Zachtos 300G SPS reef build (Wisconsin)

[zachtos]

Originally Posted by McPuff

How is your Potter's angel doing? Does it eat pretty much whatever you put in the tank or is it picky? I know they are constant grazers and some will eat only sponge. I thought about getting one but 1) the aforementioned difficulty, and 2) I don't want it to eat all my sponge. :0) I'll probably stick with a cherub or possibly a trio of them.

Potter's seems fine. He still has that spot on his fin, but not sure what it is, been there through all quarantine treatments. He eats mostly just the meat and pellets I put in the tank. Not too interested in nori or hair algae. I do have a lot of sponge though for some reason, but I don't see him eat anything else. All the angels pretty much the same on diet so far. All fat and growing. I think I did see the flame angel nip at some of the new corals already though, so we shall see.

[McPuff]

Originally Posted by zachtos

I think I did see the flame angel nip at some of the new corals already though, so we shall see.

This is my main concern over adding angels. I'm hoping that large colonies (upon the fish's entry) will be fine and can take the occasional nip. There are certainly many people that successfully keep large angels (and triggers even) in large reefs. Frags are another matter and I certainly had a rough time keeping pygmies in with smaller frags/mini colonies. Hopefully they stop picking for you... or at least pick infrequently enough.

[Mishri]

I have the winter RO/DI problem as well, being in Montana.. water is too cold. I put about 50ft of line in between my faucet and the ro/di unit and put that in a garbage can full of warm water(warmed with aquarium heaters).. that fixes the problem for the most part.. however.. I need to up it.. I think 100ft and a few heaters are necessary to keep it warm enough.. I think Ideal temp for the ro/di unit is around 75 degrees i think, i can't remember.. but it's basically the same as our tanks. As long as you make RO/DI water in large batches you can turn off your heaters and save power that way. (Although the heaters shouldn't run much when you aren't making water if you choose to leave them on)

Nice job on the rapid progress.

[zachtos]

KH - 9.5ppm
Calc - 450 ppm
Mg - 1380ppm
NO3 - 1.0-2.5ppm (all salifert tests)
SG - 35ppt
Temp - 79F
PO4 - untested

I've added a few fish, but mostly done with coral and fish for now. I picked up a lot of corals from Quinn, a local reefkeeper, as well as Dale (tech9) and the remainder from the annual Michigan frag swap and Madison, WI frag swap. I mostly am keeping Millis and montis. I won't bother naming off the corals, I'll just wait until they get big and color back up. Many lost color due to acclimation shock I think. I'm still trying to figure out the LEDs, but I've been raising the lighting from 65% to 100% slowly week by week, I'm at 80% so far. I have lost a few corals from light shock, but I think 45 of 50 or so frags are doing fine and starting to encrust.

I did add a few mandarin dragonettes, but lost one to a vortech pump. There are tons of pods, so they should do fine. Maybe someday I'll get around to taking nicer photos of everyone with the underwater camera, and spend some time getting good fish candids. I'm mostly in grow out phase now, just watching everything go and getting to know my 3 part doser. I'm at around 25ml/day so far on Alk/Calc/Mg using randy's advanced 3 part dosing type 1 recipe.

I can't say if 3 part dosing is better that a calcium reactor yet. It is very nice to not have to deal with paramaters getting out of balance like they did with the Ca reactor!

I've stopped dosing phytoplankton, mostly because the cultures kept crashing. I'm still keeping a few rose anemones until they **** me off. No aggression with the fish really, a bit of light fighting with the dwarf angels, but nothing past occassional nip/chase. No noticable coral nipping yet either. I do have green star polyps on the bottom/HDPE right now, but I plan to keep it isolated on the base.

[McPuff]

You came all the over to MI for the frag swap?

[zachtos]

Originally Posted by McPuff

You came all the over to MI for the frag swap?

I needed to come pickup a car, so I just scheduled to fall on the same weekend. The MI swap is FAR FAR BETTER than the ones I've seen in WI so far.

