Reef, Genius

Moved

2010-04-20T22:22:00.002-05:00

Automatic Dosing for Anthias

2010-04-06T22:41:00.000-05:00

I plan on keeping Anthias, but I'm not ready to retire, so I need to find a way to provide live food to the system three times a day.

I have found a post about automatic brine shrimp feeding that may or may not have some drawbacks. I found another method that uses and automated ball valve. I haven't tried these yet, but it would I thought I would share my thoughts tonight as I browsed some solutions

Ahh, Laziness

2010-04-06T22:32:00.000-05:00

I set up enough automation to keep the system running over a long weekend, and everything survived happily. I still don't keep the chiller on when I'm not in the house and awake, but everything else was going. The fish were eating happily and I haven't touched the tank all day. I even went to a couple local fish stores and didn't buy anything. That is so wrong, but it's a sign of the system becoming stable!

Hah, I must be dreaming.

1.) I haven't nailed down my dosing period system yet. I was stable on alkalinity, but off on the calcium. I noticed that the alk. dosing hose was getting clogged at the output. I need to figure that out. It seem that it may be water splashing on the tube that's causing the alk. sol'n. to solidify.

2.) My lighting is insufficient for the Cheatomorpha in the sump to grow or be an effective tool for cutting down on nuisance algae. It may be that a very small MH lamp (like a 150W clip-on) with a 6500K bulb will do the trick for the sump.

3.) There are still too few snails, however an update to fix #2 may clear some of the nuisance algae up.

4.) Grape Calupera! Yes, I have some, so I'll try an Emerald Mythrax crab and a long-spined sea-urchin to take care of those. I'm also considering an orange-spotted rabbit fish. I've had them before and they can be beautiful and effective algae eaters.

5.) Chiller; I need this thing to run all the time. A better chiller pump, a flow switch and manual reset relay will be incorporated to keep this thousand dollar device safe and my coral happy.

Just imagine; most new reef aquarium owners have no idea what problems they are experiencing. Please, make my problems your own!

Snailed!

2010-03-31T20:11:00.000-05:00

The invasion has begun! I picked up 35 snails today.

The price was not that great, so we'll add snails a few at a time.

Gastropod Shortage

2010-03-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

Now that the system is full of happy fish who reqire a ton of feeding and coral that requires a ton of light, we're getting algae blooms. This wasn't unexpected. I just need to add a ton of snails. I'll be adding a combination of Turbo, Trochus and Cerith snails. I really like the Trochus because they can right themselves, but they are going for around $3 each these days. That's three times the price of a turbo and six times the price of cerith snails. I'll not be getting as many Trochus as the others. Turbo snails are the all-around winners when it comes to cleaning capability. I've never had cerith snails before, but everything I read seems to say pretty good things. We'll see how it goes.

Juvenile Chromis in Acropora valida

2010-03-23T23:42:00.000-05:00

This little chromis has found a place to sleep in the Acropora valida colony. His companion finds another spot, but I had to get this picture out because I really have not seen this behavior from a chromis before. He seems happy there. The shot is a bit grainy as it is a crop that was taken with only available light from off center actinics using the equivalent of ISO 3200 at F11 to keep most of the shot in focus.

Blasting Sand

2010-03-22T22:55:00.000-05:00

I plan on adding a sand bed to the aquarium. The bare bottom aquarium is missing the contrast and brightness found in an aquarium with a sand bed. I have kept deep sand beds in the past (sand beds over 6" deep meant to improve biological filtration). I have lower nutrients (which is a good thing) in my well fed bare bottom tank than I've ever had in my DSB tanks. I have always used Aragonite as my substrate. Aragonite is a calcium based substrate similar to (if not directly from) the substrate in a reef environment, but I've never been able to keep what I'd call a "clean" sandbed.

Keeping a clean sandbed has always been a difficulty for me. I'm hoping the shallow sand bed that I plan will make that a more simple process. I plan on using the CaribSea "Super Reef" substrate. It has a combination of features that make it likely to support the livestock necessary to keep the substrate clean. CaribSea claims that it supports burrowers and sifters. These are the types of animals that will help keep the sand clean and well churned.

Some of the sand bed caretakers that I've had in the past include the following.

