Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

[plyle02]

OOOOH LA LA those are some very sexy top down photos!!! I am especially drawn to that green deep water, how awesome is that coral.... WOW... Matt, I am wondering about that new thread yet again, really need to step up and realize that there is absolutely NO FAIL in this system, really looking great man

 

[sahin]

OOOOH LA LA those are some very sexy top down photos!!! I am especially drawn to that green deep water, how awesome is that coral.... WOW... Matt, I am wondering about that new thread yet again, really need to step up and realize that there is absolutely NO FAIL in this system, really looking great man

I knew Matt is more than capable. His old system looked amazing; you dont just produce something like that unless you are very skilled in SPS keeping...Maybe a moose struck Matt on the head a while ago :lmao: But it seems like all is in order. :thumbsup:

 

[reefmutt]

Just got all caught up on your journal, So much great info, thanks for taking the time to report in such a detailed way. That is an amazing top down acro crap picture... I have recently acquired one myself and find it fascinating how one day he'll be perched in an acro and the next day in another one 6 feet away! He moves around a tremendous amount!

Maybe in the new year you could give me your thoughts on what might be going on in my tank with the sps. I am having serious colour issues and can't seem to figure out what's happening.

Happy HoHo and Cheers to ya!

If you actually read the whole thing, you deserve a medal of honor!
I love the acro crabs. Mine move around as well. One just moved down near the front glass. I'm going to try to get some shots of it..
I will absolutely check back on your thread.

Great photos as usual buddy. Good luck with the tank in 2016. Happy New Year to you Matt. :beer:

Thanks Sahin! Happy new year to you and your family as well!

Love the new photos and the crab!

Hope you had a good Christmas and will have an acro filled New Year.

thanks Mark! An Acro filled year is a good year! Hope 2016 is good for you as well.

Speaking of acros...
This piece from Raga continues to stay very rich in colour. It is encrusting at the moment but I am psyched to see it start to grow..

This was a cheapie frag from fragbox. Probably turaki or echinata.. Not sure. This one has been branching out a lot with minimal encrusting... Not the norm in my tank..

Here's an Aussi frag from reef solution.. Still very pale but getting amazing hues of green and blue..

Not sure what this is.. Came from a rescue tank a while back. It has struggled for months in my DT while the mother colony in my frag system does exceptionally well. But it's starting to get nicer pe.

 

[reefmutt]

OOOOH LA LA those are some very sexy top down photos!!! I am especially drawn to that green deep water, how awesome is that coral.... WOW... Matt, I am wondering about that new thread yet again, really need to step up and realize that there is absolutely NO FAIL in this system, really looking great man

Hey Perry, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it a lot.
I still consider this tank a work in progress and still a learning experience. I have treated this system SO differently from my last and it is still very much NOT without its problems..
I tell you what.. When it looks like my last tank, I'll think about closing his thread..

I knew Matt is more than capable. His old system looked amazing; you dont just produce something like that unless you are very skilled in SPS keeping...Maybe a moose struck Matt on the head a while ago :lmao: But it seems like all is in order. :thumbsup:

Ha! A lot of dumb luck struck me in the head!
I wish I had tested the water for ANYTHING other than alk in that last tank.... Just once!
Sahin, you have been a very important voice of reason, calm and support during this tank's evolution.. I really appreciate it. Thank you!!

Here's a close up tort, I assume..

Another of many shot of this great coral.. Growing rapidly now..

My Oregon tort is also growing ever so slowly..

 

[watchguy123]

Beautiful colors

 

[reefmutt]

Thanks, Mark!

Ok. Here's a not so great Iphone video..
As I mentioned, another crab moved down closer to the front. If you are able to get over the major bubble algea growing around the rock, you'll see an Acro crab moving around in the bluish Acro right at the beginning...
Hope you like it.
Eventually, I'll get the energy to take a vid with my real camera, and then download it to my computer and then upload it to utube..
So much easier going straight from the phone to the net.
This one is in HD.. For some reason, the first time I tried to uploade it, it wouldn't allow HD..

https://youtu.be/8zsgndPyyMw

 

[fessoclown]

Great shots!!!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Great shots indeed. I think another FTS is due.

Happy new year.

 

[biggles]

Stunning macros Matt, colors are starting to hum

Videos are always the best way to truly show the scape regardless of colors being accurately displayed. Awesome work giving the reef lots of front to back depth of field mate, love the whole thing

Acro crabs are super cool, mine are always booting one another out of their acros and swapping homes lol.

