Walkthrough of my 180g Setup

[Dr B]

I ran the skimmer both ways and it does much better on a dual injector.
Mojo, I can understand that thinking... however I guess under these circumstances I am not getting to much of violent flow of bubbles.
Two reasons I think that I am not getting that.
1. The pump... its not creating too much violence even with two injectors.
2. I am running the silencers on there. This is basically a cotton ball. Andy claims it doesnt affect the skimmer, however I can notice that it does affect the bubbles by making less. So the fact that I am running two silenced injectors may be only equivilent to 1 or 1.5x a normal injector. Does that make sense?

So I agree that there is a efficiency factor with some skimmers etc. However under these circumstances the 2nd injector improved the skimmer. And If not, I would like to see data otherwise on my system. You may have played with water for 30 years, but have you played with my system and skimmer 30 years? >
Hope that helps...

 

[mojoreef]

Ok boys play nice now, lol
Could be Dr. also if you wet skim it doesnt play as much of a role either.


Mike

 

[Dr B]

SOLAR DIMMER 750
As far as equip goes, the Solar Dimmer 750 sucks. I have to send it back because it wont work off of a timer. It only works when I physically plug and unplug the cord. I talked to blueline about this and they dont have a answer. So far it was the worst 180 I spent on the tank. The few times I did get it to dim, it didnt work very well either.

ALGAE
I have been getting quite a bit of film algae on the glass. I have been way overfeeding I think. I will be scalling back some, and I actually think getting a few more fish in there might help, more of the food will get consumed that way. I am only getting some film algae(more than normal), and some fuzz on the rocks. No hair algae or bubble algae, nothin too nasty.

I also am not running any rowaphos yet, which I plan to once I get my reactor. Either that or phosban. I havent quite decided what to do about it yet. So far the deltec reactor will still be a while before i get my hands on one.

I have been doing biweekly small water changes to get some detritus out that collects in the sump, and one area on my tank. I am going to bump that to weekly maintinence.

I am not quite sure why I am getting the algae bloom, but its not too major. I will work on my husbandry a little more and see how that goes. So far my water is crystal clear, and my skimmer is pulling out amazing ammounts of gunk.

Thats about it fow now... all the pieces of coral that lost color, or had probs are fine now. I havent had any casualties, and my bleached samoensis is almost back to normal. It is a slow grower, wich is why it is taking so long... but it is very healthy.

 

[Maxx]

Dr B,
If I read, and more importantly understood the information correctly, In this months Advanced Aquarists Online Magazine has an article that implies that the Phosban is a little more stable in its removal of of phosphate. If I understood the graph properly, the Rowa media appears to leach a minute amount of Phosphate back into the water column. I dont know if the Phosban is cheaper, but just something to think about.
Mike, Ya got any comments? I know you have a real good understanding of these things, and you run Rowaphos in your tank......
Nick

 

[Dr B]

I am hoping Mike will chime in with some thoughts.
I did read that article Nick... and wasnt sure quite what to take away from it.
Phosban I do believe is cheaper. I wonder what kinda reactor I could go with, and maybe I wouldnt have to wait around for a deltec either.
Thanks Nick

 

[NaH2O]

Nick and Dr B - I started a thread about the article: Phosphate Remover Article

 

[Dr B]

ALGAE UPDATE

Okay, so I am definitely getting algae now. I don’t have any of this algae on my rocks. I have pics of two types of algae I am getting, and am open to a conversation on what these guys food are and why I am getting them. Like I said before many times, this thread is a learning experience for me and everyone else.

This type of algae is a dot, that has a string attached to it. It only seems to grow on my front and side acrylic panels. It doesn’t seem to be growing on my outputs, overflow, or rock. When I clean this with my magnet, I can get the string off, but the dot is really hard to get off. I have to get it off using my hand and a pad. This stuff is really annoying. Any ideas on what it is?

This algae is growing on my loc-line outputs quite a bit. It is slightly growing on my overflow. I don’t see any of this on my rockwork either. Ideas?

