75g Money Sink

[Photo_John]

7-4-09

Added a GFO reactor last week. Has had no visible effect on PO4 levels. I am going to dump the GFO, add new GFO and double the amount from last time. It seemed to effect cyano growth on day 1 but cyano growth since has increased back to the normal bad levels. I also did a water change that day. I am planning another water change today and more this coming week. My tank is getting literally eaten by algae and cyano. The upside to the cyano is it kills the algae and makes it easier to get out in chunks. I have not lost any corals to the algae or cyano as of yet but have had some coral polyp deaths (small spots on frags/colonies) due to the cyano on sps frags. The LPS frags seem to be able to defend themselves against the cyano and remain unaffected.

New Additions:

ORA Red Planet Table frag (I think I miss this frag the most)
2 LPS frags
2 Acro frags

all have good PE and show growth despite the cyano and algae.

The Duncan babies now have babies of their own and I would no longer call the duncans a frag but a small colony.

 

[Photo_John]

7-12-09

Baby MACNA

The GFO reactor I designed and built is going in the circular filing cabinet! It does its job great but I got a new toy! or should I say toys!!!!

I went to SRC Southeastern Reef Conference today for the first time. It was great fun. Bob Fenner spoke on Hitchhikers and ReDox/Ozone, Eric Borneman spoke on creating the ideal reef aquarium and Scott Fellman did a presentation on how to aquascape. I also got to see the old salt of the sea himself, Dick!

They had a raffle and I purchased 25 tickets. I figured even if I don't win anything the money ends up benefiting the club and me through the club, so why not. I carefully selected a few items I would have loved to win and split my tickets between the different item draw boxes. On the first round of raffle drawing I won a $50 gift card to a LFS. I thought hazza I just made my money back! On the second round I won something but didnt hear it and saw later on the won items board. It was the dual GFO/Carbon reactor tower from Bulk Reef Supply with a bag of their carbon and GFO! WOOT! I needed that! The final raffle came around and I was talking to dick not paying much attention and Eric Borneman stepped up to the 5 x t5 $400+(or so my LFS that donated it told me) all in cased 4' hood/light and drew my ticket! I am amazed! From $25 I made out with $500-600 in prizes! That was a good day!

I am going to be switching hoods/lights from my MH +T5 to the new T5s and I may run at least 2 of my other t5s or all 4 if they will fit on either side. This way I will have MH lights for a frag system! I didnt tell the wife that bit of information.

They had a great frag swap after the show and I spent about $100 picking up a large orange Monti Cap, a medium green+purple rim monti cap, a supposed tyree blue chalice frag/colony, and a blue acro bottle brush. If i had know the deals I would have saved money for a few weeks and came more prepared! I will be ready next year SRC! One person dropped easily $1000 on corals today, it seemed like he purchased or bid up every sps coral there. I really wanted the strawberry patch monti cap but it went to 50-60 and I cant pay that much for a sps weed! God they grow fast.

I am going to start looking for a very small Ozone system for my tank. Bob Fenner spoke about the advantages and some of the risks and I think it would be a great addition to my or any reef. (Found one I will buy some day but still havent done it)

As soon as I get my glass cleaned and the camera out of moth balls I will post some pictures.

7-16-09

some quick and dirty pictures

I have not recorded all the coral names as of yet, my LFS has them but I have not written them down. Shame on me.

Anyway here are some quick and dirty pictures of my new corals. My glass is very dirty, my apologies

My $17 orange monti cap

A wild acro. The new encrusting growth at the LFS was red base w/ green polyps. (The LFS still has this and it developed nice green polyps but kept the blan base red, mine will die in an upcoming crash)

This is a picture of two plate forming corals. My LFS insisted they were rock anemones even after I pointed out their calcified skeletons. They are both very small but I have been lucky enough to find these before(an old tank crash victim) and am overjoyed to have gotten the chance to raise more. My LFS gave them to me for free saying there were pests with some hesitance. I am guessing they are Fungia fralinae

A ORA red planet tabling Acro, it cost me dearly

A green monti cap with purple rim

Lythophyllon Edwarsi(lost this in the upcoming crash)

I am excited for this LPS, Merulina. It grows a bit like a cap but then also sends up towers. Cant wait for it to grow out. Mounted to overflow glass(lost this one too)

the best seat in the house

 

[Photo_John]

a $20 chalice frag, already grown substantially in about 2-3 weeks. Mounted to overflow glass

A blue bottle brush acro

and a fts 7-16-09

7-19-09
LFS 40% off sale

My LFS had a 40% off from 10pm to...close...left at 2 am!

I purchased a pair Bangii Cardinals(one disappeared after day 1, the other still lives)

I purchased a Mandarin, he is hidden now. No picture.

