FarmerTy Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 Nothing too exciting to anyone else but me to report today... So on a whim, I decided it was a good idea to dump my skimmate from the old tank and the new tank into the new tank water yesterday. Thought it would help jumpstart the bacterial colonies in the new tank. I turned off the skimmer on the new system for a bit so that the bacteria could spread freely. It turned the tank into a nice light green color and had an unpleasant odor for a couple of hours. The wife was not too pleased. I turned back on the new skimmer today to start removing that crud I added in the first place. Today I moved over the frag light (150-watt clip-on MH) to the new sump and a giant ball of chaeto. The pods, starfishes, mini feather dusters, sponges, brittle starfishes, and baby snails took the move like champs which leaves me hopeful that the new tank can support life. I also took a cup of sand from my old tank and spread it over the new sand to seed it. Speaking of life... copepods swimming in the water! Better viewed fullscreen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 Also of note, I got jealous of RichardL's tank emergency and decided to create one of my own. I still don't know how it happened but my skimmer shut off in the old tank and somehow created a siphon out the air tubing and emptied about 7-8 gallons on water on the floor. Luckily my wife caught it in time before it became a real mess. Murphy's law in action folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Long Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Looking good Ty. Seeing life in the new tank is a plus. I used 70% live rock to cycle my tank so it helped my cycle time. We've all had our share of emergencies. My new tank is on my bamboo wood floor so I hope I learn from all of them. Someone should start type of emergency thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 9, 2014 Author Share Posted January 9, 2014 Thanks Long! Just like the Mars mission, I've convinced some corals to make the journey to the new tank and test out the new environment. Everything has been looking good and happy. I have a representative of each major type of coral I have, SPS, cap, zoas, fungia, yellow scroll, and mushroom. Funny thing is I basically dug around my sandbed for pieces of coral that broke off and threw it into the new tank sump to be my test subjects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Haha that fungal plate looks absolutely happy. I mean as happy as a fungal plate can look! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 9, 2014 Author Share Posted January 9, 2014 We'll see how long the fungia plate still has his smile on him if there is a large cycle in the tank. Based on everything I did to help jumpstart the cycle, I don't anticipate a huge ammonia spike. I did one of my transfusions today of tank water and probably swapped about 10-15 gals of water between the two tanks. What should have been a simple water transfer with a tube I somehow Murphy'd it up good! I even followed my well illustrated gravity driven instructions below to the T! Put about a quart of water on the floor. Hopefully I will get better with time as this will be the first of many transfusions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 9, 2014 Author Share Posted January 9, 2014 And don't laugh at my paper artist rendering, it was the only phone editor app I have on my phone right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 a quart isn't bad. i think i spill about half that feeding my tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 18, 2014 Author Share Posted January 18, 2014 Ammonia, gone, nitrite, gone, nitrate... still there but not too high at all. Time to get some more tester corals in the sump. PVC is a reefers best friend. Had an extra ballast and reflector sitting around so I'm going to use it to help transition the corals over slowly without having to take any offline on the old system. Don't judge! Here's a side shot of the old tank as looking at a near empty tank is depressing sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KimP Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 It's coming along nicely so far. Pretty clever with the light! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherita Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 We'll see how long the fungia plate still has his smile on him if there is a large cycle in the tank. Based on everything I did to help jumpstart the cycle, I don't anticipate a huge ammonia spike. I did one of my transfusions today of tank water and probably swapped about 10-15 gals of water between the two tanks. What should have been a simple water transfer with a tube I somehow Murphy'd it up good! I even followed my well illustrated gravity driven instructions below to the T! Put about a quart of water on the floor. Hopefully I will get better with time as this will be the first of many transfusions. I see your problem. You should be using hoses, not arrows, to move your water. Tank is looking good Ty! I'm hoping to see my 210 off the floor soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 19, 2014 Author Share