Tm's Lil Ocean

[p.tm]

Now for my long overdue update..

I've recently got lucky and bought a 2nd hand Pharos 90w really cheap. Made the decision because I can have the option of upgrading in the near future.

And also added a few sps frags to try out the water parameters. Namely a small pocci, some red digi and a orange monti cap.

The orange monti is bleaching for some reason, I think it could be due to the Pharos being too strong.

Anyway will update with pictures tonight! Hope everyone had a nice public holiday ystd

[p.tm]

Pictureeeessssss

A FTS

One of my fastest growing corals. Hopefully it will cover the rock soon. Started off a really tiny frag

Zoas from GO.

Just came home after collecting a green digi and turquoise bn from a very nice lady reefer(not many out there ain't it). Will monitor these 2 corals, hopefully they will do well

More stuff I've changed, I finally decided to do a hard piping return from the chiller. Because the soft piping kept coming loose, and the joints were leaky. Nearly flooded my living room the other day. My mum raged so I had to get off my lazy ass and change the piping.

Got a really small pocci frag. Quite a fast grower too I realized. Started off with 3 branches now it's heading off to 5. And can see it growing towards the light(since it's not getting much on my frag station).

Other sps I have are the orange monti(which is bleaching ). I've lowered the light intensity to about 40-50% white. Hopefully it'll show some improvement. It had great PE previously and is one of my favourite. Definitely wish to nurse it back to health.

And the already bleached red digis from GO. I actually got some of those unwanted frags on the sand, hopefully it'll colour up soon. It has some PE. And I'm feeding the tank rotifers and zooplankton.

[p.tm]

My tank parameters:

Nitrate: 2-5ppm

Low nitrates make me very happy for some reason. Maybe because I had a really hard time controlling nitrates in the past. I think my biospheres have finally started to take effect.

dKH: 10

Ca: 480

Mg: 1290

Sg: 1.025

Oh and I added a few fish as well. 3 blue/green chromis, and a yellow coris wrasse. The chromis look very good when they're sorta schooling together. I have a thing for schooling fish haha.

[p.tm]

Hi guys. I'm currently having a Dino outbreak. It started when I forgot to switch my Pharos to manual mode and it was running on the default timer. Which had 100% white for a few hours and it made my corals expel zooxanthellae. Then Dino's started breaking out near the rocks and now there's this long brown stringy thing all over the tank.

From what I know zooxanthellae are a type of dinoflagellate too. So I'm not quite sure if the lights caused this outbreak. I have an ats in the sump and it has dinos too.

Here's what I intend to do:

1. Black out for 3 days

2. Raise pH to 8.4

3. Siphon sand and water changes everyday

4. 200 micron filter sock after the overflow in the sump - I read it helps to remove free floating dinos

5. Run activated carbon

And I have a few questions,

Should I clear the algae in the ats? Since it contains dinos as well

How should I go about raising pH? If I were to use baking soda how much should I add? My system is approx 90L.

Any advice will really be appreciated.

[Admiraltian]

Why do u want to raise your ph? Is it very low now? Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate need to be baked in order to raise your ph. If never bake, it will increase your KH only and has little ph lowering effect.

[Admiraltian]

Stabilizing your KH will more or less ensure your ph is at a healthy level as its act as your buffer. Hope this helps, cheers.

[p.tm]

Why do u want to raise your ph? Is it very low now? Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate need to be baked in order to raise your ph. If never bake, it will increase your KH only and has little ph lowering effect.

I read a few sources that stated that raising pH may help inhibit dinoflagellates. My kh is kept constant at 9-10dkh. Thanks for the advice

[slapper]

Wow...for a nano tank you have lots of stuffs going on - chiller, sump and all. Seems like a lot of work to me. Guess it is needed as you are keeping SPS corals, said to be more demanding than LPS.

Read your earlier post on attempting a tear-drop clam. I havent had much success with clams, they always wither off after a while, even when i feed them with plankton and stuffs. I'm not sure if it is due to the temperature, but then again, my LPS are blooming.

