Mark's Tanks

[Bello]

Perhaps, you're right about this. I recently removed all sps from my drop off, when the colors got pooey. At that time, my dosing pump was acting nutty, and alk was fluctuating a bit, so possibly a similar situation as you have going on.

I've never dosed kalk or anything else apart from the standard two part. Perhaps, you could have a look at biggles's technique. I believe its a measured drip throughout the day. That should give better results. Would that work for you?

 

[markalot]

Perhaps, you're right about this. I recently removed all sps from my drop off, when the colors got pooey. At that time, my dosing pump was acting nutty, and alk was fluctuating a bit, so possibly a similar situation as you have going on.

I've never dosed kalk or anything else apart from the standard two part. Perhaps, you could have a look at biggles's technique. I believe its a measured drip throughout the day. That should give better results. Would that work for you?

Not unless I buy some more reliable equipment for dripping. From what I can gather from reading, only Alk fluctuations play havok with some SPS, Calcium is not an issue as long as it's within range. If I can't get my topoff to stabilize it then I will probably have to purchase some dosing pumps for Alk.

I'm trying to avoid any more purchases at the moment. Famous last words.

 

[Bello]

Yep, I've tested for calcium once over the last year, probably should check again though everything looks fine.

I believe biggles just uses a bottle with a valve, so might save you some money there

 

[troubadour11]

Hey there markalot! I like the start of the thread. It was a lot of fun for me to jump into it with the nice photo session of the progression of your systems over the first year and a half! You may have faced some battles, but it looks like you kept your wits about you, didn't break stride, and now have solid start on a couple young/good looking reefs! :bounce1:

I'm in the process of getting my mixed reef up and running right now. Well, I've been in the process for about a year now. You can usually time my progress with a sundial that measures in months. LOL :handslap: I've managed to get it cycled and running currently under some temp lighting since the end of August this year finally.

But once again, really interesting to see the progression of your system right up front. It's really awesome that you were able to find a PAR meter to use! I'm hoping I can find one to map out my lights at different dimmable power levels when I finish building them that is.... I just started a full spectrum LED build for my 90 DT.

Unfortunately I won't be much of a help to you on the chemistry side of things right now. This build is my first venture into reefing after keeping assorted fresh tanks for about a decade while I moved around. But I can say you have some interesting stuff going on and I'll tag a long and chime in when I can. :thumbsup:

This conversation of controlling the Alk levels is of interest to me right now. I'm going to be rigging up my gravity fed ATO here very soon and am hoping to figure out how to control my Alk fluctuations through that eventually.

Right now, I'm just trying to keep everything stable enough to keep my 3 little fraggies, 2 cleaner shrimp, assorted snails/worms/pods/cheato alive... Oh... and our 1st fishy we just QT'd :fish1: ATO/chemistry and lighting are my top priority right now beyond basic life support. LOL

 

[markalot]

Hey there markalot!

Howdy, thanks for stopping by! If you can do gravity fed I think it works quite well. Biggles does it, right?

I'm on day 2 of the Seachem Reef Builder topoff water. Alk has dropped from 9.2 to 8.6 in a day using 1 teaspoon per gallon of RO/DI. My timed topoff also added a bit too much water over the day so I've backed off a bit. I expect KH to be around 8 this evening and most likely I'll need to up my mixture to 1.5 teaspoons per gallon of RO/DI. Even if I have to dose Alk that is much more stable than dosing 2 caps of Alk and swinging KH 1+ points.

Calcium was down around 400. Since my reef salt is around 500 I dosed 2 caps of Calcium to start bringing this up. I'm more comfortable running Ca around 450.

It looks like I will be upgrading to a 90 gallon sometime in January, right around the time my 40 hits the 2 year mark. I'd like to get this tank stable prior to the switch so I have the experience going forward. I will most certainly upgrade my topoff pump to something more reliable than an aqualifter for accurate KH dosing and I'll be able to use my JBJ autotopoff in the sump. It did not work for me in the display, too many waves. I'll also be able to run a much better skimmer. The only real question is weather or not I will keep the 46 running.

I have a few months to come up with some crazy plan to move my rocks but somehow not move the flatworms or aptasia. I saw another Berghia yesterday morning, I added 5 over 2 months ago, but except for a few notable kills the aptasia problem is not going away. Overdosing flatworm exit as a dip has worked very well moving corals from the 40 to my flatworm free 46 so that's probably the route I'll take moving things from the 40 to the 90.

 

[Salty Dog24]

What does the AE stand for in AEFW, i'm assuming FW is Flat Worm

 

[markalot]

What does the AE stand for in AEFW, i'm assuming FW is Flat Worm

Acropora eating flat worms, a very different beast from the regular annoying flatworms, and flatworm exit does nothing to them. I was terrified of them at first but basting the acros each water change seems to stop most of the damage. I assume they get blown off and either get eaten or never find their way back up to the coral.

This is what the damage looks like on my ORA Blue Voodoo. See the circular bite marks? I blew a big one off this coral.

 

[Bello]

Yep, that's them alright....

Mark...just wanted to say, that IMO, it's all about eliminating variables of what can go wrong......as you do that...things get stable....and better

Nice pic and coral BTW, wish I had access to frags like that

 

[Salty Dog24]

Thanks Mark!

 

[markalot]

It's QT time. AEFW back with a vengeance. I rescaped the 40 to give me some height to work with and did some closeup pics of the bad looking corals. It's bad. Setting up my old 20 long this weekend for the 8 week Bayer dip and QT process.

These were the worst effected. My Red Acro and Green slimer appear untouched but will get the treatment as well. Wish me luck.





