Max’s 30 gal

[max_nano]

I added an IM nano skimmer today, I don’t believe the water level is high enough for it to skim. However, it is connected to a scrubber and should be a good way to raise pH.

I also added an auto feeder, I attached it to my hanging lights and will see if I can get it to aim into the feeding ring to limit the pellets that fly over the overflow. This feeder is interesting, it’s basically a clock that you put pieces into on the hours you want to feed, the center clock spins and if you have a feeding piece set, it will spin the outer ring and released the food. I think it will be silent which is cool, although the the cranking gears of the AFS was a nice dinner bell when I had that.

 

[max_nano]

Also, I think this was a piece of red planet that I got from @Coral reefer but this is green planet now. I’m interested to see how the colors change

 

[max_nano]

po4: .29
alk: 9
NO3: between 10-25 but closer to 10 than the other times so it is lowering. I will keep up the 1mL dosage then will probably bump it back to 2mL once it gets lower than 5 as I believe that will keep it static at my current uptake.

PO4 was .55 Saturday, then .6 on Monday. I have had GFO and my new skimmer to thank for that, although I suspect it’s primarily from the GfO


I am going to be away from my tank from tomorrow until next Wednesday so I think I should remove the GFO and just let the skimmer work on the nutrients. Anyone disagree with that plan? I don’t want it to bottom out while I’m away and can only monitor temp and alk remotely. Maybe I could half the gfo And go to quarter cup while I’m away

 

[max_nano]

Took some pictures. This is the polyp labs lens and macro. I set my lights to just WW and CW but my blue led bars still add a some blue.

 

[max_nano]

Not such a fun update: I need to test N and P later to see if they are wacky, but after being away from the tank for a few days I came back to more monti and LPS loss. My wall hammer is almost a goner, the small trachy I got lost most of their tissue, my stylos all lost their tissue, and the only acro impacted was my UC strawberry shortcake which is STN’ing. I’m so bummed and it is making me full stop on adding corals for now. I think I went too fast adding things but I was not able to do anything else due to my move. I’m going to test later and will update this thread with my hypothesis, I want to learn from this mistake so it isn’t a total loss.


On the bright side, I have a lot more coralline growth, improved PE on some acros, and the nepthea I fragged has healed. GSP has grown as well, haha

 

[max_nano]

alk: 7.9
PO4: .28
NO3: 10-25 (lower than it was on 9/28 based on color comparison)

alk slowly lowered to around 8. I didn’t reduce dosage but I did add a skimmer and scrubber, and I was gone so I attribute this to higher pH. So that is good

PO4 came down due to the skimmer, I removed the GFO before I left. I still want this lower but I’m not rushing it and it has gone down since the last time I tested.

NO3 appears to be lower but it is hard to tell. I have that dosing at just 1mL/day. I’m going to probably do a WC which will help bring that down. I don’t want to just stop dosing it since this reduced dosage seems to be slowly bringing it down.

Im not sure what caused the corals to die but I’m bummed about what I lost. I have some DBTC to update with bad news, I’ll try to frag some of the zoas I have since I feel bad losing DBTC corals and they have been growing and are ready to share. I am going to stick to what I’ve got and just grow it out. The palmers blue Millie is still looking great, and I even had a piece knocked off by a snail that didn’t lose any tissue despite being on its side on the bottom ‘glass’.

 

[max_nano]

Oofta. Not fun watching the hammer bail out, but it was pretty interesting to see. not what I wanted to come back to but it’s an opportunity to learn. I’m starting to think the one rbta I had left may have ended up in the gyre, I can’t find it anywhere but it was tiny and may be in a crevice. That would have made the water cloudy though?

Tank is just at the 3 month mark and I absolutely went too quick adding corals. tonight or tomorrow I think I’ll take out the Red Sea tests for CA and MG to get a full picture of the tanks parameters. I may do my first ICP ever to get a baseline and see if anything is out of range.

I’m considering some frequent water changes to do a mini reset but I want to be careful doing that so I don’t make things worse. the corals all flourished early on when it was all freshly mixed water so I’m concerned things got out of wack while I learned how much to feed and dose.

edit: here’s the chart of the alk. It didn’t move more than .5 in a day so I’m pretty confused what happened. I do think this may be the result of a nem smoothie. I’m pretty bummed out

 

[max_nano]

Alk: 8.1
PO4: .27
NO3: 10-25

going to do a water change which will bring the N and P down further

 

[max_nano]

I did a big water change and moved the tank over so it’s centered under the light. I also took the low water level as an opportunity to move my pumps.

