Pancho’s Reef S-500 Roller Coaster

Pancho75

Pancho75

Well-Known Member
I must say I have seen very nice tanks and now I believe it is my time to share. I have been in the hobby since 2007 but it was with Fish Only nanos until 3 years ago when I decided to go for SPS and LPS, started in my 70 L nano and since May 2017 I upgraded to the S-500. I must say it worth every penny, even with all the people who said it is too much. For me to have the equipment designed to work all together it is a big gain as I travel a lot and have long ours in an office.

I guess I was lucky with the assembly since I did it with LFS owner, he always wanted to assembly one... anyway we tossed away the return pump foam instead of install it hahaha, had to pay the price for that hahaha.

As I am located in Mexico the chiller has not been an option but I must, I believe Red Sea should included in the package....

The system is in its 8 month and I am trying to go slowly... with not a lot of success hahaha.

I have montis, duncans, digitatas, candys, setosas, stylopharas, seritopods, torchs, brain coral, frogspawn and zoas. All of them have been doing good except for a red digitata that I guess is a “zombie” because it does not die or thrive, it has 6 months in the tank and barely shows color. I have placed it in the bottom, above, in the shadow and the coral does not improve...

I started the AI Hydra using the Red Sea parameters at 50% but found a very nice light settings in Reef Central based on the Ecotech SPS AB study and I am giving them a try.

I am a firm believer of manual dosing, as it forces my to inspect the tank in detail and check if everybody is doing well and happy in there.

I have 2 clowns (killers), 5 chromis, 2 pygmy angels a yellow tang and a fox face. I have had struggles with the fishes, lost 2 naso tangs and african also lost a six lines wrasse and finally the clowns have killed 4 chromis (hate them) and now waiting for a diamond goby next week to take care of the sand. The yellow tang rules the tank but the fox face is getting larger so I guess that will not last.

Any ideas on the red digitata are welcome!

Here are the pics:
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D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Your tank looks good. I don't see any specific issues.

I have never kept red digitata so I can't offer any first had advice, however you can check a few things. Sometimes corals get involved in "chemical warfare" with each other. you might try moving the red digitata so that it's gets it's flow directly from the return pump. This should be the cleanest water. If your not doing it, you might try using some carbon filtration. Note, carbon is somewhat controversial and others like media such as purigen. Make sure the coral has no damage. Sometimes it's best to dip a coral even after you have had it awhile, especially if there is tissue loss.

Lastly, sometimes no mater what you do you just can't seem to keep one species of coral, even though it's considered easy. In that case, don't let it get to you and get another species of coral.
 
SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
All looks very nice Pancho and well done!

Do you have any close up pictures of the brown stuff growing on the sand bed ?

If you look it’s much worse on the left hand side and better in the right were the main return pump is and I’m just wondering if you need to adjust your rear flow nozzles in view of the amount of rock work you have. I had a similar issue which looked very much you like you have when it started.

Also it looks like at least one if your rear circulation vents is missing ? There are 3 midway up the back wall ? Unless it’s just the photo.
 
Pancho75

Pancho75

Well-Known Member
DaveK said:
Your tank looks good. I don't see any specific issues.

I have never kept red digitata so I can't offer any first had advice, however you can check a few things. Sometimes corals get involved in "chemical warfare" with each other. you might try moving the red digitata so that it's gets it's flow directly from the return pump. This should be the cleanest water. If your not doing it, you might try using some carbon filtration. Note, carbon is somewhat controversial and others like media such as purigen. Make sure the coral has no damage. Sometimes it's best to dip a coral even after you have had it awhile, especially if there is tissue loss.

Lastly, sometimes no mater what you do you just can't seem to keep one species of coral, even though it's considered easy. In that case, don't let it get to you and get another species of coral.
Click to expand...
Thank you Dave! I try another location today, that zombie should come back to life!


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Pancho75

Pancho75

Well-Known Member
SPR said:
All looks very nice Pancho and well done!

Do you have any close up pictures of the brown stuff growing on the sand bed ?

If you look it’s much worse on the left hand side and better in the right were the main return pump is and I’m just wondering if you need to adjust your rear flow nozzles in view of the amount of rock work you have. I had a similar issue which looked very much you like you have when it started.

Also it looks like at least one if your rear circulation vents is missing ? There are 3 midway up the back wall ? Unless it’s just the photo.
Click to expand...
Thank you Sean, I guess the missing nozzle is because mine is a S-500 vs. your S-600; mine has only 3 nozzles + the return from the pump.

