Dan's 210 Build

[saltwaterwannabe]

This fitting was well protected from any knocks or bumps. I have no idea how it broke, but it is the reason I just emptied my 16 gallon wetvac 22 times. At least it was clean water, it ended up on my concrete shop floor, and I now know what 350 gallons of water on the floor looks like ;-)

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I added a battery powered air stone backup and a powerd air pump on a ups in prepararion for wintry weather. I still need to do some more prep, but that should buy me a at least a few hours of outage. I have a generator ready gas up and run as well.

 

[kimxd]

Thats neat! I am building my 210 this weekend!

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

It has been a while since I updated here. Reasons are many, but the latest is that I have been fighting cyano a few months with water changes and vacuuming. Now some fish are developing fungal infections.

This weekend's project begins a series of projects to reduce the total water in my system, reduce detritus, and give a thourough cleaning throuout. Part of thr plan is to reduce the total water in my system for a while.

The process overall will take a few weeks so I do not completely analiahlate my system. Tonight I am moving all rock from my 240 to a 120, shaking off debris as I go. I plan to sell off the 3 fish in the 240 after catching them. I will drain the 240, and start making new saltwater in it. The 120 was to be placed online with the remaining system in the interim but may sit idle a while unless I figure out an overflow for it.

After a week or so I will then cleanout either my sump or give the DT a thorough cleaning, likely the DT. After another week it will be time for cleaning anything that remains. Yet another week and it will be time to decide if I will bring the 240 online again. I will be pilutting the 240 back up for sale or trade in the interim.

Best laid plans of mice and men, likely to change but that is it for now. Below are some status pics.

First is the 210 DT going into jight mode so it is a bit nlue and dim. The second is the 240 half emptied into the 120. I love milk crates....

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Week 2 of the red cyano and diatom attack plan.
As expected, the best laid plans of mice and men have changed a little. I guess the mice won this time

I ended up going with chemiclean. I ran the first dose for 48 hours, did a scrub and vac as part of a 20% water change, then another dose for 48 hours and a 20% water change. After the last wc, I went to refill nd restart my carbon reactor.....oops
I swapped out my phosban reactor with carbon. After 24 hours I plan to swap out my carbon again and then restart the UV. Maybe another large wc when I start the UV as well.

I lost at least one coral and 2 fish that I have found thus far through this. I will explain with my next post.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Can some experienced reefer read up to my July 26th post to this one? I think I may be in a bit of trouble here with high Ph and could use some re-assurance that I am doing the right thing to avoid a total crash.

....continued
Last night I also recalibrated my Ph probes and tested my other parameters. All other parameters were reasonable other than the Ph. The Ph had been hovering just below 8.0, but should have read 8.3, which I corrected. The Ph may have been the trigger for the fish kills.

24 hours later and the skimmer is still overflowing even after trying to valve the air flow and dial the skimmer all the way down. I have a float that turns off the skimmer if the water stays too low for 30 minutes, so i am now overfilling and letting the skimmer do the wc's. The skimmer has a drain, so no worries about overflowing to my floor.

The larger concern is another fish loss and Ph at 8.49, spiking at 8.53 today. I rechecked my apex Ph probe a few minutes ago, and it is within 0.05 of the fresh 7 and 10 Ph test solutions. I may swap my ORP probe with my backup Ph probe tomorrow.

The ORP dipped dramatically a couple of days after taking the 240 offline while I had a lot of the rock removed. I moved the rock to my sump and fuge as a result. The ORP is now almost normal again. This could have also been a reason for the fish kill, although I was dosing Prime to while the rock was i mn a seperate offline tank.

I just finished another water change using the skimmer to remove water and turned off all my lights. I am also adding code to turn off all lights when Ph is over 8.4.

I typically run my fuge light 24/7 and my frag tank light when my DT is off. The lights will be off tomorrow as long as the Ph stays over 8.4.

I am currently running a carbon pelet reactor to remove the chemiclean and will pickup some finer carbon to swap out tomorrow. I have no vinegar on hand atm to force the Ph down, but will pick some up tomorrow in case the Ph stays too high.

High Ph is a new one for me, I always have low Ph issues? oftentimes just the probes reading low. I typically recalibrate when my probes get to 7.9 (roughly 1 Ph too low) but now realize I should calibrate them earlier. Any other concerns I should be looking out for as I recover?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

The lights ran about 5 hours today before the Ph rose to 8.4 again and shut them off. I changed the carbon out and dialed the return pump flow back about a third. Thus far the tally is 5 fish. At least the ph drops slowly with the lights off.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Count is 6 fish and coral is now bleaching while the diotoms return . Some fish have popeye, others bacterial infections. This has been an epic journey but I am seriously considering going back to freshwater. I could be convinced to sell off my remaining livestock and a lot of equipment if someone is interested. Looking for a glimmer of hope to keep the system alive.

