Gone skimmerless ! - Page 5

ReefWreak · 11/14/2015, 08:54 PM

Yea, I did a bunch of research on those after your last post. Any thoughts on why they're special? They looked pretty unremarkable to me, except that they're just much larger on a spread of LED basis. I actually have really good spread with my current LEDs (they're not pucks, they are solderless PCB "stars" mounted evenly across a big wide heatsink, and I may still be getting STN...

jestronix · 11/14/2015, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

Yea, I did a bunch of research on those after your last post. Any thoughts on why they're special? They looked pretty unremarkable to me, except that they're just much larger on a spread of LED basis. I actually have really good spread with my current LEDs (they're not pucks, they are solderless PCB "stars" mounted evenly across a big wide heatsink, and I may still be getting STN...

To me they are well overpriced! you could do the same as what youve done really. They cover almost every inch of the tank, I haven't checked back on how their tanks are going. I even thought of doing some side leds at one point, during the day when im out so i dont get blinded. Diffuse lighting with plastics might also work. Im just watching my coral come back to life after adding T5 and halide, I dont wanna risk led for a while, unless it was a test tank.

without using lenses your getting 120 degree out of most leds, are you running optics ?

ReefWreak · 11/15/2015, 12:09 PM

I'm not running any lenses at all, but my tank is 18" deep (~46cm). I've got an array of 24 LEDs, half (white and colors) running at 700mah and the other half (royal blues) running at 1300mah. The heatsink is maybe 13"x8", so it gets pretty good spread around the center of the tank, and this coral currently STNing is right in the middle under the lights. Tips are growing outward like crazy, but the lower flesh is receding. Oh well!

RxReefer · 11/15/2015, 11:09 PM

That means supplementin with a broader coverage like t5 might help

ReefWreak · 01/07/2016, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

Its still hanging in there. I'll also feed more frozen food instead of pellets so that it has more opportunity to catch particulate food (it will enjoy it as well the rest of my corals)

I haven't posted any updates, but just to show you guys what this looked like 3 months later, after not skimming for 2 months, looked much better:

Jade5051 · 01/07/2016, 02:03 PM

Where is the return pump? Is it submersible in the fuge? Do you have a sump? Is it just baffled and I can't see it?

jestronix · 01/09/2016, 04:37 AM

Update Time,

So still no skimmer , tank is still in recovery mode but new growth and repair underway.

Colour is coming back thanks to T5 and halide. Starting to get a fair bit of algae around the tank so will be setting up a huge scrubber / caulerpa and frag tank outside, here's some pics in the mean time

Webmanny · 01/09/2016, 08:52 AM

Nice,

Corals look healthy now. I hope the largest scrubber and fuge help get rid of the algae.

jestronix · 01/17/2016, 03:39 AM

Outside scrubber , growth is insanely quick

1 week for the closer board, yes plastic bread boards are great, lots of little ripples and foods safe.

Caulerpa is going nuts , corals seem to like it too. If coral colours and growth are good, I'll be setting up outdoor tank too, which I can still see from the comfort of the living room. Temperature gets down to about 8c at best so really it's the 40c days I have to worry about.

Life goes on without the skimmer

jestronix · 01/30/2016, 05:06 AM

Yep, things got well out of whack ! I couldn't reign her back in, lots of caulerpa lots of scrubber, I just couldn't totally bring things back to before the rusted pump got me. I think skimmerless can be done, but man it has to be pristine and watched like a hawk, or insane amount of water changes.

So when i saw an octopus skimmer for sale I scooped it up, never used still in its box, works a charm. Rated for 1500litres, I'm running about 1000. So lots of room filter wise.

Sits outside in my sunlit tank/sump.

Natural sunlight is king, even under T5 I never saw caulerpa with oxygen bubbles

And here's my attempt at going off grid for my tank

Another 4 panels to connect yet, so a 2kw system off grid, into batteries then inverter to the tank, I run lights in the same the suns out with led after dark.

That's about it for now, never a dull moment, how boring would an easy reef tank be ?

Webmanny · 01/30/2016, 09:22 AM

Thank you for the update. I'm sorry you had to go back to using a skimmer, but if this helps get your tank back to a good state, I guess we have do whatever we have to do.

Good luck with everything, including your solar project.

