Fish Truck's Second Year Tune UP!

[FishTruck]

Well, after one year with my tank, it is time for some tuning up!!

Overall, the tank is doing pretty well. The exception is that lately I am having poor luck with my Acros. Lots of bleaching and lost frags and colonies. I still have some nice stuff worth saving. With some investigation, I have learned some lessons.

Tune up #1. Maintenance improvement... change lines exposed to light every six months. I found that my calcium reactor's feed line was full of algae. This was causing my effluent to go up and down leading to dKH fluxuations from 7-12. No wonder the acros are struggling. Fix = change lines every six months. Get black tubing. Check alk more often.

 

[FishTruck]

Tune up #2. My lighting. I FINALLY measured my PAR. I assumed I was bleaching out my corals with too much light. I use four, 400 watt bulbs in two sfiligoi reflectors. I FINALLY got around to measuring lux (converted to PAR). See the picture below. Compared with TOTM March 2008, my PAR is a bit, well, sub PAR! I have my ballasts dimmed too much, and will bring these up to 90 or 100%. Another mystery finally solved... my lights are on the dim side! Also... a montipora that has been struggling along is getting by on very low light. I will move that colony and maybe stick a big fat ACAN down there.

KEY: the second number represents two, 20k radiums dimmed to about 60% on dimmable ballasts. This is sunrise sunset and goes from noon to 10 pm. The first (larger) number adds in two more bulbs, reeflux 12ks at about 90%. All four bulbs run "noon sun" for three hours from 4 to 7 pm. Also, I am using a lux meter and these are very ROUGH measurements.

Maybe, I need a longer "noon" time?

 

[FishTruck]

Tune up #3. My sand bed needs to be siphoned out monthly. I had let this go. Parts had turned to concrete and there was tons of crap in it. I pull out the standpipes and sipon the gravel right into the sump. There... three filter socks will catch the detritus. After the vacuum job, I change the socks and do a water change.