+KimP Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I'm interested to see how this plays out. You should post a fts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 With readings like that Robb, would a simple fix of more aggressive GFO usage and no water changes be an option? It would certainly be a lot less work. Salinity is a bit high and may need to be slowly lowered as well. Timfish has the ability to make things pretty again so I'm sure he'll take care of business. Just offering a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 Ty; no doubt I could get it back but I've gotten a bit...unmotivated about it. Which is why I contacted Tim. I just need a helping hand for a bit to get it over the hump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Understandable Robb. Just wanted to toss the thought out there if it helped. Tim will fix you up in no time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 Thanks bud! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 While I was wanting to do several things since we're trying to document this pretty closely it seemed better to limit the number of variables changed at a time hence the decision to leave the skimmer in place. So the reasoning for doing water changes with tap water is: - I wanted to see how gullible Robb is. - There is the beginnings of the nuisance algae that looks like bubbly brown snot when it gets going and my preferred way to deal with it is siphoning it out. (It's usually referred to as a dinoflagellate spp. but my suspicion is it may be a cyanobacteria spp. that prefers low nitrates, however I have neither a microscope or the training to identify it, I have found it does not appear to be toxic to urchins though they do seem to avoid it and it only seems to be detrimental to corals as far as shading.) - Tap water gets a bad rap for causing problems in my opinion and I wanted to demonstrate and document remediating a tank with the use of tap water. - There is also a fair amount of algae of several species growing on the sand and syphoning off the surface layer, rinsing it out and returning it to the tank is, again, my preferred way to deal with it. (However, since what I siphoned out Tuesday had a lot of the sand clumped together with algae Robb used it to level a stepping stone in his front walkway. ) - I've been aware of systems going long times without water changes since first reading about Dr. Jaubert's plenum system in 1990 and the longest I've heard is 7 years. But we cannot test for most of the things going on in the water in our tanks. And having multiple systems over 2 decades old now I'm inclined to think regular water changes are essential to the long term success of reef systems. For Robb's bubble tip anemones, Ricordia and Discsoma mushrooms and Euphyllia lighting is acceptable but as he pointed out we will be raising the lighting for his Acroporidae and Poccilloporidae corals so balancing the the lighting and placing the animals for optimum appearance will obviously be something to discuss in future posts. It will be interesting to see how the water parameters change as his corals start growing. I would expect drops in most of them and potentially the need for supplements so that discussion will most likely be forth coming on future posts. Thank you all for your comments and thoughts! Here's current pictures of Robb's tank: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 23, 2014 Author Share Posted November 23, 2014 Water change #1 with tap water done. Parameters; Tank: SG 1.028 P04 0.4+ (Elos low range kit, 1+ (Old Elos kit, exp 12/12 ), 0.5 API pH 8.3 Ca 460 Mag 1480 Alk 8.5 Nitrites not tested Tap water made SW: Alk 15 (! Yay Austin water) pH 8.4+ P04 1ppm (QUE?!) Tap water: P04 1ppm (! Thanks Austin water) So, making water with tap water with P04 isn't going to help the P04 situation (also explains the algae problems my FW tanks are having). Tim's solution, at this point, is to increase the coral bioload in order to consume the P04. Lights are currently maxed at 45% from 1-530. I'll increase this in a few days, both in intensity and duration. The lesson learned, at least IMO, is with LEDs slow ramp can be done too slowly. Par measurements at 45% yield ~100 on the sand bed, 180-200 ~4" off the sand bed. My anemone rock is about 8" off the sand and was reading 220-250. Under the center brace, about 12" off the sand bed read ~80-100 (this area also is in the gap between the lights). Hopefully the increased duration and intensity of light will get my corals growing more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 25, 2014 Author Share Posted November 25, 2014 Decided I should check the skimmer tonight while I was topping off the tank. Guess it's time to empty it. The lid: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 I could almost smell that skimmate through the phone Robb! 1 PPM of phosphate?! Wow! I hate to beat a dead horse but adding coral I feel like is a pretty roundabout solution to a pretty straightforward problem. You have excess phosphate... GFO removes phosphate. It's definitely going to be much more effective at removal and will be a lot of quicker than coral uptake. I'll drop the notion from this point on but just wanted to mention. I know there's more than 1 way to skin a cat in this hobby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 25, 2014 Author Share Posted November 25, 2014 The foam head didn't smell too bad. The liquid skimmate on the other hand... I hear ya Ty. It's hard not to just load up both canisters with GFO and fire it up. Especially with the tap water having that much P04. I'm letting Tim play with my tank at this point which is why I'm not doing it. At the very least, it's rekindled my interest in the tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 I'll throw my skimmate in your tank if it helps you rekindle the interest! [emoji12] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 25, 2014 Author Share Posted November 25, 2014 I've been adding my own skimmate back into the tank for at least a few days now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 I can tell from the auto-skimmate doser you call a skimmer there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 25, 2014 Author Share Posted November 25, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bigsby Posted