva in the tank in spots, and I guess not enough herbivores that eat it, but so far I'm just grabbing pinches every few days and it doesn't seem to be increasing.  Will have to see if that develops.  In terms of odd fish interactions, there's just the slightest bit of territoriality between the manyline basslet and the scooter blenny (of all things), and the cardinals come out to rule the tank at night, actually chasing the manyline basslet back if it comes out too far.

Very odd dynamic when the wrasse harassing the firefish makes the firefish get along and the cardinals (especially the female) is the dominant force in the tank - though I've even seen the possum wrasse snap back when chased by her...

Edited June 13, 2022 by DaJMasta

[DaJMasta]

Things have been going, more ups than downs, though I lost the two cleaner gobies.  They got sick with what looked like ich, and since they had been properly TTM'd for it months ago, I figured it was in the system and waited while I bought some copper and a test kit to run it.  Nothing else got anything, and they basically acted like nothing was wrong, though after a few days it looked lesser (maybe closer to brook with ich?), but they were staying in their hole a bit more of the day.  Thought they were spawning, maybe just wiggled against something mucky in the rock?

Well a couple more days went by with nothing else showing any signs of anything, and I see what looks like a sloughing off sheet of the stuff on one goby - it looked like brook for sure.  Did a freshwater dip on that fish, but didn't see the other one all day, had it in QT and was going to H2O2 bath the next day (recovery time), but it passed away overnight.  I was really surprised that it ultimately was brook, because nothing else has it and it really didn't look like it at first... but apparently them being the only ones with it should have been a clear sign too - since brook is transmitted via contact (didn't realize that at the time), and they were clearly a pair living in a hole in the rock together.

Great little fish, I want to get more, been a couple of weeks and no signs of other illness or irregularity of any sort, which is nice at least.

Otherwise, there has been good.  A fair bit of growth, though the dosing amounts are a tad bit down in the last month, sometimes something will just look particularly nice, like a few days ago this anemone:

 

Also drained the tank about 2/3 to use kalk paste to get rid of some clove polyps and hydroids.  It seems to have been successful, though the frag with the hydroids had gotten so small it may not have survived the residual kalk moving around when the water was refilled.  Looks like a different place without water in it.

 

And yes, that big flame scallop was open.... had to keep dumping water on it, and it moved to a new spot that night.  The ruby fairy wrasse was not pleased with the draining:

 

Also got a cool star fishy

 

Probably the best news is that I'm finally making good on my plans to make a controller... had been spending the last month or so putting in a little time to make the schematics, and this past week I dumped a good 30 hours or so into laying out the boards and placing all the components.  The designs are off to the fab and I hope to have a prototype inside 2 weeks!  I call it the ReefMinder, and it's a modular controller that will emphasize failsafes and fault detection, translating to: it has a dedicated watchdog to monitor the health of the system (and power consumption of each module), every outlet has current monitoring, there are a good number of fuses and protection diodes on outward facing connectors, and instead of latching relays or SSRs for outlet control, there are relays that are configured to be normally open or normally closed, so in the event that the control locks up or the power to the controller dies, they fail in a way that either leaves the outlet on (return pumps, heaters with integrated thermostats, etc.), or off (dosing pumps).  It should be pretty capable when I finally get proper programming onto it, but that will be once I can verify the hardware isn't borked.

[DaJMasta]

The boards are here, the cases for them are partly designed and printed, but the timetable was just too short for me to manage before my trip, so I've written up a page and a half checklist to help my tank sitter put the right stuff in the right places so everything's happy next week.

Hoping for the best, things have been pretty happy since (though the alkalinity and calcium numbers are up because apparently consumption is somewhat down).

 

Anyways, here goes a fun trip and a hopefully uneventful week in the tank.

[lynn.reef.nerd]

Pretty cool that you have a check list.

I'm super worried to go anywhere for long. I'm lucky that one of my neighbor is also a reefer so I will have to schedule my vacation around him 

Good luck and have a great time. 

[DaJMasta]

The tank survived the trip, and everything basically seems the same (except the bigger pink goni is retracted and white/light green like one of the others???)

