Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

Does triton sell direct or through a distributor?

Distributor. Unique Corals here in the U.S., Im not sure for Canada or Australia.

 

[w3bbo]

Love this one Matt:

 

[Reefvet]

... and sodium feredetate (whatever that is..)

It's a form of Iron.

 

[ksed]

It's a form of Iron.

Does triton sell direct or through a distributor?

The Canadian distributor for Triton is Reef Wholesale.

 

[biggles]

For some reason I thought it contained Zinc - my bad. Andrew, you can buy Zinc (And Manganese) supplements from Triton - they aren't cheap but they save you the trouble of making the solutions with precision.

Thanks Matt, i will track down zinc only one way or another and add it to the koralcolor dosing. :beer:

The whole dosing plan:
Zinc Supplement 15 drops/day
Manganese Supplement 20 drops/day
3 drops Lugols/day

5 drops each Coral A and Vitality every day
8 drops ProBioS/day
The equivalent of 8 drops per day of NP Pro/day(I use a dosing pump with diluted NP Pro)

800ML Zeolites
600ML Carbon
600Ml Phosphate minus
Layered in a reactor with enough flow to lightly disturb the Phosphate minus, I change out the whole thing every 4 weeks.

Thanks for your dosing schedule mate, i definitely want to try the bacteria and carbon as i've never tried that method.

 

[reefmutt]

It's a form of Iron.

Thanks, vet! Now I know I am adding iron in both my koral color AND micro E... Hm...

The Canadian distributor for Triton is Reef Wholesale.

thanks for that info!

 

[mhucasey]

Have a great week everyone!

 

[FloformAustria]

now that´s how i want my week to start!

thanks for the new pictures! looking great!

nice week to you too!

Cheers

 

[glaukos]

Awesome pics matt!
What's the last one?

 

[mhucasey]

now that´s how i want my week to start!

thanks for the new pictures! looking great!

nice week to you too!

Cheers

Thanks Flo! Things are pretty well on autopilot but I like to post at least once a week with pics

Awesome pics matt!
What's the last one?

Thanks Mike! The last one is a Pearlberry.

 

[mhucasey]

Update:
Things are humming along nicely with additions of Trace elements limited to just Zinc, Manganese, and Iodine. I will add in Flourine as soon as I receive the Sodium Flouride powder I ordered. I made a combined Zinc and Manganese solution targeted at 1 drop per 100L and have been using that since Sunday.

The Denitrator is keeping Nitrates at approximately 5ppm, and I finally modded the Calcium reactor to pull liquid from the lid, which prevents bubbles from forming and getting recirculated, which was becoming a pain. I manually dose only the Flatworm Stop, Trace elements, Coral A(5 drops), Vitality(5 drops), and ProBio S(8drops) on a daily basis. The NP Pro is dosed with a doser, 43mL per day.

I have been lengthening my Photoperiod, and am now at 8 hours all 14 bulbs on, 8" above the water.

All this to say the corals are growing like crazy and doing very well. Im attempting to hold with this set of conditions to see if it continues as it has.

Ok, for the good stuff, a Wiener dog pic!:

And some tank shots from around the reef:

 

[FloformAustria]

love the tank and LOVE the picture of your dog!!

thanks for sharing Matt!

 

[plyle02]

Matt,
Your colors are popping, so many special corals that you don't see often, with crazy glow! That is the one thing I continue to notice about coloration, a sort of glow or sheen if you will. Captured well in your pics, that red coral with blue tones, now that is a gem, and that yellow with purple hues and burgundy polyps, what a stunner. If that is not enough, you just show all of them off in one pic which give total respect to your craft, which is colorful acros! Of course the doggie pic is just the icing on the cake Looking great man!

 

[kevlow]

So many beautiful corals it is hard to focus on just one. It is easier to take it in as one grand masterpiece canvas.

I greatly enjoy following as your dosing regimen evolves. Hobbyists such as yourself are helping advance the science of reef keeping more then the "scientists" actually are. I believe this has become a hobbyists driven field.

I believe that Woody's eyes have a superpower. With one look he could command many treats. He would have assumed complete control of my household.

 

[slavetonet]

Fluorine is good stuff for spa shine.

 

[mhucasey]

love the tank and LOVE the picture of your dog!!

thanks for sharing Matt!

