Jonny's Elos System 70

[freetareef]

hey hate to chime in two minutes to late but your par readings are very low for sps. they do not have enough light. here is a pic for an idea of ideal par readings. 600 is the benchmark and my buddys frag tank is 825...so yours seem extremely low.

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[freetareef]

this pic of par readings is of ATI 10 x 54W 5 inches from water level on kangym's tank. The bulbs are nine months old in the pic.

 

[freetareef]

you can move your lights closer to the surface, and if you started using ozone your par readings would come up a lot. It would be cheaper than buying a new light system...

 

[jonnybravo22]

hey hate to chime in two minutes to late but your par readings are very low for sps. they do not have enough light. here is a pic for an idea of ideal par readings. 600 is the benchmark and my buddys frag tank is 825...so yours seem extremely low.

you might be right. i have thought about raising PAR slowly over time. but i wouldnt be so sure. if you look at page 1 you'll see i can get PAR readings higher than those in your picture with this light setup, so i can increase PAR just by clicking some numbers on my computer if i want to. i chose to lower the intensity because it was too much for the corals and bleached them out. i also took PAR readings in the LFS where i bought the corals and they looked amazing there under T5s and par readings around ~150. in my experience there are multiple ways to achieve good results and it's always more complicated than mimicking one thing from someone else's setup. so many variable in this equation.

nice looking setup in your pic! thanks for sharing thoughts.

I'm excited about baby clownfish!

 

[freetareef]

yep.
keep us updated and good luck with the clowns!!!

 

[Rotknee]

JB your tank looks awesome and congrats on the baby clowns. One other thing to keep in mind is how traditional PAR meters underestimate their reading by about 20% with LED's. Given that and the overall health of your system, I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[jonnybravo22]

So here's an update. After perhaps dosing aminos too aggressively and experimenting with MB7, my tank had been experiencing a lot of issues. i had green film accumulating on the glass non-stop. I would wipe it clean, and in an hour it was accumulating again.if i let a full day go by, the glass was hard to see through. green hair algae was EVERYWHERE. my snails were doing what they could, but they were no match.

my corals, which were already sort of battered by my inexperience, began to go downhill very fast. for some reason i had stopped dosing any alk / cal, and didnt realize that i was neglecting this vital need. i assumed everything would be handled in water changes, but also wasn't testing my makeup water.

I lost the plum crazy. the other 3 were STN'ing. so i was really down. what i did was regroup, and aggressively clean my tank. i pulled out what rocks were not covered w/ anemone / remaining corals, and scrubbed them with a brush to remove algae.

i removed all the sand. i doubled the amount of snails. i began running GFO. i did aggressive water changes (about 30% in a weeks time). i scrubbed the overflows and every internal surface which were all covered in algae. i changed to a new salt (H2Ocean).

quickly, after 2 weeks at most, the tank was holding steady in a much cleaner state. the STN stopped on the corals, though there are huge missing pieces. with continued dedication to more rigorous maintenance, the tank has been steady and much cleaner ever since.

i'm really happy with the tank now. i added the sand back and it has remained bright white for weeks. I have not wiped the glass in more than a week and it's crystal clear. it has reminded me how beautiful Elos tanks are when they are clean.

the higher snail count has really beaten back the algae. and i think i've dialed in the skimmer to just the right level.

with this new breath of life in my tank, i decided to add some new corals (even though i have 3 in there that are half covered in algae and exposed skeleton).

In addition, i got a dosing pump and for the first time i'm doing daily monitoring of alk, calcium, and mag levels.

 

[jonnybravo22]

So, here are the new corals.

Tyree Ice Fire

ORA Hawkins Echinata

Garf Purple Bonsai

a little brown , but it was this way in the store. can see some purple in it. i'll be watching the color to see which way it goes, i have it low in the tank.


So, the Ice Fire colony is really pretty. i hope i can keep it alive and help it flourish.

Very interested to see how these corals respond in the tank. Unlike my mistake the first time around, I introduced these corals with the lights low, and have the lights at 25% intensity. I will be SLOWLY increasing that -- if i feel like it's appropriate. After taking a close look at pictures of the really nice looking LED tanks on this forum, it seems like the best ones are NOT blasting the corals with LEDs. There is a goregeous example where the lights are hung several feet about the tank. I'm thinking i'll try to start out on the lower end and increase if needed. hoping that i would see signs of too little light, if at all, more gradually and reversibly than the bleaching i went through with initial blasting last time around.

 

[firebirdude]

Looks great!

I recently picked up a Garf Purple Bonsai myself. Super deep purple. I'm sure yours will color up in no time.

 

[krshlln300]

Any updates on the awesome tank and corals? Did everything acclimate alright?

 

[A.G]

we need an update here !

