Honey as a supplement? That's really weird. Nice tank by the way.

Haha awesome!

Hey Mark! How's spring in the Okanagan? How's the tank?

Well its been a while since I posted on the tank. It's had some ups and downs in the last 6 months....right now i've got algae which I have never had before....mainly due to coral over growth on each other and the warfare that ensues. Today I decided that I would tackle the return pump which had started seeping about nine months ago and was a giant ball of salt now. Not a job I look forward to again. The impeller had rusted onto the shaft where the seal was weeping and it took 2hrs to break it loose. I switched to my second pump (another new blackfin3600) with new seals and put it back together to discover the seal was faulty and leaked. we took it all apart again and put in my spare set of seals and thankfully the leak was over.....except that now I have a drip at the bulkhead where the return draws from the sump.....arghhhh!!!!

Hey Mark any recent tank shots? I must say your setup is my candy store!

Oh jeez Mark! Hang in there! :) Is the algae getting any better? What have you done to counteract it?

I will put some shots on here shortly...gotta take them first. Thanks for the vote of confidence though.

As for the algae, i've got two reactors running gfo and have added one with carbon per your suggestion. I was lights out also for the last three days. By changing the return pump i've bumped the flow with a clean pump too. Continuing with prodibio and of course pulling out stuff manually every day.

Yeah the carbon will help with alellopathy. Did you beef up the CUC?

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Like your tank journal. fallowing along. :biggrin:

Thanks...it's been a bit of a struggle lately. I know I promised to get a few shots up and I haven't yet....it's on my short list of things to do.

Today I started the "trimming" of the corals to try and reduce some of the battles that are causing me so much algae and strife. Not sure what I did helped but we will see over the next few days. Can't believe how quickly I ran out of room in the tank.

If you looking to get rid of some of those cuttings let me know!

What do you need Nigel?

Always looking for frags! What I need though is to pick you brain! Haven't had the greatest luck this year either! We'll have to get together soon!

That works for me. Not sure my brain has the answers.

For example...I am always always low on ALK...I've been bumping my doser regularly over the last year but still fighting to hit 6 dkh. About 2 weeks ago I changed the head on the doser channel for ALK as the old one had some seepage coming out. Then about a week ago I noticed some strange behavior on a few corals...and it continued to get worse. Had a couple outright die on me. It almost looked like burnt tips and then overall burn on some pieces. Today I retested my ALK twice and I'm at 10.5dkh. Holy Crap!! I had done some recent big water changes and when testing the new Reef Crystals, the ALK was up at 11 but I thought it could only help me since I'm always so low. I didn't think about the fact that the new doser head would function much better and because my doser works on time and speed i was putting a lot more in than before.

Tested my CA which is always high and was down to around 300...so what a mess. Working on some slow corrections now.

Yikes! I hope it works out ok for you.

So my tank continues to endure strife....Although most seem to center around ALK issues, my Phosphate has climbed to. 06 and after buying another new test kit, I am registering. 25 nitrates. Gonna start biopellets this week. Just working on whether I can find the fittings needed to plumb right into skimmer. Been looking around for a recirculating reactor but will use phosban 150 for the interim.

Taken two ice cream buckets of dead sps in the last two weeks. Crying shame.

Ouch Mark, I went through the same thing with my sps... total loss for me...

Also cant remember how you run return/overflow, but I suggest not plumbing anything to the return as it will fluctuate overflow box due to many factors which slow down the main pump, mainly gunk buildup...

Looking good Markus

Thanks, sadly its not really looking good. Sitting at about 80% Sps loss right now...just can't figure out what is wrong. Watching all parameters and they are normal. PO4 is a little high at (.06) Checked equipment for failures....replaced some just for the heck of it. Changed GFO and changed carbon brands just in case. Scrubbed my water change station down completely. Changed Di and prefilter on rodi.
Last resort has been doing 100G water changes every day...trying to change something for the positive.

Fish are happy but dead corals bring algae and cyano. I can't remove them fast enough.

Corals develop large white 'spots' and then return in all directions from each spot with a few days.

What is your NO3 running at? Also do you dip the sps to see if anything "strange" happens to come off them?

So my NO3 has been tested by two test kits. API which showed zero and Salifert which showed just above zero. In case I had issues that i wasn't detecting, a few weeks ago I started with Biopellets (though a minor amount). This was well after corals started dying in mass.

I have searched corals for pests but can find none. My frag tank is attached to main tank and frags have gone through same issues. I've dipped them in several dips but nothing visible. Haven't added a coral in many months. I was too full.

Might try a Revive dip to see if maybe bacterial infection...not sure if that would help.

The only event was an Alk dip that I described above quite a while back. ALK is now 7.1, CA is 500, MG is 1400. Tests done today. Ph is 8.32 and 8.31 on my two probes respectively.

Just as additional information, this is killing acro, monti, birdsnest...even pocci. Its not particular.

