Desert Reef - 180g Reefer-S 850 G2

[ctopherl]

Ran an ICP test, everything is looking pretty good and close to what I’m testing except iodine is way low, presumably because of my algae outburst. I ordered a cheap bottle of seachem iodide to see if I can get it up a little-seems like there is a lot of theory of iodine levels affecting zoas and soft corals and half my zoas aren’t opening. My Alveopora is also looking like it’s on its way out unfortunately. No clue why!

 

[ctopherl]

I have been regularly dosing iodide, manganese and iron. I have been doing deep cleans/toothbrush scrubbing of the hair algae as well but it is tough to keep back.

Latest ICP test shows that I went way overboard with iodide, manganese is still too low and iron is high but fine! Corals seem to be responding OK.

I also did a deep clean of my UV/pump/tubing and return pumps/tubing with some citric acid and then light peroxide.

 

[ctopherl]

Also had a bad case of brown jelly disease ripping through my coral QT - it took out 5/8 euphyllia and 1 chalice unfortunately. I managed to do some large water changes, get the affected corals out quickly and get my hands on some cipro to dose to the tank and the rest of the corals seem healthy now. I will definitely dose cipro proactively with my next batch of euphyllia! I am getting some good goni extension too.

 

[ctopherl]

Dosing cabinet is coming along nicely. It’s not “pretty” but it is clean and safe. Simplicity doser with 3x Simplicity dosing containers. Love the doser so far. Only complaint is since it is only manual button presses (no app), this makes it impossible to calibrate on my own since the dosing lines are far from the doser. Otherwise this is the only brand of doser I’ve had complete success with out of the gate.

Also, I realized that using silicone tubing (as Simplicity recommends) works wayyy better for dosing tubing than regular RO tubing. It is much more flexible and can be molded over the nozzles for a tight seal where the RO tubing is super rigid. I will only be using silicone tubing going forward. I bought some off Amazon for cheap!

Next step is to hopefully figure out a clean-ish way to mount my external power strip into this cabinet for easier access. I’m have thought about trying to get a PDU unit to attach to the side of the cabinet instead to provide easy-access switches but I’m not confident I could mount it effectively.

 

[ctopherl]

Back to the main tank…. Algae is coming back quickly. Urchin does not seem like he will make it but not sure why (nitrates around 8ppm based on salifert).

I bottomed out my phosphates but I think partially because the algae was taking it up and growing. I removed GFO temporarily and the phosphates got back up to around ~.065ppm. I have been dosing NOPOX continuously at 3mL per day. I have now bumped up the dosage to 4mL per day and have put GFO back in.

Clearly very unstable right now and it’s a lot of work scrubbing this algae off! Here it is back again. I did 1 WC yesterday and cleaned it off the side where the corals are and will do another this week to get off this side again. I am also still doing a weekly dose of vibrant. I will say algae growth hasn’t really started on the new rocks I put in, only continued in the spots where it was bad before. I guess that’s a good thing?

 

[ctopherl]

Also cleaned my UV pump, body and quartz sleeve. I was debating swapping out the sleeve and bulb but they look to be in pretty good shape, just dusty/grimy. I used RO with citric acid and then another bucket of RO with a light amount of peroxide to rinse.

 

[ctopherl]

Here’s the latest ICP test. A few learnings:

* My salifert MG test is reading ~1420 but ICP claims I have 1530. Big difference!
* I way overdosed iodine and iron apparently. I followed the directions on the bottle. I will stop dosing this for a bit.
* Manganese is still down even though I was worried I overdosed this as well. I will have to be a bit more diligent about dosing regularly.

 

[ctopherl]

Still struggling getting this under control. I’m going to take a step back, stop the carbon dosing for now, keep the P super low and see how that goes because I can’t keep up with the algae while also maintaining my sanity. I think I can get little amounts of P just through increased feeding and I’m confident it’ll bounce back removing the GFO if I ever need to for some reason. It seems my system is just too “new” and unstable still to be trying this kind of stuff. I have about 15 frags going in the DT early October and then I will get another batch of 20-30 to go through QT.