 

[jonnybravo22]

thanks for checking in people. i do appreciate that.

owe you all an update but will have to get around to posting pictures after a while.

tank is in "ok" shape now. unfortunately i did lose the hawkins and icefire shortly after introducing them. not sure the precise reason but they hit STN after a few days.

dinoflagellates starting attacking the tank / corals and those two succumbed. the RP started to STN and so did the Joe. I was able to stop that process with some water changing and over the last couple of weeks have begun to reverse it. in order to save what i could i cut away most of the Red planet. I'll show some pics but I pretty much cut it all the way down to a little smudge that was encrusted. it has since started to re-encrust over the areas i cut away and hopefully will start sprouting soon. it has great color now, green base and red showing up nicely. the polyps are out on this guy most of the day also which is great. it's just so small now. with time, i'm optimistic about it's prospects.

similar story on the joe although more of it is left. the GARF bonsai is fine. doing well actually it has encrusted more and sprouted some mini branches. that one just needs to color up as it's mostly brown with some purple mainly in the tips.

so all in all i'm still just learning here, trying to get that magic formula (of which i think a significant piece is time and tweaking the routine ever so slightly).

i have overcome a large majority of the algae i had been fighting. still working on that but the sand is less and less brown each day.

looking for some new pieces to fill in the blanks.

 

[jonnybravo22]

oh -- the bright spot is probably the fact that the coralline has really taken off. it's beginning to cover the rocks really nicely.

 

[freetareef]

i believe every time you remove the sandbed, and rocks you start a cycle again...

i am just curious,
how is everything doing?
how are your no3 lvls?
do you have any macro algae in your sump?
have you increased you par lvls at all?
po4?

 

[freetareef]

you have a beautiful tank!!

 

[jonnybravo22]

Overdue update

Overdue update

Hello all!

Still MUCH more work to do on this tank and more patience to be had. Here is the current state of the tank. Note: I just plugged the GFO back online as I had taken it off after the phosphates got low (hanna). Realize i probably need to keep the GFO going b/c my water change schedule doesnt do it on its own.

 

[jonnybravo22]

current corals in my tank are:

Tyree Bali Tricolor (best looking coral in my tank)
Pink Lemonade
Hawkins
Blue Milli
Plum Crazy
Joe the Coral (a nub still holding on, hope it comes back)
Red Planet (just the encrusting is left after i had to frag the STN'ng frag)
a maricultured piece from divers den (a. rosaria; still coloring up but should be green and purple at some point)


I am going to change my lighting soon. Probably in the new year.

Probably getting the Giesemann Infiniti 250W + 4x T5.

Not 100% decided on bulbs yet but thinking a Phoenix 14k 250W; 3 ATI Blue Plus and 1 ATI Purple Plus for the T5s

 

[this is me]

Very nice and clean tank Jon.
I would hold off on the MH approach and let the frags settle in a bit longer. I've seen tanks with great colors and growth from the AI lights. You will not like to deal with the heat with the MH.

 

[ILLiDaN]

woah niceee

 

[jonnybravo22]

Hello again,

It's been a while since I updated here and quite a bit has changed. I am struggling a bit also so I'm hoping maybe someone on here has some tips that could help me.

I moved so I had to take down the tank and set it back up again. In the process I changed lighting since I was not happy with the corals and it seemed that the LEDs did not help.

Since then I have been really happy with the new lights (Giesemann Infinity 250w MH + 4 x T5s); I'm using a Phoenix 14K bulb and currently a split of 2 ATI Blue + and 2 ATI Purple +

So I have been holding off posting as I wanted to be able to post nice pics of fancy corals but so far I have been struggling. I have tried to eliminate every variable so that I can get these corals looking good again. I got rid of all fish that might nip at them (now I only have the clownfish and the anemone) and since then I have great PE on several corals.

So here's the good:

This "orange halo green slimer" is doing great. It's got fantastic color, amazing PE day and night, and has been growing noticeably. Really no issues on this guy. The brightest coral in my tank.

Runner up is this Blue Millie, which is doing pretty well, encrusting and great PE day and night. Could be a better shade of blue, it has too much brown right now vs. what is optimal but the growth tips are bluer and so is the encrusting so holding out hope. It has grown a good bit also.

This pink millie is doing ok also, like the blue but less growth:

The "comeback kid" award so far would have to go to this mini joe the coral. It was from a much larger frag that went downhill gradually until all i had left was a small nib so I figured i would frag it but it would probably not last a week. Well it has slowly encrusted and grown a bit and now has a few branches sprouting of its own which is just amazing to me considering how small a frag it came from. It was probably less than a 1/4 inch stem of a branch when I last mounted it. It lately has some really cool PE of it's own which it didnt even have for me as a larger frag.

This hard to photograph frag of a pink lemonade is doing ok, color is good and seems to be improving and it has decent PE at times, however it has not grown really at all in several months.

The last "ok" piece is this large frag of a maricultured piece that had better color when i first got it, browned out, and now is getting some nice green and contrasting color going but only in the last week have i noticed anything other than brown.