Mark's Tanks
 

Hello.

These are nothing special, so don't get your hopes up for anything amazing. :)

I had kept freshwater planted tanks for 6 years prior to getting into reefing. In February of 2012 I started my first reef tank, a 40 breeder, with all hang on back equipment. Over a year and a half I've made progress but also had a lot of set backs.

Most recent FTS

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I've gone from having issues keeping things alive to worrying about color. I think that's progress!

Here are some progression pics from 2012. This is kind of like phase 1 of this tank, with 2013 really being a start again year.

My first picture is from January 30th 2012, with sand still settling. In the beginning there was rock, some wimpy circulation pumps, and what I thought was lovely Caulerpa algae.

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March 1st
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In May the first fish added and flatworms begin to show up.
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By June I'm adding soft coral and a few LPS.
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August
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In September a few more corals, including my second leather which suvives today in my 46 gallon tank.
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On to October 2012, boy that Kenya Tree sure can grow fast.
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November / December crash! Let's add some SPS days before crashing the tank! You can see tiny frag of purple Stylophora in this pic which is still with me today. I'm still not 100% sure what caused the problem. I had removed a significant amount of rock to either scrub algae off or discard, but I never detected any ammonia and had no fish losses.

In this last pic for 2012 I had already discarded all the SPS that died and was purchasing new SPS, including the Blue Vodoo on the sand bed, which is still mostly brown today! The pink birdsnest in the back, right, is still with me but only because a small piece fell into the sand bed unnoticed and somehow survived.

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So now on to 2013, after a year of mostly learning and somehow managing to keep most corals and fish alive. All but 1 fish in the history of this tank is either in my other tank or made it back to the LFS alive. So I could keep fish, but I did not have a good track record with corals.

January 2013. This was soon after my first mail order coral arrived from Live Aquaria. It included a giant green stylo that proceeded to RTN until I chopped it up and painted the dead spots with super glue. That worked and I still have 3 large pieces of this today. Unfortunately only the tips have green polyps.

Also visible in this picture is my purple and green birdsnest, the huge one in the latest FTS.

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February, just after adding some additional SPS, including a Forest Fire digitata and what I thought was a superman Monti, but is most likely a Rainbow.

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By the end of March this is what the tank looked like.
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I purchased my Nikon D3100 in April, which at times provided much better photos ... as soon as I learned how to use it.

Mid April, MP 10 purchased. Coral colors looking really dull.
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May 11th. I had a bryopsis outbreak near the end of April and I added a little too much Mg too fast, bleaching my purple stylo, Rainbow monti, and pipe organ. In the beginning of May there was a local frag swap, my first, and I added a lot more SPS, including my green slimer (this was actually a large piece from a LFS), a strawberry colored acro, my green birdsnest, and a milli, near the center. See the dark spots under that milli (click to see a larger pic)? AEFW eggs. :(

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The AEFW caused me to remove all my cheap acro frags and only keep what I really liked. Since then I baste the acros off each water change and so far no more damage is present. I also changed my fish stocking and did some significant rescaping.

June was time for vacation, so here's my FTS showing a battery backup bubbler. Luckily no power failure while we were gone. I doubt that would have done much for an extended outage.

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July
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I had gone overboard with adding rocks so I then reduced and moved the rocks around so that there was space behind the rockscape for flow and gravel vaccing.

At the end of August I had probably the best color in this tanks history, but I had also introduced Montipora nudibranchs on the flying saucer frag near the bottom middle of the tank. :( The new damaged frag in this picture, up top on the left, is a Rainbow stylo, showing similar shipping damage to the last stylo I purchased. This time I did not frag but rather painted with superglue.

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By September the colors had started to fade. Most notably the Forest Fire digitata in the center had lost a great deal of its orange florescence and was just barely visible under blue light now.

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This beings me to October and trying to restore the vibrant colors. You can really see the downturn in the Forest Fire digitata. Very dull orange.

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I believe I had a peak in phosphates. I purchased a Hanna phosphate checker and the first readings averaged 0.11. After a water change and adding Phosguard (aluminum, I know, my choice) in a bag I now read 0.0 for the last few days.