* Diamond Goby
* Brittle Stars
* Nassarius Snails

I do look forward to seeing what other livestock I may find to help keep my shallow sand bed clean. Now if I can just keep it from blowing around with the two Koralia Magnum 8's I put in a few weeks ago.

So Much Left

2010-03-18T23:04:00.000-05:00

If a reef aquarium has a maintenance phase, I have not found it yet. I ran a test of my battery backup, and the system cannot run the equipment for the period of time that we need it to. I think four more full size marine batteries will bring it up to the standard this system needs to survive a hurricane power outage and evacuation period. We have a generator to keep the system through an outage, but if we are not here and there is no fuel available, that will not do.

Power is a constant issue. I found that the refrigerator is on the same circuit as the aquarium. Add a running chiller and a running microwave, poof. The power goes out. We had an electrician give us an estimate to run a new circuit, but that is not necessary. I moved the microwave to a different circuit and found another close circuit. We will see if another electrician is thorough enough to offer a an effective solution solution, like using a close circuit. The last one provided the most expensive possible option.

I have not begun automatic two-part dosing. If you've taken college chemistry or payed attention in high school chemistry, the following articles are very good introductions to two part dosing.

Two part dosing provides bio-available calcium and maintains pH at simulated natural seawater levels. A calcium reactor is another method of providing this balance. I could have gone either way, but I chose the two-part system because requires no equipment to implement. I do have a very high quality set of dosing pumps and meter by Spectrapure, Inc. called the "LiterMeter 3" that will automate the process.

The levels in the aquarium are almost balanced where I want them at a level that I believe will promote coral growth. When that is done I will need to test the system's magnesium levels. We do not have a test kit yet, but I like Salifert test kits and will purchase one soon.

This system is maintained by the a few credos.

Never add what you cannot test. No supplements are added that contain unknown substances that I cannot test for. The only exception is Boyd's Chemi-Clean.
Only bad things can happen quickly in a reef aquarium. This is a paraphrase of a statement commonly attributed to the author Michael S. Paletta (and sometimes to a Mike Palletta by the spelling challenged). He has written a few books, one of them is Ultimate Marine Aquariums: Saltwater Dream Systems and How They Are Created. That sounds like a great read.

Progress on the 180 (03/14/2010)

2010-03-14T21:01:00.003-05:00

I hope you enjoy some eye candy. The system is a work-in-progress, but it's much farther along now.

Chiller Pump Fail

2010-03-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

So, I just bought a Rio 10HF pumps to feed my chiller. That was clearly a mistake. Sometimes we have power outages and my pump does not restart every time. That's a waste of my $45. In order to make it restart I have to lift the pump out of the water for a second then drop it back into the sump. This situation could potentially cause a huge problem for me.

1.) My chiller could freeze up if its feed pump isn't working.
2.) My tank could overheat if the halides start and the chiller isn't working.

Essentially, this cheap pump is a single point of failure that could cause about a $2500 loss for me and a bigger loss for my fish and inverts. It won't be there long. I'll be taking mitigating steps almost immediately.

I'm going to wire up some of the sockets in my aquarium room to another circuit.
I'm going to get one of these flow control valves from "Grid Controls". If your savvy, you'll notice that this is with power cords for much more money as a chiller accessory.
I'm going to replace the lousy pump with an Eheim 1250 or mag 9.5

Treating "Red Slime Algae" (actually, it's cyanobacteria) in a Reef Aquarium

2010-03-11T22:37:00.019-06:00

One of the most common reef aquarium problems is the presence of a "red filamentous" bacterial infection. By newcomers, the bacterial infection is often mistaken as an algal bloom. It's incredibly common. My experience is that the problem is quite easily be solved using a treatment that I'm told (by forum posts here, here and here) is an oxidizer and NOT as it is commonly mistaken to be, an antibiotic treatment. There's nothing I know about oxidizers that can't be found on wikipedia. Of course, being quite cheap, I'd love to know the chemical makeup of "Chemiclean" so that I could buy it bulk, but it's a small price to pay to know that I'm getting a safe treatment for my system.

