New House...New Tank!

[Justin]

So I wanted to make this thread to document my adventures with my soon to be new tank. As the title stated, I'm recently having my new house built and my current 100 gallon just didn't look right in the designated location I had for it. It just sort of looked very small and didn't really capture the area well. To be honest, I saw Prancis's tank and now I want to incorporate my acrylic frag tank into the sump area of my stand to avoid having tanks litter my new house. To do this, I need to add another 1.5' to my current tank and so I just decided to move up to a full extra 2'. This will help keep everything centrally located and I will eventually plumb the frag tank so that it can be isolated from the main system if I need it to.

The tank itself I got from Terry at Salty Fish Aquariums. Big shout out to Terry for letting me know that he had a tank for me sitting in his shop. The tank was a custom job from Planet Aquariums that was left behind, the original person's loss and my gain!

The tank measures at 72.5 x 24.5 x 18 and is reef ready with two returns and two drains. It's shallower than my current setup, which means I can't go with multiple levels like I originally wanted but the light penetration on this tank will be insane and perfect for my corals.

Here are some basic pics of the tank in the shop, disregard the black stand that it is on. I'm going with a new one built for the tank through Terry's hookup:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_2856_zpsrq8keaq5.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_2856_zpsrq8keaq5.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_2859_zpssypcsd5d.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_2859_zpssypcsd5d.jpg.html)

[Troy Valentine]

Nice setup! I love that foot print!

[Justin]

Thanks man. I'm really excited about it. I don't even have it at my house and I'm already thinking about the things I want to incorporate in this build:

Bonsai aquascaping
waterproofing the floor
incorporating the frag system
what to include in my return manifold....

[Cammed_02]

That's going to be sweet Justin, it's good you're already making mental plans. When I re-did mine it helped that I already had an idea of how I wanted things. Keep us posted.

[Dean]

Justin how tall do you plan to make the stand? The shallower foot print of the tank makes for a good look down style set up also.

[Justin]

I typically like my tanks to be at eye level as I hate bending down to see into my tank. I was planning on having the tank be about 4 feet above the ground which will still give the option of looking down into but still stop me from bending down to look at it.

[Noob]

Gunna have to keep a close eye on this thread...

[Francis]

Nice tank! Congratulations man, can't wait to see the start of this build.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LuckySingh]

Congrats on new setup !!!!
You know the fun part in this hobby is not only viewing and maintaining your reef but also when u purchase a new gadget or accessories for your tank . When I was going to be moving out to my new place , I had all
My plans for the new tank laid out . Started buying stuff 6 months in advance . Tank and lights were bought 4 months before I moved in .
Any way good looking tank u got there

[Justin]

I hear you Lucky. There is no other better feeling that to get something new for your tank. Especially a new gadget or bad *** coral. Usually I plan everything way in advance so I can hit it hard as soon as I get the space to move my tank. This time around, I only literally have about 2-4 months with 4 months being the top. Still I plan to salvage the bulk of my stuff from my current tank over to the new one. I just need to order the following:

(2) New Onyx fixtures
The racking system for them from RexRoth systems
plumbing parts - this is the easiest
new rocks -

I really like the Bonsai look of tanks with the sand really showing but very little rock resting on the actual sand. One of the problems I had with my 40 breeder was that I had some dead spots along the base of the rocks and stuff just starting looking pretty bad. I think I fixed that with my 100 gallon but over time and frag swaps, my sand is covered up again.
I plan to use the Marco Rocks shelf rocks and mortar to create some really dynamic fixtures in the tank with probably about 2-3 peninsulas and a zoa garden for the wifey's zoas, not to mention a nice spot for my little clam to enjoy. The only problem is that I need to let the rock seed for a couple of months and Marco Rock is out of the shelf style rocks. I checked some of their competitor rocks, mainly Aquamaxx and Tonga shelf, and they are out as well. I spoke with Marco earlier this week and he mentioned that he will get a shipment this Thursday but the website is not updated and I guess he is away from his phone because I'm getting no answer.

I know I'm being impatient but what reefer would not be super excited to being getting a new tank to mess with!!!

[Justin]

To me, this is the ultimate example of a Bonsai Reef:

http://glassbox-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Bonsi-SPS-Reef-Tank.jpg

http://glassbox-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/dsc05469.JPG

Some other close examples as well:

http://reefbuilders.com/files/2012/03/mr-kang-reef-aquarium.jpg

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/aquascape2.jpg
http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/aquascape1.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_jXcKvFXhXng/TLpa16Gm6FI/AAAAAAAABNg/janqVyrj498/s800/13.jpg

[Justin]

Ahhhh Snaps! It's on like donkey kong!!!

Just placed my order in at Marco Rocks:

Order Date: 20th Mar 2015
This order is marked as Awaiting Fulfillment
Your Order Contains:

30 x Key Largo Prime Cuts By the pound
1 x E-Marco-400
(Kit Size: E-Marco-400 5Lb Kit)
2 x 3/8"-16 Nylon Thread Rod (24" includes 10 pk nuts, 10 pk washers)
1 x MarcoRocks Key Largo Dry Rock starting at 15 Lbs
(Choose your amount: 25Lbs)
1 x *New* 13 mm (perfect size for frag plugs) Diamond Coated Hole Saw (qty 1)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2911_zps9dfgddxu.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2911_zps9dfgddxu.jpg.html)


Based on what I have to work with, I might get some Pukani from BRS as well. Can't wait to play Takashi Amano with my rock playthings!!!

[rocketeer]

Great design concept! I like sand but I always end up with stuff all over it. It looks like it would take discipline to keep that pristine appearance. I have a question though. How do you vacuum under the rock shelf? Or do you?

Jack

[Justin]

Normally under the rock shelf, I would just use a turkey baster and blast the detritus back into the water column. I currently have a pretty robust CUC that can help me out with the situation when I upgrade. I've been also playing with the idea of getting a blue or orange Linkia starfish as a member of my CUC.

[Justin]

Alright, its been awhile but I finally got off my butt and decided to do some rock scaping. As I mentioned earlier, I want as little rock work on the sand floor as possible to avoid an detritus traps and what not. Not to mention I like the look of a bonsai looking tank. Due to my addiction, I am going to lean more toward a peninsula type of bonsai rock work. Most of my rock will be on the left side with my giant step ladder piece to the far left and then a nice shelf for more of my acros and then a nice little cubby for my euphyllias and other LPS frags. At the far right, will be my zoa garden and mushroom rock that the wife will not let me get rid of.

For those trying to follow the way I did it. I first took some 1/2 pvc and create a skeleton to place my rock work.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2958_zpsac0wbtzc.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2958_zpsac0wbtzc.jpg.html)

Then I took a masonry 3/4 hole bit and drilled a hole through a shelf rock to create the platform that everything will be attached to:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2959_zpsfrs1ytr2.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2959_zpsfrs1ytr2.jpg.html)

The horizontal piece of PVC was replaced with a clear smaller diameter acrylic rod I had leftover from the 100 gallon build.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2964_zpsvn8fnhe2.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2964_zpsvn8fnhe2.jpg.html)

As you can tell, I drilled several "pilot" holes to for me to insert zip ties and what not to attach the ledge pieces. This helps to give the general idea and create a nice holding structure for the rock work before I apply the mortar that I purchased from Marco Rocks

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2961_zpsvfviucyn.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2961_zpsvfviucyn.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2965_zpsxrljpg4v.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2965_zpsxrljpg4v.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2970_zpsqztmnqo4.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2970_zpsqztmnqo4.jpg.html)

As you can see, my rock work looks like a Houdini act! I wouldn't mind the zip ties as they serve the function of holding everything up. Next comes applying the mortar to the seems and really "cementing" the whole piece together. I have to admit, this was my first time using the stuff and I wish I had discovered it sooner. The stuff works like a charm. If you have ever mixed concrete/ cake batter before, it works on the same principle. You simply pour your powder mix in the bucket provided and add the liquid solution they give you. Keep mixing the stuff together until it gets to the consistency you want and use the spatula they give you. You couldn't make the stuff easier and it dries really fast and holds a really strong bond! I used to mess with Aqua mend and marine Epoxy, not anymore.

Here are the mortar shots (added some leftover rock powder and rubble and pressed it into the mortar to give it a more rugged look and help it blend with the rest of the rock)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2972_zpspuuqvszn.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2972_zpspuuqvszn.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2974_zpsmwug6mtc.jpg


(http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2974_zpsmwug6mtc.jpg.html)

[Justin]

The mortar does a great job of hiding the zip ties that litter the rock work and also gives my dust and small rubble something to grab onto to create a more seamless look. I didn't really showcase this in the pictures above, but I also drilled several holes with a 1/4 drill bit to create frag plug holes for my current and future frags. The idea behind the frag plugs is that I have the luxury of being able to move my coral colony from one location to another without having to break the base of the coral. This serves a much needed function say if I ever get to the point where I need to frag my corals or move them due to their size or the current location is not ideal. In the pics above, the green rock is a frag plug I pulled from my tank to help with the sizing of the holes.

Because of my addiction to SPS, I wanted to have more space to display my pieces and *ahem* discover more for my tank. My current 100 gallon is full of frags with two mag rocks stuck along the back walls. With this tank, I wanted to go for species that one does not normally find or are uncommon to increase the likelihood of me being able to sell them back to the community. There are so many digis, cali torts, birdnests out there that I want something different for this tank. I will of course keep the try and true species but I also want to go for more rare pieces. To help display them, I created another piece of rock work that is mainly a shelf for SPS to really grow.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2977_zpsilc718fk.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2977_zpsilc718fk.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2978_zpsdgdut9wj.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2978_zpsdgdut9wj.jpg.html)

The shelf was made from two flat shelf pieces that were zip tied together and then mortared together. With the tank being only 18" high, I really wanted to give my SPS room to reach for the lights and get some serious height but also give them an area where they were not too close to the sand floor and ruin my Bonsai approach to things.

I also created a little "burm" for my Euphyllia and/or LPS to grow while showing their polyps in the flow:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2979_zpsywc469vf.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Rockscape/IMG_2979_zpsywc469vf.jpg.html)

The only other pieces I need to make are the foundation for the zoa garden and the base for the two sides of my current nem arch, which resides in my 100 gallon to date

Tell me what you think or areas of improvement!!!

[Justin]

Once I am done "making" my rockwork, I will then put them in my 35 gallon brute trashcan and begin the process of seeding my rockwork with the bacteria and pods for my new tank. I don't officially move into my new home until early June; and then I have a month of renovations to get the house ready for our side business before I can move my tank in. That gives me about 2.5 to 3 months of time to really get the bacteria going and grow a good size pod population in my rocks and trash can that I can use to startup my new tank.

Hopefully, with some careful planning on my part, the cycling of the new tank will be very smooth and brief and my mandarin and SPS frags do not get too "frazzled" when the move does occur.

[Zack]

Dude those look sick!!!

[slm222]

Looking good

[Justin]

Thanks guys. I still will need to tape out the diminsions of the new tank on the floor and play with layout designs.

[Cammed_02]

Looks great Justin. I did something similar when I re-aquascaped my setup. I drilled holes in the rocks and used the plastic rods they sell at home depot as driveway markers for the backbone and a way to connect the rocks followed by the mortar. Also to hide the look of the descrepancy between the rock and the mortar I threw crushed rock on the mortar when it was still wet to cover it and make it all look uniform.

Definitely tape off an area and place your rock work inside to ensure the scape will fit well. This is going to look sick when you're done.

[Dkray944]

This is going to look awesome. The only other thing I would consider is maybe drilling random holes in the rock work for frag plugs. It's a lot easier to stick a frag plug in a pre existing hole then taking the rock out and drilling it or gluing it on later. I did a few on some random rocks and I wish I did more. Very helpful on the sides of support rocks.

[Justin]

Thanks guys. I already drilled several holes in my rockwork to house my DIY frag plugs, which many of my corals are on already. After seeing the article that talks about it, I never setup a tank without drilling my rockwork to support my frag plugs.

[Mr Cob]

Beautiful doood!

What about the pvc holding stagnant water? Might want to fill with sand to weight it and then cap off...?

[Justin]

Thanks Rob. That is an idea I didn't think about. When I had my tiger shrimp, I just let him use the plumbing as a tunnel and he allowed water to flow through nicely. Now that I don't have one, I might take you up on that and plug the ends up with sand. If anything, they will add more to the stability with the extra weight. Now I just need to get my tank, and stand setup at the new house and fill it up with some new corals from your mariculture contact.

[Mr Cob]

:) i would fill her up with something and cap the ends off solid. Even if you drill holes in it the water will be stagnant and cause problems. Love the progress so far. Will be a great tank worth showing off.

[Justin]

I was reading a thread on this dude's 65k gallon tank! He was using this manufacturer that I've seen lots of other people use on their builds. Well i checked out the site and lo and behold, they sell clear pvc and fittings!!!

Here is the link in case anyone is interested
http://www.gfps.com/content/gfps/country_US/en_US/products/piping/clrpvc-sys/clearsch80.html

Im thinking about using the clear sch 80 for my plumbing under the tank and regular 80 up above due to the lights and algae.


If its reef safe, im going with the clear. Imagine having the ability to see whats in your plumbing, pods, debris, and of detritus. I'm sure overtime it may get gnarly, but if I had the clear stuff, I could have seen my tigertail cucumber clogging my drain and where to pull him out. I will of course have to install unions to allow myself to get to the pipes to clean!

[Dean]

Just remember where there is light there will be algae in clear tubing.

[Mr Cob]

The black foam tube insulation works great on clear tubing. Lowes and home depot sell it.

[Mr Cob]

Just realized you were talking about clear pvc, i wouldn't use it unless there is significant drop in price over regular pvc. I use the foam tubes when i can't find black tubing such as for return lines.

[Justin]

Electrical Closet

So I've noticed that like most, I have a nasty rat's nest of electrical cables and what not from all of my gear. Since I'm not the greatest at making clean splices and don't want to worry about messing up my power cords, I can't really cut them down to the size I need them. So my next solution is to find a way to hide them and make them nice and neat. Here is my solution:

I got this piece of cabinet from BlueKoran and felt it was the right size and shape for what I needed. Since my new house cabinetry will be white, this should blend in nicely with the rest of the house

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3218_zpsrzc3blz1.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3218_zpsrzc3blz1.jpg.html)

So I decided to use the bottom compartment to hold my gear and have a shelf to store some items or what not. You can't have enough storage space!

Next I decided to drill two 2" holes in the side. I chose the side instead of the back because the side was thicker material and when you first see the tank, you will be seeing it from the side and I wanted this cabinet to be flush as well as not expose the cables feeding in to the cabinet

Here is a pic of the dummy wall using 4 small hinges and a magnetic cabinet "hold"
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3219_zpswzezbosq.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3219_zpswzezbosq.jpg.html)

The back area where the transformers and cables will enter:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3220_zpsahew0cs2.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3220_zpsahew0cs2.jpg.html)

Here is the final piece with 2 of my 3 vortechs installed. The other one was too far away to add it safely to the cabinet:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3222_zpsks5t3i3u.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3222_zpsks5t3i3u.jpg.html)

The rat's nest. I couldn't truly get rid of it but at least it looks cleaner:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3223_zpsrjjpm8un.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3223_zpsrjjpm8un.jpg.html)

Here is shot of the cables entering the cabinet and a make shift panel to hold my two battery backups. I tried incorporating the backups in the hidden area but it limited the range that the door could truly close and kept popping the front open. I was also afraid of the heat generated by the backups with all of the transformers. Now the transformers are at least getting some open air space:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3224_zpsprbyaxrc.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3224_zpsprbyaxrc.jpg.html)

Final shot of the cabinet with everything hidden away:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3221_zpsvtqyqend.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Electrical%20Cabinet/IMG_3221_zpsvtqyqend.jpg.html)

[Justin]

Overall, not too shabby and I like how it hides everything. I did however had to unscrew the Vortechs and feed the dry side cable through the holes to get them to sit in nicely in the cabinet. Fortunately, I had a bit of experience playing with them when I upgraded over to the quiet drive. I also had to take apart my breakout box and lengthen the float switch cables to my ATO and emergency high water float switches. Easy enough fix, just had to use speaker wire and flex shrink tubing to cover over the exposed cable.

[Justin]

I just got a text from Rob with Mr Cob's Corals about my Bali Shipment coming in. So stoked to get these pieces. I pick up tomorrow and do the start of my QT period in my frag tank. I need to make some room in my frag tank. I've got the Mr Cob coral and a shipment from Exquisite Corals coming in tomorrow too!!! I'm going to need to get rid of some stuff or something real quick!

[Mr Cob]

Thumbs up... will be a great system

[Justin]

Alright, its been far too long and I have finally manged to move into my new home, and work on the home rennovation projects around the location of the tank. What exactly took me so long, well the obvious answer was money but this is what I was working on so far:

We managed to get all of the old tile and carpet removed from the bottom floor of the house
I then was able to seal and paint on an epoxy paint and polyurethane protectant on the floor allowing the floor throughout the house to be easily cleaned with a mop and bucket. From there I took the liberty of drilling a small hole in the wall in the adjoining closet so that I could store more ATO water reservoir and keep it out of sight. I also laid down a couple of beads of caulk on where the wall trim touches the wall and the floor, effectively keeping any spills from saturating the wall behind the tank.

Once that was done, I was then able to move this beast of a tank into position and slowly fill it with water and let my rocks mature with pods and bacteria with no livestock hunting them down. I did that for about 2-3 weeks and slowly added my large pieces into the tank and the bulk of my livestock into the main system. All of my small frags were relocated to my 40 breeder, which I deemed as my grow out location.