Things seem to be more vibrant under blue lighting so hopefully this is a sign I'm turning the corner.

Here's a top down of that purple stylo for Bello. My first attempt at any top down shot, through calm water but at an angle.

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Look at my flatworm collection. :)

Latest FTS

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Tank looks pretty good, a bit pale, but good overall. I'm on the quest for good colors as well, so dunno if I can help much.

If you haven't already, take a look at my friend biggles's tank http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2267502

First thing, is that you're working with a lot less water volume than I am, so its definitely more challenging for you :)

The purple stylo has shown some excellent growth in a short while. I have a stylo that while sold to me as a purple stylo, looks nothing like one. Just brown, that said, I'll be meddling with my color spectrum soon.

Could you list out your filtration setup? The flatworms on the rock and sandbed don't look like AEFW, when did you add the 6-line? Has he had any effect? Do you still have AEFW and nudis?

Hi Bello, thanks for visiting.

Those are the common brown flatworms and the sixline is not helping. I just don't worry about them much anymore and vacuum out with some small airline tubing when I do my water changes. I also have AEFW, I saw the bite marks and blew a few bigger ones off some acro. I have not seen them for months, but I suspect they are still in there.

I had 3 montis that I spotted nudibranchs on and I removed each of them. So far no further damage.

That purple stylo has always had purple polyps. Even when I bleached it the polyps were bright purple. The ORA green stylo has never been fully green for me, just the tips. So far the Rainbow stylo only has green tips and dull purple polyps.

Filtration is a CPR Skimmer + 4.5 gallon hang on back fuge. I used to grow chaeto in there but lighting the fuge would always result in a buildup of hair algae and end up clogging the return area and changing the water level, which in turn would change the skimmer setting. I run it dark now, and I'm able to get a good full cup of brown skim every 2 days.

I also have an AC110 where I put my carbon and Phosguard. All HOB, so my water volume is very small. I dose 45ml of Alk a day, 20ml of Calcium, using Two Little Fishes two part.

I use Kent reef salt, for no other reason than it's very high in calcium and magnesium and the KH is near 9. I used to mix Seachem Reef Builder in my topoff water but I stopped, and then did not pick up two part dosing fast enough, which caused my KH to drop to 6.5 or lower. I'm hoping this is what caused some of the color loss. If not then it may be alk swings from my twice a day dosing, which means I will have to look into automating KH dosing.

I follow Biggles tanks as well. :)

Thanks for sharing your reefing adventure so far! Keep at it!

Thanks! :)

I would say your color issues are due to alk swings and possible lighting, what type of lights do you have?

I found myself testing alk 2-3x/wk to keep it above 7 dKH with the goal to stay at 9, if it dipped below 7 a few days later my corals would really suffer.

All things considered, you've made a lot of progress with this tank, it's going to look fantastic once things settle in.

Howdy, thanks for stopping by. I use 4 T5HO lights with a reefbright Blue/white strip in front. I am lucky to have a nearby LFS that rents out their PAR meter so I have measurements.

This was my initial tests, I don't have an image for a second set of tests. Basically I took off one of my 2-bulb fixtures (AquaticLife) so I'm down to 4 bulbs, then added the reefbright in front and tested to make sure my PAR was in the range I wanted it to be in. My goal was 200-230 on the Forest Fire digitata and around 150 on the sandbed.

http://imageshack.us/a/img6/3497/9syt.jpg

Current bulb combination, from front to back:

ReefBright 30" blue/white
Ebay Blue Strip
ATI Blue+
ATI Purple+
Royal Blue Stunner strip
ATI Purple+
ATI Blue+

You can see the ReefBright in this next pic, angled back to give me some PAR but mostly for shimmer.

http://imageshack.us/a/img51/4171/bci4.jpg

I have a Ebay Blue strip (about 30 PAR) and a Royal Blue Stunner as well for morning and evening light.

