Captain Nemo's Escape

[cpeguero]

So I have a few minutes - time for another update.

 

Nutrients are stable, now trying to get them where they need to be. Nitrate is at 1.7 ppm, Phosphate at 0.24 ppm. Not where I want them, but now I can adjust dosing. I'm slowly moving them to targets of 2-6ppm for Nitrate and 0.02-0.03 ppm Phosphate. Definitely seeing a reduction in the red slime/cyano/whatever brownish-red algae has been covering the tank. Corals that have survived are starting to look better, for the most part. The hammers are not particularly happy, but I think that's partly to do with my broken closed loop.

 

So one of my closed loops is offline because my Abyzz A100 started leaking. I threw in the towel with this one and took that pump offline. It's now for sale. If I was able to use it submerged, I would in a heartbeat, but I'm convinced the seal design makes this a poor choice for an external application. I found an open box RD3 at BRS, so ordered it....only to have it come in broken. Fortunately, BRS's customer service is great, and they're sending me a brand new pump....once it's in stock (all this happened around the end of January, so that pump is now on its way - arriving Saturday!). So brand new pump for the price of an open box. I'll call it a win

 

Another factor in overall tank health is my UV is on the closed loop that is down, so not sure how that might be impacting overall tank health.

 

In my efforts to get phosphate and nitrate where they need to be, I only run my skimmer for a half hour in the morning. I may adjust that as I move nutrient levels to where they should be. 

 

Since I'm obsessed with my tank.....aren't we all? I can't help but continue to get more coral.... mostly small bits, focusing on zoas since SPS aren't very happy with my nutrient issue and want to make sure my hammers are happy before getting more of them. I won a raffle from The Coral Dragon and got 7 goni's and alvi's :D. Started finally feeding reef roids in my QT and DT, and paid a bit more attention to where they were placed to ensure they were happy. 

 

Spending so much time with the tank makes you tinker.... About a month or two ago, I finally changed my AWC to run off of level sensors instead of relying on the calibration of my doser. I found that my salinity drifted down because of a small mismatch, which isn't surprising. You move enough water, and a small bit off adds up. As a result, my water level in the return chamber gets lower than before, which means my return pump starts sucking some air. To fix that, I put a downward facing elbow on the intake and removed the inlet screen. Only problem is, it made it worse. This is because as the water cascades into the return chamber during water changes, it entrains air, right into the path of the downward facing elbow . I'll fix that with a baffle to redirect the flow. Have the material, just need to find the time now.

 

Another wrinkle is that, for the first time ever, the breaker in my GHL power strip tripped! This happened twice, in the evening, just as I went to bed. Good thing the back-siphoning is loud as anything when the return pump shuts off. That, and I get email notifications that the profilux lost connection to something. Nothing obvious to indicate what caused it. I reset the breaker, and everything went back to normal. Finally narrowed it down to this - it must be the heaters. When they're on (have 2 of them, one eheim jager, don't remember wattage, and a BRS titanium one) they draw over 7 amps. The return pump is drawing 3.5 amps. Don't remember how much the refugium lights draw (on reverse daylight cycle), but it all adds up to close to the breaker max of 15 amps. To test this, plugged the return pump into another outlet, and hasn't happened since. Now, I need to either get another power strip (planning this eventually anyway), or just use one heater. In reality, I don't need both heaters, as they only kick on once in a while on particularly cold nights. Near term, I'll probably just go down to one heater. 

 

The power issue, plus the fact that my hammerhead shaft seal has started to leak, have got me really looking at finally getting an Abyzz A400. The volute seal design is different, so I don't think I'll have the leaking issue I had with the A100. Plus, replacing the shaft seal is a 24-hour process (silicone curing). I really don't want to have the return pump down for that long. It is much cheaper to just get another hammerhead, but I really like the idea of it being quieter and having more control of the pump. We'll see what other surprises my tank has in store.... for now, the leak isn't bad, just something that will have to be addressed. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't do something to force me to fix it before I'm ready......

 

Somewhere along the way, my flame angel disappeared. Not sure what happened. Didn't notice any aggression, but he's gone :(. Once things get settled, I may get another one, especially if I see more aggression between the Potter's angel and the coral beauty. 

