Back in the Hobby, Marcus' 220 Mixed Reef

[jman930]

Thanks for the feedback! Using the HR checker do you feel it’s better/easier/more accurate? I’m currently using red sea but only because it’s all I have at the moment to check nitrates.

mine are currently 50+ (that’s as high as the red sea will go) and I have a heavy bio load and feed heavy to keep them happy. I’ll keep following your updates to see how you get the nitrates where you want them.

 

[Wmb0003]

I love the Hanna nitrate high range checker(tops out at 75ppm though.) It is similar to the low range phosphates where you mix 1 powder reagent and then long press the button to set a 7 min timer. When I run my tests I start with the HR nitrate because it’s longest, then the 3 min ULR phosphates, then the quick alk test.
Im

 

[Wmb0003]

Well time flies, my tank will have been setup for 1 year tomorrow. I will send off another ICP test this week but do not expect anything to be out of whack but we will see.

Notable changes since last update:

• As stated, I did stop carbon dosing(DIY NoPoX.) Trying more natural ways to lower nitrate.
  • Re-homed foxface and filefish- in hopes of lowering my nutrient levels
  • Made a new DIY fish food(consists of cuttlefish, squid, octopus, fish fillet, shrimp, scallops- all finely chopped) Did not add any powdered ingredients as it is my suspicion that my current DIY food is very nutrient dense which is causing my higher nitrates.
• Quit running carbobn/gfo in same reactor. Now only use reactor for RowaPhos. I was eyeballing the amount and mixing with carbon but now weighing and tumbling it hoping to get more consistent phosphate levels.
• Ordered GHL KH director, dipping my toes in the water of the reef controllers/automated testing. If I like this product I will probably end up getting the profilux and ion director(when released)- I am following @Billldg post on his conversion over on R2R.

Now for a few questions:
What do you think of my current feeding amounts? I have tried to google some but the responses are very different based off stock list and tank size, from what I have read and my nutrient export methods, I would think my nitrates would be lower than what they are(~35-40ppm.)
1 full sheet of nori per day, less than 1 gram of pellets(NLS) from auto feeder(see picture), frozen food once per day(pictured food lasts about 3 days) so I would say it averages out to ~3 cubes per day.

Any suggestions for annual maintenance? Should I stir up all the detritus in my sump and try to clean it out or just let it sit? (I would not consider it to be a lot but I will try to snap a picture of it this evening) I have yet to clean my return pumps so I think it will be much overdue, I plan to do it this week. I have never cleaned my MP40 wetsides but I ordered a backup wetside last week and will deep clean all of them this week.

Current 2 part consumption: My system is only consuming about ~50-60ml of 2 part per day. I would have thought it would have been more than that by now. Would you say that is normal for a 1 year old system?

Thanks!

 

[Wmb0003]

Forgot to add a short video of the tank I took the other day.

https://imgur.com/a/H3sD1zG

 

[Adam]

I quit dosing it about a month ago, I really wasn’t seeing much of a drop and I wasn’t confident in the test kits I was using at the time. I have since gotten the Hanna high range nitrate checker, and nitrates are running between 30-40ppm. I am looking at more natural ways of lowering the nitrates now. We will see how that goes before I try dosing carbon again.

I got my DIY ATS online last week. I haven't added coral yet but I've got to get the nutrients inline before I try. I'm going to do a water change this week and start trying to drive the nutrients down. Nitrates are up around 65~75. PO4? Dunno maxed out on the Hanna Checker.

Which version of Bud's ATS did you get?

 

[Wmb0003]

I got my DIY ATS online last week. I haven't added coral yet but I've got to get the nutrients inline before I try. I'm going to do a water change this week and start trying to drive the nutrients down. Nitrates are up around 65~75. PO4? Dunno maxed out on the Hanna Checker.

Which version of Bud's ATS did you get?

