Cali Kid Corals

Vincerama2's 180 gallon "Wifebane" reef project!

As others have said, I also think it’s hard to wipe them out once they are so infested. I know it’s tough to restart but once you have, you’ll know you did the right thing.
 
Are there aiptasia on the glass (probably.. I know), however if there aren't then fixing is relatively easy, just throw away everything that has aiptasia on it or oxidize is to the extreme (think bleach)
 
Salty Underground has/had a sale on Berghias, under 6 bucks for 1/4" ones. So I bought 15 to get to 75 bucks for free shipping. Added some snails and a fighting conch.

This is day two, they are still alive currently. If they survive, then I'll be interested to see if they make a dent. I could have also just taken one dollar bills and glued them to each aiptasia, but I would
need more money.

Third THIRD attempt at berghias, though last time it was a previous tank.

I'm not rebooting yet.

Also, about uh, 17 years ago, BARE had a group buy on Aragonite Play Sand, a young guy named Dane ordered a pallet and I bought two bags or maybe it was three or four? I used it on my old tank and for the last 17 years, I've been hauling around one 50 lb bag of playsand. It's been in the garage that long ... last week I poured it into the tank. Hoping that a deeper sand bed might help with nitrates. If nothing else, I can stop staring at that bag of sand.

Like they say ... nothing good happens fast in reefing.


V
 
Lots aiptasia going out of control, high nitrates, maybe you are feeding too much? unfortunately the aiptasia are acting like a nutrient control now.
 
I had the plastic pellet "bioreactor" ... I regetted it. The stupid pellets jam up my skimmer and they jammed one expensive skimmer pump and burned it out.

Vinegar/vodka dosing is a definite possibility. I had bought four of those ceramic blocks, two of which are in the tank.
In fact after Christmas (I'm travelling at Xmas time) I think I will start vodka dosing (the tank). I was looking at auto-doser pumps. They seem quite spendy, but I've dumped so much money into this box of water that I might as well do it because it's currently a box of aiptasia and fish. What coral frags I still have are in a small QT tank sitting next to the big tank waiting. I guess two years of QT is adequate. But until the nitrate levels go down, I'm keeping them in their little algae encrusted QT tank. If a spendy doser and vodka are what it takes to move them to the big tank and thrive, then I'll get it.

My nitrate test kit is like this ... I look at the tube and ... is it red, slightly redder red, less redly red, or reddish red? So who knows. All I know is that it's not yellow which is the lower/no nitrates reading. When I had it professionally tested, it was sky high, it's in this journal somewhere... it was like 20 times more than it should be or something.

And yes, my actual biggest regret, aside from taking frags from my old tank and letting one aiptasia come along for the ride was adopting several large fish from other reefers ... fish = feeding = nitrates. Feeding also means big strong breeding aiptasia. I was happier with justs corals and maybe a clown or two... but the kids like the fish.

I missed the offer of a filefish, but I'll see how the nudibranchs do. I was at Ultimate Aquarium (San Mateo) and was ABOUT to buy a file fish, but decided I might try something else first.

I'm resisting a tank nuke. There is a reason this tank is called Wifebane. Tank nuking would increase Wife Agro level to Wifecon 5.


V
 
A Sulfur de-nitifier is not like the bio pellets thing; think of it as a calcium reactor; in fact, some denitrifiers lack the CO2 parts only. Midwest and Korallin are pretty much the same thing.
I think any Calcium Reactor would be good to use with Sulfur pellets.
A plus is that the Sulfur Reactor dissolves the Aragonite due to the acidic environment and the effluent is just like a CaRx. The pH of the effluent is low but since is a very slow drip/stream you coud use a regular TLF as a second chamber to bring th pH up without any valves to regulate flow.
Takes a few days to have the reactor mixed media (aragonite and Sulfur) populate with bacteria but once it takes off, it does WORK.
A “side” effect is in the remote case the effluent line cloggs and you don’t detect it, once you unclogg it, a funny smell will fill the air.
I had a “passive” reactor; a simple TLF 150 fed from the drain (IIRC), ball valve at the output. Did clog once, luckily, family wasn’t home when I fully opened the ball valve. The Midwest or Korallin are active due to the recirculating pump and would just need a simple feed pump; IMO, a simple peristaltic pump will do.
I still have the TLF at home on a shelf in a closet, filled with new Sulfur and Aragonite media, yours if you want to give it a try.
 