 

I haven't added any fish for a while. I have all the major ones that I want, but I do want some more gobies and a pair of mandarins. The recent expenses, though, have me putting those additions off. 

 

I did move some ricordea, zoas, and a crocea clam to the DT recently. Have to get the clam onto a frag plug so it will stay in place. Fortunately there are a few spots high on my rockwork that hit 300 PAR for it.

 

Here are a few pics of the tank and coral QT. Coral QT has some significant algae growth. Just yesterday put a bunch of clean-up crew in from reefcleaners.org. Many will go to the DT after quarantine, but the QT could use their help in the meantime :D.

 

[howaboutme]

Thanks for the update. Tank looks great and glad you got through your issues!

[cpeguero]

Quick update tonight.

 

Life has gotten in the way the last few weeks (as usual), so I haven't been able to dedicate much time to the tanks. Good news - Nitrates are up at 3.1 ppm. Not so good news, Phosphorous is also up at 163 ppb (targeting around 10!). The tank itself looks ok. Definitely a reduction in the red/brown algae coverage. My kH, however, has been creeping high. I even stopped dosing kalkwasser because I was hitting 10.4..... no surprise, given the phosphate levels and that it can inhibit coral growth. 

 

Most of the corals are doing alright, though my zoas seem to be melting away. No idea why. Some of them do fine, but others slowly waste away. Perhaps this is because of the phosphate/high kH?

 

During the recent period of neglect, my filter floss went un-replaced (so no mechanical filtration), which is probably why the phosphates are so high. I replaced that, but now the fleece has decided to get tangled every couple of days. Coralvue had some tensioning collars on their website a few weeks ago that were supposed to help prevent this, but now they've disappeared. Should have just bought them when I saw them. I'm waiting to hear back from them as to when/if they'll be available again.

 

My coral QT is now overrun with what I believe to be GHA (you can see some of it in the last pics in previous post). It's now at plague proportions, threatening to overrun the corals that are left in there. I'm hoping that phosphate reduction efforts in the DT will help with this. I'll also be trying to dedicate some time to the tanks this weekend, so manual removal. Maybe then the cleanup crew that is quarantining in there will have a chance to catch up.

 

At some point in the last month or so, my new AWC system failed. Specifically, the float switch I was using as my low water indicator failed - either snail/calcium buildup/something else was preventing the float from moving AND the switch was not tripping open/closed (this was a few weeks ago, so I shut off AWC's and have gone without in the interim).

 

Since it had only been set up like this for a few weeks, I decided not to depend on a float switch for this setup anymore. Unfortunately, for reasons I can't explain (and spent quite some time trying to diagnose when I first put this together), my homemade breakout box/splitter for the liquid level switches will not function with an optical liquid level sensor on one channel (the one that had a float switch on it). It appears to be something in the profilux itself. If I find time, I'll contact GHL with details to see if they have any thoughts, though I have a feeling that since I'm DIY-ing it with the splitter and my own sensors, all bets are off. I'll accept that though - can't stomach paying $70 for a single sensor.

 

So, with not having another channel free for liquid level sensors (other 2 are used with my fleece rollers and an alarm for high water in the DT), I have to set up an AWC with a single sensor. Also, this single sensor will function as the ATO sensor. Yes, I could NOT do that, and have a separate sensor for the ATO level, but they won't exactly match, which will result in salinity creep, etc. So...... cue frenzy of messing with programmable logic, one frustrating evening of it not working at all (while dealing with multiple kids being sick, me getting sick, etc - fried parent brain), and (after a couple of weeks of a just barely functional ATO and NO AWC) I finally have my AWC and ATO system working.

 

Basically, the optical sensor works as ATO without any fuss. Then, when I want a water change, either a maintenance function or a timer triggers the AWC sequence. It has to prevent the ATO from running, run the drain pump for X seconds, then trigger the fill pump to run until the water level hits the sensor. This is one situation where I really wish GHL had a straight up programming interface. Instead, I have to deal with the different logic gates to do what I want. Ultimately, I accept this frustration, since I decided when I went with GHL that the reliability of the hardware was worth the cost in having a different user interface. I haven't come across a situation I can't do with the logic gates, I'm just not used to working with them - hence the frustration.

