Nobby's S-650

[Nobbygas]

It's now been two months since the last addition to the tank, which was the Triggers. I decided to just stop, wait and look for a short spell, just to give everything a chance to settle.......but now I'm getting the 'urges' again !
I need some more Ricordia to go on my Ricordia Garden. I have loads of Orange and Green, so I'll be looking for some Blue and, well any other colour really ! I also need another Yellow fish. I'm not sure what fish, but it has to be Yellow !

 

[Pancho75]

35 euro for a ricordea???!!! OMG, I paid here 14 euro in the LFS. Maybe your experiencing some coral loses as your tank is already pretty loaded and corals attack each other?

And remember we want pics once you come back form the LFS!


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[Nobbygas]

35 euro for a ricordea???!!! OMG, I paid here 14 euro in the LFS. Maybe your experiencing some coral loses as your tank is already pretty loaded and corals attack each other?

And remember we want pics once you come back form the LFS!


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No, I still have lots of spare space for new corals. The only coral v coral conflict I've seen is the Red Gonipora destroying a Red Anemone.

 

[Nobbygas]

Finally, the Kanaplex arrived yesterday to treat the Trigger. He has these strange white lumps around his mouth. They are not 'cotton wool' in appearance, but look more solid. This leads me to believe it's some sort of Bacterial Infection. So last night I mixed the Kanaplex in with the frozen food, and fed the tank. I did make an attempt to lure the Trigger into the Fish Trap, so that I could target feed just him, but that was a total failure, as expected !
So I treated the whole tank basically. It won't do the other fish any harm, and in fact could help them if any of them 'catch' the infection, or indeed, treat any other infection they may have that I haven't seen.

So, let's wait and see if it works.

 

[saintsreturn]

Good luck!

 

[Nobbygas]

Good luck!

Thank you !

and I almost forgot, but I'm expecting my latest ICP test results anytime now. This result will be interesting as it's the first one since I started dosing the Red Sea Colours ABCD, based on the Calc consumption. My last ICP test (three months ago) showed a few elements were slightly lower than they should have been. Nothing drastic, but I'm wondering if the dosing has brought everything back inline. It's also six months since my last water change. I'm hoping that everything is ok, but I'm prepared to do some emergency water changes if necessary

 

[Nobbygas]

First things first. There has been a vast improvement with the Trigger after just one treatment of the Kanaplex. I will treat again tonight. The 'spots' have visibly receded.

Next, the ICP test. Overall I am pretty pleased, although there are various elements that are still showing as 'slightly low', but they are just slightly below the recommended levels, so nothing to really worry about. The main concern is that the ICP test is telling me again that my Mag levels are too low. I test using both the Red Sea test, and sometimes double-up with a Salifert test, and neither of these show low levels of Mag. So, the two amateur tests I do say it's ok, yet the one professional test says it's not? Which one do I believe is right?

My next concern is with the Dosing of the Red Sea Colours ABCD. I didn't notice before, but the dosing amounts change depending on whether you are dosing with liquid or powder. It's not easy to get your head around as it recommends dosing 1ml of Colours for every 10ml of Calc (liquid), but at the same time it recommends 3.8ml of Colours for every 20g of powder ! Now, with 1kg of powder making 1.8 Litres of solution, how many grams of powder are in each ml of solution? Now it is mixed I don't want to deal in grams, I want to deal in ml's because that is what is measured through the dosing pumps !
The quicker Red Sea bring out their App the better it will be. Are there any mathematical wizards out there who can explain just how much of the (powder) solution I should be adding if my Calc uptake is 10ml per day, or my Calc dropping by 4ppm per day!
The calculation of the Red Sea liquid is easy 0.2 x 5,5 = 1.1ml of Colours per day (4ppm is 0.2 of 20ppm and 5.5 is 550 litres volume of the tank), but I'm stuffed with the calculation for the Foundation Powder! Help !

 

[Nobbygas]

Thinking......
The drop in Calc will be the same whether you are dosing the Red Sea Liquid, or the Red Sea Powder foundation. Therefore, the amount of Colours dosed should be the same for both?
Ignore the Red Sea instruction of 1ml of Colours for every 10ml of foundation solution, and just stick to the other Red Sea recommendation of Calc usage based on the PPM consumption?

 

[Nobbygas]

I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks early July, so I've started my 'tank holiday plan' early.
Feeding isn't too much of a problem, as I usually get my 75 year old Mother-In-Law to feed the fish, but still, I decided to simplify things. I already have an Eheim Auto Feeder (as in the picture). I have used this in the past, but the main problem is that it drops the flakes onto the surface, and many of them get washed into the rear chamber before they sink. So, I bought an Eheim Feeding Station!

Now, the way this helps is that the flakes get dropped into the acrylic box thing you see on the picture. As the flakes soaks up water it then sinks and enters the tank at the bottom of the box thereby ensuring that most of the flake ends up as food rather than being washed away! A neat little device that only costed about 10 euro ! Fitting it was not that easy as the clamp is just not big enough for most places on the tank, but by moving the rear chamber lid a couple of inches I was able to fix it there. I did a test run last night and it worked beautifully.

 

[Pancho75]

Wow! I am having now exactly the same issue now, great solution. I will buy immediately. Thanks for sharing!


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[SPR]

Thinking......
The drop in Calc will be the same whether you are dosing the Red Sea Liquid, or the Red Sea Powder foundation. Therefore, the amount of Colours dosed should be the same for both?
Ignore the Red Sea instruction of 1ml of Colours for every 10ml of foundation solution, and just stick to the other Red Sea recommendation of Calc usage based on the PPM consumption?

You dose the colour by Calcium uptake in ppm.