[McPuff]

Originally Posted by zachtos

I needed to come pickup a car, so I just scheduled to fall on the same weekend. The MI swap is FAR FAR BETTER than the ones I've seen in WI so far.

I'm also surprised there aren't more fish stores in Wi, particularly Madison. There used to be a few good stores (e.g., Aquarius Pets in Monona) but it seems like now the only one is Pet World by the Beltline. Is it now necessary to drive to Milwaukee/Okonomowoc for quality livestock, etc.?

[Drag Racer]

Fish store selection here In Wisconsin isn't good. Used to live in Illinois and far more places to choose from.

[McPuff]

Zach, how's the tank doing? I'm curious how you like the Rapidled fixtures. As I've said before, I only have 4 over my tank (w/T5 supplement) but I think I'd like to go with 6 if I can find two more.

Fish and corals still getting along?

[zachtos]

Losses:
-About 40% of coral
-1 yellow tang
-1 purple pseudochromis
-3 green chromis
-1 turbo snail
-2 shrimp (cleaner and peppermint)

Additions:
-2 firefish in QT
-2 blue azure damsel in QT


Coral WAS DOING GREAT for about first few months, growing bases, but then all went to **** over next few months. I think it was because I was not careful with salinity, allowing it to rest at 35ppt, then drop to 30ppt for a month. Also moving alkalnity all over the place from 12kh to 7kh within a week, I'm sure had an impact. I don't think it was the lighting, as most corals became pale slowly over a month, not overnight. Though through this, many corals seem to be fine, such as the purple poccileporaa, most montiporas, 1 red millis, green star polyps and rose anemone. Everything else is mostly on deathwatch. This took a huge chunk from the budget, and has been very discouraging, but I am really not all about the coral so much nowadays. I really just want a decent showpiece with healthy fish and some coral nowadays. My days of obsessing over perfection are over. I would like to replace some of the lost coral when I see better stability and growth returning to the survivors.

This tank has so many new things vs. my old system that it has been hard to figure it out. I had Quinn from WR over to review, and mostly suggested 'stability' overall, especially KH/SG. I am still getting to know my system. I bought a milwaukee electronic refractometer to get more accuracy from my SG, since I blame some of it on bad refractometer. I do have a metric **** ton of corraline algae and copepods, so that overall should mean the system is quite healthy.

Stuff I did different vs. old system that cause me to question this minor crash:
-3 part dosing with bulk drieveway/pool salts
-algae turf scrubber
-LED light
-heavy fish load
-smaller sump
-no substrate
-coral dipping with bayer
-fish QT with copper/prazi

Most fish seem to be doing fine, though I did lose a yellow tang to I believe to be aggression from the other 3 yellow tangs. A few smaller chromis type fish have dissapeared, unkown reasons, but that just seemst to happen to those fish even in my old systems. I am still feeding 4 times a day with auto feeder pellet/flake, 1x day with dried red nori, and 1x day with about 6-8 cubes worth of DIY frozen fish food blend.

I am now dosing chelated iron, about 30ml a few times a week, from a DIY blend of dry iron chelate powder I had from an old planted tank. I have heard this can help if running an algal turf scrubber, that can possibly deplete all the iron. I have seen and improvement in turf growth, and darkening of color, but the algae actually seems softer/easier to clean off? I still grow a ton of algae every week, and it is quite a pain to clean (20 minutes), but being able to control your nitrates with the push of a button (PWM) is absolutely amazing. I now aim for 2.5-7.5ppm nitrates, and I seem to have no problem with this.

I try to keep KH at 8.0 +/- 0.5, using about 100ml dosed (10ml x 10/day) using the soda ash randy holmes farley recipe. (2cup/gal)

I keep the calc 450 +/- 25ppm using 80ml dosed (20ml x 4/day) using prestone driveway salt, CaCl, using same recipe. (2.5cup/gal)

I keep magnesium around 1250 +/- 100pm using 40ml dosed (every 3 days) using uncented epsom salts and magflake (dow), I forget recipe, but randy holmes again.

I am using about 6 cups of granular activated carbon from general carbon (55 lb bags / $130), in a nylon sock sitting in the sump.

