I will need to buy some of the SPS frags again…. the Acropora sp. didn't do well in the holding tank but 3 survived.

Mad Jelly will get an email once the tank is stable :)

Those are some crazy corals you got in there, I'm envious

I am working on ordering some of these up to replace my zip tie fasteners. I pulled the stainless steel hose clamps that came with my abyzz pumps, as they were corroding. I put two heavy duty zip ties on each end and tightened the hell out of them. But the back pressure on my manifold ended up popping the silicone connector right off of the lower pump. I was lucky that the pump flipped forward and starved itself of water by the intake sucking itself to the glass. I was lucky that in itself didn't crack the glass. Anywho, I put some weight, an old quiet ones pump, on the top of the abyzz to keep it from pressuring out of the silicone connector.

I am hoping the 100% titanium base clamps will do the job. Does anyone else have experience with them?

Cheers,
Scott

You can get plastic hose clamps as well, but 100% titanium would be ideal.

I'm surprised the abyzz pumps don't come with corrosion-proof clamps in the first place. At least there are options out there.

I was surprised the Abyzz ones **** the bed so quickly as well. I wasn't happy to be honest but ces't la vie. I am ordering some titanium hose clamps from a company out of Spain, called Mikalor.

Oh sorry to hear that.

I lost the ORA Red Planet, WF cobalt tort, Lime in the Sky stag and glowstick Sarmentosa. All the monti's, the undata, and pink lemonade and kushberry are doing well, as are the chalices & pectina.

100% 50-70mm Titanium worm clamps…… $55 a piece. Well, at least I know the pumps shouldn't explode off unexpectedly.

I also put a 1/2" loc-line valve on my return from the bottom sump to increase the back pressure to force more water to the reactors. I haven't been able to utilize it much as I am not home to put the new Ti hose clamps on and I don't dare increase the back pressure while it's only zip ties holding it together :)

Tank is looking ok. I am have a cyan issue in the sand and on the lower rocks. Corals are doing great though! I am going to up my water changes and maybe refresh my GFO and debating adding more bio-pellets now but I will take it one step at a time.

Adding more bio-pellets will probably make your Cyano worse. Check nitrate - if you have any nitrate at all back off on the GFO a sniff so the bio-pellets have some phosphate so they can reduce the nitrate. Siphoning Cyano out is really the most effective way to eliminate it.


Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

Thanks Mindy. After I typed the bio pellets comment I thought to myself, wait… isn't that a carbon source for the bacteria to consume…. ah whatever! LOL! I will test when I get home in ~5 days and start syphoning. Wendy just test my other parameters. Mg 1245, Ca 404, Alk 148 (~8.3 dKh), s.g. 1.027. And a bunch on the profilux that i don't need to bore people with :)

Haha! Are you trying out the new Tropic Marin salt?

Yep, and I expressed concerns with Colby about the extra "carbon source" but he assured me it wasn't in a quantity that would affect my tank. And to be fair, the cyan was growing before I started the new salt.

The thing I was a little surprised at was that the salt was crusty when I opened it. I have to dig away at the salt to make up new salt water.

FYI I had cyano after my summer neglect, 100% gone within a few days after I started dosing zeobak and zeofood7 again. Didn't even have the reactor up at the time. I suspect the zeovit cyano clean will also be quite effective. Something to consider I guess.

Safe to use the product without the zeovit reactor? I have been reading about MB7 and chemipure as well.

red slime remover is reef safe IME

Yeap

Thanks everyone! I want to nip it in the bud when I get home. I only have about 5 days at home unfortunately. Mindy, in the business of tank maintenance? :)

I never had any luck with any Zeovit products or MB7 against Cyano. ChemiClean works like a hot damn. I haven't had any issues using it in reef tank, but "mseepman" reported some coral loss in his tank recently during treatment.

Holy! News travels fast! It's not even official yet. :lol:

Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

Haahaa that was a shot in the dark! I guess it worked. I had no idea you were looking to get into it. We must talk :) PM me if you're really looking for clientele.

Pretty good shot in the dark! I sent PM in SaskReef.

Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

You might be better off running the Abyzz pump as an external. They run pretty cool so there isn't much heat transfer, but even at low amperage, that's 400v in saltwater you are exposed to. I use larger Banjo brand all stainless clamps. I'm using silicone hose, but would use braided in the future as it is less likely to split or cut.

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...t/IMG_5120.jpg

The carbon dosing is definitely the cause of the cyanobacteria. I would discontinue it and use erythromycin phosphate (250mg/10 gal x two doses, two days apart). Red Slime remover switched to a non-phosphate erythromycin and it doesn't appear to work anymore. There's more phosphate in a single tank feeding, so it's a non-issue. Remember to turn off skimmer, o3, UV, and chemical media. Turn skimmer on conservatively over a 3-5 day period as carbon removed the E.M.

Turning down the white lights and relying on blue light will not stress the corals too much and help fight the red slime.

I use a small brine shrimp net and a baster to physically remove as much red slime as possible, as it is toxic as it dies off.