Posted January 19, 2014 We'll see how long the fungia plate still has his smile on him if there is a large cycle in the tank. Based on everything I did to help jumpstart the cycle, I don't anticipate a huge ammonia spike. I did one of my transfusions today of tank water and probably swapped about 10-15 gals of water between the two tanks. What should have been a simple water transfer with a tube I somehow Murphy'd it up good! I even followed my well illustrated gravity driven instructions below to the T! Put about a quart of water on the floor. Hopefully I will get better with time as this will be the first of many transfusions. I see your problem. You should be using hoses, not arrows, to move your water. Tank is looking good Ty! I'm hoping to see my 210 off the floor soon. But the arrows had water marks on them? It doesn't work like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 Couple of quick updates. Did another round of testing on the new tank. Wasn't worried about alk, Ca, or Mg this time around since not much in the tank to uptake those elements, just the basics. NH3/NH4 - 0.0 ppm NO2 - 0.0 ppm NO3 - 5 ppm PO4 - 2.4 ppm With the elevated PO4, I took a swing at it by swapping my GFO reactor to the new tank to reduce the levels. In 12hrs, it had reduced by 50% to roughly 1.2ppm. I anticipate by tonight it will <.08 ppm which I am fine with. I am not worried about the high rate of reduction in levels because again, there are just a few hardy test corals in the new tank. Once the PO4 reduces to below 0.08 ppm, all tested parameters will be very close in concentrations to each other in both the tanks. I will take this opportunity to slowly start doing my tank water transfusions between the two tanks to homogenize the water. That way transport between the two tanks will be less of a shock to my fish and corals. I got a piece of my live rock cleaning crew to clear out any unwanted hitchhikers from the live rock I will be transporting over. Thanks Niko's Reef!!! This guy keeps getting cooler the more I watch him. He better be careful or he may find himself part of my livestock addition pretty soon if he keeps this up. Still need to add some peppermint shrimps and emerald crabs but this is a good start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 Oh, and interesting anecdote to share with my fellow reefers. My RO/DI system was starting to produce water with higher and higher TDS. I figured it been about 4 years since the system has been running and all I have been replacing is prefilters and DI up to this point, which is the normal maintenance routine. Membranes I hear typically have a life of 3-5 years so I decided to go ahead and replace it. Once i replaced everything, I was anticipating the excitement of reading 0.0 ppm TDS again from my effluent water. To my surprise, it read 0.30 ppm. After numerous tests to figure out what I did wrong, it took a non-reefer but expert filtration buddy of mine to point out that my DI resin block was actually carbon. Whoops. Guess I had ordered the wrong DI cartridge! Luckily he had some mixed bed DI resin and took care of me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 Ty, Those little white things in your video - those are pods? I found some in my tank also, so I guess my tank is maturing along nicely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 Couple of quick updates. Did another round of testing on the new tank. Wasn't worried about alk, Ca, or Mg this time around since not much in the tank to uptake those elements, just the basics. NH3/NH4 - 0.0 ppm NO2 - 0.0 ppm NO3 - 5 ppm PO4 - 2.4 ppm With the elevated PO4, I took a swing at it by swapping my GFO reactor to the new tank to reduce the levels. In 12hrs, it had reduced by 50% to roughly 1.2ppm. I anticipate by tonight it will <.08 ppm which I am fine with. I am not worried about the high rate of reduction in levels because again, there are just a few hardy test corals in the new tank. Once the PO4 reduces to below 0.08 ppm, all tested parameters will be very close in concentrations to each other in both the tanks. I will take this opportunity to slowly start doing my tank water transfusions between the two tanks to homogenize the water. That way transport between the two tanks will be less of a shock to my fish and corals. I got a piece of my live rock cleaning crew to clear out any unwanted hitchhikers from the live rock I will be transporting over. Thanks Niko's Reef!!! This guy keeps getting cooler the more I watch him. He better be careful or he may find himself part of my livestock addition pretty soon if he keeps this up. Still need to add some peppermint shrimps and emerald crabs but this is a good start. what is it? oompa loompa dippiddi dooo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 Ceastman, yes, they are copepods. Little white dots on your glass and swimming around in the water. That is definitely a good sign that your tank is headed in the right direction. Planeden, dang you and that oompa loompa song. There's only one oompa loompa now so cleaning isn't as exciting as the movie yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 Wow, just tested my PO4 in the new tank again and it only dropped another 0.03 ppm. I say that with extreme prejudice as the unit itself has +/- 0.04 margin of error so I could have just got the same number as before. That's crazy because it decreased by half the 12 hrs before. I guess I am not factoring in that it halved the number of phosphate within 280 gals of water and proportionately, that's a lot more than my 150 gals of volume before... so the same amount of GFO doesn't go as far in the new tank. I just exhausted 1/2 lb of GFO in 5 days between the two tanks. Yikes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo662 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Sounds like you need to either sell more houses or get that frag business going to support this new venture! