JBNY's 270 Ver2.0

[Greg 45]

Joe the only item you aren't adding seems to be iodine.
Also old reefers seem to go back to old school ideas , meaning adding strontium .IMO food that we purchase and salts seem cleaner to me than in the old days . Nitrates and
po4 were out of control now we are adding to keep tank healthy.

 

[mhucasey]

OK, some SPS pics,

All these seem to be doing good, coloration is starting to happen, just need the growth to step up a notch.

This guys is at the bottom of the tank and really doing well for color.

This is still slowly encrusting but it is holding it's color as ll for a wild coral, I really wan this guy to make it, such cool colors.

Looking really good Joe, I like the ones above especially. I have had a hard time with corals similar to the second one, but they are hard to pass up since they almost shimmer with color...I may buy some at reef-a-palooza in October stupid cheap to give them another shot

 

[64Ivy]

Hey Joe, great job on both the reboot and your own stick-to-itiveness in tracking down your issues. I've got to start a thread like this myself as I too have had a few down years, in my case, due to copper initially, and now on the road to recovery. On another note, you wouldn't happen to have any photos of that invasive sponge you were dealing with, would you? I'd love to see it...y'know digitally, of course.

 

[cham]

Hey Joe, great job on both the reboot and your own stick-to-itiveness in tracking down your issues. I've got to start a thread like this myself as I too have had a few down years, in my case, due to copper initially, and now on the road to recovery. On another note, you wouldn't happen to have any photos of that invasive sponge you were dealing with, would you? I'd love to see it...y'know digitally, of course.

This, I need to know if the few pieces that I have in my tank need to come out.

 

[biggles]

Beautiful colors coming through on those frags Joe, great quality pics too mate :thumbsup:

I'm glad you're getting over those setbacks, there's nothing worse than not having confidence in the test results a kit is giving you. I went nuts last year chasing a problem and it was as simple as buying a $10- bottle of refractometer calibration fluid....

Looking forward to more updates and pics.

 

[JB NY]

Very nice. With the level of saturated colours on those frags, once they are colonies they should look stunning.

Thanks Sahin, Yeah the colors are starting to come on some of these frags, I too am excited to see what they look like when the grow up!

Nice pictures and great color on the corals.

Thanks Mark, the shots took a while to get some good shots, my hand shake kept blurring the pictures these came out good though.

Nice frags Joe! Sorry to hear about the recent minor bumps in the road. This hobby always keeps you on your toes.

Thanks Kieth, I like it better when the bumps are behind me.

Hi Joe! Good luck in your reassembly!

I'm also taking up the course in these last three months, because I was only two years taking care of my beloved fish after a few storms of life.

I've always had a passion for HQI lighting and don't relinquish them together with the T5 for nothing.

You've beautiful frags!

What level of phosphate and nitrate tested on your system?

Best wishes and good luck in this new success walk.

I apologize for my English!

Thank you for the kind words. NO3 is 5ppm, PO4 is 0.01ppm

Very good looking frags!
They seem very comfy in their new digs.
Growth time!!
I keep debating with myself about getting some blue led strips.. Half the people say they have browned their corals and the other half love them....
Hm..

Yes growth time, I just want a few little axial corallites to start and then I will be happy.

I didn't have any browned out coral, but as you can see I think that they were burning the corals with too much blue light, I like them still and am now using them only for dusk lighting which is pretty sweet. when the tank starts to grow in I think I will start to play with using them for supplemental lighting again, just at a lower intensity.

 

[JB NY]

Wow, I remember your tank from years ago. Crazy to hear about the crash. Do you attribute any of the crash to the mystical "old tank syndrome" which has been debated in the past to old sand beds.


So collospongia is a pest sponge? Wow, LOL. I think WWC was selling it for awhile. I think I have a piece or two of it on one rock in my tank, they're tiny. Mine is purple, seemingly non porous and slippery to the touch. Sounds like I should take it out eh?



I run two strips of reefbrites too, one XHO and one regular. Both all blue. But I'm running a powermodule and light my tank as follows

Reefbrites: 9:30am to 9:30pm
T5 Sunrise/sunset (2 bulbs): 11:30am to 8pm
Other 6 bulbs on powermodule: 12:30 to 3:30pm.