 

Did some cleaning, a small water change, and have a couple things in progress, but a proper update and a full battery of testing (plus ICP and microbiome mailaways) is coming in the next week or two.

In the mean time, I spotted something neat today when the pumps were off: a coral larva.

 

 

There were only a few that I could see, but they were small (less than 1mm long fully extended), were bright yellow, and were totally cilliated and seemed to slowly excrete some kind of mucus when looked at under the microscope.  This image was under the 20x objective, so they are smaller than most copepods too.

Given their propensity to spawn in captivity and the bright yellow color, this could be a sun coral larva, but I really have no idea which it is at the end of the day.  I don't expect they'll turn into something, but if I start seeing little yellow polyps spring up, maybe I'll know more certainly.

[Origami]

Very, very cool!

[DaJMasta]

Lots of changes and things, there's always something, so rather than trying to pack more and more into an update, I'll just run through some of the highlights since last time.

First off, an evening FTS, things are closing up a bit, but a bit more fluorescence than the normal daytime lighting:

 

And the obvious addition in the lower right: a big copperband.  I actually bought him online and knew he was too big for the tank as soon as I opened the bag, but I figured I could house him, make sure he was eating well, and then find a home for him elsewhere.  He's been an interesting fish - kind of quick to hide but definitely knows me now (and I think different color shirts made him take longer to recognize me), makes the firefish jump quite a bit more often (so far the lid is really paying dividends), gets along well with the cardinals (vertical stripe gang?), and ate a good bit of stuff growing on the rocks - some fan worms (moved one big one to the other tank once I saw it), any spaghetti worms it can find, all of the aiptasia, the hidden sea cucumber that was a hitchhiker, and some of the wing oysters and other bivalves (the scallops are all alive but no longer extend their tentacles, the derasas haven't been bothered at all).  But he's been in close to a month, the bit of lymphocystis that flared up after introduction is almost entirely gone, and he's eating whatever frozen I offered.  On first introduction, it took about a day and a half for him to start grazing on the rocks, then the first frozen food he took interest in was frozen hikari blood worms, with mysis and the other stuff around a week or week and a half later.  I think a good way to get it some food early on is to turn the pumps off and put chunks of meaty foods on the rocks (reef frenzy nano in my case), so that when it grazes it runs into some.

In the same shipment, I got a lawnmower blenny and a female ruby red scooter dragonet.  I was worried the blenny would fight with the orange spot goby, but they leave each other alone!  He's often out and munching on algae, and early on cleared up some patches on the live rock of really low growing stuff - I think he's helping reduce a little bit of algae growth on an acro frag which has been looking better since.  The ruby red dragonet is another cute little fish, but she's been taking longer to train onto frozen than any of the previous dragonets (she's in the box on the top right).  In about a week she was acting excited and grazing around in the box after feeding, and I was seeing blood worms in particular disappear later in the day, but she's not quite to the point that she eats as soon as it's offered and can differentiate the good stuff from just grazing.  She actually managed to jump out, too, in the tiny gap between the screen top and the top of the box, and just lived in the tank a couple of days, but when I went to trap the male cardinal (who was carrying eggs and coming due), she got in and couldn't get out, so she's back in the mesh box to finish training.

The cardinals spawned and carried the eggs to term again, but the male basically swallowed the egg mass around when they were due, and I saw him spit out a couple of dead ones before he was caught - still no idea why they haven't been successful in a few months, I'm going to try adding PE calanus back into the food rotation in the event it's some kind of nutritional thing.

Last month, on the 18th, I took samples for ICP mass spectrometer analysis and microbiome analysis, and while the ICP was back before two weeks, the microbiome analysis took a little more than a month and arrived this past week.  They came in like this:

 

The ICP showed me my potassium kit was reading low (I figure around 50ppm) and my magnesium kit was reading high (around 100ppm), and both have been moved to correction.  I had very occasionally been dosing iron before, and the ICP confirmed it was needed, so I added another capful and then because molybdenum was also low and the supplement I had didn't include it, I bought some Chaeto Gro to more completely supplement.  I also added a drop of lugols iodine, as I have a couple times with all the inverts, and will probably do that once or twice  a month (probably a similar schedule to add a capful of Chaeto Gro).  Oddly, shortly after the first iron supplement with the old brand, I lost a stylo frag and the anacropora like a day or two after.  I remember losing a millepora a day or two after dosing a single capful of the stuff before (about half a bottle recommended weekly dosage), so I wonder if my tank responds oddly to that mix or there is something up with the bottle itself.  Didn't see any reaction from the Chaeto Gro, but maybe all that was effected was taken out the time before.