 

[nemodan]

Nice video Matt !!! And the tank looks amazing.

Questions:

the blue and yellow fish is an Angel ? . I have never seen one of those. Incredible beautiful! !!. If it is an Angel fish, no issues with corals ?

The blueish color of the movie, Is that your daylight light ? , What T5 combo you have ?


Thanks and Cheers !!!!
Daniel

 

[plyle02]

Matt,
True story, as I was scrolling through these recent coral close ups last night, my girlfriend walks by and looks at the computer monitor, and says "babe, why don't your corals glow like that"... Ummmm....., Ahhhhh...., Matt damn you, I could not respond, instead I had a few beers and washed away my tears, lol... Your corals and camera skills are spot on!!!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Great shots indeed. I think another FTS is due.

Happy new year.

Hi Matt,

Strike that. I did not see the link to your YouTube video in your previous post. I absolutely enjoyed watching it.

Thank you for sharing it.

 

[scrapz]

nice update, corals are looking nice and colorful. If that aussie blue frag is like have, its going to be a stunner. Should start showing a nice blue to baby purple transition once it starts encrusting

 

[reefmutt]

Great shots!!!

Great shots indeed. I think another FTS is due.

Happy new year.

Thanks, guys! Happy new year to you as well, Bulent.
And happy new year to everybody else! May the new year be Acro filled!

Stunning macros Matt, colors are starting to hum

Videos are always the best way to truly show the scape regardless of colors being accurately displayed. Awesome work giving the reef lots of front to back depth of field mate, love the whole thing

Acro crabs are super cool, mine are always booting one another out of their acros and swapping homes lol.

Thanks, Andrew. Yes a video definitely gives a sense of depth that is often missing from photos. Glad you liked it.. Got some improvement to do on the video front...
The Acro crabs sometimes hang out in pairs but sometimes, they just disappear and reappear in another colony..

 

[reefmutt]

Nice video Matt !!! And the tank looks amazing.

Questions:

the blue and yellow fish is an Angel ? . I have never seen one of those. Incredible beautiful! !!. If it is an Angel fish, no issues with corals ?

The blueish color of the movie, Is that your daylight light ? , What T5 combo you have ?


Thanks and Cheers !!!!
Daniel

Daniel, hanks! The blue and white fish is a female Bellus angel. Completely reef safe. I'm on the hunt for a few more. I want to have 3 or for females and watch one of them turn into a male. It is very interesting to watch. They are from the genicanthus family of angels. They are dwarf angels and don't feed in corals.

His video was shot with all my light on. Radium MH 2x blue plus, 1 actinic, 1 coral plus. And some LEDs that are also programmed with significant blue.
AND, the iPhone is notorious for picking up blue, anyways..

Matt,
True story, as I was scrolling through these recent coral close ups last night, my girlfriend walks by and looks at the computer monitor, and says "babe, why don't your corals glow like that"... Ummmm....., Ahhhhh...., Matt damn you, I could not respond, instead I had a few beers and washed away my tears, lol... Your corals and camera skills are spot on!!!

Lol, Perry! Thanks for that story! Part of the glow definitely comes from a little tweaking in post production but the corals are definitely very happy right now...

Hi Matt,

Strike that. I did not see the link to your YouTube video in your previous post. I absolutely enjoyed watching it.

Thank you for sharing it.

Bulent, I'm glad you liked it.. It's a start.. They should improve over time.. I'll have to do one with the real camera. The white balance is so much better..

nice update, corals are looking nice and colorful. If that aussie blue frag is like have, its going to be a stunner. Should start showing a nice blue to baby purple transition once it starts encrusting

Thanks! I hope your right about the Aussie.. It's got a lot of colouring up to do..

 

[glaukos]

Hey Perry, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it a lot.
I still consider this tank a work in progress and still a learning experience. I have treated this system SO differently from my last and it is still very much NOT without its problems..
I tell you what.. When it looks like my last tank, I'll think about closing his thread..



Ha! A lot of dumb luck struck me in the head!
I wish I had tested the water for ANYTHING other than alk in that last tank.... Just once!
Sahin, you have been a very important voice of reason, calm and support during this tank's evolution.. I really appreciate it. Thank you!!

Here's a close up tort, I assume..

Another of many shot of this great coral.. Growing rapidly now..

My Oregon tort is also growing ever so slowly..

First pic...i bit my tongue matt:uhoh3:
What's wrong with you man,have you no sympathy for other people...????
That post includes awesooooome colors:inlove:
Welldone and great vid too:thumbsup:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

May the new year be Acro filled!

