Joel's 175 Gallon Re-build

[jkapit]

I picked up a few more corals on the weekend..

A really nice Wellsophillia from Tropiquarium
4 acro frags from ACC
1 froggspawn and Zoa frag from ACC... they all seem happy and acclimated..

If these do well, I should have my tank stocked by end of winter. So far so good.

Here are some pics...

Wellsophillia...


Frogspawn..


Acro


Bird’s nest


Some type of Acro



Zoa


left side of the tank...


Right side...

 

[Trio91]

That welso looks huge. Looks great bud

 

[mnat]

Build looks really nice and great coral selection.

 

[RiverSwami]

Totally agree. I struggled for years trying to keep corals and had a lot of Dino in my tank as well and could not figure out what was going on. My corals would look good for a month or two and then slowly declined and appeared to be starving even though I was trying to target feed them. Nothing helped,

Eventually when I decided to reboot the tank I started reading up on the latest reefing techniques. I found some stories of other aquarists dealing with starving corals due to zero nitrates which sounded a lot like what I was dealing with. So I read up on dosing KN03 decided to try it to avoid zero nitrate levels.

Back in 2006 when I started using the skimmer it was generally believed you could not overskim and nothing I read ever pointed to having zero nitrates a problem. I bought the oversized skimmer since the skimmer I had before did not seem to be able control the algae in the tank so I went big on the skimmer front. Over a period of months I started having the problem of keeping corals alive.

Now that I understand what is going on I like the idea of having an oversized skimmer and dosing KN03 which allows me to really dial it in.

Thank you SO much for making this post! I never would have considered this issue as being a culprit, but I believe this may be at the very root of my tank problems. I have done everything recommended to keep my tank within specified parameters. Yet, corals continue to struggle. When the skimmer began to function erratically, I noticed small sponges cropping up on the rock, and other inhabitants just seemed happier. When I replaced the bad part in the skimmer and it ran consistently, things regressed. Who would have thought?

Sent using Tapatalk from my shoephone while inside the cone of silence.

 

[jkapit]

Thank you SO much for making this post! I never would have considered this issue as being a culprit, but I believe this may be at the very root of my tank problems. I have done everything recommended to keep my tank within specified parameters. Yet, corals continue to struggle. When the skimmer began to function erratically, I noticed small sponges cropping up on the rock, and other inhabitants just seemed happier. When I replaced the bad part in the skimmer and it ran consistently, things regressed. Who would have thought?

Sent using Tapatalk from my shoephone while inside the cone of silence.

You are very welcome. At this point, I am totally convinced my LPS corals were starving due to lack of Nitrates. I am still dialing in my KNO3 dosing and have witnessed another interesting thing.

I’ve had a couple instances where my KNO3 dosing went offline, the nitrates went back to zero and and I started to see cyano all over the tank and my hammer starting to recede. Once I got The KNO3 back online the cyano stopped growing and the hammer looks happier,

As I read on a number of other forums the general consensus is that zero nitrates promote cyano, dinoflagellates, and starve good algae and corals. I have to agreed with all of this.

I am still new to dosing KNO3, but happy to answer any questions you have to the best of my knowledge.

 

[jkapit]

Time for a monthly update and a few things to report.

All in all things are doing well, all SPS are showing growth but have run into a few snags...

1)I noticed my hammer starting to shrink, recede. It turned out I stopped dosing KNO3 by accident and my nitrates were zero for about two weeks.
2)I bumped the nitrates back up to .5ppm. It was as high as 1ppm and got a cyano bloom. The hammer bounced back nicely.
3)After two weeks and adjusting the KNO3 and increasing my fuge lighting period to 12 hours it has mostly disappeared.
4)seeing a fairly substantial bloom with green turf algae, not happy about that but having some algae In the tank is to be expected so starting to treat it with Vibrant. I also stopped a weekly dose of amino acids figuring the cyano and turf algae feed on it.
5)So between keeping my phosphates at .03 and nitrates at.5 Plus using vibrant I should be able to keep it at bay
6)The biggest challenge now is my two black and white clownfish are being bullied and chased by a pair of orange clownfish to the point where they hide all day. They do come out to feed, but I will need to take some action on this.
7)Since I have 4 Orange clowns, going to take the worst bully out and see if the others can get along.

Here is the latest video.....

 

[Trio91]

May need to sump the clown (s) causing the trouble.

So you're dosing "nopox", vibrant and aminos correct? Are you conssidering turning your fuge light down even further?

 

[jkapit]

May need to sump the clown (s) causing the trouble.

So you're dosing "nopox", vibrant and aminos correct? Are you conssidering turning your fuge light down even further?

yes, the clowns need a time out for sure. I’ve been told they may be establishing their pecking order so going to wait and see. I make sure the black and white clowns get a chance to eat and maybe they will work things out. They are pretty smart at darting back into their caves where the Orange clowns don’t fit.

Not dosing NOPOX, it is just a solution with KN03.

I still think I have not dialed in my KNO3 dosing, GFO, and fuge. Dealing with zero nitrates, higher phosphates, then raising KNO3 and phosphates dropping to .02. Now a cyano and turf algae bloom. That’s a lot going on. So just trying to adjust fuge lighting schedule, KN03, GFO use to get some stability. Assuming I can get those values stable the algae should settle down. Just dosing Vibrant to prevent the turf algae from taking over.

