300 Gallon Disaster Reboot

[Paula]

I'm really glad you've decided to stay in the hobby and do a reboot. It seems you have a lot to offer. I'm still a noob here and I have a lot to learn.

Good luck with the reboot.

Cheers,

Paula

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[Sascha D.]

2 hours ago, Paula said:

I'm really glad you've decided to stay in the hobby and do a reboot. It seems you have a lot to offer. I'm still a noob here and I have a lot to learn.

Good luck with the reboot.

Cheers,

Paula

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
 

Thank you! I have a lot of optimism for this year. We never stop learning in this hobby and that's what I love about it. Just remember, healthy is universal but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Each home reef is unique and different. It took me a long time to realize that just because I don't like something, doesn't mean that it's wrong. Having healthy corals and fish is the most important thing. Everything else is subjective. 

[Sascha D.]

Corals. We have a love/hate relationship, but there is no hobby without them. I've been lucky enough to keep some derivative of a lot of the different species over the years. Some of them turned out great and some not so much. Some things you don't know will be a problem until you're spending half your day researching how to fix them. Other things aren't mentioned in any book and you just have to figure it out for yourself. My brains tells me to fill the tank with everything that looks great, but my experience tells me to keep it simple. Think I'll stick to that plan? Yeah, me neither! 

1. Corals that detach and colonize random places of the tank - No leathers, anthelia, mushrooms or palythoa. I may keep a favorite colony or two of zoas.
2. Limit corals that require frequent fragging - No digitata because my fish always break the branches. I will keep my ORA Sour Apple Birdsnest, ORA Green Pocillopora and Valentine Pocillopora. I also want to get another Screaming Green Birdsnest.
3. Corals that require hand feeding - No sea whips, carnation corals or sun corals. 
4. Delicate corals - I know that I'm not going to test more than once or twice a week and I'll probably forget a dosing or two. It's best to limit delicate species like acropora. If the tank is doing great in a year then I would like to add Red Planet, PC Rainbow, Ultimate Efflo and one or two others. 

My favorite kinds of corals are Euphyllia, Staghorn, Cyphastrea and plating/encrusting Montipora. The Emperor Angelfish might take care of all of the LPS for me and the Montipora might take over the tank, but I'm going to give it a shot! Here are some pictures of what I currently have. The next step is to aquascape and start placing corals! 

ORA Green Pocillopora

Atlantis Christmas Chalice

Idaho Grape Montipora

ORA Sour Apple birdsnest

WWC Bizarro Cyphestra

Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone

AAF Glitter Favia

Frogspawn

Jedi Mind Trick Montipora

 

Other corals not pictured:

Mystic Sunset

ORA Green Elkhorn Montipora

ORA True Undata - <1"

ORA Yellow Lantana (yellow skin, blue polyps) <1" frag

Red Cap Montipora

Reef Raft Nauti Spiral (red skin, blue polyps)

Tyree Setosa - Just a nub survived, probably the smallest nub on the planet!

Peaf Yellow Stylophora

Purple Stylophora

Tyree Rainbow Stylophora

AAF Golden Fleece Pavona

Australian Ultra Grade Chalice (purple skin red eyes)

Unknown Chalice

Frogspawn Divisa (green stems, purple tips)

Frogspawn (red stems, green tips)

ORA Micronesian Torch (purple stem, lavender tips) (Euphyllia glabrescens)

AAF Wall hammer - Green (Euphyllia ancora)

AAF Branching hammer - orange

Purple Australian Short Tentacle Plate Coral

Short Tentacle Fungia Plate Coral (green/yellow)

Atlantis Meteor Shower

Jason Fox Jack-o-Lantern Leptospirosis

Painted War Coral (purple and red with green eyes)

Superman Mushroom

Watermelon Mushroom

AAF mushroom (Red with blue dots)

AAF mushroom (Blue with green stripes)

[FishShrink]

That is a great lineup! I think everyone should keep a list of the corals they have. 

[Reburn]

So you say you want montis.......  I haven't fragged in months.  Let's fill her up.

[Sascha D.]

So you say you want montis.......  I haven't fragged in months.  Let's fill her up. [emoji4]

He lives! It's good to hear from you. I'm going to need your expertise with entrusting monti placement. I normally keep them on little islands away from the main structure so that they don't encrust over everything. I'm looking to incorporate them more into the rock work with the new aquascape. Going to work on it today!

