Michika's 28g long nano-esque tank!

[michika]

Thank you. Its a huge improvement from say just prior to x-mas.

The mandarin is a male. I eventually want to find him a lady friend, but it seems like there are no females to be had.

[Delphinus]

My tank looks empty now But I'm happy your clams are back home where they belong! That is one of the nicest derasa's I've ever seen. If you ever decide you're tired of it ....

Sorry to hear about the one piece receding but your other frags are looking well (better than mine ... I'm tempted to try moving them out of the coral-nippers tank, but I'm a little paranoid about putting SPS in my other tanks!)

Gorgeous mandarin. Seems to me they come in bursts .. you'll see a whole bunch, then not for a while, then a bunch again .. if I see a female at any LFS I go to I'll let you know.

[michika]

Thank you!

I was really happy to get my clams back, they just add something to the tank that nothing else can. I guess the same goes for you, if you get tired of any of your clams, I'll happily take them!

[michika]

OMG!! Cyano and GHA are the bane of my tank's existence. The cyano now covers everything. It is smothering out, or trying to, get my surviving zoas, and some of my new SPS.

I added in a seio 2600 to the display to add more flow....something about this just isn't right.

I hate to say it, but I think my tank requires more flow. I think I need to pick up a bigger pump...as if a Snapper isn't big enough....So...who has a dart pump for sale?

Today I don't love reefkeeping as much as I used to.

[michika]

A brief, albeit photoless update for today, superbowl Sunday.

- The cyano got so bad it covered everythng in my tank. I had to blow it off the corals and the sides of the clam twice daily. The powerheads became covered in it. It was just horrific.
- I ended up stopping the use of Energy Elements on Wednesday January 30th and within two days the cyano had dropped back considerably. By today about 95% of the cyano has vanished. I will try again to use the Energy elements in two weeks and see if it again triggers the cyano.
- I'm still battling the GHA, I've swapped out my MH bulb, I'm running a shorter photo period, and I'm doing larger water changes each week, 14g a week rather then 7g. I'm still manually pruning the stuff.
- I am planning to change the tank around. I'm going to re-aquascape this week and see if I can't get things done a little better to combat the GHA. I'm going to cap off two of the returns to see if I can't get stronger flow from the Snapper pump, and more random currents.

[Skimmerking]

try doing a 100% water change are you running Phosban reactor on the tank..

[Snappy]

Catherine maybe try polyp-labs to reduce the nitrates.

[michika]

Thank you for the suggestions! I'll look into polyp labs when I next get a chance.

[michika]

I'm thinking perhaps this tank needs to be torn down and changed at this point. Things still aren't perking up regardless of what I've tried or done, sadly GHA seems the be the least of my worries right now.

Things I need to figure out how to address;
1) RTN its back! My large colony has RTNed, and two frags I picked up in January have died as well. Both frags were fine yesterday evening and gone this morning.

2) Mystery leak? or crazy evaporation. I am going through about 2g per day of water. While my SG remains constant (when I don't over top off), its a lot of water to be topping off. I'm concerned because of the quantity, however I don't see any negative/positive influences because of this.

3) GHA which is a problem in and of itself. I don't want to discuss it as I feel like I've spoken about it ad nausem.

4) Getting things to thrive and not just live. I've seen a color change in one of my frags, but I have seen no growth, not even nubs on anything else. Birdsnest and digitata has always been a quick grower for me, and nothing is growing.

These are today's parameters; they are also prior to today's water change
SG: 1.023 (low, I want 1.025)
pH: 8.1 (before lights on, same as lights on though)
Ca: 370
Mg: 1170
dKH: 5 (low)
Phos: 0.04 (its going up since last week's 0.01).
Nitrate: 1ppm (stayed the same from last week).
Nitrite: 0
Amm: 0
temp: 80.4

On a positive note though the cyano has disappeared, its only one one patch of zoas, and even then it seems to be receeding slowly. I did try to start dosing Energy Elements again, but I saw the return of cyano and immediately stopped dosing. The filter socks I purchased have also solved the microbubble problem, I'm really happy with this turn out, and gladly accept the trade off of cleaning them every other day. I'm looking into polyp labs right now as a potential solution to my tank's sad state. However, since I don't know what the problem is, I hesitate on how to fix anything. I also worry about constant dosing, I liked having a more or less hands free system. Should my upcoming changes not yeild any results by the end of the month I will be trying this. The bottom line is things aren't doing well. While my fish and clams thrive, nothing else (GHA aside) does, and I need to figure out how to fix this asap before the rest of my SPS die.

I think I will make a post in the reef section to solicite opinions on what else I can do. I am at such a loss and I'm very disapointed in how things are progressing. Depending on the responses I get, I will probably purchase polyp labs at the end of the month or early March and try that system. I will also try to do one major overhaul by removing all the rocks that have GHA and see what happens. Since I suspect the phosphates are being released by those old rocks, I'm going to try and remove them, and see if that solves the issue of GHA.

Photos later of before and after the changes as well as some of the RTN possibly.

[cprowler]

Hey Catherine, sorry to hear things still are not going well.

I wish I had a answer for you but I think the reason I have avoided some of these issues is just dumb luck. It sounds like you have been doing all the right things, doing your homework and getting good advice.

I am a fan of filter socks, I started using them again and have noticed a difference in water quality.

I have been using ReeFresh also and think it's beneficial for sure, I don't see all the benefits they claim but would rather use it than not.

I was having some minor issues with nuisance algae and cyano a while back and started using ozone and ReeFresh and things cleared up quite quickly. I have since taken the ozone off but would and may use it in the future if needed.

I'm sure things will start to turn around for you.