Mhucasey's SPS obsession

That is exactly what I did :) I dosed potassium nitrate for the past week 30ml to get it to register and now dosing 1ml daily to maintain around 2.5ppm My system is 120g. I think the net is around 110g.
 
jumplittlechloe said:
That is exactly what I did :) I dosed potassium nitrate for the past week 30ml to get it to register and now dosing 1ml daily to maintain around 2.5ppm My system is 120g. I think the net is around 110g.
Click to expand...

I think you are on the right track. Perhaps add more fish to lessen the amount of nitrate that you need to dose.
 
That sounds like a good reason to go to the fish store! I only have a copperband, clown, and goby currently in the tank. Just a couple observations from adding nitrate. I did notice a die back of brown algae on my rocks and less algae on glass (my guess is a balancing in phosphate levels). Also think I have a bacteria bloom (haze in water) from a change in redfield ratio.
 
jumplittlechloe said:
That sounds like a good reason to go to the fish store! I only have a copperband, clown, and goby currently in the tank. Just a couple observations from adding nitrate. I did notice a die back of brown algae on my rocks and less algae on glass (my guess is a balancing in phosphate levels). Also think I have a bacteria bloom (haze in water) from a change in redfield ratio.
Click to expand...

Sounds about right. You only have 3 fish in 110 gallons?????

My suggestion would to find a schooling fish and start with at least 8.

Chromis, Anthias, cardinals, Springeri damsels, etc.. It doesn't have to be expensive depending on what fish you select. It will add a lot of movement and color and fish poop to your tank:)

More importantly, fish are constantly excreting ammonia, which can be utilized by bacteria or converted to Nitrate.
 
The more the better, but Anthias are expensive so buying a big group like 8 isn't easy. With Anthias a group of 6 females is a good place to be, one will turn male after a short time. If it were me I'd target getting to 13 total fishes a starting point.

In comparison I currently have 31 fish in 195 net gallons of volume. I will be adding 7-10 more fish as soon as the LFS can get their hands on them...
 
Matt,
Speaking of anthias, you should see the beauty we got in the shop the other day, blotched anthias, eating out of the bag :) Of course, the nicest fish are at our LFS, Gem Tangs, Femininus Wrasse, Khoi Scopas, and the list goes on... I had my eye on a pair of Bellus Angels, but I am heading a different direction now.... Thinking of heading in the direction of anthias.... Sunburst, Bimaculatus Anthias, Blotch down the road, and dispbars and lyretails in good numbers...
 
plyle02 said:
Matt,
Speaking of anthias, you should see the beauty we got in the shop the other day, blotched anthias, eating out of the bag :) Of course, the nicest fish are at our LFS, Gem Tangs, Femininus Wrasse, Khoi Scopas, and the list goes on... I had my eye on a pair of Bellus Angels, but I am heading a different direction now.... Thinking of heading in the direction of anthias.... Sunburst, Bimaculatus Anthias, Blotch down the road, and dispbars and lyretails in good numbers...
Click to expand...

Can you imagine a shoal of blotched Anthias?:crazy1:
Is there anything (other than corals) more "coral reef" than a cloud of Anthias? Gorgeous, colorful fish, true jewels of the reef. I'm very jealous of your access to them...
 
The Force will be with you . . . always

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l6hUVhJzAUo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Nice video Matt !!! Corals looks great with excellent polyp extension and all with strong colors !!!

Best
Daniel

Ps: I loved the song too..... very good selection for the video.
 
Matt! Such perfect timing...
It is 7 am in Montreal. I just drove my daughter to a hockey tryout. We left at 6:30 in a blinding snowstorm and I almost crashed on the highway getting here... Totally freaked me out.. I dropped my daughter off at the doors or the arena and I went to park..
I'm sitting in the car letting the adrenalin subside and I checked your thread.....
Corals look really happy!! Great pe. I loved at about 1:35 the little pan and focus on the little red Acro. Colors are looking great!
Also loved the powder blue dancing around what looks like a little Hawkins..
This video and the music were EXACTLY what I needed to calm down!!
Thank you, my brother from another mother!
Please let me know who the band is.. I will look them up.
Questions.. What is your snail population like in the tank and (I'm asking Aquaforest users, in general) are you using full doses of coral E? I know the copper in it is supposed to reduced zoox populations and make the corals slightly more pastel.. I'm seeing some of your corals lighten and some get more rich in colour so I'm wondering how you feel about this product and how much you use..
I'm also wondering about how the copper affects biochromes as opposed to zoox (if it does..) and how by reducing zoox, this will make corrals more pastel, if in fact, it is biochromes which give corals their colour and not zoox..
I'm guessing that both specific zoox and certain biochromes are responsible for coral color..
Anyway, any rant on the subject by you or reefvet would be very much appreciated.. Or Andrew for that matter, since Andrew brought the whole biochrome thing up in the first place!
I'll be hitting Andrew up with a similar question, no doubt..
Anyways, your video was a fine way to meet the day!!
 
