Outdrsyguy's 940 gallon DT Build

[outdrsyguy1]

well, that was one heck of a night.  I think i got 4 hours sleep here and there across the last night.  Was so busy getting home to avoid snowmageddon 2.0 that I forgot to restock my gas supply for the generator!

Power flickered about 7 times last evening, then finally went out at 2:00 am

set up generator with my 1 gallon lawn mower gas and went out driving in the storm hunting for a gas station with power and internet connection

finally found a station, got home at 3:30 am and as i'm filling tank the power comes on.  seems to be good so i unhook everything from the generator (including 2 QT tanks and back of house tanks).  Go to bed, sleep for 20 minutes and power goes out again, come down at ~ 4:30 and hook everything back up to generator.  As i'm headed to bed power comes back on again!!! F-that, go to bed with generator running till power company gets it under control.  It must have gone out again one more time because my alarm lost time again.  Man what an aweful night!

Temp only dropped about .7 degrees and had full flow so everything seems fine except my body lol.

I'm definitely going to set up an auto switchover generator system someday.  Just need to accumulate some extra $$$

 

[myreefclub0070]

gone for almost over a year, great to pop in and see this system still going.

i have a lot of follow up reading to do, so as soon as i am up to speed i'll put my 2 cents in.

looking forward to see whats been going on with you, chat with you soon bud.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Upgrade!  Pretty happy with the swabbie neck cleaner so far.  Running it for 4 minutes 4 times a day. Does 1 full revolution in about 45 seconds.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Just got my second triton test back and it's fairly encouraging!  Need to do a little maintenance dose of iodine weekly, maybe a monthly manganese dose, small monthly potassium dose, and strontium has some sort of issue.  It doesn't make sense to me that both tests had EXACTLY the same strontium.  I added 1,000 ml of strontium last time so it should be either higher, or lower because the reading isn't zero.  Just doesn't make sense to me.

here's a link to it if your interested:

Most recent test

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/46183/

First test (i pull them up in separate tabs so i can easily compare)

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/46164/

 

[outdrsyguy1]

well after adjusting with trace elements again I tried doing them about 4 days apart separately and didn't really notice any difference with any of them nor after they were all in.  definitely not the response i got last time.  I did have my alk dip down to the mid to low 7's and I do have a little cyano creeping in again so maybe those have something to do with it.  ah well, back to the guessing game!

 

[bcavalli]

Rusty I forget.   But, what salt mix do you use? Ive had several members tell me their Lithium if off the charts.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

I use instant ocean (regular mostly) but i rarely do water changes these days.  I think it's either from the food or the 2 part.

I use dr foster smith calcium and alkalinity.  Never need to add magnesium typically.  Feed hikari mysis about 2 cubes a day and 1 cube reef plankton.  Also couple pinches of marine A pellets and a pinch a day of cobalt aquatics premium fish flakes.  nori once or twice a week from 2 little fishies or rods.

I think it's in the food somewhere personally.

 

[danh]

Where does your magnesium come from?

 

[bcavalli]

Im not mocking instant ocean or reef crystals.  But, the members who Ive heard from all used either one of those salt mixes and had incredibly high lithium.  I know they are naturally mined and maybe that has something to do with it.  I switched over to Seachems Vibrant and could be happier.  Plus they add stromium, iodine, potassium and a ph buffer to their mix.  The big bonus is that its concentrated and doesnt leave a residue in the mixing tank.  Just food for thought.  

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Thanks for the tip Brett, i'll keep it in mind for when I buy bulk salt next time.

Danh, magnesium just comes from salt I guess.  I'm a pinch low and my tanks been up for well over a year.  I've just never had to add magnesium to my tanks.  I've had 2 ICP tests done and they match my personal test so I don't have any reason to doubt the accuracy.  Wish I could explain it!

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Heartbreaking news guys, I just killed most of my acro's from stupidity.  Digi's seem like they'll be okay but the acro's are in bad shape, some dead, some will be dead in a couple days and hopefully a couple will make it.  I'm really having a hard time with it.

This is probably the 3'rd time in the last year I've used chemiclean to clear up some stupid cyano issues.  I've never had a problem in the past and my memory was sure it was 3 days then remove (turn on skimmer, add carbon).  Well after 2 things were not looking so hot and then into day 3 i noticed the skin was all splotchy (that look before it all just dies at once).  Then I read the box and realized it was 2 days.  Lesson learned for not reading the damn instructions every time I dose something, even if I'm pretty sure I remember right.  Spent last night late into the night amping up my skimmer and removing probably 2 gallons an hour of skimmate or more and jammed some carbon in my reactor.  Several are dead wherever flow direction was coming from (like the flow pushed chemicals into the skin or something) and a few are just white skeletons.  Most of the casualties are in the frag tank and i'm praying some of my large colonies in the DT don't RTN today or tomorrow.  They all browned out pretty bad within the last 24 hours.  Some have that dead polpys hanging out look.  Obviously I don't have 500 gallons on hand to do a 50% water change but within about 4 hours I had the skimmer running back at normal levels which I believe means most of the medicine was gone (it super over skims if there's any in the water).

