My Slice of Nature (Part 2)

[SubzeroLT]

On 7/28/2015 at 9:35 PM, chercm said:

Fts pic please

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Humble FTS

[inwear]

Nice combination of LPS and sps. BTW your flame actually left your clam alone ?

[SubzeroLT]

Thanks. The flame angel doesn't touch the clams nor corals.

Nips on seaweed sheets though.

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[SubzeroLT]

Pulsing xenia frag from a friend. Nice to see it has about doubled in size since.

 

Golden clove recovering after being touched by the sweeping tentacles of a torch coral.

 

Evansi Anthias & McCosker's Flasher Wrasse hiding behind a new rock .

 

 

 

[SubzeroLT]

Been fighting the dreaded cyano bacteria outbreak the past 2 weeks. Its everywhere.  Phosphate barely detectable. Nitrates 0.5ppm.

I'm not 100% sure of the cause but i suspect it could be related to one of the wavemakers getting jammed (and hence much reduced flow). Noticed it only several days after trying to fix the slime outbreak. .

 

Done a couple of things aside from fixing the wavemaker & siphoning out the cyano

- Add 10ml of Microbacter7 daily (3ft tank). Use beneficial bacteria to outcompete cyanobacteria.

- Add 5ml Biofuel daily. Carbon source to speed things up

- Turn on air pump when skimmer is off. Provide more oxygen to the system

Airstone tied to rocks to keep it down in the sump

Trusty ole airpump. Super powerful

Seems much better after 2 weeks. Treatment continues....

[SubzeroLT]

I got some great filter socks from DE Aquatics recently.  Very affordable Bubble Magnus nylon filter socks which are so easy to clean under the tap. 

The blue ringed one is labelled as FB-02. The staff at DE Aquatic told me this is a 200 micron filter.

And there is a orange ring sock labelled as FB-01. I'm told this is a 100 micron filter.  

 

That made sense & i got both anyway. However, i noticed that the Blue one (FB-02) clogged faster. Decided to take some measurements of the pore size. Results below :

Ignore the scale from photoshop. The blue one (FB-02) has a pore mesh size of about 140 micron

 

The orange one (FB-01) has a mesh size of about  250 microns

 

Information from DE Aquatics wasn't right. Anyway, just sharing this information for your planning in case your reef tank  certain food & don't want to get caught in the mesh. I repeat...these are great filter socks. I recently bought several more.

[SubzeroLT]

........ Anyway, just sharing this information for your planning in case your reef tank  certain food & don't want to get caught in the mesh. I repeat...these are great filter socks. I recently bought several more.

Typo. I meant to say "In case you feed your reef tank certain food & don't want them to be caught in the wrong sized mesh"....

[SubzeroLT]

Some pics of Zoa frag given by fellow reefer some time back.

Didn't realize the nice coloration till I looked at it from the top + blue light recently.

 

 

[Kelvin Ang]

On 8/23/2015 at 6:37 PM, Leon Tan said:

Some pics of Zoa frag given by fellow reefer some time back.

Didn't realize the nice coloration till I looked at it from the top + blue light recently.

 

 

Good colour bro . Keep it up .

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[SubzeroLT]

Had an episode of blistering on some SPS. Root cause unknown but probably related to strong light + something else. Lowered the light intensity. Its recovering.

In the meantime, more DIY :

The egg crate + fishing line tank cover served its purpose but it was quite ugly for something in the living room. Decided to make something more sturdy & presentable.

 

Made with aluminum profile + fine mesh purchased from a farming supply outlet when i was in USA earlier this year.

 

 

[Yono_Pranata]

Nice tank bro! Must arrange for a house visit to your place liao! Lols!

[SubzeroLT]

Got a Blue Star Leopard Wrasse some time back. Finally managed to get a photo of it.

 

 

My Zoas weren't growing well with the low nitrates required by SPS in the main display tank, so i got a 2nd hand IOS tank & started to move the Zoas over.

A simple setup without chiller nor fishes. I just dose KNO3 Potassium Nitrate left over from my freshwater planted tank days to keep nitrates high. Seems to be doing OK.

 

 

In a recent post, i shared some things I've done to secure Yumas onto a rock. Recently, I tried the rubberband method. I can say it does NOT work.

This is the another yuma from the 'parent' rock

 

The rubber band method fails. The Yuma will simply squirm through the rubber band within an hour.

 

 

 

 

 

[SubzeroLT]

Some photos to share.  The supersun (my 1st coral purchase) has grown quite significantly.

It was :

 

Its now :

 

Equipment update :

The sump was designed with the recommended water height for the skimmer. However, i've at times, there is less or little skimmate. Cleaning the internal & pinwheel pump with vinegar brings back the performance but its shortlived. After a week, its back to less skimmate, probably because the pump is weaker or internal surfaces are dirty again.

So I raised the water levels by putting a temporary partition at the overflow to raise water level. This seems to work great.