I bought it used off of R2R, The seller though it was an L2 but the dimensions were off, I had a few issues with the unit when it arrived so I contacted Bud directly to get some advice and he confirmed it was an L3, he only made this version for a short while but he said it should easily be able to process 3 cubes per day.

 

[Adam]

Bud is a great guy. He help me design the lights I'm using for my 12-15 cube DIY. Based on that info I built lights for Dmitri that should handle 20ish cubes.

 

[Wmb0003]

Bud is a great guy. He help me design the lights I'm using for my 12-15 cube DIY. Based on that info I built lights for Dmitri that should handle 20ish cubes.

Wow. Those must have some large screens. Without the luxury of a fish room, I am very limited with space and the L3 I have now barely fits under my tank. We’re you feeding 12-15 cubes a day or just got it oversized?

 

[Adam]

Wow. Those must have some large screens. Without the luxury of a fish room, I am very limited with space and the L3 I have now barely fits under my tank. We’re you feeding 12-15 cubes a day or just got it oversized?

A bit oversized. I was feeding 6-8 a day plus one in the frag tank connected to the same sump. The sheet is 12x14. Dmitri will be running a full 12x18 sheet in his.
I'll be redesigning mine soon to make some improvements and fix the drain height issue I currently have.

 

[Steve Burton]

As far as cleaning the sump, not sure what size yours is or how much you remove for a water change. I occasionally drain sections of my sump during a water change down to an inch or so and suck the last bit with all the mulm out with a wet vac.

 

[Wmb0003]

As far as cleaning the sump, not sure what size yours is or how much you remove for a water change. I occasionally drain sections of my sump during a water change down to an inch or so and suck the last bit with all the mulm out with a wet vac.

75 gallon DIY sump, I have an auto water changer so I never really vacuum out any detritus. I setup my sump as a 3 chamber with the plan of one of them being a fuge but I shut it down and replaced it with an ATS, so I have been considering removing one of the baffles to make 1 big section and a smaller section for the return pumps. I will give it a deep clean when I get around to that, I think.

FYI the blue tang I got from you is doing great, he has at least doubled in size. The moorish idol has been the tank boss but I think the blue tang is started to show its dominance. I remember when I got him from you, you said he was the shyer of the 2 you had so he has really started to come out of his shell.

 

[Wmb0003]

I got off early today so I thought I would clean some pumps and remove that baffle from the sump. I mixed up some citric acid and let each of my return pumps and skimmer pump run in it for 10-15 min and then take apart the pump and clean the insides. The first pump I opened up had a large snail shell in there, I think the cleaning were much overdue . I removed all the matrix and rock in the sump and swished it around in another bucket to get all the detritus off. I was planning on draining the sump and vacuuming out the detritus that settled but my wife called and said she was off work and would be home with our toddler soon so I just put everything back together and will clean it another time plus it will give the detritus more time to settle down, I made quite the cloud when I was removing the baffles but it cleared up within a few hours.

 

[Wmb0003]

Got my ICP test back pretty quick this time, sent it off on 8/3 and results posted on 8/10. On average when I sent tests before I think it was taking 2 weeks. Anyway, results were on par where I thought they would be salinity/calcium/mag were a little higher than I was expecting but nothing I am really worried about. RODI restults came back perfect, this was the first ICP test since I upgraded to 7 stage unit. Results below:

Tank ICP results: lab.atiaquaristik.com/share/d34d9334bad26fbc8cbf
RODI ICP Results: //lab.atiaquaristik.com/share/e1be6f4b249a5afbcbf0

My new to me KH director came in and have been working to try to get it online, hoping I can finish it up this weekend and start my automatic alk testing.
After reading @Adam 's build thread about running his ATS lights for 23 hours, I bumped mine up to on 16hrs/off 8hrs in hopes to bring my nitrate down. I was originally worried about increased photo period inhibiting the algae growth but so far it seems to be growing thicker and quicker; I will continue to monitor the screen and nutrient levels.

