Ao 100g

[grundig5]

Well...just an update. I will try to get some pics later today.

I thought I did everything right this time and things were going well. I went on vacation a few weeks ago and came back to a missing tang who was never doing that well. I had also purchased an auto feeder and apparently set it to dump too much food. Those two factors combined to apparently spike my nutrients because I now have a dinoflaggelate outbreak. Anyone that has delt with these knows how dismal the situation truly is...I am losing acros by the day. I thought I might be dealing with AEFW's but I've dipped every coral thats looks bad and havent found a single red bug or flat worm. I finally smartened up and realized it was dinos when I noticed the stuff was gunking up my acans and finally killed 2 of them. This stuff is just nasty and it seems to have started a serious chemical warfare with every coral in the tank. My purple monster finally gave in last night - and if you have that piece, you know its one of the toughest out there. This week I plan to try kalk slurries to get my pH up into the 8.5 range for an extended period of time since that apparently is supposed to help. I cant get the pH high enough with limewater alone. Anyway, thats all from me...

 

[fernandokng]

Man, sorry to hear that. I hate that a vacation never truly feels like a vacation.

Weren't you dosing a carbon source? Shouldn't that have kept your nutrients in check from the overfeeding, atleast temporarily...

 

[grundig5]

I was in my old tank, I decided to go back to regular water changes/gfo/activated carbon with this tank since I had more success with that than carbon dosing. The weird thing... I dont have a "bad" outbreak, I just get a few patches on the sandbed and some stingy stuff attached to some corals by the end of the lighting cycle. But I have zero polyp extention on many of my acros, some have completely STN'd, my acans stay shriveled up, my chalices look like crap, and my snails are lethargic and not doing much. For now I am keeping the GFO and carbon fresh, attempting to keep the pH up with kalk in top off, reduced the light period, increased flow, changed RODI filters, and went to every other day feeding. My next step is kalk slurries as Randy recommended: Here since I cant get my pH over 8.2. I might also set up a coral QT and do interceptor and fluke tabs this weekend to see if anything comes off, since I am always suspicious of fw's and redbugs.

 

[ming]

Sorry to hear that.
I'm going on vacation in a couple days for over 2 weeks. Hopefully I have things automated enough.
When you get everything settled in, let me know if you need frags of your corals back.

 

[wayne]

hey i think your hard work paid off :splitspin

 

[autoponicz]

that is a hot a** tank dude....
and great equipment.....dont worry...things will bounce back to normal...fight the battle till the end!

 

[littlebuck70]

Haven't seen the tank in a while and its looking great.

Sorry to hear about what happened to the tank while you were gone.

I still have a lot of the things that i got from you so if you want anything once you get back online let me know ill frag some things out for you.

 

[grundig5]

Thank you everyone for the offers. After a 3 day blackout the dinos are gone, but I am just waiting for them to come back. Still pretty much no PE on most of the sps. I think the are doing better, although I am getting a bit of bleaching from overloading the gfo, so I have stopped it for a few days. I also finally managed to nab my clown goby and will be taking him to the lfs. One way or another I will get to the root cause of whatever is pissing off my sps.

 

[lzqkeith]

very nice tank ,it's DIY?

 

[neptune]

you sure know how to pick a tank...thats gonna be the new pic on glasscages...
very nice buddy

 

[D1J8Z]

Thank you everyone for the offers. After a 3 day blackout the dinos are gone, but I am just waiting for them to come back. Still pretty much no PE on most of the sps. I think the are doing better, although I am getting a bit of bleaching from overloading the gfo, so I have stopped it for a few days. I also finally managed to nab my clown goby and will be taking him to the lfs. One way or another I will get to the root cause of whatever is pissing off my sps.

I told you to take out that clown goby bc they like to hide in Acros, I tryed getting intouch with you the other day I was by WWOF

Hope everything is coming along smoothly

 

[grundig5]

Dave...I know man I know. Trust me it took like 9 hours to catch that guy. The tank is doing better now that I turned off the GFO got rid of the dinos and the goby. I think its stabilizing and I'm seeing some PE and color again. All of my acros turned brown. I just cant figure it out, my parameters are in check:
425ca, 9dkh, 1400mg, 5 nitrates, 0.04 po4, no nuisance algae growth, strong lights and flow, strong skimmer, stable pH and salinity.
Maybe I just rushed it and it needs more time...or maybe I have some bugs? I've been dipping different corals and havent found anythng though.

Thanks for the comments, the tank was made by Aquarium Obsessed (hence AO 100g). They were wonderful to work with but do take some time (12 weeks in my case).

 

[ECFENCING]

Josh: How are things coming along? Also how do you like the skimmer so far? Are you using the 1260 yet?

 

[grundig5]

Hey Ernie,
Things are back on track, the tank is coming around. I did go to the 1260 and I like it, it seems more stable. I dont know that its worth the cost but what are you gonna do... You like your ATB?

I took some updated pics. I didnt end up losing too many corals, but I had to frag literally every coral I have to stop the STN. I lost years of growth on some...I had a colony of the lime in the sky acro that took forever to grow and I had to chop it all down to a measly 1" stick :irked: Oh well...Sorry the colors are a bit weird, these were shot under T5s only:

 

[grundig5]

more...I like the last one because you can really see the difference between a bluebulb/KZ Fiji purple (left side) and a blue bulb/regular actinic (right side).

 

[grundig5]

Dont think I ever posted a "look at all the stuff I bought" list, but I am an equipment junkie so for those who care:

-tank made by aquarium obsessed, 48x30x18 with low iron glass
-sump made by trigger systems, acrylic 36x20x15
-stand made by some dude in california
-skimmer ATB small cone and eheim 1260 needlewheel
-return pump oceanrunner 3500 which also runs 2 phosban reactors
l-ight giesemann spectra 2x250 SE metal halide and 4x54 T5. I use (and love) Helios 20k bulbs. zeroedge made the bracket to hold the light up
-flow is a vortech and 2 modified tunze 6025's plus the return pump. Once things grow more I will get another vortech.
-diy supplements are dosed via litermeter3
-kalk is dumped into the top off container and pumped with a Tunze osmolator - I know its not the most efficient, but whatever, its just for pH anyway
-And I use the AC Jr, which is a nice little tool with really crappy temp and pH probes.

I think thats it...and yes I need to clean up my wiring it drives me nutty.

 

[D1J8Z]

Whats new with the tank ?

 

[MikeyNYC]

Hey Josh, I haven't across your tank thread, very nice setup. Looks like you have all the toys.

 

[grundig5]

Havent updated for awhile. To make a long story short, I almost threw in the towel recently. Both bulbs went out while I was away, I came back and replaced them with radiums, had to go away again, and then my aquacontrollers temp probe failed and kept the brand new lights on for 3 days straight. So I got back and all my corals were bleached, some were dead, and the temp was 90. Tank is doing better, but its been a lot of problems in a row.


Anyway, here are some pics, sorry some of the colors are weird.

 

[ThuGGY]

Love your tank !... Ill be following this thread. Keep up the good work !