Parker's 265 Build - Thread Retired

[Parker]

Originally Posted by Myka

Hey Robb, sorry to hear about your troubles. I haven't read this build thread until just now. Imo, most of your troubles are because of the dry rock. It takes a long time for dry rock to populate like live rock, and the less live rock (more dead rock) the longer it takes. If you go 50/50 live and dead it will take about a year for the rock to really be considered live imo. I think you're looking at quite a long time. No algae is a bad sign. If you can't grow coralline, you probably can't grow corals.

If I were you I wouldn't waste any more money on water changes. If there is no significant uptake of calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium, and no nitrate build up I would cut back water changes to no more than 10% per 2 weeks. There is no point in doing them. I would take the money you save doing that, and go buy 100 lbs of good quality live rock off the classifieds on here for $4/lb. Stuff that all in the tank for at least 6 months, and then after that you can start removing some pieces to go back to the look you're going for.

JMHO. Hope it helps.

Hey Myka,

Thanks for your thoughts,

I should clarify when I say there is no algae, there is no pest algae in the tank. Hair, cyano, dino's, etc. I do have coraline algae in the tank, albeit very slow growing. The white of my plumbing hasen't even been covered yet. By not having pest algea is the tank is at least a good sign that I don't have a major nutrient problem, no? The tank will have been officially up and running a year next week.

I did seed the tank with live rock, about 40lbs went into my sump and few nice pieces went into the display tank. The nicer pieces that went into the display were coraline covered and still are, I've managed to keep that alive. I'm not a big fan of using live rock used from other peoples tanks, I've tried that with past tanks and it ended up being more trouble then it was worth. Inheriting someone else's problems in most cases.

I was up until last night using Seachem salt. It wasn't my choice to buy Seachem it was part of settlement for a store purchase that went bad. As I understand it the older Seachem salt wasn't the best product on the market to start with and I've had it for a couple of years myself.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Parker

Hey Myka,

Thanks for your thoughts,

I should clarify when I say there is no algae, there is no pest algae in the tank. Hair, cyano, dino's, etc. I do have coraline algae in the tank, albeit very slow growing. The white of my plumbing hasen't even been covered yet. By not having pest algea is the tank is at least a good sign that I don't have a major nutrient problem, no? The tank will have been officially up and running a year next week.

I did seed the tank with live rock, about 40lbs went into my sump and few nice pieces went into the display tank. The nicer pieces that went into the display were coraline covered and still are, I've managed to keep that alive. I'm not a big fan of using live rock used from other peoples tanks, I've tried that with past tanks and it ended up being more trouble then it was worth. Inheriting someone else's problems in most cases.

I was up until last night using Seachem salt. It wasn't my choice to buy Seachem it was part of settlement for a store purchase that went bad. As I understand it the older Seachem salt wasn't the best product on the market to start with and I've had it for a couple of years myself.

Hey Robb,

I think many (most?) people underestimate the importance of good quality live rock. It is the main filter in our reefs, the backbone of of reef so to say! So I put a lot of effort into choice, preparation, and maintenance. Sounds kind of important, no? So I guess I just don't understand why people can take a bunch of dead rock, put it in a tank, and expect it to perform like live rock that was seeded (maybe?) thousands of years ago?

When a tank is a year old you should be getting significant coralline growth in a healthy tank. Some ULNS like Zeovit will have inhibited coralline growth, but for the most part coralline can be looked at almost as a coral itself. If the coralline isn't growing, neither will your corals ime. You should have to scrape the coralline off the back glass at least monthly. You should be getting at least dime to quarter sized patches in just a month.

You have to be picky about buying "used" rock, but it is my preferred way to buy. I will usually grab 10% fresh rock from a brand spankin new shipment of rock that comes into the LFS. Gotta get it before their rock holding tank gets overrun by ammonia and kills a bunch of life. I try to get that rock right out of the box when it arrives. I also "cook" all live rock regardless whether it is fresh or used. This way you remove the nutrients without dealing with algae, and with preservation of fauna. Saves a lot of headache.

I honestly don't think salt choice will make a huge difference. Not the type of difference you sound to be looking for anyway. I have used pretty much every salt on the market, and have yet to notice any difference. I'm currently giving D-D H2Ocean a go right now. I started using it about 5 months ago, and haven't seen a difference. It is a natural salt versus synthetic, so I figured if there was a difference to be had that might be it! So far, no change.

[Parker]

*Place Holder for Pictures for Brett*

[Skimmerking]

Oh no pictures again hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm its a trend here
sorry about your bad luck dude what made you change Salt?

[lastlight]

[Parker]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

Oh no pictures again hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm its a trend here
sorry about your bad luck dude what made you change Salt?

I was using Seachem and every time I did a water change the tank would take a major step backwards. Coral dying, coralline bleaching etc. I switched over to Reefers Best and now I'm onto another salt, it's in a Grey pail, I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head.

Things have stabilized for the most part other than the lost corals from the Seachem water changes. The 2 SPS that survived are actually growing, color is improving. I haven't bought any coral quite in a while until I was sure I was able to keep these two alive long term, so far so good.

Lost a couple of tangs a week or so ago. Nothing too crazy, they kicked the hell out of each other for some reason ( after being in the tank for more than a year together) Came home and both of them were sliced up really bad and succumbed to their injuries a short time later.


I lost a MH Ballast awhile back as well, I just got around to ordering up a new one today, I've been running on two MH's for a... I guess a couple of months now. My Apex Screen died a LONG time ago, I did get it RMA'd but never got around to sending that back either, so I ordered a new one of those this morning as well.

Huh, that's sounds like quite the sob story after I re-read it..lol

[lastlight]

I haven't been reefing long but already I know how you can sorta fall out of routine and put things off. I was doing minimal maintenance for a few months when work got nutty. Kien and I had a chat about getting back on the horse and I've been pro-active and all over any issue I can identify. I saw the results in less than a week.

Glad to hear you have some sps still. Water's been tested time to get some frags!

[Parker]

Ignore my aptasia problem, that's next...

Well I guess I have a bit of algae in my tank, but for reference I have never cleaned the back wall



The on coral that's survived it all. The color is starting to come back.. Dez mentioned this one should be whitish with colored tips.. the top of is whit with colored tips even though you can quite tell in the picture..but you can see it has grown..lol