Since my son was born in Dec of 2016, my tank has been pretty neglected and a few issues have gotten way out of hand. This year my goal is to turn the tank around and make it better than it ever was.
My tank has three main issues that I am planning to solve, and probably some other bonus items.
1. Bad Aiptasia issue
2. Algae Outbreak (both cyano some sort of algae that covers the glass very quickly)
3. Need a low maintenance dosing solution that doesn’t involve constant testing and adjusting.
On to tackling the issues...
1. I ordered a Copperbanded Butterfly from Lazy which I’m hoping will solve my aiptasia issue. My only concern here is that I don’t want to end up with an fish that refuses to eat anything else.
2. I discovered Ecotech Marine’s CoralLab reports about a week ago and just straight up copied the profiles used by Worldwide Corals for my Vortechs and the SPS lighting profile in the report on the Coral Wholesaler. I’m hoping that this will help some with my Algae problem. I was running a photoperiod that was almost 12 hours long, it simulated sunrise and sunset, but the CoralLab report stressed a much shorter photoperiod of 7 hours with an hour up ramp up/down. After running this new profile for a few days, I already see improvements in polyp extension on my LPS and the glass isn’t getting covered as quickly. I also took a big leap and purchased a commercially available turf scrubber (I could have made one a lot cheaper but I’m going for spending less time... not more). The turf scrubber was broken during shipping, but was easily fixable with some Weld-On (BRS was pretty cool about it, they refunded me 15% , treating it as an open box deal). I started it up tonight and functionally it seems to work.
3. The solution to my dosing “problem” hasn’t been worked out yet, but I’m heavily leaning towards getting a calcium reactor.
Bonus projects:
1. I need to come up with some sort of stand to hold my turf scrubber.
2. Been having some issues with my ATO being unreliable. It has been dumping the entire reservoir (45gallons) at once. Upon initial inspection, one of my float switches had a connection that had corroded. I fixed it but had the same issue a few days later. I tested all the ports on my DIY Apex breakout box and they are all fine. I have now decided that it is still probably the float switches because the wiring is not waterproof where I had to extend it to reach the breakout box. I’m going to replace them with switches that install through the sidewall of the sump to ensure that none of the wiring ever comes in contact with water.
3. Setup new phytoplankton and rotifer cultures so that I can start raising clownfish again.
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