ReefWreak · 01/30/2016, 11:39 AM

Solar project looks good, and I hope the skimmer turns things around for you! I'm at about 4 months now with no skimmer. Just macro algae and water changes. Nano is always a different beast though.

I'd love to go greenhouse + solar, but living in the city there isn't (any) room to do so, particularly when I'm renting and can't modify the building or exterior.

I'd ideally like to do something crazy like karimwassef is doing with an addition to the house that is a solarium for the aquarium setup to be in.

vikinglord13 · 01/30/2016, 01:44 PM

Ahh, sad you had to revert back to the skimmer.

Did you ever rinse your food (I'm assuming you fed something frozen)? I'm curious if phosphates in your food caused the algae spike. Although, it seems the algae and macroalgae should have kept down blooms. Certainly interesting.

jestronix · 01/30/2016, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vikinglord13

Ahh, sad you had to revert back to the skimmer.

Did you ever rinse your food (I'm assuming you fed something frozen)? I'm curious if phosphates in your food caused the algae spike. Although, it seems the algae and macroalgae should have kept down blooms. Certainly interesting.

Yes I always washed food, I'm thinking huge doses of iron from that rusting pump may have provided fuel. I also thinking skimmers remove more than just phosphate, I think toxins and possibly elements not removed by algae.

The tank was amazing in its early run of no skimmer, may this hints to a balance of skimming, like mike paletta , he runs only 6 hours a day.

jestronix · 01/30/2016, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

Solar project looks good, and I hope the skimmer turns things around for you! I'm at about 4 months now with no skimmer. Just macro algae and water changes. Nano is always a different beast though.

I'd love to go greenhouse + solar, but living in the city there isn't (any) room to do so, particularly when I'm renting and can't modify the building or exterior.

I'd ideally like to do something crazy like karimwassef is doing with an addition to the house that is a solarium for the aquarium setup to be in.

Yeh I hear ya, having to keep things external and no modifications is a pain. I'd love a sun room, with solar, u could do completely off grid reefing

jestronix · 01/30/2016, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webmanny

Thank you for the update. I'm sorry you had to go back to using a skimmer, but if this helps get your tank back to a good state, I guess we have do whatever we have to do.

Good luck with everything, including your solar project.

Yeh it was a last resort move, I really held out till the end, I wanted it succeed, I think without the rusted pump, it could have been done. Maybe, the explosion of algae after was insane.

vikinglord13 · 01/31/2016, 07:37 PM

I'm curious if it was also an algae bloom. Kind of how algae in the ocean/lakes go through seasons perhaps?

One might think water changes and a carbon reactor would help with the toxins and various elements.

jestronix · 02/13/2016, 07:16 AM

Removed my 160w of T5 and my two 150w halides for a single 400w. Lumatek ballast on a narrow reflector, need to punch through 3ft of water so hoping this will do the job. Picked up a a150 ocean blue second hand cheap so I run that in the morning and evening run.

Tank is in recovery mode, STN big time after a spike of 29c in the tank a month back, suspect I'll lose some coral from this, keeping up with water changes and will return to NSW, I miss it.

jestronix · 02/15/2016, 05:14 AM

Lost a few corals with this STN , it has has really hit hard. I suspect it's salt mix and or RO, switching back to NSW this weekend, will kick off @ 50% water change per month and see how we go. Will setup my auto water changer and go hard on the water changes , 12% a week, lots of light and flow. I will never use salt mix again! Twice I've had this, NSW is generally set forget from a good supplier. Looks like I'll be frag hunting again

.

All parameters were matched too,

So lessons learnt are ; salt mixes are random in quality, there's no governing laws like there is for pet food etc,
Check for rusted pumps!
Keep up water changes
Watch ur system like a hawk if ur going scrubber only.
Salt mixes are probably best if they are mixed with a few other brands, and each mix introduced slowly, no big water changes. (This is what I'll be doing next time round if I am forced to used salt mixes).
Halide and or T5 unless ur a seasoned pro with led.
Good turnover through the sump, more contact with filter.
Oh and don't let corals fight, it's so tempting to place lots of coral in ur tank , give them room and oh watch out for zoas they grow like weeds and challenge everything !
Keep carbon passive and regular.