 

The microbiome test was an interesting one, apparently high percentile microbe balance and reasonable diversity score.  Maybe most baffling, no traces of cyanobacteria and no mention of dinoflagellates, though I do see both in small quantities (I remove dinos into a fine mesh net with a turkey baster maybe 1.5 times a week).  I've also gotten a bunch of ulva growth in the display (easy to pick off, but persistent and not too many things eat it), and the algae scrubber grows it very well (but not hair algae, at the moment).  I also have to clean the glass every other day, by the third day there is a fair amount of green on it, and am dosing Phosphate Rx every couple weeks (10 drops or so), to keep the phosphate somewhat down (below 1ppm, it's always been high).

Otherwise a lot of good growth on things, a few of the little frags that only seemed to be holding on have started to color up and encrust, and those purple center green rim zoas are really going nuts, I think I need to get a scalpel and cut off some near a porites and montipora frag which are sort of being climbed even when alive.  As mentioned in the mandarin breeding thread, Manny, the male, was lost after a few weeks of some unknown disease with escalating treatment attempts (H2O2, Ruby Rally Pro, formalin), but for the most part they all seem to be getting along and staying healthy.  Spawns are slightly lower in frequency overall, but this could be that some of the CUC and hitchhiker inverts have died since the initial introduction, and the cleaner shrimp seem to be pretty constantly spawning.  I've got several peppermints in here too (and no impact on aiptasia with just them), but I haven't yet seen spawn from them.  Could be that they release the larvae at a different time of night.

[DaJMasta]

 

It's been too long.  Things have been rolling along, both good and bad, and I've learned a fair bit since the last post.  I sent away for another ICP test after having a few corals bleach but then survive - a couple of gonis in particular just turned white but had the same polyp extension, generally, and very slowly seemed to decline.

 

 

The high iron meant my almost weekly capful of chaetogro dosing was too much, but then molybdenum was still low, iodine was low (despite monthly drops of lugols) and strontium continued to decline.  I've got strontium and molybdenum in my arsenal now and have a dosing schedule, and have adjusted chaetogro and lugols dosing, but the chlorine really points to a key problem I didn't have a supplement to fix - a slow build up of NaCl in the system as other dissolved minerals were used up for coral growth.  Now the obvious way to fix this was water changes, which I had been doing almost none in an effort to supplement what was needed (and the added saltwater from daily 300mL of phytoplankton dosing plus a bit of copepod water most days), and I have these brute trashcans full of water for larval attempts, but I didn't know if the water was going to have enough nutrients to be a problem when dumped into the system.

I've been trying these sort of recycled water changes for a month and a half now and.... well the results were quick.  Better coloration, recoloration of the whited-out corals, and some new growth at the tips of things.  Oddly, the more replenished trace elements have changed the calcium vs. alkalinity consumption of the tank (and even the potassium consumption.  The ICP was taken more than a month after any potassium dosing, and while I knew my test kit read low, I had offset my measurements for that and it was still quite high, and in the measurement since starting the water changes, I've had to start supplementing it again.  I also had seen my calcium usage slightly higher than my alkalinity usage (in terms of mL, calcium chloride solution vs. soda ash solution), and now my alkalinity is lower and the usage has clearly pulled ahead.

Looking at the FTS shots - there's a fair bit less coral diversity.  I attribute this to my various parameter swings and attempts to move towards extra carbon dosing to consume my chronically high phosphates, but also to a fish - the new CBB.  The previous big one was a treat but couldn't fit in the tank, so I eventually sold him and got another, smaller one and trained it onto prepared foods.  This new one is pickier - it's not a fan of bloodworms or frozen brine, but loves mysis and reef frenzy nano - but it also goes after coral.  It took weeks, but I lost basically all my acans to him, he went for a fungia I tried in this tank, and then he even went after the phyllangia americana!  I then found that my peppermint shrimp (which I took some time to identify as genuine wurdemanni), were picking on my rock flower anemones.  They would come out at night and poke their pincers into the mouth, presumably to steal food, and while the anemones didn't appear damaged from this, they would be pissed off.  So over a few nights of this, they'd get up and move, and then inevitably end up in a pistol shrimp hole under the rocks where they wouldn't get enough light.  They'd let go again to drift out into the light again with a fraction of their original size.

