Not having success. I need help.

[Sump Crab]

Is that for the added biodiversity? Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any options for ocean live rock here in Canada. At least none that I have come across.

Will the regular cured "liverock" that LFS has do the trick? If so, I can get some of that and give it a try.

I would try and find some old rock from a reef breakdown. Old as in several years in a tank that seems healthy. I would also buy rubble or certain pieces of rock from LFS that has different types of visible life such as sponges, tunicates, worms, etc. Biodiversity is king imo.

Its completely doable to have a great reef starting with dry rock but the tank just takes much longer to mature. When I think of a mature tank its one that can mostly run on its own with nothing but a seldom water change without tons of nuisance algae popping up. Basically maturity is once the reef ecosystem reaches its own natural equilibrium with all sorts of checks and balances within it to keep nuisances at bay. Starting with ocean rock and its extreme biodiversity helps this process immensely.

 

[Llorgon]

I would try and find some old rock from a reef breakdown. Old as in several years in a tank that seems healthy. I would also buy rubble or certain pieces of rock from LFS that has different types of visible life such as sponges, tunicates, worms, etc. Biodiversity is king imo.

Its completely doable to have a great reef starting with dry rock but the tank just takes much longer to mature. When I think of a mature tank its one that can mostly run on its own with nothing but a seldom water change without tons of nuisance algae popping up. Basically maturity is once the reef ecosystem reaches its own natural equilibrium with all sorts of checks and balances within it to keep nuisances at bay. Starting with ocean rock and its extreme biodiversity helps this process immensely.

Been putting out some feelers for good liverock. Haven't had much luck so far. The liverock at all the lfs don't seem to have much life on it. The search will continue!

Got the window tint setup. So any sunlight hitting the tank will now be very minimal. I got the darkesk limo window tint I could find.

Found a guy who can drill a 5 gallon tank. Just waiting on him to finish with it and then I can start work on the external refugium.

Still waiting on the knitting mesh to arrive from Amazon. Then I can get my mini algae scrubber up and running.

Ran out of instant ocean reef crystals. Couldn't find any locally and with shipping a 5 gallon bucket would be over $100. A lfs had boxes of fritz rpm salt on sale so bought a box of it. From what I have read the params on it are lower than reef crystals so that should help with getting alk a bit lower.

Still struggling with corals. Some of my frogspawn heads haven't been doing great the last few days. So I am going to wait a bit longer before I bump my lights up again.

 

[Llorgon]

Finally got the knitting mesh for the algae scrubber and got that setup last night. Hopefully it can help get the algae under control.

Still not seeing very happy corals. Frogspawn and hammer corals aren't opening as much as they used to.

Hit a bit of a snag with the external refugium idea. Couldn't find anyone to drill a 5 gallon tank. A few people tried and they all cracked.

I'm thinking of buying a seeding pack of pods from Copepods Canada. Any concerns with seeding the tank without the refugium? I don't have any fish that really eat pods.

 

[Llorgon]

Picked up 1 turbo and 5 nassarius snails. Not much, but it was literally all the snails the lfs had in stock.

I got a bigger air pump. So now my algae scrubber has a nice stream of bubbles going through it. I was having trouble with getting airflow through the mesh. My original pump was too small. Hopefully this will help the algae growth.

I also picked up some N0304-x. Not sure if I should use it or not. Obviously my nutrients are higher than test kits indicate or I wouldn't be having all the algae growth.

Maybe my best bet is to address the algae then work on corals?

 

[supernanoguy]

Couldn’t you implement a UV scrubber to kill the algae off?

 

[Llorgon]

Couldn’t you implement a UV scrubber to kill the algae off?

I thought UV was only useful for killing things in the water column?

 

[supernanoguy]

If you are scrubbing the rocks of the algae it is in the column. But it helps keep the spreading down for sure.

 

[Llorgon]

Ok that makes sense. Something I will have to look into then.

 

[Llorgon]

So bit of an update. Fish are doing well.

Corals are still struggling. Notably the frogspawn and hammer corals.

I finally got a cuc and it's helping slowly with the algae. There are patches on the back wall where the algae hasn't grown back in over a week!

I also picked up a decent sized piece of liverock from another reefers tank. That has replaced half the existing rock. Going to see if it makes a difference or not.

 

[Llorgon]

Oh I also setup an algae scrubber in the tank. It's growing algae quite well!

 

[Llorgon]

Ok it's been awhile since I updated here.

I got the algae scrubber setup and working for a few weeks the problem is I think it worked too well. My nutrients went down to 0 and the corals took a hit. Specifically the frogspawn and hammer corals. So after about 3 weeks I took the algae scrubber down.

I replaced half the rock with liverock from an established reefers tank. I may replace the other half as well.

Since nutrients went down to 0 I had to bring them back up again. I have had them higher(nitrates 5ppm and phos 0.1ppm) for a few weeks now and have only noticed an increase in algae on the glass. I have been having good luck in getting a leg up on the mature algae in the tank. But still struggling to keep it off.

I was finally able to get some cuc. Unfortunately keeping them alive has been a challenge. I keep losing snails and I'm not sure why. Lost 2 this past week. Maybe something else is going on?

I abandoned the external refugium simply because I couldn't find anyone to drill a 5 gallon and a 10 gallon would take up too much room above the tank.

Still looking into increasing the pod population, but that will probably be in the new year since I spent a bunch of money for equipment on getting the 75 gallon back up and running.

 

[Llorgon]

Bit of an update. Still have some gha, but it's now at manageable levels. I could probably start spot treating most places now.

Some corals are still struggling. Mainly the duncan continues to not want to open up and the frogspawn is still looking pretty bad, but I do see some small new heads popping up in places.

For the first time in quite awhile I feel like I could add corals to the tank and have them survive.

I guess my next focus would be trying to get my duncan and frogspawn back to looking happy and healthy.

 

[Rjmul]

Bit of an update. Still have some gha, but it's now at manageable levels. I could probably start spot treating most places now.

Some corals are still struggling. Mainly the duncan continues to not want to open up and the frogspawn is still looking pretty bad, but I do see some small new heads popping up in places.

For the first time in quite awhile I feel like I could add corals to the tank and have them survive.

I guess my next focus would be trying to get my duncan and frogspawn back to looking happy and healthy.

I'm realizing that sometimes you can't fix everything. Sometimes you just have to find a method. Stick to it. Keep your parameters steady and leave it alone.