I have 1000 gallons of salt and could do 3 x 100 percent water changes over the weekend with some minor tweaks to my rodi setup and empty tanks. Would a few 100% water changes have any positive effect?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

7. Would love some help here

 

[ZapataInc]

Man I wish I could help but I don't have any experience with what you are dealing with. Have you put your fish back in at and out of your main display?

Come on ARC we need to rally. I know we can do it.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I am setting the 240 back up on it's own system to start splitting the livestock. I plan to fill it with fresh saltwater and get it to temp. Next is setting up and filling the 120 to use as an aclimation tank. Before catching fish, all unattatched coral will go to the frag tank, empty rock to my sump. This should make catching fish much easier.

Goal is to move all fish to the 120 for a 6 hour or so aclimation period. Next is sorting the fish by health with the healthy fish going to the 240 and the worst going to 10 gallon tanks for medication. Thankfully all large fish appear healthy at the moment.

After all fish are out of the 120, I will set it up as a second sump for use in the 210 or 240 system. I am guessing the skimmer should go with the 240 full of unmedicated fish and the chaeto fuge with the 210 coral system.

This should allow things to stabilize a bit or at least divide and conquer or limit losses.

 

[ZapataInc]

I am setting the 240 back up on it's own system to start splitting the livestock. I plan to fill it with fresh saltwater and get it to temp. Next is setting up and filling the 120 to use as an aclimation tank. Before catching fish, all unattatched coral will go to the frag tank, empty rock to my sump. This should make catching fish much easier.

Goal is to move all fish to the 120 for a 6 hour or so aclimation period. Next is sorting the fish by health with the healthy fish going to the 240 and the worst going to 10 gallon tanks for medication.

After all fish are out of the 120, I will set it up as a second sump for use in the 210 or 240 system. I am guessing the skimmer should go with the 240 full of unmedicated fish and the chaeto fuge with the 210 coral system.

This should allow things to stabilize a bit or at least divide and conquer or limit losses.

Yeah that sounds like a good plan moving forward. Im sorry that you are going through this.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Status pic

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Ph finally stabilized yesterday before a ~220 gallon wc last night. Ph is still stable. I am guessing about a 50% effective wc in the 300 gal system with the way I have it setup.

Refilled the 240 today and added another box of salt. 86'd a couple more fish yesterday and more missing fish today. Some fish are covered in ich, others habe popeye, many have fin rot... but others still look at full health for now. I have never seen sone of my SPS "throw up before03d", but that is what I am guessing is happening.

Here is a terrible pic of my green pachyseris. If I did not know better, I would say it was a purple LPS now. Easy coral to grown and it was over 6 inches in diameter at one time. It was a teeny frag a few years ago. It was white but luminesced green under a uv flash light last night...not any more. I wish I had started using the uv flash light before yesterday to know how to use it correctly.



The 120 should be ready to start pulling fish out tommorow night. I may need to pickup some microbactyr or something similar though since both the 120 and 240 are newly cleaned. I plan for the 120 to be the bacterial treatment and the 240 to be ich control with medicated food and UV. I also have some 10 gallon tanks for copper if needed.

I am feeding the last of my vitamin enriched food in a couple days as well, so may be picking some of that up too.

Remember that statement about the best laid plans of mice and men?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

3 more down and a little more progress. Connected the 120 to the 240 and started filling it. Also drained and siphoned my chaeto tank. Without heavy flow and nutrients it has started to die back. I gave it a good rinse and will put it back with clean water momentarily. If all goes according to plan I will start moving fish out of the dt Sunday night.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Im going to bed to try to catch at least a little sleep. I will keep posting in hopes someone can provide guidance here. I cannot come back from a total loss again, not now especially. Come on guys.

 

[schwaggs]

I suggest you create a new thread in the Reef Discussion forum asking for help with a high pH situation. Your questions are burried in a special interest build thread that quite frankly, not many people may be interested in reading. I know I wouldn't have clicked your thread expecting you were looking for help.

 

[KrisDeitz]

I personally think you are doing too much to fast. let things settle a bit.

 

[Shawn]

Are you dosing two part? The alkalinity will definitely increase your ph. Do you have a skimmer connected to an outside air source or to a CO2 scrubber? That can also increase your ph. I've been battling low ph since I joined this hobby - sounds like something is way off.

 

[schwaggs]

Oh, and I forgot to add that I am jealous of your high pH situation. Mine hovers around 8 unless I add Kalk.