BK's 110 Gallon Build

Yep. Like crazy. I could not figure out where it came from and then I finally found the thread talking about that. Hopefully it will go away soon.
 
i think a big concern for me when i started using them once upon a time was the bloom reducing the ox levels to dangerous levels. Good luck, im sure that skimmate is pretty funky smelling.
 
Since I have been killing sps from the beginning and all of my parameters are spot on and stable I decided to take the last variable out of this guessing game. I made myself a frag rack to acclimate the coral to the light slowly.



Now here is a question. I have a single 250W HQI bulb running over the 48" tank. I'm happy with the spread. I have the high light areas and the dark areas for my soft coral.



How do you guys feel about the placement of the frag rack? It's 24" to the left of the lamp and about 6" under the water.

Should I lower it for a week and work my way up and then toward center? How fast or slow should I move it?

Thanks for the help!

BK
 
What magnets did you use to hold the rack? Ive been pondering making one myself but the magnets were the concern I had.
 
I used regular magnets and coated them with a couple layers of that plastic paint. If your really worried about it you could always melt plastic onto them.
 
If it was me I would have the frag rack on the bottom where the light shines most and work it from there. Are you sure lighting is your issue? Stable parameters is the key. New tanks swing a lot and depending on how many corals you toss in will effect the big 3
 
I would be more concerned about the rack not getting any decent par where its at. I dont think you will get the spread from the light that far. JMHO
 
kegogut said:
What magnets did you use to hold the rack? Ive been pondering making one myself but the magnets were the concern I had.
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EDIT:
I used regular magnets from Home Depot. They come in a pack of 8. About 3/16" thick and the size of a nickel. I used all 8 of them because of my glass thickness. 2 stuck together at 2 seperTe points on the inside (total of 4) and the same on the outside of the tank. I coated them with a couple layers of that plastic paint. If your really worried about it you could always melt plastic onto them.
 
Mr D smack said:
If it was me I would have the frag rack on the bottom where the light shines most and work it from there. Are you sure lighting is your issue? Stable parameters is the key. New tanks swing a lot and depending on how many corals you toss in will effect the big 3
Click to expand...

VSpeck said:
I would be more concerned about the rack not getting any decent par where its at. I dont think you will get the spread from the light that far. JMHO
Click to expand...

I was trying to avoid having it in the center of the viewing window but if you guys think that's best them I'll go with that.

When you say put it at the bottom of the tank do you truly mean at the bottom on the sand?

Thanks,

BK
 
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Mr D smack said:
If it was me I would have the frag rack on the bottom where the light shines most and work it from there. Are you sure lighting is your issue? Stable parameters is the key. New tanks swing a lot and depending on how many corals you toss in will effect the big 3
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it was a light issue. Every time I placed them up high they just bleached out in a Day or two and if I placed them in the center they bleached on the side where the light hit them and were fine on the other. Then when I moved them down to try to save them they died.

Now my hope is to try and acclimate them very slowly to the light. I hope that's it otherwise I'm really giving up on sps.
 
Just tested everything.

DkH: 8
Ca: 460
Mg: 1260
PH: 8.1
PO4: 0.0 but I have some algae so this is not correct.
NO3: 1.0 all fish are removed due to an ICH outbreak.

Those are all the testes I have. All are fairly good results. DkH could be higher and also could be Mg. I'll adjust them slowly.

My lights come on at noon and go off at 9pm every day. At that time the lights over my refugium come on and stay on until noon the next day.
 
Depending on what par you have on the sand. Mag is on the low side of good and alk is fine. I've been taught mag 1350 alk 7-8. No3 some will say is high.
 
Is nitrate 1.0ppm or 0.1ppm, <.2ppm is usually the target. If you are truly at 1.0ppm then I'm not surprised that sticks are dying.
 
I measured it again so see what the color looks like in daylight and now I'm not seeing any difference between the test tube and the color on the chart. It's showing 0 at the moment. Who knows with this test though. The next color up is 5...

My guess is that the N03 is very low since no fish have been in there for over a month and I have been ghost feeding just very little.

The main reason I'm thinking is the light is because they would bleach out quick. Usually when you have N03 issues they brown out. That's at least my experience.

@ Smoothdog: What would you do with the rack if it were your tank or better put, what have done in this tank in the past?
 
I ran 2 250s over that tank but they had crappy small reflectors. I could keep most SPS within the top 2/3 of the tank with no issues and even grew monti caps at the bottom. If it is truly the light then I would start them on the bottom of the tank off to one side, then move them slowly to the middle then up. Also, find out the lighting conditions the coral came from and try to start with equivalent or lower light than where it came from. On a final note, try not to move them from high to low and back again. If you start them high and they bleach, then move them to much lower light, they are more likely to get overly stressed and die since they were just starting to adapt to the higher light then they suddenly don't get enough light.
 
smoothdog said:
I ran 2 250s over that tank but they had crappy small reflectors. I could keep most SPS within the top 2/3 of the tank with no issues and even grew monti caps at the bottom. If it is truly the light then I would start them on the bottom of the tank off to one side, then move them slowly to the middle then up. Also, find out the lighting conditions the coral came from and try to start with equivalent or lower light than where it came from. On a final note, try not to move them from high to low and back again. If you start them high and they bleach, then move them to much lower light, they are more likely to get overly stressed and die since they were just starting to adapt to the higher light then they suddenly don't get enough light.
Click to expand...

I have done exactly what you said not to do. Once hey bleached I dropped them as low as I could. I'm also very tempted to " fix things" when I should just wait it out.

These frags came from a tank that's 16" deep. The lights were about 16" above the water line and the frags about 8" below it. The catch is the lights were the Radions and I have MH. Is there a way to compare the two without a Lux Meter?
 
Day 3 of the experiment. The rack is now 10" from the bottom on the left side. I was too afraid to move it to the front glass and the bottom so this seemed like a good compromise.



At this time I would see the polyps retreat usually. I know it's too early to tell but I don't see those signs at this time.



Fingers crossed!!
 
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