Well here is the system now and I will do a breakdown of the things I have running:
This is the first view you I have of the tank. I need to clean up the MP40 cable:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3221_zps1ltky9gw.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3221_zps1ltky9gw.jpg.html)

Here is the FTS shot. I plan to add another little rock group in the middle for more zoas and my rainbow BTA's.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3223_zps2tbfqdpm.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3223_zps2tbfqdpm.jpg.html)

Here is the left side of the tank. I wanted to create different lighting zones for my corals and also have a seperated dedicated rock for my Euphyllia's and also create a type of channel for my fish to hide in:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3228_zpsldcdsshm.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3228_zpsldcdsshm.jpg.html)

Here is a shot of the right side of rock work. Still trying to be minimal with my rock scape, I created a haven for fish by creating a sort of amphitheater between the rock formations.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3225_zpsvg18e67i.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3225_zpsvg18e67i.jpg.html)

The following are pics of the equipment setup. Currently I only have (2) Rapid LED Onyx fixtures, which are doing a great job. I need to get a third one to illuminate the middle section of my tank. I also took some ideas from fellow reefers in town.

From Frances, I decided to incorporate a frag tank into the system to offer up more areas to allow my frags to grow while not cluttering up the display tank

From Rob, I took his idea of a cascading set of tanks. In my setup, I have the frag tank that gets hit first with some of the return water, and then it gravity feeds into my dedicated refugium, which in turns feeds into another fuge area of my sump or the return section of the sump. The main thing was that I wanted to maximize my area for pod breeding and release into my tank. I have a mated pair of mandarins, (4) chromis, Anthias and other planktavores and I also plan to get several other wrasse species. All of which will require several pods for hourly snacking.

Shot of the hood with MP40 drivers installed into it for ease of use:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3230_zpsuhq1v70o.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3230_zpsuhq1v70o.jpg.html)

Overall shot of the sump system:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3231_zps5kyudxrj.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3231_zps5kyudxrj.jpg.html)

Left side of the sump area. This area is a little tight but I setup a manifold to be able to plumb in quickly my Ca reactor, Dual reactor and anything else I may need. I created more outlets than I initially needed but I would rather do this than have to cut into my plumbing later
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3232_zpsri4z48t4.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3232_zpsri4z48t4.jpg.html)

Shot of 10 gallon Fuge and the sump I used on my old 100 gallon tank. The secondary fuge is located in the back, behind where the first fuge drains into the return area of the sump:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_3233_zpsrqhqzjqv.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_3233_zpsrqhqzjqv.jpg.html)

[Justin]

I was able to accomplish a lot so far with this tank system. I still have the following projects to complete:

I need to bring over my apex system and cable cabinet I made and set it up for this system.

I bought (3) 60" ATI bulbs to augment my leds, but I ran into some issues with the ballast or endcaps. My replacement endcaps came in, so I need to take the current system out and troubleshoot the issue. The extra light from the T5's will help get my lighting to hit more of the blue spectrum and with the T5's I can also angle them to really get underneath the coral crowns and light the bases as well

I need to update my Apex software so that I can run the new software and install my Auto Feeder from Neptune to my system

Still need to wire up my cabinet door switches so that the cabinet lights up with my track lighting when I open the door

Transfer my remaining fish: two mandarins, yellow watchman, and Rainford Goby into the system. They are still in my old 100 gallon but I am prolonging the move so that I can get better pod populations in this system and have enough filamentous algae for the rainford.

Now that I have a little fish room, I still need to setup/plumb my water changing/ mixing station

Setup and install my Ca Reactor into the system as well as drill a hole for my Apex probe. I already have the CO2 reactor from my Planted tank days and the added nutrients and trace elements from the Reactor should really give me better color and growth. I saw what one can do for Mike Zimmerman's tank and I want to have the same growth

Purchase and install my third or fourth Rapid LED Onyx fixture. If you are looking for a good, reasonably pricing LED fixture, I would say look into the Rapid LED onyx lights. I like mine and they look pretty sleek right out of the box. I may not get the same customized features as a radion but I get great growth rates and have the option of dimming my lights. All of which is what I only really need from my lights.

http://www.rapidled.com/dimmable-onyx-by-rapid-led/

Anything the LED's cant hit, I will make for with my T5 bulbs.

[Dkray944]

I like the build thread. Looking forward to seeing the sps grow out. The frag tank will come in handy. I would recommend plumbing it in a way so that you can cut it off from the main system if need be. You just never know and it would be nice to have that option.

[Justin]

Thanks man. I did sort of plumb it in a way to isolate the rack. There is dual union which supplies this side of the system and if need be, i can always shut it off and hook up some flex tubing from the manifold to feed the refugiums.

[Cammed_02]

Awesome job Justin, the sump layout came out great. Maybe I missed it but what light are you going to be running over the frag tank? Do you still have the initial tank with the halide over it I saw a few weeks back or was that just a holding tank?

[Justin]

Hey man! I still have the Halide light sitting over my 40 breeder grow out tank. I'm battling a bit of Bryopsis and will have to dose some Tech M over the next couple of weeks before I can bring my better frags over to the new setup. I'm going to be running a Par 38 light over the frag section of the new tank. That still needs to be installed but its a simple hook in the stand with the typical shop light cable wrapped around it.

[Justin]

Disaster!

Today I had not one, or two but three disasters. My wife always says it comes in threes and today was not different. Yesterday, I was pleased to find that I did not lose my female McCosker as originally thought but instead she was camping out in my overflow for about two- three months at least' and eating leftovers that came over and pods she could find. I wasn't too sure how she got back there and past the grating I made to block fish but there she was at the water surface staring at me. Well after several attempts to get her, I finally decided to drain all of the water and then scoop her up in my net. Once I got her home and acclimated to her new tank, I noticed she was swimming vertically and decided to put her in a hospital/ acclimation cell in the tank. I looked up online that wrasses can swim like this when they get some trauma and I figured she was injured in the scooping process. Well this morning I found her dead! What sucks is that females are hard to come by and I waiting 3 months to get this one. Now I'm on the search for another set of females for my lone male.

Later that evening, while trying to plug in a power strip, I accidentally nudged my drilled 10 gallon tank and hurt the dreaded pop of glass breaking. I was so ****ed and freaked out at the rushing water that I quickly siphoned out the remaining water and took the damaged tank out and headed out to WM to find an equivalent plastic tub to act as my fuge tank. I was able to successfully find out and drill that and paint the sides black and plumb it into my system with no problem. Little did I know that in the process of maneuvering the new fuge tank, I slightly adjusted one of the main drains for the tank. About an hr and half into plumbing the new fuge, I saw water drops coming from somewhere and only to discover that one of my 1' drains was loose and leaking water really badly!

Well after about an hr of cleaning and realigning my tank plumbing, I was able to finally lock in my bulkhead and verify that I had no more water leaking. The major crisis was adverted but a small one was left unresolved. In my haste, I forgot to verify that my bulkheads from the fuge tub into the sump were secure and water tight. I quickly found some drips and promptly tightened the bulkheads. One of them however just didn't seem to want to seal completely and I was forced to "Jerry rig" my bulkhead by applying silicon to the area around the edges of the bulkhead. This seemed to have worked and I will have to check for any water leaks in the morning.

Sadly, with the drain bulkhead loosening and draining so much water, I am super paranoid of another incident and now I'm checking every hr to see if there are any signs of water leakage. The curse of being a paranoid reefer I suppose.

All in all, I was able to stop the foreseeable calamity for now. Tomorrow I will be on high alert for any leaks or potential issues!

[leliataylor]

Sorry to hear about your wrasse and all the other problems you encountered. I am glad you got your plumbing fixed. We have all been and it is no fun. A friend of mine has a small granddaughter that ran a rocking chair into his seahorse tank and took a big chip out of it. He moved all the occupants to another tank and drained it. He then heard the dreaded ping and the tank ran a crack up one side. Disaster averted.

[Dkray944]

Man this sucks.... I guess we're just having some bad mojo these days

[Justin]

What a Difference a day makes!

Last night I was exhausted from making the adjustments to my tank and decided to hit the "hay" for some much needed RnR. Prior to calling it a day, I placed a towel directly underneath the bulkhead in question to see how much it was leaking. I woke up this morning to find it mildly damp, but too wet to leave it comfortably alone. After playing with some plumbing ideas to stem the drip, I decided to use some spare Uniseal bulkheads that I had laying around for my salt mixing station build.

Let me tell you, if you ever want to keep something as a backup for a pinch, I would highly recommend keeping a couple of these guys in addition to a spare pump and power strip! This bulkhead worked like a charm and was able to accomodate the slight bend to the bulkhead due to the plastic wall that was angled slightly. I should have used these things from the get go, but lesson learned. I still have a regular bulkhead on the other drain but its nice and dry for now. If I see it leaking a bit, I can always use another uniseal. I put a link to BRS where I got mine. Fairly inexpensive but oh so handy to have around.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/uniseal-1-9d624e9fd3bd011eb7a8f1d40f457d93.html

[Justin]

Man this sucks.... I guess we're just having some bad mojo these days

I know right Dave! My problems pale in comparison to your own my friend! I would be devastated and extremely ****ed off if I overdosed Kalk in my system.

The problem with mine was that I should have known that trying to muscle the new tub in would off set the plumbing a bit. I just need to be very thorough with checking everything. After the bulkhead got loose, I checked all my fittings, including all of my unions, to make sure everything was nice and tight.

I also knew that it would be a pain in the *** to plug in my power strip into the wall with the fuge tank where it was at, but I got to over zealous and wanted to get water running through the fuge and frag tanks that I should have found a strip and plugged it in and then put the tank where it should go. I just got too anxious to see the tank running and getting it cycled up to be patient and methodical. Lesson learned I suppose. The silver lining is that I now have a plastic tub for my fuge tank instead of a drilled glass tank, which eliminates the possibility of a stress crack on my tank. That at least gives me piece of mind.

[Justin]

Flatworms!!!

During lunch, I was admiring my tank and was just checking out my corals when I saw egg masses underneath one of my favorite corals, a neon green Torch! Upon further inspection, I saw a couple of polyclad worms moving around its base. I quickly setup my QT and dips stations and hit the pests with a 10 min. Bayer dip and a quick rinse in FW and finally a QT to observe and wait for another 3 days for the eggs to start to hatch and do the whole process again.
It sucks but I know they are not AEFW, just polyclad worms that prey on clams and snails. I don't have any clams but I do have several snails in my tank. Tonight I'm going to swing by HEB and get myself some fresh clams and create a trap for any potential remaining worms in my tank. Hopefully, I am just dealing with a few individuals that were hanging out under my torch.

Here is one of the suckers!
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_37571_zpsdx4ek7tr.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_37571_zpsdx4ek7tr.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_37561_zps6zjabhqo.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_37561_zps6zjabhqo.jpg.html)

And the future terrorist:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_37591_zpspkpzkhud.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_37591_zpspkpzkhud.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/IMG_37581_zpsgcvdj87a.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/IMG_37581_zpsgcvdj87a.jpg.html)

[Zack]

Dang sorry to hear man. Glad you caught it before they got out of hand!

[Justin]

Thank god they are not AEFW's and just clam and snail eaters. They appear to just hang out near my torch corals. I had another torch, purple one, that had a couple in my grow out tank. For best practice, I took all of my Euphylia corals and dipped them. Hopefully in two weeks, I can re-enter them into my DT with no issues.

[Justin]

Dang sorry to hear man. Glad you caught it before they got out of hand!

Thanks man. I had found one on a purple torch in my grow out but I must have not seen it in time or something because it probably hitched on the green neon when I put it in my DT.

[leliataylor]

Glad you caught it early.

[Dkray944]

Flatworms suck.... Good thing you have a quarantine tank set up.

[Justin]

Yea it does but at least I have so much extra gear that I was able to put together a QT quickly. Thankfully I was a little pro-active when I first setup my reef tank back when it was a tall 100 and put a power filter sleeve in my sump and just had it there accumulating bacteria and stuff this whole time. All I had to do was get the filter up and running and pull the filter cartridge out of my sump and into the filter and Voila....instant cycling of the QT. I put a new cartridge in the sump to seed and ready to switch it out in about 3 days when I dose the Bayer again to get any worms that hatched.

[quicksilverz]

I am dreading the day I have to set up a tank that quick, like you. I did find pyramid snails and have been able to eradicate them by removing them and keeping and eye on my system same with Monti eating Nudibranches those devastated my tank.

[Justin]

I remember that problem you had. Eventually I'll neutralize the worms naturally when I get my set of wrasses. My wish list of fish for this tank to finish it up are:

(2) more lyretail anthias
(2) more female McCoskers
Pair of leopard or Rhomboid wrasses

[Justin]

It's been a hectic last couple of weeks with Work and family. The latest update on my FW issues is that I just re-introduced my Euphyllia corals. Everything is looking great and starting to adjust to the flow and nutrients in my DT.

As with anything in this hobby, when one problem is fixed another presents itself. The other day I noticed that my Powder Blue Tang was acting erratically and really rubbing himself against the sand floor. Upon close inspection, it looks like he has ich but a very faint version of it, if such a thing exists. I've never had an issue with it before and the tank I got him from was running a UV sterilizer but did not have an outbreak in the tank. I've read that if the fish is stressed, the parasite could manifest itself. Not sure what is causing him to be stressed but the guy is a pig with Nori and I see him grazing the tank all the time. Probably just from the recent move and adjustments.

Regardless if it is ich or not. I decided to get myself a pair of skunk cleaner shrimp and see if they could do anything for a temporary fix. Funny this is that as soon I put them in the tank, the Tang, male anthias and my forktail blenny immediately crammed up to the cleaning station. No sight of them actually cleaning, I think they are still probably trying to get accustomed to their new reef and they will hopefully open up shop to their tank mates. Tomorrow I plan to get myself a Corallife Twist UV sterilzer rated for 200+ gallons to help nuke the larva stage of the parasite. This should help with the ich as well as clear up the free floating algae in the water column.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H3yBf5cvL.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011UP9L8/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=QN3LLG1M62ZU&coliid=I2IIC1EJR7F8MM

[Justin]

Well L*Mar came and went and I would have to say all of the planning and preparation for the event truly worked out for myself and the other BOD members this weekend. It was awesome to see the vendors setup and chat with them about corals and fish related stuff the whole weekend. The venue was perfect for our swap and I am sure the folks at the Aquarium loved having us there as well. Much love to my friends working at the Aquarium and really showcasing some nice reef displays. My favorite display by far is the Garden Eel exhibit but that Tyree Yellow Cap reef is a really close second!!!!

Anyway, enough about that. Let me brag about the loot I got at L*MAR:

I was able to secure a sick deal on three T5 Reflectors for my T5 bulbs on this current tank. I have to admit this is by far my best deal of the weekend if not of the build as I was quoted online about $30 something for 5' reflectors for my bulbs and clips. Mike from the aquarium had the fire sale of the century and was parting with them for WAY less than that!!!

Par 38's- Again had the most insane deals of the show with everything from his stockpile from Massive skimmers for $30 bulks to various T8, T12 VHO parts and ballast to these Par 38's. We think they are possibly full spectrum, but we don't know if they will grow corals. Doesn't really matter as I plan to use them to light my nano planted tank and my fuge tank.

Tunze Kalk chamber- I saw this on American Reef and thought it was a simple and interesting product. The funny thing was that I saw it in Mike's stuff and decided that for the price he was offering, I could try and use it on my grow out tank and check the results

Corals:

Sherita's booth- (2) Mini Zoa Colonies. She had some really impressive things but these little guys caught my eye and for her price on them, they were a steal.

Japanese Deep Water Zoa - I thought it was an interesting morph and I am curious to see how well it will grow in either one of my tanks

D&M corals - These guys had a really nice and simple setup. A couple of things caught my eye but the big one was the Green Suharsonoi colonies they had for sale. As I lost my blue and yellow versions when I moved tanks, I am determined to keep a colony and see it thrive in my tank. This guy is tank raised and will hopefully be hardier than its bali-cultured relatives. They also had a tabling Red Planet looking coral and another bluish coral that I'm not quite sure what it was. For the price of the little encrusted frags, they were a steal to let grow out and mature in my tank.

Coral swaps- And the best part about this hobby, this club and the venue..the trades. I was able to score on some pretty nice little pieces from various members for some of my own or donations just because. You have to truly love this hobby of hours.

Last but certainly not least, Isaac from www.fragshapes.com with his awesome Batman and Superman Logo frag plugs. The wife and I are going to do a contest on whose coral will encrust the fastest and cleanest over the plug.

[Justin]

Sad note: On a sad note, I found one of my female Lyretails laying on the sand floor funny this morning. I moved her over to my grow out tank and sometime after that died. Sucks because I am now down to one female for my sub male and I was planning on giving him a harem of 4 ladies. Now It will probably just be 3 if I can find some that are medium sized. Need to get that Harem completed and then work on my McCosker harem for my bachelor. Poor dude just sort of stays on one side of the tank and looks at his reflection. I need to get him some "action". The only problem is that females are hard to come by.

[Zack]

Dang man, sorry to hear about the fish.

Mike was having an insane fire sale yesterday!!!!!

[Justin]

Reefkeeping....a battle against frustration:

I mentioned to couple of folks around town that I had some recent disasters on my tank. Having suffered Bryopsis in my previous smaller tanks in the past, I thought I was behind that drama with this new tank build. Sadly, once you have bryopsis it never quite lets go of its grasp on your best laid plans. Well long story short, I started seeing signs of Bryopsis in my tank and wanting to be proactive, I decided to combat this threat with upping my GFO in my reactor. As a little background, this tank has been running a Ca reactor for about a couple of months now and I was getting some really great results from it. My lights were doing well but I was only running my RapidLED modules because my coralife t5 ballast was under warranty. I have a harem of anthias and an awesome Powder Blue Tang and McCoskers wrasse that I feed 3-4 times a day. Anthias or zooplanktivores and so need to eat on a constant basis to keep up with their metabolisms. With manual feedings of frozen food and 2 daily feedings from my Apex Auto Feeder, this consequently adds to my bioload of my 135....

