Anthony's WB 230.6 upgrade - SPS Dominant Mixed Reef

[anthonymckay]

Oh boy... possibly identified what was causing issues in my tank. Realized I hadn't seen the other sea hare in a minute (the second one I assumed was still alive)... started looking around the tank. Finally noticed it was dead and sucked up into one of the Nero 7's.... not much left of him, had probably been there decomposing for a while, likely a few days before the other one died. Removed what was left, we'll see if things start improving after running some fresh carbon and a water change.

 

[anthonymckay]

Oof, when it rains it pours... literally! We had some bad storms roll through our area over the weekend. Shortly after everyone went to bed a tree fell in our neighborhood and took out the power. Normally this isn't a big issue as we have a large generator can plug into our main panel and power the whole house. Unfortunately we didn't notice till the next morning after waking up. The tanks temperature was down to 68F, and there was no water movement the entire night. 1 of the bimac antheis was floating around dead. The coral were all stressed. Hooked up the generator and brought everything back up to 78F. 24 hours later and my Walt Disney SPS RTN'd overnight. The rest of my SPS are all looking pretty bad with some of them bleaching, and some browning. My big NYKnicks torch is looking all shriveled up.. some of the zoas are still closed up. We'll see how things go this coming week, but I wont be surprised if I lose some more corals... ugh.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Oof, when it rains it pours... literally! We had some bad storms roll through our area over the weekend. Shortly after everyone went to bed a tree fell in our neighborhood and took out the power. Normally this isn't a big issue as we have a large generator can plug into our main panel and power the whole house. Unfortunately we didn't notice till the next morning after waking up. The tanks temperature was down to 68F, and there was no water movement the entire night. 1 of the bimac antheis was floating around dead. The coral were all stressed. Hooked up the generator and brought everything back up to 78F. 24 hours later and my Walt Disney SPS RTN'd overnight. The rest of my SPS are all looking pretty bad with some of them bleaching, and some browning. My big NYKnicks torch is looking all shriveled up.. some of the zoas are still closed up. We'll see how things go this coming week, but I wont be surprised if I lose some more corals... ugh.

So sorry about your loss! Speedy recoveries for the rest of your coral!

 

[anthonymckay]

Unfortunately I ended up losing my big Strawberry Shortcake colony to RTN'd 2 nights after the big outage, as well as the 24k torch that was already not doing well before the outage. The SPS that are still alive all bleached with the exception of my Acid Trip mille, Orange Passion. It seems things are starting to stabilize though, as polyps are starting to show again on all the bleached SPS. My NYKnicks torches were deflated and shriveled for a few days, but they have plumped back up. The zoas have all opened back up. I'm going to keep the LED light bars off for the next few weeks and let everything recover some more before I switch them back on.

In some better news, I now have 3 polyps on my Stratosphere zoa

 

[anthonymckay]

It's been a little under 2 weeks since the tank nearly crashed. Colors are starting to return to the bleaches SPS. Polyps are back out and fluffy again. Torches are fully extended! Phew... My stratosphere zoa is now up to 5 polyps! Gonna mount it onto a larger ceramic plate to start working on growing a colony. If I'm able to successfully get it to a large enough colony, I'll frag some off. Don't really care about selling, but they will certainly be a great offering for local coral trades if I can successfully keep growing them!

I've decided to start talking my low pH problem in this tank. I'm constantly between roughly 7.8-8.0 (despite dosing kalk) and would like to see that higher. I've ordered some 3/8" tubing to run an airline to pull in outside air. Also had a gift card for BRS I received for Christmas, so I used it to buy the BRS co2 scrubber. Will test this configuration out and see how much of a difference it makes.

Next equipment upgrade is going to be the addition of an algae scrubber. I'm hoping I'll see benefits in 1) stabilizing my nutrients, 2) helping to out compete the hair algae in the display, and 3) help stabilize the pH drop at night. Currently the CW100 is sold out at BRS and Saltwateraquariums.com, so waiting for them to pop back into stock, at which point I'll be ordering one.

 

[anthonymckay]

A local reefer posted a gen 5 Radion XR15 for a price that was too good to pass up. So I grabbed it, and my old Nero 3 and set it up in the sump. Decided to turn the unused refugium chamber into a small frag grow out. Put a couple zoas down there along with a new Goni frag I picked up at the lfs today as well. We’ll see how it goes!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

A local reefer posted a gen 5 Radion XR15 for a price that was too good to pass up. So I grabbed it, and my old Nero 3c and set it up in the sump. Decided to turn the unused refugium chamber into a small frag grow out. Put a couple zoas down there along with a new Goni frag I picked up at the lfs today as well. We’ll see how it goes!

That light looks great in the sump!

 

[anthonymckay]

This week has been full of improvement! First off, I added the outside airline and co2 scrubber to my skimmer. Freshly recalibrated my pH probes in both my alkatronic and hydros, and am getting consistent pH between ~8.35-8.45 at the high and low of each day. This is a massive improvement form my previous 7.8-8.0, especially when you consider that pH is logarithmic!