The main tank at world wide corals did this years ago, running limited lighting (some LED strips and a few T5 bulbs) for most of the day and their metal halides (that the don't use anymore, lol) for just 3 to 4 hours per day for full sun effect. Their results were hard to argue and I had similar results doing the same.

Yeah that is the sponge, under low light it can be purple or blue and in some cases brown, I would remove it. I know a lot of people were selling it and had it in their tank. If you notice, no one is selling this anymore, at least they shouldn't be. I know a few people who put it in their tank when I told them not too, and eventually had to break down their tank as well. A lot of people who had it on only one rock just chucked the rock and they were good.

I don't think any of my problems were from old tank syndrome, just bad luck.

Thanks for the info on the ReefBrites, it will come in helpful when I start to play with them again.

Joe the only item you aren't adding seems to be iodine.
Also old reefers seem to go back to old school ideas , meaning adding strontium .IMO food that we purchase and salts seem cleaner to me than in the old days . Nitrates and
po4 were out of control now we are adding to keep tank healthy.

I never had good luck with iodine, every time I add it I just get Cyano. But I agree with the food and salts being much cleaner than they used to be, I've always tried to make my tank as efficient as possible when dealing with Nitrates, and I used to have to be more careful with feedings then I do now.

Looking really good Joe, I like the ones above especially. I have had a hard time with corals similar to the second one, but they are hard to pass up since they almost shimmer with color...I may buy some at reef-a-palooza in October stupid cheap to give them another shot

Thanks Matt, The second one I have had for a little over four months, so I think the color will stay, at least I hope

Hey Joe, great job on both the reboot and your own stick-to-itiveness in tracking down your issues. I've got to start a thread like this myself as I too have had a few down years, in my case, due to copper initially, and now on the road to recovery. On another note, you wouldn't happen to have any photos of that invasive sponge you were dealing with, would you? I'd love to see it...y'know digitally, of course.

Hey Michael, Thanks. Here are some pics from when I pulled out coral after the crash and found the sponge all over.

You can see the sponge is brown on the side and blue in the middle. the blue is just to fool you into thinking it is pretty until it decimates you tank!

Here is a huge amount of it in the middle that was under a few different colonies.

Beautiful colors coming through on those frags Joe, great quality pics too mate :thumbsup:

I'm glad you're getting over those setbacks, there's nothing worse than not having confidence in the test results a kit is giving you. I went nuts last year chasing a problem and it was as simple as buying a $10- bottle of refractometer calibration fluid....

Looking forward to more updates and pics.

Thanks Andrew, I had a problem with my salinity a few months back too. Bought new calibration fluid and I was back in business.

 

[MIKE NY]

That was a crazy storm last week. Further out east by you got hit a lot harder than we did....just heavy rain with no power loss. I never trusted Hanna and only been using using Saifert and Red Sea to compare to each other .. both always read about the same.

 

[JB NY]

That was a crazy storm last week. Further out east by you got hit a lot harder than we did....just heavy rain with no power loss. I never trusted Hanna and only been using using Saifert and Red Sea to compare to each other .. both always read about the same.

That storm was crazy, friends on the south shore only got a little rain and that's it. They shut down the street in my town until 9:30AM so they could get trucks in to cut down trees so people could drive on the roads. I had two friends who lost power for 24+ hours.

I have pretty much stopped using the Hanna too, it seems I am back to using all the things I did 10+ years ago now.

 

[mhucasey]

That storm was crazy, friends on the south shore only got a little rain and that's it. They shut down the street in my town until 9:30AM so they could get trucks in to cut down trees so people could drive on the roads. I had two friends who lost power for 24+ hours.

I have pretty much stopped using the Hanna too, it seems I am back to using all the things I did 10+ years ago now.

I sunk about 160 dollars into a very nice Martini Phosphate colorimeter, and I used to test the water daily. Every test I have taken recently has been 0.00, so I stopped taking the tests. Ill probably continue that - if the test showed some number, I'd be tempted to change something even if the corals looked good.