Once I got my ballast back, I had my T5's hooked up but I failed to bring my LED's back down to compensate for the increased PAR on the tank. At first things looked fine, but I noticed things going a little brown. This was around the same time that I noticed the Bryopsis in my tank. I tell this part of the story to help set the stage for the sequence of events that eventually took out some of my big colonies and some nice unknown designer frags I had in my tank.

Stupidly, I used the amount suggested by the BRS calculator, I'm not blaming them nor is my goal to slander their helpful calculator, but I should have known better than to use 4 cups of GFO when I was used to using 2 cups on a monthly basis. My only advice and it has been shared countless times with SPS gurus, to take your time and do things slowly. Well...I didn't and I got too eager beaver and up and doubled my GFO amount on my tank.

Well in a matter of days, my PO4 was down from .14 to 0, which stripped my tank way too clean. With no PO4's my algae in my tank had no fuel. By Algae, I mean the bryopsis, my fuge full of macroalgae and the algae in my SPS colonies. They quickly started showing signs of "burnt tips," which is where you see the tips turn white and looked "burnt" from too high of Alk with no PO4 to buffer out the high Alk. I have seen this before when I ran an NPS tank and had a bio pellet reactor and GFO running.

With the High PAR, High Alk and no PO4, my poor SPS corals were pretty ****ed off and those that were too young or fragile like my birdnest and digi's, were slowly withering away and bleaching out. When it was all said and done, I lost about 15 or so colonies in my DT. A very crushing blow to my ego to say the least. For a brief second I thought about giving up and doing just Zoas and Leathers but having SPS is all about the challenge and the eventual reward and so, I looked at the brighter picture and said I now have room for some epic level designer stuff. http://www.maast.org/images/icons/icon3.pnghttp://www.maast.org/images/icons/icon7.png

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to keep small frags of my larger colonies growing out in my 40 breeder frag/grow out tank. Hopefully in about 6 months, I should have the start of a rebirth on some of my lost colonies.

Sorry to rant about this and making this post long but its a little bit of therapy to put it out there. Thanks for reading and I'll do my best to post updates on my tank.

[Justin]

Now my only issue is Bryopsis, which grows thick in my DT and just barely shows signs in my frag tank. I bought some Dino X, which I have heard works on Bryopsis. I used to use Tech M exclusively, but it got way too expensive and the results were not as I would like to have had. I will document my findings with the frag tank in a separate thread.

[Cammed_02]

Is there anyway to pull the rocks with the bryopsis on them and treat them in the frag tank using Tech M in smaller concentrations?

[Dean]

I had a One Spot Fox Face in my 65 that kept the bryopsis wiped out. Very cool tempered fish and does an awesome job of keeping the rock algae free. I also gave the bryopsis a place to grow in my sump fuge. Between the two there was never any apparent signs in the DT of bryopsis.

[Justin]

Yea, I used to have a pretty robust fuge but when I dosed too much GFO, it wiped out the macro stuff. Once that happened, I think the Bryopsis filled the void. Now I have chaeto slowly growing in my fuge

[Justin]

Is there anyway to pull the rocks with the bryopsis on them and treat them in the frag tank using Tech M in smaller concentrations?
Not really man. For Tech m to work, it needs to penetrate for a long period of time. In my dt, pratically everything has some kind of bryopsis growth. The main thing will be dosing the while tank and out competing the bryopsis with macro algae.

[Cammed_02]

Oh man I was hoping it was just a few select rocks that you could pull and treat separately. Either way you will get it worked out man. It's going to take a while but looks like you got a good game plan.

[Justin]

Hopefully my strategy will work. Right now I'm on the 2nd dosing of Dino x on my frag tank. That tank is te experimental test of the effectiveness of Dino x. If it works, I'll apply it to my dt. Right now I'm manually plucking the stuff out of my dt a day before a water change


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

There is always a silver lining somewhere:

Well, with a couple of my nice sized colonies gone. I decided that I now have room for some more colorful named corals. I know I am still battling bryopsis but that is my only issue. It also helps that Bryopsis doesn't really bother corals unless it smothers them and I manually pick the stuff off the rocks every week. Once I start to dose Tech M, it will be gone for good. Anyway, I got the following corals locally from a couple of fellow reefers:

From Frances
Beautiful Red Planet
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpl1/v/t1.0-9/12798926_1002621616471046_1882562435961450188_n.jp g?oh=4cfbf25c336bb42540acd87ee79047df&oe=575AB402

Blue Tenius
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12795379_1002620553137819_8947667865899308175_n.jp g?oh=523f18f6b40c53719d413adc05dbf0ed&oe=5753A4AE

Pink Lemonade
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlf1/v/l/t1.0-9/12803072_1002620743137800_3687418893233319865_n.jp g?oh=fba7f1d598996978238cccba27bff3af&oe=5759E0E3

And from Hector:

Blue Petal Monti

Google Pic of colony
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlt1/v/t1.0-9/12795470_868729516605514_36498263561623890_n.jpg?o h=7322771895e06ca850845e2fba8a8536&oe=576346D0

[Justin]

I also jumped on an Aqua SD order at the last minute and will be getting the following:

Yellow Core
27809

Blue Mystic Monti
27810

Blue Phoenix Monti

27811

Barbie Pink Millie

27812

Neon Lights Stag

27813

[Justin]

Yellowstone Tenius

27814

Fire Ants Table
27815

[alton]

we need a recent picture of tank please?

[Justin]

Lol, I'll take a pic. I just got myself a sturdier tripod. I'll post some up later today. How is your tank doing?

[Justin]

updated FTS:

I'm still battling a couple of issues like Bryopsis but here is an update:

FTS Shot, took it at an angle to avoid glare:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3543_zpsc7pwltfz.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3543_zpsc7pwltfz.jpg.html)


Left Side:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3590_zpsx9nakn6f.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3590_zpsx9nakn6f.jpg.html)

Rt Side:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3589_zpssyosh1ub.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3589_zpssyosh1ub.jpg.html)

[Justin]

Some Coral pics:

My large Nepthia (its about 7-8 inches long)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3558_zpsj5izys5i.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3558_zpsj5izys5i.jpg.html)

Green Slimer frag:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3560_zps0allqbth.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3560_zps0allqbth.jpg.html)

Blue Ridge Coral:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3561_zpskhidkthm.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3561_zpskhidkthm.jpg.html)

One of my Zoa islands:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3565_zpsyjxcxpzz.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3565_zpsyjxcxpzz.jpg.html)

Eclipse Zoas

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3563_zps1akd4bob.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3563_zps1akd4bob.jpg.html)

One of my few LPS:

Dragon Soul Favia

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3582_zpscoxr5aqq.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3582_zpscoxr5aqq.jpg.html)

Tubs Mega Colony with my Forktail Blenny bombing:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3586_zpsbamezhjb.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3586_zpsbamezhjb.jpg.html)

Beautiful Red Planet from Frances:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3550_zpsominwpje.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3550_zpsominwpje.jpg.html)

One of my favs: Garf Bonsai

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3552_zpstr7gqaoi.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3552_zpstr7gqaoi.jpg.html)


SPS island on the right with Spongodes on the left, Tri Color colony in the back, unknown acro right, my two Garf Bonsai's

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3549_zpssvsn3dv3.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3549_zpssvsn3dv3.jpg.html)

Fish:

Female turning male Anthias

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3584_zpsgmyieexw.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3584_zpsgmyieexw.jpg.html)

Anthias Harem

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3585_zps8rcpfekj.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3585_zps8rcpfekj.jpg.html)

Right side of the tank withthe SPS islands

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3589_zpssyosh1ub.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3589_zpssyosh1ub.jpg.html)

Unknown Acro with my bubble tips and a flame clown in the back:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3555_zpsfmfcnisd.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3555_zpsfmfcnisd.jpg.html)

Euphyllia island

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3557_zpsdglw9tlb.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3557_zpsdglw9tlb.jpg.html)

Powder Blue Tang
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3577_zpsmho2cojx.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3577_zpsmho2cojx.jpg.html)

Yellow Face Jawfish

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3575_zpso486e1wc.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/02March2016/IMG_3575_zpso486e1wc.jpg.html)

[alton]

Lol, I'll take a pic. I just got myself a sturdier tripod. I'll post some up later today. How is your tank doing?
There maybe some changes coming????

[alton]

Your tank is looking great

[Justin]

Thanks Alton. I would love to have the height and growth of your corals. Patience is a virtue I suppose. Changes.....I know that you just upgraded your wife's tank. What else do you have up your sleeve?

[slm222]

looking good

[alton]

Thanks Alton. I would love to have the height and growth of your corals. Patience is a virtue I suppose. Changes.....I know that you just upgraded your wife's tank. What else do you have up your sleeve?

I already leaked too much info to our President last night, I will hopefully have the info here on MAAST next week if everything works out?

[Justin]

Thanks Slm222


looking good

[Justin]

Now I'm super Curious......

I already leaked too much info to our President last night, I will hopefully have the info here on MAAST next week if everything works out?

[Justin]

Aqua SD order came in today!!!!

So my order came in today from Aqua SD. I have to say that my haul was pretty nice. One of the best things about ordering from a vendor is the free corals that they sometime drop. This order I was lucky enough to get 2 freebies. Here are some pics of the loot that is acclimating to my grow out tank right now:

The Loot in total with the (2) freebies:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4186_zps7f4ggdrz.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4186_zps7f4ggdrz.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4197_zpsgqwwbofg.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4197_zpsgqwwbofg.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4198_zpsjfdh2vg2.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4198_zpsjfdh2vg2.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4200_zpscla7e0j2.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4200_zpscla7e0j2.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4201_zpswscr4c5c.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4201_zpswscr4c5c.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4202_zpsyus4vvut.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4202_zpsyus4vvut.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4204_zpsr8mhgots.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4204_zpsr8mhgots.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4205_zpsnyjg4hje.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4205_zpsnyjg4hje.jpg.html)

And the last two are what I plan to put on some awesome frag plugs I got from Issac awhile back. I haven't seeded them because I was looking for something to put on them. I think i have them now:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4203_zpsve4vlusl.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4203_zpsve4vlusl.jpg.html)
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4199_zpsu75sky90.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Aqua%20SD%20Order/IMG_4199_zpsu75sky90.jpg.html)

[Zack]

Dude these are some sweet photos! What camera are you using?

[Justin]

My iphone 4 for the frags and an SLR cannon Rebel for the tank photos. I still need to learn how to mess with the photos in a photo program and I'll eventually get myself a macros lens for close ups

[Justin]

Couple of updates to my system. I was finally able to get off my *** and setup my dlink 930l camera on my tank. Took me awhile but I finally got the stupid camera to work. The quality sucks but at least I can get a visual on my tank now. In time I'll get myself a more defined camera. Here is what my video feed looks like:

http://192.168.1.86/video.cgi

not the greatest but its something.

[Justin]

Another note, I was eyeballing my sump the other day and I noticed that my skimmer wasn't on. I checked my plugs and programming and everything looked fine. I decided to go ahead and take the whole skimmer out and clean it thinking I had something dislodged in the impeller. Lo and behold, once I took the pump out, I noticed a ton of feather duster little worms all over the pump and other calcerous growths on the pump body. Into the vinegar bath my pump went. As I was taking the pump apart, I noticed that my magnetic component of the impeller was cracked and showed signs of rust on it. Not quite sure what caused it, but I can only assume that the worms and gunk jammed in the impeller and with the constant torque of the pump, the core cracked and eventually seized up the skimmer. Thankfully, I was able to order a replacement impeller and it is on its way to me, so that I can get my skimmer up and running again.

I'm not too worried as I utilize multiple systems for managing my dissolved organics. I have a fairly large fuge with tons of pods and cheato to absorb what is dissolved and I also use GFO to help with dissolved items as well. I can't run the system for too long without my skimmer, mainly because I feed fairly heavy, but I'll be fine.

I also was able to order myself a RedSea colors testing kit. I've noticed that my Red Hyacinth is color phasing to a more green color. I can only assume that I am deficient in either Potassium or some other element. I also have some yellow hued corals courtesy of my order with Aqua SD and I don't want them to shift either. I have heard/ read that yellow is hard to maintain but I did some reading on GlennF's page on Reef2Reef and it gave me some interesting ideas for enhancing and keeping my corals vibrant.

For those of you that are unsure of the article I am referring to. Glenn is the pioneer behind the whole (DSR) Dutch Synthetic reefing program. Basically, its very similar to a Zeovit system except you do not try to run your tank super clean but rather you make your own type of "salt" by measuring and using the right components in your salt. In theory, although his tank has proven it, Glenn has been able to grow a truly awesome reef with no water changes and phenomenal growth for over 3+ years!!! Another main difference is that with Zeovit, corals are half starved and consequently look more pastel than vivid. In DSR, the corals are well fed and very vibrant.

I'll post my findings on my tank parameters in the future and try and document my findings on coral growth and color enhancement.

[alton]

I did almost the same thing. I hooked up my new return pump yesterday for the second time and realized I never plugged my skimmer pump back in last week! Sometimes our lives get so busy we just need to step back and relax a little more.

[Justin]

Well today is the start of my Tech M dosing. My Mg in my display tank is about 1400 so I dosed about 1/2 a gallon of Tech M so far. I'll test my Mg again tomorrow and continue to dose up to the 1800 ppm mark recommended for killing bryopsis. Yesterday, I went ahead and did a water change and also plucked up as much of the nasty algae as possible. I also changed out my GFO and Carbon reactors today and only refilled my GFO with about 1 cup of the material. I'll run without Carbon for the duration of the treatment to prevent the carbon from filtering out the particle in Tech M that is supposed to kill bryopsis. I'll post some photos later today to document the process in the tank later today when the lights come on.

I'm hoping this works because Bryopsis is such an eye sore.

[Justin]

Well im pleased too announce that my battle with bryopsis has been going well for me. I have been using Tech M exclusively to help battle this pests and I recently have been seeing clumps slowly turn brown and die off. Based on others, I've brought my mg levels up to 1800-1900 ppm! I know its high but my ca and alk levels have been steady. I also took my carbon offline and only run gfo at about 1 cup for my 155 gallon total system. I just recently took a syphon and decided to syphon and filter my water through a filter sock and then return the water back to the system. My goal was to speed the process and also get rid of the dead or dying pieces in my tank.
I have to admit that it feels good to take my tank back. Ill post recent photos tomorrow.

[Zack]

Can't wait to see the photos. Even just last week when I went over it was much much better!

[Justin]

Yea I'm pleased with my results so far. I'm going to be showcasing my journey using Acro Power aminos in my tank now that I have a handle on the bryopsis. I'll still have to keep any eye out for it but I'm glad I'm getting my tank back. PE is looking good on my corals.

[12_Egg_Omelette]

Justin. I'll send you a tutorial on how to get good pictures with your dslr

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160412/adb5045574e5a1d5e8e3512e7347ffdd.jpg

[Justin]

Dude I would appreciate it a lot. I'm going to be taking some pics of my tank to show a prior to amino dosing size relationship. Are you using a Macro lens?

[Justin]

My Amino Dosing Experiment with AcroPower:

I've done some research and read several reviews claiming that they saw a lot of growth and PE using the product. In the past I have used Fuel with some mixed reviews. I was also running carbon and doing several different things at the same time, I could neither confirm nor deny that fuel was working for me. Fuel also has to be refrigerated, which was a hurdle that I did not want to deal with. The goal is to eventually automate my amino dosing with my Apex and because AcroPower can be at room temperature, this made it the easiest choice to run the test. The directions also state that the product needs to be shaken, so that will prove a problem with automating. My best solution would be to find a pluggable version of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BGPC5W/...=IHC3ML082MKBM (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BGPC5W/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=QN3LLG1M62ZU&coliid=IHC3ML082MKBM)

Regardless, because I have been doing Tech M to kill my bryopsis (and I'm winning), I have not run Carbon in the tank for almost 2 weeks now. In addition, I have not done a water change in as equal amount of time and don't plan to until I am done dosing the Tech M. I give it roughly another 2 weeks before I do a water change of 20 gallons on the system.
Aside from keeping my Alk, Ca, and Mg (1800 due to Tech M) levels steady, I will not be dosing anything else in my tank. As a note, I do run a Calcium reactor, so any trace elements from the reactor will be taken into consideration. With that said, here are my numbers as of today:

Alk: 8.85 dkh
Ca: 380, I just recently dosed enough Ca solution to bring it to 450. I will test this parameter either tonight or tomorrow to verify
Mg: 1740 (Red Sea) I also added more Tech M to bring my Mg up to 1850. I'll test for this later tonight or tomorrow

According to the product label. I am supposed to use 5ml of product for every 25 gallons. My system is roughly 155, so for a week I am supposed to be dosing 30ml a week or 4.28 ml/ day. I decided to go to a clean 5ml/ day to make it easier to measure dosages.

When my lights come on, I will take pictures of my corals to show a before the regimen shot of my corals.

[12_Egg_Omelette]

It was my buddies $10,000 camera set up. He's a sports photographer

[Zack]

Can you shoot me the tutorial as well?

