A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[Bello]

Sorry to hear about the shrimp Troub .

The Frogspawn, though I think its a Hammer actually, seems to be doing rather well. Had one a while ago, till I fragged the hell out of it and made some money . IME, high light and not too much flow, and it'll grow like nuts.

Kalk seems like a good option for your system right now, given the lowish consumption. I'm tempted to give it a go as well, for my "experimental" setup

 

[troubadour11]

I bet you said a few choice words when you lost that post didn't you Troubster lol......

Hahahaha :uzi: I did, but it was all silently in my head since I was in the middle of the studio eating lunch at my desk! :blown: I'm sure I did not have a silent happy look on my face :angryfire:

Today I'm back at home however with a nice cup of coffee on my couch watching the sunrise on the tank

The next time I add a pistol shrimp in, I'm going to put it in through a tube of pvc pipe and dart gun the sucker into the YWG!!! I bet they'll be friends if the just "run into each other." LOL. Well, not really, but I may try letting it crawl down the tube and come out right by the spot the goby is taking up as his little cave :bounce1: I'll let the Mrs. decide; your method or mine on the next try ;-)

:thumbsup: Thanks for the thoughts on the Xmas worms and Porites. We've seen one tan elephant turd rock at a LFS. It had tons of worms in it. But I pointed out how ugly I think they usually are. It might help my arguement that they might be more difficult to keep looking good. Maybe something to give a shot a long way down the line if we have success with other difficult SPS.

Until then, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled as best I can for an acro Xmas worm. Although, I think that will be difficult. I think I see WAY more locally grown and fragged colonies then I typically see wild colonies. And it's very rare for me to come across any sizable pieces. Sure in LFS show tanks. Which they frag and sell. But a 3 inch tall frag with one to 3 branches is what is in their sale tanks.

OH, speaking of which. I discovered our typical store has a few SCC parent colonies they've been growing for quite a while and fragging for sale So, I know where to get a tank raised frag of it now :thumbsup: When I'm ready. . .

A red acan is a thought. What type of placement do they get? Are they encrusting and need to be on an island like Zoas?

Oh, and Biggles, the new LED lights are up and running. So when I'm talking next coral purchases, I'm no longer limited to only flubber!!! :eek1::twitch: So when I say non-greenies, it gets a lot easier since it doesn't have to be limited to lower light corals anymore. YAY!!!

But do keep in mind the dosing and Alk/Ca/Mg control conversation you've all been helping me with. Very much appreciated all the info! So if I'm going to add any SPS soon (which I'd like to try a piece or two), it should probably be a "more hardy and forgiving" SPS if that's possible. Just because I'm in the process of trying to get a solution in place and all the levels dialed in soon.

But things are starting to fall into place so we can really start getting some life on the reef! Now that we have the Frogspawn. And I'm pretty positive it's a straight up Frogspawn, Bello. There is a conversation about adding a Hammer coral next to it though. Since nothing else can be around them because of aggression, we're debating having a little cluster of those two down there front and center.

The key for now though is... We have one of them, so I want to make sure it likes the spot and is doing good. Then I can glue it down because we want to have a pair of clownfish.

So I'm all for a pair of Perc's, Occy's, or Picaso's. We were hoping to do a kind of designer pair, but those prices are just to ridiculous. If I was making more money, I'd buy some Black Ice Clowns. But any of the above will be just as awesome really!

We may get the clown pair next because it is a little less expensive then the school option. So that very well may be what's coming because of timing. But I was hoping to do the school type option first for a couple reasons.

1.) We just got the Frogspawn, so I was thinking it would be good to give it some time to settle in and maybe grow a bit before adding a clown pair that might beat it to death.
2.) We have the YWG which is out in the open a lot. But definitely more of a bottom dweller all along the sand. Then we have the Orange Firefish, which is more of an open water swimmer. But currently, not so much in our tank. It comes out and swims around to eat and hangs out for a bit. Then spends the majority of the rest of the time hiding in it's cave out of sight. I think it might be upset with the bright lighting and no shade yet, from a reef above. Because it used to be out and about way more before the lighting upgrade. So we are really looking for a fish that will be up an upper water column fish. The mid and bottom is where the other 2 hang out. So we were thinking a school type fish would be more active high in the aquarium (where it's mostly empty right now)​

But who knows. As I said, due to $$, the pair of clowns will probably be easier to start with then 5-9 of something. And I'll still run QT on the clowns, so that will give the Frogspawn a month or so from when we get the clowns to continue to settle in.