Every time I get knocked over in reef keeping I know success will be sweeter next time round. Sometimes people will *** a good SPS system, not many will keep it up for long, something will always knock your ego off the perch in this game. How sweet it is

wildman926 · 02/15/2016, 10:09 AM

What percentage of water changes were you performing with your salt mix? Any more than 25% is really hard on the system and will have a negative impact, IME. Smaller changes with more frequency is the way to go. You have stated that already.

What brand were you using?

Were you performing large changes?

Was this your thinking, that you can do large water changes and get by without a skimmer?

Webmanny · 02/15/2016, 11:53 AM

I feel for you bro and I agree 100% on the salt issue. I have had only one tank crash in my time in this hobby and it was, in part, due to a bad batch of salt. I was dropping the same exact amount every time I made new water and I got so confident, that I stopped testing. Well... the issue with confidence is that it will come back to bite you.

I got a bad batch of salt and even though I was using the exact same amount of salt, the salinity was way lower than it should have been.

I was forced to give away most of my expensive corals to avoid watching them die in my tank.

Now, I test every single batch and never do large water changes. We'll see how things go in the future. Best of luck for you man.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jestronix

Lost a few corals with this STN , it has has really hit hard. I suspect it's salt mix and or RO, switching back to NSW this weekend, will kick off @ 50% water change per month and see how we go. Will setup my auto water changer and go hard on the water changes , 12% a week, lots of light and flow. I will never use salt mix again! Twice I've had this, NSW is generally set forget from a good supplier. Looks like I'll be frag hunting again

.

All parameters were matched too,

So lessons learnt are ; salt mixes are random in quality, there's no governing laws like there is for pet food etc,
Check for rusted pumps!
Keep up water changes
Watch ur system like a hawk if ur going scrubber only.
Salt mixes are probably best if they are mixed with a few other brands, and each mix introduced slowly, no big water changes. (This is what I'll be doing next time round if I am forced to used salt mixes).
Halide and or T5 unless ur a seasoned pro with led.
Good turnover through the sump, more contact with filter.
Oh and don't let corals fight, it's so tempting to place lots of coral in ur tank , give them room and oh watch out for zoas they grow like weeds and challenge everything !
Keep carbon passive and regular.

Every time I get knocked over in reef keeping I know success will be sweeter next time round. Sometimes people will *** a good SPS system, not many will keep it up for long, something will always knock your ego off the perch in this game. How sweet it is

jestronix · 02/18/2016, 04:19 AM

Righto few changes, sump is now back under the tank from out side, I was losing way too much electricity keeping that outside tank cool, I suspect outside tank hit 30c ! And caused some issues too.

1300 litres of NSW arrived today

let the water changes begin.

The 400w up and running

And the sump in place, skimmers in shallow water but seems to pick up heaps. Also got the little frag rack going.

Webmanny · 02/18/2016, 07:36 AM

Still looks good. I was expecting to see a disaster, but short of the few SPS sticks that have STN on them, most of it looks ok. Good job saving it man. Good luck with things going back to normal soon.

jestronix · 02/19/2016, 04:20 AM

Thanks, yeh still no polyp extension, only a few SPS are open, weird thing is I've almost managed to kill a Dallas frag,but birds nest is rock solid and hasn't noticed anything

I'm just going to roll on with the water changes. See what recovers. It's a shadow of its former that's for sure.

jestronix · 03/01/2016, 06:30 AM

Wow what a difference a 100% trickle water change had made over the week. Natural seawater is king, I'll never mix salt again. Anyway I've added a few pics to show new life growing on dead coral that was almost ripped out in anger. I mean the coral was white almost, and had dead patches with algae and cyano growing on it. I think one week longer they would have been gone. U can see how close I was to giving up on the Dallas frag, I'll now wait and watch the Dallas grow back over its dead skeleton, I suspect I could get some real crazy shapes forming. Other corals are calcifying and polyps are all fully extending, which is great. !

My halide bulb blew today so it's back to led until my new bulb arrives. Led should keep things alive till the bulb is here, yeh I hate led.

01/07/2016, 02:03 PM	#106
Jade5051 That guy... Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Illinois Posts: 1,218	Where is the return pump? Is it submersible in the fuge? Do you have a sump? Is it just baffled and I can't see it? __________________ The dream that is now a memory - http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2550891

01/09/2016, 08:52 AM	#108
Webmanny Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: 33612 Posts: 2,461	Nice, Corals look healthy now. I hope the largest scrubber and fuge help get rid of the algae. __________________ 32 gallon Biocube, DIY LEDs and Triton Method. My N=1 study of me, validated by me, and supported by completely anecdotal evidence, states that my advice is 100% correct, most of the time.

