120g sps/lps build

[Darthv247]

well im doing water changes every 2 weeks about 15 % cleaning the whole sump and skimmer every other time, and pumps get cleaned every opposite 2 week rotation. i blow of the rocks almost daily. damn filter socks gotta be cleaned like 2 times a day lol. assumed running carbon and bio-pellets was a good replacement for a fuge.

 

[mojoreef]

Mo they are for sure Darth, just got to make sure you keep up on the husbandry as that is the key to any reef.

that and I felt the urge to give ya a hard time, lol


Mike

 

[Darthv247]

ahh yah i need a kick in the ass once in awhile anyways im trying my hardest with this tank. thanks

 

[tyson256031]

Looking great Darth! I love the footprint of these 120's, cant wait to see some corals in here. Do your Vortech's more the sand around much?

 

[Darthv247]

yah i like the footprint too. if i went bigger id try and stay at least 24" wide or 30". the vortechs do move sand around some especially when i have it on Nutrient transport mode but no storms, just piles it up a little and moves the top layer which i like. probably a few more weeks and ill get a few frags to throw in and see how they do. really new to sps , only has softies and lps before this tank.

 

[TJL]

Very NICE resurrection of your 120 Darth, looks as though it's on the way to becoming a very successful SPS garden.

Cheers, Todd

 

[Darthv247]

thanks Todd.getting some nice corraline growth now so should be good to go soon

 

[tyson256031]

Yes I agree i wanted to go with a wider tank after i had my 120 lol then again i always want to go bigger

 

[Darthv247]

parameters update 11/14/11

Parameters.

temp: 77.1
sg 1.025
ph 7.75(night)-8.15 (day)
phos 0.01
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
nitrate 80ppm ?
calc 463
alk 9.9
mag 1335


ok well i guess back to the drawing board. according to this API nitrate kit i have 80ppm nitrate even though the ph has never been affected and the phosphate is nearly undetectable. Ive obviously been overdosing the kalk or im guessing the 2 part calc, alk that i used to raise the levels last time i tested was too evaporated.

going to cut the kalk dosing in half until i get some corals in the tank and tomorrow is water change day so will see how much the water change affects the next tests.

really dont understand how my nitrate could be that high when ive got very little algae growth and the tank looks to be completely clean to my eyes. Maybe i need to rethink my idea to not use a fuge. i could move the skimmer to the first chamber and run a fuge in the center though i think the 1400 gph flowing through it may be too much. could turn my old biocube into a fuge pretty easy but wouldnt be able to reverse the daylight period.

0 nitrate,0phosphate in R/O/di water.

 

[mojoreef]

Well you added more pellets about a week ago right?? So one could assume that they jumped on the nitrifing and the denitrifiers werent built up enough to handle the extra load. One thing I am tending to leaning to is that folks that are playing with pellets keep a couple bottles of bacteria with them. One being the nitrifiers and the others being some kind of de-nitrifiers. Not sure about other brands but with Dr.Tims the de-nitrifiers are called waste away.

The reason I am saying this is that when you add and reduce the pellets you are screwing with their populations by adding or deleting their carbon source. In your case you added, which increased the nitrification but as a result you get their bi-product (nitrate) and the de-nitrifiers are not present enough to deal with it. I would imagine that they will increase their population and thus their ability to deal with the problem naturally, but if you had a bottle of denitrifiers you could take care of that yourself and spare your tank the temp nitrate.


Mike

 

[Darthv247]

gotcha. yah this is the reason i havent bought any corals yet lol. will keep at it seeing how it goes. doing some maintenance today and water change thursday should get it back in line some. so you think i should just be patient and see if the de-nitrifiers increase and it stabalizes ? shouldnt have to add much more biopellets. im at about .4 liters was gonna go up to .5 but with the phosphate so low should i add anymore or u think its good for now ? xenia started pulsing like crazy when i started blowing around all the crap so maybe my husbandry needs a little work like you said

my girlfriend would have a ****fit if she ever heard me say that haha. can just hear her now. " oh your married to the tank huh ?!!"

 

[mojoreef]

Yes I would allow it to stabalize unless you have something in the tank that might suffer from high Nitrates. At this moment your stuck right in the middle of the moron cycle , as I term it. Your still playing around with equipment, products and so on, looking for stability. Until you get to a point where you have no big swings or changes in any parameters I would hold off going the SPS route. Dial it in, then let it sit for a bit to make sure its pegged, from their you will be good. Playing with pellets or similar are things that screw around with the basic biology of your tank, you dont really want to be looking for sweat spots with these products when you have less then hardy corals in your tank.

mojo

 

[Darthv247]

well the nitrates are slowly creeping down but i doubt i will ever be able to completely remove them with the fish bio-load and the amount i feed them

Time to add some corals !

i added a hammer coral an acan frag and couldnt resist adding this really brown piece of maricultured acro. Since i added it a few weeks ago ive already noticed some growth from it and the color has almost completely changed to a really nice purplish blue up the stalks and on the tips

Will get some pics up soon.

