Bschowa's current build thread (1 Viewer)

[Nickz]

I just got through an ugly cyano outbreak in my 75, it was covering the rocks and sand. I siphoned out what I could with my waterchange and made sure the flow was ok everywhere. Took about a month but gone. As for Powerhead placement I always have one in the center of each end panel as high up as I can without them sucking air and alternating slowly with just enough power so the sand doesn't blow all over from the undertow.

 

[Bschowa]

I just got through an ugly cyano outbreak in my 75, it was covering the rocks and sand. I siphoned out what I could with my waterchange and made sure the flow was ok everywhere. Took about a month but gone. As for Powerhead placement I always have one in the center of each end panel as high up as I can without them sucking air and alternating slowly with just enough power so the sand doesn't blow all over from the undertow.

I take it you just waited it out? Did it seem to come back worse when you siphoned it out? I'm about two weeks in so far and I have siphoned out once which took out a massive amount of sand and then 2 days later it was worse than before i siphoned. I might just pull things off the sand bed and blow it off the rocks where it is getting closer to corals with a Baster if it has the possibility of going away on its own.

 

[Mandarin_Jake]

I had a small out break last year of the red stuff. I changed some flow, shifted a few rocks to eliminate dead spots and after a week or so it did go away on its own. Now I'm on the hair algae streak.

 

[Nickz]

I did just wait it out, it was pretty ugly for about a month then it went away for a day or two then came back with a vengeance, then it was just gone one day finally. It was growing on all my rocks, high flow, low flow, everywhere it shouldn't be. The only change I made while waiting it out was I only feed the corals once every two weeks instead of 1-2 times a week.

 

[Davy Jones]

I havent personally tried it but ive heard good results for dosing coral snow and Microbacter 7

 

[Bschowa]

I did just wait it out, it was pretty ugly for about a month then it went away for a day or two then came back with a vengeance, then it was just gone one day finally. It was growing on all my rocks, high flow, low flow, everywhere it shouldn't be. The only change I made while waiting it out was I only feed the corals once every two weeks instead of 1-2 times a week.

What were you using for coral food? I wonder if that was a cause for higher nutrients and cutting back is what ended up solving the issue? Was this on your 180 or a tank that has been established for a while?

I just looked it up and this current tank has been running for just over 3 months but the live rock has been established for over 3 years and moved into larger tanks while adding more acid washed rock

 

[Bschowa]

I havent personally tried it but ive heard good results for dosing coral snow and Microbacter 7

I haven't heard of this before, do you have a link or more information on how this works/ what the process is by chance?

 

[Nickz]

It was my 75, roughly 2-3 months from startup, as for coral food i switched it up between rotifers, fm micro, reef chili, and reef bugs, as well as some mysis and nls macro pellets spot fed to lps.

I should also add that this was my first attempt at not using a filter sock on my drain, will never go that rout again, had to clean the sump way too often for my liking. Much easier to just replace a sock every few days vs clean the whole sump every few days.

 

[mnmuskyman2011]

It was my 75, roughly 2-3 months from startup, as for coral food i switched it up between rotifers, fm micro, reef chili, and reef bugs, as well as some mysis and nls macro pellets spot fed to lps.

I should also add that this was my first attempt at not using a filter sock on my drain, will never go that rout again, had to clean the sump way too often for my liking. Much easier to just replace a sock every few days vs clean the whole sump every few days.

Especially when you have 100 tanks running. lol

 

[Davy Jones]

I haven't heard of this before, do you have a link or more information on how this works/ what the process is by chance?

Read about it in a couple of posts on R2R and Nano-Reef. I dont have links per say but a quick google should get you results of various sources.

My understanding of how it works is the coral snow (the KZ stuff, not the food..) works with your filters and skimmers to pull out more organics than usual as they bind to the calcium carbonate used in the product. This helps cut down on nutrients as well as helps remove unwanted stuff from your water. From there you can use Zeo-Bak (again, the KZ stuff) to add a Beneficial bacteria to the system to outcompete the cyano. MB7 is essentially the same stuff but at a much cheaper price point

Like i said, i have not personally done this. just read this process being used multiple times by people posting things like this in build threads. The last time i personally fought with Cyano i would turkey baste the rock and sand (lightly but enough) every 2 hours, added increased flow, Did a lights out for 24 hours every week and lowered feeding to twice a week. After 4 weeks it was completely gone and didnt come back until after i had a tank crash while i was away at military training and a tank sitter fed a full cube of mysis AND brine TWICE a day on a 55 gallon because " The fish looked hungry!"

 

[Bschowa]

Read about it in a couple of posts on R2R and Nano-Reef. I dont have links per say but a quick google should get you results of various sources.

My understanding of how it works is the coral snow (the KZ stuff, not the food..) works with your filters and skimmers to pull out more organics than usual as they bind to the calcium carbonate used in the product. This helps cut down on nutrients as well as helps remove unwanted stuff from your water. From there you can use Zeo-Bak (again, the KZ stuff) to add a Beneficial bacteria to the system to outcompete the cyano. MB7 is essentially the same stuff but at a much cheaper price point

Like i said, i have not personally done this. just read this process being used multiple times by people posting things like this in build threads. The last time i personally fought with Cyano i would turkey baste the rock and sand (lightly but enough) every 2 hours, added increased flow, Did a lights out for 24 hours every week and lowered feeding to twice a week. After 4 weeks it was completely gone and didnt come back until after i had a tank crash while i was away at military training and a tank sitter fed a full cube of mysis AND brine TWICE a day on a 55 gallon because " The fish looked hungry!"

