250g. SPS and Reef Room

cFloor

cFloor

New member
Whats up everyone, I've been meaning to start a new thread on here. My last one for this tank was just started when Photobucket removed all the pics.

My current setup (located in garage): This tank got wet on 5/10/2017 and corals were added on 5/29/2017

Tank: Crystal Dynamics Peninsula: 72"x36"x22" (250ish gallons)
Sump: Advanced Acrylics
Return pump: Ecotech Vectra L1 and M1
Skimmer: Reef Octopus 300
Lighting: ATI t5 with Reefbrite LED strips
Alk and Ca: B-Ionic 2 part, controlled by DOS
Controller: Neptune Apex (controls heaters and fans,dosing, and monitors temp and pH)
Flow: 2 MP60s, 2 MP40s, 100% on pulse mode
Other: About 9 gallons of Seachem Matrix in bags and reactors, 1 cup carbon in bag, Reef Crystals salt
QT Tanks: Coral QT is Red Sea Reefer 170. Fish QT is Red Sea Reefer 250

Frag tank: Botanicare hydroponics tub
Flow: MP40 x3
Light: G4 Radion Pros and Reefbrite stip

Delivery Day!


I used some water and rock from my old tank and got the new one up and running pretty quick. I used a couple tester frags for a few days to make sure they were happy before moving everything in.


I moved all my rock, fish, and coral in all in one day. Luckily, without any losses.
First FTS


Couple pics






I ended up having to remove my sand. Even though I went with a more coarse sand, it was still getting blown all over the place and sucked up into my vortechs. Also, the clarion would constantly swoop down and throw it up over my corals. I got sick of dealing with it and just removed it all, which I think looks pretty bad...but it's easy.


The day I set up my frag tank


Coral QT


And here's the most recent FTS. I don't like the look of this tank being bare bottom, especially because of the bracing so I've decided to find some cool monti caps to help cover it all up.
 
Here's a FTS from earlier this month. Tank has been funky lately. PO4 has been a little high at .08 and Nitrates are undetectable. I have a little cyano and my corals are looking off. I recently lost a couple frags and my WWC Bounce melted overnight which was the largest one I have seen. I've been doing multiple large water changes in attempt to get everything back on track.
 
Still looking pretty cool, Connor.
Just love that monster tort.
Have you considered just dosing some kno3?
 
reefmutt said:
Still looking pretty cool, Connor.
Just love that monster tort.
Have you considered just dosing some kno3?
Click to expand...

Thanks Matt, Yeah I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't know if I need to dose nitrate or add GFO to bring down PO4. What do you think? I've never had a good experience with GFO so I'm a little nervous about using it.
 
I’ve never had great experiences with gfo either.. not a huge fan... and really, these days I’m not sure how important it is to severely control po4, anyways..
I have pretty much never had po4 lower than .08 and until just recently, my po4 has always been between .14-.24....

Now, it is possible that your po4 may only be up because your n has bottomed out..
Personally I wouldn’t call your p high..
maybe your system is nitrate limited and this is why p has climbed....
 
reefmutt said:
I've never had great experiences with gfo either.. not a huge fan... and really, these days I'm not sure how important it is to severely control po4, anyways..
I have pretty much never had po4 lower than .08 and until just recently, my po4 has always been between .14-.24....

Now, it is possible that your po4 may only be up because your n has bottomed out..
Personally I wouldn't call your p high..
maybe your system is nitrate limited and this is why p has climbed....
Click to expand...

To add some nitrate, would you recommend dosing, turning down my skimmer, or feeding more?
 
cFloor said:
To add some nitrate, would you recommend dosing, turning down my skimmer, or feeding more?
Click to expand...