Blue LED strips on at 6AM, off at 10PM
ReefBright comes on at 1PM, off at 9PM
T5s come on at 2PM, off at 8PM

So now for my other tank, the 46 gallon bowfront. This started out as a true nano, a 20 long, but I am not patient enough to run a tank that small so I ended up getting frustrated and finally giving all my freshwater fish to the LFS, then draining, cleaning, and re-filling the tank over a 8 hour period. Freshwater to saltwater in 8 hours flat. :) I moved all my rocks, sand, corals and fish the next day.

This is the LPS tank, or at least that was the intended theme. It's really mixed though mostly LPS, with Montipora, Pocillapora, Stylophora and Seriatopora (birdsnest) for SPS. The only acro I might add is a frag of my big green slimer at some point in the future.

This tank has always been more colorful than my 40 ... maybe because it's easier to take care of? Current Alk demand is 20ml a day vs the 45ml of the 40 gallon. Phosphate is somewhere between 0.0 and 0.03 (Hanna) and Nitrates are 0 (I've never measured nitrates in either tank).

While the 40 has issues with a bigger leaf Caulerpa this tank is infested with a very tiny feather leaf species of Caulerpa that can grow like mad if I don't watch it closely. It's really quite attractive, but very invasive.

For filtration I use two WP25 pumps, one in Else mode and the other pulsing a wave. I have an Eshoppes HOB skimmer rated for 100 gallons and a DIY fuge made out of a AC 110 and two hockey puck 2800K LED lights from Home Depot. The tiny Caulerpa and chaeto grows like mad in the Fuge and will literally fill it up in a weeks time. That Caulerpa is something to behold, creating thick bright green clumps of growth.

This tank does not have flatworms, and while I dip all moved corals with flatworm exit I'm still surprised none have shown up. This tank did get AEFW when I moved an infested acro, which is why it's acro free at the moment.
The sand used in this tank is a much smaller grain than in the 40 and I have to stir, rather than vac, to remove detritus.

The cleanup crew in this tank is snails only. I did have one of my thin striped hermits in there for a week to do Caulerpa cleanup. I found that after taking a toothbrush to the Caulerpa the hermit will eat it up. I have used peroxide in this tank to try and kill the Caulerpa, but obviously it did not work.

Lighting on this tank consists of 3 24" BuildMyLED fixtures. One of them is their standard Reef spectrum, the other two I customized. The front fixture, over the bow, is a custom that includes cyan, violet, deep red, and 4500K white. It runs at 100% brightness. I use the other two fixtures over the back, above the anemone and SPS corals. One is the standard Reef, the other is a simple alternating royal blue / 6500K white. I run both of these at 30% brightness to get me around 230 up top, 180 where the anemone decided to settle, and the low 100's down on the sand bed with a few sub 100's along either side.

In short, this tank looks so good it makes me nervous that something will fail because I have no clear idea why everything is working so well.

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A fish that I have found to be surprisingly successful at getting rid of flatworms is a yellow tail damsel.. (I know damsel=hell) It worked for me and I've heard of it working for a few others. Good luck at restoring your colors! Everything still looks great.

Jacob

Thanks Jacob, I appreciate the advice. I have learned to live with them ... there's so many you hardly notice. :hmm4:

Nice tanks, very nice progression.

Smart move on the PAR meter, those light levels look about right :thumbsup:. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to end up buying one....bye bye money...

I really can't say if the alk swing contributed to the loss of color, but seems that it may be a possible cause. What levels are you aiming for with alk?

I don't see a lot of fish in the tank. What's the fish load like? Maybe that's a cause? very low N and P? I'm GUESSING its coral nutrition. Your filtration setup is pretty efficient and simple, and we're pretty much following the same principles of gfo, carbon, skimmer only.

Are you still getting a lot of algae?, then maybe the above guess may not be true...

Are you finding the corals pale? Or brown? From the pics, it seems paling is the problem. Quick note if you forgot, AEFW also causes paling. Doubt its the AEFW though, since some non acros are also a bit pale.

Are you dosing any supplements (for color?) apart from Alk, Cal & Mg?

I still haven't figured out all of my coral color problems, and I guess it shows :)

I did not notice you had a color problem. ;)

I've never had a brown coral, well other than the ones that are supposed to be blue. It's always light and pale. The fish were hiding when I took that pic, I think the fish load is pretty good.