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[Reburn]

I've got some rubble.  I'll call this evening.

[Sascha D.]

Dirt? No, I mean it does get brown over time from junk in the water, but not physical dirt

I'm changing my filters today. Here is what they look like after one year and roughly 100 gallons of output a month.



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[Sascha D.]

Close up of the pre-filter. It looks nearly brand new from the outside.



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[Juiceman]

Close up of the pre-filter. It looks nearly brand new from the outside.



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See and mine is the opposite, I go through sediment filters fast.... but my DI lasts forever.

I’ve always wondered if I should just replace my Sediment and not the others from time to time.


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[Sascha D.]

See and mine is the opposite, I go through sediment filters fast.... but my DI lasts forever.

I’ve always wondered if I should just replace my Sediment and not the others from time to time.


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That DI didn't start turning until about November. I've thought about replacing them in stages, but I know that I'll never remember. It's easier to buy the filter pack every Black Friday for $17 and do all at once.

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[Sascha D.]

It's been a great weekend! I had a little time to aquascape and plan a little more. It's difficult to get a good picture with all of the fish trying to hog the spotlight! Here are some before and after pictures. I tried to get a FTS, but it's difficult on the 8' tank and they all came out blurry. The next step is to plan which corals I'm going to keep, which are going to go, and begin placing the corals within the rock. I'm afraid that I'm not very artistic or imaginative, so it's going to take me awhile to figure the corals out. 

Left Before and after

 

Right before and after

I received a shipment from LiveAquaria on 12/28 and the fish are doing extremely well. I got a small Yellow Eye Kole Tang and Naso Tang. Both are adapting well and eating. They haven't gotten used to Nori yet, but have a good appetite for mysis. 

[Jimbo662]

Looks like you're making great progress!  Great pic of the Naso.

[Sascha D.]

This post is for those of you that are curious why the before picture has GHA and the after picture is clean. I used a peroxide bath of 1/4 cup peroxide to 2 gallons of water. The rocks were soaked for ten minutes and then brushed lightly. You only need enough water to fully submerge the rocks that are going to be treated. I soaked 1-3 rocks at a time depending on how many I could fit into the bucket. I used a dollar store toothbrush to dislodge the algae from the rocks. It comes off easily and doesn't require very much effort. As you can see from the last picture, the algae just melts off! This is also a good method for removing bristleworms or fireworms, if that's your thing. Here is a good article on How to Remove Algae From a Reef Tank. 

 

 

 

[Sascha D.]

13 hours ago, Jimbo662 said:

Looks like you're making great progress!  Great pic of the Naso.

I tried to get a video but it came out really dark on my phone. I'm not very good with my new camera yet and the fish are super quick. I'm happy to get those ones!

[Sascha D.]

I removed all of the reactors and stopped dosing around November in an effort to take this tank back to base level. I also stopped testing, so today's results are a complete surprise! Using the Reef Alchemy by Randy Holmes-Farley article as my base, all of the parameters except Alkalinity are within normal ranges. This is a good opportunity to increase the Alkalinity to approximately 125 and then begin dosing. Two-part additive and saturated kalk will raise the Alk and Ca in equal parts, so they should stay in approximate range. At the moment my goal will be to dose enough to keep the parameters stable. Eventually I will increase to about 150 Alk 440 Ca. 

• Alk 105 ppm
• Ca 400 ppm
• Ammonia approx 0.25 ppm
• Nitrate <0.25 ppm
• Mg 1380 ppm

And because this is a very boring post, here is a picture that I thought was funny!

 

Not enough? Okay, here is one of my favorite fish!

Melanurus Wrasse - Male

[awais98]

Just read through it all, awesome comeback!


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[Sascha D.]

A lot has happened and today looks like a good day to revisit my list from December.

