July 17, 2016

It’s been a couple of months since our last update in May. As we have observed our new tank grow, we have made several alterations to try and produce the best habitat for our coral. This update we will focus on how the current lighting is working over the tank, discuss our switch from using Prodibio to ZEOvit and the new feature we added to our overflow box.

Current Livestock

• 1 Phantom Clownfish (We unfortunately arrived home from work one day to discover the smaller of the two clowns in the process of being eaten by our Pom Pom Crab. Not 100% sure how this little guy met his fate, but he was behaving normally and eating the day before. We might have a murder on the loose, see below.)
• 1 Pom Pom Crab (Both crabs were behaving normally and their anemones were growing. However after another day of work, we arrived home to find several limbs striped from the poor Pom Pom crab with white anemones and his remains lodged under some live rock. Given the state we found him, we are assuming someone in our tank killed him. The remaining crab continues to do well and his anemones are much larger.)
• 1 Hermit Crab
• 1 Nassarius Snail
• 1 Astraea Snail (Before his death, the other Astraea snail was observed having difficulty climbing and remaining upright. The remaining snail behaves normally.)
• 1 Peppermint Shrimp
• 2 Acan Frags

• 1 Torch Coral (While we do have a beautiful torch, it is not our original torch coral. The first coral struggled with placement within the tank. Unfortunately, it perished as we were trying to find the correct intensity for our lighting.)
• 1 Hammer Coral
• 1 Short Tentacle Plate Coral
• 2 Open Brain Corals

We are also excited to note that coraline algae is really beginning to take hold on the live rock and some of the tank fixtures!

Biological Dosing:

In our previous update, we mentioned using the product Prodibio. We did observe coral growth and a nice color “pop” when utilizing this product in our tank. However, we did encounter one drawback. Following the instructions for the product, we would dose the vials in the evening every 15 days. At this time the protein skimmer (AquaMaxx WS-1) was turned off. The following morning, the protein skimmer would be turned on once again. We like to run our protein skimmer so that it produces a dry skim (meaning less water extracted with the junk in the skimmer’s cup). When the protein skimmer was turned back on, within a matter of hours, the protein skimmer cup section was completely filled with water. It appeared as though hardly much junk was extracted with the water in the cup. As the 15 days progressed, we found ourselves frequently having to readjust the protein skimmer to have it function properly (sometimes on a daily basis). At times it felt (as our nitrate tests demonstrated) that we had no protein skimmer at all. In all fairness, we have a small protein skimmer given the size constraints of our sump. Perhaps on a bigger system with a more advanced protein skimmer this would not have been an issue. This was one factor which encouraged us to make our next change to this system.

While we are moving away from Prodibio in our Nano Reef Tank, we are currently contemplating utilizing this product for our Innovative Marine NUVO Concept Abyss Panorama Drop Off Aquarium which is still in the process of cycling. The coral growth and color was appealing and the ease of use for this product has us wanting to continue to observe its benefits within a different system setup.
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Prodibio BioKit for Nano Reef Tanks

Six different vials are added to your tank every 15 days when using Prodibio BioKit Nano Reef.

The other deciding factor for a biological dosing change came when we recently had a custom 240 gallon (909 liters) aquarium delivered to our home (stay tuned for a build blog soon to come)! We have planned for this system to be a mixed reef tank and run utilizing ZEOvit. What is ZEOvit? To put it simply, it is a system which utilizes bacteria to help rid an aquarium system of excess nutrients (such as phosphates & nitrates). While the premise itself is easy to understand, implementation can be another matter. ZEOvit systems are typically reserved for predominantly SPS tanks; however, we are hoping to maintain both SPS and LPS corals. The ultimate push for us to switch from Prodibio to ZEOvit resulted from our desire to become accustomed with the ZEOvit regimen before establishing our much larger aquarium and to observe how ZEOvit introduction influences our current LPS which we hope to ultimately transition to the large tank.
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Initial ZEOvit products we are using: ZEObak, ZEOfood & ZEOstart

Our Current ZEOvit Regimen: 

Daily - 0.1 mL of ZEOstart, we also shake a small media bag containing 200 g of ZEOvit media 
Twice a Week - 2 drops of ZEObak
Once the nitrates and phosphates reach 0 ppm, then we will be adding 2 drops of ZEOfood twice a week. 