Also, more importantly then fish and corals. I think it's time to add a new addition of snails. We've still got nassarius and dwarf cerith snails. OH, and the 3 Tongan conchs. Which we LOVE :love1:!!! We have 2 in the DSB in the 75 gallon fuge keeping it turned and clean. And 1 in the DT. That this is one of the best and most fun critters to watch right now. I highly recommend them and will probably always keep them if I have a sand bed. :thumbsup:

Ok... coffee refill ;-) and then onto some more supplement talk. I'm sorry... I wrote to much. I got a lot of Reefy things on my mind right now I guess.

 

[troubadour11]

:eek2::eek2::eek2: Do I get an award for ^^^ that ramble.

So sorry again. I definitely let the coffee do the typing it looks like. LOL Thanks for humoring me and "reading" all this. At least I'm not alone in my craziness :hmm3::beer: LOL

Oh, and Bello. I really hope one day to be able to "frag the hell out of it and make some money!!!" just like you! I'll be a proud reefer the first time I need to get help fragging things. LOL

Now onto some quick dosing stuff.

So, I'll look into picking up some Ca, Alk, Mg bottles either at the LFS or next time I make a BRS order for minor adjustments until we add dosers. It is looking like I'm going to place a bulk, 20 pound, order of pickling lime and go the kalk route for now. You've both reaffirmed my thought that it will be able to keep up with the demand on the system for a good amount of time.

Thanks for the tips on the supplement bottles. I hadn't thought about needing to dose Mg separate from dripping kalk. :thumbsup: How often should I expect to be dosing the liquid Mg supplement probably? Is this a once daily "x" amount into a high hi flow area. Or once or twice a week just to maintain levels with the kalk ato?

I was planning on using my 20 gallon, gravity powered, Brute ATO barrel for the kalk mix. That way I could mix up just shy of 20 gallons kalk solution and it would get fed into the system whenever the gravity float switch was activated by evaporation. That system should work ok for dosing the kalk, right? I was hoping to avoid needing to set up a smaller separate kalk drip since I already have the gravity ATO. If I have to set up a bunch of separate jars and not use the ATO, I might as well go straight to dosers.

Now I'm off to do some kalk/supplement :reading: and then get about some things for the day.

FYI... here's what I have lined up to scan through this morning. I had saved these links after reading them the first time. Now is the time for a refresher and get some decision made!

Chemistry And The Aquarium: How To Select A Calcium And Alkalinity Supplementation Scheme http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/chemistry

What Your Grandmother Never Told You About Lime http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.htm

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

:fish1:

 

[troubadour11]

Ok, it's the weekend!!! And I have work for next week.... Time to do some fishy business :fish1:

So I'm off to a bang! I just placed a bulk order for 20 pounds of pickling lime (food grade calcium hydroxide). That should do me for the next, oh, year or so. LOL :eek2:

The only way to get it around where I live was to order it. And I'm going to need it over time. So it was the best price for their 20 pounds instead of their 1 or 5 pound boxes.

Next up is some breakfast! :beer: and then maybe a shopping trip out to the LFS :bum: I've got to decide what to toss in here next. . .

 

[Bello]

Don't come back empty handed Troub!!!!

 

[troubadour11]

^^^ I don't think my wife would allow it :smokin: :fun2:

 

[troubadour11]

So right now we're getting the QT set up and running. We saved our salt water from the last 20 gallon water change. So that's in a barrel and we're diluting down some of it in the 10 gallon QT. There's an established filter pad in the sump waiting for the set up to fill. You know... just in case ;-)

We did a round of testing while we're waiting for the RO water to dilute the QT.
90-DT
Temp = 77-78 regulated by Reef Angel
SG = 1.026
PH = 7.8
NH3 = 0
N02 = 0
N03 = 0
Ca = 330
Mg = 1400
Alk = 7.3

So not horrible. But definitely could raise the Ca and bump up the Alk a little. That will be coming soon. I might pick up some supplement bottles at the store today to have on hand and get us through until the Pickling Lime gets delivered.

Back to dabbling with the Reef Angel programming while I wait for this QT to fill...

 

[troubadour11]

Well Bello, I promised she wouldn't let me come back empty handed! :celeb3:

First off, I grabbed a bottle of Brightwell Aquatics Alkaline8.3, Magnesion, and Calcion supplements. 250 mL of each. So I'm wanting to immediately start supplying this to the tank to start to bring my levels into line so I can start using kalk once it gets here.

Here's what I was thinking I would dose based off what I read on the bottles and yesterdays test results.

Mg = 1400, no need to add supplement at this time. But I have it if it's needed in the future.

Ca = 330 - According to bottle, if level is below 412. Use max dose of 10mL per 20 US gallons. I estimated my water volume to be 180 gallons (which might be on the safe side by a few gallons), which would put me at a dose of 90mL. Does that seem correct and a safe amount to dose at one time? Should I break it up into 45mL in the morning and 45 mL before lights out? Just checking since it's my first attempt.

