anDew 55gal w/ new sump/refugium

Finally Broke. Did Water Change. HOT Skimmer Mod. Tons of Pics.

After nearly 3 or so months I decided to do my first water change and hook up my skimmer. I changed 5 gallons but man did I notice a difference.

I decided to end my "no water changes experiment," when I came back home after being away for over a week and my tank was all sorts of messed up. It also didn't help that I began to become paranoid over the fish in my tank as I had feather dusters, starfish, and coral die.

What I Learned
I started this experiment because I wanted more information on the nutrients which are abundant in the water because of no water changes. I can now conclude that my water chemistry among nitrates, ph, and calcium were perfect but ammonia and phosphorous were low but present.

There were days I had red algae blooms (cyanobacteria) and days their were virtually no red algae. Certain corals started to get huge as if they were being fed steroids. However, certain other corals started to shrink and die.

The fish seemed to have no issues with the water quality from what I could tell.


Skimmer MOD HOT
I finally modded my skimmer so that I can skim from the sump but have it hang on the back of my tank. I have it setup this way because the skimmer itself will not fit in my sump. I connected 4ft of clear tubing to the skimmer input and dropped the pump to the bottom in the sump. I was told that this could create too much pressure on the skimmer pump but it works great. After three days I have nearly 3 inches of brown/yellowish skim-mate and the water looks noticeably clearer. I have begun to see a massive reduction in red cyano bacteria.

From now on I will continue to run the skimmer and perform a water change at least twice a month.

 

Red Algae is gone

After weeks of using deioinized water the red algae in my fish tank has finally gone away. The plant in my refugium has grown monstrous which I believe also has to do with ridding the cyanobacteria.
Unfortunately the same day I noticed that the red algae was gone, my tank was also having another issue.
My overflow pipe had stopped working almost causing water to overflow. After many attempts to get it back working I had to remove it, clean it out(there was no clog) and try and figure out a solution. I decided to reseal all the seals where the pipes connect. I figured it stopped working because it wasn't 100% sealed (airtight). After sealing and waiting 2 days I re-installed the overflow and everything was working excellent.
Because my tank was out of commission for nearly a week I lost my other cleaner shrimp and a few hermit crabs. My pink fairy wrase at one point jumped out of the water to which I placed him back in the tank seconds after his jump. He however died the next day from shock.

The tank is in pristine condition compared to the way the tank was during my (no water changes) experiment. I have learned a lot and hope anyone reading this thread can learn from my mistakes.

For now a tribute to those lost during the experiment.

RIP
2 feather dusters
1 starpollyps
2 suncoral
2 skunk shrmip
1 pink fairy wrasse
2 peppermint shrimp
1 sand sifting starfish