xtlosx
New member
OK, well I haven't done an update in a long while and a lot has happened, so I figured maybe I should document what is going on..
So for one, you can never rinse out dry base rock enough is the moral of my story.. We have ~130# of marco rock in the DT and another couple of #s in the fuge. I rinsed the rock, and sand a LOT before going into the tank, but apparently not enough. After adding my fish and the one gig, I started getting a real bad cyano bloom. To the point where I had to re-home my prized SPS colonies to a buddies house (thanks jfuka). Thankfully, they'll recover and can come back when things are done, but I continue..
Everything was going great, skimmer rocking and rollin', parameters perfect, all was good.... One day, my skimmer just lost foam head and wouldn't regain it. I was puzzled, it hadn't done that in two months. I pulled it out, cleaned it, checked everything, worked just fine. I thought maybe I over GFO'd too quickly, or over carbon, but neither turned out to be the case. In fact I never figured out what in the heck actually caused it to happen. After about 1.5 weeks of basically NO skimming it came back and started working again, then the next thing happened.....
The cyano just came one day, and wouldn't go away. It would pick half of a rock or so, cover it like a mat, then be gone. This has been going on for probably 1.5 months now, but the spots that got it first are burning out, and I'm seeing less and less... Keep in mind I have been running GFO & Carbon constantly throughout the process so I am exporting as much of the phosphates as I can. Never did we get cyano on the sand, just the rock. So essentially whatever was trapped and died on the rock just 2 months into it, started coming out. In the process we lost our Hippo & Powder Blue. Total bummer.. I have since then been doing weekly 20G water changes which have taken me from a state of (tank crash freaking out) back to normal now.. it's under control.. To keep my inhabitants on top of their game, their food is all soaked in Selco, and periodically garlic, algae sheets daily, etc, etc... So I have stopped the bleeding, and good news is, the crap is burning out. Soon enough, my tank will be purple. We have coraline popping up all n the back glass, and on pieces of rock... Sadly, whatever was in the rock overwhelmed my biofilter, and the tangs were the most sensitive, so they didn't make it.. truly, what a bummer.. I have a bout of stress ich right now with some of my fish, but working through my mini almost crash it's getting much better... slowly but surely.
Recently, I picked up a Green Gig to go along with our Purple which has been making a miraculous recovery.. Gigs look AWESOME and knock on wood, neither medicated with cipro...
I run Natural Mode (Shallow Reef) on my tank so during mid point of the day it's around a 10-12k temperature which the gigs LOVE.... the light and daily feedings are helping them come back in a quick method. I'm experimenting with changing the depth, and now am running at 31ft down, so getting some blues in their as well, overall, I am loving this natural mode with the Radions. The tank truly is centered around the Gigs, and I hope eventually when everything is settled down and I feel a little less on edge, to get a blue Gig to complete my group.. Wonder if my Onyx's will notice the green gig right next door.
You can see in some of the pictures, the red cyano mat that takes over the rock, but it just gets smaller, and smaller, and eventually is gone... Soon enough, all of my rock will be purple\pink
End of the day I'm reminded how delicate our tanks are, and nothing good happens quickly in this hobby no matter how much we think we know.
Some updated pictures....
So for one, you can never rinse out dry base rock enough is the moral of my story.. We have ~130# of marco rock in the DT and another couple of #s in the fuge. I rinsed the rock, and sand a LOT before going into the tank, but apparently not enough. After adding my fish and the one gig, I started getting a real bad cyano bloom. To the point where I had to re-home my prized SPS colonies to a buddies house (thanks jfuka). Thankfully, they'll recover and can come back when things are done, but I continue..
Everything was going great, skimmer rocking and rollin', parameters perfect, all was good.... One day, my skimmer just lost foam head and wouldn't regain it. I was puzzled, it hadn't done that in two months. I pulled it out, cleaned it, checked everything, worked just fine. I thought maybe I over GFO'd too quickly, or over carbon, but neither turned out to be the case. In fact I never figured out what in the heck actually caused it to happen. After about 1.5 weeks of basically NO skimming it came back and started working again, then the next thing happened.....
The cyano just came one day, and wouldn't go away. It would pick half of a rock or so, cover it like a mat, then be gone. This has been going on for probably 1.5 months now, but the spots that got it first are burning out, and I'm seeing less and less... Keep in mind I have been running GFO & Carbon constantly throughout the process so I am exporting as much of the phosphates as I can. Never did we get cyano on the sand, just the rock. So essentially whatever was trapped and died on the rock just 2 months into it, started coming out. In the process we lost our Hippo & Powder Blue. Total bummer.. I have since then been doing weekly 20G water changes which have taken me from a state of (tank crash freaking out) back to normal now.. it's under control.. To keep my inhabitants on top of their game, their food is all soaked in Selco, and periodically garlic, algae sheets daily, etc, etc... So I have stopped the bleeding, and good news is, the crap is burning out. Soon enough, my tank will be purple. We have coraline popping up all n the back glass, and on pieces of rock... Sadly, whatever was in the rock overwhelmed my biofilter, and the tangs were the most sensitive, so they didn't make it.. truly, what a bummer.. I have a bout of stress ich right now with some of my fish, but working through my mini almost crash it's getting much better... slowly but surely.
Recently, I picked up a Green Gig to go along with our Purple which has been making a miraculous recovery.. Gigs look AWESOME and knock on wood, neither medicated with cipro...
I run Natural Mode (Shallow Reef) on my tank so during mid point of the day it's around a 10-12k temperature which the gigs LOVE.... the light and daily feedings are helping them come back in a quick method. I'm experimenting with changing the depth, and now am running at 31ft down, so getting some blues in their as well, overall, I am loving this natural mode with the Radions. The tank truly is centered around the Gigs, and I hope eventually when everything is settled down and I feel a little less on edge, to get a blue Gig to complete my group.. Wonder if my Onyx's will notice the green gig right next door.
You can see in some of the pictures, the red cyano mat that takes over the rock, but it just gets smaller, and smaller, and eventually is gone... Soon enough, all of my rock will be purple\pink
End of the day I'm reminded how delicate our tanks are, and nothing good happens quickly in this hobby no matter how much we think we know.
Some updated pictures....
