dtum's Pragmatic Reef - 180 Gallons of Adventure

[d2mini]

The tank is really coming along!
Love that sea whip... and the anemone island. Wish I had room for that.
I like the little frag rack, too.

Now clean up that wiring mess!

 

[JMorris271]

Wonderful.

 

[915MANG]

The tank is really coming along!
Love that sea whip... and the anemone island. Wish I had room for that.
I like the little frag rack, too.

Now clean up that wiring mess!

Hey D2MINI,
Keep up with your youtube! I enjoyed the last video you did:wavehand:

 

[dtum]

My brain coral is starting to bounce back nicely.

IMG_3635.jpg by Dmitry Tumanov, on Flickr

 

[dtum]

Here is my new addition, I'm really digging this variety of Ricordea.

 

[dtum]

The anemone is doing pretty well. That's the little one that ended up being on the rock as a hitchhiker.

I am really digging this cardinal.

Superman monti is nicely encrusting, w00t-w00t!

 

[d2mini]

Nice pics!
Getting the hang of that new camera, I see.

 

[dtum]

Nice pics!
Getting the hang of that new camera, I see.

Thank you. I still need to figure out the white balance, but overall I'm very pleased with the camera and the lens.

 

[dtum]

Looks like I have red bugs. going to start Sentinel treatment soon.

 

[dtum]

Here they are:

 

[dtum]

So, here's our control coral and I'm starting the treatment.

You can see some here:

And here

I guess a picture of a kid hugging a coral would be more appropriate.

I crush you!

Add some tank water (I've used 3/4 of a single large pill)

The tank does not know what's coming...

 

[dtum]

2 hours after the treatment I did not see any red bugs on corals. Will let it run in the system for another 8 hours or so and then will put carbon in with a water change.

 

[markalot]

Good luck, fingers crossed.

 

[JiveTurkey]

This was fun to read! Very nice ergonomic aquascape. I am a Canon dork too, just stopped using 35mm in '13. Good luck with the bug treatment.

 

[dtum]

Pragmatic Reef at five months mark

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/eNmncjqy1K8?list=UUpOOkw6SmsYqg722u9-2XvA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[dtum]

And here's Pragmatic Reef at six months:

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KZW8fCfdP28" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Notice that I'm experiencing strange bleaching of my birds nest colonies - one large green birds nest has basically bleached overnight and so did another smaller one.

 

[joejoe1055]

looking good, what is your bulb combo?
i'm about to start up a 180 myself and thinking of going t5 route.

 

[inktomi]

Good luck figuring out the bleaching! We should ask the obvious questions..

What are your parameters? Did anything (at all) change in the tank or your house? Any maintenance that you did recently (gravel vac, changed carbon, etc?)?

How old are your bulbs?

BTW - I always worry about your Vortechs when I see them! Eventually at least one of those drivers will fall off your tank, since they don't appear to be supported by their power cables =\

 

[dtum]

looking good, what is your bulb combo?
i'm about to start up a 180 myself and thinking of going t5 route.

My current bulb combo is:

KZ NG ABlue KZ S Purple Coral+ B+ ABlue Coral+

 

[dtum]

Good luck figuring out the bleaching! We should ask the obvious questions..

What are your parameters? Did anything (at all) change in the tank or your house? Any maintenance that you did recently (gravel vac, changed carbon, etc?)?

How old are your bulbs?

BTW - I always worry about your Vortechs when I see them! Eventually at least one of those drivers will fall off your tank, since they don't appear to be supported by their power cables =\

Here are my parameters:
Measured Nitrate at 8 ppm
Measured Phosphate at 0.07 ppm
Measured ORP at 445 mV
Measured Temperature at 79.1 F
Measured pH at 8.08 pH
Measured Salinity at 1.0256 SG
Measured Alkalinity at 10.81 dKH

The only thing I suspect is my alk has climbed from 9.6 to 10.8 in a week, that could be it. Also my phosphates have dropped from 0.3 to 0.07 after I've changed my GFO.

Bulbs are only 5 months old, PAR at the mid level is around 450-500 when all of them are on.

As for Vortechs - I agree it would be more prudent to secure them, but I've been running them this way for several years on different tanks and so far - I'm good. Knock on wood.