24 Gal Cube SPS nano reef tank

[project1004]

I’m at the point, I only want to take in captivated bleeds and never a wild cough ones granted they are usually more expensive. Only from local hobbyists from their tanks.

 

[backoffbella]

my hardest fish and my rarest the randalls assessor is an ORA fish. that thing been thru many tank crashes. got him from optimum. highly recommend such an interesting oddball basslet

 

[project1004]

Ive been watching the tank via camera for the dino situation since last Sunday.

Idk but it seems to have receded on its own?!
Maybe.


Last Sunday 20th


Tuesday May 22nd


Friday 25th


Saturday 26th


Today 27th

 

[project1004]

Dinoflagellate is still rampant but it’s not getting worst so I think Im on the right track.

Phosphate is going up to 0.06. It was at 0.02 last week. New phosphate solution must be working


Nitrate is at 0.0 from low 2’s. Dosing liquid ammonium by double and seeing if it will increase the nitrate.


Alkalinity is going up slowly. I’ve increase my 2pt before going out of the town. I will leave as it is for now.


This afternoon before I start blowing everything off the rocks and surfaces. Except the sand bed. That way I can see if it is receding or accelerating.








Small LPS tank. The rock structures has fallen on to one another. This tank needs much love. I think I have too much rocks too.

 

[siege]

From everything I've been picking up here and there, it seems like the dinos should pretty much go away on their own if you can get NO3 over 4ppm. Or, I've seen a "UV on a stick" meant to sweep the sand bed with that people report a lot of success with, but gently nudging NO3 up should not only get rid of the dinos, but boost your coral growth as well.

Also, careful on the liquid ammonia. It'll be *somewhat* slower - but much more gentle on the system - to simply feed more than you currently do, and turn off the skimmer if you haven't already. Not only will that uneaten food result in ammonia, but will break down into more nitrate and phosphate than just dosing ammonia will.

 

[project1004]

Perhaps my “ammonium solution”. (Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride in powder form), had gone weak overtime?!? It was made many months ago and only dosed as needed in the past seating in a closed container.

I’m dosing 20mls a day (on a dosing pump). That’s a lot on top of my feedings which is about 10 cubes a week btw 2 tanks but mainly the larger one gets the most and also dose powder forms of coral good time to time.

I know there is nitrate in the system but not enough to register atm. Increasing my feeding and dosing even more.

I will implement “heavy in less out” by no water changes. (I skipped this week)

My skimmer Havnt pulled anything out for months (on both tank). but I use it for aeration and co2 scrubber connected for co2 reduction.

My system runs on Rollermat as main and you can see why my nitrates are low. It’s love and hate relationship with the roller at but probably the reason I travel at ease because if it. I personally think it’s one of the best equipment for the hobby. But also made it easy and hard at the same time. Lol

Phosphate is going up 0.09.



Nitrate is still not registering. Increasing “manual dosing of NO3” on top of my current feed/dosing until I can get it to register


Alkalinity is stable.


Dang, there is a scorpion in the house. Didn’t know there were any in Georgia. X.x

 

[siege]

Perhaps my “ammonium solution”. (Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride in powder form), had gone weak overtime?!? It was made many months ago and only dosed as needed in the past seating in a closed container.

I’m dosing 20mls a day (on a dosing pump). That’s a lot on top of my feedings which is about 10 cubes a week btw 2 tanks but mainly the larger one gets the most and also dose powder forms of coral good time to time.

I know there is nitrate in the system but not enough to register atm. Increasing my feeding and dosing even more.

I will implement “heavy in less out” by no water changes. (I skipped this week)

My skimmer Havnt pulled anything out for months (on both tank). but I use it for aeration and co2 scrubber connected for co2 reduction.

My system runs on Rollermat as main and you can see why my nitrates are low. It’s love and hate relationship with the roller at but probably the reason I travel at ease because if it. I personally think it’s one of the best equipment for the hobby. But also made it easy and hard at the same time. Lol

Phosphate is going up 0.09.



Nitrate is still not registering. Increasing “manual dosing of NO3” on top of my current feed/dosing until I can get it to register


Alkalinity is stable.


