An Australian build
- Thread starter Tastee
- Start date
Tastee
Member
Hi Elijahh, thanks for the comment. I'll post an update below.
I do like the staff at Majestic, they are all fantastic. I am sharing the love however - buy most of my livestock from Hurstville Aquariums which are a small but quality operation and very near my home. I am also buying other supplies from Aquaristic in Roseberry. They have a really good big store and a great online site, and are reasonably convenient for me to drop into on the way home from work. I just picked up a batch of stuff today - filter socks, test kit refills etc. Their livestock looks fantastic but I haven't purchased anything yet. PM me if you want any more specific feedback.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Tastee
Member
An Australian build
Part 13. SPS. And power outages.
In October I decided my tank is now stable enough that I am going to try a few SPS corals. I am not aiming to have a lot of SPS in my tank, are happy to fill it out with LPS and Softies for the most part, but I have a few spots in my aquascape that are crying out for stonys. We drop past Majestic Aquariums after walking our dog on Sunday 7 Oct since it is nearby our walking spot and find they are breaking down one of their SPS display/sale tanks, and buy 3 mature specimens for $100. Seems like a reasonable deal.
The cane coral has been in their tank for a long time and is growing out at both ends, so I frag off one end and keep the main section for a convenient hole I have. My fragging is pretty industrial (small hacksaw blade) but seems to go ok. I tell myself I need to be able to do this better in future so now I have a nice Dremel kit with a flexible head and diamond cutting blades ready and waiting for their first use.
Here they are in the tank.
Murphy then decides it's my turn for his law to give me some attention. On Wednesday 10 Oct we have a power outage. Normally our power supply is very reliable, but we had a short outage 9 months ago, and now this. I can't recall the last time prior to that that we had an outage. This one is a bad one, caused by a lightning strike and power is out for 9 and a half hours. I was at work when this happened and my wife got home not too long into it, so she dumped about 40 jugs of water from the sump into the DT over a couple of hours. I then get the return pump running off an AGV battery and an inverter we have to provide some flow.
After the power comes back everything seems ok, but by Friday the cane is looking sick - RTN. Dead within 24 hours. Whether it was my industrial fragging or the power outage, or both, I don't know. Not happy but it's all about the lessons you learn, isn't it, and I was expecting to learn more as I ventured into SPS. Didn't factor in a long power outage however.
So power. How do I improve that. $350 later and I have a CyberPower UPS next to the tank running the Apex and EB6. This covers return pump, skimmer, wavemaker and main heater. After some more research and help from all you guys and gals on the forums I have the Apex programmed in an outage to:
* Keep the return pump, wavemaker and skimmer going for 30 mins
* Turn the heater off
* After 30 mins run the pumps 5 mins out of every 30 to extend UPS life
This should give me 5-6 hours run time based on the UPS display. If I need to go beyond this I can either move to a 5 mins/60 or invest in a generator. My next big investment however is going to be solar power, so I decide that I will simply add in outage protection into the solar requirements. I probably won't get the battery initially (still too expensive), just the solar, but will make sure it is battery and outage protection ready. The feedback I get is that batteries should be more affordable within 18 months.
A few weeks later the middle coral colony is also dead. Again it's hard to say what the cause was. I don't think it was a great choice as in hindsight it was quite light in colour so may have been on it's way out when I bought it. Or it may be my fault, or caused by the outage.
The other two pieces are looking good however, and seem to be growing - can see polyp extension, reasonable colour and some growth.
My water testing is showing another minor issue, which happened back in May as well - my tank is consuming Alk at a greater rate than Ca and Mg. I know that Aquaforest recommend keeping the Component 1+, 2+ and 3+ dosing the same, and adding further additives to correct any issues, but I don't have a spare dosing head to dose more Alk and feel dosing this in lumps manually won't be good for the tank either. So I do what I did in May and start cranking up the Alk (Component 2+). I start at 7 ml of each/day (my tank doesn't consume much compared to big tanks) and at the moment are up to 16 ml/day of Alk - gradually raised it over several weeks. Alkalinity is now rising, 7.3, I am targeting around 8.4 before I start to back off the Alk dosing.
Three further LPS went in at the end of October (Green Torch) and mid November (Trachy and Button). I'm keen to know exactly what I have, so I have been researching the scientific names of all the corals. I have what I think are the names of all the Softies and LPS but no idea on the SPS. Work for another day.
As it stands now the tank is looking pretty reasonable. I had backed my NoPoX off to 1 ml/day in Sep but the GHA then started to come back so have ramped it back up to 1.5 ml/day and have been manually getting on top of it again. Here is a current video.
https://youtu.be/v87cSv-WAV4
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Part 13. SPS. And power outages.
