Jonas 3.13, 150G of Miracles fun

[ojonas81]

Lost two more fish today. My last Lyretail Anthias and the female (I think) Kaudern's Cardinal fish. Tank is going south quick at this point.

The clown fish and Hippo tang in my hospital tank does look better today so hopefully at lease those fish will pull through.

Also, where there is death there is also life. Last night the male cardinal started to release baby cardinal fish into the water column. Tiny cardinals were swimming around all over the tank. Don't think any of them will survive long term but was cool to see and at least some happy news. That also explained why I have not see the cardinals eating in some time. Pictures of some of them below.

Finally, anyone that can identify this "snail" I found a couple of days ago. Good or bad?

 

[whiteshark]

Looks like a limpet, which is a good find!

 

[ojonas81]

Thanks! That was what I thought but was not sure. At least something good happening with the tank.

 

[ojonas81]

Got a new test kit for alkalinity (Salifert) and confirmed that my Red Sea one is garbage. Shows about 4dHk too low.

At the moment my levels are at:

Ca: 426 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Alk: 10.9 dHk (Salifert).

Will try to lower the Alk slowly to around 9 where I would like it but very happy with the Ca level. Still have some STN going on but hopefully it will stabilize soon and go the other way.

 

[ojonas81]

Parameters are stabilizing and I think I have stopped the coral death by now. Did lose a lot of nice pieces though which is sad. No more fish death either which if kind of strange. I assume whatever it was that killed the fish originally is still present in the tank and should attache the remaining ones?

Did get a new cheap SPS about a week and a half ago to test if the water quality was getting better and it still looks good. Crossing my fingers.

Have had a few random instances where the skimmer just gone nuts. Not sure why. Any ideas?

Below is a video I took of the tank just before all corals and fish started to wilt away in a rapid pace.

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/32jguqJYwVo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Link for you TapaTalkers.

 

[xtlosx]

man... your situation sounds like mine. Just one roadblock and stumble after another, and boy almost two years later my system is rocking and rolling. Stay in there, keep going, it will get better. You're doing all of the right things..

 

[ojonas81]

Think I have managed to reverse the receding by now. The sand bed is almost completely white again and have not lost any more corals over the last week or so. The new cheapo SPS I got as a test coral is still alive and more or less fully colored up. It can be seen in one of the pictures below (the only SPS shown).

When I took my return pump apart for a minor cleaning I noticed that the "titanium" screws showed signs of some light rust on them. Not what I wanted to see. Need to get the return pump replaced. Question is if I should do it now of wait until after Reef A Palooza should something new or improved be released there. MACNA was kind of a lack lusted in that department. Question is if the rust will kill anything before then?

Got a shipment in from Reef2Go yesterday with replenishment of pods, hermits and snails. Not a day too soon, especially when it comes to the pods.

Snails and hermits in the tank (about 25% went into the fuge).

The cheapo SPS test coral to see if the tank has stabilized. This one has been in the tank for about 2 weeks now.

I also cleaned out dead corals from the last couple of weeks. Sad to see so many nice pieces die (even though they were still on the smaller side).

I also took the time to eliminate two Aiptasia I found in the tank using Red Seas Aiptasia-X. Was really easy to use and seem to have worked well. Guess time will tell.

The salinity is still on the higher side due to lack of water changes and dosing. Working on bringing it down slowly to 1.026. right now it sits at 1.028.

 

[ojonas81]

Were able to take much better pictures tonight of the mysterious Mantis shrimp. He has actually completely changed color from a faded reddish color to a bright green version. Was able to take much better pictures of him than before. I even managed to capture a video of him trying to eat.

Finally the movie:

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7S9QiWtY3IE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Link for you Tapatalkers.

 

[HiImSean]

Cool video!

 

[ojonas81]

Thanks. Have been trying to capture the shrimp on video for a long time now.

 

[ojonas81]

The battle to get the tank back to normal continues. Have gotten the salinity down to almost where I want it now. It currently sits at 1.0625. I like to run it at 1.0260. Planning to do a big water change tomorrow, first since before my surgery back in July, so hopefully that will take care of the last bit of salinity issue.

Calcium has been stable so far but the alkalinity has dropped drastically lately to 6.5. Probably in part with removing saltwater and replacing it with RO/DI water (to get the salinity down) in combination with having the dosing amount set way too low (to combat to high alkalinity earlier). Have increased the dowsing and will slowly bring it back to around 9.0 where I like to run it. Magnesium has also slowly come down and sits at 1220ppm today. Bringing it up to 1300 today.

Other than that the phosphate is still a little high but it is coming down steadily since I got my GFO reactor back up and running a couple of weeks ago. Same goes for nitrate but it is within acceptable range already.

Removed the last(?) batch of dead corals from the tank today. Sad to see all these die.

I also added a few new SPS to make up for the losses above.

If anyone knows the name of these two please let me know.

I have started to review the market for a new return pump as the one I have still shows sign of rusting along with stalling way too often. Not sure if I want/can wait until the big trade show in the end of October so see if anything new will come out.

I would also like to add another MP40 at some point but may wait until the same trade show to see if EcoTech will release a new model. If not I will probably pull the trigger shortly there after as I need more flow inside my DT.