Alk = 7.3 - According to bottle for "minor adjustments" dose at 5mL per 30 US gallons. So again, estimating 180 gallons, I should dose 30mL. Which should rasie my Alk by 1dKH up to 8.3, I believe.

And that's-that for the boring stuff in the bottles! Now onto the living stuff! :smokin:

First off, the stuff we won't be as excited about. LOL

- This kind of counts as living. We are starting to see some green hairy algae start to sprout on the live rock. So after 6 or 7 months and adding the new LEDs, the system has finally matured enough to see green algae growing! We're through cyano, now onto this stage. I had cheato before, but I think it slowly starved to death due to lack of nutrients with not much life in the system. Since we're seeing the spread of some GHA, I figured it was time to try a new ball of cheato and see if it can out compete.

- I also made that new "cheato basket." It's big enough to span the gap between the live rock shelves above the sand bed. There's a rock in there for now, but that's just because I had the glass lids on and couldn't reach to put that somewhere else. I'm hoping the basket gives me a way to suspend the cheato and I have my Cobalt MJ powerhead there blowing towards the cheato for some flow.

- and a couple more refugium view shots since we haven't seen it in awhile and I added these things to it this week.

-

- We have not had good luck with larger snails yet. Again, I'm wondering if they slowly starved since we couldn't support cheato at the time. I think we've lost all the previous trochus and astrea snails we added. But our dwarf cerith are multiplying and the nassarius and conchs are doing well. But since we're seeing that GHA and going to be supplement our levels, I thought I would toss a couple in to help with the algae. So a snail ball of 4 snails got tossed in on some of the rockwork.

OH!!! And along with these things, we did grab and acclimate a new Tiger Pistol Shrimp. As of last night, the little shrimp was digging under the right rock of the pistol condo, right next to where the YWG was hanging out.

Ok, ok... is the suspense building!?!? I mean, that can't be all we came home with, right? :deadhorse:

We will pause for a photo break here and get to the fun stuff next!

 

[troubadour11]

Ok, ok. First off we've got this...

- Can anyone guess this from this pile of slimy goo shot? It looks like something a troll sneezed out landed in my tank!

- This is after rinsing it in some fresh tank water after a 10-15 minute Revive bath. I'm about to super glue it to a piece of rock rubble.

- All dipped, cleaned, glued-up, and in place being all grumpy from the process :bum:

- After about 25-45 minutes it's finally deciding open might be better then closed now. Meet our new 5 headed Duncan. We got such a great deal on this piece... We just couldn't pass it up.

- We were going to buy a single headed Duncan for a really cheap price, but both the single head pieces had some questionable looks to them. So we were going to pass, when they offered the 5 headed for less then 1/2 price since they agreed we shouldn't buy the single head pieces. And this one looked completely healthy... so... now we own it. LOL

- Some more shots of it establishing and getting used to the tank.

-

-

- Man... one day I'll get a good camera and be able to take good night shots for you all. It's funny, the corals look somewhat similar, but the background isn't nearly as blue as it shows up on a camera phone.

And when I got up this morning. It was all closed up again like when we first put it in. But the lights had been out for the night, so I'm guessing that's normal since the Frogspawn closes up then too. As of 20 minutes ago when the lights started kicking on, it was back to about 1/2 way open. So I think it's doing good and liking it's current spot. :thumbsup:

 

[troubadour11]

Now that those shots are all out of the way. We can move onto the REALLY exciting stuff!!!!

And this is why it is so important I get the dosing supplements figured out and start bringing that Ca up immediately

We are no longer mushroom, zoa, and LPS keepers. Now we also have some SPS!!! Starting to really get to working on this mixed reef now!

- Pink montipora capricornis. It's only a couple inches by a couple inches right now. Here it is in the bag floating while I get things ready to mount and inspect.

- After it's Revive bath and a fresh tank water rinse... "I'm all ready to be mounted on some rock!"

- Trying to get a good shot of it once we put it in the tank

- I think you can see it looked healthy and had some good growth on the edge

It's small and placed in the back 1/2 of the tank. So it's tough for a good pic with a phone. It's front and center about 1/3 up the overflow on top of the rock ledge.

I will also note that we were going back and forth... I was leaning towards a purple monti, but was convinced on this one at the end. And I will admit, I think I'm glad we went this route. This pink one looks awesome under the evening lights and the moonlights!

And of course any tips, comments, or questions you all have on any of these things, please bring them up :beer:

Now I'm going to take a little break and toss a bit of 'nom-'noms in the tank. The pistol shrimp has taken up a super interesting spot in giant live rock hole right in the front. It's digging out a den and the YWG is sitting just behind the rock in the open sand bed jumping and picking off food out of the sand cloud the shrimp is making :smokin:

And one more purchase still to come. . .

