Chris Q's Humble Reef

[Chrisq0904]

I'm not sure if my information is accurate but i think i read that some people have been experiencing high nitrates from one of their supplements. Might want to search for some of the information to make sure my info is accurate and if it is what could be causing it. I've seen some very pretty AF tanks and if I wasn't lazy, I'd probably be all about it.

Hmmm I haven come across that but I also skimmed through a lot of threads. Do you know if the people experiencing high nitrates were using the whole setup? I ask because I'm still new to this, today is day 3, and one of the bottles is supposed to be a "binding" agent for P04 and N03 to make it easy for your skimmer to remove. I'm following a long thread on here and I'm about half way through it and haven't seen him mention any negative yet.

I'm definitely going to look further into it though my nitrates are currently at 5 and I'm trying to bring them down to around the 1-2 range before I start with any color enhancers for the coral since AF recommends to have your tank with low nutrients.


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[rovster]

I saw the high nitrate thing but I think it was an isolated event and honestly it probably could have been prevented if that person was paying more attention. At first despite high nitrate the tank looked amazing until it all caught up. At the end of the day WE run our tanks and it's our responsibility to know what we are doing and check ourselves throughout the process. Manufacturers provide guidelines, not cookbooks. No 2 tanks are the same.

 

[itz frank]

I saw the high nitrate thing but I think it was an isolated event and honestly it probably could have been prevented if that person was paying more attention. At first despite high nitrate the tank looked amazing until it all caught up. At the end of the day WE run our tanks and it's our responsibility to know what we are doing and check ourselves throughout the process. Manufacturers provide guidelines, not cookbooks. No 2 tanks are the same.

I'd agree with you. I'm not telling him to avoid the product becAuse there's a lot of success with them. Just to help him learn of that experience and how he can avoid it.


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[Ocean Mang]

I decided to give the probiotic reef salt a try, it will be here tomorrow.


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[Chrisq0904]

I decided to give the probiotic reef salt a try, it will be here tomorrow.


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Are you using the full AF line up? I think if I switch to their salt I may just do their reef salt because at 129 for a bucket the probiotic is a tad pricy.

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[rovster]

$129 per bucket? Is that a 500 gallon bucket?

 

[Ocean Mang]

I bought The bucket that makes about 30 gallons for $28 on prime. We're gonna change 5 gallons a week on aidan's 40 breeder. Not bad for $1 a gallon. I'm curious to see if we see a difference. I am thinking of looking into the full line of products.


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[Chrisq0904]

I'm 90% sure that's what it said. It's the same 5 gallon size all the salts come on. I'm basing this off the price at exotic. It had to have been 129 or 119, that's pretty up there. Maybe/hopefully I can find it cheaper online should I decide to try it out.

EDIT: Just did a quick search on amazon and it is WAY cheaper

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[Chrisq0904]

I did some water testing today to see if there were any changes in my parameters since starting Pro Bio S and NP Pro. First I noticed that my nitrates have drastically dropped from 5ppm and they are currently 0ppm (using salifert) I personally do not like having my nitrates at 0 although I highly doubt I am truly at 0. My phosphates seemed to have increased from .03 to .05 but I am also due to replace my GFO which I will do today, I will be using the Aquaforest Phosphate Minus which is their GFO. Doing these tests today I realized that I Never really tested for the big 3 since starting this tank just because I have a small amount of frags in the display. My current parameters are:

ALK - 7.4 (Hanna)
CA - 310 (Red Sea)
MG - 1136 (Red Sea)
P04 - .05 (Hanna)
N03 - 0 (Salifert)
SG - 1.024
PH - 7.94 (Apex)

At first my CA and MG reading had me worried and I performed multiple tests to confirm and they seem to yield different results. I then noticed I made a "beginner" mistake and was using old test kits. So for now I do not plan to do anything drastic in regards to CA and MG since the corals seem to be happy. I will be ordering new test kits soon but I want to look up different brands before I place my order just to see if theres anything new or something others prefer to use for CA and MG.

All that being said, I plan on dosing AF Vitality and AF Build which are vitamins and a coral growth booster. AF recommends to do 1 drop per 27g every other day while lights are off, so today I will add 3 drops of each when I return from class around 10pm and will simply follow their recommendation for the moment. I keep meaning to feed the corals with the AF food but that is not something that really concerns me at the moment.

On a side note, I am getting really tired at how often I need to change my filter floss with this tank. I feel like it is getting dirty within a few days of replacement and have been getting lazy with changing and just leaving it for when I do a WC. I think I may just take it out completely and run no floss or socks. I understand that my sump will get dirty a lot faster but I think I would rather just vacuum the sump every couple of months. Just something for me to think about, not necessarily something I am going to do right away (I still have a huge roll of floss).

 

[Chrisq0904]

This is an update to show how corals look before I start dosing component 1,2,3. I have been steadily dosing np pro, pro bio s, ABEV, and occasionally the coral food. I had to change one of the hoses on a dosing pump so now they are finally online. Currently using AF GFO and waiting for the carbon to come in. Some of the corals I don't know the name of, so I apologize if some are labeled wrong or as unknown.

On a side note, I am not a great photographer and new to the macro lens so yes I know the whole coral is not in focus, I am trying to improve my photography skills but this is not easy.