 

[jkapit]

Happy New Year everyoneand thanks for viewing my progress. Here is my final tank update for 2017.

As a short recap, I rebooted my 175 Gallon Bowfront back in February of 2017 with the ultimate goal of maintaining a mixed Reef Aquarium. At this point things have gone pretty well and through lots of reading and learning from the many folks who contribute to Reef forums including njreefers.com I believe I made a lot of progress and am glad I didn’t get too discouraged and give up for good when I took the tank down in 2015. Before this reboot I have had little success in keeping Corals.

The big culprit was that the system was Nitrate poor which led to starving corals and a huge outbreak of Dino. The other issue was I was not too particular about testing and maintaining stability of parameters which from what I have learned is important for good Coral health.

In this reboot I now have all my dosing done via Apex and daily water changes via Apex as well. That takes care of my stability issues. I dose KNO3 and target 5 ppm Nitrate.

These are my average Params over the past 30 days...
Salinity 1.024
MG 1440
Calc 442
DH 7.35
NO3 2.6
PO4 .06
PH 8.1

The two current challenges I am dealing with at the moment include a turf algae outbreak and some type of white growth covering and smothering a couple corals.

For the turf Algae I am dosing Vibrant once per week and it appears to be working and has stunted any new growth and I can now see that some of it has died.

With regard to the white stuff, I just dipped the two corals and brushed it all off of them. They definitely were effected but still have some life left, so I put them out In the open with more flow where the white stuff does not seem to grow. Time will tell.

From a fish standpoint, I successfully acclimated three Tangs, a Powder Blue, Purple, and Yellow tang and they seem to get a long quite well. I treated two of the tangs for severe fin rot with medicated food which did the job over a period of two months or so.

I also have 6 clownfish in the tank, 4 False Percula and 2 Black and White, for a couple weeks the Percula’s got very aggressive and I thought the two black and white were not going to survive if I did not intervene. Well after about two weeks, they all seemed to settle down and now have a pecking order established. Still a lot of aggressive behavior but the Black and White banded together and have come out of hiding for a good portion of each day.

Here is a short video link of the whole tank in action...

Also finally getting some Coralline Algae growth now that I am up and running with the lights on since Mid March....


Here are some Coral pics.......

 

[Trio91]

I'm glad the vibrant is working for you....I know when I used it I didn't have the same results

But overall it's looking good, have you considered maybe a long spine urchin for the algae?

 

[Mrx7899x]

I've use vibrate in the past it works but it can work to good and suck all the phosphates and nitrates out of tank.

 

[jkapit]

I'm glad the vibrant is working for you....I know when I used it I didn't have the same results

But overall it's looking good, have you considered maybe a long spine urchin for the algae?

I’ve never owned an urchin but have heard they tend to knock the corals all over the place. I happen to think they look really cool.

Do you have one and what do they normally eat?

 

[Mrx7899x]

I have a tuxedo urchin and he's awesome doesn't move corals around but does pick up snail shells and little rocks also keeps my coralline algae in check and all the rocks looking clean

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[Trio91]

I’ve never owned an urchin but have heard they tend to knock the corals all over the place. I happen to think they look really cool.

Do you have one and what do they normally eat?

The long spine urchins have a voracious appetite but will eat any alage including coraline so if your attached to eat they r not for you. Those spines are also painful so that's something else to look at.

A mine urchin will bulldoze your corals but are reef safe and readily available. Some corals glue and epoxy will fix that.

Tuxedos and short spines are a nice add

 

[jkapit]

I have a tuxedo urchin and he's awesome doesn't move corals around but does pick up snail shells and little rocks also keeps my coralline algae in check and all the rocks looking clean

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Can you post a picture?

 

[jkapit]

Here is athe latest video of the tank and it’s one year anniversary...

Over the past year I had to deal with the following....

1)Treated yellow and purple tang for fin rot
2)Used a mirror to keep the Powder Blue Tang distracted so he stops chasing the purple tang. Have to do this from time to time.
3) Used Aptaisia-X to wipe out a few aptaisia that showed up. Hopefully none left but hard to know.
4)Used Vibrant to wipe out green turf algae
5)Lost one Zoa this colony from an encrusting sponge suffocating it.
6)Lost an Acan Head but not the colony
7)Dealt with zero nitrates by dosing KN03 daily, now running around 2-5ppm
8)What 6 clownfish establish their pecking order but they all seem ok at this point.

Typical Parameters
pH 8.1
Alk 7.2
Calc 420
N03 2-5ppm
Phosphates .02-.1, Change GFO when two weekly tests above .1
MG 1400
Salinity 1.05

Looking forward to another year of reefing and plan to add the following:

Manadrin
Linkia Star
Clam
A few more fish but not sure
Cats eye coral and a couple more SPS

Thanks for following the thread!

 

[jkapit]

Here is the link to my monthly update.

Only thing to report is I finally was able to knock back the Cyano with three treatments of Chemiclean. The last one being a 30% stronger dose. Some of the corals were not happy after the last dose, but after turning the carbon and skimmer back on they now seem unstressed. Other than that very happy with the tank’s progress...

 

[diana a]

Love the video report on your tank. Great way to experience someone's tank

 

[jkapit]

Love the video report on your tank. Great way to experience someone's tank

Thanks Diana

 

[Trio91]

Tank looks alot bigger than it is in that vid. Nice work bud