Jim's 75

I agree with powerman sort of although a malfunctioning skimmer could be a source of excess nutrients but I would imagine it would have to be underperforming for a while unless you were already on the brink of having excess nutrients. Cleaning the tank will probably do a lot for helping to get rid of the algae bloom though so that's good. I don't know if you do that regularly, blow out your rocks but it can help.

Making sure you have the appropriate flow through the carbon will go a long way to ensuring you don't get carbon dust in the tank. When I fill up my reactor I run a few gallons of water through it into a bucket as part of a water change and that does just fine for rinsing. ChemiPure is too expensive for me, I like BRS cheap carbon.

 

It is starting to look like the placement of the carbon caused the problem. And as for the skimmer, there was a thick black layer on the neck of the skimmer and the throat of the collection cup which prevented any bubbling from moving up. I don't consider that a malfunction. The skimmer did it's job as best it could until it reached saturation. Had I not had a skimmer in operation, everything else would have been a lot worse. As for putting the carbon in a reactor, I don't have any more room for a reactor. And finally - I put the carbon in the exact same spot where I had the Chemi-Pure which also has carbon, and there was no such issue with it. Interesting is that without the carbon/Chemi-Pure and using the sock and filter floss to catch the remaining carbon, my wate is crystal clear after running overnight.

 

Still cleaning

Still cleaning from the carbon problem.

• Pulled the Phosphate reactor and replaced the media and gave it a good scrubbing. Amazing how much carbon has settled in the bottom of it.
• Pulled the UV and cleaned it. Surprised as to how clean it was.
• Removed the second sock - Both were uncleanable, had to throw them away. Running without a sock now, hoping to stir up any left over on the bottom of the return chamber.
• The protein skimmer was all gummed up again. Not nearly as bad as the last cleaning.
• Turkey blasted the rock again (before I removed the sock). Took a tooth brush to the viewable rock. Surprised at how little it removed. The turkey blasting seemed to put more junk into the water column.
• Replaced the filter floss on the back side of the protein skimmer chamber.
• Pulled the bio balls and gave them another rinse.
• Did a 4 Gallon water change and replinished my ATO tank.
• It will be interesting to see what my water parameters are tomorrow.

 

Just read this thread. Your tank looks great and seems like you doing everything very proper and slow. Sucks what happened with the carbon, sounds like your doing lots of cleaning ;D. Same thing happened with my fairy wrasse. Mine stayed in the rockwork for a week before comming out and eating. Im sure yours will come out. Ill be watching this thread now, goodluck adicus :thumb_up:

 

Shawn - Thanks for dropping by. I'm amazed at how resilient this tank has been. I still have a lot of the green stuff, but with all the equipment back up and running, I'm hoping it will be clean again in a week. My little Blue Tuxedo Urchin is busy cleaning it up, and the Tang is starting to forage on the rock again.

 

Lighting change

As per Steve's recommendation (http://www.3reef.com/forums/new-hobby/lighting-configuration-82620.html) I have modified my lighting schedule to:

Actinics - (sunrise) to (sunset +60)
MH1 (sunrise +60) to (sunset -90)
MH2 (sunrise +90) to (sunset -60)

This should give me the ~10 hrs of lighting for the corals but cuts 2 hrs a day off my electric bill. It also has a pseudo sunrise sunset illusion with the MH.

 

Using carbon in a bag is still effective. It just needs to go in a place where there is flow. Like a return section or skimmer section. Where it can't go is right under the drain hose or some other pump with a hose blasting on it. Thousands of folks run carbon without incident. Sorry to hear about your. Other than it being unsightly, there is no harm to your tank. There are some myths floating around, but no evidence for such.

 

Weekly checkup

I rather expected my water parameters to be screwed this week, but I was pleasantly surprised. I broke down and bought a refractometer (Captive Purity - with the calibration dial). What was happening with my salinity just didn't make sense.




Anyway here are this weeks params (goal is in parens):

• Salinity - 1.025 :-/ <-- up from 1.023 (1.026)
• Amonia - 0
• Nitirites - 0
• Nitrates - 0
• Phosphates - 0
• Calcium - 440 ppm (420-450)
• Carbonate Hardness (KH) - 6.5dKH - 116.35 ppm KH (7/125.3) **
• Temp (last 24 hrs.) 77.9 - 78.2 (78 +- 2)
• PH (last 24 hrs. ) 7.95 - 8.10 Currently 8.10 (8.1-8.2) **
• Iodine I[SUB]2[/SUB] 0.06 (0.06)
• Magnesium M[SUB]g[/SUB] 1245 (1280)

** I believe these will stabilize with next weeks water change. I'm considering doing an additional four gallon change on Tuesday night.

After reviewing my water parameters, I'm perplexed as to why the green algae bloom. Mr. Tuxedo Urchin and Mr. Tang are working hard to clean up the green stuff, but they have to eat more of this than the brown algae, so it will take longer. Ordered my replacement Macro Algae - should ship on Tuesday.

I'm doing another short video today - hope to be able to post the first one and this one by next weekend. Signed up for Vimeo and working tutorial for Premier Pro.

 

Weekly checkup

Well - the GHA algae bloom is almost gone. Received my macro algae and mangroves for the fuge. Added an additional two Nerite Snails and started SeaChem (Marine Buffer and Reef Builder) additives. Also received the Graciliaria Algae which I put in my Isolation tank. Put a small branch in the DT, The Tang won't touch the stuff, but Mr. Tuxedo loves it for camouflage. I'll move some of it to the fuge after I see that it is okay in the IT and the new additions I put in the fuge are happy there. Also added some Reef Pods to the funge.

Did a modified test this week. Anyway here are this weeks params (goal is in parens):

• Salinity - 1.027 (1.026) <-- overshoot (suspect it's the Marine buffer and Reef Builder additions) Next week, I'll cut them by 3/4 and see what happens. Will also back off the extra tablespoon of salt in my 4gallon water change.
• Amonia - 0
• Nitrates - 5 <-- suspect this may be from fuge additions.
• Phosphates - 0
• Temp (last 24 hrs.) 76.6 - 77.1 (78 +- 2)
• PH (last 24 hrs. ) 8.06 - 8.14 Currently 8.14 (8.1-8.2)

Did a video last week of the Algae at it's worst and did another one today after things are settling back in. Hope to have them edited and posted later this week.

 

Declaring a loss

It's been four weeks since I saw my Tricolor Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lubbocki). So I guess it's a goner. I'm not sure where in the tank it's skeleton remains are - as I'm sure the crabs and snails made a meal (several actually) out of it.

Must have a Fairy Wrasse - so off to the LFS(s) tomorrow to see what they have in stock. Hope I get lucky.

The tank is almost fully recovered from the carbon incident. Moved the NP Biopellets to share my Phosban Reactor with the phosphate media - should make for a cleaner working model. I also fired up my spare pump today. Want to see of more flow through the tank will help with the algae - this gives me 1430GPH flowing through the sump/fuge and the tank. I'm still trying to get my MP40W to give me some kind of a wave action. Still no luck with that.

After adding the spare pump in the mix, my water volume jumped from 60gallons to 62.5 gallons.

While switching back to Chemi-Pure, I added a Poly Filter in front of the Chemi-Pure. It will be interesting to see what my water parameters look like this week end. I did my water change today since I had to add the additional water to cover the firing up of the secondary pump.