The best way to raise nitrate without potentially raising phosphate levels as well, is with nitrate additions only..
I currently use Seachem's Flourish Nitrogen. It is potassium nitrate. I add 3 capfuls on Wednesday and Saturday to maintain n around 3 ppm- with my cheato fuge growing heavily..
I started with adding one capful and testing n a day later to see if it had any impact. Sometime it takes a couple of doses to get a reading but once you do get a reading, you should then back off the dose a bit so as not to overshoot your target level..
In your case, you should probably add n and then test both n and p.. you have to do a lot of regular dosing and testing to figure out proper dosage.. it can take several weeks to see the effect and figure out a running dose..
if your system is nitrate limited, you may see a drop in p before you get a significant reading for n.
I forget.. are you carbon dosing?
 
reefmutt said:
The best way to raise nitrate without potentially raising phosphate levels as well, is with nitrate additions only..
I currently use Seachem's Flourish Nitrogen. It is potassium nitrate. I add 3 capfuls on Wednesday and Saturday to maintain n around 3 ppm- with my cheato fuge growing heavily..
I started with adding one capful and testing n a day later to see if it had any impact. Sometime it takes a couple of doses to get a reading but once you do get a reading, you should then back off the dose a bit so as not to overshoot your target level..
In your case, you should probably add n and then test both n and p.. you have to do a lot of regular dosing and testing to figure out proper dosage.. it can take several weeks to see the effect and figure out a running dose..
if your system is nitrate limited, you may see a drop in p before you get a significant reading for n.
I forget.. are you carbon dosing?
Click to expand...
Matt, this is excellent information. Thank you! No I'm not carbon dosing.
 
Hi Conor,
I am dosing Sodium Nitrate for the last 2 or 3 months. Before that my NO3 was 0,2.
Now I'm keeping it around 5ppm and my corals look a lot more happier.
As Matt said, I made some tests to find the amount of NaNO3 needed in my system.
To me, feed more heavier does nothing to NO3 levels.
Regards,
Alex

PS.: I miss the sand in your tank.
 
Alex Costa said:
Hi Conor,
I am dosing Sodium Nitrate for the last 2 or 3 months. Before that my NO3 was 0,2.
Now I'm keeping it around 5ppm and my corals look a lot more happier.
As Matt said, I made some tests to find the amount of NaNO3 needed in my system.
To me, feed more heavier does nothing to NO3 levels.
Regards,
Alex

PS.: I miss the sand in your tank.
Click to expand...

Hi Alex, I appreciate your input. Thank you!

Yes! I miss the sand too. I have too much flow and some fish that like throwing it up on my corals. I'm hoping to eventually cover most of the bottom with montis.
 
gypsy1203 said:
Are you running the 60" ati fixture? How are you liking it so far on your 72"?
Click to expand...

Yes, I am running a 60" ATI with 2 blue xho reefbrite strips. I'm very pleased with it. I'm not sure there's lighting that will outperform this combo. I do have radions above my frag tank and my corals in there seem very happy as well. I'd consider switching to radions above my display tank but I'd need 6 of them which is $$$$
 
cFloor said:
Yes, I am running a 60" ATI with 2 blue xho reefbrite strips. I'm very pleased with it. I'm not sure there's lighting that will outperform this combo. I do have radions above my frag tank and my corals in there seem very happy as well. I'd consider switching to radions above my display tank but I'd need 6 of them which is $$$$
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply! I currently have the 48" 8 bulb fixture with reefbrite fixture mounted on them as well over my 48" display tank and I'm loving it so far.

I'm only asking because I'm planning on building a bigger tank in the future and I wasn't sure if the 60" fixture was giving enough light over the long 72". Are the sides where the fixture isn't covering giving good light or do you see a noticeable difference on both ends where it's dark?
 
gypsy1203 said:
Thanks for your reply! I currently have the 48" 8 bulb fixture with reefbrite fixture mounted on them as well over my 48" display tank and I'm loving it so far.

I'm only asking because I'm planning on building a bigger tank in the future and I wasn't sure if the 60" fixture was giving enough light over the long 72". Are the sides where the fixture isn't covering giving good light or do you see a noticeable difference on both ends where it's dark?
Click to expand...

I don't notice any dark or shaded areas at the ends of my tank. One side is the overflow box, which takes up a few inches. That being said, if there was a 72" ATI fixture, I'd be using that.
 
One of these day's I'm going to outdo your angel collection mate! Until then I'm going to continue to drool over your pictures and gorgeous gorgeous angels!! The tank is looking really nice Conor :inlove:
 
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