 

[Adam]

After reading @Adam 's build thread about running his ATS lights for 23 hours, I bumped mine up to on 16hrs/off 8hrs in hopes to bring my nitrate down. I was originally worried about increased photo period inhibiting the algae growth but so far it seems to be growing thicker and quicker; I will continue to monitor the screen and nutrient levels.

You mainly need to watch out for photo shock and burning. Just like when a sun reflection from your house hits the grass in the same spot every day. The leds on my ATS are 0-10v adjustable. When I jumped from 12 to 23hrs I reduced the power to 50% and have since bumped it slowly up to 70% in 10% increments. You should be fine at 16hrs but if you go more try dropping the power a little if you have the ability. If not extend the photoperiod slowly from here and that will be better than a big jump.

 

[Wmb0003]

You mainly need to watch out for photo shock and burning. Just like when a sun reflection from your house hits the grass in the same spot every day. The leds on my ATS are 0-10v adjustable. When I jumped from 12 to 23hrs I reduced the power to 50% and have since bumped it slowly up to 70% in 10% increments. You should be fine at 16hrs but if you go more try dropping the power a little if you have the ability. If not extend the photoperiod slowly from here and that will be better than a big jump.

With my older model ATS, I have limited adjustability but there is some. Bud helped me with it when I first set it up, I do not have much knowledge on circuits but he talked me through it, I can swap out the leds from series to parallel and one of them is more higher power and one is lower power. I adjusted all connections to the lower power mode when i started out but when I did that, 2 of the leds(1 on each side) acted like they were burnt out but when i swapped the connectors to the higher power mode, they worked right and seemed brighter than the other leds. So I have 2 connections(4 leds) on the higher setting and the rest on the lower setting and I have not changed that since I set up the ATS. I started out with it on for 8 hr/ off 16 and then gradually bumped it up to on 14/ off 10 until about a week ago when I bumped it up again. When I first started out, I was getting a lot of the dark slime algae but now it is more like hair algae. Do you think it would be more beneficial to increase photo period or light intensity? Or both gradually? As I increase either of them, I assume I will need to increase my screen cleanings, correct?

 

[Adam]

You PO4 is a little high but not crazy. The NO3 is pretty high.

Right now you want to tune it to get those decreasing. Then readjust to the maintenance level. With a 16hr photoperiod I would work towards intensity then add to the duration. Get the algae accustomed to the light them bump up the time by a half hour to an hour per adjustment.

I know that's the opposite of what I did but my situation is a little unique. I had a canvas sheet that had a lot of growth on it already from another member using it, I have a new system with no coral and my numbers are much higher (I have no idea how high the PO4 is ). But that is also what I love about ATS's the tune-ability range is so wide.

And yes, the more you increase the intensity and duration the more frequent cleanings you'll need to do.

Once you get it dialed in clean the screen when you do a water change. The cleaning with reduce the efficiency of the ATS but the new water drops your numbers anyway. That helps keep things in balance. I'd also recommend running your salinity at 33.3/1.025 vs 35ppt/1.0264. What salt mix are you using? that Cal is a bit high, so is the Mag.

 

[Wmb0003]

I’m using regular old instant ocean purple bucket, tried the reef crystals but the purple bucket aligned more with my target parameters. I also tried tropic marine salt but it still left crude in my mixing trash can so I went back to the cheap stuff. I don’t do large water changes, just the daily auto water change(~1% or 2 gal a day) so I recently had a thought to switch back to the reef crystals to boost the alk(and reduce 2 part dosing) and trace elements but I haven’t researched this enough yet and I still have a full bucket of purple.

I have always heard 35ppt for reef tanks. I will research the slightly lower salinity more. Thanks!