I have used this stuff for four years without a problem. Of course, bringing up the use of chemical treatment in a reef aquarium causes a flurry of responses. Most of them are of the "religious" type. I was recently told that using Chemiclean would cause the bacteria to mutate and develop resistant strains. Yep, that might happen if it were even an antibiotic AND it was used constantly. The picture below is of the Baltic Sea during a cyanobacteria outbreak.

primordial sea of algae
Originally uploaded by jurvetson

As you can see, the problem is a bit larger than my aquarium. I'm not looking to create any dents in the ecosystem.

But, I'm off topic. My theory when it comes to "cyano" outbreaks is that they are the result of the bacteria hitchiking its way into my systems on the livestock and that once treated, it doesn't just "magically" appear in a system. I tried the "hard" version of treating cyano in the past. That includes increasing flow, massive water changes, lights out treatment, purchasing larger skimmers, and doing everything that you should normally do with a reef aquarium anyway. I've had cyano in poorly maintained systems and in my most perfectly maintained systems. Once I was given a piece of coral by a local reef keeper and I took it knowing that I'd end up with an outbreak of cyano soon because his systems were just swimming in it. Guess what, I did.

ALS Fund Raising

2010-03-10T21:55:00.000-06:00

My wife's efforts at fundraising for ALS have garnered attention from MDA.

[from the Stride & Ride Houston 2010 newsletter]
Here are the “Stride and Ride Stars of the Day”

Ewald Schadt and his family (pictured to the left) aka “The Hot Schadts”!

As a newly diagnosed family this is their first Stride and Ride...and here are the tips they want to share with everyone else: Ask everyone – you never know who will say yes. “The Hot Schadts” have 47 members on their squad! Ask often – they are sending emails out daily – and because of this received $2000 online overnight! Team Spirit – they had t-shirts made for their team so everyone knows who is a “Hot Schadt”!

You too could be the next “Stride and Ride Star of the Day” – hit “reply” with your tips to success!

TO DONATE VISIT HER SITE:
https://www.joinmda.org/MyStrideRide/MyHomepage/tabid/114173/Participant/brandylashay/Default.aspx

Take a Powder

2010-03-07T20:13:00.000-06:00

So, today was a tough day for a powder blue tang. I purchased three tangs (a powder blue, a chocolate and a regal) with the intention of keeping them all in the QT (quarantine tank) a while then introducing them together so that my sohol tang wouldn't focus too much aggression on any of them. Well, it didn't work out as planned. When I got the three into QT, I noticed what might be ich on the chocolate tang. The regal and powder blue looked fine, so rather than have them deal with ich, I placed them in the display tank.
Immediately, I had trouble. The Sohol chased both the regal and powder blue for quite some time and took some pretty nasty nicks out of the powder blue's fins. The regal was smart enough to hide in the rock work. That's what I was hoping for both of them. After attempting to train the aggression out of the sohol, we gave up and placed the powder blue back in the QT with the chocolate. It will take some time to heal those wounds, then I'll probably have to sell the powder blue to someone who doesn't have a homicidal sohol tang.

Let's hope the chocolate tang doesn't have ich; that would really complicate things.

A Tale of Three Pumps

2010-03-03T21:27:00.000-06:00

Circulation Pumps, Dosing Pumps, Chiller Pumps

We've got some new equipment coming in this week. First, I ordered two Koralia Magnum 8's from Marine Depot. I've been gaining interest in these for about a month now when I noticed that the Koralia "Evo" pumps have many of the features already present in the Magnums. These are 3000 gallon per hour+ pumps that I have seen in a tank where they've been running on a wavemaker for 6-months straight with no problem. Go Hydor! And, they were on sale, 20% off! Yep, I got both of these pumps for the price of one controllable Magnum 8 and I can buy a less expensive wavemaker than the Koralia 4-way that supports Magnum 8s. Sure, I understand that DC pumps have can be run at partial power, but I can't overlook the fact that these pumps + a wavemaker cost 1/3 what a full on DC controllable system would.

So, I also ordered the Recipe 1 two part kit from Bulk Reef Supply. I have a Spectrapure Litermeter III and 1 extra pump that was purchased just to dose this system.

I haven't figured out which pump to use to run water through the chiller. The Teco TR20 is a slick little chiller that is very quiet. I guess if you're not running a couple of Iwaki external pumps, it might add some noise to your system, but I can't even tell when its on with mine.

