Cali Kid Corals

Rygh's 250 gallon - Rev 3

So I finally eliminated the algae mess!!
But I cheated...

Whatever was rotting in the rock after the reboot finally ran out, and I stopped getting tons of crud per day out of skimmer.
Then I did some big manual removal and scrubbing of algae.
It was clearly hurting, but you know how hard it is to really eliminate.
So I cheated and hit it with some Algaecide. (Dino-X)
Worked great. No algae, no problems with corals.

My snails may starve. Might have to give some away.

Still have some Cyano on the bottom. That pink is not Coraline.

Now time to get all the parameters back in check.
In particular, get phosphates down and salinity up.
And set up the QT again.

Then if all is still well after thanksgiving, get some new corals.

No new Majanos in the last week either. Hope hope hope...

View attachment 10743

Dyno-X ? I started clean, all the rock was dry, bleached, rinsed, air dry, rinsed, air dry and then cycled.
I’m having algae similar to what you had after the reboot. Currently have a sea-hare and does a good job but it’s a lot of algae showing up on the rocks and the skimmer pulls out gunk, like a heavy bio-load system and I have nothing but the hare in there and very few corals.
The fuge has started to grow macro the way it’s supposed to right after I swapped the grow bulb for a daylight.

All your hard work has paid off and all I have to do is Dyno-X (but I have done some hard work too)
 
Dyno-X ? I started clean, all the rock was dry, bleached, rinsed, air dry, rinsed, air dry and then cycled.
I’m having algae similar to what you had after the reboot. Currently have a sea-hare and does a good job but it’s a lot of algae showing up on the rocks and the skimmer pulls out gunk, like a heavy bio-load system and I have nothing but the hare in there and very few corals.
The fuge has started to grow macro the way it’s supposed to right after I swapped the grow bulb for a daylight.

All your hard work has paid off and all I have to do is Dyno-X (but I have done some hard work too)

Yep, all that cleaning we did was probably mostly only effective on the surface.
In retrospect, probably should have taken over a bathtub for a month, and really soaked it,
changing water every few days.

Fauna Marin Dino X. (Algae X)
BRS has it. I used the whole 250 ml bottle.
There are probably cheaper versions.
 
A curious PH graph below ....
When I was gone over the break, the PH was higher and very stable.
Once we returned, there was a noticeable drop. Not large, but definitely noticeable.
The only difference : More CO2 from a couple of people, and feeding frozen food.
No changes to equipment or anything else.
I have not used the gas stove in the kitchen or car in the garage. (wife is still out of town)
Surprised it is that noticeable.

phgrph.jpeg
 
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Yup, we humans are global warming machines, exhaling all this CO2 :D

But depending upon how air tight your house is, you can have quite a dramatic effect in excess CO2 in the immediate area. I think the BRS guys run CO2 scrubbers specifically because they have so many people moving around the offices and it really does affect CO2 quite a bit.
 
Might have something with indoor plants though, maybe not just one plant, but change the tank area to more of a jungle theme look...

Plant-mediated CO2 removal has received less research attention, primarily because this pollutant is well controlled by modern air conditioning systems. But field trials have shown that between three and six medium-sized plants in a non-air conditioned building can reduce CO2 concentrations by a quarter.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2013-07-air-hidden-indoor.html#jCp
 
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I like the idea and that phys.org article was interesting. Especially how the microbes in the soil are doing a lot of the work to clean the air of contaminants, working symbiotically with the plants. Analogous to the microbes in our live rock doing most of the work to remove contaminants from our tank water.

It would be a solid project to have enough live plants and soil to balance the indoor VOCs and human/pet respiration. Not the easiest way to do it, but I’d be interested to see what that looks like.
 
Yeah lots of information out there how indoor plants can seriously impact air quality for the better. I've seen articles that talk about which are better than others, so putting "a tree" probably wouldn't be as good as say a spider plant.
 
Guess I need to get some grow lights and start some sort of indoor farm.
:)

We do have a couple of indoor plants, just not enough to matter.

I have often thought about adding a fresh air input with a heat exchanger. This house is
well sealed, with double pane windows and all, which is good for AC, but does get stuffy. Especially bedrooms.
 
I am wondering if I need to add filter socks??
Or maybe one of those roller filter things.

Now that I do not have a sand bed, I get a ton of detritus coating everything in my sump.
Looking at it, no wonder my sand bed was always such a mess.
Most I can siphon out, but I do occasionally have to pull out skimmer and really clean it,
since it is so coated in crud.

Although in fairness, tank is still recovering from reboot.

IMG_3431.jpg
 
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