I pull about 2.5 gallons +/- 1gallon every week from the skimmer bucket.

I am doing about 30 gallon water changes 2 or 3 times per month, so 20% on average per month overall.

Temperature 79-80F. (still using water heater closed loop, works great).

Utilities, around $50-$60/mo extra from what I have observed to date. Overall tank mainenance cost of $1800-$2500 / year. About where forecasted.

Near Future:
No major plans, just focus on stability. I may dump some more money into more fish (maybe some more tangs, blue damsels, firefish, dragonettes, royal grammas). If I can't keep coral successfully this time, then I want a stunning display of colorful active/health fish. I will try to add more SPS when stable. If I can't keep SPS happy, then I may just fill the tank with green star polyps and montipora caps. Kind of as a joke, but honestly they look cool to non reefkeepers, especially with a wavemaker. Zoanthids/softies/LPS are all almost out of question because of my angelfish, which is still a worth trade off so far.

I'll try and post a few photos and a video soon of the fish while they are awake and feeding.

[McPuff]

Sorry to hear about the coral and fish losses. I think you're spot on with the fish... that just happens sometimes. Still unfortunate. You've probably identified the corals as well. Salinity and ALK are the two most important factors for SPS. You've got an ATO in there don't you? I don't understand why the salinity would have swung so much... unless you were not careful with water changes maybe? Your ALK is probably still varying too greatly. It's fine to change it by 0.5 in a day but you don't want to consistently swing it that much. I'd want to keep it closer to 0.1-ish. By dosing you should be able to maintain this tight range. Try soda ash instead and see how that goes instead. I know people like to save money using really cheap materials but I don't really see it being that expensive to use BRS or similar. Again, it may just be worth trying to see if you have better luck. And that all fails, I do think you have a great fallback plan. I would likely do the same.

[zachtos]

Yes, was not very careful with waterchanges, and the refractometer seemed very sensitive to temperature.

I am using soda ash for topoff, but my ph seems to go from 7.8 in the AM, to 8.5 in the PM, if my meter is correct. Also, I have a very tough time right now with ALK because corals are still dying off, so the demand keeps changing... some are still growing (montipora), so they are using ALK, it's tough to keep consistent.

I may switch to BRS in future, but I have used chemicals like this in the old reef with no issue, but no the soda ash, just regular old baking soda. I used to only buff the system though, so not as heavy of a dose as a maintain version vs. calc reactor.

[McPuff]

How are you running the turf scrubber? Maybe just run it at night to see if you can damped the pH swings?

[zachtos]

I have been running turf scrubber during the day , 12 hour days, seems to coincide with a good size PH spike over the day.

The alk doser is 10ml every 2.5 hours of soda ash water mix.

[McPuff]

I know you didn't really want a CA reactor, but consider it. I DIY'd one pretty easily and it works very well. There's just so little you need to do to it other than monitor and test weekly. Once you have stability with the coral health, it might be a good time to make the switch. Just my suggestion anyway. And if you decide against SPS at some point, it would still be useful for LPS.

[zachtos]

LOL, photobucket is now garbage. Cant they just put ads on the photos? Where can I host photos now for free?

[zachtos]

I have left this thread and started a new one because of **** *** photobucket.

New Thread 300G reef

[zachtos]

300G in wall FTS (webcam above, Tablet for APEX on side)


Left Side


Right Side


*Changes
-I dumped 3 of 6 LED fixutres and added a T5 fixture. Mostly I wanted more even light distribution, and I just want to rule out some more unknowns why I was having bad luck vs. my old 240G reef.
-I dumped the tunze wavemakers AND MP60 vortechs in exchange for 4 gyres. I LOVE GYRES, they provide amazing flow, exactly how I need it. Nice sheet of water that moves across the top of the tank, with a nice undertow that pulls nutrients across the corals. I could never find a good spot for a vortech that did not strip flesh from corals. The wavemakers were fine, but they scare me, as over time they add stress to tank joints and I think I just need more flow. Also, vortechs killed many fish from their big impellors, and they are not fun to cover with foam. I am happy with my knockoff gyres from Jebao. Quiet and powerful, more so than the MP60s IMO.
-I drilled the house and brought air flow in from outdoors for the skimmer, to help combat low PH, it did work, and I think I'm 8.1 to 7.8 now, up from 7.8 to 7.5!
-I removed the algae turf scrubber. It was difficult to clean, and time consuming. I don't know if it was working well, and I think it may have been removing too many nutrients when combined with skimmer and barebottom.
-I removed the frag tank and turned it into a refugium for now, since It will be quite some time until I do a frag tank. I think I may at that time, just make a designated frag tank off in the corner isolated from the display, and keep the bioload very low.
-Apex control system and webcam added