 

 

[Guest]

Pretty nice photography Leon . Any comment on the color change for your super sun? Or just the Lightning

This is a signature : hi

[SubzeroLT]

I notice Supersun colors changing to a lighter shade when exposed to excessively strong lights. Hence i put them in partial shade now.

But for sure, it has changed from orange to light orange/yello.

[MarcoVan]

Honestly, just finished your thread both old and this - plain joy to read   

[SimonLSB]

On 9/24/2015 at 5:42 PM, Leon Tan said:

Got a Blue Star Leopard Wrasse some time back. Finally managed to get a photo of it.

 

 

My Zoas weren't growing well with the low nitrates required by SPS in the main display tank, so i got a 2nd hand IOS tank & started to move the Zoas over.

A simple setup without chiller nor fishes. I just dose KNO3 Potassium Nitrate left over from my freshwater planted tank days to keep nitrates high. Seems to be doing OK.

 

 

In a recent post, i shared some things I've done to secure Yumas onto a rock. Recently, I tried the rubberband method. I can say it does NOT work.

This is the another yuma from the 'parent' rock

 

The rubber band method fails. The Yuma will simply squirm through the rubber band within an hour.

 

 

 

 

 

Nice Zaos there.. Bro.. Let me know if u wanna frag some.. Haha..

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[SubzeroLT]

Nice Zaos there.. Bro.. Let me know if u wanna frag some.. Haha..

Sure...will post it soon.

 

Honestly, just finished your thread both old and this - plain joy to read   

Ha...thanks

[SubzeroLT]

Decided to dwell on a mini project to improve water quality / manage nitrates as I'll likely be travelling more often.

Got a Skimz recirculating reactor to use sulphur instead of biopellet.  Sulphur reactors are supposedly more effective than biopellet. One bag of media ($16+/kg ) will last about 1-2 years. In comparison, my biopellet needed to be topped up every 3 months (~$70 /kg)

A sulphur reactor needs to be tuned so that the environment in the reactor is anoxic (no free oxygen O2 ) so that denitryfying bacteria respire nitrate as a substitute - something like how a deep sand bed works.

 

Here are some pictures. Skimz RR113 reactor filled with about 1kg of sulphur media. I put additional biohome media inside to provide some weight so that the sulphur balls don't move. Biohome should also provide additional surface for the  heterotrophic bacteria to colonize.

 

After its filled up & placed in the sump, I ran the reactor at full blast to get rid of air bubbles.

Then 'fed' the reactor with Biobacter7 (bacteria) & BioFuel (carbon) through the effluent nozzle. Closed it shut so that no effluent leaves the chamber. Then turn down the pump to allow it to recirculate for a day..

 

I'd never run a sulphur reactor without an ORP sensor. As typical ORP probes give +ve voltage readings. Inside the reactor, the ORP is -ve voltage. One shortcoming of the Apex Neptune is that it can only read +ve voltage. Hence I made a simple switch to reverse the polarity of the probe. For those who want to try it, its simply a double pole double throw switch ($2.50), 2 BNC connectors ($2 each) & a box ($2).

 

ORP reading in the reactor should be within -150mv to -250 mv range to indicate its in the anoxic zone. 

If its too high > -50mv, it means it has too much oxygen & denitryfing bacteria won't function

If its too low < -300, it means its in the anerobic region, which has no free & bound oxygen. Denitrification wont happen.

 

This is my messy sump with the Sulphur reactor installed. I've also used a DI resin container that houses calcium reactor media to increase the pH as the effluent passes through.

The biopellet reactor will be decommissioned slowly (remove small amounts of biopellet) over the next weeks as the system transitions over.

 

 

 

 

[SubzeroLT]

Reverse switch to use the Apex neptune to monitor ORP in the reactor

 

Monitoring the ORP & tuning drip rate during the break in period

 

 

Also installed a Ocean Free Hydra Stream 3. 

 

Could see ORP improving when the Stream was switched on. Works great so far.

 I've moved the ORP to measure the nitrate reactor at the moment but will come back to monitor the stream shortly.

 

Livestock wise, nothing much has changed.

Here's a recent pic where the clown suckled on the anemone till its lips were totally swollen.

 

[Guest]

Hi leon, it come to my attention that you are using hydra now. Do let me know if you think this unit should brought oversize or using as per recommended.

[Guest]

Have to be careful when running sulphur cos overdosing it could cause a fish wipe out. just my personal experience

[SubzeroLT]

Have to be careful when running sulphur cos overdosing it could cause a fish wipe out. just my personal experience

Care to share what happened in your case? Also, what do you mean overdosing?

[Ryan-Kee]

On 10/15/2015 at 8:30 PM, Leon Tan said:

 

 

So cute, it looks like it's drinking milk!

[SubzeroLT]

Hi leon, it come to my attention that you are using hydra now. Do let me know if you think this unit should brought oversize or using as per recommended.

I think it's alright to get it oversized as i don't plan to switch it on all the time. 

I've just started to use the Hydra Stream.....still trying characterize the effects.