Reef under Siege - Waterbox AIO 50.3

[90gDreams]

FWIW I have ran a skimmer for maybe 6 weeks in a combined 14 years or so in this hobby. Tried it, didn't like emptying fish shit and stopped. It might be necessary for a heavily stocked acropora tank but for LPS and macroalgae I think you will be fine without it, ditto for filter rollers. Refugiums and GFO are quite capable when not overstocked or overfeeding.

Best thing I ever did water change wise was buy enough hose to reach from a 20g Rubbermaid to my tank. I put a black piece of electric tape on the back side of the display tank. Now when I do a water change I turn off the power heads and return pump. Then pump water to my kitchen sink down to the tape mark. Throw the pump in the Rubbermaid in the garage and fill it back up. No buckets minimal mess.

As for your flow it does look like it might be lacking based on what appears to be a sheet of Cyano but also it's not an easy thing to judge without a video or camera so if you think it's good then you do your thing. A very good approach is to aim the power heads at each other and have them either set for random flow or mirror eachother. Put the high up just before they suck air. Corals can handle a lot of flow, even low flow corals will thrive in more flow than you think the difference between low flow and high flow corals *in my opinion* is how long they can stand to be hit by a swale/peak flow, not the actual power of that flow.

Lighting you got plenty of par for what your are keeping. I grew out massive monti, stylo, poscilliopra colonies with 220-250 par max. The tank was eating 52mL a day of all for reef when it crashed due to a power outage.

Hope all of that helps some. The tank is really cool with the feather duster and bright macro algaes.

 

[siege]

FWIW I have ran a skimmer for maybe 6 weeks in a combined 14 years or so in this hobby. Tried it, didn't like emptying fish shit and stopped. It might be necessary for a heavily stocked acropora tank but for LPS and macroalgae I think you will be fine without it, ditto for filter rollers. Refugiums and GFO are quite capable when not overstocked or overfeeding.

Best thing I ever did water change wise was buy enough hose to reach from a 20g Rubbermaid to my tank. I put a black piece of electric tape on the back side of the display tank. Now when I do a water change I turn off the power heads and return pump. Then pump water to my kitchen sink down to the tape mark. Throw the pump in the Rubbermaid in the garage and fill it back up. No buckets minimal mess.

As for your flow it does look like it might be lacking based on what appears to be a sheet of Cyano but also it's not an easy thing to judge without a video or camera so if you think it's good then you do your thing. A very good approach is to aim the power heads at each other and have them either set for random flow or mirror eachother. Put the high up just before they suck air. Corals can handle a lot of flow, even low flow corals will thrive in more flow than you think the difference between low flow and high flow corals *in my opinion* is how long they can stand to be hit by a swale/peak flow, not the actual power of that flow.

Lighting you got plenty of par for what your are keeping. I grew out massive monti, stylo, poscilliopra colonies with 220-250 par max. The tank was eating 52mL a day of all for reef when it crashed due to a power outage.

Hope all of that helps some. The tank is really cool with the feather duster and bright macro algaes.

Yeah, a skimmer is pretty low on my list right now, though I do plan to leave myself the option of adding a small one if I need it. Most of what I am stocking is small. A pair of clowns will be the largest fish in the tank by far, and I am hoping the refugium plus the macro load will do a lot of the nutrient-export heavy lifting. My current fish plan is an exquisite firefish, neon goby, green banded goby, DaVinci clown pair, tailspot blenny, Rainford's goby, pink-streaked wrasse, and eventually a mandarin dragonet - in exactly that order - plus inverts. So it is very possible I can get away without a skimmer entirely - that said, if I do run one, it absolutely has to be a model with a drain port so I can send any overflow to a sealed bottle or jug. I am NOT dealing with emptying a tiny little HOB skimmer collection cup every day.

That said... you have no idea how much I hate dealing with filter socks. Like, they're a regular pain in my butt, and the more I can automate, the better. I'd far rather buy a roll of material and replace it periodically than have to deal with rescuing amphipods and snails from the socks, turning them inside out, and then jockeying with the rest of my family for time in the washing machine to clean them.

A proper mixing station is also still kind of the dream, but getting there is not just a matter of buying a couple of containers and a pump. It would also mean doing some home-improvement work to get it from where I would want it in the garage to where I need it in my office. Right now my RO/DI is plumbed straight into the office through an access panel from the laundry room, and I already have a pump, so I can make it work. It is just that mixing 5 to 10 gallons at a time every week gets old. What I would really like is at least a pair of 20-gallon - preferably 50's - one for RO/DI and one for saltwater, so I could mix once and be set for a long while. That's just a money thing at the moment.