 

On the livestock side, one of the two cleaner shrimp I put into the DT just up and died. No idea why. The second one appeared to be ok a few days ago. Haven't seem him for a few days, though he does like to hide.... I have had really bad luck with cleaner shrimp in this tank. They do fine in the QT (these had been there for over 2 months), then when I put them in the DT, they die in a few days. I'm really hoping the 2nd one is still alive, and just molted or something.

 

So maybe that wasn't a "quick" update..... really happy that things are stabilizing and that I think I am really on track to dial everything in. Just need to make a couple of nudges and let it coast to the ideal state (I hope).

 

 

[AlanM]

I admire you for sticking to it through the various issues.  Such a large tank is a big beast to steer once it gets off track.  So many moving pieces.  Fingers crossed that the recent additions to the controllers and setup will get it working well.

 

Reading back through the thread, on the heater power front, I ended up making a little box with a solid state relay that uses 120V AC on both the control side and the output side.  The control side was wired to a plug that went to the Apex outlet which would switch the SSR on and off.  That way I could have the actual heaters on a dedicated 20A circuit without drawing all of that power through the Apex power bar.

[cpeguero]

Alan,

Thanks for the kind words. It is a beast. Trying to remember lessons and make small adjustments as I get it tuned in.

I like the idea of the external relay. I’ve done this for several other pieces of hardware in the past. No idea why it didn’t occur to me to do it with the heaters. I’ll need to get an add-on card, I think, as I’ve used up all the external switch ports for other things. Perhaps next month that will be my project.


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[cpeguero]

It's almost exactly a year since my last post here..... so I'll do another

 

Resolved the heater issue by splitting return onto a second powerbar that I got for a great price. Also, I don't know that the heaters have run in the past year. There's enough residual heat from equipment, plus I keep the house at 74 year round (fish tank is a great excuse for this), so the thing that runs often is my fan for evaporative cooling.

 

The ATO I switched over to just a float switch after an asterina star crawled onto the optical sensor and messed up either a water change or the ATO (can't remember which). I'm also just using the GHL float switch, since it came with the used powerbar and I don't have to keep troubleshooting the DIY circuit....

 

After battling GHA for a while, I finally hit it with flucanazole and watched it all melt away! I've finally got the nutrients under control. Phosphate is at 0.11 ppm and Nitrate is at 10.2 (recently spiked). 

 

Things in the tank are looking better after also adding a couple of MP40s for flow. See my DIY post on getting a flowmeter and learning my flow from the return is much lower than I thought. Plus, cyano has been a bit of an issue, partly nutrients, partly likely due to flow.

 

My rabbitfish unfortunately died of unknown causes. Similar to something that killed a melanurus wrasse a while ago. He was just really weak and kept getting sucked against the overflow. He died about a day after going into QT :(. I haven't replaced him yet, but I have added a blue throat sailfin fairy wrasse, a carpenter's flasher wrasse, two biota mandarins (who I haven't seen for a while, but are tiny and great at hiding), a neon goby, a yellow line goby, a flame angel, and a blue star leopard wrasse. Not all of these at once, two or four at a time. Everyone is largely getting along, but my convict tang is getting beaten up more in the last month or so. Not sure what's going on there, but I'm keeping an eye on things. If it becomes too regular, I may have to do something, though he seems to usually be the instigator, and comes away with a slash and some torn fins....

 

Not much new in corals, as I've been fighting getting nutrients under control in my coral QT. Finally getting dialed in, but it also didn't help that the BTA I put in to QT decided to walk the first night and meet the MP10.......

 

I'm really looking forward to GHL finally sorting out their supply chain so I can order an Ion Director. Also considering getting a Reef Factory Smart Tester to test phopshate, once it's available in the states.

 

All in all, the tank is going in a good direction, and I'm feeling optimistic about getting more corals in. Plus, one of the corals I thought long dead appears to be back!

[gastone]

Excellent documentation.  Enjoyed the read.