[Justin]

I meant to post some updated photos, I picked more dead algae and had to rearrange some corals because I forgot where they were at originally:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3640_zpsv3aommse.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3640_zpsv3aommse.jpg.html)

Right side:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3638_zpsbzhaz6h8.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3638_zpsbzhaz6h8.jpg.html)

Left Side:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3636_zpshw1tqoy6.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3636_zpshw1tqoy6.jpg.html)

Pacman and JF BLue Sapphire:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3635_zps7v5ehq8n.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3635_zps7v5ehq8n.jpg.html)

Green Slimer and unknown frag
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3630_zpsbbwjchwa.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3630_zpsbbwjchwa.jpg.html)

another unknown frag but it does well for me:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3628_zps9ucdfyeg.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3628_zps9ucdfyeg.jpg.html)

Blue Ridge Coral:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3626_zpswpbyg8qb.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3626_zpswpbyg8qb.jpg.html)

Cali Tort:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3619_zpsnx9pibi1.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3619_zpsnx9pibi1.jpg.html)

Spongodes:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3616_zps6pnvggpy.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3616_zps6pnvggpy.jpg.html)

Tri Color Valida:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3612_zpsgitjmusj.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3612_zpsgitjmusj.jpg.html)

Garf Bonsai group:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3610_zpsdrffx3s1.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3610_zpsdrffx3s1.jpg.html)

Secale:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3605_zps6khqjns1.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3605_zps6khqjns1.jpg.html)

Yellow Core Tenius:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3603_zpsnfhwlx92.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/13April2016/IMG_3603_zpsnfhwlx92.jpg.html)

[Justin]

I'll have to take an updated shot of my Aqua SD order:

I did lose one coral, I think it was the Flagstone Tenius but with the constant moving around of stuff, I lost track.
(I'm going to have to post a map of my coral frags to keep everything in order)
I was in danger of losing one of my freebies as well

The main culprit was I believe too high of an Alk in my tank. I was able to dial the Ca Reactor to provide as much alk and Ca as the tank was using but I also noticed that my PO4 were reading .06 and .04 the week prior while my Alk was roughly 8.85. I think while I was trying to dial my reactor in, the Alk swings and the level it was at stressed out my frags. It sucks to lose a frag but I now know the cause for it.

[Justin]

Its been awhile but I think I was able to finally get my Ca Reactor dialed in. It took me what I think is about a couple of weeks of tweaking the ph levels and effluent line but I was able to keep my Alk stable at roughly 7.78 for a steady 2-3 days. All I need to do now is wait until Sunday when I do my water testing and see if the level is steady.


https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12990951_10104022180080705_3718703170056615415_n.j pg?oh=284383aba3bc0eda6b53cc1cdc4c3eb9&oe=57BD88E7

[FarmerTy]

What reactor are you running? It's always nice to see that smooth, flat line on your alk chart.

[Justin]

What reactor are you running? It's always nice to see that smooth, flat line on your alk chart.

Thanks man. It sure is pretty and tough to get setup but once it is, smooth sailing. I run a GeoReactor that I bought during Elegant Reef's back closet sales. I just needed to drill a hole for a ph probe and install the ph connector. Geo at Geo's Reef was really good about getting back to me and letting me know what I needed to do. I had a bit of a leak but some silicon and Weldon did the trick

Here is a pick of the reactor. I placed a tub under it to catch any water if it did leak:
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/IMG_4312_zpsgeqimthl.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/IMG_4312_zpsgeqimthl.jpg.html)

Pic of the manifold I created to feed the reactor. So basically the only two pump I have in my system are the Return and the Mag pump to circ the reactor.
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/IMG_4313_zpss2cnudxu.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/IMG_4313_zpss2cnudxu.jpg.html)

[FarmerTy]

Those Geo reactors are worth every penny! That's great that they have such good support for their products.

What CaRX media are you using these days?

[Justin]

To be honest, I didn't know too much about them until I saw the reactor the week prior and did some research. A lot of great reviews on several well respected sites swear by them. For the price I paid, its was well worth it.

I wanted to get it up quick and start the dialing in process, so I went by Texas Tropical and got myself some ARM. Based on reviews I checked out afterwards, its not the best media but at least its base to measure all others by. I'll have to do a little more research on other brands when it comes to change out the media.

How is the tank coming along? I need to pick your brain on how to tank great shots with an SLR.

[FarmerTy]

To be honest, I didn't know too much about them until I saw the reactor the week prior and did some research. A lot of great reviews on several well respected sites swear by them. For the price I paid, its was well worth it.

I wanted to get it up quick and start the dialing in process, so I went by Texas Tropical and got myself some ARM. Based on reviews I checked out afterwards, its not the best media but at least its base to measure all others by. I'll have to do a little more research on other brands when it comes to change out the media.

How is the tank coming along? I need to pick your brain on how to tank great shots with an SLR.

Well good first pick for a CaRX. They are one of the best!

I used ARM for about 3-4 years but switched to Reborn last year sometime. It seems to be more consistent and has less gastropod shells in it.

Tank is great, got some new acro additions sitting in QT but hope to find them some room in the next month. That means I'll have to give some of the current colonies das boot!

I am probably not the person to ask about DSLRs. :o That was my first attempt with one and a macro lens as well. I don't even own one but I had fun playing with it.

[Justin]

Nevertheless, you have some great shots of your tanka and the videos are pretty slick too

[Justin]

These will be my last additions after getting female mcCoskers


https://youtu.be/FyPUVUWlNHc

[slm222]

really great looking pair of fish, congrats! if the female ever morphs in your tank I call dibs!

[slm222]

The directions also state that the product needs to be shaken, so that will prove a problem with automating. My best solution would be to find a pluggable version of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BGPC5W/...=IHC3ML082MKBM (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BGPC5W/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=QN3LLG1M62ZU&coliid=IHC3ML082MKBM)

Did you ever find a plug in version? im looking to do the same thing for food in a mini fridge

[Justin]

I haven't found a plug in version. To be honest, I haven't really done a lot of searching. Based on what I've seen when doing a continuous auto feeder, they were being used to keep frozen substances mixed. When I do find it, I'll post my findings

[Justin]

Water Test today. Parameters were pretty stable over the course of a couple of days:

Alk: 7.45 dkh
Ca: 445
Mg: 1860 Still using Tech M
PO4: .04

The bryopsis is pretty much on the receding end. I did a rock scrubbing and removed a lot of the dead and decaying algae on the rocks. Still a couple of small pockets that are tough to pick or brush out of the rock work. Because the Mg is a little high still, I'm not going to add anymore Tech M for a couple of weeks. I'm going to let the system naturally deplete Mg on its own and then add more Tech M to offset the reduction.

I also noticed that over the course of 6 days, my alk went down .33 dkh points for roughly .055/ day. I added a bit of Alk solution to bring it back up to 8.0. I don't think I want to mess with the effluent amount as it's pretty much dialed in with the exception of that .055 a day used. Over the course of the tank, I might need to add more due to the coral frags I have slowly using up the Alk to build their skeletons.

On a side note, I did lose another Aqua SD frag. It was the fire Ants frag. Not really sure what caused the bleaching. One day I noticed quite a bit bleached and then the next day, fully bleached. I'm bummed and a bit confused. It could have been caused by the fluctuations in the alk when I was trying to dial it in.

Since working with the Tech M, I've completely taken carbon out of the equation. What I have noticed is that the tank looks like it has carbon running it through with the water looking pretty clear. I just run a cup of GFO from BRS and also fill the adjacent canister with filter foss. It could be the floss that is cleaning up the water. I'm not complaining but I'll have to be more diligent on replacing that floss. Seeing these result and how expensive Carbon can be. I'm thinking about dropping Carbon altogether and just stick to GFO and filter floss in my dual reactor. Hopefully, I might just take GFO as well depending on how well my macro algae grows in the sump. I harvested quite a bit of the algae to allow for more growth.

[FarmerTy]

I wouldn't put too much stock in losing the AquaSD frags. They chop shop maricultured and wild colonies, let them heal, and send them out. Most have barely acclimated to tank life before being shipped out. It's not the same as getting a frag from a fellow hobbyist or anything so sometimes the survival rates are lower, though there can be some diamonds in the rough found.

[Justin]

I would agree with you. I wasn't too upset except for the money lost on the frags. I have to agree with you, I got some other corals locally that wanted to bank some of his corals in my tank, and all of those are doing really well in my tank. The Aqua SD ones, like you mentioned, are hit or miss in terms of them being happy. The encrusting montis and some of the other colonies form SD or showing some PE. If those survive and make it to 2", I would have considered that a win in my book. I know I'm always tempted to get some of these fancy coral varieties, but the thought of losing a couple hundred on just one coral because it wasn't acclimated well, really scares me. Still, there are some pretty ones out there. Still can't believe that JF Home wrecker is about $1,000 for a 1" frag!

[FarmerTy]

Jason Fox corals are ridiculous. For someone who actually sells decently nice looking coral, the need to photoshop them on top of that just looses respect in my book. The hype brings in the money though so I guess I can't blame him if this is his main source of income.

My stance on any frag that commands a higher than $60/inch price tag is I need to see the colony in person first. None of this Walt Disney actinic stuff or any other corals like that... I don't run my actinics full time so I'd rather focus on corals that look good in normal daylight. I'll get off my soapbox now.

Montis are pretty bulletproof so I'm sure you'll be fine on those. Where else do you usually order corals from?

[Justin]

Honestly, I usually do it through trades or what I see that catches my eyes in a LFS. I do however get an occasional order from Ebay. They are pretty much doing the same thing but slightly cheaper than the brand name shops. Lately I've been having this bug to get myself some Maricultured stuff. The last order I had was a couple of years ago and the Suharsonoi I ordered died off but the Secale, Tri Color and blue Tenius I got all are still alive in my tank. The Blue Tenius was a little touch and go after the last alk spike but its recovering and the PE on it is good. My secale was a nasty brown color but it looks like its starting to color up to a metallic green. My favorite part of the maricultured corals are the acro crabs you sometimes get. I got two in my last order and one is still in my Tri-Color colony but I can't seem to find the other one. He was in another coral I had that died in the crash. He survived but I'm not sure where he ended up. Could be in a rock crevice or something.

[FarmerTy]

I'm a huge fan of maricultures these days and setup my tank with a mix of maricultures and SPS classics, such as the pearlberry, Oregon tort, and ORA Hawkins echinata.

I've been putting out a hitlist for the LFSs by me... Every two acro crabs you get for me, I'll give them a free frag. I want tons of them in my tank.

[Justin]

Nice man, you mentioned two corals that are on my wishlist, Hawkins and Pearlberry. A friend of mine in Dallas told me that Pearlberry is one of the toughest to get happy and show growth. Once my coral frags grow into decent colonies, I'll start the lookout for acro crabs. I know that Liveaquaria gets them from time to time.

Similar to yourself, I want to have an acro crab in every acro colony that I will eventually have. I heard they offer all kinds of benefits to acros. The Tri Color Valida that houses my crab always looks good and I see my little crab chilling in his house all the time. It would be great to see a ton of claws waving from out of my colonies. I'm actually quite proud of that colony. Its large enough to act as a night sanctuary for one of my chromis. Pretty cool to be able to offer a fish a refuge similar to what they would see in the wild.

[Justin]

The other day I felt like getting myself some nice good sized coral colonies. Not really sure the reason for it but I felt I wanted to get some good sized pieces of millipora's to add to my collection and provide some different growth rates and splashes of color.

Here are the pieces so far. I'll put them in QT for a couple of weeks:

Rainbow Humilis
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/Justin%20Humilis_zpsesjfx1g4.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/Justin%20Humilis_zpsesjfx1g4.jpg.html)

Red Milli
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/Justin._zpsb7q6ymrf.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/Justin._zpsb7q6ymrf.jpg.html)

Dual colonies of Yellow and Peach Milli
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/Justin_zpslcftn0o8.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/Justin_zpslcftn0o8.jpg.html)

Yellow
http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/Justin%20Yellow%20Milli_zpsxfhjvrob.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/Justin%20Yellow%20Milli_zpsxfhjvrob.jpg.html)

[Justin]

I also picked up on a couple of frags from LMAR. I'll have to post them up later but they are:

Queen Ice Echinata
Fire and Ice Echinata
Magician Zoa
Blue Macaws
red Tuxedo Urchin as well

[Justin]

End to my Amino Acid Test

I decided to end my Amino Acid test after about 2 weeks of dosing everyday. The main reason for the end was that I was noticing some unwanted algae growing around my tank again. If you recall, I was winning the war against the algae but after about a week and 3/4 into it, I noticed some darker patches growing and it appearing in new places throughout my tank. I didn't change anything to my system and in fact changed out my GFO and filter floss, and I noticed the new growth in my tank. That was for sure no bueno for me. So without any other issues, I decided to stop dosing the amino acids.

My initial thoughts about Amino Acids was this, I didn't really see any drastic or even subtle improvement in my corals growth, color or even in PE. To be honest with you, in my observations, the whole amino acids things is just snake oil. Granted I didn't try it with any other amino acids and specifically the ones that need to be refrigerated like Fuel or ME's version, I quite frankly just felt that the money and time spent on dosing aminos, could be used for something else.

Shortly after stopping my AA regimen, I decided to sip the Kool-Aid and setup a micro bubbling setup in my tank. I basically used an old Bubble Magus Nac 3.5 skimmer pump I had laying around, and quickly created a couple of 90 elbows to redirect the bubbles into my return. I also took the airline and had the opening away and outside of my tank stand to ensure I was getting the freshest air in my house. I also created a program in my apex to run the micro bubbler for about 4 hrs from 10pm-2am. Here is my programming for the outlet:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Time 22:00 to 02:00 Then ON

I will say that after about a couple of days I'm not really noticing anything. Due to the filter floss and GFO combo I'm running in my BRS Dual Reactor, my water was naturally clear from the get go. My skimmate was not noticeably darker, thicker or more abundant. I will note that because my micro bubbles come out of my returns and my pumps are on a night mode; ie very low settings, I'm wondering if I'm not getting enough bubbles everywhere. I might have to get myself a wood airstone and setup the stones right below my MP40's or Jebao's to get more air bubbles. The "artist" in me doesn't want to do this because then I'll see the airlines and it will bug the heck out of me. Still, its too early to see anything right now and since the pump is controlled by my apex, I really don't have to do anything else. Probably after about 4 weeks, I'll probably either increase my time or run the bubbles during the day for a couple of minutes during the peak times when the pumps are at their full potential.

[FarmerTy]

Justin, I'd just reduce the amount of aminos you are dosing.

Hard science has shown an ability for corals to uptake amino acids via absorption and that's why I use it. Honestly, between what corals manufacture themselves between them and their coral symbionts, what is supplied via normal fish feeding, and fish poop... you're probably getting plenty.

Nonetheless, I still dose AA's to help supplement. I dose 2x/week regardless of the manufacturers instructions, that way what isn't absorbed will be readily uptaken by bacteria and skimmed out in the process. No chance of feeding an algae frenzy by doing it everyday.

Aminos are the basic building blocks of life... And here's an actual scientific experiment documenting the absorption of aminos.

Coral Nutrition, Part Three: Amino Acids and Comments on Amino Acid Supplements — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2015/5/corals)

Aminos are the one and only thing I dose in my tank, and as a reminder of my system, I don't do water changes.

[Justin]

Thanks Ty, how many ml do you dose in your tank? I was dosing about 5ml a day, per the instructions. I did however notice some stn from the base up on two of the frags I gkt from Aqua sd. Its actually been a ckuole of days, roughly around the time I stopped dosing AA and around when I started micro bubble scrubbing. I did some research on rc for causes for stn. I couldnt find any definitive causes but several:

Specific gravity
Too much lighting, not enough light
alk swings
Ca swings
Not enough nutrients
Too much nutrients

Basically, there are no absolute root causes for it. I was worried a bit when someone noted that it started speading throughout their acros and they lost them all. I doubt my other corals will spread. I am noticing great pe and growth on my current colonies. My parameters have been constant with the exception of what was scrubbed by the bubbles.

What i will do is turn off scrubbing for now, and dose aa's, on a bi weekly basis with about 10ml a dose. I can use my stn frags to gauge success. First I'll check for stopping of the bleaching and eventual regrowth of skin on said frags. What im going to do today is a 25 gallon water change and replacement of gfo and filter floss. With regular water changes, I think the issues will correct themselves

[FarmerTy]

Water changes will fix almost anything, unless you are making bad water, but that's a whole different issue.

Over the years, I've noticed STN at the bases associated with the following personally:

-too much GFO
-too much carbon
-initial start of biopellets when the nitrates are being stripped pretty fast from the system
-parasite such as AEFW attacking colony or red bugs
-alk swings
-phosphates above 0.18 ppm

For high nitrates, they just browned out. I didn't have any deaths up to 50 ppm of nitrates. For salinity, extended periods above 1.030 caused some SPS to almost dissolve off the calcium carbonate skeleton slowly, not STN IME. The flesh just kept getting thinner and thinner and then dissolved away. I've never noticed any issues with Ca swings as long as it stayed above 380 ppm. Same with Mg, as long as it stayed above 1200ppm, everything was fine. I've never killed an acro with too much light, but I've killed some with too little. I've bleached them with too much light but they always came back and never died.

For STN, I'd highly recommend removing the frag and super glueing over the area that is STN'ing. Works for me most of the time when the offending condition has been remedied. I typically super glue a little over the living flesh to create a barrier from the dead skeleton.

The difficult thing about acros is that they sometimes will display reactions from an event a couple days to even weeks after it happened so it makes it hard to pinpoint what might have been the cause. Had an alk spike this week, cool, I'll STN on you next week.