I still like my tree of shrimps, but I did like those nems quite a bit and I haven't seen them go for the few aiptasia I had before the CBB much, so I probably won't bother replacing them (though, of course, I'm trying to raise the larvae and have gotten to around 4 weeks post hatch).

 

The fish have almost been universally doing well, the banggais continue to spawn but haven't had viable fry for a while now, the mandarins keep going at it, I had a pair of ruby red dragonets which were spawning too, but the female went missing a month or so ago (no trace), hope to find and train another soon.  More recently my pair of banded possum wrasses have been spawning, both a few small spawns and a couple of large (>100 egg) spawns.  My techniques are in their infancy for attempting to raise them (and they need very different parameters from the other eggs), but I'll be making more attempts.  The new CBB is camera shy but gets along great with the cardinals, they mostly hang out like they were all in the same group (vertical stripe gang).

(that reddish orange goni on the left was completely white before water changes started).

I've got a bit of an algae problem, but it's not super fast to grow in, and it's sort of replacing an ulva infestation which was more annoying.  The phosphate and nitrate levels are down (0.25ppm, 4ppm) from the previous usual too, so I will let the water changes and coral growth do their thing before attempting new adjustments.  While there aren't as many corals still around, the ones that are have grown, this candletip started as a single 3/4" stick.

 

And the manylined basslet (Gina) is as cryptic as ever, but likes coming out around twilight when I turn off the pumps especially, and will stick her nose out around feeding time just to have a look at how things are going.

 

 

I think one of the larvae I'd been seeing for a while that I had no ID for is likely pistol shrimp larvae, though while I hear the clicks, I rarely see any of them.  The larvae look like stick shaped little shrimp, and I've seen them shooting out from holes in the rockwork.  I've got positive IDs on hermit, emerald crab, and porcelain crab larvae, so I'm relatively sure it's them.  I've also got a full on micro brittle starfish infestation - not that it's a problem, but if I pull out a frag plug there's inevitably half a dozen stuck to the bottom around the glue.

[DaJMasta]

While older pictures, I also got an underwater camera with a good macro mode, an Olympus TG-6, and have gotten some really cool shots with it - I'd recommend it to someone who wants macro shots in their tank that are really up close and personal, I know I'm only beginning to figure out how to use it optimally.

 

That candletip acro in the top left of the tank near the powerhead.

 

 

The tank menace in a not so rare moment of lying low until he can go harass the firefish again.

A nice little blasto frag which is getting bigger but hasn't added more heads yet.

 

Some Tubbs Stellata montipora, a very nice branching monti, which is not doing super well in the tank but which is growing and hopefully finds its stability again.

 

And the derasa clam, quickly growing and an obvious centerpiece of the tank.  The mantle simply looks unreal, this is not color edited and is as close to what it really looks like as any picture I've taken.

[moga]

Nice tank..

 

Do u have some shots on aio area?

I am setting up the same set up.

 

 

[DaJMasta]

Thanks, it's a tricky one to photograph, but my configuration is a little unusual.  I'm not sold on it being perfect for the level of stocking, I really would prefer more algae scrubber in particular, but I don't know where I'd put it.

I replaced the stock skimmer with a smaller one (Ice Cap K1-50), then eventually replaced the pump with a more powerful one (SR Aquaristatik DC300GPH).  It uses a custom 3d printed bracket to hold on at a reasonable water level and just barely fits in the first chamber - the glass chunks used to align the original skimmer make it so you have to drop it in on the right side of the chamber and then slide it over to the left.  I've got two heaters (I think a 50W and a 100W) set to slightly different settings (the idea is that one failing on doesn't cook the tank and that they both don't cycle together for small fluctuations), and a little piece of airline tubing for the vodka dosing attached to the light's arm mount.