 

[Wmb0003]

My goal recently has been to really stabilize some of my parameters which I believe are critical to SPS growth. The big 3 I test most often are alkalinity, nitrate, and phosphate; I probably should check calcium and mag more but I want to nail down those first. Since I am dosing Randy's 2 part, my calcium/mag should be in line with alk consumption; that is what I tell myself anyway and how I justify not testing them as much.

• Nitrates- they have been pretty consistent at ~35-40ppm. Trying to bring them down by dialing in ATS. If I cant, I might try NoPoX again now that I have the Hanna HR nitrate checker and can test for nitrates easier/more accurately.
• Phosphate- was using gfo mixed in with carbon in reactor; wasn't really measuring the gfo/rowaphos more so just eyeballing it. So i started weighing the Rowaphos and only putting it in the reactor so it could tumble, was hoping I could get ~6 weeks out of it before it exhausted but when I checked phosphate this weekend, it had jumped to 0.389. So I replaced it and put 200g of rowaphos(put 150g last time and my phosphates were around 0.2 and it lasted right under a month). Checked last night and they were down to 0.101 after 24hrs in the new media. I will change it in about 3 weeks so I do not get that phosphate jump when the rowaphos is exhausted. Those of you who are running GFO, how long can you get before swapping out the media? What media are you using? I heard rowaphos was pretty good and should last longer than some of the cheaper stuff.
• Alkalinity- Was hoping to get the GHL KH director online this weekend and start testing alkalinity 4x per day.... but it had other plans. I have had some pretty bad luck buying used equipment off R2R, think I might only buy from users on here or just buy new. The seller forgot to pack the power supply when they shipped it, so they had to send them in another shipment; when the power supplies did arrive, one of them was faulty and would only supply power when the cord was in a certain orientation, so I ordered a new power supply. When I tried to setup the unit, the ph probe was reading way off, I knew I was probably going to have to get a new probe pretty soon but I was hoping I could at least setup the unit. Ordered a new probe and got it calibrated and it was reading correctly. Finished setting it up and tried to run the first test and got an error, did some digging online and through the GHL website and it appears the internal mixing pump is not working; I will have to send the unit to GHL for repair. Sent it out yesterday, looks like it will be another few weeks before I can get the unit back and online.

 

[Wmb0003]

These weekly updates are a little more challenging than my normal update every few months, the good news is, the contest aligned with my 1 year mark so there was quite a bit of tank maintenance and also some upgrades I told myself I had to wait a little while before I got them.

I forgot that I wanted to change my RODI filters once it hit the year mark so I was a little late on those by a few weeks, I ordered the replacement filters from BRS but surprisingly my old filters looked pretty clean. Is this normal? I saw some pictures of the sediment filters online from other people that changed them out and they were very discolored, mine was still all white.


My local-ish fish store had a nice looking Copperband butterfly fish in stock last week so I splurged and got it since it was picking at the food when the owner fed it in the store. I have attempted 2 of these fish in the past(ordered online) and could not get them to eat. Not sure if it was due to stress from other fish in tank or just finicky eating. So I made a "acclimation box" out of egg crate and plan to keep him in there for a few weeks to get adjusted. The strange thing is, none of the fish have shown any interest or really even acknowledged he is in there, so I am worried they might start picking on him once I release him out of the box. But he has been eating pretty good when I feed them, he didn't each much last night so I will put a clam on the half shell in his box when I get home today.


The good news is I heard from GHL and my KH director is repaired and should ship out today, so there is a chance I can get in online this month... fingers crossed. The entire main board was bad and needed replacement. I have put too much money in this used piece of equipment but I am impressed with GHL's customer support so far and I think the issues with the unit is the previous owners fault and not GHL's. If I am happy with the KH director when I get it online I will probably put in a pre-order for the ION director soon.

 

[Wmb0003]

Well the store I stopped at on the way home was out of clams so mussels it is. I normally try to feed my fish at least 1 clam or mussel a week, all the fish really seem to like this treat. Here is is a quick video of the butterfly fish picking at it.

https://imgur.com/a/R2xiR88