Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail
- Thread starter reefmutt
- Start date
Wrangy
Acrotrooper
Why change what works :lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:
TJM_Corals
Member
So sorry to hear about your loss Matt. Hope they catch the low life that stole your car.
Display looks great, have some insane growth going on in there. Might be time to upgrade the calcium reactor to get the Alk up. iIt has to be burning threw media at this point.
Display looks great, have some insane growth going on in there. Might be time to upgrade the calcium reactor to get the Alk up. iIt has to be burning threw media at this point.
reefmutt
Active member
I think you may be onto something, Dom!!
Hey Jay.. (not Tim
) thanks. Yeah, I’m not sure what to do.. I might get some dosers and start two part dosing or something. My deltec pf601s is about as large a ca reactor as I can fit in my space and my kalk doser is dosing 11ml/min for 17 hrs a day- that’s pretty much evaporation rate..Hey Scott, thanks! As usual, I have many corals growing like crazy and a couple that frustrate the hell out of me..
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berlin-riff
Berlin SPS-Junky
:bigeyes:I love your tank :love2: so many beautiful sps :thumbsup:
FloformAustria
New member
Hey Matt!!
Sorry for your loss!
I also lost a friend but back in my Highschool days...
Sorry about your car being stolen...
But I have to say your tank looks amazing as always!!!
Keep it up!!
Cheers mate
Sorry for your loss!
I also lost a friend but back in my Highschool days...
Sorry about your car being stolen...
But I have to say your tank looks amazing as always!!!
Keep it up!!
Cheers mate
reefmutt
Active member
Hey Mark, thanks! It was a shock.. the crazy thing is that he was the 6th person to die from out graduating class of 1984. There were around 50 people in our graduating class.. seems like a lot..Hi matt,
sorry about that sudden loss, must have been shocking, I can't imagine.
neglect always wins, I'm still recovering from lack of neglect.
he was the second good friend from high school.. just makes you realize we aren't getting any younger.. and we get farther and farther from being able to to do the things we keep telling ourselves we'll do tomorrow...
Dennis, thank you !!
it is doing pretty well right now.Hey Flo, thanks!
The car is replaceable- just an inconvenience and time suck.. losing friends has a weird effect on one, I've found. Makes one contemplate things one would never think about in one's youth.
I was definitely quite pleasantly surprised when I got up on my ladder to take some photos.
So, the following is a bit off the reefing topic, but I'm going to do it anyways because only a handful of people will read it and it's for a good cause..
And I'm trying to stop putting things off in my life..
I am participating in a fund raising event for a local school that works with kids with special needs.. for fear of breaking any rules I'm not going to post any links but if one were to google "˜let's roll for kids, montreal' one would find the event.
And if one were to search Matt Graham, one would find my fundraising page..
I've been taking care of a freshwater fish tank for the school for many years. This fundraiser has always conflicted with my own kids events so I never did it and to be honest, I was probably a bit too lazy to actually go participate.
I decided to actually register for the event, this year after my friend died because he was a big philanthropist as well as a cyclist..
And every year, the window closes on more and more things that I should have, would have, could have done in my life...
Sorry... still quite philosophical about things...
this is just to cast as wide a fundraising net as I can in my attempt to help the school...
so.. anyways, I apologize if this is too off base for some.. I won't bring it up again.. but I felt I had to put it out there..
Ok!
Let me see if I can find a couple shots I haven't posted yet..
Robin Hood. Front view
Some blue coral I got a looong time ago..
Not sure if I posted this one.. one of my favorite spots in my reef..
Myka
Reefing since '93
Hey Matt! It's been a long time since I've been around the forums! Your tank is really looking mature and awesome now! Where do you source most of your Acros? You have some unique pieces I haven't seen before. The Echinatas are unbelievable gorgeous - and they elude my possession continuously!
reefmutt
Active member
Hey Mindy! Long time for sure! Glad to see you back. Thanks! It's been like 4 years and my tank is only starting to look grown in.. granted, I've been known to remove a large colony and replace it with 3 frags, on occasion.
90% of my corals have come from either Fragbox or Raging Reef which is a local shop. I occasionally get a piece or two from a shop north of montreal called Reef Solution, in Laval. Every now and then, I'll hit up Canada Corals as well..
