Cali Kid Corals

BleepBloop’s 73 Gallon

Nitrates been creeping up a bit and I can never seem to keep macro algae alive in my sump. Granted I do not have a good space for it in my sump currently. I bought a chaeto reactor from @Jonathan Chia so next project will be setting that up.
 
Also started dosing AB+ for my coral, haven't tuned into the dosing yet so I can't say that I have seen any direct effects yet, but what the yellow color of it did do is show me where I could use a little more flow. I have found dialing in flow to be one of the toughest things to get right. I turned up the flow on my gyres a little and borrow an mp40 from @Rubyo which I thought would be too much flow but actually works well on the lower settings so I might look into getting some sort of extra pump in there. I may have to move my tank locally in the next year or so, so am already starting to plan for that, hopefully use the opportunity to get rid of my sand and go barebottom, slowly stockpiling supplies to make that move as easy as possible
 
Set up the algae reactor I bought from @Jonathan Chia, I did not have any room left in my cabinet so I had to somehow balance it in my sump. This thing looks like it's from outer space! Managed to squeeze it in there and got some chaeto from @dswong01 so we will see how it goes. It claims to be incredibly effective, maybe if it works well enough I will stop using my GFO reactor, but that's for later.
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Next thing I did is try my experiment of using my 32 gallon brute RODI trashcan as my ATO reservoir. I am debating getting rid of the ATO reservoir that came with the tank, but for now I decided to just use two ATOs. I got a JBJ auto top off from @Rubyo and set it up today.
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There are a few ways I thought about doing this but the main idea is to have the ATO that came with the tank that works using a float switch only, but then use this one with the sensors to refill the reservoir from the brute that is stored outside.

I used the mode B with one sensor that notified the controller when the water is below a certain level and turns the pump on, and then a second sensor higher up that turns the pump off when it reaches that level. There are some concerns with this since if the pump gets stuck on it will pump my entire brute into the tank and cause some major flooding, so I have been trying to do this slowly and thoughtfully.
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A little difficult to see at this angle but you can see the min and max level sensors there. I set the max level pretty low both to keep the filling tube above the water line to prevent it from back siphoning and also to give me a little wiggle room if it overfills. I also kept very little water in my brute while I test this out. I am also debating using a timed outlet for the ATO pump and only turning it on for 5 minutes twice a day or something since it takes about 4 minutes to fill the container, that way I figured if it gets stuck on cause the sensor failed, the outlet would turn it off, plus it would never evaporate so fast that it would need to be on more often than that. Still wrapping my head around it and have been keeping the outlet off when I am not home to keep an eye on it, but if I can get this reliable to some degree it would be nice to have a large ATO reservoir if I ever go anywhere again. The tube and extension run about 10-15 feet from my tank to outside in this little side yard area of my house.

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Around two months ago I found some MENBs in my display tank, I had found them in my frag tank a while ago, and then got rid of the montis in there and set up a clean tank. Was bummed to see them in the display too but just tore off the bandaid right away and threw out all my montis that night. Here is the pile of them drying outside:
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There were some left that had encrusted over the rocks that I couldn't remove so I just let the MENBs eat them and then once I got tired of looking at coral that were doomed, took the siphon and the bone cutter out and just destroyed all the montis that were left and siphoned out the pieces as well as hopefully any MENBs. I went looking every night but after I had removed the montis I didn't see anymore. Now I really went to town on those montis, then today I am looking at my tank and what do I find but a little piece of monti that must have survived from like two tiny polyps and grown, I was blown away to see this
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Here is the little piece, what blows me away is that it isn't getting eaten by any MENBs so maybe there are none left or they just haven't found it yet, in theory the tank has been montiless for about 2 months, so I will see what is going on and keep an eye out for MENBs, I hadn't planned to put any more montis in for a while in hopes of starving them out.
 
Next difficulty has been my continuing battle with cyano, I have done two seperate blackouts, one 2 day and one 3 day about a week apart, but it keeps coming back. Used to only on the sand but recently it has gone on to the rocks a bit and getting close to some coral. My po4 is about 0.1 (up from 0.7 a couple weeks ago which is where it was for a while) and my no3 usually hovers around 10, when I test earlier today it was closer to 5 which I attribute to a recent large water change. Here are some pics:

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There is both the obvious red patch around the acan in the bottom right of the image, but there is always that brown on the sand, which may be some other algae? but seems to be almost just a light coating of cyano if that is even possible.