In October I decided my tank is now stable enough that I am going to try a few SPS corals. I am not aiming to have a lot of SPS in my tank, are happy to fill it out with LPS and Softies for the most part, but I have a few spots in my aquascape that are crying out for stonys. We drop past Majestic Aquariums after walking our dog on Sunday 7 Oct since it is nearby our walking spot and find they are breaking down one of their SPS display/sale tanks, and buy 3 mature specimens for $100. Seems like a reasonable deal.
The cane coral has been in their tank for a long time and is growing out at both ends, so I frag off one end and keep the main section for a convenient hole I have. My fragging is pretty industrial (small hacksaw blade) but seems to go ok. I tell myself I need to be able to do this better in future so now I have a nice Dremel kit with a flexible head and diamond cutting blades ready and waiting for their first use.
Here they are in the tank.
Murphy then decides it's my turn for his law to give me some attention. On Wednesday 10 Oct we have a power outage. Normally our power supply is very reliable, but we had a short outage 9 months ago, and now this. I can't recall the last time prior to that that we had an outage. This one is a bad one, caused by a lightning strike and power is out for 9 and a half hours. I was at work when this happened and my wife got home not too long into it, so she dumped about 40 jugs of water from the sump into the DT over a couple of hours. I then get the return pump running off an AGV battery and an inverter we have to provide some flow.
After the power comes back everything seems ok, but by Friday the cane is looking sick - RTN. Dead within 24 hours. Whether it was my industrial fragging or the power outage, or both, I don't know. Not happy but it's all about the lessons you learn, isn't it, and I was expecting to learn more as I ventured into SPS. Didn't factor in a long power outage however.
So power. How do I improve that. $350 later and I have a CyberPower UPS next to the tank running the Apex and EB6. This covers return pump, skimmer, wavemaker and main heater. After some more research and help from all you guys and gals on the forums I have the Apex programmed in an outage to:
* Keep the return pump, wavemaker and skimmer going for 30 mins
* Turn the heater off
* After 30 mins run the pumps 5 mins out of every 30 to extend UPS life
This should give me 5-6 hours run time based on the UPS display. If I need to go beyond this I can either move to a 5 mins/60 or invest in a generator. My next big investment however is going to be solar power, so I decide that I will simply add in outage protection into the solar requirements. I probably won't get the battery initially (still too expensive), just the solar, but will make sure it is battery and outage protection ready. The feedback I get is that batteries should be more affordable within 18 months.
A few weeks later the middle coral colony is also dead. Again it's hard to say what the cause was. I don't think it was a great choice as in hindsight it was quite light in colour so may have been on it's way out when I bought it. Or it may be my fault, or caused by the outage.
The other two pieces are looking good however, and seem to be growing - can see polyp extension, reasonable colour and some growth.
My water testing is showing another minor issue, which happened back in May as well - my tank is consuming Alk at a greater rate than Ca and Mg. I know that Aquaforest recommend keeping the Component 1+, 2+ and 3+ dosing the same, and adding further additives to correct any issues, but I don't have a spare dosing head to dose more Alk and feel dosing this in lumps manually won't be good for the tank either. So I do what I did in May and start cranking up the Alk (Component 2+). I start at 7 ml of each/day (my tank doesn't consume much compared to big tanks) and at the moment are up to 16 ml/day of Alk - gradually raised it over several weeks. Alkalinity is now rising, 7.3, I am targeting around 8.4 before I start to back off the Alk dosing.
Three further LPS went in at the end of October (Green Torch) and mid November (Trachy and Button). I'm keen to know exactly what I have, so I have been researching the scientific names of all the corals. I have what I think are the names of all the Softies and LPS but no idea on the SPS. Work for another day.
As it stands now the tank is looking pretty reasonable. I had backed my NoPoX off to 1 ml/day in Sep but the GHA then started to come back so have ramped it back up to 1.5 ml/day and have been manually getting on top of it again. Here is a current video.
https://youtu.be/v87cSv-WAV4
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Last edited:
Hey Tastee Aquaristic are a good store and I've brought a few things from them, Fine Pebble Aquarium in Croydon is also a very good store and well priced, I've brought a few things from them also.
How are you like the RS250 so far?
I'm looking to get one next year, I'm just getting back into the hobby after a 6 year hiatus previously owning a 600L then a 300L. I'm currently running a 150L just to get the feel of the hobby again, a lot has changed thats for sure!
Tastee
Member
I love the RSR250. The build quality is excellent and I have had no issues. I like the height of the unit and that both presents the tank at a good viewing height and gives me enough room in the sump to fit everything I need.
If I had more room I would definitely look at the larger models though.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If I had more room I would definitely look at the larger models though.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