November 26, 2014 Share Posted November 26, 2014 I am very interested to see this play out. I've never heard of making things worse and adding tap water to fix a problem. You sure Tim isn't just yanking your chain? I know if he came to my house and told me to put tap water in my tank and let things just work themselves out I would laugh and make sure to not leave them in care of my tank. I know that I don't know everything about this hobby, but I can't see how this is going to benefit your tank in any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted November 26, 2014 Author Share Posted November 26, 2014 If the tap water tested without phos I would feel better about it. I'll defer to Tim's explanations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bigsby Posted November 26, 2014 Share Posted November 26, 2014 Yeah. Tap water is different depending on where you are. I know I won't even consider drinking it myself. And it's not just the phosphates in there that bother me. It's so close to swimming pool water I can't even get my plants or bushes satisfied on what comes out the tap these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 I am very interested to see this play out. I've never heard of making things worse and adding tap water to fix a problem. You sure Tim isn't just yanking your chain? I know if he came to my house and told me to put tap water in my tank and let things just work themselves out I would laugh and make sure to not leave them in care of my tank. I know that I don't know everything about this hobby, but I can't see how this is going to benefit your tank in any way. To start with Nilsen and Fossa in the first volume of their "Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" series charted the algae cycles that occur during the maturation process. My experiences over the years have demonstrated to me when stress events happen and nuisance algae crop up is they still follow pretty much the same timeline and will disappear on their own 80% - 90% of the time. Adding these experiences with the research showing the need corals have for phosphate to metabolize nitrates, the research that shows nitrates and phosphates do not have a direct negative impact on corals and the research showing skimmers only remove a fraction of the DOC in a system I feel doing water changes and siphoning out algae is preferable to starving both corals and algae by dropping phosphates. For a current example of corals with and without phosphates I've documented look at PeeperKeeper's thread: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/32332-coloring-up/#entry257713 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted December 8, 2014 Author Share Posted December 8, 2014 I'll reiterate some of what Tim says (not sure why I didn't address this previously but...). IME too, most algae problems will go away on their own as the system matures. In my 58 and my 75 I went through the usual problems and with basic maintenance, ie water changes, I got them under control. On my 75 I rarely tested and I know it was a high nutrient system. My problems originated on this tank due to lax maintenance and it just became a endless cycle. I became overwhelmed with the need for frequent WC and just left it to fester. Tim's help here, regardless of source water, will help. It may take longer than using a crap ton of GFO but I'm willing to give it a shot. Once this experiment is over I will probably go back to RODI and running the GFO/GAC reactor. I just need some help getting over the hump. Readings from today. Tank pre WC: pH 8 Alk 8.5 Ca 460 SG 1.027 (was higher but I topped off before Tim came over but I didn't check it.) P04 0.5 NO3 0 Lights are now at 55% for 5 hrs a day. The ramp up time is faster too. PAR readings are: 100-130 on the sand 188-250 4-8" off the sand 795 in the air on the center brace about 4" under the light Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 New water change today. Tim pointed out the lack of snot algae (which I think I noticed but didn't register as not being there) and was surprised by. Growth was noticed on a chunk of pink birdsnest Tim brought over last month and I've seen some on the ponape birdsnest too. Tim also brought over 2 long spine urchins last month which have knocked down algae on the back wall significantly, and some on the rocks. They also ate what was left of my Jedi mind trick and 3 heads of Rasta zoas . . Tank parameters before WC: NO3 trace Alk 8 Mag 1460 PO4 0.5 pH 8 Ca 460 S.G. 1.025 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 I've never owned a long spine urchin but I find the tuxedo urchins very reef friendly. Maybe not small frag friendly as they tend to walk off with anything not glued down. Glad the tank is doing better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted February 8, 2015 Author Share Posted February 8, 2015 Parameters from today. 4 weeks since last water change. Tank; Nitrates 20-30ppm Ca 480 Mag 1160 PO4 0.5 S.G. 1.025 pH 8 Alk 8 Tap water: PO4 0.25 New SW (using Coralife mix): Mag 1200 S.G. 1.027 The system seems to have stabilized. I'm not seeing any snot algae and minimum diatom like algae (and this comes on late). Not seeing a whole lot of growth, possibly due to the low Mag. My RBTA has shown quite a bit of growth at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 So, bit overdue for an update I suppose. Tim has apparently been busy and left me to my own devices....usually a bad thing. But in this case... Thought we lost our six line a month ago but found him in the sump recently. I moved my zoa rock which is nicely infested with aiptasia down there, along with the berghia's from the recent group buy, and discovered him there. I'm not sure my berghia have survived but am hoping. Did my first water change today and am back to using RODI. And, put the GFO/GAC reactor back on line! Here's a FTS from today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Fish back from the dead, using RO/DI, and running GFO? It's like the ultimate, awesome trifecta! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 I haven't seen mine either, but apparently that's common. I'm not sure if I'm talking myself into it, but I think some of the aiptasia are gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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