Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

Some pictures from tonight. I'm so not a photographer. And I wish I could capture some of the colors on these fish in better detail. Like my bicolor has gotten this amazing electric blue outline around its fins now like my coral beauty does and I just can't get it in images. And it's blue is this deep metallic blue and the pictures don't do that metallic look justice at all.

This my wife's favorite fish. Guests like watching it work digging up and spitting out sand too. Has these cute bright blue freckles all over the face and yellow highlighted eyes.



This is HIS cave.




Love the color differences between the male and females






I really wish I could get the blues to come out on these two in pictures




And here's a picture of my flame angel.....oh never mind. It's always out and about UNTIL I pull up the camera.

Remember it's HIS cave!!

[jason2459]

Added some more stoney corals. Do not ask me what kind they are. A couple sticks and some odd looking flat thing that has alien looking eggs growing on it.











Beat picture I could get of it. Has like neon green between those alien eggs.


And some of my bubble tips.

[jason2459]

Quick check of parameters tonight. I should have the Triton results in tomorrow.


Salinity: 34ppt veegee/vitalsine

Apex readings for the pH and Temp



Alk: 10dkh API

Calcium: 440 API

Mg: ~1485-1500 Salifert

Nitrate: <2ppm (didn't even try matching from the side. )


Phosphates:
7ppb phosphorus or 0.021 ppm phosphates converted.

[jason2459]

I wish this tiny urchin would come out more. Here it is coming out now that the lights are off. Still really tiny but getting some longer spines.

[jason2459]

It's on the move now. And I'm probably ticking off my fish taking these pictures with the flash.

[jason2459]

It doesn't move very far. Here it is this morning along with a few new egg deposits from some nerite snail.

[jason2459]

Got my flame angel










My orange back fairy wrasse. Need to find it a mate which will be hard.



And remember its HIS cave

[jason2459]

Holy cow, my cleaner shrimp is in that last picture. Just noticed it. Well at least one of them are still alive.

[jason2459]

The results are in and I'm glad I don't depend on a method of dosing and testing.









I'll be updating that Triton vs AWT vs Me thread shortly. I'll be compiling this data with previous data. I see tin went down slightly but now bromide is elevated somehow (saltmix but rate of water change hasn't changed) and now I have a reading of Aluminum out of nowhere. But suffice to say I will take the results and do nothing. I'm satisfied with what I was doing that led up to the first results back from Triton. Then I started messing with dosing.

1% water changes daily with IO, a little less Mg added to my saltmix, and limewater in my ATO seems to be all I need to get the parameters I need.

Carbon dosing with vinegar, skimming, 1% water change daily, and algae harvesting via ATS to help remove the things I don't need.

[jason2459]

Finally figured out a really high tech and complicated way to mount my webcam so I get a good side view down the length of the tank and not from the top through the rippling surface.




Just two zip ties wedged under the canopy.

[jason2459]

Eventually I'll get a nice hd camera but here's the side view from my phone at 30% quality and 30fps tied to my apexfusion streaming.

[jason2459]

And another RBTA split.



And another


And maybe another


I think I just have to not feed them at all anymore. I just fed them the other day. Hikari Jumbo whole froze krill. I'm already down to once every other week. I'll have to cut back to once a month.

I count 7 maybe 8 RBTAs now. From the single original I got. I still have a single GBTA. All in the same area I originally placed them too.


And of course my overflow is still host to my two clowns.

[MidwesternTexan]

Nice assortment of fish

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by MidwesternTexan

Nice assortment of fish

Thanks. I'm on the look out for a female orange side fairy wrasse which seems to be seasonal. Then I'm pretty much stocked. Then need to fill out a couple more corals.

[joeysreef]

loving the pics, cool tank! thanks for sharing!

the apex thing you post pics of looks very cool and hi tech

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by joeysreef

loving the pics, cool tank! thanks for sharing!

the apex thing you post pics of looks very cool and hi tech

Thanks, I'm terrible at taking pictures of what's inside my tank.


I had a nice HD cam but dropped it in the water. One more reason I wanted to mount it on the outsides of the tank. The one in that picture that I'm using now is a cheap webcam I've had for a long time sitting around in a box. USB webcams are cheap and I have an old laptop I'm not using anymore so with a free webcam streaming software it's a really cheap setup.

[jason2459]

I made a change yesterday to my carbon dosing. Something I haven't done in years. I've been dosing ~100 ml of Vinegar every day through out the day time hours for I don't know how long. Just swap out an empty jug of vinegar with another cheap store brand white vinegar and don't even think about it.

I've been following this thread for quite some time
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...408985&page=12

and TMZ's thread on carbon dosing
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...+carbon+dosing

Bacteria has always been an interest of mine in our aquariums since starting with "bio" pellets as they were just starting to come out
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1830864

Well, I was at Walgreens the other day and came across some Barton Vodka which TMZ has recommended and what he uses. Distilled and Charcoal filtered.