• Overflow - It seems like a shame to replace the calfo overflow, but I really hate it. First, the manufacturer drilled the holes for the drain lines in the very middle of the tank, which means the ends of the 86" overflow don't drain properly. Detritus and uneaten food accumulate in the overflow box and I have to clean it manually. Second, the canopy and 30" depth of the tank make it very difficult to catch fish out of the overflow box. Even though I only have a few fish, I have to catch them out of the box 2-3 times a week!  I've decided to replace the overflow with a smaller horizontal overflow. I'm going to have the box made out of acrylic to save time and because it will be very difficult to silicone it to the back of the aquarium.
• Aquascape - I plan on completely renovating the live rock in the tank. There is plenty of room to place corals, but it's just not a good use of space. I'll gain 5" of tank once I remove the overflow and I bet I could do a better job aquascaping this thing!
• Stand - Still pending hinges, exhaust fan, and staining. 
• Equipment - Now is a good time to decide what equipment I'll use with the new set up and replace some of the older stuff. 
  • Circulation - Hydor Evolution 1500 x 4 have arrived. 40% off was just too good to pass up! I'll be saving my pennies for Tunze for later. 
  • Reactors - The large media reactor has been sold. I'm open to installing a small carbon reactor in the future. Keeping the BP reactor in case I need it later. 
  • Dosing - I've decided to sell my calcium reactor since my aquarium controller is unreliable. 
• Livestock - It's time to sell the livestock that doesn't fit into my new stocking plan.
  • Azure Damselfish x 2
  • LA Australian Purple Plate Coral
  • Green Fungia Plate
  • AAF Mushroom red with blue dots, 1 frag 2-3 heads
  • AAF Mushroom blue/green, 1 head
  • Watermelon Mushrooms, 3 frags, 2-3 heads each
  • Superman Mushrooms, small rock 3-4 heads
  • AAF Ultra Chalice purple with green eyes

There's still a lot of work to do! Some of my larger colonies have been trimmed over the last few months to bring them down to a manageable size, but the space is on the low side now. Even though I'm running out of sand bed, I want to make sure everything is healthy before I let it go. I'll try and take some pictures this weekend!

[Sascha D.]

This cold season has been rough so far, but I think I'm feeling well enough to get back into the aquarium. I'm starting to see some great recovery in my SPS with the new maintenance and dosing schedules.

I began dosing saturated kalk after transitioning from the calcium reactor. I already miss the ease of the reactor, but I need a stable method of measuring pH before considering going back to it. The first method of dosing that I attempted was simply replacing top-off with saturated kalk water.  This method was used over the course of three weeks, but I found the results to be too inconsistent as the parameters would swing between warmer and colder days. On 1/15/18 I began automatic dosing of kalkwasser throughout the day. I started with dosing 15ml per hour, but had to raise it to 36.8ml per hour. At this rate a gallon will last me about two weeks. I can now begin raising the Alk to my target level of 150ppm.

[Jimbo662]

Good to hear things are progressing.

[Sascha D.]

18 hours ago, Jimbo662 said:

Good to hear things are progressing.

Yesterday was the first day that I didn't feel like my head was going to explode. I was going to work on the tank, but then I made sliders and played with the kids until the game came on. After that it was all downhill! It was the best Super Bowl in my memory.

 

 

 

[jolt]

It was a good game, exciting finish!

[+BobcatReefer]

Fun Fact:  Drew Brees and Nick Foles are the only Texas HS QBs to ever play in the Super Bowl.  Both earned MVP honors.  Westlake holla!  

West side of Austin dominating the position this year overall, w/ Lake Travis QB Baker Mayfield taking home the Heisman too...

[Sascha D.]

26 minutes ago, jolt said:

It was a good game, exciting finish!

Nobody told me the party was at your house Jim!  The whole game was pretty exciting. Most Super Bowls are either one sided or pretty low scoring. I laughed so hard when Al said "2:11 left on the clock, a time out, and a the 2 minute warning for Tom Brady. It may as well be a month!" The whole of America was thinking the same thing. Next play = forced fumble!

2 minutes ago, BobcatReefer said:

Fun Fact:  Drew Brees and Nick Foles are the only Texas HS QBs to ever play in the Super Bowl.  Both earned MVP honors.  Westlake holla!  

West side of Austin dominating the position this year overall, w/ Lake Travis QB Baker Mayfield taking home the Heisman too...

Only two schools in America have produced two Super Bowl QB's. The other one was wherever Peyton and Eli went to school. My wife went to college with Danny Amendola and Wes Welker so we always root for them. She swears she saw Danny cheat on a Spanish test! LOL

[+BobcatReefer]

45 minutes ago, Sascha D. said:

Only two schools in America have produced two Super Bowl QB's. The other one was wherever Peyton and Eli went to school. 

That's great trivia!  Love it!  
Playing along further...while Odell Beckham went to the same HS in New Orleans as the Mannings, he was still in college when the Giants won their last SB, but the best FG kicker in NFL history is from Westlake - Justin Tucker - and he has a SB ring from the Ravens win over the 49ers.