Problems:
-Bad cyanobacteria infestation covered the entire tank. I ended up cleaning it up with chemiclean...
-then the leftover nutrients caused a spike which lead to me cleaning up with lanthinum chloride to remove excess phosphate...
-then that lead to too low phosphate and too high nitrate, which allowed dinoflagelate to take hold...
-which caused snails to die, and an endless loop of coral failure.
-Photobucket's policy reversal is great, now all my threads from the last 15 years are back online. No longer holding the internet hostage for $400/year is a good thing. I hope they continue to use an ad based model, why not just inject ads/watermarks into our photos?

Solution:
*Now I think it's all under control, just a bit of hair algae remains, but I'm trying my best to keep the system stable. Keeping Nitrates higher, feeding more and doing 0 water changes combined with ICP testing and trace dosing, that's the new plan. Water changes always seemed to agitate my corals in my old tank and this tank as well. Maybe this will work out better?
*Apex controller has been added so I can travel a bit longer, without worry.
*Also a webcam so I can monitor without worry.
*Added a special dosing pump to the calcium reactor which is very nice, constant 200ml/min rock solid, no more clogged valves

Parameters (verified with ATI ICP test)
N03 - 2.5ppm, trying to keep nitrate 2-5ppm now
PO4 - 0.05 ppm, so this maybe high still
Ca - 438 ppm
Alk - 7.94 dkh
Mag - 1399 ppm
SG: 35 ppt

Lighting
-T5 ATI sunpower 80Wx8 bulb (atiblu+ x 5, Coral+ x 2, Purple+ x 1)
-3 x Corona Rapid LED fixtures (supplement the T5)

Flow
-4 x Jebao CP-150 Cross Flow Pump Wave Maker with Controller

Equipment/Filtration
-5G remote deep sand bed (5 gallon bucket with fine sand and high flow, for N03 export)
-20G refugium with chaeto and bright 500+ PAR Red/Blue cree LED custom fixture
-Skimmer - Super Reef Octopus SRO-5000INT 10
-Calcium Reactor - SUPER REEF OCTOPUS SRO 3000 CALCIUM REACTOR
-Calcium Reactor Effluent control: Cole-Parmer 7523-60 Masterflex L/S Digital Standard Drive @ 200ml/min
-fresh air intake from outdoors for Skimmer - to help raise PH
-55W x 2 UV filters Jebao (for dinoflagelate, ich etc, feed from return)
- 2 x DCS-9000 2377GPH Submersible Pump with Controller Jebao (running at 50% each)

Control
-Apex (2016)
-PH/SG/ORP/Temp probes
-PM1 PH module for controlling calcium reactor
-EB832 power bar for pumps, ATO, feeder relays
-GPIO adapter for float switches (auto top off, skimmer bucket full)
-EB4 energy bar for gyres
-EB8 energy bar for lights/UV (GFCI circuit)
-Amcrest 2K Wireless Security Camera 3MP (2304TVL) for webcam on tank
-APC UPS 600VA Battery Backup for internet in power loss
-custom deep cycle battery UPS for Apex, returns and masterflex
-Tablet for Apex viewing - NuVision 8-inch Full HD
-3 auto feeder drums (custom with custom APEX code)

Maintenance
-I'm planning to switch to a no water change system. I will do ICP testing from ATI labs every 2-3 months, and dose missing trace elements as indicated by the tests. I do not feel it's worthwhile to do waterchanges just to replace trace elements, when nutrients are usually just fine.
-reducing GAC/carbon usage
-trace element dosing. I will dose based on ATI test results. Currenlty I am dosing DIY elements using basic chemistry to create solutions of various PPM. Flurid, Boron, iodine, barium, molybdenum, manganese, vandium, iron and Replenish by Brightwell aquatics.