If anything is snake oil, I think those micro bubbles are. For those with a good skimmer and good water flow in your DT, I see no reason for it. If you have poor flow and a cruddy skimmer, I can see how the bubbles may help out but it doesn't seem very efficient doing it that way. Anyways, I have my doubts about that method but it doesn't hurt to do it and it is cheap to add to existing setups. Aeration is always going to be a benefit of it but I'm just skeptical on some of the claims thrown out there on it. Especially the guy documenting his SPS growth and giving the bubbles all the credit. Most acros grow at the rate he's posting, bubbles or not, but again that's a whole other discussion there. ;)

For amount, it depends on what brand you are using. I like to employ a method of rotating the amino acid source. I use Red Sea Reef Energy, Fauna Marin Amin, and Acropower. I follow their dosage recommendation/gal on the manufacturer bottle but only dose that amount 2-3x/week.

[Justin]

Nothing really crazy new. I ran a water test yesterday and noticed that my Alk was a little higher than I would have liked at 9.13. I increased the effluent line a bit after my last check back on the 3rd. No alk burn on my corals or any side effects from the slightly higher Alk, so I am relieved about that. I instead changed my Solenoid on the reactor for a ph of 7.55. I liked the rate of effluent coming out but wanted to slightly turn down the amount of Alk in the solution.

Since I don't really use Carbon on my tank anymore, I did notice a bit of "haziness" in my water column for a couple of days. To counteract this I did the following:
Washed out my filter socks
Changed out GFO and my Filter Floss
Started back up with Micro scrubber with bubbles

My thoughts on Micro scrubbing is that the theory is solid. The problem I had earlier was that my flow at night is not very strong. Because of this, my bubbles weren't circulating as far and as deep as I have read about... so I scrubbed the plan initially (yes it was cheezy pun).

I have since created a program to run my bubbler for 15 mins every hour during the day when my pumps are running close to their max programmed intensity. This way, my bubbles will spread throughout the tank and make contact with as many dissolved organics and taken to my skimmer as possible. Literally, within hours my tank water was no longer hazy and on its way to becoming crystal clear again!

[Justin]

Well the Microbubble scrubbing is working like a champ. As a recap, I don't run carbon in my tank as I don't want the chemicals from the Tech M to be filtered out. To counteract the lack of Carbon, I decided to run the microbubbles. I run them 15 mins every hour during the daylight time. I would normally run the bubbles during the night but because all of my pumps ramp down at night, I wasn't getting the circulation throughout the tank. Now that I've been running it for like 2 weeks, I can honestly say that my water is pretty clear, surprisingly. Of course, I've seen the water clearer with Carbon but the what quality is still pretty clean with the bubbles.

I also decided to hunker down and actually use my RedSea Coral Color test kit. Let me tell you how much I hate this system. The testing procedure takes way too long and at the end of a 10-15 min. process for one color test, you have to compare the water with a color sample sheet to get a gauge? on your water levels. There is no titration method or way to really accurately get an idea of what your levels are. The regular test kits are great because you get an accurate way to see what your Alk, Ca, and Mg are. I'm a little disappointed with this system as it is basically an API test, where you have to compare your color to a color table. The issue I have is that sometimes, the color is subtle and very difficult to measure at times....Sadly, I spent the money on it so I will need to at least use it during its allocated expiration time.

I'm not too happy with my current left side of my tank. My right side is fantastic with three pillars to create some nice spots for SPS placement and by placing the pillars somewhat close together, I can create a grotto feel and an area for my fish to bob and weave through on their way to exploring the tank. The left side, not so much. I know I tried to re-create a bonsai effect but in the end, I really need to make more spaces for SPS colonies as well as offer more water to flow around the corals. The current setup is great, but I think I can get more flow in and around my corals with pillars and shelves. My goal is to create a nice size grotto with pillars that slowly get higher and higher and form a circle pattern. In the middle, I plan to put my LPS corals to get more light but more reduced flow and better viewing angle. I'll have to move my Euphyllia island to the right a bit to avoid my Super Torch from stinging anything.

[Justin]

Here are some of my rocks that I made:

Sample layout

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/e9656d6b92ad83e9b39b560f2de324f9.jpg

One of the rocks showing the extra frag locations

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/9ad7e3c7dd805494e239a6116ae55305.jpg

The other one
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/df8ad86ac8bedf370606d42818e43b0b.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/cbea97e0339498f85f2c357bc7dc73f7.jpg

I also made a little cave for one of the shelves with holes for more sps on it.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/507bd9ecdcb060a330183dc56792a486.jpg

One of my lower shelves with legs to keep it from resting on the sand.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160602/33c1241f4b409905f1e646e4a6a2d323.jpg

I really want the flow to not be blocked by the rocks and allow detritus to collect.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

So this past weekend, New York Aquatics had a 20% off sale on their livestock and I almost pulled the trigger on my last Tang. I know I mentioned earlier I was done with tangs, seeing that my only Tang is a Powder Blue and they can get aggressive. So this past weekend I was showing my wife some cool fish and she immediately wanted to get a Gem Tang or a Black Tang. Of course my heart was thrilled but my wallet shriveled up. She instead was pretty interested in a Lieutenant aka Vampire Kiss, aka Tenneti Tang. I mentioned to her that 20% off deals are hard to come by and that they had a pretty good DoA policy. Well I didn't' pull trigger this weekend.

Today, I decided to buy a wet/dry pump from someone on FB and asked to meet at South Seas. The guy couldn't break a $20, so I went inside and bought an air stone to break my $20 for change. While I was there, lo and behold, they had a nice, healthy and eating Tennenti Tang in their tanks. I of course bought him and now he is drip acclimating for my Grow out tank to later be moved to my DT once I build an acclimation box for him. I'm still worried that my PBT will harass my tang and I would much rather get them to slowly acclimate to each other. I'll shoot some pics once I get him in the tank and swimming.

Here is a stock image of what mine will look like:
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/marine/tangs/images/LieutenantSurgeonfishWMTa_C1458.jpg

[Frogman]

So this past weekend, New York Aquatics had a 20% off sale on their livestock and I almost pulled the trigger on my last Tang. I know I mentioned earlier I was done with tangs, seeing that my only Tang is a Powder Blue and they can get aggressive. So this past weekend I was showing my wife some cool fish and she immediately wanted to get a Gem Tang or a Black Tang. Of course my heart was thrilled but my wallet shriveled up. She instead was pretty interested in a Lieutenant aka Vampire Kiss, aka Tenneti Tang. I mentioned to her that 20% off deals are hard to come by and that they had a pretty good DoA policy. Well I didn't' pull trigger this weekend.

Today, I decided to buy a wet/dry pump from someone on FB and asked to meet at South Seas. The guy couldn't break a $20, so I went inside and bought an air stone to break my $20 for change. While I was there, lo and behold, they had a nice, healthy and eating Tennenti Tang in their tanks. I of course bought him and now he is drip acclimating for my Grow out tank to later be moved to my DT once I build an acclimation box for him. I'm still worried that my PBT will harass my tang and I would much rather get them to slowly acclimate to each other. I'll shoot some pics once I get him in the tank and swimming.

Here is a stock image of what mine will look like:
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/marine/tangs/images/LieutenantSurgeonfishWMTa_C1458.jpg

That's awesome dude!!


It's in everyone's best interest to take care of those who take care of you. Support a local Veteran!

[Justin]

Today World Class Aquatics and Exotics had their pre-show event and I was able to score on some seriously nice looking stuff from zoanthids.com. Here is my haul so far.

King Tut Acro
Reverse Rasta Zoas
Plesiastrea
Rainbow Monti
Gravitation Palys

I'll have to post some pics tomorrow.

[Justin]

Sometime this weekend and I need to get my *** in gear and start working on the build to my acclimation box. I already have the acrylic and bought some acrylic hinges from Ebay awhile back. I mainly need to make this box so that I can get my Vampire Kiss (Tennetus Tang) socialized with my Powder Blue Tang. I'm still on the fence on how big to make the box but I was thinking about replicating the dimensions of the Elite Aquatics box:
12x6x6
http://www.elite-aquatics.net/image/cache/data/acc.%201-250x250.jpg
http://www.elite-aquatics.net/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=25
12x6x6
12x6x6

[Justin]

I decided to take some pics of my display with my new Samsung S7 phone. Pretty good.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/f0bf57b9910400d92777efd8916c2ebb.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/a67443bf78d2ab35cd7bb7033f967a71.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/30e3f4b66cfdb32bae30ac420e681ecd.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/47e6ab1c08e3cadf1343f0529a6d2a66.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/69cec9159951fd10f1391b43dc305cf6.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160618/667c7845e6d4dc05986672010bddd344.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

And a quick video
https://vimeo.com/171231726

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Today was the day where I finally decided to change the layout of my left side. I took out the current rock work in favor of more pillars and options for sps colonies. The old layout offered me 15 locations for coral plugs, the new layout has 30! I also have more caves and valleys for my fish and open area for them to swing. With that said here we
Go.
An updated FTS:


http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160621/677c6915596cf68d3af7036f10127df1.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160621/e409580af0956c2cb6ec2806487c4dda.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160621/8f45cdf2ac62497f437e65f8c1e10b5a.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Looks great Justin! You know what that means... Frag buying time!

[Justin]

Looks great Justin! You know what that means... Frag buying time!
I know right
:D

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Today blows!

I woke up this morning to find that my MP40 controller on the right was not lit up. I decided to do some troubleshooting and discovered that the controller is shot. I was able to plug the defective power cable into my working pump and the controller lit up. The working controller power cable was not able to power on the defective controller. I shot an email to Ecosmart and they responded that I will need to send the controller in for inspection. What sucks is that I'm sure it is out of warranty and since I got it through trades, I have no official paperwork. Regardless, I need the pump fixed so I'll pay the cost to get it fixed. It will still be cheaper than a completely brand new one. Eventually, I might just go with 2 of those crossflow Jebao Gyre knock offs. For the cost of a new MP40, I could potentially have 4 gyres and create some epic flow patterns in my tank. You gotta look at the silver lining in everything.

Anyone have a spare Jebo or powerhead they can loan me for a week?

[FarmerTy]

Today blows!

I woke up this morning to find that my MP40 controller on the right was not lit up. I decided to do some troubleshooting and discovered that the controller is shot. I was able to plug the defective power cable into my working pump and the controller lit up. The working controller power cable was not able to power on the defective controller. I shot an email to Ecosmart and they responded that I will need to send the controller in for inspection. What sucks is that I'm sure it is out of warranty and since I got it through trades, I have no official paperwork. Regardless, I need the pump fixed so I'll pay the cost to get it fixed. It will still be cheaper than a completely brand new one. Eventually, I might just go with 2 of those crossflow Jebao Gyre knock offs. For the cost of a new MP40, I could potentially have 4 gyres and create some epic flow patterns in my tank. You gotta look at the silver lining in everything.

Anyone have a spare Jebo or powerhead they can loan me for a week?
Well that blows! I'm not that close but have a couple WP40s in Austin you're more than welcome to borrow if nobody has one in San Antonio.

[Justin]

Thanks Ty. It is what it is. To offset the lower flow, I increased the flow of my lone jebao on the right by 15%. Now it's set at 85%. That should hopefully be plenty of flow for my stuff

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Francis]

Today blows!

I woke up this morning to find that my MP40 controller on the right was not lit up. I decided to do some troubleshooting and discovered that the controller is shot. I was able to plug the defective power cable into my working pump and the controller lit up. The working controller power cable was not able to power on the defective controller. I shot an email to Ecosmart and they responded that I will need to send the controller in for inspection. What sucks is that I'm sure it is out of warranty and since I got it through trades, I have no official paperwork. Regardless, I need the pump fixed so I'll pay the cost to get it fixed. It will still be cheaper than a completely brand new one. Eventually, I might just go with 2 of those crossflow Jebao Gyre knock offs. For the cost of a new MP40, I could potentially have 4 gyres and create some epic flow patterns in my tank. You gotta look at the silver lining in everything.

Anyone have a spare Jebo or powerhead they can loan me for a week?
I may have an extra controller if that's all you need.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

You do? I think that's all I need until I get mine back from ecotech. Let me know if you still have it and if I can borrow it

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Francis]

You do? I think that's all I need until I get mine back from ecotech. Let me know if you still have it and if I can borrow it

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

I'll look for it later. It's all packed up for the move but I'm pretty sure I have one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Cool man. Let me know. When is the move date?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Francis]

It'll be July 12th. But I'm still looking for a house. I may rent the house I'm in for another week or so after closing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

That will buy you some time. At least you sold the house, so that's less heartache

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Francis]

True. That's all I'm worried about. Buying is easy, selling not so much.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Yup yup. I heard the market is tough right now.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Well Francis saved my ***. I was able to swap out the controller and the pump came back online with no issues. Just had to wipe the memory and slave it to my wxm, and I'm back in business. Very much appreciated thanks goes to Francis!

Tomorrow I'll ship my controller out for repair and hopefully it's still under warranty.

This little ordeal pretty much supports the need for redundancy in this hobby!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Francis]

I'm glad it worked out for you. The controller is yours as I have an extra one as my backup.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Thx man

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

I'm glad it worked out for you. The controller is yours as I have an extra one as my backup.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Wow, that's pretty cool of you. Good reefer karma there!

[Justin]

Well, its been pretty much a hump couple of weeks for me. Nothing really new or exciting to report except that I found two issues with my current system:

CO2 Solenoid was defective and not stopping CO2 when the outlet was set to off. I discovered that my CO2 reactor had a pH of about 5.5 and the water was pretty cloudy. This is from what I suspect, the Reactor material dissolving too quickly and diluting itself into the water column. Seeing this, I pretty much shut the outlet feeding water to the reactor off and turned off the Eheim pump re-circulating the material in the reactor.

I eventually ordered a cheap replacement solenoid from Amazon to replace my 8-10 year old solenoid. The problem was that I had to find new fittings for everything and I accidentally bought the wrong hose barb size for my current air tubing. Fortunately, I had some spare silicon tubing and was able to get that to squeeze on the barb and get it past at least two of the barbed parts. When I finally turned on the system after about a 2 week hiatus, I noticed that the solenoid still allowed some air to pass through when the outlet is off if the CO2 pressure coming from the tank is too high. I was able to finagle the gas output to prevent any air bubbles from being seen in the bubble counter when the outlet was set to off. NOTE to everyone, make sure that your Solenoid will completely be able to shut off your air when in the off position. Now I'll just have to save up or sell enough corals to get this highly rated solenoid regulator

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/carbondoser-electronic-co2-regulator-aquarium-plant-life.html

I should have swooped on the one that Ty was selling http://www.maast.org/images/icons/icon8.png

I also noticed that my WXM/ MP40's were acting up on my DT system when I noticed they never really changed profiles or moved from a 4 LED setting on the controllers. When I cleared the memory and ran solo and in Master/Slave to each other, I was able to see the different profiles and see the sync and anti-sync functions built into the Vortechs.

Well after some messing around, I had a thought that my WXM hooked up to my frag tank was somehow causing some interference. When I went into the Fusion profile, I noticed a lone new outlet profile available on the dashboard. After some detective work I was able to find out that my MP40's were linked directly to two of my MP10 profiles on my grow out tank. Problem solved! Now I have a spare WXM I need to sell or keep for backup between my system. Since I run the same profiles for either an MP10 or 40, I have no real problem with my MP40's being controlled by the controller for my grow out tank. The only issue is that I lose the option of programming my MP40's to certain events in my DT system. No biggie. The only cool thing would be syncing up to the lights or a feed mode but that is just nice perks and nothing too important for my system.

I also decided to vacuum my sand and found that I was holding a LOT of detritus in the sand! Now I"ll plan to vacuum the sand at least once a month to keep the build up minimal. I was also able to scrub my rock work of algae and also my frag pugs. Now I"m pretty pleased with the overall look of the tank and will post an updated FTS with coral closeups later on. Overall, I'm pleased with my system. Now I need to get off my butt and finish building the acrylic acclimation box and wire up the water sensors to my break out boxes.

[FarmerTy]

Jeez! That might be a record for solenoid life! Most of mine only last 1-2 years which is why I got the carbon doser.

I'll be building my own regulator in the future but that project will have to wait a bit.

Did you not have your Apex programmed to scream at you if the pH in the reactor went too low? I have warnings setup for too high or too low so I know if the solenoid ever goes crazy.

For an acrylic acclimation box, the Jaebo one you can buy off fishstreet is cheap and works well. It even has compartments to divide it further if desired.

Here it is with 3 compartments but you can remove the dividers and it'll be open the whole length.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160719/4467d19d9503096f7aa405c08064226d.jpg

[Justin]

Thanks Ty. The solenoid was off and on for roughly that many years. I normally do have a parameter check with my Carbon reactor, but somehow I forgot to manage for the low side of equation with my alarms. I have since corrected the issue.

The acclimation box from Jebao looks pretty good. I just cut my own acrylic for the one I'm going to try and make yesterday. My flow holes were disastrous and I may scrub the project based on looks alone but I still may want to put it together to give me some practice for the big project. Building myself a new fuge sump with multiple compartments for different types of macro. I also like the Elite Aquatics box as well. Art has one and it looks pretty nice. The Jebao one however allows for multiple compartments and is longer, which will help my Tomini Tang stretch out while he acclimates to the big tank.

[FarmerTy]

That multi-compartment macro fuge sounds pretty cool. You could put together bouquets of macro algae for people's refugiums as a new tank warming present. :)

I tried working with acrylic before and it was straightforward as long as the cuts were straight. When they weren't, it was beyond my skill level. I used to be an indoor air scientist in a former career and the thought of the solvents used in the bonding process and the smell of melted acrylic shyed me away from messing with that stuff anymore. All I can say is just make sure you're in a well-ventilated area that is not connected to your house. Even the garage allows plenty of vapor through the door seals. We were getting hits of solvents in the farthest bedroom in a house when the solvent itself was located in the garage. That's why I keep most of that stuff in the back shed these days.