WWC Grafted Cap
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30889657852/in/dateposted-public/" title="WWC Graft"><img src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/6/5743/30889657852_0fc156bf98_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="WWC Graft"></a>

Unknown Tort
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006109545/in/dateposted-public/" title="Unknown Tort"><img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5343/31006109545_b6c14f56b9_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Unknown Tort"></a>

Unknown 1
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Unknown 2
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006137685/in/dateposted-public/" title="Unknown 2"><img src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5590/31006137685_fb01c2e9c0_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Unknown 2"></a>

Unknown 3
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006118085/in/dateposted-public/" title="Unknown 3"><img src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5641/31006118085_4d6d8faaf8_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Unknown 3"></a>

Sunset Millie
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Spainbow
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/25370386999/in/dateposted-public/" title="Spainbow"><img src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/6/5556/25370386999_79742d0ece_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Spainbow"></a>

Red Dragon
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/25370408769/in/dateposted-public/" title="Red Dragon"><img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5491/25370408769_c916c56c0b_c.jpg" width="534" height="800" alt="Red Dragon"></a>

Pinky The Bear
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006264385/in/dateposted-public/" title="Pinky The Bear 2"><img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5680/31006264385_c97d56e661_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Pinky The Bear 2"></a>

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30918269351/in/dateposted-public/" title="Pinky The Bear"><img src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/6/5602/30918269351_5bb8221dfa_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Pinky The Bear"></a>

 

[Chrisq0904]

Pink Lemonade
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Pikachu
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30889955742/in/dateposted-public/" title="Pikachu"><img src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/6/5734/30889955742_d1ba05bb6d_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Pikachu"></a>

Oregon Tort sliver
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006376665/in/dateposted-public/" title="Oregon Tort"><img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5758/31006376665_08b464c4ef_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Oregon Tort"></a>

Ice Fire
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30890024322/in/dateposted-public/" title="Ice Fire"><img src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5482/30890024322_e25c3453ce_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Ice Fire"></a>

Hawkins
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Blue Acro
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30971225026/in/dateposted-public/" title="Blue Acro"><img src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5728/30971225026_cb18949177_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Blue Acro"></a>

Bleached Green Slimer Frag
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/30704960050/in/dateposted-public/" title="Bleached Slimer"><img src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5758/30704960050_cc1533bd3a_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Bleached Slimer"></a>

Big Green Slimer
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164111@N08/31006512015/in/dateposted-public/" title="Big Green Slimer"><img src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/6/5745/31006512015_08d657111b_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Big Green Slimer"></a>

The two slimers are from different people they look different to me

Appleberry
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[rovster]

SPS fire!

 

[Chrisq0904]

SPS fire!

Thank you sir! I'll take that as a high compliment coming from you.

I did a lot of reading since my last post and think I can come up with some better quality pictures for my next photo post. There are a few that I still need to take pictures of that will come out better that what I posted earlier.

 

[dadummy]

looking good, keep up the good work. here's a thread with the high nitrates, there were a couple others in the sps forums.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2558111&page=12&highlight=high+nitrate+aquaforest

Be careful with the AF products and go slow, read up about which products contain copper and or may contain copper. I ran into issues with my tank, however I can not blame it on the AF products. Had a drastic color change from dosing Micro E and Coral E which led to mass stn/rtn . Previously raising Mg to 1600 with Tech M didn't help matters either. Live and learn I suppose.

the bleached slimmer looks like the real deal, I am with you believe the big one is something different

 

[Chrisq0904]

looking good, keep up the good work. here's a thread with the high nitrates, there were a couple others in the sps forums.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2558111&page=12&highlight=high+nitrate+aquaforest

Be careful with the AF products and go slow, read up about which products contain copper and or may contain copper. I ran into issues with my tank, however I can not blame it on the AF products. Had a drastic color change from dosing Micro E and Coral E which led to mass stn/rtn . Previously raising Mg to 1600 with Tech M didn't help matters either. Live and learn I suppose.

the bleached slimmer looks like the real deal, I am with you believe the big one is something different

Going to look into that thread for now, I have been taking it pretty slow so far, just tested my levels again and my nitrate and phosphate are reading 0 again. I'm thinking of taking the gfo out and add it again once it is needed. I've noticed some AF users only use gfo when needed. One thing I did notice from testing today was that my alk is a little high reading at 9.0, I'm going to keep an eye on it over the next couple of days and see what it does. I don't want to go crazy and chase numbers like a mad man, just want to let it run a few days and adjust accordingly.

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[Rogger Castells]

Nice build, did you ever set up your electrical panel? if so, do you have pictures? I am trying to get ideas for my build

 

[Chrisq0904]

Nice build, did you ever set up your electrical panel? if so, do you have pictures? I am trying to get ideas for my build

Never got around to it. When I finally moved in to the new house I set the tank up on a wall next to a closet and just put the electrical components in the closet along with the ato container and rodi filter.


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[Chrisq0904]

FTS from today

 

[Chrisq0904]

Sump seems like it's starting to split on me and now looking to replace it with something. I looked around at different sump builders and seems like everyone is designing their sumps to be used with socks and no options for floss. Going to go look at some sumps at some LFS and see how they compare to me making my own from a 40 breeder.


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[Chrisq0904]

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