Wow, everything is looking really nice. Love your selection of acro's . I am only two weeks in with the AF system and am having nice results so far. My colors are staying rich at this point, not pastel. I am at only about 2/3 recommended dosage, do you know if this will keep colors deeper long term or will they continue to lighten?
 
Scott, do you have a build thread link? I'm not sure why I'm not following it.. I'd like to watch your Aquaforest changeover..
 
reefmutt said:
Scott, do you have a build thread link? I'm not sure why I'm not following it.. I'd like to watch your Aquaforest changeover.."





No sorry, tank is only 3 months old after a complete crash and nothin but nubbin' sized frags in there. I will try and post up something on the color changes and growth as I go.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
biggles said:
Loved the video Matt, everything is looking wonderfully healthy and colorful mate :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

FloformAustria said:
great video matt!!

really like your tank!!

Flo
Click to expand...

nemodan said:
Nice video Matt !!! Corals looks great with excellent polyp extension and all with strong colors !!!

Best
Daniel

Ps: I loved the song too..... very good selection for the video.
Click to expand...


reefmutt said:
Matt! Such perfect timing...
It is 7 am in Montreal. I just drove my daughter to a hockey tryout. We left at 6:30 in a blinding snowstorm and I almost crashed on the highway getting here... Totally freaked me out.. I dropped my daughter off at the doors or the arena and I went to park..
I'm sitting in the car letting the adrenalin subside and I checked your thread.....
Corals look really happy!! Great pe. I loved at about 1:35 the little pan and focus on the little red Acro. Colors are looking great!
Also loved the powder blue dancing around what looks like a little Hawkins..
This video and the music were EXACTLY what I needed to calm down!!
Thank you, my brother from another mother!
Please let me know who the band is.. I will look them up.
Questions.. What is your snail population like in the tank and (I'm asking Aquaforest users, in general) are you using full doses of coral E? I know the copper in it is supposed to reduced zoox populations and make the corals slightly more pastel.. I'm seeing some of your corals lighten and some get more rich in colour so I'm wondering how you feel about this product and how much you use..
I'm also wondering about how the copper affects biochromes as opposed to zoox (if it does..) and how by reducing zoox, this will make corrals more pastel, if in fact, it is biochromes which give corals their colour and not zoox..
I'm guessing that both specific zoox and certain biochromes are responsible for coral color..
Anyway, any rant on the subject by you or reefvet would be very much appreciated.. Or Andrew for that matter, since Andrew brought the whole biochrome thing up in the first place!
I'll be hitting Andrew up with a similar question, no doubt..
Anyways, your video was a fine way to meet the day!!
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone for the compliments, I'm pretty happy how that video turned out, I was trying some new things. As for the song, that is form Alt-J, the song is "Dissolve me" from the album "An Awesome wave". The lead singer and band are very different, but if you put the album on, play it from start to finish, I guarantee you will have never heard anything like it, and you may just start it over and listen to it again and again.

I heard the song "Fitzpleasure" on the alternative radio station and I thought is was a joke at first, like Adam Sandler doing one of his voices. But I had to hear it again. Thats one of my top ten abums ever now.

Matt, Yikes!!!That sounds horrifying, especially having your daughter with you:sad2: Im glad you were ok and able to calm down after that, and that the video helped. For your other questions,
I have the mini Strombus snails from IPSF, I got six to start and have about 200 now. They are small and reproduce easily in the tank and seem to do a good cleanup job. I also have 10 or so Astrea snails in there and a couple of Turbo Snails. I also have a Tuxedo and short spine urchin.

I think you are maybe a bit overly fixated on the Coral E. I dose 6 drops every other day but I don't see any lightening that I can chalk up to it. As for "Biochromes", I was convinced Biggles made that term up during one of his episodes but then ReefVet talked about this. My understanding is that Zooxanthellae are brown. Or golden brown. Or light brown. The color comes from the coral tissues, as a mechanism of repurposing the light hitting them to either reduce or increase its intensity or impact. Deeper water corals bend the smaller amount of light that reaches them to usable wavelengths, for example.

I hope the rest of your day is a heck of a lot better!
 
tripdad said:
Wow, everything is looking really nice. Love your selection of acro's . I am only two weeks in with the AF system and am having nice results so far. My colors are staying rich at this point, not pastel. I am at only about 2/3 recommended dosage, do you know if this will keep colors deeper long term or will they continue to lighten?
Click to expand...

Thanks very much!. Im glad the system is working well for you too:) I think that the "Pastel" look is achieved by letting Nitrate drop to very close to zero along with very low phosphate. I don't think the system itself can achieve this if you keep your nitrate levels at at least 1 or 2 ppm.
 
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