[Justin]

Good to know. I was planning on putting the stuff together outside but under my patio roof near the back entrance. I might have to move further away and buy a shad thingy.

The bouquet thing is interesting. Reef Hobbyist just did an article on fancier macros. I tried the Calcium but found its a cold temperatures species. **** thing melted on me in a day. Shame because it's really nice in the flow.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Well I decided to ditch my current CO2 Regulator and solenoid valve. Yesterday, I had to leave pretty quickly from my Capoeira studio because I got a low pH alarm in both my DT and my reactor. Came home to find that my CO2 tank was still pumping CO2 into my reactor despite the outlet registering as off. I took the solenoid off line and did a 40 gallon water change, turned on my micro-scrubber and also dosed some Alk. About an hr later, my tank pH was back at 8.15 and my reactor is sitting at 8.20.

I was hesitant to pull the trigger on the Aquarium Plants regulator/ bubble counter but after that fiasco, I decided to bite the bullet and order it. I also ordered some CO2 tubing and the check valve they sell on the site. Hopefully, I will not have this problem again and can go back to utilizing my reactor again. When it rains it pours.

Here is a link to that specific regulator and company:
http://www.aquariumplants.com/CarbonDoser-Electronic-Co2-Regulator-p/co2.htm

[FarmerTy]

Bummer! Oh well, at least it pushed you to get a great, troublefree product. One note, make sure the knob on the regulator is in the full off position before hooking it up to the CO2 cylinder and turning on the gas. Then slowly turn the knob on the unit until you read about 5 PSI.

If you don't do that, you could blow your new toy in the first day before even getting to use it.

[Justin]

Good to know. I usually slowly allow co2 through my system when getting the tank newly filled.

[leliataylor]

Bummer! Oh well, at least it pushed you to get a great, troublefree product. One note, make sure the knob on the regulator is in the full off position before hooking it up to the CO2 cylinder and turning on the gas. Then slowly turn the knob on the unit until you read about 5 PSI.

If you don't do that, you could blow your new toy in the first day before even getting to use it.

Ditto! I know someone that was hooking up a CO2 cylinder and blew it across the room barely missing his head and the tank. Fortunately his wife was not home at the time so he had time to clean up the mess.

[Justin]

I love this thing

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160728/7c0462b3ae002c6a42bda4b6199cc677.jpg


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Nice! That looks good in your sump sir!

[Justin]

So I've been on and off with my tank in regards to the regular maintenance. Mainly this new business I started with my wife has been consuming quite a bit of my time and I just can't seem to carve out some time to do a basic water test. Regardless, my Ca Reactor is looking pretty good and my tank overall has been doing pretty well. I have noticed the presence of green algae mats on my sand floor and on some of my rocks. Once I test my parameters, I should be able to see if my Nitrates and Phosphates have increased. I think I mainly need to just change out my GFO and filter sock.

Some of my weaker frags from my original Aqua SD order have sadly finally died and bleached. This left me with some gaps that I needed to fill in my aquascape with some better looking sticks. The other day I was able to swoop on an order posted on R2R from The coral Kings on some frag packs that they were selling. Having admired some of their stuff before, I was pretty excited to be able to finally close the deal on a frag prack from them. Hopefully, these corals will be hardier than the ones I recieved from Aqua SD. The following are the pics they posted of the pack I got, I am switching out the Pink Table for a Power Ranger Milli:

Pack #1 -
-TCK Yellowjacket
-ARC Pink Table
-TCK Cotton Candy
-ARC Green Table
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd250/jjjo10342/DSC_0802%20copy_zps1okrgea1.jpg (http://s221.photobucket.com/user/jjjo10342/media/DSC_0802%20copy_zps1okrgea1.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/Power%20Ranger%20Milli_zpsygvo19hi.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/Power%20Ranger%20Milli_zpsygvo19hi.jpg.html)

[Justin]

here are some updated shots
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/4a9a8acd62b7e5dfa86b4e156c44c17c.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/e48ce5e0cea7ff3183872e7473fcf653.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/ae53db74c60e91b97f20744c4e92e44e.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/0e53c1fe6b7dfa58b7f0a8946ace9c99.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/6cfa1e07baadb9adb46f581696aa928a.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/1a8d1e5fd870a62e3ad7a698b4cd8893.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/62f6c31fbc7ac8884640554697f911bc.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/b9814d15468231e6750b18ff94f75268.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/398f710af4acc6394eb413f18074d5d7.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/02429b7c6ef995d80011eb74dc58a7af.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/6d1d84305ea57a658a3badce3f3f815e.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/33b87cf91ca8b8334a40814f7a270765.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160811/c4c81c61ec04c65fbbcb5e7990e6d6f6.jpg



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Exciting day today. The weather was nice enough lately for the TCK folks to ship my order to me. After dipping and acclimating to my frag tank, they are finally in the frag system. I'll leave them in there for a couple of weeks to acclimate and grow before adding them to my main tank.

I also got a bonus frag, I think it's a strawberry shortcake!

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160831/c8ca7ed811f920e494326a65297fa184.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

I also decided to try and reduce my fish count and get rid of an unwanted fish in my tank. I bought a golden assessor on an impulse and man was it a messed up decision. This little pest has done a number in my tank before I realized it was him doing the damage.

It all started when I saw him picking and eventually killing my Court Jester Goby (Rainford Goby). I was ****ed and I couldn't do anything to stop it because it was too late. Thinking the worst was over, I started seeing some things disappear in my tank. First it was my Cleaner Shrimp pair, then my acro crab, my porcelain crab and finally the last straw....my beloved Mandarin pair's tails. I noticed some fraying on the tails and finally I saw my poor female with almost all of her tail gone. Before she could be injured further, I took them out and placed them in my frag tank with lots of big pods for them to graze on unhindered by the pest fish.

I built myself a simple fish trap with a 2 liter bottle and an algae magnet to keep it in place. The thing work twice! Each time I tried to move the sucker to my acclimation box, he would escape. ****ed me off to no end. Now I have to wait a week to try it again. Stupid thing quickly realized that the trap was a trap.

[leliataylor]

Wow that is one bad fish. I loved your acro crab and I hope your mandarins recover. They are some of my favorites. That is one bad *****/essor. I really am sorry he has done so much damage and I know one species I will never own.

[Dkray944]

Man that sucks. I've got an actual fish trap if you need something different to trick him.

[Justin]

thanks guys. I might take you up on that David. Gives me an excuse to see your tank.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[leliataylor]

Did you catch him?

[Justin]

Did you catch him?
Not yet. I've been too busy to try. I will try again this weekend and see how it goes.

[Justin]

Finally!!!!

Well I finally managed to catch that Golden Assessor in my tank. I was at first tolerate of his aggressiveness as I really didn't want to tear up my tank trying to get him out of it. Sadly, yesterday I saw one of my Lyretail Anthias with a bit of a swollen eye. Doing a bit of research, I found it was caused by it bumping or scraping itself on a rock or something. With everyone in the tank fairly peaceful and leaving it alone, I could only assume that the assessor was charging after the anthias and forcing it to flee in to a rock or something. The anthias was found hiding between my algae scraper and viewing portal, trying to stay hidden from the Assessor. I later confirmed the Assessors' antics when I saw it charge after one of the smaller anthias.

Well I decided to suck it up and go after the *******. After a couple of minutes and my wife's help, I finally got the aggressive *******!. Now I have him in my social acclimation box in my grow out 40 breeder tank until I can give him to a friend.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200551_zpsyif3zhco.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200551_zpsyif3zhco.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200471_zpsfojrxplo.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200471_zpsfojrxplo.jpg.html)

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200361_zpsnr1rxp0g.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/135%20Gallon/Fish/20160913_2200361_zpsnr1rxp0g.jpg.html)

[leliataylor]

Glad you caught him. The look on his face in the first pictures tells the story. He thought he was the biggest/toughest fish in the house, now he regrets his decision because he found out there was a bigger/tougher fish around that forced him into isolation.

[quicksilverz]

Love that green stuff all over Justin. LOL :hypnotyized:

[Justin]

You love that stuff, lol. Got some on a frag and now it just plain annoys me. The good thing is that it tells me when my phosphates are too high. Now its just a maintenance thing I have to do with water changes.


Love that green stuff all over Justin. LOL :hypnotyized:

[leliataylor]

Hey don't feel bad I have a 50 gallon cube that you can barely see into. I don't have and fish or coral in it right now so I am letting the crabs and amphipods enjoy themselves. Amphipods love GHA.

[Justin]

I'm hoping as much. That Golden Assessor was a pod fiend in the tank. Not only was he bullying everyone close to his size, he was trying to destroy his competition for pods and was slowly decimating the pod population in my DT. My male, Dim Sum, was looking a little thin in the 40 breeder tank I had him with his mate, Yum Ta. I decided to move him over to the fuge so that he could consume pods at his leisure and get nice and fat for me to add him back into the DT. What I plan to do is pick up some pods from Hannah during our meeting at her place this month and also start my pod culturing factory again to increase the density in my tanks. I have plenty of nanochlorpast paste to feed the pods. I just need them to breed and introduce them in my fuge to repopulate the fauna.

[Justin]

I finally was able to complete the animation box and put my vampire kiss tang in it. He color changed to his darker subdued scheme but seems to be doing okay.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/8ccb8f72f5a57ce8bc76eed1f1492257.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/14872fbddcef0c23198842471609bccd.jpg

My powder blue and foxface are swimming around the box and checking him out. I'll keep him in the box for a couple of days. I'll probably release him on Thursday if things go well.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Latest pics

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/e97639d77d688ef1553d4fd03d4a6e1d.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/93bd9aa049d5cb51ca4f09f556b73c56.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/29465c2d8c117bd37fb692df687bd4b2.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/0fa7e4543437b70b61e4a04aa4c0d3c9.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/c58edf9d4bf6e312e79018e8d07362e4.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/566b6994d8009d81f709c60baf31bdf2.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/5be5c25248851e53efd3d54637920436.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161017/06341a4f8519dda13e6770daa95cc5ef.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Zack]

MAN that neon torch is beautiful. Easily one of the nicest Corals I've ever seen.

[leliataylor]

Wow Justin you have been busy. Your tank is now full of some really nice corals. Love all the PE on them.

[Justin]

Playing with Vimeo for the first time:


https://vimeo.com/187656981

[FarmerTy]

Oddly, direct link didn't work for me Justin. I was able to copy the link and paste it in myself and it worked. Tank looks great!

I am experimenting with Vimeo as well. Seems to retain a better image in my opinion and shows off the 60fps better. Not sure if YouTube downconverts or not but when I post the same video to both, Vimeo looks better to me.

[Justin]

yea I was having issues with I'm bedding the vimeo footage. Judging on the quality of your shots, I like it more than YouTube, it's just not as user friendly as YouTube or fb

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

yea I was having issues with I'm bedding the vimeo footage. Judging on the quality of your shots, I like it more than YouTube, it's just not as user friendly as YouTube or fb

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Oh its definitely more cumbersome than YouTube but quality alone is making me put up with it.

[Justin]

Odd, I can see the video on my computer but not on my tapatalk or phone.

[FarmerTy]

Odd, I can see the video on my computer but not on my tapatalk or phone.
Mine show up on both. I just click on the "insert video" button on the MAAST reply toolbar and copy my Vimeo link. I get the Vimeo link by clicking on the paper airplane symbol on the video, copy the "link" address, and paste it in the "insert video" screen. I always delete the "s" out of "https" as some forums don't recognize it for some reason.

[leliataylor]

In your video it looks like your new tang wants out of his cage. He will be going nuts by Thursday. Loved watching the video with all the corals moving and your powder blue is all over the tank.

[Justin]

So today I succumbed to Reefkeeper impatientitis!....

Seeing how my Vampire Kiss Tang was doing pretty well in his containment unit with the Powder Blue in the tank, I decided to take the risk and introduce my guy to his other tank mates. The Blue was oblivious to the Vampire Kiss and appears to be content harassing his mirror image. The lights haven't come on yet but I would bet that things will go well. I have two IM algae grazer units to help with possible feeding aggression. Here's to the start of great friendship with the tangs and foxface.

[Zack]

Nice man! Can't wait to see some shots!

[FarmerTy]

Nice! Always was a big fan of those tangs.

[Justin]

Nice! Always was a big fan of those tangs.

Thanks man. The wife loves him so after I noticed the PBT continually harassing him, I had to take the PBT and put him in Tang jail for awhile. He's now in my 40 breeder cooling down and munching on some valonia and hair algae I have in there. I honestly don't think that he will ever be fine with the Lt tang in the tank and I might have to relocate him permanently. I do however love the look of Yellow eye Kole Tangs and currently on the lookout for a nice small specimen that is about 3-4 inches to add with the Lt while he is still small.

[FarmerTy]

PBTs are just super territorial. I think if you would have gotten them in reverse order, everything would be fine. PBT was my last tang added and I made sure he was also smaller then all the rest. Maybe he'll be nicer upon reintroduction. Might help to change the scape up a bit in the tank as well.

[Justin]

I hear you. I would have normally made him the last addition but I saw this great deal on him and decided to act on it sooner. At least for now he will be isolated and can add him in later after my little one gets a tad bigger. Now I need to find a small Yellow Eye Kole tang his size.

[Justin]

It's been awhile and thankfully not too much has changed. My corals are still looking better but not as bright as before. I attribute this to two factors:

PO4
and some alk swings in my tank

I was being lazy and forgot to change the GFO in my tank for about three weeks to a month. Mainly because I forgot to order myself a refill order of BRS GFO and reluctantly decided to use some Phosban I picked up at an LFS nearby as a replacement. I haven't used the stuff in a long time but they mention the product is a direct replacement for GFO without worrying about leeching. Once my GFO was replaced, my corals started getting ****y with the increase in available Ca and Alk. I started to see a bit of tissue loss at the tips, which is a sign of alk burn but it has since receded

The effluent line of my Ca Rx has been a little fickle lately. At times I noticed that my effluent line would appear to be clogged and not drip anything. I think part of this is because I am using a "pinch" type of regulator for the tubing line. I may need to switch this out for an in-line type of version. This will hopefully prevent less blockage of my effluent and keep my dosing more in sync and steady. This leads me to my next point...my alk consumption is off the charts!!!!

After a brief of hiatus of testing my water parameters, I noticed that my Alk levels were way too low for my liking and especially those of my corals! When I first checked the levels on the 11/21, the dkh was about 7.00. Still acceptable but I tend to have my tank at about 8.5 dkh with 1450 for Mg and 450 for Ca levels. After some dosing my levels were back to about 8.68 on 11/23. I let this run for about 6 days and my tank tested at 6.94 on 11/29. Using some math, my consumption was about .29 dkh/ day. Not too bad but the problem is that I also run a Ca Rx as well. My drip rate is about 2-3 drops per second. Not too fast but not too low either. I honestly don't want to drip more than that unless I have to for fear of lowering the ph of my tank with the effluent coming straight out of the reactor.

My solution will probably be to setup a spare doser and dose the .29 a day spread out over 24hrs with my Apex. Hopefully then my Alk will be steady. I can only attribute the massive consumption due to my corals really being happy with my tank right now.

[slm222]

Kalk reactor through ato?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

No, I have it plumbed through manifold which is fed from my return pump. The feed is right next to my ATO line though.

[slm222]

I meant would that help. If you don't already have one


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

I have an ATO using a float switch and an aqualifter. I used to use Kalk in the ATO but I would find the Calcium deposit in my return area and the accumulation on my equipment in that area to be unsightly and annoying. I also found that aqua lifter pumps would not last as long either. So I just run pure RODI water through the system.

[FarmerTy]

That's great Justin that you're getting so much growth from your acros!

If I were a betting man, I'd say instead of burnt tips, you were getting tip recession from running the Rowaphos. If you've been running the regular GFO (non-high capacity) and switched to Rowaphos, I could see it causing some STN on your tips. Rowaphos is really efficient and is more on par with high capacity GFO.

I wouldn't worry about having low pH in your tank. Mine runs at 7.8-8.0 with the CaRX and my acros are growing gang busters. My tank drops 2.5 dKh/day if I turn my CaRX off... And that's with no birdsnest, stylos, or fast growing montis eating it up.

I usually caution people to run a higher pH in their reactors and a faster effluent rate out of their CaRx. You may use up more CO2 but 1) its cheap and 2) you wouldn't endanger yourself with having a flow so slow that it can clog over time.

[Justin]

That is actually what I was thinking about doing and not worrying about too much ALK being dosed through the effluent. Based on your assumption, I'm going to reduce the flow to my reactor a bit more to make sure the water is not too "clean."

What ph do you run your reactor at again?

[FarmerTy]

That is actually what I was thinking about doing and not worrying about too much ALK being dosed through the effluent. Based on your assumption, I'm going to reduce the flow to my reactor a bit more to make sure the water is not too "clean."

What ph do you run your reactor at again?
My reactor is at 6.4 right now, with my tank being at 7.8-8.0 daily. I run about 40 ml/min out of the reactor, which is roughly about a steady drip but not quite a solid stream.

Whatever your reactor is at, maybe aim to increase it 0.1-0.2 and then increase your flow a bit to compensate. Basically diluting the concentration of your effluent but adding more fluid to compensate. Actually, reverse that, increase flow first then as pH level increases, move it back down to about 0.1-0.2 of your previous pH. Test daily until you tune it to your consumption level.

[Justin]

My reactor is at 6.4 right now, with my tank being at 7.8-8.0 daily. I run about 40 ml/min out of the reactor, which is roughly about a steady drip but not quite a solid stream.