 

[troubadour11]

Haha! We're glad to have a pistol shrimp back. They are fun!

Now, onto the finale of my photo update.

- Here's my creepy sci-fi looking teaser shot of it floating in the bag while I got my stuff together.

- After the Revive dip and a magnifying glass inspection. You can see it had encrusted over the top of the frag plug. So I had them bandsaw the bottom off for me so I could attach it to some rock.

- And here it is sitting about 2/3 way up through the tank. It's on top of my middle rock tower. It doesn't look as white in person as it does in the picture. It's more of a pooie-light tan. I think it's going to turn out to be a neon green Birdsnest. It looked like yellowish neon at the store with purple polyps. Getting it home under our lights, it looks more light tan with dark polyps and hints of neon greenish. But we got a great deal on it and I loved the growth pattern on it. So for the cost, I thought it was a good piece to start off on with the Monti.

-

-

- One thing that was exciting for me to notice... this morning when I came down and all the lights were off. Both the Monti Cap and Birdsnest had their polyps out! That's a good sign, right? The Birdsnest looked fuzzy, I tried to get it in this picture with a flashlight as a spotlight. It's not great, but they were definitely extended more then they were when we brought it home.

The birdsnest had more out then the monti. But I could definitely see some of them open on it too.

So that's it for now. Quite the eventful day... now I'm going to put my feet up and watch some of this for awhile :beer:

 

[Bello]

Congrats Troub, welcome to the beginning of the end

Nice pickups! I've never kept Duncan's but they look kinda cool. It's great that you're seeing PE on the SPS already :thumbsup:. Both of those can grow fairly rapidly.

About bumping the alk and cal levels, are you using Red Sea Pro or Regular? In any case, my recommendation is to match the alk and cal levels approx close to what your salt mixes at, therefore if using Red Sea regular, then alk is fine at 7.3 dkh, and cal can be raised gradually over 2-3 days.

Hopefully your YWG'll be more enthusiastic this time around :thumbsup:....and once again, welcome to the dark side :strooper:

 

[biggles]

Awesome updates Troubster - now we're cooking with gas mate ! :dance:

I'm glad to hear you're seing PE first night, always a good sign that your water is somewhere near where it should be normally. The monti looks cool, i'd go for pink over any other color too. That's a nice looking Seri too, i've killed two pieces and as such i now hate Seri's, it's way easier to blame a coral species than to actually take the blame myself..........
I've seen lots of those flubbuncans in other guys tanks so i can tell you yours looks bloody happy so things are looking good mate. When i start to see Duncans at the LFS i know i've walked to far along the coral aisle............ if i kept going i'd end up in jello hell (soft coral displays)........ anyhow let's sort out the water.

I want you to consider this bit of advice as most of what you're going to be doing and adding to the system will be new to you and without years of experience stuffing up your water like i have you don't know what to expect and what is dangerous to your livestock.
Always work out the correct dose for a new product according to the instructions and then halve the dose. Hardly anything that is out of whack needs correcting in 24 hours other than faulty equipment such as heaters and return pumps. Until you have a good idea of what does what and how quickly it can happen just test, halve the dose of everything and test 24 hours later. Until you're more experienced with these additives don't try to correct alk by more than 0.5 dkH a day and calcium by more than 50. You can do it faster but those numbers are a good safe point to start with. For Magnesium i'd suggest 100 per 24 hours.
Raising your alk a full 1.0 to 8.3 will put you in a good solid spot with alk, keeping a bit above NSW levels allows you some room for missed draw increases. Halve the dose to 15ml and test the next day, should be around 7.8 if the worked out dose was near to correct. Just correct the second half of the dose if it needs to be higher or lower. This is where you keep record of how much of what additive changes the parameter by how much. Once you get your target you dose nothing for a day and see what the daily drop in alk or the alk 'draw' is. Because you have the previous days figures to work out how much alk raises levels in your system by you can quickly work out a figure close to what's needed to dose your system with daily.
Because you tested daily you will be confident of the products potency and effects on your water so you can obviously use the full dose for daily additions rather than when you first tried the product. Same goes with other stuff, always fix things slowly until you have confidence in how far you can push your water and not hurt the inhabitants. Btw, it takes heaps of Mg to correct low levels compared to alk and calcium supplements so don't think you're working the dose out wrongly lol.

Sorry for the long explanation and i don't want you to think i'm talking down to you mate, i just wish someone told me to do this when i started and so do a few dead corals....... :worried: Bello covered the whole thing in a few lines but don't forget he makes up half the stuff he says unlike myself..........:reading:

I suspect you told your better half what you really paid for those SPS didn't ya Troub, sleep soundly knowing you're a good person mate......... i'm going to remind you in a year or two when you're sneaking acro frags into the display just what the true cost of going down the dark path of SPS keeping really is...........