Thank you Flo! We have four very photogenic dogs so I take almost as many pics of them as I do the tank

Matt,
Your colors are popping, so many special corals that you don't see often, with crazy glow! That is the one thing I continue to notice about coloration, a sort of glow or sheen if you will. Captured well in your pics, that red coral with blue tones, now that is a gem, and that yellow with purple hues and burgundy polyps, what a stunner. If that is not enough, you just show all of them off in one pic which give total respect to your craft, which is colorful acros! Of course the doggie pic is just the icing on the cake Looking great man!

Thanks Perry, one important factor in keeping a great collection of corals is getting corals with good genes in the first place. I have become better at finding the corals that will retain their colors than I was early on where I selected a lot of corals with that "bleached glow". Then, as you have said, pushing the coral to put out is most amazing color takes great conditions. Some of that is chemistry and some of that is light. The glow was there strongest when I was hitting the corals with light for 7.5 hours all bulbs on, 8" above the water in this somewhat shallow reef tank. 10" above the water I lost a little glow and noticed a darkening of color that was not what I was looking for when I reduced photoperiod to 7 hours.

I looked at a bunch of the AF super tanks plus a few other tanks with amazing color, and created a little math function based on Light height above the water, total tank height, and hours of photoperiod. I multiplied the inverse of the total height of light times photoperiod and came up with a surprisingly good correlation between many of the tanks. Here is the function:
=PRODUCT(1/(H2+H3), B4)*100
where H2 is distance between water line and light in inches
H3 is tank height in inches
B4 is Hours photoperiod with all lights on
For now Ill call it the SLC - SPS Lighting Coefficient:reading:
The equation is no where near perfect, and I tried using the measurement from water line to the tops of corals rather than tank height, but that required a lot of conjecture. It did lead to some interesting correlations, however. For example, BigE scored a 32 with his shallower tank and 8 hour photoperiod, which comes very close to Severs Aquaforest show tank value of 32.35 with lights 10" above the water, 11 hour photoperiod, and taller tank.
At 8" above the water, on a 16" tall tank, 8 hour photoperiod, my tank scores a 33.

I believe that the more intense the light, the harder you push the corals, so you can go very intense and shorter light periods. You can also under-light and gain some color but lose glow and growth or over-light and lose a lot of color or turn many corals green. Finding the sweet spot is key.

So many beautiful corals it is hard to focus on just one. It is easier to take it in as one grand masterpiece canvas.

I greatly enjoy following as your dosing regimen evolves. Hobbyists such as yourself are helping advance the science of reef keeping more then the "scientists" actually are. I believe this has become a hobbyists driven field.

I believe that Woody's eyes have a superpower. With one look he could command many treats. He would have assumed complete control of my household.

Thanks! I am afflicted with an almost OCD curiosity about how all this works. I hope that someday reef-keeping will have clear information for every hobbyist to ensure that corals are able to be kept without as much mystery.

As for Woody, you got that right. The dogs in this place run the show, and they guilt us constantly into "including" them in what we are having. But Woody isn't the best - Buddy is the master. Imagine facing this poor, starving, pitiful face each night at dinner:

Fluorine is good stuff for spa shine.

I assume you are the victim of autocorrect, Ill look for changes as I add Flourine to the mix. What dose per 100L are you using on your system?

 

[Myka]

I looked at a bunch of the AF super tanks plus a few other tanks with amazing color, and created a little math function based on Light height above the water, total tank height, and hours of photoperiod. I multiplied the inverse of the total height of light times photoperiod and came up with a surprisingly good correlation between many of the tanks. Here is the function:
=PRODUCT(1/(H2+H3), B4)*100
where H2 is distance between water line and light in inches
H3 is tank height in inches
B4 is Hours photoperiod with all lights on
For now Ill call it the SLC - SPS Lighting Coefficient:reading:
The equation is no where near perfect, and I tried using the measurement from water line to the tops of corals rather than tank height, but that required a lot of conjecture. It did lead to some interesting correlations, however. For example, BigE scored a 32 with his shallower tank and 8 hour photoperiod, which comes very close to Severs Aquaforest show tank value of 32.35 with lights 10" above the water, 11 hour photoperiod, and taller tank.
At 8" above the water, on a 16" tall tank, 8 hour photoperiod, my tank scores a 33.

