My purple fire fish died a couple of weeks ago. He was looking thin and didn't do well with the reduced feedings I've been giving to combat some hair algae. Phosphates and nitrates have been good. Triton test reported 0.01 phosphates, which is a little lower than I'm getting on my Hanna. The triton test also reported elevated tin, which is why I'm guessing I can't keep shrimp, and snails die relatively quickly in my tank. Doing some research, it appears new PVC can leach organotins into the water, which can be toxic. The triton test read 8ppb of tin. So today I've added another phosban reactor for GAC. If it's organotin, the GAC should help take some of it out.
With the nearly undectable nitrates and phosphates, I think my hair algae issue comes down to too few herbivore, so today I got a Starry Blenny. He seems to already be at home in the tank, and was munching away!
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September 27, 2015 17:47
Took triton test samples today, 9/7/15
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September 7, 2015 18:57
My new Purple Firefish has been hiding in a spot under the rocks, but he has been actively coming out during feedings. This afternoon during feeding however, he brushed up against the BTA and clearly got stung. He stayed in his hole for awhile after that. He ate again and looked okay in the evening, so hopefully the BTA encounter doesn't discourage him from coming out.
Added a Purple Firefish, a Favia, and an Acan. Firefish was acclimated for about 2.5 hours, since LFS salinity was very low.
Also installed a new Phosban 150 reactor instead of just GFO in a media bag. Hoping this improves efficiency with lower PO4.
I've moved up my lights another inch. They were at about 10 inches above the waterline and are now at 11 inches. I'm going to try and raise them up to a total of 14 inches above the waterline over the course of several weeks. I arrived at 14 inches by calculating for the 80 degree optics in the Hydra, and wanting a 2 foot spread (tank width) at the top of the water. Hopefully this will reduce spotlighting which may have contributed to some bleaching of corals.
I used the following arc calculator to measure the apothem (height above water) given the optics angle and width.
http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/arc18.cgi?submit=Entry
I've known for some time that our closed up house has caused CO2 issues resulting in depressed pH in the tank. So today I installed a DIY CO2 scrubber. It's a juice bottle with slots cut in the bottom, filled with soda lime, and the skimmer airline running to the top. It's already had an impact within hours of running, and my nighttime pH which was never above 7.9 is now 8.2.
My new SCA 301 skimmer came in, and I've put it to work immediately, The tunze 9001 is getting returned since it was a pain to dial in, and had stopped producing skim. This skimmer really generates some bubbles. It looks like it will be a performer.
Yesterday was the big day! My new sump is and overflow is now installed. I drilled the tank for a glass holes overflow and return. Everything went smoothly. I ended up moving all the coral and live rock to a rubbermaid with a heater and powerhead for the duration, and kept Gurgle (my clownfish) and sand in the tank with a couple inches of water, heater and a pico powerhead. Gurgle seemed find during the whole process and pretty curious as to what was going on.
The whole process took about 5 hours with the help of my brother. Drilling the glass was one of the easier parts. Just went slow, and had zero problems. Having to manage moving all the water and coral back into the system with three small heaters was probably the hardest part, as I wanted to move quickly and not shock the coral or Gurgle with any sudden large temperature changes.
Overall, I'm super happy with the new setup. Corals looks pretty good, with most things open this morning, but maybe a little grumpy.
My skimmer is not producing any foam at the moment. Hopefully it didn't get damaged somehow during the transitions, and it's just because most of the water volume is now clean saltwater.
I've been dosing a home made version of NO3:PO4-X which is basically just vodka and vinegar. I've also started dosing Reef Energy A&B. After 1 week, I've already noticed a difference, though the new skimmer alone has also probably had an impact.
Most noticeably, my Rainbow Bubble Tip has gotten it's vibrant colors back, and no longer looks drab brown.
In an effort to combat GHA and creeping phosphates, I've started Vinegar dosing. With my previous tank, I went through a period of using vinegar to combat some aiptasia, which worked really well, and perhaps contributed to stability of that tank.
I'm currently on the fence about whether to try out Red Sea NO3:PO4-X, but I do think i'll be switching to Reef Energy from Reef Plus. I'm running GFO and have added a small amount of Phosguard, since the PO4 jumped quickly recently. As the carbon dosing ramps up, i'll hopefully be reducing the GFO. Day 3 of 0.5ml vinegar dosing, and everything looks happy.