Continue using your PO4 recommended by Henry. He's a helpful chap and i love talking to him to get some tips. The other product that i use is Reef Biofuel by Brightwell, which helps to further reduce phosphate and nitrate.

Try to keep your pH to above 8 as this will help in corals and fish species. I top up my tank daily with Alkali water with pH10, to ensure that my tank pH is kept consistently between 8-8.5. Reasons of lowering pH is due to overfeeding, wastes etc.

Like you, i have my own trials and errors, and usually the error results from overseas trips. Lots of $$$ goes into this hobby but the feeling of success is priceless. You can read about my tank journey here...

[p.tm]

Wow...for a nano tank you have lots of stuffs going on - chiller, sump and all. Seems like a lot of work to me. Guess it is needed as you are keeping SPS corals, said to be more demanding than LPS.

 

Read your earlier post on attempting a tear-drop clam. I havent had much success with clams, they always wither off after a while, even when i feed them with plankton and stuffs. I'm not sure if it is due to the temperature, but then again, my LPS are blooming.

 

Continue using your PO4 recommended by Henry. He's a helpful chap and i love talking to him to get some tips. The other product that i use is Reef Biofuel by Brightwell, which helps to further reduce phosphate and nitrate.

 

Try to keep your pH to above 8 as this will help in corals and fish species. I top up my tank daily with Alkali water with pH10, to ensure that my tank pH is kept consistently between 8-8.5. Reasons of lowering pH is due to overfeeding, wastes etc.

 

Like you, i have my own trials and errors, and usually the error results from overseas trips. Lots of $$$ goes into this hobby but the feeling of success is priceless. You can read about my tank journey here...

Yeah.. I agree! I had a lot of algae problems in the past, and those stuff are an accumulation of the methods I've tried to battle these algae. Quite a bit of a mess but back then I was really looking to get rid of algae long term, hence the sump/ats etc.

And yes again I agree! Henry is a very nice guy. He was very helpful and patient every time I went over. I'll consider the reef biofuel but for now I'll like to see how well the ats works.

My tank'a pH is kept constant at 8.2. I think it's due to the ats too actually(there's an air pump attached to it) and I manually dose a kH supplement and it's kept around 9-11dKh.

Thanks for sharing bro! I've been reading your thread since I've started this tank btw haha! It is a great inspiration for me. Now that I've gone and tried it for myself, I understand how difficult it is to maintain a nano tank. Lots of money spent but well worth it. Cheers

[Admiraltian]

Bro, The KH supplement dosing is on top of ur ESV 2-parts dosing?

[p.tm]

Bro, The KH supplement dosing is on top of ur ESV 2-parts dosing?

No bro, I'm not using the esv 2part dosing. The KH supplement is part of the reefmax additives I got from jirehmarine

[Admiraltian]

No bro, I'm not using the esv 2part dosing. The KH supplement is part of the reefmax additives I got from jirehmarine

Paiseh, bro. Mistaken u for someone else.

[Bunster]

Hi bro, first of all, very nice tank you have there. Is the goodbye PO4 easy to use? Do you have to dose it everyday?

[slapper]

Bro, what sort of algae problem were you facing? Hair algae? red slime? Or those algae that appears on the glass wall?

For hair algae, i normally use algae blenny to do the lawn mower's job.

For red slime, i get Ulteralife Red Slime Remover from Henry.

For algae on glass wall...have to manually scrape or engage the services of turbo snails.

[p.tm]

Hi bro, first of all, very nice tank you have there. Is the goodbye PO4 easy to use? Do you have to dose it everyday?

Thanks bro! yes the goodbye PO4 is pretty easy to use, you can consult henry from marinelife on the dosage for your tank. He will recommend a 1ml dose everyday to maintain your po4 levels after you lowered it, but I notice I don't have to dose a lot nowadays and my po4's constant at 0-0.03ppm. You have find your own routine I guess. And it will make your tank cloudy for a while after dosing, if you have not enough flow the precipitate will settle on the live rocks and corals, so I'm not sure if it's okay for sps..

