Njdevils1220
New member
This is awesome. Nice creativity and craftsmanship.
Deep Blue 57 Edge ATI Acro Garden
- Thread starter LQT
- Start date
LQT
Active member
Thanks! 
Everything is running quite smoothly right now. I’m pretty much overfeeding my fish with LRS Nano frozen food and the ATS is keeping my nutrients in check at around 5ppm nitrates and .06 in phosphates. Probably about a week or two away from adding my first acros. Been keeping a diligent eye out on the forums for a reasonably priced Acro frag pack... stay tuned!
Everything is running quite smoothly right now. I’m pretty much overfeeding my fish with LRS Nano frozen food and the ATS is keeping my nutrients in check at around 5ppm nitrates and .06 in phosphates. Probably about a week or two away from adding my first acros. Been keeping a diligent eye out on the forums for a reasonably priced Acro frag pack... stay tuned!
LQT
Active member
Tank has been running quite well thus far. Will be picking up my first acro frags from a local reefer for this tank tomorrow. In preparation, I got my DOS and DDR rigged up to dose ATI Essentials Pro. I’m gonna go with the ATI 2 part system in the early stages and see how it goes. As the tank matures, I’ll get the calcium reactor and kalk stirrer on line.
LQT
Active member
Hey Eric! I actually got some really nice pieces... a Walt Disney, Oregon Tort, ORA Pearlberry, Cali Tort, Hawkins Echinata, a purple milli, orange digi and a few nice colorful no name acros as well. All seem it be doing fine so far.
Unfortunately, my tank isn’t exactly that photogenic right now.
I broke the needlewheel impeller shaft to my skimmer recently while cleaning it and went skimmerless for a number of days while awaiting a replacement impeller. An annoying outbreak of GHA has taken a foothold as a result. The tank is fairly new so it’s not an unexpected issue, it just got helped along with the skimmer being down for almost a week. I’m making progress against it with some extra snails, manual removal and water changes.Also, don’t worry! I’m updating my build threads in both places simultaneously. In fact, this RC thread is the most up to date!
LQT
Active member
Tank is settling in nicely. The GHA definitely took a serious foothold for nearly a month. I added some extra snails and a Lawnmower Blenny. I added some GFO in a media bag and increased the photo period to my ATS and did a week or so of serious manual removal and the GHA has subsided significantly. The algae in the DT is now very light in color and weakened significantly. The are a few sporadic patches here and there but it's nothing to be concerned about IMO. Hopefully, this will mark the end of the new tank uglies for me!
The frags I got are doing well thus far. A few pieces have browned but that's to be expected in a fairly new tank. I'm maintaining my Alk at a steady 8.5. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, I did lose my Midas Blenny. I was doing some manual GHA removal a few weeks back and he got over exited thinking it was LRS frozen food feeding time. He swam right into the MP40 and sliced up his side pretty badly. Total bummer!
Gonna do a water change and take a full tank shot soon... it's long overdue.
LQT
Active member
Algae has pretty much fully receded in the DT. However, with the ATS fully mature producing, I fear that I may be running too clean. PO4 is at .021 ppm with a Hanna Pho’s ULR checker and NO3 is at 0 on a Red Sea Nitrate Pro test kit. I have since removed the GFO and cut back the ATS photoperiod to 10 hours at 25% intensity.
As far as livestock goes, I have 2 black ice snowflake ocellaris clowns, a royal gramma, a lawnmower blenny and a blood red fire shrimp. Today, I took out of QT, a midas blenny and a pair of green chromis. They seem to be enjoying their new home in the DT. I’ve been feeding 3X a day with LRS Nano Frenzy. In an effort to get more fish poo going, I will add some Ocean Nutrition Formula One pellets into the mix and upping feedings to 4X a day.
With the algae in the DT gone, I’m gonna try to work on getting readable nitrates over the next few weeks to provide more optimal conditions for the few acros I have in the tank.
As far as livestock goes, I have 2 black ice snowflake ocellaris clowns, a royal gramma, a lawnmower blenny and a blood red fire shrimp. Today, I took out of QT, a midas blenny and a pair of green chromis. They seem to be enjoying their new home in the DT. I’ve been feeding 3X a day with LRS Nano Frenzy. In an effort to get more fish poo going, I will add some Ocean Nutrition Formula One pellets into the mix and upping feedings to 4X a day.
With the algae in the DT gone, I’m gonna try to work on getting readable nitrates over the next few weeks to provide more optimal conditions for the few acros I have in the tank.
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
Can you post a FTS picture of the tank before you got the ATS up and running , (with the ugly nuisance algae), and then a FTS shot of the tank since you've gotten the ATS up and running?
I've used a Chaeto reactor in the past and had good results, but got out of the hobby and sold it off. I'm now looking at getting back into the hobby eventually but will be doing a nano and the Chaeto reactor took up a substantial amount of room and was too big for current planned nano.
I've used a Chaeto reactor in the past and had good results, but got out of the hobby and sold it off. I'm now looking at getting back into the hobby eventually but will be doing a nano and the Chaeto reactor took up a substantial amount of room and was too big for current planned nano.
LQT
Active member
My tank has had the ATS running since the beginning. The algae bloom occurred as part of the new tank uglies phase. I just think the ATS just did a better job of snuffing it out faster than if it wasn’t there. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the tank when the GHA was thick on the rockwork as I was too embarrassed to post a picture during that time. In hindsight, I wish I did.
LQT
Active member
Another harvest... still working on trying to strike a delicate nutrient balance in my system. Decided to turn off the skimmer last night to see how that affects nutrients in the system over the course of the next week. Earlier this month, I upped feeding in various forms and cut back the hours and intensity of the ATS. That led to a minor GHA outbreak on the back wall of the tank which is finally starting to recede due to manual removal and bringing up the ATS intensity and photoperiod back to my original settings. So we’ll see how shutting of the skimmer will work out this week. The journey continues...