The reason I used the chemiclean is i had a decent outbreak in the frag tanks in hints of it in the DT.  I believe the chemical warfare from it was hurting the acros as they didn't look like they should the last couple weeks.  I spent some time just basting it away from the corals but that only helped the encroachment.  I think maybe the turnover in the frag tank isn't high enough to beat the increasing chemical warfare from the cyano (just a guess).

It's a real bummer, my red dragon was actually getting fairly branchy and I was really getting some good growth the last few months.

 

[bcavalli]

I am so sorry Rusty.  I cant even imagine going through that.  Whatever you do dont toss the coral that has bleached out.  At this point its not dead until algea grows over the coal skeleton.  Its possible it can recover even though its a long process.  Hang in there brother.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

thanks man.  We'll see how it goes.  Funny you mention it.  I had a blasto COMPLETE dead/gone and tossed it in the corner of the frag tank just to make space.  Atleast 6+ months later (last week) i saw 2 little tiny heads growing on it and was shocked.  Never had that kind of luck with acro's but we'll see.

 

[bcavalli]

You just never know.  I really hope some of them recover.

 

[danh]

That sucks man... Leave the pieces in there. I had a few SPS that were almost gone last year come back and are growing like crazy now.

 

[Adam]

Hey Rusty, sorry to hear of your struggle with cyano and potential loses due to chemiclean. I've been having the same battle with cyano for some time myself. I don't believe there's any chemical warfare going on with it though. Yes it's a PITA but other than smothering corals and/or blocking the light to them all cyano really releases is oxygen. The bubbles you see forming in the thicker patches is O2. Where ever I see Cyano in my tank I blast it with a jet of water till it comes loose from the rock. If it's on the sand I just stir it up.

With chemiclean, I used to take the cup off my skimmer and just let it overflow into the sump. I don't think an extra day by itself is what cause the coral issues. Had to be a combination of things. In December I had dosed it and some things came up, the water change didn't happen for almost a week. I was using my new skimmer at the time and it allows me to dial it way down so it doesn't overflow, even right after dosing. I just kept closing it down as the foam level dropped in the chamber till it was back to normal. While I don't think it was lack of gas exchange that was your problem, the fish would most likely have shown symptoms 1st, it's just odd that one more day caused so many problem with the coral.

 

[danh]

these two pieces,  a monti and i thing a very staggy stag that were almost completely dead even with some algae growing are here a few months later. you can see where it's growing back. The stag with just a couple of branches has gone crazy

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[outdrsyguy1]

Well, I finally figured out the problem.  Things just kept slowly getting worse and nothing was obvious.  I tested for ammonia and nitrite and got nothing.

I had started using a small tupperware container to hatch live brine in the tank and put pantyhose over the top to let the shrimp out when they hatch and hold the eggs in (there's several posts on the internet about live brine autofeeder).  I wanted to get pipe fish someday and was prepping to see how it worked.  I hadn't cleaned it out in a few weeks and also because it's fed off my manifold system i have to BARELY crack the valve to not get too much flow into the feeder.  Well over time gunk clogged the crack and slowed the feed to a drip instead of a stream.  Also sand had settled on top of the panty hose and effectively covered up the small tupperwa container.  The water and old eggs must have gone septic as I noticed that telltale hint of rotten egg smell when i pulled it out and cleaned it.  Things started recovering a couple days later and i'm a week out and color is starting to come back.  I've seen some polyps in 30% of the acros.  Definitely the brownest acros I've ever seen in my life.  They had zero color at all.  I wonder if that seneye product could have detected the traces of ammonia in the water that the api test kit didn't pick up?

Anyways, there's still a bunch of damage to recover from, some STN patches that died off on the bottoms and a few corals that 90% RTN.  It looks like no species is a total loss yet but the red dragon and icefire echinata definitely got reduced to tiny frags.  At least I figured it out faster than last time a similar flow issue bit me in my previous tank!

The timing of everything was just so coincidental I was really led astray in the solution.

 

[bcavalli]

Im really glad you figured it out.  An Orp probe most likely would have detected it.  When a fish dies and starts to decompose it drops pretty quickly.

 

[Adam]

It would be interesting to see how much the orp swung from norm with 1000 gallons.

The big key is the sulphur smell, hydrogen sulphide can kill quick. If your tank was a lot smaller, Rusty, you probably would have lost fish.