[p.tm]

Bro, what sort of algae problem were you facing? Hair algae? red slime? Or those algae that appears on the glass wall?

For hair algae, i normally use algae blenny to do the lawn mower's job.

For red slime, i get Ulteralife Red Slime Remover from Henry.

For algae on glass wall...have to manually scrape or engage the services of turbo snails.

Bro, I've gotten everything you listed there hahaha! I defeated the red slime with a 3 day blackout and lowering my po4. Now having a little bit of hair algae and some green spots on the glass (which i enjoy scraping off anyway). May engage more turbo snails for the hair algae on the rocks, but then again I don't know if my 2 snails are avoiding them because they're dinos...

[Bunster]

Thanks for the advice bro! I'll go look Henry up...

[slapper]

Bro, I've gotten everything you listed there hahaha! I defeated the red slime with a 3 day blackout and lowering my po4. Now having a little bit of hair algae and some green spots on the glass (which i enjoy scraping off anyway). May engage more turbo snails for the hair algae on the rocks, but then again I don't know if my 2 snails are avoiding them because they're dinos...

Try to outsource the mower's job to the algae blenny. They are very hardworking chaps and don't ask for a high wage!

[p.tm]

Thanks for the advice bro! I'll go look Henry up...

Np bro

[p.tm]

Try to outsource the mower's job to the algae blenny. They are very hardworking chaps and don't ask for a high wage!

Outsourced! Currently employing a starry blenny to mow my lawn haha. Really cute guy. He eats my hair algae with a vengeance.

[p.tm]

Hi guys, been a while since I've waged my war against dinos. And just when I thought I've gotten them under control through blackouts and h2o2 dosing, they came back overnight when I resumed my lighting. My corals all looked really bad and I was worried for my snails

So yesterday I took several extreme measures to save my corals, made a bucket of fresh saltwater, took my 1ft spare tank out and moved all my corals over. Then I did a huge water change and siphoned out whatever I could. Removed my ats as well. I have no idea what caused the dinos now, but they are declining already. Resumed my normal lighting schedule and notice a slight growth. All parameters are normal and hopefully they'll be gone soon.

[p.tm]

Hi guys

Been a while since I updated, probably my last update for this thread.. Had a fair share of ups and downs, from the Dino outbreak to the first coralline algae spotted. That ecstatic feeling when you see your first coralline algae haha. Maybe it's just me

Anyway, good news and bad news. Good news, I bought a new bigger tank. Bad news, I bought a new bigger tank. A 4footer.

Saved up enough and started hunting(really desperately) for second hand equipment. Tried my best to keep the total cost under 1k.. Had some arguments/disagreements which nearly made me lose faith in this forum. But it's finally over and all is well.

Really got to thank my mum for her support. There was once the chiller output started a siphon when I turned off the chiller pump, nearly flooded my living room. I panicked but she saved the day. On top of that she constantly gives me moral support.

Anyway here's Tm's not-so-lil ocean:

Planning for it to have mainly sps on the right and zoas on the left. But before that, there'll be a baptism of fire where I'll be away in china for 5weeks. Hopefully all the corals and fishies make it out alive. When I'm back (and with a bit more pocket money)... hahaha.

Also I've got a pink bta from t95 who has been with me for a few months now. And he's going full retard on me in the new tank. He retreated into a rock with two openings and now I see him in both. Maybe he's splitting. Hmm everyone needs some light out sometimes.

Planning to get a few extra equipment when I'm in china. Taobao will be my new best friend.

Thanks for reading!

[p.tm]

Oh and can anyone tell me how to position the wave makers such that the sand won't keep shifting? I think my sand is too fine. The two wp40s are alr on the lowest setting

[yq33]

My 4 FT tank has only one wp25 and my sand are still shifting. I think it's cause the particle size is too small?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Admiraltian]

Try tilting upwards and aim at the surface of the water instead of straight or downwards.