Added a nicer frag stand down in the sump, and made a temporary light shade for the XR15 till I can construct a nicer one. Hopefully this will shield the equipment in the neighboring sections of the sump from getting covered in coraline (this happened in my last tank from the refugium light).

 

[anthonymckay]

Started fragging up zoas that are overgrown on my magnetic frag racks in the display and moving them down below u to the sump

 

[anthonymckay]

My Strats are doing great down in the sump grow out. Planning to mount this to a larger 3” disk and grow it out for quite some time till it’s covered. If that’s successful I’ll frag a big chunk to mount on a rock in the display

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Started fragging up zoas that are overgrown on my magnetic frag racks in the display and moving them down below u to the sump

Those zoa frags look great!

 

[anthonymckay]

After scrubbing many rocks of hair algae last week only to see it return this week, I've come to the conclusion that my cleanup crew just isn't large enough for the task. I thought for sure that once I removed the long hair algae that they'd stay on top of it at that point. But not the case. I think part of the issue was that over the last few months hermit crabs seem to have taken out a large percentage of the snails I added. I re-upped on a bunch of astrea, trochus, and turbo snails. As well as 2 new sea hares... fingers crossed. I'll remove and scrub down all the long hair algae in the tank....again, and see how it goes. Also considering removing all the hermit crabs from the tank to keep them from chowing down on snails.

 

[anthonymckay]

Because I can't stop tinkering with things in an effort to beat this hair algae, I changed my lighting schedule to a low intensity 6 hour photo period of all blues yesterday. Then today I woke up and decided, screw it, let's do a 3 day blackout with no lights on to try and beat back this hair algae and give the refreshed cleanup crew a head start. It's just becoming so much work trying to keep the long GHA scrubbed down short enough for the cleanup crew to want to eat it. Hoping a 3 day blackout will do a lot of that work for me, then I'll do a water change on the 3rd day and try and siphon out as much of the GHA left as I can.

I also finally pulled the trigger on a Clearwater Algae Turf Scrubber. I've heard good things about these and their ability to outcompete nuisance algae in the display. Will also be great for nutrient management since I repurposed the refugium section in the sump into a frag grow out. Should arrive next week.

 

[anthonymckay]

Light came back on today. Seemed to have a moderate impact on the hair algae, noticeably thinned out in the thickest areas. I then went to two pulling and scrubbing some of the bigger trouble spots, pulled a couple rocks to scrub, and started relocating clean up crew to those areas to let them finish the job. Will continue doing this each day or so and hopefully we're starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel? Time will tell... Algae scrubber arrives tomorrow as well, so planning to get that online this week.

 

[anthonymckay]

My Clearwater CW-100 algae scrubber arrived just before lunch today, so I spent my lunch break installing it. Thankfully it’s pretty simple to hook up. Had a small pump I was gonna use for it, but ended up just pumping it into the return pump manifold, as that provides more than enough flow. Pulled some clumps of hair algae from the display and rubbed it all over the screen in an attempt to “seed” it faster. Need to probably get a proper stand/shelf for it, as right now it’s just sitting on the corner of my sump. Stable enough setup for now though. Really pleased with this piece of hardware, seems really well built and thought out!

 

[anthonymckay]

Finally winning the fight against the hair algae outbreak! It'd say it's reduced by about 80% from where it was last week! Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself, haha.

The 3 day blackout seemed to really help give the replenished cleanup crew a nice assist. Some of the large areas that were completed covered in multiple inches of hair algae have been reduced to bare rock. The sea hares have been taking out the thick stuff slowly but surely, and the snails have been getting in after them and cleaning up the rest. So happy to see this progress!

Still be going in during feeding and scrubbing other areas with a toothbrush them moving a bunch of snails to those spots. Having a lot of success with that as well. Finally a light at the end of the tunnel!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Finally wining the fight against the hair algae outbreak! It'd say it's reduced by about 80% from where it was last week! Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself, haha.

The 3 day blackout seemed to really help give the replenished cleanup crew a nice assist. Some of the large areas that were completed covered in multiple inches of hair algae have been reduced to bare rock. The sea hares have been taking out the thick stuff slowly but surely, and the snails have been getting in after them and cleaning up the rest. So happy to see this progress!

Still be going in during feeding and scrubbing other areas with a toothbrush them moving a bunch of snails to those spots. Having a lot of success with that as well. Finally a light at the end of the tunnel!

Glad to see the hair algae is going away!

 

[anthonymckay]

Tank is 5 months old today. Things are going great lately! I’m officially declaring the hair algae war over!! 99% gone. Corals have been looking fantastic lately, great polyp extension and vibrant colors returning since the big power outage that caused some mayhem. Hoping to ride this upswing for a while before the next issue pops up, haha.

 

[anthonymckay]

My new custom lid arrived today. Unfortunately none of the custom measurements we agreed on weren't done... Pretty annoyed after such a long wait for this thing. Sent them photos of the incorrect measurements and hopefully they can get one made a lot faster than the first one...

 

[code4]

I must have missed who was making your lid. I have the same tank sitting in my garage. And will need a lid. So following.

My current 140 gallon had a horrible outbreak of red slime and hair algae. Finally got a hold on it right before my update.

Shelley