I have been dosing Brightwell Amino something or other, feeding Reef Roids and Coral Chili, and overall feeding heavily for the past month. I was trying to get a spike in nutrients and work from there, but except for some rich brown froth on some of the glass I haven't seen anything spectacular.

I have some supplements left over from my freshwater planted days and I've tried a single small dose of potassium with no results, and a single small dose of iron (Seachem products), that turned all the rocks brown for a few days, but nothing else. The hermits loved it though. This was a few months ago, before the colors got worse after the KH drop. I did the same thing in the 46 with no results, which I found odd.

I had cyano for 1 month in the 40 when it was about 6 months old, since then nothing. I expected adding Coral Amino and heavy feeding would bring on something, but so far the only thing noticable has been these heavy brown deposits on the glass, with some kind of milky froth (bacteria of some sort) growing on it if I leave it alone for a week. Clouds the tank when I scrape it off, otherwise no apparent effect. I assume this is the result of heavier feeding.

I dose 1 drop of Lugols every week to both tanks. This has increased the growth of my Xenia in the 46 after months of no growth, no apparent effect in the 40 and frankly I skipped the last dose and will probably discontinue dosing since I don't have a kit. I'll use the vigor of the Xenia in the 46 to determine if I need to add any.

I'm trying to keep my KH between 8.5 and 9. The salt I use has a KH around 9.5 and after a 10% water change I usually test about 9 KH.

Thanks MC :)

:lol:....Honestly, from a first impression, the nutrients seem low possibly resulting in paler colors, and apart from that, everything's great. It looks like its just some minor tweaking required.

From my limited experience, I only add Seachem Reef Iodide, which is Potassium Iodide, (recommended dosage 30ml alternate days, I do 10ml once a week), and it does darken the colors a bit, but not for long. I don't dose anything else. I do have a calcium reactor that I hope takes care of the trace elements etc. Since I began the tank last year, apart from the initial 3 months when I was running zeovit, the colors haven't changed noticeably. Perhaps its the larger volume.

A couple days ago I tested for NO3, after a gap of about 6 months (during which I was fighting cyano, AEFW etc), and its at 2ppm currently. I don't know if it has recently dropped to 2ppm or risen to 2ppm. PO4 tests at 0.04 ppm.

Hope the above info helps a bit :). BTW, don't over dose Iron :lol:, I did it, and my greens turned BLACK :lol:, thankfully, they recovered in a few days. I doubt potassium needs to be dosed or even tested for, unless you're running a Zeovit system, in which case its a must have.

I'd think Lugol's would've helped, and it was on my to purchase list to replace or dose with the Potassium Iodide, but honestly, I'd prefer to keep the dosing to little or none, preferring to color up with just feeding.

Also, I've been feeding more over the last 2 weeks since I purchased the 2 angels, so I'll post pics if colors improve.

As for the blues, well, I've pretty much shoved my blues into higher light, and the result should be apparent from the comparison pics.

I think, feeding more and skimming perhaps a bit wetter (to help with increased feeding), should help?

Hi Bello, thanks for the reply.

My 2.5 caps of Alk is raising my KH over 1 point each does. I'm starting to think that may be the primary issue here instead of the KH drop. When I was dosing KH in my topoff water I had better colors, then I stopped, then KH dropped, then I started dosing heavily to keep KH stable. I usually only test once a day, at the same time, but last night I tested an hour after dosing.

8.2 KH prior to dose, 9.3 KH after 20ml of Alk. My morning does is 25ml so this would be an even bigger swing.

I have glass lids which reduce evaporation, so kalk never worked for me, but mixing Seachem Reef Builder with the topoff seemed to keep Alk much more stable than it is now. My lame topoff is controlled by a cheap timer and pump. I drip water 4 hours a day, split into morning and evening time slots. While not perfect, this would keep my KH much more stable and typically I would have to add a cap of Alk every 3 days or so to make slight adjustments.

The other negative to not adding the alk with topoff is I slacked off on my Calcium dosing, and it measured 380 last night. The Kent reef salt measures 560 so this is a significant drop. Kent also has 1500 Mg but I hate that magnesium test so I have not tested recently, instead I add about 30ml of Tech M about mid week.