In the media rack I have two 3d printed boxes ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4863924 ) with ceramic media for more bacterial filtration capacity.  It works fine, but needs occasional cleaning because it's also sort of mechanical filtration - not 100% sold on the configuration.  At the top of the rack I've got a Santa Monica Systems Drop 1.2X turf algae scrubber which is way, way too expensive for what it is, but it works alright.  More space and more light would be my preference, but again, there isn't really the space unless you DIY a complete one, and with a black tank back you need submersible lights (better for growth surface area too), which are a significant price premium.

 

Then I swapped the original Sicce pump (which works great and is silent) with a DC pump, a Hydor Seltz D 750, to reduce the heat into the system.  I found that with two powerheads and the Sicce AC pump, I was pretty close to the target temperature with normal room temperature and no heating, which meant when the room temperature and humidity went up (reducing evaporative cooling) the tank ran hot.  The DC pump on its current setting is just barely audible, where the Sicce wasn't, but it puts in about half as much power to the water (similar story to the DC pump on the skimmer, but the stock skimmer uses a much more powerful pump, so a bigger difference).  Maybe in other configurations or locations heat is no issue, but for me, it seemed like the stock parts ran a little too warm.  An attached sump, if that's the configuration you use, should remove plenty of heat, but all together in a box seems somewhat well insulated.  I also had to make an input screen for the Hydor pump since the stock one was like 1/4" too long to fit in there with the pump itself and I wanted something on there.  The whole sump is pretty tightly packed, so it's tough to find alternatives if you want to retrofit.

[moga]

I c. i tossed out Red Sea skimmer and wanted to get some alternative. I will do the same that you have.. 
I took out the filter media as well. I wanted to have simple system with mechanical filter sponge and then skimmer and out let. 
( i will have two out=let with other pump)..
here's my setting now. just live rock and the light~..
I will put sand from  my current set up (93 gallon)..
 

Edited May 4, 2023 by moga

[DaJMasta]

I don't know how available the skimmer I'm using is, I think it was discontinued the year before I got it, and it's not quite the same dimensions as the newer K1 Nano (I think that's what it's called), which may not fit - the fit on this one is tight as is.

I actually wanted a Tunze 9004 DC (I think the 9004 fits, worth checking measurements to be sure), but at the time I was looking there were still basically no Tunze DC skimmers in stock, I think the stocking has improved and the shortages are lessened, so that may be an alternative that needs no jury-rigging.

[moga]

25 minutes ago, DaJMasta said:

I don't know how available the skimmer I'm using is, I think it was discontinued the year before I got it, and it's not quite the same dimensions as the newer K1 Nano (I think that's what it's called), which may not fit - the fit on this one is tight as is.

I actually wanted a Tunze 9004 DC (I think the 9004 fits, worth checking measurements to be sure), but at the time I was looking there were still basically no Tunze DC skimmers in stock, I think the stocking has improved and the shortages are lessened, so that may be an alternative that needs no jury-rigging.

Thanks for your advice. i will do some experiment as well. ~

[DaJMasta]

Well, it's been a heck of a while, but while there have been continuous changes, it's still running.  Lost more critters than I would like - most notably the clam and some of the SPS colonies - but there is quite a bit that has kept going strong and that's been growing into a decent size.

 

Had an almost two week vacation at the beginning of the year and that was the crunch I needed to finally do some automation, albeit crudely.  Setup an array of dosing pumps to take care of most of the basics and built a little custom ATO with some spare parts and the wet components intended for the ATO of the full on controller I *still* have plans on building.  Have some software revisions and testing to go, but it lasted the break without issues and I think is a reasonable design.  The current messy support system looks like this:

 

And the projects continue, at the end of the last year I got a hydrophone with the intent to listen in on what was going on in there, and I've started some recording.  Here's one at feeding time a few days ago, and while they're not a noisy bunch, you can hear some interesting stuff:

 

[YHSublime]

Shame about the clam, but the tank is still looking really nice. 