A ORA Bretts Cap. It is named after an ora collector/farmer that died in a diving accident.

A friend I have had for several months but declined to reveal(I loved this fish, crash victim)

I also purchased 2 different Pavona species. Didnt get a usable picture though

A pink Milepora from the ORCA frag event

 

[Photo_John]

7-19-09

I am really enjoying the new corals and fish. I have not added any new fish in several months and one one in the last 2 years. The mandarin is hunting like a tiger. Stalking those little pods and pouncing! I am thinking of adding some more pods to make sure he has plenty to eat.

The bangii cardinals have staked their claim to the left side of the tank. The power brown is no longer allowed on that side of the tank. I was amazed by the gumption of the cardinals. However, they dont seem to take issue with the mandarin. I hope they start eating with greater vigor. Currently they have eaten some but show little interest.

terrible white balance but here:

got bored in photoshop:

 

[Photo_John]

2-16-2010

I have been away from TR and the reef life for a few months and the tank has suffered. The tank was cooking along pretty well but personal havoc claimed a good portion of my corals. I was building a diverse selection of acros and other sps corals but neglect claimed the majority of the sensitive species. The montis and chalice corals have grown like weeds but all my branching corals but two have been claimed and the survivors have significant damage. The deaths have been attributed to HA and Cyano. I have been battling the culprits with vigor as of late, it is amazing how fast the algae and bacteria can multiply. The deaths are regretful and I wish I could have the corals back, that table was so expensive...

What I am doing to reclaim the system:

Expanding the CUC. I am waiting on a shipment of snails and crabs from Reefs2Go. They are a local online retailer here in FL with great prices on some items and free shipping within FL.

Trying a new salt. I will let you know what I think after a few water changes. So far it is promising.

I tapped a drain into my skimmer cup so I would actually use it. I alter the stand height during the build phase of the project and in doing so limited clearance making it a pain to empty the cup. It has been producing light brown water. Need to dial that back in.

I am going to get my ATO hooked back up with a new pump.

I have been feeding 2-3x a day instead of once a day to every other day. The fish, corals, and anemone appreciate the food. I have also switched to Rods food. I was using other foods but Rods with garlic guard and selcon make the fish happy and hopefully have less P04.

I recharged my carbon and P04 reactors and added a more powerful pump.

The good news:

All my fish are alive and happy

The bad news:

I cant find my new mantis shrimp in its dedicated but connected tank. It is a beautiful 3" green smasher and I have not heard or seen it in about a week. It was healthy and happy for about a month before he made it into the input hose. I "rescued" him, he wanted to stay in the tube, but i returned him to his tank. He was digging about for 2 days and I havent seen or heard from it in days. I am hoping he molted and is just being shy. Worst case he somehow made it into the fuge...I need to figure that out, I like my thumbs un-split.

Some pics:

 

[Photo_John]

A little article I wrote about the use of Helicon Focus (take 1)

I have been inspired by Gary Parr to try some composite images for extreme depth of field, impossible sharpness for a single shot. He uses Helicon Focus to stack multiple images into a composite single image making everything tack sharp. This is my first attempt. I was using an f stop of 2.8 aka wide open and next time I will try this again with more images and also try it at f5.6, f8, and f11 to see what gives me the best results.

It is an amazing program and free for a month! And I thought Photoshop could do everything...nope!

The results are not perfect but amazing considering the corals were shot at f2.8 meaning only about 1/4 of an inch was in focus per shot. The pink monti plate is about 6" deep and almost as wide, to give some idea of how impossible it would be to capture everything in a single photo. The blue/purple chalice is about 4-5 inches deep as well. The green coral is only about 1-2 inches from front to back.

The 3d model viewer that comes with Helicon Focus is a great toy! It makes your stacked images into a 3d representation that you can move and view in real time. It looks almost real when viewed in 3d, amazing to see.

Helicon Focus (Take 2)

If you havent read my original post on Helicon Focus visit the link. If you have looked over the post I commend you for your ongoing attention or something like that...

I was unimpressed with my first attempt at a stacked image for DOF (depth of field) using Helicon Focus. The first time is never the best, just ask a married couple. Anyway, I shot the original gambit of images at f2.8, again look at the link if you want to see those shots, giving very little DOF and missing small sections of the coral. The missed parts diminished the overall look of the composite with blurry patches. This could probably be fixed by taking more images, apparently 10-15 is not enough at f2.8. Or, you could do what I did and stop down. I stopped down from f2.8 to f5.6 for the first set of shots below. That is one stop smaller (half the aperture size) and thus doubles your shutter speed to compensate for the loss of light. F5.6 gave a better DOF but in the composite had a great deal of artifacting around the rim/background of the coral. I removed it in photoshop.