I now have the gyre on the top centered on the back wall. The nero is on the side below the overflow and is pushing down and to the other side. I have the gyre on a random schedule and it’s moving the corals nicely so far. We’ll see, I think it will improve surface gas exchange as well which should help on the hotter days and with pH (Assuming co2 isn’t too high in the room, but I leave my windows open as much as possible)

I made a lot of zoa frags and will hopefully have them healed up soon to trade with you all.

I trimmed off any dead bits of coral and am hopeful the the tides are turning and I’ll have better success going forward, but who knows.

edit: water change brought alk down so 7.8. I am making more water and will do another wc tomorrow after I test P and N. I might store it in jugs and wait so I don’t change anything too quick. But my goal is lower N, P, and Alk

 

[max_nano]

I did another water change and cleaned out the back chambers from all detritus.
The new zoa frags I made almost all opened but will need some time to heal and attach.
Despite the issues I’ve faced and corals I’ve lost some things have been doing well! The green acro from Neptune, BC magic wand (growth tips are looking a little weird though), zoas, GSP, and red planet all are looking good

 

[max_nano]

 

[max_nano]

If tips of an acro die and are brown from algae I should cut that tip off to give it a better chance to recover? Or let it be?

 

[Meshmez]

If tips of an acro die and are brown from algae I should cut that tip off to give it a better chance to recover? Or let it be?

My vote is cut them off.

 

[max_nano]

My vote is cut them off.

Okay I’m gonna cut and then dip in TLF revive and then I’ll cross my fingers. thanks!

 

[max_nano]

Alk: 8.2
PO4: .03
NO3: 5-10

Ive only been using the pellet auto feeder and I lowered dosing for NO3. I’m gonna feed some more but not as much as last time. I might pack the auto feeder with more pellets

 

[max_nano]

I also raised the skimmer collection cup up to try and skim less, or at least “dry”

 

[max_nano]

Alk: 7.6
PO4: 0.08
NO3: between 2-5 ppm

 

[max_nano]

Alk has started going down but I think I’ll let it continue that trend and then might aim to keep it around 7.5 for awhile and see how it is.

PO4 is back to a range I’m happy with, but it has been trending down so I want to back off on some nutrient control so I might remove the filter floss, but I like keeping the water in the back chambers to be clean with a prefilter.

NO3 seems to be back down and in a good spot. I dosed 1mL and will check tomorrow, but like the PO4 this has been decreasing and I want to be careful in my attempts to level it out at this lower value and I especially do not want to drop it to 0

Overall the tank seems to be back on track after the large water changes two weekends ago, I think I just need to keep myself on a schedule for those, they aren’t hard with my little tank.
here are some pics I took today, no Full tank pics for a bit while things recover. The Kermit song granulosa is looking awesome. It was only purple when it arrived and now it’s a mixture of purple and green, I’m hoping it stays as a mix of those colors. Good PE from the acros makes me happy

LC gonzo gold, check it out on DBTC if interested

Highlighter torch - same as the one from the group buy but I got mine earlier

red Goni from @Coral reefer This thing had insane PE in my previous tank, I hope I can bring that back

red planet and RR Wolverine behind it

Assorted zoanthids

fast growing green acro I picked up from Neptune in the $10 tank, always fun finding pieces in that tank

one of the BC frags which has grown the most, it’s an interesting color thats hard to photograph.

and here‘s the Kermit song granny, even with the orange filter, purple is hard to photograph with my blue lights but this is looking awesome and two toned

 

[Alexx]

So your zoas have the same par lvl with your acro? How much light do you have where you keep the acros and the zoas happy?
I wonder how can you keep both happy at almost the same lvl.

 

[max_nano]

So your zoas have the same par lvl with your acro? How much light do you have where you keep the acros and the zoas happy?
I wonder how can you keep both happy at almost the same lvl.

The rock with multiple types of zoas is near the side of the tank and is almost as far from being under the xr30 as is possible in my tan so it gets about half the par as the spots closer to the center of the tank. on my frag rack, the ones near the acros are ones that I’ve tested by putting in higher par before so I knew they could handle it.
The zoas next to the green acro seem to enjoy that high par, they have doubled in just a couple months. I have some Rastas in a spot with higher par and they haven’t been growing well so I know not to put them in a high par again.
I like to frag the zoas that grow really fast and then put multiple in different spots for ”science” in quotes because I don’t do it in an organized way or track things, it‘s just my way of learning