What lights do you use and what is the schedule

What Alk test kit do you use?


Sorry for all the questions. I have had a similar scenario where all my sps died and I'm still confused on the cause, so I'm trying to see if we have similarities.

My lights are of my own design....Cree Led along with minor T5 as a suppliment. They are all a little too high off the water (14") but they have grown my tank well for the last three years.

My ALK test is the Hanna meter. I've tried two batches of regents just in case. I also have an Elos manual kit that I checked it against periodically.

Wow, I have not updated this in forever. So as mentioned above I was experiencing some strife in the tank. Then the APEX failed while I was on Vacation and in its failure, it ignored the fallbacks as well and dumped all my dosing containers as fast as it could at once into the tank. (I had switched to 3 BRS dosers run by the APEX after my prior doser failed). This really put things over the edge and killed most of the corals in the tank that had survived the prior strife. Algae came hard after those deaths (how the fish made it through is beyond me). I've battled the algae for the last three years gaining some days and losing most. In mid 2019 I tried Vibrant and it really was what I needed to get things back on track. The tank cleaned up dramatically (although my Cheato all died) and I was able to stabilize everything.
I'm now back in game and the tank is doing mostly well. I have some cyano issues right now but I have been dealing with it. I'm back on prodibio and that has helped as well. I was lucky to get some help from local reefers and a few orders from Marine Experience to re-stock the tank with SPS. I will be using Aquaforest products to color things up and strengthen the corals as they grow.
My lights have been giving me issues for a while now and I'm currently debating moving to fixtures if I can make the pricing work. My lights were never full spectrum and so I always wondered if I could get more color from my SPS if they were.
I've attached a few pics to give an idea on how it looks.

https://i.imgur.com/GLuPZRmh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/NJIMucXh.jpg

looking good Mark.

I'm still trying Nigel, how is your tank doing?

my tanks eh! good and bad!
If you need any fresh cut sps pop on over!

Other than the cyano your tank looks clear so congrats on that. I faced similar issues but not for that long thankfully. My rocks were so covered within a week of carefully brushing/cutting/plucking that I could barely see them. Vibrant was also what turned things around in my case. I have only done single, small doses maybe once every 2 months since and things are continuing to do ok for me. Looking forward to more updates =)

I wanted to give a huge thanks to my fellow reefers H2o2 and Gools who stepped up with some amazing frags to get me going with fuzzy sticks. I can't thank you both enough for your generosity!!!

So I've been having issues with my DIY Led rig after 7 years. It still works but 3 strings of Royal blue go out at random times every day and won't come back on until I intervene. I also noticed as I was replacing a few LED's the other day that some of the new ones look brighter than the old and upon inspection up close with the reflector off, I see some cloudiness in the older LED.
The exciting news is that I ordered 3 new fixtures to replace the old unit and today they arrived. They shipped on Thursday and got here today so that was nice and quick.
https://i.imgur.com/qd92mIbl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/46GEzFPl.jpg

Without knowing much about how the setup and rig is..... led does fade over time...faster if over heated. Could be salt that got in, check your soldering you never know its diy after all. Check your cooling system. Check your Amps.

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I'm very curious about these new lights of yours after you mentioned them on that other thread. Look forward to the full review.

Wondering if you will have to acclimate the corals now as the new lights should be a stronger light ? Please posts some pics when up and running of those great Frags 😊

Yeah I'm betting that I will have to be really careful not to kill everything with the new light. I've going to use the old DIY fixture and try to re-wire so that I can use a string or two if I need to supplement the outside edges...although from what I read, this light will overpower everything.

So I broke these bad boys out of the boxes and out of their shrink wrap. They quality is really impressive!! I got them hooked up to each other to make sure nothing got bumped out of place in transit.

They are crazy bright and the App is a little un-polished but it works fine. I plan to try to mount them to the old DIY fixture this weekend. Fingers crossed. :)

https://i.imgur.com/zSZDqm0l.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HMhMcIZl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FoFj3RSl.jpg

Got the lights up today. By the way, it's the lower light boxes...not the DIY up top. I mounted to my previous fixture as I have an electric lift on it and can move these up and down now too.

https://i.imgur.com/V0kSqjEl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/1vDGjVdl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/k6QL5xfl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MIL0UO3l.jpg

Damn I love the full spectrum to these lights. You can actually discern the different light spectrums. What was it worth per fixture?

For the three of them, one master and two slaves. With the spectrum set as I wanted it (12 different LED colors) and the lenses of my choice, I'm into it for $832US including shipping. I can still use the old lights for added effect if needed.

So the new lights have been up for a while...my corals are happy and growing. Maybe not as fast as I like because I've had trouble with getting Alk and CA right. The lights are not turned up yet with the highest channel reaching 60% during peak hours.

https://i.imgur.com/JU4CXvTl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/EdyJT3jl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oYSd2t4l.jpg