 

[troubadour11]

Congrats Troub, welcome to the beginning of the end...

...About bumping the alk and cal levels, are you using Red Sea Pro or Regular? In any case, my recommendation is to match the alk and cal levels approx close to what your salt mixes at, therefore if using Red Sea regular, then alk is fine at 7.3 dkh, and cal can be raised gradually over 2-3 days.

Hopefully your YWG'll be more enthusiastic this time around :thumbsup:....and once again, welcome to the dark side :strooper:

We're just starting to prep for battle is all ;-) :strooper: It was an eventful and exciting weekend. Started off on the SPS! Hopefully we can keep them alive :-/ Added the crazy anemone looking Duncan. I keep finding other non-nemone ways to fill my anemone craving. LOL

Currently we are using the Red Sea Regular salt mix. It mixes up fairly well. Gets my Alk in the low/mid 7's to start after a water change. But that can drop slowly between changes down to mid-6's if I'm not careful. Calcium we just can't keep up with at all. The draw there seems ridiculous right now. I'm guessing it's the dry rock trying to grow coralline algae. It was a shock when after the last water change, I was in the low 300's! Time to get this fixed.

I'm considering switching over to the Pro next time I order salt. But I still have about 1 and 1/4 buckets of Regular left. But once we start getting these levels figured out, I may be able to stick with the regular. It's going to take some fiddling. I'm assuming it will be easiest/best to level it off and get Kalk and everything running and stick with the same salt. I don't need to change to many things at once. I feel the Regular mixes to pretty close to what I think I want. I'm considering starting at the Regular, and bumping the Alk up 1 point from there to low/mid 8's. That way I'll have a small buffer zone on the low end. And the kalk should be able to maintain an 8.3ish Alk and 420ish calcium once I set the levels.

The news on the YWG and pistol is fun. I'll try and take a video of the pistol next time. It's dug out a den in a giant LR hole I placed right front and center of the tank. Hollowed out the sand from the hole on night one. Then spent day 2 making the den bigger and digging a new entrance outside the rock. The YWG was funny... he just sat down current from the hole on the sand bed wiggling it's tail and jumping up off the sand to catch snacks as the pistol created a storm digging out it's burrow. They still aren't paired, but they're at least hanging out in close proximity

Awesome updates Troubster - now we're cooking with gas mate !

I've seen lots of those flubbuncans in other guys tanks so i can tell you yours looks bloody happy so things are looking good mate....

I want you to consider this bit of advice ...

I suspect you told your better half what you really paid for those SPS didn't ya Troub, sleep soundly knowing you're a good person mate......... i'm going to remind you in a year or two when you're sneaking acro frags into the display just what the true cost of going down the dark path of SPS keeping really is...........

Please don't worry about the long explanation Biggles. I asked for it and I really appreciate it! :thumbsup: Very helpful!!! And I, in no way, felt you were talking down to me. :beer: If I did, I'd send this in a PM :blown:

After reading your post this morning after getting to work, it made me feel great!!! We basically decided between the two of us, that the best approach was exactly as you recommended. The lovely Mrs. double checked my math and understanding of the dosing directions first. Then we came to the conclusion that we would dose 1/2 of each amount late Sunday afternoon/early evening. Then when I get back from work tonight around 8ish, I'll check the levels and we can adjust/dose again. I'm hoping the 20 lbs of pickling lime will be in sometime this week and I can maybe have all the levels set and get the ATO to be FULLY "A" now! Currently it's more of MTO. A bog barrel with a valve that we manually top off once or twice a day. Now that the sump is more arranged after this weekend **a story and a few pictures to come.** I can get the float valve installed in the sump when I'm ready for the kalk drip.

But it was GREAT to hear my expectations sound correct. If my estimate on the water volume is somewhat close, we should see Ca rise from 330 up to maybe 380ish. We dosed 45mL of Calcion. Then we dosed 15mL of Alkaline. Which as you mentioned, should put us in the 7.8 range somewhere. I slowly drained each measuring beaker into the baffle section of the sump just before the bubble trap and pumps for the fuge and return line. I slowly drained about 10% of so into the section, waited a few seconds for it to disperse, then added more. Each dose took about a minute or so to add all the measured liquid.

As for the new pickups, I'm glad you both like them :thumbsup: I thought they were good bets for our 1st SPS. Especially the Monti Cap. It was super exciting to see some PE "fuzziness" on both pieces yesterday! I was really worried about how they would react to the close to ideal water quality. Especially after dipping and having them exposed to the air for gluing and stuff.

The Monti seems happy enough and I'm fairly confident it will adjust well and be a good test piece for the LEDs at 50% depth.