It was just over $10 for a 1.75 L bottle. I said What The ... Heck. I calculated out and set my 1.1ml/m BRS doser to reduce the amount of vinegar added and bolus dosed some of the Vodka. Based off what TMZ doses for his system I get for my ~200g system volume:
~24.9ml Vinegar
~10.79ml Vodka

I did that yesterday but then thought about how I have no idea exactly how much that 1.1ml/m BRS doser is dosing. So, I could figure out how much that BRS 1.1ml/m doser actually doses, bolus dose both, or just mix it all together and just dose it all together. Which is much more up my alley as I do not like dosing on a daily basis anything or feeling pressure to have to dose something manually daily. I'm much more about automation.

SO, using "TMZ's recipe" I mixed the two together in a 690ml to 310ml ratio and mixed up the entire 1.75L bottle of Barton Vodka with vinegar. I have my doser set to dose ~35.69ml per day. Now if it's off it's off but in the right ratio.

[biecacka]

Sweet! I just started dosing vodka and vinegar today in dose that TMZ suggested for me.
I'll be following along in your thread as well.


Corey

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by biecacka

Sweet! I just started dosing vodka and vinegar today in dose that TMZ suggested for me.
I'll be following along in your thread as well.


Corey

You'll have to let me know how it goes. I'm a big fan of carbon dosing as it along with skimming, small frequent water changes, and algae harvesting has kept my nitrates and phosphates well in my target ranges while allowing me to feed heavy and have a fairly heavy bioload. With out the need for GFO.

I've faced bouts with various algae, cyano, diatoms, dinos, etc and once I started with those pellets and eventually vinegar dosing it all came to a good balance to where if I get any of those again I know I just have to watch, wait, and see it go away on its own as long as I'm consistent. It's usually do to something I've done wrong like dump in to much food or kill something or add in more phosphate rich rocks or etc.


So doing this is purely along the lines of having fun, probably screw something up again, and see what happens. I'll be watching my BTAs as they will let me know before my corals if I'm doing something wrong here and my Duncan is good at telling me phosphates are on the move up or down. I'll check my phosphate and nitrate levels every few days for a while to see how they react to the new carbon mix.

[jason2459]

BTAs have been looking good. Here's all 8 RBTAs out now.

[biecacka]

Good looking tank jason. I will keep you updated here And in my build thread. I will eventually have a heavy load and need to feed more too. Now I have 21 fish or so in my 240 but that number will increase by 10-15 soon. I have just ordered 9 fish yesterday.
How long have you been dosing both?

Corey

[jason2459]

Thanks. I just started dosing both. I've used straight vinegar for several years and have kept PO4 and nitrates in check (under 5ppm nitrates and under .09 ppm phosphates) with out the need for GFO.

But the carbon dosing is just part of the equation but I believe a big part. Next is the skimmer which I believe is necessary if you do any kind of carbon dosing or bio pellet. It will aerate the water to help bring in oxygen that the bacteria consumes.

Also, inorganic nitrates and phosphates do not attach to the bubbles that are skimmed out but the bacteria consume those nutrients. Bacteria is an organic that attaches well to the bubble surface that when skimmed out then exports those nutrients that they consumed.

GAC is another good method to remove organic compounds (DOC) like bacteria before they degrade back into the water column and in the case of phosphates could bind to calcareous surfaces like rocks that later can leach out.

I'm also am a big fan of harvesting algae in some way. I used to grow macro algae like calurpa, ulva, and chaeto. Right now I'm really like an algae turf scrubber I bought from Turbos Aquatics. Algae is great for out tanks. It consumes not just nitrates and phosphates but other unwanted things like heavy metals and CO2. It's also a good food source for many various critters like copepods and amphipods.

Then the last piece to the puzzle is the water change. It comes down to exporting stuff we don't want and importing stuff we do want. I've never been a fan of hauling around buckets so I've always had some sort of way to make it very easy I started with a brute trash can with a mag 1800 pump to mix it up and a bunch of tubing to push water up to the tank from the basement. Then a tube to siphon the tank water to a drain. I'd do a 10% water change in under 5 minutes. It was great.

Last year I setup an automatic water change with a dual head stenner and then because of noise a spectrapure litermeter III and remote pump calibrated to remove and add around 1% of the water volume daily.

I feel they all work together very well. With the water changes the only other thing I do is add a very small amount Mg to the saltmix and kalk in my top off water. I haven't had to dose anything else.

Though I might try out dosing kalk separate from my top off water. I get pretty even evaporation through the day but do get more evaporation in the winter months and especially on days it snows. I don't think it's a big concern but I like to tinker and interested in seeing what happens to the SPS I do have if I were to dose kalk/limewater on a set time through the day the same amount all the time.

Again TMZ is an influence in doing that as well. Always learning and always open to knew things that at least fit my maintanence abilities and time.

[jason2459]

Also wanted to note the BTAs are again looking great. In fact my GBTA often shrivels up but I have not seen it do that the last three days since dosing both vodka and vinegar. Totally anecdotal but they all have been looking more full more consistently.

[jason2459]

The urchin is growing pretty quickly

[jason2459]

Well, I mentioned I was thinking about this and happen to run across the perfect RO/DI storage container and fits perfectly in the limited space I have in my basement sump room.

It's a Rubbermaid SlimJim. Holds 23g which should be plenty as I'll also be dosing limewater out of the 29g Rubbermaid tote I've been using for several years now. I just have to figure out the timing for that.

I washed it out with vinegar/water and rinsed thorughly with water again.


Just have to get some floats, switches, pump, and programming and its ready to go.