Thank you for the info! I will do a little more research and see if this is an option when you had originally said coral snow that is what made me think, as I automatically thought of the food lol

 

[Bschowa]

Bumped into a great guy last night at new wave where I was going to pick up some red slime remover and he gave me some great advice and it was very fun catching up. I decided not to do anything about the algae and just wait it out and guess what!! As long as you don't look at the sand (which works perfect from my chair) the tank looks awesome. I'm going to keep it off the rocks and from around the corals and just let it run its course.

Just for documentation I am 2 weeks into the Cyano stage and it already looks like it is starting to become less thick on the sand bed

Later today (finally have time) I will update the next post with my water change station layout and my future plans to simplify it further since I have had a few requests lately to do that

 

[ChristopherKriens]

How do you like Ecotech's newer bracket system? Are they pretty configurable?

 

[Bschowa]

How do you like Ecotech's newer bracket system? Are they pretty configurable?

It works awesome, you can rotate the lights any way you want, slide them anywhere, and the cords hide in the channel
The only thing I didn't realize is you have to buy the new mounts to hang the light from the channel. The part that mounts to the tank is the same but the part that screws to the light is different. The other thing I didn't think of when ordering was the length of channel. I got the 50.5 inch one thinking that my tank was 60" and the Rms were both 6" each so that would make up 12" and I would have an inch on each side to work with

As you can see that is cutting it very close still very sturdy but scares me a bit so I will be getting the 60.5" one and custom cutting it so that it doesn't hang over but will give me a bit more sense of security

works great just resting on the tank edge

And cord management is super easy

 

[Bschowa]

Also I have this anemone if anyone is looking for one I would say it is about 6-8 inches across. It loves to start the day in a spot where it works and then gradually work its way up to a place where it covers corals and stings them

I'm posting it here rather than the classifieds Because it has its foot in the middle of my rock structure so I am not sure when I will be able to get it out and I have no clue on price, I really just want it to go to a place where it can thrive and be happy

With the stock that i plan on getting(more sps) it just doesn't seem feasible to keep 5 anenomes in a tank
https://vimeo.com/148005125

 

[Bschowa]

Here goes the water change system write up.

What I have currently is actually fairly simple,

There are two 65 gallon norwesco tanks that I picked up at fleet farm (cheaper there than I could get with our discount at indelco) I then threaded plastic nipples and true Union ball valves onto the output that comes standard with the tank. I drilled a hole for a bulkhead in the top of the second tank so that I could use flexible tubing to connect the two. The top tank is strictly rodi and has a float that prevents it from overflowing, I ran that line over the ceiling in the floor joists and it goes into my laundry room where I have the rodi setup. When the top tank gets less than half full I will kick it on and fill it back to the top.

The bottom tank I have as my mix tank. I made sure when setting up the rack which I got at Menards I don't remember the model it was but each shelf is rated at 1000 lbs to leave enough room to be able to pour a bag of salt in there. This tank has 2 pumps which are on a wall timer that turns them on for 15 min every 2 hours just to keep things mixed.

I then have a ball valve that I can open and drain that mixed water into a brute trash can on a wheeled cart. I turn off my pumps and drain my sump down to a set level and then a 45 gallons of water go back in.
It is a fairly easy process that takes me about 20 min and I do that every other week. But would like to start doing it less Often as the tank matures. After a water change I open up the rodi ball valve and fill the mixing tank back up and add salt then I turn on the rodi and the setup is back to the original state ready for an emergency water change if needed.

Here it is setup as is

 

[Bschowa]

My future plans are where things start getting more complicated, I will still use gravity to feed the rodi into the mixing tank but I will be replacing all bulkheads including the stock ones with 1" and use all hard pipe as to speed things up a bit.

I will use an old return pump that has more than enough power to push water wherever I want it. I will have a 1" line that goes around the room from the water change station to my rodi trash can, there will be a tee in this that goes over the top of the sump so that I can either push salt or rodi, all of this pipe will slope to the trash can so that there will be no stagnant water left in the pipe when I am not using it. I figure the gallon or two of saltwater that drains into my 30 gallon rodi container after a water change will be so diluted that it will not affect anything quick enough to worry about. And might even out with how wet I run my skimmer?

The pump will sit in the corner of the closet and I will have true Union ball valves that allows me to direct water back into the tank, and into a 5 gallon bucket. My biggest worry is stagnant water sitting in all of the piping so I most likely will be going above and beyond to find ways to drain this between the two weeks I use it.

My end goal with all of this is to be able to cut water changes down to about 10 min from start to finish and simplify it to the point where I can have someone be able to do a water change by turning a couple valves in an emergency

 

[marty9876]

Make sure you can clean out the mixing tank. I've been using IO and it's so bad I can't even seen in the lower section at this point.

 

[Bschowa]

Yea I will keep both accessible and easy to take out. I had to pull the mixing tank once already to get the 1/4 of salt buildup off the bottom this summer which was almost enough to make me want to switch salts but it pressure washed out fairly easy

 

[clowning around]

Thank you for the information