I usually watch Fragbox like a hawk and wait for interesting or unique pieces to pop up..
As for Raging Reef, the owner, Raja, has his own connections for corals in Toronto as well as overseas, so he often gets very interesting stuff.
But if echinata is what you are after, I'm pretty sure Fragbox has some ice/Fire for sale right now.. ain't cheap, however.
I used to have a huge echinata colony- from indo I think.. common coral.. it was down at bottom left of tank.. I took out the colony when I had some alk issue and the base rtned. I kept a piece, gave some to a friend and lost some..
It's in his pic from basically a year ago..far left, bottom. This is a very common coral.. shouldn't be hard to find.. grows beautifully..
Myka
Reefing since '93
Hey Mindy! Long time for sure! Glad to see you back. Thanks! It's been like 4 years and my tank is only starting to look grown in.. granted, I've been known to remove a large colony and replace it with 3 frags, on occasion.
90% of my corals have come from either Fragbox or Raging Reef which is a local shop. I occasionally get a piece or two from a shop north of montreal called Reef Solution, in Laval. Every now and then, I'll hit up Canada Corals as well..
I usually watch Fragbox like a hawk and wait for interesting or unique pieces to pop up..
As for Raging Reef, the owner, Raja, has his own connections for corals in Toronto as well as overseas, so he often gets very interesting stuff.
But if echinata is what you are after, I'm pretty sure Fragbox has some ice/Fire for sale right now.. ain't cheap, however.
I used to have a huge echinata colony- from indo I think.. common coral.. it was down at bottom left of tank.. I took out the colony when I had some alk issue and the base rtned. I kept a piece, gave some to a friend and lost some..
It's in his pic from basically a year ago..far left, bottom. This is a very common coral.. shouldn't be hard to find.. grows beautifully..
Well, I don't know if I'm "back". Haha! When that Angelfish killed off half my SPS and browned out the remaining half a year ago I felt like I didn't care much since I had a lot going on, but it unconsciously took a lot of wind out of my sails. My tank was basically on pause for a whole year, and is now just back where it was when I added that Angelfish last June. Maybe I'll be back more now, not sure!
I didn't realize Fragbox got much in. It always seemed like he has the same old stuff clipped from his personal Acro tank, and then the odd aquaculture frag. I did place an order for the Icefire just now, thanks for the heads up! It looks like Raging Reef is starting a website? Or has that been there forever? Haha. It looks like they have some nice Acros. Around here and in the neighboring provinces there is very little for Acros besides aquaculture pieces. Now with the Indo ban, who knows what will show up??
Yes, green Echinata is easy to find, but I'm so sick of green. :lol: I swear every coral I put in my tank turns green.
reefmutt
Active member
Here’s another quick and dirty iPhone video..
Always over saturates but looks great!
Alk- hovering around 6
P- .18
N- ~ 20
I’m adding a cap of kno3 per day and 6 drops no pro..
Will bump np pro to 7 drops..
https://youtu.be/tlNIbyX1oZQ
Always over saturates but looks great!
Alk- hovering around 6
P- .18
N- ~ 20
I’m adding a cap of kno3 per day and 6 drops no pro..
Will bump np pro to 7 drops..
https://youtu.be/tlNIbyX1oZQ
Reefer40b
New member
Here's another quick and dirty iPhone video..
Always over saturates but looks great!
Alk- hovering around 6
P- .18
N- ~ 20
I'm adding a cap of kno3 per day and 6 drops no pro..
Will bump np pro to 7 drops..
https://youtu.be/tlNIbyX1oZQ
Just curious, Do you have a target you would like your N/P to be? Or since your adding the KNo3 your target is 20ppm? Also isnt Np pro suppose to reduce nitrates... why dose kno3 just to reduce them?
Would your prefer lower phosphates or is .18 range a good spot for your corals?
Tank is looking awesome Btw! :thumbsup:
reefmutt
Active member
I am very familiar with the "˜wind out of the sails' feeling.. gets harder and hard to refill the sails every time!
Fragbox often has some extremely sexy stuff.. but it comes and goes. There'll be times when nothing changes and then he'll get all sorts of reef raft frags or Aussie frags. I think He has several high end hobbyists who pass things onto him to sell..
I don't think he clips that much from his own tank..
you have to keep an eye..