​At this point we have only been utilizing the ZEOvit system for two weeks. At present time two of our corals, an open brain coral and plate coral, are struggling. However, we believe this can be attributed to us trying to increase the intensity of our lights recently and is not linked to the ZEOvit method. Once we lowered the intensity of our lights, these corals have begun to show improvement. Science Lesson: Never change more than one variable at a time! We will discuss our lighting issues below. As we continue utilizing ZEOvit in this nano tank, we will update with our observations. One change we have already noticed is that our nitrate and phosphate levels are gradually decreasing.​

ZEOvit media in our sump which is shaken at least once daily. GFO has also been removed from this system. The black media is active carbon.

Lighting:

We currently have two AI Primes running over our tank. The Primes do a fantastic job illuminating the entire tank and provide a visually sharp appearance to the system. One consideration to bear in mind if you choose to run these lights over such a shallow tank is that they will need to be calibrated to a lower intensity. Currently each unit sits 9.25 inches (23.5 cm) from the tank (measuring from the top of the glass to the bottom of each puck).
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Our Current Lighting Schedule & Settings

Our lights are on from 12 PM till 8 PM. With an hour ramp up & down time. An hour of actinic blue lighting from 7PM to 8PM during the ramp down time. 

Above images were taken from the myAI app in conjunction with our AI Prime lights.

​It has taken us some time to calibrate these settings for our tank. Over time we gradually increased the intensity and observed our corals for any sign of stress. About 3 weeks ago we gradually increased the intensity of the lighting from 10% to 14%. After a week of this increased intensity two of our corals previously mentioned (an open brain coral and plate) begin to show sign of distress with tissue degrading. Both of these corals are positioned directly in the cent of the tank and therefore presumably experience greater PAR levels due to being within range of both light fixtures. Additionally, one of our Acan frags began to show signs of distress, though it did not loose tissue. At these signs of struggle, we immediately returned the lighting back to their original intensity of 10%. I am relieved to say our Acan frag instantly improved and our plate coral is showing signs of improvement with tissue returning. Unfortunately, the open brain coral suffered greater tissue loss in comparison to the plate coral. At this time we are continuing to monitor the brain coral and hope next time to report on its improvement.
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Open brain coral before and after damage. In the before picture, the opening is the coral's mouth still agape after a feeding. The after picture demonstrates the damage done to the corals tissue resulting in the opening.

​Keep in mind that should you choose to go with this arrangement for your tank, each tank has its own set of variables that could cause the lighting calibration for the units to differ than ours. Additionally, I’m excited to say that AI has just released their latest version of these lights: AI Prime HD. As detailed on their website: “No longer are you limited to using a fixed amount of power per channel, the HD dynamically adjusts power available to each color, borrowing power from the colors you’re not utilizing. Giving you the most vivid spectrum your tank has ever seen.” This new functionality provides even greater control over determining the settings that work best for both your tank and your coral.
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The one caveat I will state about these lights is that ours produce a slight “buzzing” sound when in operation. Since our tank is near the kitchen with other appliances (i.e. fridge & dishwasher) generating noise, I hardly notice. However when everything else is silent and I’m standing next to the tank admiring the view, the noise is audible. While some have reported having similar issues with their units online. Others report that their AI Primes are silent. Perhaps the latest models of the AI Primes HD will not encounter this same issue.

Hang On Back Overflow:

We are happy to report that the hang-on-back overflow (CPR CS50 Overflow Box) has been functioning beautifully with no problems. However, the noise generated from the unit was becoming a bit tiresome. In order to rectify this issue, we installed our own noise dampener. 

As we continue to observe and make modifications to this system, we will continue with updates.

That's it for this time. Keep Krill'in!