Blog Comments

Amazing shots Marc! I know very well that it is easy to get down, depressed, and even put in a fowl mood when something happens to our coral. It can be down right frustrating! But a very useful skill is to just take a step back, breathe, and acknowledge all the things that are going right, that are beautiful in our setups, and how lucky we are to have what we have. Obviously this applies to more life situations than ones regarding just our tanks but thought it was worth pointin out. From this post it sounds like you are doing this. And you really have so much to be grateful for and happy about! Your setup, despite the recent issues, is still one of the best out there! You have encountered hurdles in the past, and I think you will recover just like you have before, and you and your tank will pass this test. Definitely sounds like you are on the right track. Good luck!

Hi Maroun, sorry to hear you've had some issues as well. I'm kind of ready for things to just go smoothly finally. How much can a hobbyist take?! There's a lot of good stuff in my tank, but there's a decent amount of unhappiness that I'm staring at daily. I'd like to think I'm heading in the better direction now, but I have to basically wait and watch now.

Sorry to hear about your troubles Marc.
Unfortunately looks like I'm somehow in the same boat, well may be on the other side of the boat.
in my previous 150G tank I also had nitrates climb up to 50 while my Salifert kit was reading 0. it was only a when I switched to a new test kit that I find out what was causing some of my corals to RTN constantly.
Forward 2 years in my 400 g tank and I've been struggling to keep any SPS in my tank, Frag tanks or cube alive. Few LPs and some softies made it but over the last 2 years I have slowly and painfully lost all my SPS. Any SPS that I add either RTNs STNs within 10 days or the tissue just dries up completely in 10 days.
I was testing 10-15 Nitrates and 0-0.03 Phosphates on Salifert till yesterday when I crosschecked using Hanna for Phosphates and DD for Nitrates and the results came out at 48 for nitrates and 0.9 for phosphates which will be a crazy amount of work to bring down to normal in case those levels are true as my total water volume now is close to 750G after having connected all my tanks.
I'm sending water to a professional lab for testing to verify this.
Its unfortunate that a testkit or such a simple mistake reading it can have such consequences but again I'm sure your tank will bounce back in no time as it has done over the last 3-4 years of misfortune you've had.

I'd sure like to see that in person someday. Wow!

Vodka dosing is very precise, and I never felt comfortable hooking up a 1g container of that to my tank in case the doser went crazy. I never want it to add more than a day's allotment, so even setting up a smaller amount for three or four days could in theory be pumped it and cause problems.

Biopellets are 24 hours a day, and take no work on my part. It just keeps moving, and I have to replenish it from time to time. Probibio was dosed every 15 days, and it's also very easy to control if you don't make the mistake I did with the different vial size.

Thanks. There are pale corals, some with STN at the base, other polyps have closed up and died (hammers, acans), and some are just the wrong color, flat out. The big birdsnest on the left is more than likely 100% gone, but I've not pulled it out in case some specks of life remain.

Despite the recent happenings, and whatever outcome occurs, its good to know. I'm just curious; vodka is ultra cheap for me to dose vs biopellets and I'm always curious why people change their successful behaviors; the triggers and causes, etc.

Outcome and cause here aside, would you return to biopellets and Prodibio in the future if you had another need?

Despite your recent troubles, your tank looks great. It's still a wonderful piece of living artwork and inspiration to many reefers. I'm very hopeful, and confident, your tank will bounce back, as beautiful as ever.

I was tired of dosing vodka - which I did for 3.5 years. I wanted to try biopellets and I also wanted to try Prodibio again, so when the new tank went up in Feb 2011, that's why. It worked fine - until I way overdosed as described in recent blogs. And how that came to pass, with reasons vs excuses.

I'm sorry to hear this, but happy you've potentially, and probably, pinpointed the issue.

Can you jog my memory why you transitioned away from vodka to biopellets and dosing again please?

I did take some ugly pictures, but didn't have it in me to share them. It's bad enough seeing real life.

Sorry to hear things haven't started turning around yet! I also appreciate you sharing the bad along with the good. I would like to say that I can't wait to finally get water in my 400 but now I feel like I just want to read more so I can learn how to avoid these situations. I can picture myself reading a test kit wrong or overdosing something.

On a more positive note, I hope to get a build thread started soon. I gathered up all the build pics, just need to find the time to upload and write about it. I hope to be ready for water next week! Keep us posted on the progress. I hope you are still taking pictures. I think once this is all behind you, it might be nice to show a before, during, and after.

You will get past this and will be able to say "my 280g was great, but my 400g is AMAZING!" Hang in there and thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by brotherd

Marc I must say that I really appreciate all your blogs postings, both the good and the bad news. I take a great deal of your experience and information and apply or compare that to my lowly tank. I still have a screen shot of your 280 as my cell phone home screen image. Hang in there and a big thank you!