Calculate the daily or weekly dose of each supplement according to the dosage of Red Sea’s Reef Foundation supplements or to a known uptake of calcium. (Add 1ml of Color supplement for every 20ppm of Calcium added per 100 liters (25 gal) of aquarium water or for every 2g of calcium uptake.)

 

[Nobbygas]

I didn't have the chance to check on the progress with the Trigger last night. I got kidnapped on my way home from work by a friend, who insisted on pouring vast quantities of beer down my throat. By the time I got home it was dark, plus I don't think my eyes would have been able to focus long enough to see any fish. I'll try and get home sober today.

 

[Pancho75]

I didn't have the chance to check on the progress with the Trigger last night. I got kidnapped on my way home from work by a friend, who insisted on pouring vast quantities of beer down my throat. By the time I got home it was dark, plus I don't think my eyes would have been able to focus long enough to see any fish. I'll try and get home sober today.

The only problem I see here is we were not invited to join your Baco festivity!!! We could have had a very good discussion about why the triggerfish were 4 or 6 or 8 depending on the consumed beers! LOL

 

[Nobbygas]

Ok, I've recovered now......The white lumps around the mouth of the Trigger are definitely receding and reducing. He's looking much better. The Invertebrates also look ok, as there is a warning that the Seachem Kanaplex may harm them.
So, my verdict on Seachem Kanaplex. It is a Broad Spectrum Antibiotic. When mixed in with frozen food, it is fine to feed the tank with. It appears to have helped the Trigger, and when eaten by the other fish cannot be of any harm, and in fact just may have helped them in some way. It is quite expensive for the 5mg you actually get in the pack, which is why I didn't 'treat the water' as such, but mixed it into the food. I would recommend having this in your medicine cabinet.

 

[Nobbygas]

The only problem I see here is we were not invited to join your Baco festivity!!! We could have had a very good discussion about why the triggerfish were 4 or 6 or 8 depending on the consumed beers! LOL

I couldn't invite anyone. I was kidnapped !

 

[Nobbygas]

The temperature here for the last six weeks has been up around the 30 degrees mark. Therefore, the Chiller has been coming into play every day. Yesterday though, I noticed something wrong. It was indicating that it was cooling, when in fact it wasn't. Something was wrong. First I checked the piping for any potential blockages, but there was nothing there. Next, I switched it off and removed the Eheim 1000 pump that feeds it. I gave it a good clean, and re-assembled, and everything worked fine! Not enough water was being fed to the Chiller to enable it to work properly ! Lesson learnt - Don't forget to clean the 'other' pumps in the tank, like this one or the one that feeds the UV, as over time their performance will be degraded to due to 'muck' building up.

 

[Pancho75]

The temperature here for the last six weeks has been up around the 30 degrees mark. Therefore, the Chiller has been coming into play every day. Yesterday though, I noticed something wrong. It was indicating that it was cooling, when in fact it wasn't. Something was wrong. First I checked the piping for any potential blockages, but there was nothing there. Next, I switched it off and removed the Eheim 1000 pump that feeds it. I gave it a good clean, and re-assembled, and everything worked fine! Not enough water was being fed to the Chiller to enable it to work properly ! Lesson learnt - Don't forget to clean the 'other' pumps in the tank, like this one or the one that feeds the UV, as over time their performance will be degraded to due to 'muck' building up.

I know chiller issues can be a headache, we don’t want to see your tank with an army of fans while the chiller is fixed. [emoji1360]


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[Nobbygas]

I'm off on holiday for two weeks next Monday, so it's 'prepare the tank' time. I got out my old Tunze Osmolator Nano, and fixed it up only to find, for whatever reason, it doesn't work. I did a quick check and found that I bought it in 2013. So orf to the LFS I went and came away with a new Tunze Osmolater Universal. My first trail involved fixing it up in the 're-fill tunnel' on the S-650 ATO. I am a bit wary of leaving it there as if there is an overflow incident, there really isn't much space, so the water will overflow easily, plus it's above the electrical section.
I know Shaun has placed his sensor and water outlet in the Sump, in the Return Section.
Shaun - Do you have any worries with the water being discharged because the outlet pipe is high enough above the ATO pump in the water container ?

I've also ordered a couple of Red Sea Filter Cups to replace the mesh socks. My plan is to get my Mother-In-Law to just take out the filter floss every couple of days and replace it with some that I have already washed out. Normally when I go away I just remove the socks completely.

The fish will be on flake food for the two weeks. I don't think this will harm them that much.

 

[SPR]

The water reservoir needs to be lower than the end of the outlet hose to avoid the siphon effect. Mine is about level at the end but half way the pipe is much higher so I haven’t had any issues.

In my case the reservoir is under the power centre and holds around 100 litres which will last a good 2 weeks and it also makes life much easier when at home as it only needs filling every 2 weeks rather than every few days. The in built ATO is still there and acts as a backup.

The container is just a plastic box from B and Q but it one of the best modifications I’ve made as it’s so much easier.

So the Tunze pump is at the bottom of the reservoir and the outlet hose goes up and through the gap in the left of the sump (so at that point it’s higher than the reservoir) and then into the main return section were the sensors are. The water level is kept just above the level we’re the inbuilt float valve is so that’s partially submerged to stop it working unless needed as back up.

Edit: I had my first ATO overflow with a cheaper system which went into the refill container at the top left, and it overflowed all over the floor! As you say there is nowhere for it to go,

 

[Nobbygas]

Thanks for the info Shaun. I think I will keep mine in the ATO refill chamber. It's only a temporary set-up, with a large plastic container sat next to the tank, just to cover the holiday. You still worry though eh?