The system is design for internal pumps, so that's not going to change. The pumps are connected to an in service box GFCI breaker. If there isa ground they are kicked out in a millisecond. I'm not worried about the juice in the water. I have some new pure titanium worm gear hose clamps that will go on today. Hopefully that will alleviate all my concerns about corrosion and the pumps blowing off the silicone connectors.

I still am unsure as to what I am going to do with my reactors. Cyanobacteria by nature is a nitrogen fixer, so why would I remove the bio-pellets, which are a harbour for bacteria that consumer nitrogen and phosphates? Should I try and start from scratch as Mr. Wilson suggests? Take the BP off-line and sort out the issue in the tank, then maybe bring the bio-pellets back online with new pellets in the machine?

I am going to go do some netting and siphoning for now.

Well just how much cyano do you have? Post some pics?

Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

Here are some quick shots. They aren't all corrected, unsharpened, bla bla bla but you get the idea!

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-TVXS7xw-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-Z95jVXx-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-DcZcfSm-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-bwrbHLn-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-2TxT8jT-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-hcJFxS4-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-j2WX3hz-L.jpg

Here is what came in the mail while I was gone.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-JBG5mMx-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-FmG4R6D-L.jpg

From your pics, I'm not entirely convinced that is cyano. The color in the pics looks more of a brown color and snot-like? Have you seen dinoflagellates before? I'm a bit worried that is the beginning of dinos. What's your pH at? Which tester?

It's more reddish to maroon in colour. The pH from the profilux sensor is 7.9. It was calibrated a month ago. My pH has barely every went above 8.0 pH.

It doesn't get stringy or bubble up at night. I think I will replace my GFO with some new stuff. Get my GAC and ozone running full torque. Siphon out what's on the surface.

Any other suggestions?

Ok, maybe it's the sweet red Fungia making the algae look less cyano-like. I hope so, dinos suck. Is your fish room located on an outside wall of your basement? A small vent to outside can make a big difference for pH. It would be nice to keep it above 8.0. I'm not sure if ozone and biopellets play friendly together - Mr. Wilson might know more about that. You have your BP effluent plumbed direct to your skimmer inlet, right? Maybe dial back your BP effluent a bit to try to help with cyano. Siphoning will certainly be a big help.

Our house has a full on HRV system. All of the air in the home is exchanged approximately every 7hrs. I don't think I am going to pop a whole in the wall for more fresh air. Should I do something else to bump my pH up? I am running Tailored Marine Ca, Alk & Mg on my doser and topping up with RODI.

I can't honestly say the offending mat isn't dinoflagellates. I'm not educated enough to say either way. Feel free to come on over and take a look for yourself if you have time!

Haahaa I always feel like a little kid when you make comments like this :) "You have your BP effluent plumbed direct to your skimmer inlet, right?" Yes, I do. Before it was within a couple inches of the skimmer intake, but now it's essentially touching the red dragon intake.

Cheers,
Scott

that is a very low air change rate, it should be about once every hour.
if you look a tight home has a natural air change rate going down to
0.33 /hour and they need mechanical ventilation to bring them up to that once per hour range.

Steve

haahaa you're right, I did the math in my head as cfh, not cfm! It can turn our house over 1.7 - 6.7x per hour depending on settings.

Curious on your cayno issue and see if it improves any with the new salt, some have been saying as it a form of carbon dosing it has made it worse.

I just did another ~20g with the ™ Bio-active salt so time will tell. But honestly the tank is looking swell. The sand and rocks have cleaned up ~95%. I checked my RODI though and the TDS meter said 89! I need to start checking my system again and sort that issue out. Maybe it was just having a bad day :)

Don't forget to check calibration on the TDS meter while you're at it. Good news the cyano situation is looking up though. What all did you do to help eliminate it?

Things I changed were:

Reduced Mitras light output from 60% to 50% and dropped the 4400K & 6500K spectrums down to 30% (from as high as 70% at noon).

Took bio-pellet reactor completely offline.

Increased flow to GFO & GAC (did not add or replace media, just increased flow).

Did ~20g water change (did another 20g last night but that wouldn't count).

Recently dropped the temperature from 26.0 to 25.7 celsius (may not have contributed since it was done recently).

Started feeding less than a full PE Mysis cube, but added cycploeeze to the mix (Mysis always thawed and rinsed before feeding)/

I recently turned the lights back to the original 60% total power output and restored the white channels to normal. We will see if I get a resurgence of algae. Colby had come over about 10 days back and he had a tough time identifying the algae. He said it lied somewhere between cyano and diatoms. Mindy, I will go and calibrate the meter right now and test again :)

Cheers,
Scott

I calibrated the TDS meter…. back down to 17 ppm lol!

:lol: That's still 17 ppm too high! ;)

I know lol. Colby was out of DI resin last couple times I stopped by :)

If I had 17 ppm coming out of the DI I would be replacing the RO membrane. You will burn through DI very fast with that much going into it.

Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.