I'm a worry-wort over the Seri (birdsnest). Thanks for the more accurate naming btw. I knew the lay-mans id of "birsdsnest" for it. But wasn't sure beyond that and hadn't done further investigation to jog my memory. I was just happy to choose an SPS ;-) Am I correct in IDing it as a Seriatopora hystrix?

That piece makes me nervous more then the others. I feel like I was a little off in my judgement of its health at the store. But after having it in the tank for a day or two after all the transit and acclimation stress, I think it's adjusting OK. It's between 1/2 and 2/3s of the way up the tank. So it's not RIGHT under the surface getting drilled by the LEDs. And my LEDs are running a big curve up to 100% and back down that is staggered by about 50 minutes. So it gets peak light for about 2-4 hours as each driver crossfades 75%-100%-75% between 1:30 and 4:00. So I'm hoping with the auto-dimming that it handles starting high up in the tank ok. The LPS on the bottom left of the tank don't seem to mind the lighting going up to 100% like this.

There wasn't nearly as much color in the tissue as I thought once I got it home. But there are definitely hints of colored areas. The rest is that light milky/tan color. But the polyps are definitely a dark color. So I'm thinking if we can grow this piece out, it's going to turn into a neon green flesh with contrasting dark polyps.

Any quick tips you want to call out on observing appropriate flow for the Monti and Birdsnest? I could use some experience there. Along with any tell-tale signs to watch for with lighting power too. Just observations tips as keys to... lower the flow/increase the flow etc.

Oh, and by the way. No need to tell or explain to my better half what they cost! We went there with the plan to get the new Pistol Shrimp, suppplements, a few snails, and cheato... We came home with the Duncan, Monti, and Seri in addition to what we went to get! LOL. And most of that was her convincing me we were ready to do that.

She didn't have to push the argument of "you're going to start supplementing and getting our chemistry leveled out anyway! We might as well buy something and put it in now, so we get our money out of the supplements and can observe the results of the supplements." LOL

She definitely turned me to the Pink Monti over the Purple I was going for. And I'm glad she did now that I've seen it in the tank. The Duncan was also her doing. She convinced me to grab a 1 headed piece for $10 once we had picked out the rest. Then when those weren't healthy, how could I turn down a bigger piece for less then 1/2 it's cost when I had decided to buy the small one anyway. LOL

And we already made the mistake of adding up how much the current coral load in the tank has cost us. Hahahaha. So I can only imagine "future us" burying our heads in our hands when we take a look at that down the road.

I'll be back in sometime later this week to update my plumbing and pump fixes from this weekend. Finally my 10+ year old Fluval 405 died after a short power outtage. The power went out and we couldn't get it to re-prime afterwards. Especially after I broke of the primer handle inside the water tight housing. :angryfire: So no more old canister filter, new pump and plumbing up to the fuge, and re-worked the return line (and added hose clamps all over too), and got the UV unit running with the new plumbing. I just need to order a 3/4 inch barbed ball valve to dial back the flow to the UV and force more to the return line.

But I'll get some good pics of the sump to update you all. I did some beginning wire management and things along with all the forced plumbing fixes. It was needed anyway so I can get the ATO fully up and functional with the kalk. It's looking much cleaner and organized in there now! :thumbsup:

 

[mrpergo]

I use Kent Salt and it keeps the cal @500/550 and mag @ 1400
Mixes very nice.
I haven't started down the SPS but plan to with a birdsnest to start off.
I just have some Frog spawn, duncan, ricordia's xenia and a nice rainbow acan.

 

[troubadour11]

I use Kent Salt and it keeps the cal @500/550 and mag @ 1400
Mixes very nice.
I haven't started down the SPS but plan to with a birdsnest to start off.
I just have some Frog spawn, duncan, ricordia's xenia and a nice rainbow acan.

Thanks mrpergo! That's good to know. If I decide to switch up salts in the long run, I'll definitely consider it along with the Red Sea Pro! :thumbsup:

For now, everything seems mostly happy, coral wise. My test kit results aren't quite as happy as the corals look. LOL. So I'm hoping once I get Kalk dripping things will level off and be more consistent. But if it turns out that I'm having trouble keeping up after adding the kalk/supplements, and I feel the need to change up salts to obtain my sought after levels. Then I'll make the move to a different starting point. I don't think I want to go switching up salts while trying to balance out my Ca, Alk, and Mg via kalk/manual dosing.

But I'm definitely open to a salt shift if I am having trouble keeping my levels set and steady as I add in the upcoming Kalk/ATO.