 

[Darthv247]

Oh almost forgot. Is there any truth to xenia eating Disolved Organics from the water ? I only ask because if so i planned on keeping the xenia colony but moving it to a spot i have behind the rocks that only gets a spotlight of light to keep it from spreading all over the place. its starting to grow more than id like and i know how fast it can take over your rockwork lol.

Good idea ? bad idea ?

 

[Darthv247]

First corals !

ok heres some pics of the first few corals i've added so far. also just ordered some frags to go in later this week.

wall hammer coral (daylight)

hammer (actinic lighting)


i added this acan thinking this would be a good low flow spot for it but i was wrong. really tough to find any spots low enough flow in this tank lol. the flow is low enough for it there to be just fine until i made a huge mistake. When i came home the other day i thought it would be a good idea to change the mode on the vortechs to nutrient transport mode for awhile. doesnt sound like a bad plan until i realized the ligths were still out and the coral was fully extended in night feeding mode. soon as i looked down at it 3 of the polyps had already ripped in half leaving me a pretty sad little coral.

before.


After. (week later) you can see the lower polyps have all but died afterwards leaving a skeleton in its place


Well even though i have been told time and time again not to add sps corals yet i could resist this guy. i got a good deal on it because it was a sad brown thing but it has really colored up nicely in the two weeks ive had it in the tank. the tips turned all purple and it glows really green at night and extends its polyps feeding at night. so far no bleaching or signs of stress. Ive even noticed quite a few new growth areas i think.

Actinic lighting.


Daylight.



Ok so i was planning on moving this xenia colony to the back of the tank. if u look through the hole in the rock here u will see a lit rock in the back of the tank i could set a frag on and let it grow back there behind the rockwork and away from the hard corals. worth it to keep it or should i just get rid of it ?

 

[Darthv247]

update

well i upgraded my skimmer pump from the psk 2500 to the new psk 1000 (swc mini cone) it seems to pull more gunk as it passes more water through and more bubbles but its very touchy to food and things added to the water now and its a little tougher to dial it in but im getting used to it. I had to mod the venturi a little bit as the one provided wasnt big enough for my current air line so i just drilled it out. i also cut up a piece of nylon hose to wrap around the pumps exhaust as it is a male attachment on this pump versus a female on the old one. A piece of 1 inch tubing and a zip tie is all you need.

also added some corals and a few clams. most of wich are doign fine aside from a stylophora frag that is all but dead. i sorta manhandled it getting it into the tank and used it as a learning device lol. it bleached out almost fully right away but still polyped out for the past month but now its nearly toast. seen some growth out of the montis and a few of the acros but i feel they are not doing great due to the nitrate levels. i have to find a way to get them down.

 

[Darthv247]

update.

well still battling the nitrates. I took some advice from skimmy and changed upgraded the skimmer pump like stated above. its pulling some decent gunk real smelly. seems to run a little wetter than the old pump did.

heres 24 hours of gunk. you dont even want to see the nastiness thats on the inside of the rim and neck.


I also took some smart advice from Mojo and removed the mechanical filtration from the sump. removed the sponge that was after the skimmer section as well as the filter socks as we assumed they were to blame for the nitrate levels.



Even with the nitrate levels super high ive noticed some awsome growth out of the montis and a few of the acros. especially the monti caps and the setosa. I did however lose a small acro frag and the stylophora is toast.

Will let you all know how the battle goes and update the parameters soon.

 

[Darthv247]

Update

Parameters.

temp 77.5
S.G. 1.025
PH 8.2
dKH 9.5
mag 1310
calc 400
Phos 0.22ppm
nitrate 25-35ppm (NO3-)

Nitrate already seems to be going down after a week. will be doing a water change this weekend to get it down some more, phosphate has crept up a little bit too.

Will be adding a Reef keeper lite controller soon as my bus cables arrive that were left out of the package . mainly using it for a temp controller but it will also let me get rid of a timer and a battery operated ph monitor. has a much tighter range than the temp controller that comes built in the chiller.

 

[mojoreef]

Ok well under the assumption that the socks and sponge were creating an environment that the nitrifing bacteria were enjoying. So what needs to happen now Darth is that a new pathway needs to build up. As in now the nitrifing bacteria will find another natural location to build up and do what they do, so LR and LS, on top of this the bacterial populations of denitrifiers that operate with in the proximity of the nitrifiers will also need to build up. So I figure a couple of more weeks and they both should be built up, at that point you will then find out what they can and cannot do.

so sounds like its on its way.

Mike

 

[Darthv247]

yah thanks for the help. Stopped the flake food completely as well