MAINTINENCE SCHEDULE
Seeing this algae growing now is really bothering me. I am going to do weekly(instead of biweekly) water changes to suck up the detritus that accumulates. I get detritus accumulating in one spot in my display tank(a back corner, and very easy to get too… only large chunks accumulate here), and the finer stuff accumulates in my sump. Most of the detritus in my sump has been in my drain compartment which is sealed off and a real pain to get into because I have to shut the returns down, disassemble the drains, pull the cover off, and then I can clean it. So I had let a lot of detritus accumulate in there. Earlier this week I took care of that problem! I cut about a 5’’ hole in the top of my drain compartment lid. This will allow me to get my hand in there weekly to siphon. If I stay ontop of it, I should be able to keep it really clean this way. I would also be able to put filter bags on the drain lines now easier if I wish to do this in the future. See pic…

I will be covering that hole up by getting a piece of acrylic to go over the top, and then I will use plastic screws in the 4 corners to hold it down. You can see how I have screws holding down my drain compartment lid, I will do it like that. For now I just have a piece of acrylic over it. The point of this compartment is to keep down on evap in the sump area, especially when I get my cabinets done.

My skimmer does pull out a lot of gunk. This picture is from 4days. However I have noticed once the skimmer gets to this level of gunk, it slows down and wont seem to produce a whole lot more. I can never get the skimmer to pour a lot of gunk down into that tub and into my waste collector. Maybe I need to wet skim more? Any ideas?

So I hope being more aggressive with my maintenance will help. I am also debating what to do with phosphate removers. Seeing all the bad wrap RP is getting now makes me wonder. Then people say phosban doesn’t work well. Everyone has an opinion, and its really hard for me to decide now, because I don’t know who’s word to buy into. I also don’t know if a deltec reactor is worth 240 bucks, or if I should just get the cheaper ones for like 50.

CABINETS
Well the cabinet maker has been nailed down, and we are in the stages of finalizing the design. It is going to be a really nice piece of furniture, and going to be very custom, with lots of goodies. I will save the surprises until we get pics, but ill tell you that its going to be made out of cherry. It should be installed by the end of august… I am so stoked because it is the last phase to truly finish up the project part of this tank.

TEMPORARY SWITCHES
Here are my switch panels for the tank. The switches are for my pumps, and everything that is not on a x-10. All the x-10 stuff is plugged into the back of the wall because I can manually control it with the aquacontroller if I need. My Aquacontroller, Medusa, switches, Tunze controllers, etc will be mounted in the side cabinets. It is going to be very organized and sweet. Lighted switches are going to be real nice in that cabinet!

 

[mojoreef]

Dr B its pretty normal for you tank at this age to be getting some blooms. When you cycled your tank you introduced an large ammount of food (the dieing off of sange and other matter from the curing of your rock. When you tank first starts up this food is taken up by bacteria which cause thier population to increase quite a bit (this is what a normal cycle consists of) now after your die off stops and the cycle is complete you are left with a very large population of bacteria and not enough food to support that population. The result is die off of bacteria to go back to the what ever level of foo di is available. At this point algae is usually the first to step up and utilize the food that comes from the die off of bacteria. rom thier the algae will eventually die off as it uses up all the food coming from the bacterial dieoff. you are going to bounce back and forth for several months until your tank reaches more of an equalibrium, where the fluxes of bacteria and algae are not occuring in such large ammounts.

So bottom line its pretty normal for a tank of your age.


Mike

 

[Dr B]

Yea I figured.
I wanted to know what kinda algae was growing on the acrylic because I have never had it before and it is quite a pain to clean off.

I was for sure I wasnt going to go through the whole cycle deal because of my small bioload, and that my rock sat around fully cured for about a month. Guess I was wrong =D

 

[mojoreef]

It is possible to not go through the cycle Dr B but your never going to escape the blooms. Mother nature is not that nice. lol

the algae on the glass looks like hair, its gets tough when thier is high flow.


Mike