Whatever your reactor is at, maybe aim to increase it 0.1-0.2 and then increase your flow a bit to compensate. Basically diluting the concentration of your effluent but adding more fluid to compensate. Actually, reverse that, increase flow first then as pH level increases, move it back down to about 0.1-0.2 of your previous pH. Test daily until you tune it to your consumption level.

Thanks man. I have mine currently set at 6.58 and I'll have to measure the exact output. I might need to decrease the pH a bit to get my reactor dialed in a bit more. I'll set it for 6.55 tonight and test the system and use that as my base until I get it dialed in.

[FarmerTy]

Thanks man. I have mine currently set at 6.58 and I'll have to measure the exact output. I might need to decrease the pH a bit to get my reactor dialed in a bit more. I'll set it for 6.55 tonight and test the system and use that as my base until I get it dialed in.
Sounds like a solid plan sir.

[Justin]

New Sump creation:

For some following along on my little reefing journey, thank you by the way, you may know that I have been currently using a Target Plastic tub that has been drilled on the side for water to enter back into my main sump via gravity flow. The system works and I have a ton of pods and rotifers floating around in my makeshift fuge but I know that it will be a matter of time before the plastic starts to crack and/or fail. To counteract this, I have decided to order some acrylic and fabricate my own sump for a fraction of the cost of building one.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/20161208_1456411_zpsi3od1mv3.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/20161208_1456411_zpsi3od1mv3.jpg.html)



I already know that buying a more professionally built sump would look cooler and have no issues or blemishes but since this is going to be for a fuge in my system and I have all of the weldon and parts that I need to put the acrylic together myself, why not!

From the get go, I know that my sump will not be the cleanest, even though I will try my hardest to make it as sleek as possible. The space I need to create for this sump will be roughly 24 X 20 X 24. The 24 inches be just enough height to clear the dosing rack that is built on my existing sump and allow the drains of the fuge to gravity feed into the refugium area of my normal sump. This will be a bit of overkill for fuge space but this area will not be lit and will just be yet another space for pods to breed and grow without predation from my fish.

With that said I plan to have an initial chamber for my macro algae, another chamber for different macro or rubble and a final one for an isolation/ spare frag location that is in line with my water parameters. Each compartment will be roughly 8 inches wide x 20x and be roughly 23.5 inches high. Each compartment will be blocked off with some white egg crate. I will create a euro brace to help with keeping the structure solid and also a hole drilled in the top left corner for the feed line from the manifold.

Plumbing wise, I will have the fuge fed from a spare opening on my manifold to a pvc tube that bends at 90 on the fuge floor and runs the width of the sump to allow a nice flow that will blow detritus across the floor of the fuge to the far right side of the fuge. The floor itself will be elevated about a 1/4 to 1/2 from the actual bottom of the fuge save for a small "tray" that the detritus will settle in. When I do my water changes, I can just siphon the detritus from this flow and not worry about disrupting my macro or frags to get to it. The return section to the sump will have 2 or 3 holes. I'm planning on having the line feed right into my fuge section of the sump. I'm debating on having 1 or 2 holes for this which will be joined via t parts to the pvc tubing that leads back to the sump. The 3rd hole will act as a safety overflow of sorts that will have a 90 degree elbow with the opening facing up to allow any excess water to drain into the return section.

I'll have to update this thread with a diagram when I eventually sit down and create one

[Justin]

I made a bone head mistake. Thinking I could get away with a 1/8 thick acrylic, I went ahead and ordered several white and clear pieces. Only when I saw the actual sheets did I start to wonder if they were too thick. Now, I'm stuck with several too thin sheets of acrylic that I will need to come up with some projects to burn through.

on a side note, I did manage to grab this nice wrasse at South Seas the other day. I have been snooping around and doing a little research on what kind of wrasse to fill out my stocking selections in my tank. With the Power Blue out and the feisty assessor out of my tank, I'm left with a bit of a loss for color and movement in my tank. The anthias and chromis certainly move throughout the tank but nothing beats a wrasse swimming though a reef. Well I saw this nice female leopard and I had to get her. She's in QT right now as I try to get her to adopt more types of frozen foods. Right now she is taking reef eggs and an occasional mysis. I definitely want to get her nice and fat and healthy.

28106


https://vimeo.com/194904428

[klwheat]

Nice plans for the sump. And beautiful fish.

[Justin]

Thanks man. One of my favorite fish to have. I have plenty of pods for it once it goes into my system. As you can tell, I did a little "gardening" in my macro to offer some pods for it to hunt while in QT.

[FarmerTy]

Nice female black leopard wrasse Justin! You don't see those too often! Heads up, it'll probably go male down the road as most wrasses eventually will but luckily, the males look very similar to the females.

Also, it'll probably appreciate a little sand if you don't have any in the QT. I usually put a small plastic container in the QT with sand in it for my leopards to sleep in. They are usually pretty quick to accept frozen, usually within a week.

[Justin]

I know, right! Knowing my luck, she will turn male on me. I did some further reading and asked the wrasse gurus on Reef2Reef for more info and I found that this particular type of leopard wrasse like to be in groups of 3. This is leading me to believe that they act in a harem type of structure like most wrasses. The best part is that like anthias, they all start out as female and then through hierarchy setups, one will turn male and start to change their spots a bit. I found some on Live Aquaria for a decent price but the problem is shipping during this time frame is tough and the weather doesn't help either. I will probably get my lone girl a single playmate and hope that the time difference will allow for some sexual dimorphism.

The biggest issue I have with a full harem is keeping my pod populations high. Right now, my mysis and pod factories are producing some nice food stocks for my lone female mandarin. Hopefully I can get the leopard to eat frozen as well which will help me in the long run. To help keep productions high, I'm planning on dosing my phyto mix of the following throughout my tank:

This is a modified version of the mix we made at Coral Cove earlier in the year:

Phyto chloroplast - I ordered this from brine shrimp direct
http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Algae-Pastes-c6.html

Reef Roids
Reef Nutrition Fish Eggs

One of the ways I plan to dose the food is through either a BRS doser or a medical grade Entreal pump with a wine chiller. I have the pump and the chiller from my attempt at keeping NPS and dosing food continuously. I found out about the process by reading the following thread and looking at the attached video:

https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/index.php?threads/automatic-continuous-feeder.348459/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKLwB-xpRls&feature=youtu.be

[Justin]

Here is a vid of my shrimp and pod factory outputs:


https://vimeo.com/195026155

[FarmerTy]

That's pretty cool Justin regarding the pod farming you're trying to encourage and the food doser. I kept my leopard wrasse alive for a couple years once it acclimated to frozen, which only took a couple weeks. I'm not really sure you'll need to go through all those steps to increase natural populations as the two I kept readily accepted frozen.

Nice to know though that once past the initial acclimation, they are pretty bulletproof. Mine died from poor husbandry in my tub sadly during my fallow period and it was entirely my fault.

Like you said, wrasses just prefer harems in general so the 3 rule applies to most wrasses and not just to the black leopard. Unless you're just determined to have a female, I was going to say 1 would probably treat you well, especially since the male looks very similar in this species.

The trend these days is just to collect 1 of each type of wrasse instead of trying to unnaturally pair them, as eventually another will go male and then you'll have a war on your hands.

[Justin]

True true, I have seen folks with multiple species of wrasses. For me at least, I like to try and keep the fish as close to the populations that they would be comfortable with in the wild. With this leopard, it appears they like to be in a social environ vs other leopards. I might just go for the gusto and get two more later down the road once the fuge is up and I can see swarms of shrimps and pods in the tank.

I'm already seeing huge positive results with the increased phyto dosing in the tank. I'm thinking of dosing about 1ml every 2-3 hrs on a continuous basis to keep the populations growing and everything thriving. Of course this is all dependent on nutrient levels and my ability to export the nutrients but I'm pretty comfortable that my macro growth will rise with the increase in phyto foods and allow me to harvest once a week instead of once a month. The physical removal of the macro will hopefully allow me to export a lot of my phosphates out of the tank. I will of course have to start testing NO4 a lot more frequently once I start the dosing. Still it would be an interesting experiment to try for about a month.

Speaking of experiments, I just saw the latest BRS video talking about how they are keeping their pH steady with the use of a CO2 scrubber. I havnen't used my scrubber since my 100 gallon but it got me thinking about scrubbing to keep my pH at night at a steady 8.2 instead of the 7.8 it sits at now. They even used a solenoid that is controlled by the apex to allow the skimmer to pull air from either the scrubber or from outside. I need to figure out which type of solenoid and how they wired it so I can try that out as well. All it will cost me to try this experiment will be some fresh Scrubber material and the solenoid. Its worth a shot after a month of continuous dosing phyto.

[FarmerTy]

True true, I have seen folks with multiple species of wrasses. For me at least, I like to try and keep the fish as close to the populations that they would be comfortable with in the wild. With this leopard, it appears they like to be in a social environ vs other leopards. I might just go for the gusto and get two more later down the road once the fuge is up and I can see swarms of shrimps and pods in the tank.

I'm already seeing huge positive results with the increased phyto dosing in the tank. I'm thinking of dosing about 1ml every 2-3 hrs on a continuous basis to keep the populations growing and everything thriving. Of course this is all dependent on nutrient levels and my ability to export the nutrients but I'm pretty comfortable that my macro growth will rise with the increase in phyto foods and allow me to harvest once a week instead of once a month. The physical removal of the macro will hopefully allow me to export a lot of my phosphates out of the tank. I will of course have to start testing NO4 a lot more frequently once I start the dosing. Still it would be an interesting experiment to try for about a month.

Speaking of experiments, I just saw the latest BRS video talking about how they are keeping their pH steady with the use of a CO2 scrubber. I havnen't used my scrubber since my 100 gallon but it got me thinking about scrubbing to keep my pH at night at a steady 8.2 instead of the 7.8 it sits at now. They even used a solenoid that is controlled by the apex to allow the skimmer to pull air from either the scrubber or from outside. I need to figure out which type of solenoid and how they wired it so I can try that out as well. All it will cost me to try this experiment will be some fresh Scrubber material and the solenoid. Its worth a shot after a month of continuous dosing phyto.

I like the natural approach to are taking with the pods/nutrients. Sometimes I wish I would incorporated a small buffer system as well in my tank.

I ran a CO2 scrubber for a few months a year ago. While effective, I got tired of one more media I had to replace. My system had me changing it at a 1.5 week interval. At the end of the day, I felt it not worth it to raise my pH just a tad, especially since I say no observable effect in the tank from it other than it read 8.1 versus 7.8 in my Apex screen. My goal was to run a line directly to the outside but I never got around to that. Maybe one day.

That would be pretty cool to see a school of black leopards roaming your tank!

[klwheat]

Love the pod factory! I've been using a CO2 scrubber on my tank for the last month or so and it has definitely mad a difference in the pH. I typically ran between 7.8-8 depending on the time of day. Now it's 8.15-8.35.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Love the pod factory! I've been using a CO2 scrubber on my tank for the last month or so and it has definitely mad a difference in the pH. I typically ran between 7.8-8 depending on the time of day. Now it's 8.15-8.35.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Larry. Have you seen an increase in your coral growth using the CO2 scrubber? Based on the BRS video, the guys were getting faster growth from using the CO2 scrubber in their system. When I ran mine, I couldn't recall if my coral growth was faster or the same using the stuff.

Ty-

I agree, adding yet one more thing to replace can be a hassle. My thought process was if it helps the coral grow faster, and I can sell a frag to offset the media costs, it would be a net win for me. The problem is that finding a frag to sell someone is difficult.

I think it would be cool as well to see a harem of leopards in my tank. My only concern would be having enough pods for my mandarins and leopards. With the new sump and my current production, I'm hoping I will have enough. If anything, the pods have a huge amount of space to live and breed without predation in my refugium.

[FarmerTy]

I didnt realize you had mandarins too. Wanted to share that I saw a decline in my mated pair of mandarins when I added my first leopard. He ate a ton of pods even though he ate frozen as well. The mandarins got skinnier over time. I didn't have the dedicated pod production you have though so it may be just fine.

[Justin]

yea that is a concern but as you mentioned, the fuge is cranking out pods due to the phyto increase. I should be good, if I see a decrease in body mass, I can take one of the species out and put them in my 40 breeder frag tank.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Justin]

So I'm planning on dosing Nitrates to see if that will help me with my coloring. Did some research and went out and bought myself some stump remover and mixed it with RODI to the following parameters:

Now comes the tricky part - how much do I dose to get my desired outcome? My goal was to create a solution where 1ml would increase 1 gallon of water by 1ppm. Here is how to do that:

Crush up about 1/2-3/4 TSP of the Potassium Nitrate beads into as fine of a powder as you can (we want 1/4 tsp of powder) with a mortar and pestle or the back of a spoon.
Measure out 423ml of RODI (400ml will work fine) - the more accurate you are the better it will turn out.
Mix 1/4 tsp of the fine powder into the RODI - it should dissolve very easily.
That's it! You now have a solution that will increase 1 gallon of water by 1ppm of nitrate by adding just 1ml of solution.

The original thread:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/349488-dosing-potassium-nitrate/

Based on this, if I want to get to a 2ppm for Nitrates and my system is about 160, I should be dosing about 320ml. I'm going to do half and see what my results show. Based on the research that I have found, the nitrates get consumed pretty quickly and I will have to test again the next day to verify what the levels are. To give myself a base. I did the following:

I tested my water now using RedSeas NO4 kit and I read o.oppm of Nitrates, I also used my Salifert and I had the same result

I'm going to dose 160ml and test my water again in an hr to get my new starting point.

Tomorrow at around this time, I will test my nitrates and dose accordingly. I should be reading at a 1ppm level if things go right. This should give me a decent base line for what my daily consumption is. From there I will take it to the 2ppm level and repeat the same procedure.

Based on what I read, most folks that swear by dosing use the Redfield equation and try to keep their nitrates between 2-5ppm. I have also since replaced my GFO and only use 1 cup of carbon split between the two reactors in my BRS dual reactor. All of my PO4 export will be done via my macro and skimmer.

From what I gathered, I should be able to see an increase or deeper coloration in my corals from dosing Nitrates. I originally wanted to do this experiment because I have noticed very little growth in my green slimer and my tri color valida and bonsai are just not as vivid as I would like. HOpefully, they will start to deepen their color and be more vibrant as well as increase their growth. I will take some pics later today and create a new post to showcase my progress during this experiment.

For those of you that want to follow my research, here are some links to threads I have been reading lately:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2172757

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/349488-dosing-potassium-nitrate/

http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-green-slimer-went-from-this-to-this-pics-acro-help-please.89012/

[FarmerTy]

Good for you Justin! Nitrates in the 5ppm range will have your tank glowing with colors!

I'm sure you already seen it but I posted on the nitrate dosing thread by klwheat what I was dosing when my fish were out of the system.

10 grams of stump remover (no crushing required since its powder) to 1 liter of ro/di water. Gave me 6140 ppm of nitrates in solution.

For my 250 gallon volume, dosing half the bottle would bring it to 5ppm. You're doing the right idea by being cautious with your dosing to test first and you are absolutely correct that uptake is pretty quick. I'd honestly be surprised if you dosed to 1 ppm if you'll register anything but 0 ppm the next day as it'll be used up already. My 5 ppm would be gone in 2 days normally.

FWIW, overdosing the nitrates wouldn't be a huge deal, there's a lot of variance acceptable to corals.

[Justin]

Thanks Ty and I would agree. Corals and fish can handle high levels of Nitrates due to the Nitrogen cycles but corals do not like the phosphates due to the inhibiting aspect of the PO4 with Alkalinity in the water. I should be okay and I still do water changes but I have gotten really lazy and just do about a 5 gallon bucket a week. That is roughly just about 3% of my volume but as long as I am religious with changes, I should be able to lower the concentrations of K in my DT water column. I'm looking forward to some of my corals really growing with the dosing.

[Justin]

so here are some pics before dosing:

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/17e1508711c38d3252e2bcc0213ea0a3.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/8c855d986d222c0392416e621485f8f2.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/b597ad29241e70694f12b4a9d119d751.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/71e4488f5ad97d9b2117036417d01226.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/30de44bdc5faf1d303689e04d7709b54.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/4a8313a2ea279bb782cd6f156aa3dcb3.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/c1bc6fecc01a2338909ba8fb3e626184.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/924d924b6d50351f933ab45f4b493c89.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161214/c020cf0b3b9549fa0b636b70673e68a2.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Very nice! Do you have a very high K concentration?

[klwheat]

Awesome idea Justin. Can't wait to see how it turns out for you. I wasn't nearly as mathematic as you were, mine ended up being much more concentrated. I used about 70cc to get mine to 1ppm in my 90. Haven't tried to increase it yet because I've been gone and busy. It was still at 1ppm when I came back after 48 hours so I left it alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Thanks guys. Ty my potassium using Salifert was at about 390. So just a little shy of where it ideally should be according to them. So I have some flex and once I do a water change, I'm sure it will drop again.

So I measured my Nitrates and they are at 0. No surprise but what I forgot to do was measure my nitrates an hr after I dosed. I'll have to dose at the 2ppm level and measure again so I have a metric to start everything on. So far, no changes but I don't expect their to be any just yet. Probably at the 4 week mark I'll start to see something.

[Justin]

I hate test kits where you have to compare colors to something. You can never get anything close enough. I just finished my testing after dosing and I got what is roughly .25 ppm. I just dosed about 320ml to get to this point in my tank.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161215/53614fac2caab7b94e9d2a7fbd03c717.jpg

To get to my desired level of 2ppm, I should be dosing roughly 8 x 320ml or 2560ml. I think I'll target 1ppm or 1280 ppm for now.