[DaJMasta]

Thanks, I think so too.  For the losses over time, I think it's both looking good and is on a positive trajectory.  About a month ago I was still getting regular buildup (though not everywhere) of cyano with a smidge of dinos, and I read in another thread on here that the high phosphate (and it's been chronically high) specifically could be encouraging it.  So I've been treating a couple times a week with lanthanum chloride and measuring to try and keep it down more consciously, and in the last week there's been basically none of either after a small water change, plus the algae growth on the glass is down a bit the last few days, too.  They had never been dealbreaker kinds of problems, but it definitely looks nicer now.

 

I also think that the couple of fluconazole treatments I've done in years past have lead to some buildup in the system.  I had noticed during treatments that I would loose egg masses that were carried by shrimp and even by the male cardinal,  but I also just wasn't doing a lot of water changes in general.  About two weeks ago the cardinals spawned for the first time in two years - the eggs weren't carried for long, but I had thought they were altogether done.  It could be that a few more water changes over the next couple of months could carry out enough of whatever's built up to increase spawning/fecundity rates, but for now it's only a hunch.

[YHSublime]

We're going through similar things at the moment, although I'd say yours is better pin pointed. 

 

I just don't have the energy or time to go in and clean things up, trim back, or replace/move. I'm noticing the algae buildup is getting darker, and possibly cyano in select locations. From my records, it looks like the last water change I did was 43 days ago, so it's possible that's just what the glass looks like after 40+ days of not cleaning it. Did another 10 gallon water change today, and will also replace the the filters and membrane in my RO/DI very soon. 

 

I still have a cardinal I bought from you, it hosts my giant elegance, which seems strange!

[DaJMasta]

Things have basically been good, I've been going a little harder with the lanthanum chloride to push the phosphates down (though more frequent, small doses, since that seemed to be the safest around the clams, though I don't have one now), though I lost my male cardinal a week or so ago, I believe from old age, he was a little more than 3 years old.  The female seems to be getting along fine though she didn't eat for a bit initially, and he had been eating only minimally towards the end of the batch of eggs he was carrying.

 

The corals are growing but I've got one bit of acro which refuses to be anything but brown - maybe the phospate reductions will help.  I've had to pick a bit of the carpeting tiny clove polyps that are slowly spreading over everything because one of the montis was having trouble out growing it, though I think it's grown up enough so that it won't be shaded again by being so close to the rock.  I also had some zoas start crowding out a porities and a blasto which had been happy, albeit with slower growth, so I removed some of them around each and will let things continue.

 

Today after dark was an odd event though, one I'm not sure I've seen before.  I wasn't looking at the tank after lights out, but by about 10:45 (about an hour after), the dissolved oxygen had crashed.  To the point that some fish were acting erratically (ruby red scooter dragonet was swimming to the surface and jumping like when he's had night terrors before), manyline basslet was out in the opening and minimally responsive, and a few others were panting.  I've seen this kind of thing before, and I've accidentally done it in this tank (collecting eggs or larvae with no flow going), but this time all the flow had been on the whole time, skimmer included.  While the skimmer needs to be cleaned and wasn't bubbling much, it was still going, so I'm really surprised it managed to bottom out - when I got a hold of what was going on and measured (I have a DO probe), it was right around 4 mg/L dissolved oxygen concentration.  I cleaned the skimmer a little and let it sit, and in half an hour it had rebounded to ~5.8 mg/L, which is more typical for the night time in this tank.  Another half hour beyond that, it's up to about 6.1 mg/L, so it did rise pretty steadily... but I feel like not in response to anything.

I didn't see any spawning events (maybe earlier and I missed it?), didn't see any irritated corals/fish/inverts, don't see anything dead on the powerheads, and didn't turn off the pumps... so what happened?  pH was low but normal for this time of night, nothing significant in terms of salinity or smell.  While it probably would have recovered on its own, it is a bit alarming since it seemed like it was close to disaster and I see no signs of a cause.

[DaJMasta]

Well everything seemed fine today and the evening went as usual with no abnormal activity.  Just emptied the skimmer cup and noticed a distinctive sulfurous smell from the contents of it (which filled a little quicker than usual) and none of the same scent from the gunk in the neck.

 

My guess is the thing that caused the dissolved oxygen crash probably caused that too.