Upgrade time !

[Craigdillman]

Update and advise time,

Heyya well we are back from our 30 day holiday with my wife backpacking and diving through Indonesia (Dive Video and pictures to follow some pic stuff!)

Left our tank with a friend who lived in our house and took care of the dog and looked after the tank (filling the ATO and feeding frozen and nori) , also had my reefer brother stop by once a week to double check ( empty skimmer, filter socks..) as the friend isn't a reefer at all ..

Well despite what all COULD have gone wrong I'm pretty thankful that what I'm reporting is more annoyances than chaos


1) One of my bubble tips decided to move and sit on the monti in the middle of the tank and stung it to death ( bro found it end of last week said it was to late to try to move it ..o well nothing to be done there

2) Lost my copper band butterfly, 4 days into the trip ? (didn't tell us till we retuned good house keeper i guess making us not worry ) not sure why maybe didn't feed as often or as much as me, really weird, That Hit home my favourite fish and i QT him a week long than all the other in that batch to double triple check he was eating good and he was so healthy and ate like a pig no idea why

3) During the last week got a patch of cyano over the right side of the rock structure which it totally random, covered 4 of my sps frags and by the time i got home they where all dead , That sucks had some cool ones there kinda mad about that

Anyway Nothing broke, overflowed, got stuck on, jumped out, or plugged.
Doser ran out of vinegar/foz down in the last week and got unplugged not refilled too hard to explain that over crappy indonesian wifi lol

Did a 35 gallon WC within first couple days back

Tank doesn't look to bad actually some of the sps doesn't look as extended but colors are good LPS looks great, Bubble tips thriving (stupid stingers)

Today tested the Water today ....Barf.. here goes

P04 -74 hanna - 0.21 bad was 0.05 prior to leaving
Nitrates - Red like 50ppm probably closer to 60 gross
Alk- 7.5 dkH
Calcium- 400ppm
Mag- 900 really low
Salinity 1.026 perfect still
Temp 81


So my plan of attack now that the cyano is spreading ( probably loving all the nutrients and lack of carbon dosing as it suddenly stopped )

Plan was to use chemi-clean for the cyano go threw that process than run carbon and do a 50% water change I'm making 75ish gallons of water going to start heating it tomorrow

From there I can slowly start to dose the vinegar again and work on correcting the mag and P04

What you guys think?

Also wondering about dosing vodka and vinegar ? Any advantage to doing both or one or the other ?


Thanks ill post some pictures ( and I'm working on the dive video as we speak )

Cheers

[kien]

That's usually my plan of attack for cyano :-)

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by kien

That's usually my plan of attack for cyano :-)

Yup!

[Craigdillman]

Ok sweet, yea wanted to double check cause I've never had it since I started carbon dosing, only had it once at the beginning of the tank like 4 months in, didn't know if that changed anything

[Craigdillman]

Chemiclean in 15 caps @ 5pm skimmer on overflow mode carbon out , got 75g of water ready for WC in 48 hours

got some before pics

Crossing fingers ...

[Craigdillman]

Alright got around to do some before and after pictures post Cyano Chemi-clean tank starting to look good again, slowly working back getting parameters back in line, lowing p04 and nitrate slow and rising mag first then getting Alk and calcium back ( which weren't as out of wack as the others )

Been busy trying to edit go pro dive footage

Pre Chemi






Dead Monti ( thanks moving bubble tip)



Post Chemi-clean and 45% Water change/GAC and starting starting carbon dosing and for down again










And on a totally unrelated note ( didn't want to post this incase it didn't work out but before my trip i dropped my tune scraper on my orange plate and split into 3 pieces figured it was a goner and after the trip it seems to be doing awesome still and puffy and eating and maybe ii can grow 3 plates from this all 3 pieces have mouths it looks like so maybe i got super lucky )

[Craigdillman]

Well i think i found the culprit of the holiday nutrient issues found an empty container of flakes that was over half full in the stand, now either the tank sitter fed this whole amount over the 30 day holiday ( god i hope not) or it accidentally dumped in ( and was to embarrassed to say ) it kind of explains all the issues and how only after 30 days seemed the tank now has nutrient issues Nitrate and P04 that was never a problem before leaving

So still working on getting stuff to pre holiday condition ,(funny last year took a 28 day trip and after 1 WC tank was sparkling like new )

So 2 days ago did a 70gallon water change , poor fish hardly had any water to swim in, and I'm planning on doing another 40 ish one tomorrow that should bring everything into manageable levels

Im still dosing vinegar I think 125ml per day and also doing Foz Down too


Is there a benefit to dosing vodka over vinegar ? Or just keep the course ? Does my dose of 125ml for around 150g water seem ok ? low ? high? Should i just keep upping it ?

For down and the WC are working good for the P04 its just the nitrates I'm worried about and I'm sure thats why the sps doesn't look as good ( ill get some Water tests done today see where I'm at post 50% WC

Thanks