 

[ojonas81]

Update time. Tank is slowly coming back to normal, at least parameter-wise. Only one that is "out of wack" now is the phosphates that are still too high at 0.12ppm. Not sure why they don't go down quicker as I have done a large water change and changed out my GFO frequently lately. Need to test my RO/DI water to make sure it is clean.

The corals are not looking great yet but at least they are not receding anymore. The new SPS (Pocillopora Damicornis) I added about a month ago is still looking healthy which can be seen in one of the pictures below. Did lose my 10+ head of Duncan yesterday in a very sudden Brown Jelly disease. Not sure why or how since I have not really added anything to the tank lately.

Also no sign of any fish disease so not sure what caused the death spiral earlier.

Did stop by and picked up a new clown pair today. A SA Gold Stripe Maroon Clown pair. They are currently in QT and look awesome. I also picked up two small SPS frags that I do not know the name of yet. If anyone know, please chime in.

A few pictures below as well of the new stuff.

And some of the good old tank friends.

 

[ojonas81]

Got the replacement part for the rust issue on my return in the main today. Kudos to Premium Aquatics for helping me out getting the replacement part quickly even though it technically was not under warranty anymore.

Let's see if this one will hold up better. Although I would like to replace the whole pump to something stronger and more proven since I also have reliability issues with the current pump. I don't want to have to pry the impeller lose once every two weeks or so because it is somehow getting stuck.

Here is a picture of how the old rusty cover looked like. Not a pretty sight for just over a year of usage.

 

[kurfer]

Hello, this is an awesome thread! I just received the exact same tank from Miracles this week, can't wait to move from my old 75G to this...

I noticed you have ALOT of livestock in the tank, I always figured it was damn near impossible to maintain levels with that much livestock with trying to run SPS.

Also, the display sand bed is technically not a deep sand bed, do you stir it alot? I thought when running a smaller sand bed it needs to be cleaned regularly?

Great tank btw!

 

[ojonas81]

I noticed you have ALOT of livestock in the tank, I always figured it was damn near impossible to maintain levels with that much livestock with trying to run SPS.

Also, the display sand bed is technically not a deep sand bed, do you stir it alot? I thought when running a smaller sand bed it needs to be cleaned regularly?

Great tank btw!

Not sure what you mean with ALOT of livestock. If nothing else I think the tank right now is very lightly stocked with just two gobies, 4 chromis and a yellow tang. I would not call that a heavy bio-load.

I do not stir the sand bed and try to avoid that as much as possible. Partly because some parts of the bed has solidified and cannot be stirred. I also have three pistol shrimp that constantly keep moving sand around all over.

 

[SeattleReef]

Great job posting the ups and downs...just read through it all. Also love the mantis shrimp video, I've always wanted to set up a tank for one! A local reefer has an amazing peacock mantis that's huge and people have used his pics of his mantis for shows and info about mantis.

Did you get a top to your tank yet for the jumpers?

 

[ojonas81]

Great job posting the ups and downs...just read through it all.

Did you get a top to your tank yet for the jumpers?

Thanks! Have not gotten a top yet. Really need to get it done soon.

Picked up a juvenile Yellow Eye Kole tang yesterday. He is in the QT with the clowns at the moment. Will start Prazipro and copper (not at the same time) treatment in a few days. Just want to give them some time to acclimate themselves first.

Below are some of the new SPS frags I have picked up the last couple of weeks. They are all mounted but still being light acclimated so lost some of the original colors. Looks like it is slowly coming back though.

Earlier this week I picked up a Red Sea Reef Color test kit in order to see where my Iron, Potassium and Iodine levels were. Not surprisingly, they were all low and in the Iodine's case, very low. Have slowly brought them all up to where they should be. Hopefully this will help with coloration as well over time. Being low on anything essential is never good.

 

[Tampico96]

I love this build.

I have used your build as part of the inspiration in designing my 120 gallon aquarium. I want to use a 30tall as my refugium but I would end up with about 6 inches to the cross bars on the stand. Yours seems to be similar.

Is it still set up like the first few pages?

Do you regret doing it?

Would you Do it that way again?

 

[ojonas81]

I love this build.

I have used your build as part of the inspiration in designing my 120 gallon aquarium. I want to use a 30tall as my refugium but I would end up with about 6 inches to the cross bars on the stand. Yours seems to be similar.

Is it still set up like the first few pages?

Do you regret doing it?

Would you Do it that way again?

Thanks!

The fuge is setup the same way now as described in the beginning. I would probably use the same tank again (unless I had much more space in a future stand) but turn is 90 degrees (poor planning on my end) to get more space in the rest of the stand. The short distance between the top of the tank and the stand is not ideal but the only time I ever have my hands in the fuge is when I am thinning out the macro. That probably happens one every other month or so.

 

[ojonas81]

Last weekend we went down to Orlando to visit the Food and Wine festival inside Epcot Center. When we came back home Sunday afternoon the tank was very cloudy for no apparent reason. Everything inside looked OK including corals, fish, the two RBTA and all inverts. Not sure what caused it and it cleared up after a day or two. My only suspicion is that some of the macro went sexual. The pictures below may give a clue. Anyone have any ideas?

All the "white/tan" looking macro in the fuge is now gone like it never was there to begin with. Not sure what happened.

A few days ago I also made an interesting discovery off one of the TBS rocks I have in the tank. It looks like a basket starfish but I am not sure. If it is I have no idea how it has survived this far with no special treatment. Can anyone give a positive ID?