Here is the coral at f5.6 with the focal point at the front edge

The next set of images is at f8. That is 1 stop smaller than f5.6 and two stops smaller than f2.8, so the shutter speed is doubled twice(the initial shutter speed is doubled and then that speed is doubled again) from what it was at f2.8. Confused? Good, if you followed that I would have been scared. Anyway, at f8 I still found some artifacts around the outer edge/background. I again removed this with photoshop. The blue/purple line (the artifact) was less apparent in the f8 image.

A single image shot at f8 with the focus point at the front of the coral

The final set of images I took were at f11. That is 3 stops smaller than f2.8 and requires a much longer shutter speed doubling 3x. This composite had the least amount of artifacting around the rim and I could have left what little there was but in the name of consistency I blacked out this background as well. However I found that at f11 the image seems a bit muddied IMO.

here is a single shot at f11...

Notice at f11 very little of the coral is in sharp focus. One could keep stopping down but eventually one wouldn't have enough light and the coral still would not all be in total focus.

I think the best results were found at f8 with a sizable image stack(more than 10 shots).

As you can tell the difference between single images and a stacked image processed with Helicon Focus for DOF is immense! If you are serious about making pristine images of your coral Helicon Focus is your program.

I think, I remember my f stops correctly but if they are not full step feel free to let me know...2.8-5.6-8-11-16...If they are not full step the shutter speed changes would differ as well. God I haven't thought about that in forever, anyway...

 

[Photo_John]

3-10-2010
The Big Salt Switch

I started with IO Reef Crystals years ago and could never get a consistent mix so I switch to Red Sea coral pro when I set up my 75g, I have been looking for something new that might be better so I purchased a bucket of Brightwell reef salt. It certainly smells different from any other salt I have ever used. It mixed up great, good reef levels across the board. I did a 15g water change and within 2-3 days my tang died, and two of my large montipora/chalice corals have RTN taking most of the colonies. I am going to do another water change tonight 10g and see if that helps. I have never experience problems when switching salts like this! My LFS runs the exact same salt and the corals there look amazing with good PE and little to no RTN...they do get bleached sps frags in shipments but i think they usually come in bleached.

Has anyone else had serious problems when switching salts? (its all my fault! I FUBAR'd. I knew how my old red sea coral pro mixed up and figured all salt mixed up about the same. I was very, very, wrong. I tested the salt a few hours after mixing and it was perfect. I let it sit over night and didnt check it the next day. The specific gravity went up to 31 over night. If I ran my tank at 23 it might have been okay but I was running it at 26. I lost almost everything before I figured out it cant be the salt it must be me! I added more rodi water and everything that wasnt dead made a full recovery. Live, kill, learn?)

 

[Photo_John]

10-25-10

I had some issues switching salts, I got all those figured out...Lost some corals and my tangs. So long powder brown and kole eye...

My tank has been running well for the last few months and I thought I should post an update.

I just added a baby black and white clown which has befriended my mature b&w. I am hoping I can get some babies out of them in a year or so, that would be a fun adventure. Houdini is still alive(the orange and white), after his last trip over the wall, into the overflow and down the water slide to the fuge I wasnt able to catch him without tearing stuff up, so the fuge is now his home.

I also added an angel. It hasnt touched any of my LPS corals! hurray for that. The large clown(r2d2) and the angel despise one another but it usually is just shown with charges and stern looks from the anemone.

I also have not done a water change in months. Since I had the crash associated with my new salt. I have zero unwanted algae and everything looks happy. I have been keeping levels up with Oceans Blends 2 part. I also harvest a large crop of caulerpa and cheto monthly.(from the DT)

I will be changing out my old t5s for new ones soon....money??? mine are sitting at 16 months! I know 11 months is the due date..

Some Pics:

and a crappy FTS:

 

[allsps40]

Your tank looks like it has nutrient issue, lots of algae and sps dont look happy. Test your water for phos and nitrates. Are you using RO water to make salt water?

 

[Dustin1300]

Based on the dull coloration, hair algae, and cyano I'd have to agree that some nutrient problem is in place.

 

[Photo_John]

The light I put over the fuge is not powerful enough to grow algae. I was originally under the impression any light would do for the fuge so I purchased two cheap strip florescents. That was a major mistake that had me battling HA for about a year. The lights kept the cheto alive but it wasnt growing fast enough to do any good. I had not run a tank with a fuge before and thought the nutrient issue was just part of life and so was the HA. It isnt and shouldnt be! When I had the crash associated with my stupid salt switch both my tangs died. This allowed the caulerpa algae to take off in the DT. The death of the tangs made me sad but their deaths revealed my folly. As soon as the good algae took off in the DT, (because of the tangswere not there to eat it), the HA disappeared. The above post gives a good idea of the cheto ball I have in the dt and the caulerpa growing on the rocks. So for the past several months I have had the algaes in the dt instead of the sump. I will be replacing the sump/fuge lights soon, I just havent gotten around to it. Today is my day off so perhaps...