As for Raging reef, I know he ships a bit but I'm not sure he devotes as much time as he would like to online sales..
Well, hope you're back a bit more!
reefmutt
Active member
This is a bunch of good questions! And thanks!
My target.. hm.. my target has probably shifted around over time.. I'd say my targets for n and p are ~10 and slightly below .1 respectively.
Yes- Aquaforest's NP Pro, which is a carbon source (like vodka or sugar or vinegar or Red Sea's nopox) is for reducing nutrients and works primarily on nitrate - as is the case with all of them..
My cheato fuge, which is quite big, will pull n right down to 0 if I run a very long photo period and do not add nitrate.
However, my chronic and persistent po4 issue keeps p from falling as low.. this is why I was experimenting with Lanthanum Chloride for a while. It worked quite well but one of its side effects is reducing alk.. so over time, my alk was dropping while calcium was going up.. I decided to abandon LC..
Using my cheato fuge as the basis for nutrient removal, i tried to allow it to pull n down and then added some kno3 in an attempt to pull p down as well- this didn't work very well for me... SO! I started adding small amounts of np pro which is more efficient at pulling nutrients than cheato. I guess bacteria is a more efficient nutrient consumer than cheato.. but I'm not a fan of running a full bacteria based system.. why? Personally, I've always had rtn issues in my system when I really fire up carbon dosing..
Side note.. I know this is fairly common knowledge but I'll reiterate anyways, just to give a full picture.. cheato and/or bacteria are more efficient at reducing n than p and if they run out of n, they stop reducing p. The only way to get them to Get them to reduce p further is by feeding them more n.
SO! This approach is to keep the cheato as the foundation to pull nutrients while topping off with kno3 and np pro to pull p down.. since without the kno3, my n would bottom out..
SO, I have overshot my kno3 dosing and will increase np pro (I'm still way below the recommended dose of 14 drops/day) to be able to maintain nitrate while reducing po4.
So far it has worked.. the current dose of kno3 and np pro has kept p at or just slightly above the level it was at when I was dosing LC.. before I started the LC, n was around .24..
Now, I will go to 7 drops/day of np pro for a few weeks and see if (how) nutrients continue to drop..
So, yes, I would prefer lower po4.... although, even at the levels they are at, the corals are keeping great colors.. but maybe not growing super quickly.. which is fine I suppose, this requires less intervention on my part when corals grow into each other. I have cyano in the system, some dinos I think as well so I do want to control nutrient a bit more..
I really like the idea of adding nutrients as well as a small carbon source to feed bacteria to remove the nutrients.. it's another aspect of the so called high energy reef- high nutrient input and aggressive nutrient export.
With all of my nutrient swings over the last few years, I've come to notice that when it come to nutrients, the actual level is not too important. Corals are most happy when levels are rock steady, generally happy when nutrients are on a slow rise and most unhappy when nutrients are dropping- and the faster they drop, the less happy the corals are... and obviously, if either n or p is completely stripped, super pale corals are the result...
This is not a hard and fast rule.. there are few hard and fast rules.. just my general experience..
I hope this answers all of your questions!
Piper27
I love bengals
Love the robbinhood, and that purple base with green coralites in the video maybe second coral you focus on is awesome, wish I could get one of those. Do you still have the jd acro?
I have recently had a nutrient issue happen and my stuff really darkened up, I dont like it much but I am making things very easy these days and wont worry about it. I haven't changed any water in close to a year it feels like and things were doing so well. This mourning I could tell things were off so I will have to keep an eye on stuff a little more. Normally I let the glass cover so I cant see I side for a few weeks before I clean it to check on stuff... guys like you get such good color with nutrients, and I find it just hard to get a color i am happy with with nutrients in the water. Maybe things will turn around soon though. Good job man, keep it up.
I have recently had a nutrient issue happen and my stuff really darkened up, I dont like it much but I am making things very easy these days and wont worry about it. I haven't changed any water in close to a year it feels like and things were doing so well. This mourning I could tell things were off so I will have to keep an eye on stuff a little more. Normally I let the glass cover so I cant see I side for a few weeks before I clean it to check on stuff... guys like you get such good color with nutrients, and I find it just hard to get a color i am happy with with nutrients in the water. Maybe things will turn around soon though. Good job man, keep it up.