I hate sharing bad news, but it needs to be said since it's the real story about a living breathing reef. Hopefully my errors can help others avoid such issues. Still miss my 280g.

Originally Posted by gettareef

How were you reading the salifert nitrate test wrong? Were you reading the color from holding the container to the side of the colors instead of top down? I'm just wondering bc I use the same kit to test n03. Best of luck with your new method of solving your bacteria issue. I think it will work. Most importantly, I think sticking to one method of curing the issue for 6+ weeks is key

I think I was looking through the side when I was supposed to look from above, or vice versa. I remember Habib telling me "You're still doing it wrong!" So I came home, remeasured the 'correct' way and it was way high. I called a friend as he had the HACH nitrate kit and he was nice enough to do a comparison test and said "Yep, it's 80ppm."

That actually helped me though, because I'd give frags to people that would die in their tanks nearly instantly and I couldn't understand why. Turns out mine were tolerating the number as best they could, but it was a shock to get in the better water after all that time. And those mystery coral deaths - I finally had a good reason why some would just go up in smoke for no reason at all. They had a great reason - I just didn't know yet.

API gets a lot of flack, but their NO3 kit is pretty foolproof - or should I say melev-proof.

Marc I must say that I really appreciate all your blogs postings, both the good and the bad news. I take a great deal of your experience and information and apply or compare that to my lowly tank. I still have a screen shot of your 280 as my cell phone home screen image. Hang in there and a big thank you!

How were you reading the salifert nitrate test wrong? Were you reading the color from holding the container to the side of the colors instead of top down? I'm just wondering bc I use the same kit to test n03. Best of luck with your new method of solving your bacteria issue. I think it will work. Most importantly, I think sticking to one method of curing the issue for 6+ weeks is key

Mother F'n Eels on a Mother F'n Plane!!!! Awesome additions!

Originally Posted by BulkHead

I have met Mr. Murphy myself. He enjoys coming to visit while you are out of town and particularly loves water disasters. It's a blessing your issues weren't any worse... I'm on the fence when it comes to a SmartATO. I've had good luck with the mechanical setup, but that too can fail. I suppose everything is a compromise to some extent. Have you thought about a webcam or a simple Raspberry Pi camera setup that can take pictures of your fish room and email them too you? $100 piece of mind...

I'm using AT&T Digital Life and was checking on the tank and sump area from two different angles several times while I was gone. I could see the waste collector was full, and knew the sitter would dump it out. I just didn't realize turning off that float switch would be such a mess. I guess having it continue to bug me would have been the better choice, but I was getting all kinds of texts from people during MACNA and didn't need that additional white noise.

RussM pointed out that if I didn't clear this particular alarm notification, then any other alarm would never get through. That is why he told me to program for that one switch in the email-alarm, so it would clear and be able to send me a different one if one occurred. There always seems to be one more line of code you should have added.

Originally Posted by Vanmo92

Im curious as to your opinion of the SmartATO device is, sounds like it has some flaws. I saw it at MACNA and it definitely peaked my interest. Maybe a topic for a blog post a few months down the road

I LOVE IT! But... I'm running into some minor issues that I'd like to resolve before I post the full product review. Out of the box, it's awesome. Everything is included, and you don't need a trip to Home Depot to get it going. My mini-test went flawlessly, but real time application has been good part of the time, then annoying at other times. I'd like to give it a good review, so that is why I talked with the guys at Coralvue to see what they thought. They told me that they thought I may need a replacement pump - maybe that is all it was.

What was happening: As my 45 top off container's water level dropped from multiple top offs, it takes longer to move the water into the sump per session. I refill it once a week. The internal brain measures the duration per top off, and if it needs to run too long, it stops and beeps - FOREVER. I tried to outlast it, but it drove me insane. I wanted to know if it would ever reset, but it does not. You have to unplug it and plug it back in. I wondered if my return zone was too large or the head pressure was a factor, but they said it is designed to push up to 6.5' (right into the display tank), and surmise that my pump may have an issue. I don't know yet. But in this particular case, that 'flaw' benefited the reef because it didn't attempted to replace the water being lost by the skimmer during my time away.

I'm certain on a smaller system, it would run perfectly. Mine is 450g combined, and the additional complications may skew the outcome. I'll update when I have more information.

I have met Mr. Murphy myself. He enjoys coming to visit while you are out of town and particularly loves water disasters. It's a blessing your issues weren't any worse... I'm on the fence when it comes to a SmartATO. I've had good luck with the mechanical setup, but that too can fail. I suppose everything is a compromise to some extent. Have you thought about a webcam or a simple Raspberry Pi camera setup that can take pictures of your fish room and email them too you? $100 piece of mind...