It's been a little while since I updated my thread. Things are going steady, corals are growing.
I'm still doing 10g water changes every 2 weeks with regular instant ocean. I adjust Alk, Cal, Mag and Nitrate to match my tank. I mix up 40g at a time so only need to do the adjustment every 2 months or so.
I dose Potassium Nitrate every 1-2 months to maintain 5ppm Nitrate. I test once a week and if I see it dip to around 3-3.5 I dose it back up. I'm also still dosing 2ml Pohl's Xtra Special but not sure if that's doing much. The Nitrate is definitely helping with coral color though.
I'm sticking to the same parameters I have for a year or more now:
Salinity 1.0264
Nitrate 5ppm
Phosphate 0-0.02ppm
Calcium 440-450
Alk 7-8 (average 7.5)
Mag 1400-1450
I dose Cal and Alk every 30 minutes (offset by 10m) 24/7. Mag gets maintained through water changes.
Tank updates:
My recent purchases from the Coral Farmers Market about a month back have been mixed... My two from Reef Raft as well as the Beach Bum I picked up are doing great. The two priciest corals I bought from WWC are not... One ($200) rtn'd after a couple weeks and the other ($150 Ding Dang Milli) is still clinging to life but very little polyp extention.
I've also bought a bunch of new corals from Cornbred and so far they're all doing well.
I've recently been having pump issues with my Reef Octopus DC pumps. I run a RODC-2500s in my skimmer which was a replacement to the original RODC-3500s which kicked the bucket. Now the 2500s is acting up and due for a replacement. It's under warranty but Reef Octopus has been a pain and now they want me to mail it to them so they can evaluate it...?!
I've been running a RODC-5500 return pump since my tank was originally set up about 3.5 years ago. Last weekend it stopped working in the middle of the night! I woke up to no flow through my sump. I keep a backup of the same pump (newer model) plumbed and ready to go but I found that the threaded outlet was moved between the two models to the other side of the pump so the new pump doesn't fit my narrow return section! Luckily after I cleaned out the original pump it started working again.
Fast forward to yesterday and I just happened to be working from home when the pump died again. This time it died hard and I could not get it restarted. This time I decided to get Macgyver and modified my sump return section adding a couple inches of width. I had to drain the return section completely, then dremel out the bottom half the the return section baffle in my Trigger Systems Ruby 30. Incidentally, if anyone else wants to know how to do this I can post a pic. Anyways, I got halfway through dremeling and my dremel burned up! So I raced down to Lowes, got a new dremel, came home and finished the job. I then needed to wash out the return section as best I could and shop vac up all the little acrylic shavings to keep them from getting back into the tank. But now the new RODC-5500 fits with room to spare. Now I need to buy a new backup. But I'm a little annoyed with these Reef Octopus dc pumps at this point!
So...I don't have any new pics right now, but I do have a cool little video. The other day I happened to catch my clowns spawning. They lay eggs about once a month and they're usually gone by the next day. But I thought this was pretty cool. Enjoy:
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