Dang, there is a scorpion in the house. Didn’t know there were any in Georgia. X.x

Hrmm. I dunno about the powder, but in liquid form I know the Dr. Tim's is more likely to concentrate over time. I got the tail end of a leftover large bottle from someone else, and when dosing 2mL - which in my ~60 gallon system should bring me right on or a shade under 2ppm - I hit 8ppm! Thankfully I already had another bottle on the way and I hit the levels expected when using it. If the powder you're using wasn't stored well, it could have sucked up some water, maybe? Only way to be 100% sure is mix in the correct amount to an amount of RO/DI water (like one or maybe 5 gallons, whatever the minimum amount you can easily measure is) and test.

Chances are though all those corals are just sucking it out faster than the system can naturally produce it. But watch that phosphate tho - I wouldn't let it go much over 0.5.

Problem could be the size of your bacterial colony and it only being just big enough for the load you have in the tank... which might not be all that big, especially compared to when we're cycling: when cycling, we want to dose up to 2ppm and see it clear within 24 hours or less, which will generate a fair amount of NO3... BUT! You don't want to raise ammonia to 2ppm in a system with livestock in it. Heck, anything at or over 0.5ppm stands a good chance of nuking your pod population, which is BAD, especially as pods may graze on some dinos and help keep them under control while other efforts go to work. Otherwise, you're just not going to be able to safely dose enough ammonia at once to boost your bacterial colony large enough to produce enough NO3 to overcome what your corals are consuming.

Instead, "over" feeding your livestock more heavily is almost always the better path here anyway. Yes, it's slower than ammonia dosing, but it’s safer, it builds up your pod and microfauna populations, and it naturally supports the food web your tank will rely on long term. Pods thrive on leftover food and help recycle it into a healthier nutrient base that stays in circulation longer. Also gives you better nitrate-to-phosphate ratio tuning than just dumping ammonia and hoping for the best.

Honestly, I'd turn the roller off, maybe switch back to filter socks for a time if you can - or just run no filter media at all for a while. Roller mats are known for aggressively stripping out organics before they can break down into usable nitrogen and phosphorus, and if your NO3 is struggling to register despite heavy feeding and ammonium dosing, that roller may be a big part of why. I get wanting it for travel peace-of-mind, but outside those occasions, it's probably doing more harm than good right now.

And yeah, I'd turn off the skimmer too - you don't appear to be struggling to keep pH up, and unless you're regularly packing several people in the room or have a couple large dogs and poor air circulation, it's probably hurting more than helping even if it isn't collecting anything. Way easier to boost pH if you do need to later, than fight the roller and skimmer actively working against you right now. You're just plain over-filtering for the load you're actually generating on the tanks vs. what the livestock need and are using. There's a strong argument to be made here for running a fuge with a macro in it, allowing the macro to grow to size, and then allowing it to die off and breakdown back into the tank naturally (instead of regularly removing large chunks and just throwing it out), where it will slowly return some of the nutrient it has taken up, like they do in the Triton method.

Finally, I'd recommend a test for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) or just a temporary stop to carbon dosing (if applicable), since excessive carbon combined with bottomed-out N and P can create conditions that fuel dinos.

 

[project1004]

Came home and check the date of my ammonia mix and was from July 2023. Also checked and it does get weak with evaporations as well. I figured since it was like the picture for a while.




So I made a whole new batch. And lowered the dosage back to 10ml. (Which is suppose to give about 2PPM of ammonium). I increased it to 20mls yesterday and yet non was registered this morning which caused me to look more into it). As you can see it wasn’t much dosing in the past 7ish month. I was dosing 2mls a day in small nano time to time.

Anyways, I also made new batch of potassium nitrate and will dose it manually for sometime. By the calculations I should dose about 15ml a day to keep nitrate at about 1PPM. Plan to dose about 10mls a day

I also stopped biofuel (carbon source only at 1ml). but the vinegar (40ml) is with kalk (60grams) mixed with 5gallon RODI and being dosed evenly 3liters a day.

Shocking because my 22Gal was going thru 4liters a day. This tank is double the size yet less evaporation.

I really want to get this T5 lights going but. I want to beat the Dino first. Feeding heavy and dosing at maintenance for now.

 

[project1004]

edit: I mean to say it was made in July 2024 and not 2023. This year has been super fast going for me -.-

Tested the nitrate and came back at 0.6. Great. However, the ammonium solution has not been added due to programming issues. So I will continue to test at 6amish until I can have enough nitrate in the system as it settles.