Fish
-I lost a few fish for unknown reasons, I think from just fighting or not enough food? 1 yellow tang and 1 regal angel. A few small fish were killed by the vortechs, ground up in the impellors. One more reason I was happy to get rid of the MP60s. I have a new addition in the quarantine tank, convict tang.
-Feeding 3 x day, flakes and spectrum pellets x 2 and x1 frozen food (reef frenzy), 1 sheet of nori (nori-direct)

Inverts
-I lost nearly all my snails from the dinoflag. so I replaced them all with 200 assorted hermit crabs and a few emerald crabs.

Coral
-I lost a lot of coral over the last year. Some of the more common corals are doing fine, but others could not handle all the issues. I added a few new pieces recently, and hopefully, now that the system is becoming more stable, there will be an improvement.

Fish Room


50G Sump


20G fuge


CaRx pump to keep effluent steady


EB8 lighting controller and auto fan control


UV/EB4 Controller


EB832 controller for CaRx probe/pumps/feeders etc

[McPuff]

Nice update! A few questions:

-How did you find the Cole Parmer peristaltic pump? This is something I am also considering. It's kind of a pain to check on pH and flow every day.

-How did you get rid of dynos?

-I have a similar "no water change" protocol in my 300. In reality I do water changes but it's close to 30 gal/month. I only remove the really dirty water 10-15 gallons at a time. This may be in the sump, the lagoon, or from vacuuming the sand. Maximizes the benefit and seems to work very well.

-trace elements. Since you're using a calcium reactor, I wonder how much you'll need to worry about these... shouldn't the old coral skeletons keep those values high enough? It'll be interesting to see.

[zachtos]

Originally Posted by McPuff

Nice update! A few questions:

-How did you find the Cole Parmer peristaltic pump? This is something I am also considering. It's kind of a pain to check on pH and flow every day.
there is a huge thread on RC
. I bought on ebay $300 or so I think and got the tubing on plastics.com, someone had a link in that thread for the parts. I was hesitant to buy, but now I'm glad, as that was one of the largest pains in the ***, that and my skimmer neck auto cleaner.

-How did you get rid of dynos?
*increased nutrient levels and run UV x 100 watts / 300 gallon at 600gph flow.

-I have a similar "no water change" protocol in my 300. In reality I do water changes but it's close to 30 gal/month. I only remove the really dirty water 10-15 gallons at a time. This may be in the sump, the lagoon, or from vacuuming the sand. Maximizes the benefit and seems to work very well.
Yes, I think I may still siphon my fuge area, everywhere else seems very clean. This is very new to me, so I don't know if it will work out, because I have to keep Nitrate and phosphate low. I think Nitrates no issue, actually have issue keeping them up... phosphate on the other hand, seems to be too high. Maybe will keep doing Lanthanum Chloride or start buying GFO.

-trace elements. Since you're using a calcium reactor, I wonder how much you'll need to worry about these... shouldn't the old coral skeletons keep those values high enough? It'll be interesting to see.
From a post by Randy Holmes says that only trace elements found in the actual coral skeleton are preserved in the media... The trace elements used by the flesh/meat of the coral, are NOT, which makes absolute sense. It would be easy to test, dont' do any WC then do an ICP test and watch what elements are dropping, then dose the missing elements. I think ICP is only way the no WC could ever exist, as how would people know when to stop adding a trace element otherwise? Too much guess work. Only really seems cost effective for large tanks at moment.

[TheCamaroShow]

more pics

[McPuff]

Thanks, I've read quite a bit about the peristaltic pumps... just was curious about where you got it and how much $ it was. So thanks again. I'll have to keep an eye out. If I'm going to buy one it probably makes sense to get something that is higher quality than the Kamoer version.