Long awaiting update. For the most part , tank is doing great. I have almost successfully removed all non-sps except for a frogspawn thats hosted by my clowns .
Few changes happened and most of it had pretty positive impact . First was the lights - instead of running of 2x250 geissemann crystals , I moved to 4 KZ bulbs with 2 reefbrite leds and a single 250 watt halide.
A few months back came across a trio of 10K xm 250 watt bulbs. If you have been long enough in the hobby you must have heard xm name. Their 10K were PAR monsters ! I was a die hard fan in the past of xm bulbs and couldn't pass on them considering xm SE bulbs are not made any more.
So, replaced my geissemann's with one of the xms . When the light came on , it brought back a lot of memories - memories of why I was captivated as a young boy by the warm afternoon looks of a midday reef .. realised how much I missed the warm yellow/ white of the 10K halides.
And honestly the acros seemed to love them crazily .
Simplified but increased the flow even more so in the tank. Now I run a MP40, a tunze 6105, 2 x 6095s and a seaswirl in the tank and boy !!! Its a small fraction of ocean there
Lastly, I always thought my honda generator was the most amazing piece of equipment i bought for my reef until I hooked my sexy new Geosreef 618 with secondary chamber and carbon doser ! Man, I haven't had my alk swing more than 0.2 in probably 3 months ..
And all usual nutrients keep piling up. Last time it was around 30-35 ppm nitrates and phosphates around 0.26
Stiff brown turf red hair algae all over but the rate at which my acros are growing with calcium reactor and xm 10K bulbs, I dont wanna complain .. I let my algae flourish when my acros flourish too .
This is how tank looks when guests come home
https://youtu.be/oDreCSpX0jA
This is how tank looks when I am around
. This is one of 4-5 feedings for a day . No wonder am growing heaps of red hair algae and turf algae
https://youtu.be/v44xGpirS_8
This is after a couple of haircuts all my acros received in less than a month back .. Honestly, I can't think of a day when my tank won't be lit by halides . You can really get used to seeing midday shallow reef all day
Regards,
Abhishek