FarmerTy

Nice! So we had a drop of about 2.53 dKh. At this rate, I'd imagine two more water changes should do it. Did you dose your Calcium and Magnesium up as well or was that the result from just the water change?

Were you able to get a hold of a fish trap and catch the wrasse you were wanting to remove? I still have mine if you need to borrow it.

That's so odd the the 2nd addition of 16 ml only equated in a 0.4 dKh drop. Did you happen to measure the dKh before adding the 16 ml of muriatic acid? I wonder if bubbling it for 2-3 days had any effect on it. Or perhaps we hit some type of saturation point? Or more likely, I just need to stick to my day job. [emoji16] I'm curious as to how much the water change helped out your alk numbers. Looking forward to the test result today!

It sounds like air is being sucked into one of the connections. I would pull all John Guest connections, recut the tubing on it as straight as you can (crooked cuts tend to not seal as well) and if possible, use a sharp tool that cuts cleanly more than smashing it if you know what I mean. Also, if you didnt, I would pull the membrane back out of the tube (use gloves, you don't want to contaminate the membrane with bacteria on your hands) and reinsert it but not all the way back in. Then use the cap of the cap of the tube to push on the membrane and allow it to be pushed back into the tube via you screwing the lid on. This allows your membrane to be seated properly. Pushing it all the way back into the chamber first and screwing the cap could allow some water to bypass the membrane entirely! Hope it helps and maybe I'll be 2 for 2 this week! [emoji4]

I seem to remember different screws used too, such as stainless steel on one version versus the other.

I'd say you have a nutrient issue Sascha. Dinos and bubble algae are usually indicative of it. I'd imagine your skimmer and macro aren't able to process it fast enough. I forget if you do any other method of nutrient removal. Perhaps you need to get back to a steady water change interval? Or run your sump light longer and prune your macro more frequently?

I wonder if they make a banghai cardinalelixir? He's the only guy not eating pellets in my tank!

I wouldn't call it a success yet but today, I got the regal eating pellets with the angelixir. That stuff is AWESOME!!! I'm going to fatten him up a bit and increase my water change protocol to more frequent changes to compensate for all the additional food I'll be feeding. The main goal is to get him super fat and attacking that food aggressively so when I separate the barrier in the tub, he'll have a fighting chance against my more active and aggressive tangs when eating.

Oh I see, you meant add "testing" PO4 to the panel of tests... not meaning adding phosphate to the tank. Lol.

Perfect, sounds like you are doing all the right things to help your tank adjust with your new additions. When you mean you're adding PO4, do you mean you're adding GFO or some type of PO4 removal media? I like both the Red Sea and Salifert test kits. They are consistently good in most people's review.

Kaplan, I have been observing your build progress and here's some things I've noted that may be a contributor to the disappearance of your fish, the death of your brittle stars, and the excess GHA you seem to be battling. Just my opinion but hopefully the observations may help with your build progress. It seems like you have all the necessary equipment and know how to have a successful reef tank. The planning of the tank maintenance and equipment is well thought out as well. I think the one thing that is giving you all your issues is timeframe. Your tank build started less than a month ago and over that time you have added the following: ------------------------- 20x Astrea snails 5x Nassarius snails 2x Emerald crabs 2x Serpent Stars (look like they may be Ophioderma rubicundum) 1x Peppermint Shrimp 1x Coral Banded Shrimp 1-3x Xenia 1x Birdsnest 3x Blue Mushrooms Blue pocillipora Green/blue montipora Pink bird's nest Green Mushroom Blue Mushroom Red Mushroom Green fuzzy mushroom Pom Pom Xenia Teal Brain Picked up a few more inverts Tiger Conch 5x Scarlet hermits 10x Cerith snails 3x Margarita 7x Astrea 3x Banded trochus 1x Tuxedo Urchin Also picked up some fish finally! 1x Neon Goby 1x Banggai Cardinal 1x Purple Firefish 1x Royal Gramma I've got a Yellow Diamond goby on the way. Should be able to pick him up either this weekend or sometime next week. I'm also planning on a 6 line wrasse. I'd also like to replace my stars. -------------------------- You've also toyed with the idea of adding clams, a flame angel, an orchid dottyback, a school of chromis, and possibly a wrasse. The only reason I listed everything is just to see the total accumulation of your bioload that has been added in the last 3 weeks since your tank was started. I do not doubt that your setup and tank size can handle that bioload... what I do doubt is its ability to adjust that quickly to a major increase in bioload within the short timeframe that has passed so far. I know you have been testing your water and also tested to confirm the original cycle was complete but maybe something that you may have missed is with each addition to your bioload, your tank has to adjust. Incremental additions to your system allows it to adjust with the incrementally increased biological activity as well to compensate for the waste products of your additions. When you don't slowly ramp up your bioload but instead increase it dramatically over a short period, you will overload your biological processes and the result will be unprocessed waste products in the form of ammonia and nitrite that don't get converted in a timely manner to a less toxic form, nitrate. I believe your loss of the brittle stars and your fish up to this point might be attributed to that reason alone. Some fish just don't handle spikes of ammonia/nitrite as well as others... even more so if they are dropped in a new environment with possible hostile tankmates or other equally stressed fish. This would also explain your massive algal growth you mentioned. You have a backlog of probably ammonia/nitrite and a large increase in nitrates from the waste products of your additions, coupled with increased feedings for the new additions to the tank which add even more nitrates and also phosphates, and you have the perfect nutrient soup for algae to grow. The cleanup crew you have added up to this point is almost 2-3x what I have in my 215-gallon tank if that gives you any comparative level of cleanup crew... though for comparison purposes, I do run light on my cleanup crew because I have overzealous and active tangs that pick away at the rocks all day long. Also, a point of observation over the years in my various tank transfers but I believe the bioload impact of adding corals is severely underestimated. They are living, breathing (colonial/singular) animals as well and do make an impact on bioload as well, though obviously less than fishes, yet still impactful. I know you mentioned the water parameters are good currently and when your brittle stars died, you mentioned the issue has been handled, but you didn't elaborate as to what the levels were, what test kits you may be using, or how you handled it. Perhaps more detail into your actual parameters and what you did to mitigate the nutrient issues would help everyone try to diagnose your issues with lost livestock and increased algal growth. Bear in mind that nutrients, specifically nitrates and phosphates, will read zero in your tank if you have nuisance algae growth as they will uptake it from the water giving you a false low reading. I hope the assessment is helpful and my apologies if I intruded too much. I can guarantee it was not my intention, I just aim to assess and help diagnose.