I believe that the more intense the light, the harder you push the corals, so you can go very intense and shorter light periods. You can also under-light and gain some color but lose glow and growth or over-light and lose a lot of color or turn many corals green. Finding the sweet spot is key.

Interesting little equation - I could see some use of it. One glaring piece of missing information is the strength of the lights. I could get a 32 with a 2-bulb T5, and I could get a 32 with a 1000w halide. I wonder if these "AF super tanks" are pushing approximately the same amount of PAR as each other - both at 1" below surface and on the sand?

I'm trying to work it out, but I'm not sure what the "," means between the H3 and B4 as that is not a proper math symbol in this context. Without posting a worked example, I assume you mean this:

SLC = [1/(H2+H3)B4]100

Which for me works like this:

SLC = [1/(5+21)5]100
SLC = [(1/26)5]100
SLC = [(0.03846)5]100
SLC = (0.23076)100

SLC = 19.23

Uh oh, I'm way off! :spin1: Actually this is good because it reminded me I need to turn my lights up again.

If I change my photoperiod to 8.5 hours I get SLC = 32.69

 

[mhucasey]

Interesting little equation - I could see some use of it. One glaring piece of missing information is the strength of the lights. I could get a 32 with a 2-bulb T5, and I could get a 32 with a 1000w halide. I wonder if these "AF super tanks" are pushing approximately the same amount of PAR as each other - both at 1" below surface and on the sand?

I'm trying to work it out, but I'm not sure what the "," means between the H3 and B4 as that is not a proper math symbol in this context. Without posting a worked example, I assume you mean this:

SLC = [1/(H2+H3)B4]100

Which for me works like this:

SLC = [1/(5+21)5]100
SLC = [(1/26)5]100
SLC = [(0.03846)5]100
SLC = (0.23076)100

SLC = 19.23

Uh oh, I'm way off! :spin1: Actually this is good because it reminded me I need to turn my lights up again.

If I change my photoperiod to 8.5 hours I get SLC = 32.69

Sorry, I copied the function out of the Excel table I created You are correct in that the two length measurements are added together as you have indicated:SLC = [1/(H2+H3)B4]100

I also should have stated that this is only for T5 driven tanks - other types of lighting introduce too much variability. The number of bulbs is not as important as you might imagine, more bulbs means more coverage, but do not contribute as much to PAR at a single point. As you move away from any bulb horizontally its individual contribution drops almost to the point of nothing within a foot or two. About 8 bulbs seems to be the break-even point - anything more than that is just for coverage. I've tested this with a par Meter on my own tanks.

Its very interesting what you came up with - that is a fairly low number due to your short photoperiod. If you do increase the photoperiod I would love to see what changes occur!

 

[Myka]

Sorry, I copied the function out of the Excel table I created You are correct in that the two length measurements are added together as you have indicated:SLC = [1/(H2+H3)B4]100

I also should have stated that this is only for T5 driven tanks - other types of lighting introduce too much variability. The number of bulbs is not as important as you might imagine, more bulbs means more coverage, but do not contribute as much to PAR at a single point. As you move away from any bulb horizontally its individual contribution drops almost to the point of nothing within a foot or two. About 8 bulbs seems to be the break-even point - anything more than that is just for coverage. I've tested this with a par Meter on my own tanks.

Its very interesting what you came up with - that is a fairly low number due to your short photoperiod. If you do increase the photoperiod I would love to see what changes occur!

Yes ok that makes more sense then. I didn't realize all those tanks are T5 driven. I agree that the number of bulbs doesn't make a huge difference - unless the spread of the bulbs is insufficient (either because of tank width or because of coral growth). I imagine these tanks have bulbs driven at 100%?

For my tank, I had cut lighting down BIG TIME because my nutrients were so low and my corals were so pale. As my corals started to color up I failed to increase lighting consistently (just a bit here and there) and that may be why I'm at a color plateau right now. In April I cut back CH2 to 4.5 hours at 50%. Corals started coloring up in mid-May, and I increased lighting only to 5 hours at 60%. End of June I increased to 70%. Just now I increased from 5 to 5.5 hours at 70%. I just haven't been remembering.

 

[elviraveloz]

Oh dear that pup look it's AMAZING!!!