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Here you can see the brown on the sand a bit better vs the cleaner sand.

So far manual removal has worked, but like I said it is getting closer to coral, I was thinking of adding some flow, since when I forgot to turn my gyres back on after a spot feeding it really took off in that 10 hour or so period. Really wanted to stay away from any chemical solutions, but wondering how long other people tried other methods before resorting to that.
 
My latest mistake was leaving my dosing pump on on accident and dumping a whole bunch of two part into my system. By the time I caught it my alk had jumped from about 8.3 to 13 or so, luckily I had a lot of water mixed up and was able to do probably about a 50%ish water change which brought it back down to 9.2 or so and then just it drop the rest of the way naturally. This was a week ago and while most things are still alive and doing well some things have popped up on my coral that may or may not be due to this.
Some white spots on sps:
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My octospawn has been sort of clenched up the last couple days too even though the frogspawn and hammers are fully open next to it

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Could it be getting stung by a frogspawn? I was under the impression they could be next to each other
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One of my acans just disintegrated this morning too:

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Brown jelly possible on acans? I must dipped it, blew off the dead tissue and then moved it to the frag tank although I suspect it is a goner, not really sure what happened or if I should fear for my other acans.
 
What is the protocol for trimming or killing palys/zoas? I have a lot that are overgrowing and want to keep them at bay but am scared about toxins, can I just cut them and siphon them, or aptaisa x them or something?

Same goes for my anenomes, they have gotten out of control!
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There are like 4 there after giving away 3 splits, luckily they just sort of stay in the rock there but I tired to get one out and they are all attached in the hard to get to crevaces, I thought I had killed one after vigorously scraping at the foot to get it out and then instead it just formed two nems. Maybe I just gotta go at it with an ice cube and power head or something, but worst comes to worse I would kill one if they got too close to my coral, just not sure how to do it without creating too much waste in the tank, I guess maybe I can just go at it with a siphon and see what happens
 
I set up a co2 scrubber a few posts ago, after which my ph got up to 8.3 even 8.4 in the day and I think it did help my growth. I was skeptical at first but then I saw my alk usage go up so I thought maybe it really was happening. However that did not last really long and then even when I changed the media it was not getting that high up again, so I set it up as recirculating and have been trying that, it is now usually about 8 at night and hovers around 8.2 during the day, creeping up to maybe 8.3 an hour before lights out or so
 
Next thing I am working on is my light schedule, I am still slowly ramping up to higher intensities but sort of paused when I was having some issues because I don't want to be doing too much at once. But currently there is no ramp up or down, my light just goes on at noon and goes out at 8 pm at the same intensity and spectrum all day. If I wanted to ramp this up and down and have a longer overall photo period, can I just add that before or after my current photo period, or would I need to lower my daytime intensities if I am going to have blues and violets on at maybe 10-20% for an hour or two extra per day?
 
Lots happening as always, some steps backward but still feels like more steps forward, really happy with the growth I am seeing on my coral and really as opposed to be discouraged with the set backs really just want a bigger tank to correct some of my mistakes
 
One additional annoyance has been vermetid snails, it seems that ever since I have been trying to get rid of them and superglue them shut there are more of them. It seems the level to which they are harmful are debated but they just annoy me. It also seems that whenever I do a water change they all release their nets or whatever. Anybody know the reason behind this? Maybe it has the do with the temperature difference in the new water vs the old? I did buy some bumblebee snails which seem to be going after some of them, but they are very slow moving
 
BleepBloopMunchMunch said:
One additional annoyance has been vermetid snails, it seems that ever since I have been trying to get rid of them and superglue them shut there are more of them. It seems the level to which they are harmful are debated but they just annoy me. It also seems that whenever I do a water change they all release their nets or whatever. Anybody know the reason behind this? Maybe it has the do with the temperature difference in the new water vs the old? I did buy some bumblebee snails which seem to be going after some of them, but they are very slow moving
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I always assumed it was since food for them gets stirred up during the water change.
 
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