So far it seems like the water change schedule is keeping up with Mg. I typically find it between 1260 and 1400 when I test. I don't think I've ever seen it lower then that. But I bet that will change as I start adding more and more corals... I've got the bottle of supplement for when it's needed :smokin:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, I'm confounded by these Red Sea Pro (Ca,Mg,Alk) test kits. Everytime I think things are working correctly, the next time I test nothing makes sense.

So I reported my previous tests from last weekend when we took them before going to the LFS to grab those purchases.

I dosed the Brightwell Aqautics (Ca & Alk) supplements we got Sunday (late afternoon, like 3 or 4ish). I added 15mL of Alk and 45mL of Ca as discussed.

Monday night, I get home from work and test Ca/Alk to see what the levels bumped up to from those doses.

I celebrated and rejoiced :celeb3: that my Ca (1st test) came back to report a rise up to about 360! YAY! However I saw no rise at all on the Alk test.... Booooo :sad2: Which I thought was unlikely, but since I dosed a smaller "minor" adjustment amount it was possible to not see much change I suppose.

I will say that because of work, I don't get home until between 8 and 9pm with my commute. So that was another reason I somewhat accepted the Alk measurement. Thinking I might get a slightly skewed reading at 8-9pm instead of at 3-4pm when I tested over the weekend.

So, Monday night after getting these results we decided to add another 45mL (I slightly missed the mark and added closer to 50mL) of Ca. Which should be fine, because 45mL only raised it about 30 points. So my water estimate might be a bit short maybe. And then we also added another 15mL of Alk supplements.

Fast forward to Tuesday night after work at 8:30... I'm testing away expecting to see Ca levels equal to 390-410 maybe and Alk levels between 7.6 and 8.0.

I get the same readings as Monday night or possible slightly lower.... 7.3 on Alk and 360 for Ca.

Which has me befuddled. I don't know how that could be possible. So I'm thinking once these run out, I'll be trying a different brand test kit. I feel I'm having a lot of difficulties getting a reliable or accurate measurement from this kit. I've watched tons of videos on Red Sea's website, youtube videos on the tests, etc. So I am using the test kit correctly because I've verified my procedure and that I was seeing the endpoints correctly. I would love to be able to test it at home, and have someone verify the results for me. But no LFS is willing to check my Ca/Alk levels for me one time so I could figure this out.

Also, when I did get around to testing a fresh barrel of mixed up saltwater at 1.026, I did not get the exact results listed on the Red Sea (regular) Salt bucket. But I did get MUCH closer to those expected levels on the fresh saltwater bucket then when I tested the system water right afterwards.

Since I've dosed twice now and didn't see anywhere near the expected results back to back days, I didn't add any additional supplements on Tuesday night. I think my good wife will be making her first attempt at the Ca/Alk tests today to see if she gets a different result. But I figured I would wait a day or two here and retest again between 8 and 9pm later in the week. See the results and go from there I guess...

Hopefully nothing melts or dies between now and then. Kind of annoying though that these results have never really made sense. I'm really wondering if my test kit is bad or expired (if that is possible).

I have been gone more with work, so I haven't been able to watch the new Birdsnest as much. But the times I've been home, I would say there has been less PE on it then there was over the first night. So this has me worried about the dosing. Time to put some breaks on and see how this last week adjusts things I guess...

So far I'm not to impressed with these "high end" test kits. . . because I find it hard to believe about 5 coral frags in an almost 200 gallon system swallowed 30+ points of calcium and about 1/2 point of Alk in 24 hours after back to back days of dosing. Especially after I saw the Ca rise the first night after the same dose.

:blown: LOL

 

[troubadour11]

Well despite the confusing headaches with the system that I ranted on recently... I've been sneaking around up to a few things and watching and waiting to see what happens in the system right now.

I've gone through a couple cloudy tank phases in the last week or two since I first tried adjusting my Ca and Alk with the manual doses.

I also had a little mini "fix-it" disaster. My Fluval canister pump (leftover from my old freshwater days) which was running empty pumping water up to the Fuge died. We had a short temp. power outage and I couldn't get the pump to prime again. Then the primer handle broke off... So, after a good decade or so of service, that thing was retired and we picked up a MJ 600 and some tubing to at least get water flowing back up and through the Fuge again.

And since I had to pull apart the plumbing lines and such over there to take apart and re-set up all that stuff. I decided to take the opportunity to put in a little fish closet work. Here are a few picks of everything after I finished up the process.

- I'll start off with this shot... Water drains from DT into right end of sump. Through the skimmer section, through baffles into the return section. 2 pumps in the return section. Main circulation pump and the new MJ-600 feeding the Fuge.