ALS Ride & Stride

2010-02-27T22:50:00.000-06:00

We only havea few weeks left to reach our team goal of $1,000 rasied for the Stride and Ride walk benefiting ALS and, of course, Ewald (my wife's father). If you have already donated, THANK YOU! If you planned on helping out, then we only have a few weeksleft to raise money in Ewald's name. Remember, this directly benefits him and the clinic that helps him so much.

Just click on the following link to donate, and feel free to forward the link to others. https://www.joinmda.org/houstonstrideandride2010/brandylashay

Thanks to everyone who has helped us, and given us positive thoughts and prayers. We love you all.

Busy Week

2010-02-27T16:42:00.000-06:00

I was teaching a programming course to a customer at work this week, so not too much has happened with the aquarium.

I purchased several juvenile green chromis. They, for the most part were too small to be collected in the first place and haven't been doing well. Two seem to be strong enough of the eight that I brought home. Lesson learned, these fish need to be at least an inch long before they can be prepared for captivity. I'll not purchase fish this juvenile in the future. (If everyone doesn't, then maybe they'll stop being collected.)

I threw a couple the snails from my display tank into the QT as I was getting a bit of an algae outbreak in that tank. Besides that, it's been a slow week

One of the Greats

2010-02-21T11:57:00.000-06:00

This tank from Thailand features all of the "best" of modern reef-keeping equipment. By best, I really mean most expensive. I really don't know if a custom needle-wheel Bubble King skimmer that costs 10x as much as my Precision Marine beckett skimmer is actually any better. Regardless, the display is impressive.

Maintenance Today

2010-02-21T00:40:00.000-06:00

Change to the feeding cycle for the fish:
So, I'm trying to move my fish from a single food diet to a more diverse diet. It's working out. I've added mysis for the clowns and fire-fish and seaweed for the Tang to the normal pellet food diet they have now. My reason is that the large aquarium will be housing a ton of fish. With just two clowns and a juvenile tang, expensive pellet food wasn't a very expensive option. With closer to twenty or thirty fish, a $25 bag of pellet food doesn't seem like the best idea.

A bit more flow:
So, I haven't taken the plunge and spent $800-$1200 for three really good controllable circulation pumps (wallet needs a break). I do realize that this 180G is going to need more than the Mag 12 return and Iwaki 55RLT circulation pump. There are still plenty of "dead spots" in the tank. I'm getting some cyanobacteria blooms in places where detritus is settling in the system. I added a Koralia 4 and a Maxi-Jet 1200 in some strategic locations. There's a good chance they'll remain there even when I add other pumps.

Some relocation:
I have a really nice "acan echinata" (a large polyp stony coral) that was sitting in the dark side of the tank waiting for me to finish the lights. I haven't finished the lights, so I moved it over to the fully lit portion of the tank. There was also a frag of an Acropora valida (tricolor branching coral) that was getting overgrown by other livestock. I moved it into my QT (quarantine tank). Of course, making a QT into a frag growout tank is a bad idea. I guess I just need a growout tank now Hmm, I've got the equipment...

Incredibly Well Designed System

2010-02-17T21:00:00.000-06:00

This reef system is great. It's not the kind of thing that everyone can put together for any reasonable amount of money, but for an advanced reef keeper this looks like Valhalla.

Oops...

2010-02-15T23:27:00.000-06:00

So, I keep a blog called "reef genius". It's actually "Reef, Genius!"; it's nature that's the genius, not me. I really need to get around to finding a new theme for this site. Regardless. If I didn't make mistakes, how would I learn.

My quarantine tank (QT) was set up with some live rock from my display. I figured there would be no cycle. Well, I was wrong; there is ammonia in the system with the new coral frags. It's no big deal, the tank is small enough that I can do water changes on a daily basis until the cycle is complete. Yes, this works, I've done it before. So, this mistake happened, and it could have been costly, losing all the coral I picked up this weekend, but experience saved me. First, I tested my assumption that there would be no cycle by using a simple ammonia test. Armed with the facts, I am able to mitigate the risk.

I guess this is the kind of thing that you really need to know when keeping a reef. Never do anything that you can't back out of! There are a lot more don'ts than there are do's in this hobby. If you can back out of a decision, it's alright to make an assumption (that pretty much applies to all of life).