Also, the cyano you are seeing is in the refugium, not the display. I had not been running a powerhead in there until fairly recently. I had meant to get macro in there sooner than I did, but it just did not work out that way - I acquired and attmpted to nurture a couple of small pieces, but they just couldn't grow and compete fast enough. Up until maybe 6 to 8 weeks ago I was dealing with a lot of FHA in the fuge, and then after one of my regular cleanings and pruning sessions, the FHA stopped really coming back and cyano started taking its place. Since then I added a 160 GPH pump with an RFG nozzle in the fuge and a good bit more macro, and after doing that I have had very little FHA return. I am expecting that after the next fuge cleanup I may see little to no cyano come back either. At the end of the day it is still a refugium, so I expect lower flow and I also expect it to catch a lot of the uglies. Honestly, for as long as this system has been running, more than 90% of the uglies have stayed in the fuge instead of the display, which was kind of the plan.

As for lighting, it is not really that I think I am badly short on PAR overall. It is more that I would rather not have to run my Current USA lights flat out just to get where I want to be, and I would also like a little better spread and a little more useful blue-violet output, especially in that roughly 380 to 440 nm range. So I have been thinking about adding an Orphek OR4 Blue Plus as a supplement. The idea would be to add more reef-focused blue and violet coverage and smooth out some of the dimmer areas without having to push the Current lights quite so hard."

 

[siege]

First ever ICP-OES test came back today, just a week after the 1 year anniversary of water in the tank. I... could be more pleased:


Last I tested Si on March 17 it was 0? Maybe my test kit is bad or I did it wrong. I can't imagine it went from 0 to this high overnight... but my DI resin is a year old now, and a bit more than half color changed, so I guess I need to order new filters regardless.

I also have NO idea where the aluminum or bromine is coming from... or how to get rid of it, off-hand, except massive water changes.

 

[90gDreams]

I finally decided to try this whole ICP thing, my flourine was also out of whack, and I had high tin. No idea where or why on that either

 

[siege]

I was reminded that even though my local water is not especially hard, it carries a lot of silica, which apparently is one of the tougher things for DI resin to deal with.

The long and short of it seems to be that DI resins have their preferences, and silica isn't one of them. Apparently it will load up the resin - without causing its color to change - but then as soon as something more strongly ionized comes along, it will knock the silica loose... so, what I'd think of as the "nastier" stuff still gets filtered, but at some point you start dumping out more and more of that silica that was originally captured.

I eventually re-tested Si, and having looked harder, I can see why I might have called it zero at a glance, especially under different lighting conditions... but even knowing the ICP result, I would swear the Salifert test sample absolutely was not above 0.1, while the math based on ATI's numbers would seem to indicate it should be reading 0.45, according to the ICP? A good reminder, then, of the limitations of Mk I Eyeball-based colorimetric hobby test kits.

Anyway, the aluminum... my best guess is the Phosguard I was running for a while, and perhaps left a bag of in too long? OTOH I don't think I have any more in the filters, and shouldn't have for some time, but in an AIO checking that for sure isn't an especially easy task and I haven't gotten around to pulling all of my filter media out.

The bromine, my only guess is it came from the short while I was dosing AFR? But, it would seem some of my other problems (low iodine, fluorine, molybdenum) are thanks to NOT running the AFR?? I seriously can't think of any other reason for it. I've never used any salt other than Aquaforest Reef Salt, so, that's almost definitely not the source.

I was obviously lagging on my reef chemistry, and just didn't think I had that much in the tank that would be sucking down something faster than my water changes would replenish it, other than Kh and Ca, that is.

So, I've been set straight, lol. I was given a bottle of iodide and explicit instructions, along with enough Mb for the single recommended corrective dose, and the ~75ml of fluorine (to be split into 3 separate doses) that ATI recommended. I switched back to AFR on Monday night, and am going to do a few larger water changes to try to bring that level back down. I've also been increasing light levels after an extended low-light stretch, and so I'm watching alk consumption carefully to adjust my dosing.

I finally decided to try this whole ICP thing, my flourine was also out of whack, and I had high tin. No idea where or why on that either

At a glance, I find; plumbing and adhesives like soft PVC, vinyl tubing and aquarium sealant; some frozen foods, in particular frozen brine shrimp; new tanks and/or cheap glass; equipment failure like corroding magnets, exposed wiring (especially cheap powerheads) and heaters; and, storing RODI water in certain plastic containers like Brute trash cans, especially if the water sites for long periods.

I'm definitely going to do another one in about 3 months and see where I stand then.