No need to test for phosphate atm



Alkalinity is stable. I am considering to increase my alk once I get higher number of nutrients.

 

[backoffbella]

very interesting read. i also struggle with nitrate and phos and have gotten dinos oddly enough on my montipora which is in direct flow. luckily just feeding a bit more than usual to bumps it up slightly

 

[project1004]

Same here. Feeding more and dosing seems to be working.

I went and added another 20lb of sand btw the two tank so it’s milky atm. Dino was only shown when I added the sand. So I added more. Lol. I’m hopping my smaller LPS tank don’t get Dino. I moved one rock structure to make more room for more corals. If I get Dino, on the small tank, I probably have to take the sand out. I don’t have way to feed more since I have only two fish and dosing (nitrate and phosphate) will not be doable.

 

[project1004]

I’ve added additional sand and another engineer goby -.-; (He has disappeared since adding more sand). Don’t die please.



LPS tank. Mulky from adding the sand. Clownfish still hosting the clam.

 

[project1004]

Updates for the Dino.
Last Thursday: May 1st. Working on getting phosphates up from bottoming out and maintaining and increasing Nitrate.




Sunday May 4th. Struggling to bring up the phosphate but nitrate is going up good.





This morning May 6th Tuesday. Extra feeding and extra powder (mixture of all sorts of powder food out there I bought in the past) are being added on top of my regular feedings to bring up Phosphate and Nitrate.





With extra feeding and dosing, it’s a must to have good exporting method. (I Havnt finished redoing th plumbing -.-).


Turf scrubber was added in the April 12th and is running at 12hr photo period.

 

[project1004]

I made some minor adjustment over the weekend and my small LPS tank is getting a lots of new love. No sign of Dino.





Acans


Mushrooms


Hammers. I hope damaged one makes it. I’m not doing anything to it like dipping etc.


Zoas and others



The T5’s been on-line since Sunday. It will be on the “July 4th” to be exactly 2month time for the 5hr amp up program. It’s running from 10am to 3pm eventually. I may decrease the intensity of radon if I see some bleaching over time?!

 

[project1004]

Still battling Dino. It maybe a long while before I can beat it?! It’s not bad but it’s not getting better either.

I just blow it off as much as I can whenever I see them accumulating. (Just did before taking these pictures as well).

Made some arrangement and had to move one of coral from slight hint of bleaching this morning before decided make some changes this afternoon.

LED intensity is down to 90% and white is turned off from 40% to 10% which was on for 5hrs. T5 is currently ramping up.

 

[project1004]

Not much changed other than that dinoflagellate seems to going away on its own.







Dino still around





-Reef Rollers are going thru the filter media by about 40” average daily. I personally think it’s a lot and I contribute this to the Dino being blowed off whenever I seem them accumulating on the rock. Sand was not disturbed. Today, I didn’t blow the rocks.



-I went and took all the bio media out of the system to make my filtration less effective

-I did 10% water change on Saturday because I Havnt done one since the upgrade

-T5 was off-line after a week due to Dino. (One coral slightly bleached so it was moved). This will be back soon as I see Dino completely gone.

-Lost one fish due to jumping. So I have 9 fishes and two in the smaller tank.

-Nitrate was at 11.8 (Monday), 12.4 (Sunday), 19.7 (Last Saturday), 16.2 (May 13th) 12.4 (May 11th)

-Phosphate was at 0.09 (Monday), 0.31 (Sunday:I think this was testing error), 0.24 (Last Saturday), 0.15 (May 13th) 0.17 (May 11th)

***I will bring these levels up again! So I know my tank can handle higher nutrient levels before lowering to whatever it reaches as equilibrium (With exact same feeding and dosing)***

-Some corals were exchanged with a buddie. Also the spicy lemon favia (Size of Softball) was given back to original reefer due to my wrasse covering it with sand constantly. I kept two tiny frags to restart



-Also added few Green and few Blue corals in both tank due to the fact my tank is way too orange -.- avoiding those green corals (Because when I started this reef hobby, my tank was green green and green). So I tent to avoid green colors but without them, it is too orange and red. Not good with colors but I can tell when the tank is way too orange. And both of my tanks are like that.


I had an incident where anemone decided to attach to the torch coral. Lucky he kept moving and is back on the rock


On the other issue I’m having is that I’m getting scorpion in the house x.x