Links Page

2010-02-15T15:06:00.000-06:00

Notice the new "Links" page at the top of the site. These are links to other reef keeping resources on the web. They are not paid advertisements, just sites that I like and resources that I take advantage of.

New Additions!

2010-02-13T22:28:00.000-06:00

The quarantine tanks (QT) is up and running. It's just a small (about 14G) cube with a 96W power compact, a Koralia 3 powerhead and a fluval in tank filter with a venturi for aeration. I filled the in tank filter with ceramic "bio" media. I love this stuff. I'm convinced that it's as good as (or better than) live rock for biological filtration. A 20G with an Aquaclear 50 & bio-media was good enough to keep a 6-inch Tang living through a hyposalinity treatment. The QT does have about 10 lbs of cycled live rock directly out of my display. There shouldn't be any worry about a cycle since I've simply added an already working filter to the system.

I picked up five pieces of SPS coral today. The pieces you can't see are an ORA pearlberry frag and a nice dark blue/green granulosa. The small frag in the front middle of the QT is a green stylophora. The two large pieces are unknown pieces that have been sitting in a system for a long time and have been browned out probably for years. I can't wait to see how they color up in my system! I got them for $35 each. It took a lot of willpower not to buy all the fist size colonies that were selling for that price. (I might go back tomorrow, but don't tell my wife.)

Firefish Rescue

2010-02-11T23:43:00.000-06:00

My poor purple firefish went through the weir on the left hand overflow almost two weeks ago. He's been eating and such, but the fish did not seem happy. I asked around about the best method to remove the fish, and the folks at City Pets in Houston (my home town) suggested that I use a very small net. I was afraid that I might damage the plumbing trying to catch the fish, but I managed to work the fish around the plumbing and bring him into his happy home in the live rock.

Firefish are really cute, but they tend to be drama queens. I'll probably see that fish less now that he can find caves to hide in than I did when it was stuck in the overflow!

Check out the Guide

2010-02-09T23:33:00.001-06:00

I am compiling everything I know about keeping reefs into a guide. It is always available in whatever state of edit the guide exists at any given time. Feel free to peruse and to send me e-mail to discuss the contents.

Thanks,
Matt

Tax Refund Time; Discussion of Qarantine

2010-02-06T21:43:00.000-06:00

Since I give the gov't way more money during the year than I need to; I get a nice fat check from back from them as a refund after I file. Most people say you shouldn't set yourself up to get too big of a refund because then you've lost money you could have invested otherwise during the year. How's that working out for you this year? [note: tax year 2009 ... year of "The Great Recession"]

Anyway, we're gonna skim off a few bucks for livestock. Which brings me to an important question. To quarantine or not to quarantine? I'm going to do it for everything that comes in to this system. I can't afford to replace the livestock I've got (and I'm not sure I could handle starting from scratch again; hurricane Ike took out my entire system because we had 17 days with no power). I've run into so many problems with quarantine and it's mostly because...

1.) I find it difficult to keep a dedicated "second" system up and running that is capable of sustaining life for the type of livestock we keep in a reef aquarium.
2.) If I find a problem with the livestock (nudibranch on zoa, red bugs on acro, flat worms, ich, etc...). I have to run the second system fallow for quite some time and or treat that system before it is safe to keep another new creature in the tank.
3.) I'm incredibly impatient.

Of course, #3 is the only real problem. I have all the equipment necessary to keep a quarantine tank (QT), I care enough about the livestock, so...
How will the QT be set up?

Established live rock from my main display (about 15 lbs)
20G High tank
Red Sea Prizm Pro right in the tank.
96W power 50/50 power compacts
Some heater (probably have to buy another)

Some questions you may ask, or I may ask myself:
How long should I quarantine? I'll quarantine for 6-8 weeks.
What livestock goes into quarantine? All new livestock.
Can I add more livestock to the QT when others are in QT? Sure, but you'll have to restart your QT timer for any livestock that's in there that can be infected by new. So, if I had a fish and added an acro, no problem, but if I added another fish, I'd restart the QT timer on the fish in there already.
What's the QT water change schedule? 2 weeks, 50% when livestock is present.

So, that's it. Take care of your livestock; it's part of nature and nature takes care of you.