@allsps40:

I only use RO/DI water that in under 10ppm.

The tank had some serious PO4 lvls before I moved the cheto to the dt where it grew much faster and along with the caulerpa, the PO4 now is very minimal when it is detectable. The nitrates were never a detectable issue. I am assuming this is because I have a DSB in the DT and the fuge along with 200lbs of LR or there abouts, or the HA was just munching it up as soon as it was released.



The current state of the tank is acceptable. All the corals have decent PE, are growing well despite low Calcium lvls (working on this), and I havent lost anything since my mistake with mixing the new salts back in the spring. I recently added a few frags from WWC in Orlando, nothing to goggle at but call it an acro test.

I will try to post some current pictures that show the corals...

 

[Photo_John]

Based on the dull coloration, hair algae, and cyano I'd have to agree that some nutrient problem is in place.

This is a tank log stretching back to 6-13-08. The community it was posted in has kinda died and I wanted to move it over. The tank did have some PO4, but that has been taken care of. I dont have any HA, thank GOD! I had it for over a year and it drove me nuts...fixed now

 

[Dustin1300]

Good to hear you don't have any HA. That stuff can be a war. Once you win a battle it pops back up. Sounds like you have things better under control now. In regards to the RO/DI meter reading, I typically change out the filters once the TDS gets over 2. Some will not use it unless it is 0 but I get a bit more use out of it. If you experience nutrient problems in the future I'd target that as part of the culprit.

 

[Photo_John]

Good to hear you don't have any HA. That stuff can be a war. Once you win a battle it pops back up. Sounds like you have things better under control now. In regards to the RO/DI meter reading, I typically change out the filters once the TDS gets over 2. Some will not use it unless it is 0 but I get a bit more use out of it. If you experience nutrient problems in the future I'd target that as part of the culprit.

I have an RO double DI unit but I do not have it hooked up. I need to buy all new resin and filters. I have been purchasing my water from a LFS. It isn't ideal, I am sure springing for the filters and resin would be better, allowing more control...and not having to trust a LFS for good water.

The HA is a war. I hate it and thankfully I have not had it for months. I still see cyano on occasion but nothing like I once had. I would like to start running ozone.

I am adding water to my tank today. I had a flood a few months ago, it wasnt to bad 15g or so. I never replace that water and will be doing so today. I mixed up some water last night with brightwell reef salt(this is the one that I crashed my system with)...I dont know if I like it. It mixes to a much higher specific gravity than any other salt I have used (IO, IO reef crystals, Red Sea Coral Pro, and a custom salt from a bulk reef supplier) I used 1/2 cup less than the other salts and still had a SG of 33! Atleast I learned from last time and have checked this one several times. Getting the SG correct is the current task.

I also replaced my fuge's strip florescent lighting for a CFL curly 1600 lumen daylight bulb in a reptile style reflector (had it sitting around). It is amazingly better lighting than the strips. I am tempted to put a few zoos down there to see if they could survive...but they probably wouldnt, no need to throw away perfectly healthy zoos.

 

[Dustin1300]

I've seen people place frags in sump before as long as the lighting is strong enough you should be good. (that is outside of coral that need a lot of flow)

 

[Lyfey]

I just read everything. Nice documentation and I like how you added in your views now, in red.

Honestly, I totally agree with dustin. I dont use anything over 002 tds and If I dont have filters, Ill stop water changes and use top off of distilled water. Trust me, any TDS is bad TDS.

Great job though!! Looking great. Do you have a link or pictures of those CFLS? I just set up my fuge and using an old 2x 65w cf fixture with one actinic and one daylight and the chaeto isnt growing fast, but it is growing. I am going to change that out cause the bulbs are way to expensive to replace on BRS, around 30$ a piece?:0

Anyways good job and keep it up, the best knowledge here in RC i would say is in the build threads. My my .02c Keep up the good work!

-Chris

 

[Photo_John]

 

[Dustin1300]

Nice shots and can tell yours are natural camera shots. I see so many shots anymore that are taken under actinics or are Photoshopped.

 

[Photo_John]

Thanks,

The pics are taken with all the lights on in RAW and processed via Photoshop CS3. I have been lazy and took these at ISO 1200, that way I didnt have to shut down pumps to compensate for the slow shutter speeds. I adjust exposure and contrast a bit in CS3 but try to avoid the super saturation look.

I am changing out my T5 bulbs and will be going for a more 20k radium look instead of the 10-12k look I have now. That will make white balance a bit more of a chore which I am not looking forward to but I like the actinic look and the colors corals develop under actinic.

 

[Photo_John]