01/30/2016, 05:06 AM	#110
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	We'll blow me over I got a skimmer lol Yep, things got well out of whack ! I couldn't reign her back in, lots of caulerpa lots of scrubber, I just couldn't totally bring things back to before the rusted pump got me. I think skimmerless can be done, but man it has to be pristine and watched like a hawk, or insane amount of water changes. So when i saw an octopus skimmer for sale I scooped it up, never used still in its box, works a charm. Rated for 1500litres, I'm running about 1000. So lots of room filter wise. Sits outside in my sunlit tank/sump. Natural sunlight is king, even under T5 I never saw caulerpa with oxygen bubbles And here's my attempt at going off grid for my tank Another 4 panels to connect yet, so a 2kw system off grid, into batteries then inverter to the tank, I run lights in the same the suns out with led after dark. That's about it for now, never a dull moment, how boring would an easy reef tank be ?

01/30/2016, 09:22 AM	#111
Webmanny Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: 33612 Posts: 2,461	Thank you for the update. I'm sorry you had to go back to using a skimmer, but if this helps get your tank back to a good state, I guess we have do whatever we have to do. Good luck with everything, including your solar project. __________________ 32 gallon Biocube, DIY LEDs and Triton Method. My N=1 study of me, validated by me, and supported by completely anecdotal evidence, states that my advice is 100% correct, most of the time.

02/13/2016, 07:16 AM	#118
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	400w halide is on! Removed my 160w of T5 and my two 150w halides for a single 400w. Lumatek ballast on a narrow reflector, need to punch through 3ft of water so hoping this will do the job. Picked up a a150 ocean blue second hand cheap so I run that in the morning and evening run. Tank is in recovery mode, STN big time after a spike of 29c in the tank a month back, suspect I'll lose some coral from this, keeping up with water changes and will return to NSW, I miss it.

11/14/2015, 08:54 PM	#101
ReefWreak Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Astoria, NYC Posts: 10,159	Yea, I did a bunch of research on those after your last post. Any thoughts on why they're special? They looked pretty unremarkable to me, except that they're just much larger on a spread of LED basis. I actually have really good spread with my current LEDs (they're not pucks, they are solderless PCB "stars" mounted evenly across a big wide heatsink, and I may still be getting STN...

11/15/2015, 12:09 PM	#103
ReefWreak Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Astoria, NYC Posts: 10,159	I'm not running any lenses at all, but my tank is 18" deep (~46cm). I've got an array of 24 LEDs, half (white and colors) running at 700mah and the other half (royal blues) running at 1300mah. The heatsink is maybe 13"x8", so it gets pretty good spread around the center of the tank, and this coral currently STNing is right in the middle under the lights. Tips are growing outward like crazy, but the lower flesh is receding. Oh well!

11/15/2015, 11:09 PM	#104
RxReefer Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2015 Posts: 51	That means supplementin with a broader coverage like t5 might help

01/09/2016, 04:37 AM	#107
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Update Time, So still no skimmer , tank is still in recovery mode but new growth and repair underway. Colour is coming back thanks to T5 and halide. Starting to get a fair bit of algae around the tank so will be setting up a huge scrubber / caulerpa and frag tank outside, here's some pics in the mean time

01/17/2016, 03:39 AM	#109
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Outside scrubber , growth is insanely quick 1 week for the closer board, yes plastic bread boards are great, lots of little ripples and foods safe. Caulerpa is going nuts , corals seem to like it too. If coral colours and growth are good, I'll be setting up outdoor tank too, which I can still see from the comfort of the living room. Temperature gets down to about 8c at best so really it's the 40c days I have to worry about. Life goes on without the skimmer

01/30/2016, 11:39 AM	#112
ReefWreak Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Astoria, NYC Posts: 10,159	Solar project looks good, and I hope the skimmer turns things around for you! I'm at about 4 months now with no skimmer. Just macro algae and water changes. Nano is always a different beast though. I'd love to go greenhouse + solar, but living in the city there isn't (any) room to do so, particularly when I'm renting and can't modify the building or exterior. I'd ideally like to do something crazy like karimwassef is doing with an addition to the house that is a solarium for the aquarium setup to be in.