 

[JB NY]

I think my Hanna HI 93713 was around $200, it not the egg. I have found it to be very accurate as well. Having the test come back at 0 is entirely possible just shows that your system is Phosphate limited, which is the goal of nutrient reduction IMO. My tests have been between 0 and 0.02 so I am really not paying attention to P anymore either, I only test once a month or so now.

 

[mhucasey]

Yes, i don't doubt that the value is low, close to zero, and my system is intentionally Phosphate limited because of the AIO pellets I use. I had very nice corals when i had much higher phosphate numbers too. Getting a bunch of zero results just broke me from my obsession of knowing what the number was. 10 Years ago no one knew that they were supposed to obsess that their phosphate value was 0.09 and not 0.03, and I'm not sure that knowing has been all that beneficial...

 

[JB NY]

I agree completely. Obsessively testing of Phosphate I think has been a detriment to this hobby. I had more issues with my tank when I was always testing my P)4 than I did when I couldn't test it and just looked at the amount of algae growing on my rocks and worked it out from there.

 

[Wazzel]

I agree completely. Obsessively testing of Phosphate I think has been a detriment to this hobby. I had more issues with my tank when I was always testing my P)4 than I did when I couldn't test it and just looked at the amount of algae growing on my rocks and worked it out from there.

I would take it a step further and say that obsessively testing any parameter is detrimental. Keeping an eye on things is good, but when you test often you want to adjust often and that can cause more problems than the initial problem.

 

[reefmutt]

I would take it a step further and say that obsessively testing any parameter is detrimental. Keeping an eye on things is good, but when you test often you want to adjust often and that can cause more problems than the initial problem.

I agree.. This makes sense..

But Joe and Matt, keep in mind that both of you have said that in the past, when you had measurable p, you were testing regularly. Only now that your p has been undetectable for a prolonged amount of time have you stopped testing.
If I had a zero reading for p and was in a groove in terms of maintenance and feeding, I wouldn't test either.. Or as often.. I don't necessarily adjust my pellets or n dose each time I test. I test for a while to establish a trend. If I like the trend, I'll keep testing to see where the pattern goes. If I don't like the trend, I'll try to make a slight adjustment to change the direction of the trend...
In the past, I tried to alter things to rapidly..
That's the key.. We are all trying to get our tanks to act the way we want them to, we just have to do it gently and over time, instead of the quick fix, which ends up being the quick disaster.
You guys are both talking about a phosphate concentration goal of zero or close to that. When you were trying to attain the goal, you were testing and reacting. Now that you have attained the goal, you don't test anymore.

In a sense, isn't what you guys both did to get to zero p - either by using aio pellets, Matt or using a wicked cool cheato reactor, Joe- a form of numbers chasing?
You guys no longer have that number to chase so you are no longer testing..
I guess what I am trying to say is that we all chase numbers. There are many known parameters we all want to have in our reef ranks. I think what differentiates healthy numbers chasing from unhealthy chasing is how one goes about making adjustments...

 

[mhucasey]

I agree.. This makes sense..

But Joe and Matt, keep in mind that both of you have said that in the past, when you had measurable p, you were testing regularly. Only now that your p has been undetectable for a prolonged amount of time have you stopped testing.
If I had a zero reading for p and was in a groove in terms of maintenance and feeding, I wouldn't test either.. Or as often.. I don't necessarily adjust my pellets or n dose each time I test. I test for a while to establish a trend. If I like the trend, I'll keep testing to see where the pattern goes. If I don't like the trend, I'll try to make a slight adjustment to change the direction of the trend...
In the past, I tried to alter things to rapidly..
That's the key.. We are all trying to get our tanks to act the way we want them to, we just have to do it gently and over time, instead of the quick fix, which ends up being the quick disaster.
You guys are both talking about a phosphate concentration goal of zero or close to that. When you were trying to attain the goal, you were testing and reacting. Now that you have attained the goal, you don't test anymore.