They'll just go away once the silicates in your system get used up from the sand addition. I know that my fighting conch eats diatoms.

Perhaps that's just what the gallery does... I've never used it. I like the aquascaping with the twin towers.

Tank is looking great! How come the pictures are so small? I can't zoom in on any of them.

No problem. I tried clicking on the screen to no avail. Hopefully the touch screen takes care of it. It's odd either way and Neptune should look into it.

My regal has been watching the tangs eat all day and doesn't care. Got a good pic of your regal?

I checked mine and noticed I didn't have a slider on my Magnesium chart. I just touched the graph and had it "reset zoom" and my slider appeared. My laptop is a touch screen, if yours isn't, maybe try click it with a mouse to see if the reset zoom will show up?

Could it be possible that you don't have enough readings on the alk and Ca yet to be able to slide yet? Just being Captain Obvious here as I'm sure you looked at that already but wanted to mention in case you overlooked that.

Nice! That's definitely an uphill battle to get them to eat! Well done! How'd you do it? Btw, the angelixir soak is supposed to work for moorish idols too. It worked wonders for my regal angelfish to get him to eat.

You mean you are missing your sliders at the bottom? Odd, mine still has it.

It might help to post what corals you have.

Since CP treats for ich too, I decided to hold them in there for the 30 days recommended for ich. You're right, marine velvet is only 21 days.5-6 weeks turned into 10 weeks too for the tank to be fallow in case that was ich and I misdiagnosed.

Fish so clean you can eat off them!No way I'm doing a QT side business... I've changed that water in the QT more times than I've ever done water changes ever! Never again!

Well, I was thinking the Angelixir was snake oil. It had some great reviews online so I figured, why not? Turns out it works as advertised. The regal angel was cautiously nibbling up mysis and bloodworms soaked in the angelixir. It was still hesitant but that was the first time it ever ate anything out of the water column and it hasn't touched mysis again since the first day I introduced him. It was developed by a marine scientist with the same amino acid composition as sponges. It's supposed to help stimulate their appetite and it did exactly that. Kudos to Brightwells for the product! [emoji106] Now I'll just keep soaking the mysis, some pellets, nori, and flakes with the angelixir and keep getting it used to eating the same stuff I feed my other fish. I will have to admit, it was quite hilarious to see the fish still using a ripping head motion as if it were still eating sponges. The taste buds said you're eating sponges, so the brain followed with a, better twist your head real fast to tear off a piece. [emoji24] 11 days now that it's been in the chloroquine phosphate (CP) treatment for ich, velvet, and brookynella just in case. No more signs of ich but full treatment is 30 days so I have 19 more days and counting. At that point, I'll remove the CP and do two 5 day treatments of prazipro for intestinal worms and flatworms for all the fish. My ETA to return the fish is actually going to be 10 weeks so it looks like April 22 is going to be the welcome home day for my fish. Just in time as I will be hosting the April ARC club meeting that following weekend hopefully! [emoji4]

Oh nice! Flame wrasses I'm assuming. Are one of your other wrasses bullying them? Is that why you need the fish trap?