01/30/2016, 01:44 PM	#113
vikinglord13 Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 484	Ahh, sad you had to revert back to the skimmer. Did you ever rinse your food (I'm assuming you fed something frozen)? I'm curious if phosphates in your food caused the algae spike. Although, it seems the algae and macroalgae should have kept down blooms. Certainly interesting.

01/31/2016, 07:37 PM	#117
vikinglord13 Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 484	I'm curious if it was also an algae bloom. Kind of how algae in the ocean/lakes go through seasons perhaps? One might think water changes and a carbon reactor would help with the toxins and various elements.

02/15/2016, 05:14 AM	#119
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Lost a few corals with this STN , it has has really hit hard. I suspect it's salt mix and or RO, switching back to NSW this weekend, will kick off @ 50% water change per month and see how we go. Will setup my auto water changer and go hard on the water changes , 12% a week, lots of light and flow. I will never use salt mix again! Twice I've had this, NSW is generally set forget from a good supplier. Looks like I'll be frag hunting again . All parameters were matched too, So lessons learnt are ; salt mixes are random in quality, there's no governing laws like there is for pet food etc, Check for rusted pumps! Keep up water changes Watch ur system like a hawk if ur going scrubber only. Salt mixes are probably best if they are mixed with a few other brands, and each mix introduced slowly, no big water changes. (This is what I'll be doing next time round if I am forced to used salt mixes). Halide and or T5 unless ur a seasoned pro with led. Good turnover through the sump, more contact with filter. Oh and don't let corals fight, it's so tempting to place lots of coral in ur tank , give them room and oh watch out for zoas they grow like weeds and challenge everything ! Keep carbon passive and regular. Every time I get knocked over in reef keeping I know success will be sweeter next time round. Sometimes people will *** a good SPS system, not many will keep it up for long, something will always knock your ego off the perch in this game. How sweet it is

02/15/2016, 10:09 AM	#120
wildman926 Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: CTX Posts: 2,904	What percentage of water changes were you performing with your salt mix? Any more than 25% is really hard on the system and will have a negative impact, IME. Smaller changes with more frequency is the way to go. You have stated that already. What brand were you using? Were you performing large changes? Was this your thinking, that you can do large water changes and get by without a skimmer? __________________ Beware of recommendations by those who don't actually use their recommendation!! The search function actually works quite well!! Tanks:Planet Aquarium 150g LPS, Planet Aquarium 90g Softie

02/18/2016, 04:19 AM	#122
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Righto few changes, sump is now back under the tank from out side, I was losing way too much electricity keeping that outside tank cool, I suspect outside tank hit 30c ! And caused some issues too. 1300 litres of NSW arrived today let the water changes begin. The 400w up and running And the sump in place, skimmers in shallow water but seems to pick up heaps. Also got the little frag rack going.

02/18/2016, 07:36 AM	#123
Webmanny Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: 33612 Posts: 2,461	Still looks good. I was expecting to see a disaster, but short of the few SPS sticks that have STN on them, most of it looks ok. Good job saving it man. Good luck with things going back to normal soon. __________________ 32 gallon Biocube, DIY LEDs and Triton Method. My N=1 study of me, validated by me, and supported by completely anecdotal evidence, states that my advice is 100% correct, most of the time.

02/19/2016, 04:20 AM	#124
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Thanks, yeh still no polyp extension, only a few SPS are open, weird thing is I've almost managed to kill a Dallas frag,but birds nest is rock solid and hasn't noticed anything I'm just going to roll on with the water changes. See what recovers. It's a shadow of its former that's for sure.

03/01/2016, 06:30 AM	#125
jestronix Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 451	Wow what a difference a 100% trickle water change had made over the week. Natural seawater is king, I'll never mix salt again. Anyway I've added a few pics to show new life growing on dead coral that was almost ripped out in anger. I mean the coral was white almost, and had dead patches with algae and cyano growing on it. I think one week longer they would have been gone. U can see how close I was to giving up on the Dallas frag, I'll now wait and watch the Dallas grow back over its dead skeleton, I suspect I could get some real crazy shapes forming. Other corals are calcifying and polyps are all fully extending, which is great. ! My halide bulb blew today so it's back to led until my new bulb arrives. Led should keep things alive till the bulb is here, yeh I hate led.