Last edited:
xcaret said:
A Sulfur de-nitifier is not like the bio pellets thing; think of it as a calcium reactor; in fact, some denitrifiers lack the CO2 parts only. Midwest and Korallin are pretty much the same thing.
I think any Calcium Reactor would be good to use with Sulfur pellets.
A plus is that the Sulfur Reactor dissolves the Aragonite due to the acidic environment and the effluent is just like a CaRx. The pH of the effluent is low but since is a very slow drip/stream you coud use a regular TLF as a second chamber to bring th pH up without any valves to regulate flow.
Takes a few days to have the reactor mixed media (aragonite and Sulfur) populate with bacteria but once it takes off, it does WORK.
A “side” effect is in the remote case the effluent line cloggs and you don’t detect it, once you unclogg it, a funny smell will fill the air.
I had a “passive” reactor; a simple TLF 150 fed from the drain (IIRC), ball valve at the output. Did clog once, luckily, family wasn’t home when I fully opened the ball valve. The Midwest or Korallin are active due to the recirculating pump and would just need a simple feed pump; IMO, a simple peristaltic pump will do.
I still have the TLF at home on a shelf in a closet, filled with new Sulfur and Aragonite media, yours if you want to give it a try.
Click to expand...


Hi Mario, I'll do some research into that type of reactor. Thanks for the kind offer to lend the reactor, I'll let you know!

Luckily, my family is used to my stinky smells. Once while driving we passed a dead skunk and my wife immediately asked me if it was me. Come on!

V
 
scuzy said:
You'll love it image a ts3 it keeps that nitrate low.


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Click to expand...

I wasn't sure on the proper size, so I just picked the TS-1, which claims it's good to 200 gallons.

I really hope this works. I know the nitrates are from fish food and poop, but the fish in the tank are a given. The kids like the fish. If it were up to me it would be all corals and inverts.

I hope it works as I've tried a lot of stuff to get nitrates down and it was never enough. Marinepure blocks, deep(ish) sandbed, lots o' live rock (OK, maybe the LR is not thick enough to do any anaerobic processing), stupid stupid biopellets. Nothing can keep up with fish poo. Also, my big skimmer broke and I've been using my trusty AquaC EV-120, which may be too small, but even if it wasn't too small, it's not skimming huge amounts so it's not a matter of skimmer capacity. Whenever it seems to be not working, I'll clean it and find biopellets clogging the water injector nozzle.

V
 
The best thing I’ve tried that keeps nitrates AND phosphates in check was a good sized fuge growing chaeto.

It was too good and I got to the point I seriously considered dosing nitrates back into the system. SPS were getting pale and growth was slowing down.

I dialed back the fuge light hours and fed more corals food. Finally found a good balance.

The best thing was that it did not need any maintenance other than pulling out handfuls once a while.


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Which reminds me ... I need to get my seagrass experiment going.
Not that I think it is the "best" nitrate export. But because it seems fun.
 
xcaret said:
I have plenty of sulfur media if you need.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mario, I had ordered some when I ordered the reactor. It's the CaribSea LM something.

Question though ... how much do you use? The instructions say 70% sulphur, 20% aragonite. However the guy from Marine Depot told me not to use as much as they tell you to (ie maybe a 1/3 of whatever they say). So I did some research and came up with a formula that didn't quite make sense. One guy said take your tank capacity and multipy by .006, which is 0.6%, then he gives the example of 180 Gallons x .006 = 1.08 litres. Whoa wait, how are you converting from gallons of water into litres of volume? But ... 1 litre does not seem unreasonable, and from what I've read it's actually better to use less sulphur .

What is your experience with that? The thing is that you put the sulpur in, then a small screen, then the aragonite, so to adjust the amount of sulphur, you have to take out the aragonite first, then add some more, then replace the aragonite on top, which will be a disaster I'm sure. So I'd rather get a good ballpark to start.

V
 
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