Mark's 150 gallon

[markalot]

The most amazing thing about that 18 day progression gif is the little pink coral at the base of the green stag.. crazy growth!!
Mark, I've been dosing kalk for several weeks from a static mixture that I make every other day, however, I just found a kalk mixer in my collection of reef detritus in the closet. I'm going to set it up. Should allow me to go longer than two bloody days..
Anyways, how are you dosing kalk, right now?

Hi Matt,

I have a tall rubbermaid garbage can that can hold 15 gallons of topoff. I mix Kalk in to this, full saturation at the moment, and dose it with my timed topoff ... 55 seconds every 15 minutes. Because I use lids evaporation is relatively low compared to most tanks, but I will occasionally have to run a fan overnight to increase evap, or topoff manually if it gets a little low. I tend to have to make a small correction every other week.

This is the can, https://www.uline.com/Product/Detai...gclid=COjGmO3dxtACFdRMDQodymsKrQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

Apparently it comes with accessories? It gets some bow to it but someone else here has been using one for years without a failure.

Woah, I can put wheels on it. Not that I need wheels on it.
https://www.uline.com/BL_8792/Slim-Jim-Accessories

 

[reefmutt]

Need??!? We ALL need an accessorized Slim Jim, Mark!
How long does that 15 gallons last? Do you think it degrades at all over time?

 

[markalot]

Need??!? We ALL need an accessorized Slim Jim, Mark!
How long does that 15 gallons last? Do you think it degrades at all over time?

I only evaporate a little over 1 gallon a day and the longest I've gone is 10 days with 15 gallons of water. I don't think it degrades at all with Kalk in it but I might worry if it was just RODI.

 

[kevlow]

The most amazing thing about that 18 day progression gif is the little pink coral at the base of the green stag.. crazy growth!!

Matt is right. That is an awesome looking pink coral. In the midst of the throbbing and contracting photo it appears to be blossoming.

Any update on Cousin It?

 

[markalot]

Matt is right. That is an awesome looking pink coral. In the midst of the throbbing and contracting photo it appears to be blossoming.

Any update on Cousin It?

Not sure about Cousin It. Polyp extension is not as good and color has faded in some areas. I lowered PO4 and it's way up under 400+ PAR so perhaps a little bleached. I installed two Tunze 6095 wide flow pumps today which really increases the flow up to so perhaps this will help.

At the same time the lower PO4 help Pinky in a huge way. I was gobsmacked when I saw these.

For comparison, in the middle is a frag of the same coral under lower light.

And again, at the same time, the Red Robin lost a little color. The tips were blood red, now brownish. You can't keep em all happy!

Rounding out the reds / purples

Here is the one in front of the slimer. It occasionally looks like Red Planet, and it could be since I found this piece in the sandbed, but it has a hard time holding any red.

 

[markalot]

The blue stag is a tease. Ever so slowly, tiny dot by tiny dot, it's regaining blue.

The tiny blue'ish frag I have hopes for.

Palmers Blue milli, still not blue and appears to have suffered a little recession at some point.

Kentucky Bluegrass

Still refusing to color up.

Lokani

FTS

 

[cFloor]

Wow Mark! The tank is looking incredible. Pinky is looking beautiful. Well done bud!

 

[joshky]

Grinning with jealousy, your tank is looking so good and your growth seems amazing. Keep it up man!

 

[reefmutt]

Mark, you have no idea how much I want a Pinky, lokani threesome.
Really nice shots!
The fts is really looking good again.

 

[deaclauderdale]

Things are looking good Mark, I like how 'Cousin It' has exploded with growth.

Reef keeping is life!

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Dang mark loving it

 

[Pife]

Your tank is looking great!

 

[Wrangy]

:blown: :blown:

Just blown away Mark, the reef looks absolutely spectacular

 

[Big E]

Corals look colorful and healthy.......great work Mark :thumbsup:

You've got some real beauties in there.

 

[markalot]

Wow Mark! The tank is looking incredible. Pinky is looking beautiful. Well done bud!

Grinning with jealousy, your tank is looking so good and your growth seems amazing. Keep it up man!

Mark, you have no idea how much I want a Pinky, lokani threesome.
Really nice shots!
The fts is really looking good again.

Things are looking good Mark, I like how 'Cousin It' has exploded with growth.

Reef keeping is life!

Dang mark loving it

Your tank is looking great!

:blown: :blown:

Just blown away Mark, the reef looks absolutely spectacular

Corals look colorful and healthy.......great work Mark :thumbsup:

You've got some real beauties in there.

Wow, I missed some replies. Thank you all for the kind words!

I forgot I had a bottle of AcroPower (cyano in a bottle ) so I started dosing small amounts daily and colors have ticked up a notch. The brown maricultured piece is a richer ... brown. :spin2:

Bottles!

I could only convince the wife she needed 4 of them, I hav eno idea what I'm going to do with 8. First up is AcroPower, so I can dose drops daily.

Finally tested PO4 ... 17 or .05 so the 4 drops a day of PhosphateRx did manage to either keep it steady or drop it by .01 (well within the error range of the meter).

KH down to 6.4ish, manually dosed to bring it up just a tad. AcroPower might have increased usage, or just a measurement error.

 

[markalot]

Playing around with the camera and some macros plus pics taken with an older 50mm f1.8 Nikon lens. Quality optics and I forget what a difference it makes from using the kit lens.

Macros

50mm lens (70mm equivalent on this camera body). Some of these are darker than normal as I experiment with making sure no area is over exposed.

The Red Robin is very rusty at the moment but this pic shows the crazy grey/green base.

Stag side. The brightest spot is the tips of the Miami Orchid. Close but the camera cannot quite capture the intense purple/pink of the tips. What this does capture is the cool blue/green of my little recovering frag to the right of it!

 

[markalot]

And now some fish pics, just because. Took over 50, just a few decent enough to post. Imagine if we still had to buy film!

Jackass

I swear this guy poses.

Mama clown

 

[Usernam Invalid]

Love the pics

 

[reefmutt]

Love the pics

What he said!
Nice!
Love the macros.

 

[FloformAustria]

great pictures Mark!!!

thanks for sharing