[Justin]

Yeesh, I was reading this nitrate reader all wrong. Apparently, I didn't realize there is a pointer that lets you know what your value is. What I thought was .25ppm was actually a 2ppm. After my dose, I was able to get 4ppm. Luckily, my water is now only showing a 4ppm on the NO4. Note to self to watch the youtube videos and read the directions thoroughly to understand the test kits!!!!.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLCsylTF00E&feature=youtu.be

Anyway, tonight I am at 4.0 ppm. Tomorrow morning I will test the water again and see where I am at and try to dose myself back to 4ppm and do it again for 2 more days. From there, I should know what my tank daily consumption will be and I can start dosing the necessary KNO3 I need.

[klwheat]

Lol...I just had a chance to look at your test picture and was going to message you about misreading the kit. Then saw you had already discovered it. Of note, that kit only goes to 4ppm...so a reading of 4ppm could be 4ppm or anything higher. If it's above 4ppm I believe you have to do a dilution and use the scale on the back of the instruction card.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

You'll be surprised how quickly the acros start coloring up.

[Justin]

Interesting find today. Because I had read my test kit incorrectly, I dosed too much NO4 into my tank and the tank has not changed its levels. Now I have to do a large water change to reset the levels in my tank and start all over again. No worries I suppose. Now I just need to get another heater or at least an external pipe heater to heat the water in my SW reservoir. The water right now is the same as the ambient temp in my fish room, which is like a high 60's or low 70's.

One thing that I hate when running my water tests, is the mess that I accumulate when trying to air dry my test tubes and syringes. I've checked out a couple of setups that people have made so I'm going to make a version of my own using the following:

left over acrylic
white egg crate
rigid tubing

The main thing is that I need to make something that holds and stores my tubes but also an area that stores my magnetic stirrers, lids and other junk associated with my test kits.

[klwheat]

I've noticed the same thing. Got my nitrates dosed up to 1-2, and it's just started there. Kinda surprised actually.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Give it some time I say... it takes some time before the bacteria/algae/corals will start uptaking and using the nitrates as their populations start increasing.

Depending how much you overdosed, you probably don't really need to do the water changes in my opinion. The water changes will probably swing way more parameters then just letting your high nitrate level slowly swing down naturally. Unless its like 15-20 ppm, then maybe yes, a water change is probably not a bad idea. Just my 2 cents but please feel free to ignore.

[klwheat]

Ahh...good point. How high did your nitrates go?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[leliataylor]

Justin I really don't trust hobbyist test kits even when they are new. I have gotten readings on API kits that tell me everything should be dead and when I test with Red Sea, Salifert or Seachem kits all is well. How can I get a reading off the scale on nitrates with API and the other three show the same tank at 50 ppm. For that matter everything I have read in the past says high nitrates are not toxic to fish but kill corals, yet many marine organisms love nitrates. I also recently was advised that seahorses can handle up to 2 ppm of nitrites which were considered to be lethal just a couple of years ago. Watch the organisms in your tank, they will tell you when something is wrong. Don't make any sudden changes, none of these test kits are that accurate and I often wonder what they are really reacting to.

[Justin]

Give it some time I say... it takes some time before the bacteria/algae/corals will start uptaking and using the nitrates as their populations start increasing.

Depending how much you overdosed, you probably don't really need to do the water changes in my opinion. The water changes will probably swing way more parameters then just letting your high nitrate level slowly swing down naturally. Unless its like 15-20 ppm, then maybe yes, a water change is probably not a bad idea. Just my 2 cents but please feel free to ignore.

You know Ty that is a good point. Better to let it go down naturally than for me to make a drastic change by doing a 30 gallon water change. I also can avoid having to potentially shock my corals with a little bit cooler water from my reservoir.

[Justin]

Based on the test kit, it appears I'm at around 4ppm. Still within acceptable levels. I was on the high side but it was still within the 4ppm level.


Ahh...good point. How high did your nitrates go?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Based on the test kit, it appears I'm at around 4ppm. Still within acceptable levels. I was on the high side but it was still within the 4ppm level.
So the dosing seems on point for what you want to ideally keep. Do you plan to just hold it steady there and dose if it goes down?

FWIW, besides API for nitrates (which is rubbish), the other hobbiest grade kits aren't too far off base from laboratory analytical tests for nitrates. I remember we did a field study at the Little Rock Air Force Base and compared a color-based retail nitrate kit to the preserved and shipped groundwater samples sent to be analyzed for nitrate at a licensed lab and the deviation wasn't enough to warrant us not to just use the field kits for a quick and dirty concentration for nitrates. That was also 5 years ago so forgive me if my memory of it isn't on point.

[klwheat]

Based on the test kit, it appears I'm at around 4ppm. Still within acceptable levels. I was on the high side but it was still within the 4ppm level.

If you're only at 4ppm, I'd let it be. I was aiming for 2-5 originally. Just let it recover on its own.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Justin I really don't trust hobbyist test kits even when they are new. I have gotten readings on API kits that tell me everything should be dead and when I test with Red Sea, Salifert or Seachem kits all is well. How can I get a reading off the scale on nitrates with API and the other three show the same tank at 50 ppm. For that matter everything I have read in the past says high nitrates are not toxic to fish but kill corals, yet many marine organisms love nitrates. I also recently was advised that seahorses can handle up to 2 ppm of nitrites which were considered to be lethal just a couple of years ago. Watch the organisms in your tank, they will tell you when something is wrong. Don't make any sudden changes, none of these test kits are that accurate and I often wonder what they are really reacting to.

I think you could be right Cheryl I don't doubt that several manufacturers have created some bogus test kits but I would like to say that Red Sea makes some of the best out there and compared to other formats, the NO3 kit is fairly easy. If you haven't, the Iron, K and I kits are really difficult to use and very time consuming. The NO3 kit only requires 3 reagents and a 9 minute bake time before you can compare the results to the color wheel.

I think a lot of the old advice given back in the day with aquaculturing has been proven to be false. We are told constantly that you need to keep your tank clean for SPS to thrive and really color up. New evidence has shown that this is not the case and that they need small amounts of PO4 and NO3 to thrive. I even read a report that discovered a small group of organisms that live on the flesh of SPS that aid in growth as well as coloration. In fact the report mentioned that these new bacteria make up like 90% of the film on the skins of SPS. I wish I could find the report I found that talks about it. Really interesting, my gut is telling me that it was on one of the BRS Macna 2016 videos.

[Justin]

If you're only at 4ppm, I'd let it be. I was aiming for 2-5 originally. Just let it recover on its own.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree

[Justin]

I just ran my water numbers and things are going well for my tanks. I do need to redose my Nitrates back up to 4ppm so that I can recalculate what my daily dosage is and set it at that. I still have issues with my Ca Reactor not keeping a steady Alkalinity. This time instead of dropping my alk due to consumption, my reactor is dosing a bit more Alk than it needs but a simple adjustment on my ph cutoff should do the trick. Here are my readings so far:

Red Sea kits
Alk:10.80 dkh
Ca: 500 ppm
Mg:1480 ppm
NO3:.50
Hanna
PO4:.07

The Calcium is a little high and so is the Alk but with no more GFO and my PO4 at .07, I do not forsee any burnt tips caused by too clean of water to my Acros.

Now I need to dose my NO4 to get back up to a 4ppm.

[FarmerTy]

If you can Justin, I would highly recommend not using your solenoid to control your pH level. What I aim to do personally is set the desired bubble rate to reach my target pH level without a solenoid actuating off/on and then just use the solenoid as insurance if it ever gets too low. Then it'll just cut the CO2 supply and save the tank.

I've run a CaRX for the last 6 years now and I've been through enough solenoids to know that they will always fail eventually so I like to use them as insurance only. The way they are designed, the metal fatigues over copious repetitions and once it wears enough, will fail. When I used to run them the same way you are currently, they would only last 1-2 years, if that. Just wanted to pass along my experience with them. Feel free to ignore though bud! Glad everything is growing well and happy!

[Justin]

My apologies for the delay. I tested my water parameters and came up with the following:

Alk: 11.68 dkh
Ca: 525
Mg: 1500
NO3: .25

My NO3 still has not come down from the .25. I kind of want it to give me a reading of 0.00, so that I can accurately know what my daily consumption is for my tank. I apologize for not taking a picture of my tank going through with the NO4 treatment, but considering I read my test kit incorrectly, I wanted to reset and and start from scratch.

In terms of corals, I was fortunate enough to receive some really cool frags of beautiful corals helping a friend stay in the hobby. The frags are very little but I didn't feel right asking for a 1inch frag considering they were offering me some cool stuff. I'll have to take some pics and compare them to the corals sites he bought them from originally. All I know is that a couple of them came from Battle Corals. If they color up and grow the way they did in his tank, I will have some truly epic pieces before I know it.

On to my latest endeavors, I noticed a tiny leak in my Ca reactor and although I keep my reactor in a bucket under my stand, I noticed this morning that there was entirely way too much water in the bucket with my reactor. I can't complain, I bought the GEO reactor from an Elegant closet cleaning sale and it needed some upgrades ti make it useful for my system. Mainly, create a probe port and fix a broken union valve at the top of the reactor. This is where I saw my leak. I had originally made the repair some months ago, I suppose the silicon loosened up during some redecorating under my hood or something but now I have a mini leak. I have since taken the lid off and scraped the old silicone off and re-caulked it. Now its a waiting game for the silicone to cure and test the lid to see if there are any leaks. It sucks because I finally got my reactor working just fine. Which brings up my other point....

[Justin]

For a couple of weeks, I was plagued with my tank water having such a low pH and my reactor set at a range of 6.50 to 6.55. Originally, I kept getting a clogged effluent line and my tank would suffer in Alk and Ca and force my parameters to swing between consumption and the weekly dosing it back to my acceptable levels of 9 dkh and 450 ppm for Alk and Ca. To fix this, I decided to increase my effluent drip rate to that of a fairly constant stream. This fixed the clogging issue but I believe is causing the low Alk swings in my tank. Not to mention slowly building up my concentrations of both Alk and Ca above my coral consumption rates. So I started looking around my fish room and random aquarium gear boxes and I came across an unused 2 little Fishes reactor. I decided to jerry rig my reactor to my effluent line and add spare reactor medium in the reactor to help gas and raise the effluent pH back up. My secondary chamber system looks like this:

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/jndragon79/20170114_1348591_zpsvkusax1g.jpg (http://s807.photobucket.com/user/jndragon79/media/20170114_1348591_zpsvkusax1g.jpg.html)

The problem was that it still didn't do anything to help with my tank pH levels during the day. Finally after some research on other forums, I decided to lower my drip rate to mimic my bubble rate of CO2, while still having my effluent pass through my reactor. I think this finally has helped with my pH issues. Now my tank sits at 8.20 and at night goes down to 8.15. It did until I found my leak in the reactor. Tomorrow I should be able to water test and get things back in line.

I will also start NO3 dosing today and measure my water tomorrow. I'll aim to go to 2ppm for my tank.

[Justin]

Sometimes this upcoming Wednesday, I will finally have the last remaining pieces of acrylic I need to start work on my acrylic fuge. The fuge itself will have the following dimensions:

24' wide, 20' deep and 24' tall.

I want it tall so that I can maximize the water volume I can add to my tank and also create 3 distinct zones within the fuge to house the following:

Existing macro which is a mix of chaeto, calerpa and hair algae. I don't want to toss it because of the large population of pods that I have consuming and living in it

2nd chamber for either more chaeto or rock rubble. I might even go for some of those ceramic blocks I see on BRS

3rd chamber for an isolation/ grow out for fish and corals. once I tear down my QT tank, I will have a spare PAR 38 that I can use to light this area for some small frags and still have them in the same water chemistry as the main tank. This area can also be just a flex area for other odd ball things I may want to put in my water column, like spare trickle filter pads and foam filters that can be seeded with pods and bacteria and pulled to instantly seed my qt or separate isolation system.

I wish I was better at autocad or google draw but Ill have to post a pic of what I want to do later.

[klwheat]

Sounds like an amazing fuge setup. Can't wait to see it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Ran my numbers today and I think its safe to adjust my NO3 to a higher level. Here are my metrics as of today:

1/17/17
Alk: 7.28 I need to dose some Alk. I just bought some Hanna Reagent so I can go back to that instead of RedSea Alk
Ca: 480- I love it!
Mg: 1400 - Perfect level for my snails
PO4: 0 - this worries me since I'm dosing NO3
NO3: .25 - I was at .25 on Saturday and today i'm back at .25
I just dosed 480ml of my KNO3 solution. This should bring my NO3 levels to 3ppm for my 160 gallon system. I'll know for sure when I test again.

The problem with my NO3 dose was that I got lazy and didn't check my levels 10 mins after I dosed. So I added 160ml to bring me up to 1ppm NO3. I tested it today, so that means sometime in the past 3 days my tank went through my NO3. I'm going to test my NO3 in a little bit and update the thread with this reading.

One concern I have is that my PO4 is reading a 0.0 with my Hanna Checker. With Nitrate dosing, I need to make sure that I offer up some PO4 to my tank water for corals to use in their growth and coloring. I know that any test will only show me dissolved PO4 in the water and not the true "Total" available in my tank. I would like my readings to show up as .03-.07.

I just watched Mr Saltwater Tank Tv's Advanced Coral Color and Growth webinar, where he talks about PO4 should be in that range on average for most tanks for good growth. In his webinar, both he and his guests have that same problem with not enough nutrients. They talked about turning the skimmer off for a bit during the day when feeding occurs. I think I'll follow this advice and turn off my skimmer from noon to 16:00. My new program for my skimmer in the apex will be:

Fallback ON
Set ON
If Outlet ReturnPump = OFF Then OFF
If Time 12:00 to 14:00 Then OFF
If Sw2 CLOSED Then OFF
Defer 001:00 Then ON
If FeedA 000 Then OFF
Defer 030:00 Then ON

[FarmerTy]

Justin, I've run 0 ppm phosphate readings on my UL Hanna meter and just recently my Triton test (which it value is extrapolated from phosphorus content) and you really should have no issues as long as you are feeding daily. The food alone contains plenty of phosphates plus fish poop should keep enough residual phosphate in the water column for your corals to use.

You saw my 4-month growth shots, there is no shortage of rapid growth in the tank. I only say this as I think a lot of people don't realize the minute amount of phosphate needed by corals. Its hardly anything as the ocean can demonstrate as most levels over natural reefs are so low its almost undetectable.

FWIW, I love Mark to death (Mr Saltwater Tank) as he used to live right by me but a lot of this is production magic to have something to talk about. His tank while in Austin was okay, nothing to write home about and he would kill SPS all the time. When he went national, a bunch of us locals kind of were just surprised as we used to give HIM advice. Happy he's living the dream now and I'm sure he educated himself a lot more now but I always take his videos with a grain of salt.

When people speak of not enough nutrients, nitrates at 5 ppm is where its at. They didn't have enough nutrients at 0.25 ppm nitrates. No need to increase phosphates as with acros, higher phosphate numbers actually inhibit calcium deposition.

Also, while dosing potassium nitrate with a fishless system versus supplying nitrate via fish poop and fish food, I saw a much more robust coloration from my corals via the fish while running the same nitrate value of 5ppm, which I attribute mainly to the addition of particulate organic matter as well as ammonia/ammonium that is directly uptaken by the corals... Something I didn't get with just potassium nitrate.

Dissolved oxygen is important as well with the skimmer which is why I never turn mine off.

Again, always feel free to ignore Justin. I always aim to help and pass along what I've learned over the years. Its best to always run your own path in my opinion as I did myself but I thought my experience may be useful on this subject.

[Justin]

Always good advice Ty. Of course you guys from the Austin marketplace would know Mark better than the rest of the nation but I like to follow Mark and his videos. Truth be told, they are not the most awe inspiring videos but they are better than most of them that are on Youtube and the net. Aside from Mr. Saltwatertank tv, I enjoy watching Tidal Gardens and Advanced Reef ( I do think the guys' voice is annoying and really slow), BRS TV, and Melev's channel. Mark did bring up some interesting points in the discussion but his advice was not the really reason for me to turn off my skimmer. I dose a lot of Phyto missed with fish eggs and Reef Roids to feed my pods and my sponge and with the skimmer off during the day, these nutrients, I feel, can be dispersed and consumed for a longer period of time if I leave the skimmer off. I also run a micro scrubber to help maximize my skimmer potential. Taking the two off for 4 hrs, should not cause too much of a spike but still allow the corals and reef inhabitants more dwelling time with the Phyto paste I dose.

[FarmerTy]

Oh yeah, if you're dosing planktonic type foods, I can see why you are planning to turn it off on occasion. Makes absolute sense sir.

[FarmerTy]

I do enjoy Mark's screen presence and rate of delivery, though the information I find less useful and often geared towards newbies. I like watching BRS TV but I really don't like the guy who does the videos. Not sure if it's the voice or how he stands in front of the camera but something about it seems unnatural. I do see that he is getting better with time so can't knock a person who's trying.

I can't stand Melevs higher pitched voice for some reason which I find odd as that kind of thing doesn't usually bug me. I usually skip his videos or mute it If audio isn't needed.

My favorite, and I wish he would do more, is Reefbum. Great voice, great video edits, not too flashy but not too boring either.

[Justin]

I haven't seen his videos but I'll check them. Yea, Melev kind of reminds me of beeker from the muppets and his high pitched voice doesn't help. You are absolutely right about Mark on the geared toward newbies. I used to follow him and LA fish guys religiously for information when I first started out. Now I can't stand LA Fish Guys and Mark is okay. I like his tank overviews more than anything now. I wish he finished the video series on the Miami outdoor Salt Water lagoon a few years back.

[FarmerTy]

Ahhaha... Beeker! Hilarious!