Here’s a shot of the tank this morning, at least the water is clear. Alkalinity/calcium/magnesium all looking good.

 

[ctopherl]

I BEAT URONEMA!!!! I will do a second test to be sure but this Aquabiomics test found no trace, whereas a previous test showed I had it! First I dosed melafix (marine) for a couple of weeks following instructions on the bottle, then did peroxide dosing for ~8-9 weeks. Success! What a relief!

 

[ctopherl]

Looks like I might have some diatoms? I am stirring the sand daily and they keep coming back. My flow isn’t super strong so I’m sure some of it just settles back down. I’m going to see if a few weeks of WCs + daily sand stirring eventually clears it up. I will add some pods again soon, too. The hair algae seems to not be coming back too quickly, luckily so overall tank is looking good. I also bumped up flow rate a bit through the UV closer to algae control instead of the lower parasite sterilization rate. I am going to start dosing NOPOX again to see if that helps. Everything else talks about “silicates” but nothing has changed about my source water and I haven’t added any sort of plastics or rocks.

Here is a pic of the fish fighting over some table shrimp. I started feeding these in addition to clams as I am paranoid about my puffers beak growing too large. I’ve found if I just hold the frozen chunk at the surface of the water only him and the trigger will eat it out of my hand before I drop it.

 

[SaltyB24]

Excited to follow this build! Remember nothing good happens fast in this hobby! Wishing all the best as things mature in the tank!

 

[ctopherl]

Excited to follow this build! Remember nothing good happens fast in this hobby! Wishing all the best as things mature in the tank!

Thank you! I’m hoping as I add more corals everything will stabilize better, but I am QT’ing them all so it is a slow process surprised I’m getting this much of the ugly phase over a year in!

 

[SaltyB24]

Thank you! I’m hoping as I add more corals everything will stabilize better, but I am QT’ing them all so it is a slow process surprised I’m getting this much of the ugly phase over a year in!

Can't wait to see it all come together!

 

[laconic]

How do you like the Hydros

 

[ctopherl]

How do you like the Hydros

I really like it! I've been happy with both physical build quality and software. I was tempted to go Apex at first but read too many horror stories about build quality (especially with power bars) which I'm not OK with, especially for the price point.

I don't do anything crazy with it - I shy away from full automation because I'm too afraid of failures. I lean on it for monitoring - I have multiple water level sensors, a leak detector and temperature sensor because I'm afraid of ATO/heater failures. My only additional steps would be (1) more sensors (salinity/ORP) (2) some sort of automated testing, but not sure those are worth the $$ to me.

 

[laconic]

I really like it! I've been happy with both physical build quality and software. I was tempted to go Apex at first but read too many horror stories about build quality (especially with power bars) which I'm not OK with, especially for the price point.

I don't do anything crazy with it - I shy away from full automation because I'm too afraid of failures. I lean on it for monitoring - I have multiple water level sensors, a leak detector and temperature sensor because I'm afraid of ATO/heater failures. My only additional steps would be (1) more sensors (salinity/ORP) (2) some sort of automated testing, but not sure those are worth the $$ to me.

Thanks. I am just going to buy a Aquaspin for testing. We have one trident but it broke 2x in 6 months if you have multiple tanks the aqua spin becomes economical

 

[ctopherl]

Thanks. I am just going to buy a Aquaspin for testing. We have one trident but it broke 2x in 6 months if you have multiple tanks the aqua spin becomes economical

Oh interesting I hadn't heard of the aquaspin thanks! The most common testing system to integrate with Hydros is the mastertronic/alkatronic/new KH carer from CoralVue. They look solid but are expensive and I'm not sure I care that much about not doing the tests by hand. Maybe the KH carer would be worth it as alkalinity has potential for most impact quickly if it swings.