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 I should stand on the curb with this sign..."Will sell houses for GFO". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 After swapping out new GFO, I went ahead and did a couple of large "transfusions" between the two tanks. Altogether, I probably swapped about 60-70 gallons of water with no ill effect observed on corals in either tank. That wasn't too surprising since the tested and monitored parameters between both tanks were very similar. I could probably go ahead and move all the corals and live rock over this weekend and not have any troubles but I am planning to bomb the old tank one last time with Kent's Tech M just to make sure there is no chance of bryopsis following me over to the new tank. I haven't seen any evidence of it for almost 6 months now but better safe than sorry. I will aim to start moving some more coral over slowly and leave most of the live rock in the old tank to endure the Tech M treatment. But enough of the blabbing... here's what you really want: Hmmm... how did all those corals get into the sump? Another look down the opposite side of the old tank: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nvrEnuf Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Ty, have you considered and algae scrubber? It is pretty easy to set up an "in bucket" model. You could always remove it later, but it could help a lot with the break in time. Running 24hrs a day will out compete anything being able to get a foothold in the new tank, as well as save a good bit of money until the tank "finds it's balance". I am running 18 hrs a day turf scrubber, 6 hrs skimmer (no longer produces black skimate, just light green and a lot less than it used to), and stopped using GFO. I am now running carbon only in my reactor. I am only a couple months in now of running an ATS, but I have been blown away by the results of this "old technology" (be carefull if you have caulerpa, get rid of it before you run a turf scrubber) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 Hmmm, you got me thinking. I'm old school and since I have had a successful SPS tank doing what I did before, I am always hesitant to make changes to the proven formula but honestly the idea of an ATS always intrigued me. Perhaps a temporary one like you suggested could be applied until the tank matures. It would also greatly reduce any potential bryopsis comebacks by hopefully outcompeting it. Do you have a good link to one that was built? I would like to do some research on this. Do you have a picture of yours that you could share? I don't have any caulerpa in my system but out of curiosity, how would it be a problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nvrEnuf Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I suggest youtube for your research. just search "algae turf scrubber" all kinds of stuff comes up! There are three basic styles: Surge style: very complicated but most effective; requires specialized set-up and a good amount of space. A single one of these runs 40,000 gallons at inland aquatics...no skimmers, 18+ year old system. in sump: what I am running...not a lot of space, very effective, by far the most popular in bucket (AKA off site): siphon to bucket w/ return pump back to display or sump. (best option for a temporary set-up). Patrick can probably chime in and add to what little I know about Caulerpa: but the basics are that the ATS is going to outcompete even the fastest growing macros (caulerpa as an example) this in turn is going to stress the macros out. Some macro algae (caulerpa prolifera) {think I spelled it right} will go amorphic when highly stressed, this releases a toxin that harms livestock. I can tell you that 3 months ago I had a healthy collection of macros...today I have them in my QT tank as they can no longer live in the sump of my display...the nutrent levels are just too low! Anyway, I can't figgure out why people would want to clean that smelly skimmer once a week (or more) when this simple, cheap solution is so much easier and less offensive to clean. Just goes to show you how consumerized we Americans have become I guess! If you like, I have a spare piece of knitting pad and can seed it for you over the next week....this will give you about a 4-6 week head start of not having to develop base colonies of algae on the substrate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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