This is where the big change happened. I used to have the return pump push water up through the UV Sterilizer and directly back to the DT. Now the return pump runs up to a "T" fitting. One end runs back up to the DT like before. But the other end allowed me to move my UV unit over to the right end of the sump and drain the UV back into the drain section. This way, any water that goes through the UV gets a 2nd chance to pass by the skimmer section to pull out any potentially zapped junk rather then dumping it up into the DT. :thumbsup:

I am one ball valve short though. So next time I place a BRS order, I'll be picking up a new 3/4 inch barbed ball valve to insert between the "T" fitting and the UV unit. I'd like to slow down the water flow through the UV and force a little more water up to the DT. But for now, water is running both through the UV and up to the DT, so it should be able to run fine until then.

And now the UV is actually running! Before it was just plumbed in-line. But I didn't have enough power outlets to get it running. Now we got plenty of juice to power it up!

- Here's a shot of that pretty blue glow doing it's thing...

- Here's a top down of the return chamber. Main circulation/return pump in front, new MJ-600 in back with a new hose run up to the Fuge.

- I ran the Fuge-return line up over the back of the glass tops down to the far end of the tank. Glad I bought enough extra hose to reach down to the far end now.

- Next up... you can see I was in a bit of a make-shift situation. I fashioned this awesome return spout. I ran the braided tubing through a short piece of pvc and a 90 degree elbow to bend it down into the tank.

- Then attached the old nozzle from my broken Fluval to the end of the braided tubing. It fit nice and snug-like. But I tightened a plastic zip-tie around the end to help old it onto the tubing. So far this has been working surprisingly well for throwing something together in a pinch.

So that's my BIG plumbing change.

- Oh, you can also see from this photo I put a little work into some temp. improved cable management. More things twist-tied up out of the way and organized a little more then before. I can take this a bit farther as I get all the final pieces into play in the sump. But this is much improved for now!

Outside of dealing with fixing up that set up. I've been watching a waiting. I keep having occasional cloudy tank spells. Which could all be attributed to screwing with my levels by starting to dose the Ca and Alk, the altered flow created by setting up the UV unit "T"ed off from the return line, or from starting to actually run the UV sterilizer. OR the recent addition of the LED lights. Lots of things changed recently. So until I get some things figured out, I'll put in some observation time this weekend.

We are getting a good amount of GHA showing up now. With a couple shrimp, a good handful or two of corals, and a couple fish in there. The food and waste in-put on the system has increased and the green hairy stuff is sprouting on my rockwork. We added a few snails, but I haven't had good luck with Trochus snails. So I'm searching for some algae management solutions since I probably can't add a YT type fish till closer to the end of stocking for size and aggression. Fingers are crossed the Cheato in the Fuge starts to grow and out compete the GHA to start with.

Well, my work day is over and I jotted out this update while waiting for traffic to die down. I'm hitting the road to go get a look at my tank now :beer:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, let's get down to business. :strooper:

:fish2: We've been sneaky... mostly because I got busy again on some work :thumbsup:

But this update is a bit overdue now. We'll start off with this update.

- Here's the next round for our fish stock floating during acclimation.

-

These came from the LFS we used to frequent for the 75 gallon freshwater system. These were our first saltwater purchases from them. We shopped around and ended up back to pick up these two Ocellaris. It was easier on the wallet to go with the Clownfish pair over a small school of something right now. But I think we made out well. They had 5 young juvenile's in a holding tank together. I happened to walk in right as they were feeding them and watched them all eat. We picked out the largest most dominant one in the tank. And then chose a smaller one that had more of a darker powedery black color down it's spine compared to all the rest.

- So far they've been awesome, just like this video!
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XQ65MdAShyI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The store had them in copper for about 2 weeks. Now we've got them in hypo while in QT. But they're great! :inlove: Today I had my fingers in the water while feeding them and they were swimming right next to my fingertips already. So far everything is looking good. Tomorrow will be a week into the process for them and they seem happy as can be

I wonder if there is more. . . :mixed:

 

[biggles]

Great stuff Troub, love the little occy clowns :thumbsup: They'll be nibbling your fingers for the food soon lol, clowns have great personalities and are very pet like after you've had them a while. Don't let them guilt you or the wife into overfeeding them

The alk thing you mentioned could be test error mate. It does raise a good point though - don't ever react hastily to a weird out of nowhere result, nine times out of ten the thing that makes no sense does so for a good reason - it isn't real. You react too quickly and add twice the dose next day and the bad test has lead you to add 3 times as much as you meant to.......... if you didn't cause the alk dose to precipitate out by adding it too quickly then it would have raised the alk despite the bogus test result.

Pretty sure i've suggested Salifert for your alk and calcium tests previously Troubster but it's no longer a suggestion - DO IT ! :fun4:

Your wiring is a bloody disgraceful mess - good man :beer:

What 'more' is there you sneaky bastard Troub, bloody Bello has infected our little group with a sneakiness virus...........