In a sense, isn't what you guys both did to get to zero p - either by using aio pellets, Matt or using a wicked cool cheato reactor, Joe- a form of numbers chasing?
You guys no longer have that number to chase so you are no longer testing..
I guess what I am trying to say is that we all chase numbers. There are many known parameters we all want to have in our reef ranks. I think what differentiates healthy numbers chasing from unhealthy chasing is how one goes about making adjustments...

Oh I won't say that I didn't chase numbers in the past - I did, excessively. I started out chasing them because of a small amount of algae and my feeling that the corals could be a little more colorful. It just had to be my Phosphate value. The algae passed, the corals got even more colorful, yet my obsessive testing continued. At some point it ceased being about the negative thing I was trying to prevent and became about hitting a number. I was saying to myself "I have no algae, the corals look great, but why is phosphate 0.15???" I had completely lost the plot and it was all about the numbers. I am lucky to have experienced the string of zero test results - it broke me free. I will use the test if i have some sudden outbreak of algae, or if there is a big shift in the corals colors that can't be otherwise explained. Its easier to recommend from where I am then where you are for sure

 

[JB NY]

I agree.. This makes sense..

But Joe and Matt, keep in mind that both of you have said that in the past, when you had measurable p, you were testing regularly. Only now that your p has been undetectable for a prolonged amount of time have you stopped testing.
If I had a zero reading for p and was in a groove in terms of maintenance and feeding, I wouldn't test either.. Or as often.. I don't necessarily adjust my pellets or n dose each time I test. I test for a while to establish a trend. If I like the trend, I'll keep testing to see where the pattern goes. If I don't like the trend, I'll try to make a slight adjustment to change the direction of the trend...
In the past, I tried to alter things to rapidly..
That's the key.. We are all trying to get our tanks to act the way we want them to, we just have to do it gently and over time, instead of the quick fix, which ends up being the quick disaster.
You guys are both talking about a phosphate concentration goal of zero or close to that. When you were trying to attain the goal, you were testing and reacting. Now that you have attained the goal, you don't test anymore.

In a sense, isn't what you guys both did to get to zero p - either by using aio pellets, Matt or using a wicked cool cheato reactor, Joe- a form of numbers chasing?
You guys no longer have that number to chase so you are no longer testing..
I guess what I am trying to say is that we all chase numbers. There are many known parameters we all want to have in our reef ranks. I think what differentiates healthy numbers chasing from unhealthy chasing is how one goes about making adjustments...

You misunderstand me what I talk about having measurable P and testing all the time. At no point in the keeping of a tank when I was measuring phosphates did my readings ever go above 0.07, with an average reading of 0.03, yet I was still testing and using GFO to try and get that number down to 0. That's what I mean about excessive testing. It wasn't till I stopped carbon dosing and using GFO and forced myself to find other alternatives, that I realized that 0.07 and 0.03 or even 0 doesn't really matter and those numbers are fine that I was able to walk away from obsessing about keeping P low.

So when I am writing about number chasing I mean to write that having some levels seems to be both beneficial and easier to achieve than trying to get to zero all the time. When I changed to thinking that having measurable Nitrates and some phosphates, suddenly balancing the nutrients levels in my tank was a lot less maintenance that it was a few years back.

 

[reefmutt]

You misunderstand me what I talk about having measurable P and testing all the time. At no point in the keeping of a tank when I was measuring phosphates did my readings ever go above 0.07, with an average reading of 0.03, yet I was still testing and using GFO to try and get that number down to 0. That's what I mean about excessive testing. It wasn't till I stopped carbon dosing and using GFO and forced myself to find other alternatives, that I realized that 0.07 and 0.03 or even 0 doesn't really matter and those numbers are fine that I was able to walk away from obsessing about keeping P low.

So when I am writing about number chasing I mean to write that having some levels seems to be both beneficial and easier to achieve than trying to get to zero all the time. When I changed to thinking that having measurable Nitrates and some phosphates, suddenly balancing the nutrients levels in my tank was a lot less maintenance that it was a few years back.

Thanks for that clarification. That makes a whole lot of sense.
Trying to chase a zero reading for p has probably done in more tanks than random equipment failure...

 

[JB NY]

Some frag pics from today.

 

[MichaelW]

Great looking pieces! I especially like 3, 5, and 6.