500 Gallon Build

Could you outline your qt?? How it is setup/ do you observe? Prazipro? Copper???

About to set up my QT, you seem to have a good plan :)
 
Some pics after feeding them some Limpits Reef Buffet:

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Got to clean the glass on this tank!

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Looks like the 2nd wave of quarantine made its way to the 500! Also I see corals! You sure have been busy LOL.

Yes, wave 2 was pretty small compared to the first! Now wave 3 is underway with my first online fish order I have ever done. I had one DOA but the rest are alive and in the tank this morning.

I got 4 little low cost frags to go in the tank to see how it goes. Looking good so far, and I am looking at ordering some frags from Coral Imports.

Calcium is holding steady at 490, magnesium at 1380 and Alk at 9. I thought about dropping the doser down on the calcium a litle bit but figured I would leave it as it will go down when I start getting some more corals in there. Alk still is being tweaked to get it to stay where I want it. I have been doing some manual pump running to get it where it is now.
 
I got 4 little low cost frags to go in the tank to see how it goes. Looking good so far, and I am looking at ordering some frags from Coral Imports.

Throwing coral in our tank alerted me that something was very wrong.

Had a hair algae problem, but P04 was reading 0. (Tied up in algae).

I removed all the algae and was basing my Vodka dosing on an API nitrate kit. Kit was reading 0.

When I put some coral in the tank, all the SPS bleached in a few days. LPS started receding and losing heads. Zoas were OK.

Tested again, no issues.

Had two local big time SPS keepers test my water and found out my Nitrates were 64+ and P04 was at .41...

Did around 800 gallons of water changes and installed a GFO reactor.

Things seem happier now, haven't tested in two weeks, but after the changes nitrates were down to 8-10 and P04 was .18. I know the GFO and Vodka will be the real thing to bring the P04 down...

... but if I never added coral to the tank, I would have never known the tank was so messed up... worth the loss of a few pieces of coral. I'm just happy our first coral ever (frogspawn) only lost a few heads and looks like it'll be ok.

Our first SPS piece broke into a bunch of pieces and most are bleached, but still have a little tissue left. Hopefully at least one will recover long term :(
 
My PO4 was .11 with the hanna checker. Nitrate 0 with API as it always has been lol, Im sure its off. With the scrubber downstairs it seems to have put a halt to the algae growth in the tank. I remember my 210 at this point was a huge mess in there, this is so clean compared to what that was.

I look at this now and that looks terrible!

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LOL yeah a little different ;)

I will probably be placing an order with you today. The four frags are doing well, and the fish told me they want some more things to look at. My starry blenny is attached to the single head of duncan coral in there and perches right next to it.
 
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