Regarding the stuff in the sand I believe is cyano, I thought in the beginning it was diatoms but I guess it is my fault, when I added the fox face I had to increase the feeding because the yellow tang became super aggressive, the extra feeding and moving the star polyp islands helped to eliminate the aggression but got me stuck with this. I ordered a diamond goby to help with this issue, here is the pic:
4452879575abb1162ccbe020c30a1e67.jpg


Any suggestion? My water parameters have been good so far though, I am testing the water every week.


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SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
I was talking about the circulation vent on the right hand side. Just looks from the photo like the round vent that screws into it is missing, but maybe it’s just the photo.

The browning of the sand looks very similar to the start of a problem I had and if you look on page 2 of my build thread, half way down and look at the pictures of parts of the sand, and then see what they turned into. If you start getting any sign of ‘bubbles’ forming it may be what I had as it’s looks identical, but it’s difficult with photos and there are of course many variations of algae.

At the moment your left hand ‘nozzle’ looks like it’s pointing virtually straight out. I would point it hard left and fully down to increase flow around the left hand side of the tank and see what that does. If you can bare not to see your tank for a few days I would do a blackout as well for 3 days, or maybe try this later after changing the flow.

It might be worth pointing the middle nozzle down a bit as well for the centre of the tank.

You may find you get a bit of sand blown around but this will settle and if need be just add some larger size grains/coral bits to cover it if you need to.
 
Pancho75

Pancho75

Well-Known Member
SPR said:
I was talking about the circulation vent on the right hand side. Just looks from the photo like the round vent that screws into it is missing, but maybe it’s just the photo.

The browning of the sand looks very similar to the start of a problem I had and if you look on page 2 of my build thread, half way down and look at the pictures of parts of the sand, and then see what they turned into. If you start getting any sign of ‘bubbles’ forming it may be what I had as it’s looks identical, but it’s difficult with photos and there are of course many variations of algae.

At the moment your left hand ‘nozzle’ looks like it’s pointing virtually straight out. I would point it hard left and fully down to increase flow around the left hand side of the tank and see what that does. If you can bare not to see your tank for a few days I would do a blackout as well for 3 days, or maybe try this later after changing the flow.

It might be worth pointing the middle nozzle down a bit as well for the centre of the tank.

You may find you get a bit of sand blown around but this will settle and if need be just add some larger size grains/coral bits to cover it if you need to.
Click to expand...

Wow! it is exactly the same thing, so dinos I had them before in my 70L nano. The first time I was living in Japan and I eliminated with continuos water changes. I was thinking to do the same but reading on your replay and your thread, the 3 days blackout sounds like the fastest way to go, did you have impact on your corals? I just added some stylophor and chilli peper monti frags I would not like to impact them.

I will also try the nozzle suggestions, thank you!


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Pancho75

Pancho75

Well-Known Member
Nobbygas said:
The Diamond Goby will work wonders with your sand. For me, I've also found Vibrant to be very good for Algae control.
Click to expand...
I hope so Nobbygas! the vibrant is the same as the yellow clown goby? do they get along? I heard the diamond was very territorial.


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SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
Pancho75 said:
Wow! it is exactly the same thing, so dinos I had them before in my 70L nano. The first time I was living in Japan and I eliminated with continuos water changes. I was thinking to do the same but reading on your replay and your thread, the 3 days blackout sounds like the fastest way to go, did you have impact on your corals? I just added some stylophor and chilli peper monti frags I would not like to impact them.

I will also try the nozzle suggestions, thank you!


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Click to expand...
Your more than welcome!

As soon as I saw it it brought back memories. I was new so didn’t recognise them as I thought it was just algea until the bubbles came.

The 3 day blackout didn’t affect anything corals etc., and the tank looked spotless when the lights came back on. It’s really only like a few dark stormy days in the ocean.

Also the increased flow definitely helped and they never came back.

The blackout was just closed curtains and all lights off so I didn’t wrap the tank or anything extreme.

It was just very frustrating as I couldn’t see the tank!
 
N

Nobbygas

Well-Known Member
The problem with a black-out is that you're not fixing the problem. A black-out may seem to get rid of them, but it's the cause you have to fix otherwise they'll probably return.
 
SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
Nobbygas said:
The problem with a black-out is that you're not fixing the problem. A black-out may seem to get rid of them, but it's the cause you have to fix otherwise they'll probably return.
Click to expand...
Exactly, that’s why you need to increase the flow as well to the affected areas and fingers crossed it worked for me. Anyway we shall see shortly (hopefully!).....
 
N

Nobbygas

Well-Known Member
It's a fantastic hobby! She Who Casts No Shadow said to me the other day, "do you realize how much time you waste just looking at that tank?!"......I replied, "believe me, it is not time wasted".
 
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