Here is the FTS of the rescape. I still am working on how to reposition that big rock at the back left.

 

[markalot]

First dip is completed. 6ml Bayer concentrated to 1 cup saltwater. Makes a very milky solution.











I still have to cover / kill some encrusted areas.

 

[sahin]

Best of luck. I feel for you. They killed all my SPS in the past.

 

[markalot]

Best of luck. I feel for you. They killed all my SPS in the past.

Thanks. I think it will go ok, as long as the QT tank doesn't crash. I'm very nervous about keeping SPS in a brand new tank with only a few smaller rocks from my AEFW free tank for adding bacteria. That old 20 gallon had been sitting unused for months. The coraline on the glass is just dead coloring.

 

[troubadour11]

Good luck with the dips and eradicating the infestation!

Hmmm... I don't know much on bayer dips. I'm off to do some :reading: on that now. I haven't moved on to SPS yet. Only a couple ricordea frags and a zoa frag. But I'll need to know this soon. I wasn't expecting to QT frags as I bring them in. I'll probably be following some sort of dip regiment before introduction though. I just need to learn a bit more about the process.

Does it take much to keep them alive in QT? Currently, my QT has some cheap incandescent bulbs. But I'm sure I could run some CFLs in there. Or modify it for that easily enough if I needed to.

But good luck and I'll be checking in to see if you're getting the improvement your looking for!

 

[markalot]

Good luck with the dips and eradicating the infestation!

Hmmm... I don't know much on bayer dips. I'm off to do some :reading: on that now. I haven't moved on to SPS yet. Only a couple ricordea frags and a zoa frag. But I'll need to know this soon. I wasn't expecting to QT frags as I bring them in. I'll probably be following some sort of dip regiment before introduction though. I just need to learn a bit more about the process.

Does it take much to keep them alive in QT? Currently, my QT has some cheap incandescent bulbs. But I'm sure I could run some CFLs in there. Or modify it for that easily enough if I needed to.

But good luck and I'll be checking in to see if you're getting the improvement your looking for!

I'll have to let you know if it takes much to keep them alive. I have no fish so I've sprinkled in some coral food which will start to rot and create a small ammonia source ... I assume. Using a turkey baster to keep things mixed up. Besides water changes I have no nutrient export, so I must be very careful else algae will explode.

 

[markalot]

I received my crock colored epoxy today so I've completed killing / covering all remaining acro encrusted areas in the 40. I also went ahead and rescaped as if the acros were not coming back, just so the tank wouldn't look under construction for a couple of months.

My long lost Rusty Goby has moved back into view!



FTS

 

[Bello]

Good work Mark :thumbsup:....I need to do this also, need to man up a bit!!...Worried about losing colors AND corals..:lol:....And I've got a ton of them! Waiting to see your results.

Nice work on the scape BTW, the scape makes the tank look way bigger than a 40. I like the channel of the right side of the pic :thumbsup:

 

[markalot]

Good work Mark :thumbsup:....I need to do this also, need to man up a bit!!...Worried about losing colors AND corals..:lol:....And I've got a ton of them! Waiting to see your results.

Nice work on the scape BTW, the scape makes the tank look way bigger than a 40. I like the channel of the right side of the pic :thumbsup:

Thanks Bello. I guess you can say I was lucky to not have a lot of acros and have a spare tank sitting around. I'm threatening to keep it running as a coral only tank if all goes well. I'm really not sure what kind of maintenance it will need. An algae explosion will certainly change my mind quickly.

Oh, I got my Marine Magic doser yesterday. Much bigger than I expected. Going to use it to stabilize my topoff + Reef Builder mixture first, then look into if I want to properly dose 2 part with it or not. I bought the triple doser.

 

[troubadour11]

I would have to agree. I like the re-scape. You do good work my friend :thumbsup:

It's crazy. Your picture makes the 40 tank look bigger then my 90!!! Looking good!

Can you give me a quick little run down of a few more "newbie" details on your plans for stabilizing your top off? What's in the "reef builder mixture?" Is that a brand, or something you mix up on your own for your systems? My tank is quite sterile right now, and I'm just starting to look into using my gravity fed ATO to try and stabilize Ca and Alk. But I'm in a :reading: and learning phase on all these tricks until I get my lights running and we start adding more corals. But it never hurts to learn a bit more about the next steps while I'm waiting to get there

Thanks!

 

[markalot]

Thanks for the compliment, though i assure you my scaping is all a happy accident.

I was having to dose 45ml of 2 part every day to keep my KH at 8. This resulted in big swings each time I dosed. My solution was to mix my topoff water with Seachem Reefbuilder, which raises KH. I use glass lids so my evaporation is low, so keep this in mind. I use 3 teaspoons of reefbuilder for 2 gallons of topoff. I use a simple timer and aqualifter system that turns on for 30 minutes, 4 times a day. This doesn't perfectly match my KH usage but allows me to keep it steady by dosing a capful of part 2 (alk) in the morning and 2 caps of part 1 in the evening. The resulting KH swing is much less.

I use Kent reef salt which measures 550 Ca, 1450 Mg and around 9.5 KH and I do weekly 5% or bi-weekly 10% changes, give or take a gallon or so. With my new dosers I should be able to lock in a much more stable topoff regime using my topoff/reefbuilder mix, and I'll probably lock in my calcium dosing as well, so I don't have to manually dose this tank at all.

I think I've finally proven to myself that stability is the key to color. My 46 has always, from day 1, been more colorful with some of the same corals. The difference is the alk usage is much lower and only requires a 10ml of Alk a day.