Tank Journal Archive

Ziggy

Member
Jul 6, 2015
154
61
Adelaide
Five And A Half Months Old
The tank is now five and a half months old and I'm pleased with its progress for the most part so far.
12140029_10200985494675328_820193825872063490_o.jpg


The blue green cyano on the sand bed is persisting but is definitely improving. there is now zero GHA in the weir and virtually zero GHA anywhere in the tank or sump now.

All water parameters are consistently spot on and the coral and fish are all happy and healthy. The new Copperband Butterfly is still not eating from the water column during the normal broadcast feeding but he is picking at the rock work and is alert, plump and healthy. So he must be eating the fan worms and pods etc from the rock work. I have glued some LR to a spare magnet glass cleaner and have been putting live black worms in the crevices of that piece of LR in the hope that he'll start eating that. So far no luck yet but I'm not too worried at this stage. He was eating in the LFS so I'm sure he will eventually get the hang of it again.

I've been doing some reading on the Refield ratio and its impact on the risk of algae and cyano. As I understand it, the 16:1 rule states that nitrates need to be 16 times higher than phosphates and that a small reading on both, in a 16:1 balance, is actually healthy for your corals. Currently my phosphates and nitrates both read zero (Hanna and Salifert tests) and have been undetectable for several months. According to the ratio, my zero balances increase the risk of blue green cyano and my tank is a good example of that. I have started using with Coral Snow and Zeobac as a means of reducing the cyano and there is a definite improvement. I've also removed the Phosguard in the hope that I can get a slight phosphate reading. I've also been feeding more heavily to see if I can get a small nitrate reading but my skimmer is so efficient that I can't get anything other than a zero nitrate reading. With that said, I'd rather have a zero reading on phosphates and nitrates than a massively high reading so I can't complain.:)
 
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Coralfarmer

Member
Jul 20, 2015
48
27
The tank is now five and a half months old and I'm pleased with its progress for the most part so far. View attachment 51716

The blue green cyano on the sand bed is persisting but is definitely improving. there is now zero GHA in the weir and virtually zero GHA anywhere in the tank or sump now.

All water parameters are consistently spot on and the coral and fish are all happy and healthy. The new Copperband Butterfly is still not eating from the water column during the normal broadcast feeding but he is picking at the rock work and is alert, plump and healthy. So he must be eating the fan worms and pods etc from the rock work. I have glued some LR to a spare magnet glass cleaner and have been putting live black worms in the crevices of that piece of LR in the hope that he'll start eating that. So far no luck yet but I'm not too worried at this stage. He was eating in the LFS so I'm sure he will eventually get the hang of it again.

I've been doing some reading on the Refield ratio and its impact on the risk of algae and cyano. As I understand it, the 16:1 rule states that phosphates need to be 16 times higher than nitrates and that a small reading on both, in a 16:1 balance, is actually healthy for your corals. Currently my phosphates and nitrates both read zero (Hanna and Salifert tests) and have been undetectable for several months. According to the ratio, my zero balances increase the risk of blue green cyano and my tank is a good example of that. I have started using with Coral Snow and Zeobac as a means of reducing the cyano and there is a definite improvement. I've also removed the Phosguard in the hope that I can get a slight phosphate reading. I've also been feeding more heavily to see if I can get a small nitrate reading but my skimmer is so efficient that I can't get anything other than a zero nitrate reading. With that said, I'd rather have a zero reading on phosphates and nitrates than a massively high reading so I can't complain.:)
Um nitrates need to be higher than phos not the other way
 

Ziggy

Member
Jul 6, 2015
154
61
Adelaide
Yes thanks @Coralfarmer , thats what I meant to write but had Sunday brain death :) Have edited my post. That will teach me for trying to write when tired lol,
I was trying to say that my nitrates need to be 16 times greater than my phosphates and that my targets are 0.3 for nitrates and 0.02 for phosphates.
 
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ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
Glad to see you're on top of your algae problems. They come and go, especially with a new tank. I've taken to putting all live rock in a separate vessel with gobs of GFO on it for a month before I use it and I'm not having any algae issues thus far. Most of the live rock I have in my home tanks has been in captivity for 30ish years! It's a mixture of Fiji, Florida, Hawaiian and Indo live rock. I would NOT recommend putting a lot of GFO on an established system for those just perusing these forums, you'll cause no end of issues doing that. in a system for cooking live rock it's perfectly OK to do so.