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Project 210 (1 Viewer)

benihana said:
Forgot to ask - how is not having access in the front?? Thinking of the same for my main tank once I get that far.
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I will be changing it so i have front access. It is difficult to set frags, etc. then run around to the front to see how they look. I also want to change the rock work around, too, and it is just a PITA to do it from the back. I do have an acrylic camera box that does help looking through the top of the water and look, but then I run into the lights...
 
Guess it is time for my yearly update. I haven't done much, and am fighting nutrient issues. When I killed all the bryopsis, it also killed all my crustaceans, and so the nutrient release from both have been a battle. I need to do more frequent water changes, but get too lazy/am distracted by life, etc. There are some corals, and fish, but it is nothing spectacular as I'd like to get the nutrient issue under control first.

To help with that, I installed an ATS. Bought an old w/d filter, and changed it into an ATS that is fed from one of the overflows. Besides the light and w/d, I had all the other parts around. Once I get everything squared away, I'll have to have a garbage, err, garage sale.

Here's a pic of the ATS. Now to wait for the algae to take over...

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Which LED did you use for you ATS? I have been looking on ebay and they really jacked up the price of the dimmable ones
 
 
I'll have to build some sort of enclosure for the ATS. This light spread is pretty ridiculous!

I'm also waiting for some alggae to start growing in the ATS. There's some there, but nothing major after being set up for a couple weeks.
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Also had a mini reunion with a couple old timers: tico mike and JG24.
There's a tank behind these three wide bodies.

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Thanks for the hospitality. A lot of potential with that set up. Even more impressive is the room behind the room behind the tank!
 
I've been having trouble with algae on the rocks, and whenever I put snails in, they would just die. I thought this was due to the residuals of the mg treatments. I tested the Mg this weekend, and it is fine, so it can't be that. So, I bought more snails, and put them on the algae, and, well, they didn't look so great. I don't know what it is about this algae! I've recently hooked up an ATS, which hasn't been taking off, and have done semi regular water changes (I'm not a huge fan of water changes). I'd blow the algae off, and it would just reaccumulate. Wondering if I had some sort of heavy metal or toxin affecting the snails I started carbon last night. I've never really run it before. Then, off to do a google search, and came up with people thinking either heavy metals in the tank (shouldn't be an issue, it's a new tank), or that the snails weren't acclimated slowly enough. I then did a search on here, and found this thread. I'm not sure why I even bother checking outside of this forum first! What an asset it is!

This dinoflagellate theory really piqued my interest, as that is the difference between the show and quarantine tanks. The show tank has this pest algae, and the QT does not. I didn't realize it until now, but I clearly have a dinoflaggelate outbreak. I feel like such a horrible human being for not researching this before buying new snails. I figured it was the mag, and then that maybe I wasn't acclimating them slowly enough. I placed all the snails right on this. When they didn't move, I switched them to the other tank. Hopefully I saved most of them. Now to figure out how to fight these damn things. Thankfully, there isn't a ton of coral. I've thought about starting over, but will probably try http://blog.aquanerd.com/2011/05/how-i-beat-dinoflagellates.html or this http://scaledmagazine.com/solution-dinoflagellate-outbreak-reef-aquarium/
Some more reading for later...http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php
SO FRUSTRATING!!!!!
Yes, I removed the snail.

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I also have had very slow success with algae growing under that same ats light.

R. Snodgrass
 
ATS will explode once the right kind of algae is seeded onto it. Slowly it will come as long as the lighting, flow and screen is ruffed up enough. Your welcome to come seed from mine. Brian / Arstena ATS wasn't really working well then he seeded from mine and export took off. ( See his tank build thread and how quick it took off after seeding ). My light is 2.5" away from the screen and run at 40%. Your looks quite a bit further from the light so you may need to adjust it accordingly.
 
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David Grigor said:
ATS will explode once the right kind of algae is seeded onto it. Slowly it will come as long as the lighting, flow and screen is ruffed up enough. Your welcome to come seed from mine. Brian / Arstena ATS wasn't really working well then he seeded from mine and export took off. ( See his tank build thread and how quick it took off after seeding ). My light is 2.5" away from the screen and run at 40%. Your looks quite a bit further from the light so you may need to adjust it accordingly.
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Light is at 50%, IIRC. Will turn it up to 60% and see if that helps. I may have to stop by to pick up some seed culture from you.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. I may raise up the pH rapidly and see if that helps, although I really don't want to gunk up all my pumps. Will add the calc reactor to the system, as well as my ozone unit. Will also change out the bulbs on the UV sterilizer. Should do some of this stuff any way.
 
I successfully killed all the dinos!
If you dump too much kalk slurry into your tank, raise your pH to 9.1, and have it coat everything in your tank, it dies. I also turned off the lights for 3 days, maybe running the center light for a couple hours/day. I took out the dursos, so the overflows were empty, and scrubbed them inside and out. They look much better. Turned off the ATS, as that was just growing dinos.

My rock work all looks like CRAP! The biggest source of nutrients in my tank is from all the crap on the rocks. So, I've taken out ~1/2 the rocks. Acid washed them and scrubbed them off. I left them in the acid bath for ~24 hrs. They are now in a separate tank.

After acid wash and before scrubbing:
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After scrubbing:
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Will let them cook/cycle for several weeks. Found an old beckett skimmer that I now have set up. Not sure how long I'll let it go, but probably until I see minimal detritus in the bottom of the stock tank. I would like to take out all the rock and cook it all at once. Just not sure how stressed out my fish will become if I do that, or what I could put in there so they have some hiding places.
 
One thing to consider if this method doesnt work for you, Doing the acid wash and scrubbing the rocks is essentially killing all of the microfauna in the system, leaving a large void with no competition for the dinos should some of them survive.
 
dirtrider225 said:
One thing to consider if this method doesnt work for you, Doing the acid wash and scrubbing the rocks is essentially killing all of the microfauna in the system, leaving a large void with no competition for the dinos should some of them survive.
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Yes, it is essentially starting over with the rock, but I felt it would be the only way to get them clean/useable, without shutting the whole thing down and starting over. That's why I want to reseed/re-cycle the rock prior to placing it back in the aquarium, and think it would be best to do this in two steps--when the cleaned rock is ready/cycled, I'll take out the rock still in the tank and do the same.
 
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