I would make a horrible scientist. :)

Perhaps, you're right about this. I recently removed all sps from my drop off, when the colors got pooey. At that time, my dosing pump was acting nutty, and alk was fluctuating a bit, so possibly a similar situation as you have going on.

I've never dosed kalk or anything else apart from the standard two part. Perhaps, you could have a look at biggles's technique. I believe its a measured drip throughout the day. That should give better results. Would that work for you?

Not unless I buy some more reliable equipment for dripping. :) From what I can gather from reading, only Alk fluctuations play havok with some SPS, Calcium is not an issue as long as it's within range. If I can't get my topoff to stabilize it then I will probably have to purchase some dosing pumps for Alk.

I'm trying to avoid any more purchases at the moment. Famous last words.

Yep, I've tested for calcium once over the last year, probably should check again though everything looks fine.

I believe biggles just uses a bottle with a valve, so might save you some money there

Hey there markalot! I like the start of the thread. It was a lot of fun for me to jump into it with the nice photo session of the progression of your systems over the first year and a half! You may have faced some battles, but it looks like you kept your wits about you, didn't break stride, and now have solid start on a couple young/good looking reefs! :bounce1:

I'm in the process of getting my mixed reef up and running right now. Well, I've been in the process for about a year now. You can usually time my progress with a sundial that measures in months. LOL :handslap: I've managed to get it cycled and running currently under some temp lighting since the end of August this year finally.

But once again, really interesting to see the progression of your system right up front. It's really awesome that you were able to find a PAR meter to use! I'm hoping I can find one to map out my lights at different dimmable power levels when I finish building them that is.... I just started a full spectrum LED build for my 90 DT.

Unfortunately I won't be much of a help to you on the chemistry side of things right now. This build is my first venture into reefing after keeping assorted fresh tanks for about a decade while I moved around. But I can say you have some interesting stuff going on and I'll tag a long and chime in when I can. :thumbsup:

This conversation of controlling the Alk levels is of interest to me right now. I'm going to be rigging up my gravity fed ATO here very soon and am hoping to figure out how to control my Alk fluctuations through that eventually.

Right now, I'm just trying to keep everything stable enough to keep my 3 little fraggies, 2 cleaner shrimp, assorted snails/worms/pods/cheato alive... Oh... and our 1st fishy we just QT'd :fish1: ATO/chemistry and lighting are my top priority right now beyond basic life support. LOL

Howdy, thanks for stopping by! If you can do gravity fed I think it works quite well. Biggles does it, right?

I'm on day 2 of the Seachem Reef Builder topoff water. Alk has dropped from 9.2 to 8.6 in a day using 1 teaspoon per gallon of RO/DI. My timed topoff also added a bit too much water over the day so I've backed off a bit. I expect KH to be around 8 this evening and most likely I'll need to up my mixture to 1.5 teaspoons per gallon of RO/DI. Even if I have to dose Alk that is much more stable than dosing 2 caps of Alk and swinging KH 1+ points.

Calcium was down around 400. Since my reef salt is around 500 I dosed 2 caps of Calcium to start bringing this up. I'm more comfortable running Ca around 450.

It looks like I will be upgrading to a 90 gallon sometime in January, right around the time my 40 hits the 2 year mark. I'd like to get this tank stable prior to the switch so I have the experience going forward. I will most certainly upgrade my topoff pump to something more reliable than an aqualifter for accurate KH dosing and I'll be able to use my JBJ autotopoff in the sump. It did not work for me in the display, too many waves. I'll also be able to run a much better skimmer. The only real question is weather or not I will keep the 46 running.

I have a few months to come up with some crazy plan to move my rocks but somehow not move the flatworms or aptasia. I saw another Berghia yesterday morning, I added 5 over 2 months ago, but except for a few notable kills the aptasia problem is not going away. Overdosing flatworm exit as a dip has worked very well moving corals from the 40 to my flatworm free 46 so that's probably the route I'll take moving things from the 40 to the 90.