 

[reefmutt]

Mike, thank you very much! I try!!
And because you asked.. I have a couple more shots and a bit of a conundrum, I'd like some opinions on..
First.. More pics..
A macro of a pacman:

Two torts about to meet:

The growth end of a turaki, I think..

This guy was getting these red tips back in August but with the nutrient drop I had when I was away, it greened out completely. In the past few weeks, it has started to colour up again..


Now, this bit of colouring up and the great colours in general in my tank are very interesting to me.. And here's why..
Tested n and p last night.
N: 4 ppm.. I've been dosing n to get it up a bit and to help lower p... Well..
P: .17..... Yep..
Alk stable at 7.5.

Exactly 3 months ago, I decided to remove my biopellets because I thought by adding a dsb and a good sized cheato fuge, the system could handle the nutrient without pellets..
If you remember.. (Don't worry, I do!) pretty much immediately after removing them, cyano began it rear its ugly head, not to mention the bubble algea and the bryopsis.
As I transitioned off of the pellets, nutrients stayed pretty low..
After about a month, the cyano was epic so I treated..
This gave me a serious nutrient bump.. Nutrients subsided a bit and I thought things were ok but then the cyano began a strong comeback.. I treated again about 2-3 weeks ago and when the dust has settled, n was below 1 ppm and p was around .16-.18.
I began dosing potassium nitrate to bring it up and after the last couple weeks, I have succeeded in raising n.... BUT.. P has stayed stable at .16 ish

So, a few things: throughout this past 3 months nutrients have been up, they have been down, they have been all around!!
Corals continue to grow faster and show better colours...
Weird?? I think so... The one constant throughout all this is pretty decent amounts of food going into the tank.. About 8 frozen cubes of food and my Reef Roids/Reef Pearls/Reef Vitality mix- a pinch a day at light out..
The other factor is hat I have a frag tank that was infested with algea, brown leafy algea and turf algea.. After adding a sea hare in there about 3 weeks ago, the tank is spotless.
My cheato fuge grows but the cheato does not produce that fresh light green new growth that cheato does when it's super happy..
EVERY frickin algea is haaaaapy in this system but my cheato!
Since the second cyano treatment, cyano has NOT grown back... With p or .16, the cyano decides to stop... N additions? It that what is holding it back??
Is it a more favorable Redfield's ratio, after all of my denying that??
Pery tel me I should change the name of this thread... Well this tank continues to baffle, frustrate and amaze me...

Now my question... The answer would be simple if I didn't have cyano, bryopsis and bubble algea breathing down my neck..
What do I do to control nutrients in an attempt to reduce the algea issues??
In my mind, I have two options.. Either I reintroduce a Carbon source- either pellets or vinegar..
Or
Maybe try dosing iron?? Maybe jump start the cheato in the fuge and/or jump start some iron limited bacteria??

I'm not sure which way to go.. Add a known nutrient reducer (Carbon source) or add essentially a fertilizer (iron)

I am reflexively leaning towards the Carbon source but my second guessing, counterintuitive side is telling me that maybe I should try the iron..

Thoughts??

 

[markalot]

Hey Matt,

I have no answers but love to read the questions. :lolspin:

My PO4 hit .16 and I've had a few epic brown outs as a result, HOWEVER my N hit 10 or 12 as well. While I know we want P lower this gives me some confidence that I should look to getting N down first.

My nutrients rose without a big cyano outbreak, why? Is it because N rose at the same time P did?

Your corals look super healthy and that's what matters IMO.

Your pinch a day, just in front of a powerhead? I've been doing a lot very 3 days but haven't tried a pinch a day yet.

Oh, and a Foxface is the only thing that reduced bubble algae for me, wherever he can't reach I see bubbles. I would not worry about bubble algae for the time being, the acros look fantastic.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

The detail on the macro shots is insane.

I would fluidise very small amount of GFO to bring down PO4 and observe how the reduced levels will impact on velonia, cyanobacteria and byropsis. Assuming that you meant PO4 by "P" as opposed to phosphorus, I would bring PO4 down very slowly from 0.16-0.18 mg/l down to 0.092 mg/l (PO4) or (0.03 mg/l Phosphorus) initially. I think this may be the least risky option because you can measure PO4 levels and do not change any bacterial balance in the tank, and the impact of reduced phosphates should hopefully be visible quickly. I get worried that when you dose iron or organic carbon, you may get STN at some point unless you do it very slowly.