Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

Are you saying that you think Boron keeps the chaeto from going brittle ?

I can't keep chaeto alive no matter what I do lol , I have a strong led grow light , enough nutrients , and have experimented with slightly raising Potassium, dosing iron etc etc. As soon as I add a new ball of fresh chaeto from a friend , the growth explodes for the first week. Then the growth of the chaeto considerably slows down after the first week and gets very dense , and then starts to deteriorate.

I saw some posts that talked about the importance of Boron for macroalgae, so I looked up the Chemistry in the Reef tank article about Boron. It confirmed that macroalgae is a big Boron Sink. Since it is pretty much free to make a solution up(just use Borax), I gave it a shot. My first attempts with Chaeto went much like yours(disintegration), but after dosing Boron regularly, with an occasional small amount of Iron, the Chaeto took off and is consistently thick and wiry.

 

[wheelman76]

I saw some posts that talked about the importance of Boron for macroalgae, so I looked up the Chemistry in the Reef tank article about Boron. It confirmed that macroalgae is a big Boron Sink. Since it is pretty much free to make a solution up(just use Borax), I gave it a shot. My first attempts with Chaeto went much like yours(disintegration), but after dosing Boron regularly, with an occasional small amount of Iron, the Chaeto took off and is consistently thick and wiry.

Great , I will give that a shot. Could I please get the recipe from you for making the Boron ?

How often , and how much are you dosing ?

 

[mhucasey]

Yesterday morning I received a liter of Phosphate minus, so I rinsed 500MLs with RO and Added it to the media reactor that has GAC in it. My previous Phosphate test was really high- 0.44ppm, so I figured the 500ML would bring it down some, and I'd need the full liter before long.

Last night I tested the water after half a day of flow through the reactor - and got 0.25ppm. I just tested tonight and its down to 0.05ppm!!!
I have never had such a quick response to GFO before. The corals look happy, in fact a touch more P.E. tonight than in recent weeks. Hopefully growth picks up again:thumbsup:

 

[reefmutt]

Hey Matt, glad to see the tank looking so good!
And nice to see you posting!
I never got around to dosing boron but I'd be interested in doing so more for how it may effect reds than for my cheato which seems to be extremely happy with all the other stuff I'm dosing..
Do you test for boron? I can't get a boron test kit..

 

[gregkn73]

Hello Matt, beautiful fts. When you write coral growth slowed by elevated po4, Did you actually measure lower kh consumption or just watching corals and utilise your experience? Also for aefw if I remember correct , you have introduced Springer damselfish. They didn't do anything with aefw?

Sent from my Tab2A7-10F using Tapatalk

 

[mhucasey]

Hey Matt, glad to see the tank looking so good!
And nice to see you posting!
I never got around to dosing boron but I'd be interested in doing so more for how it may effect reds than for my cheato which seems to be extremely happy with all the other stuff I'm dosing..
Do you test for boron? I can't get a boron test kit..

I don't test, but I am considering getting the Salifert test

 

[mhucasey]

Hello Matt, beautiful fts. When you write coral growth slowed by elevated po4, Did you actually measure lower kh consumption or just watching corals and utilise your experience? Also for aefw if I remember correct , you have introduced Springer damselfish. They didn't do anything with aefw?

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Thanks!
Growth tips stopped on acros, while birdsnests sharp growth tips became thick and growth visibly stopped. A bit of a reduction in KH was also seen, though it's harder to tell when using a calcium reactor. I had to slow down the output as KH was rising out of my comfort zone.

 

[reefmutt]

Yeah.. last time I looked for the salifert boron test kit, I couldn't get one.. discontinued or not available or sold out.. nobody..
I think I'll try again.

 

[mhucasey]

Yeah.. last time I looked for the salifert boron test kit, I couldn't get one.. discontinued or not available or sold out.. nobody..
I think I'll try again.

At one LFS I remember seeing it - they always seem to have the lesser used test kits but not Ca or Alk - go figure.

 

[mhucasey]

Hello Matt, beautiful fts. When you write coral growth slowed by elevated po4, Did you actually measure lower kh consumption or just watching corals and utilise your experience? Also for aefw if I remember correct , you have introduced Springer damselfish. They didn't do anything with aefw?

Sent from my Tab2A7-10F using Tapatalk

The Springer Damsels are quite pretty and attack my hands when i stay too long in the tank. Other than that, I don't think they do much, unfortunately. I do think yellow Coris wrasses would help, but the last two small ones I got were eaten the same day I put them in:headwallblue:

 

[mhucasey]

So here is my current thinking, going back to April, I needed a way to reduce costs and complexity in the reef, and I had been reading about some of the Coral propagating superstars and how they ran their systems. The common thread seemed to be SIMPLE works. STABLE works.

Jason Fox's system, for example, uses all kinds of lighting with similar results from tank to tank. All tanks are plumbed to a central system and the article's writer reported not seeing one unhealthy coral in any of the tanks. His secret? Lots of flow, not too much light, live rock, lots of GFO and regular water changes. I believe he uses IO for his salt. No carbon dosing, no supplements, etc.

I also saw several threads where freshly made saltwater was sent for ICP Analysis - and one thing I noted was that the few elements that I have dosed, such as Zinc, Manganese, Iodine, and Iron were all over the map as far as concentration, with some having way higher values while others were close to NSW. What that told me was that for some salt mixes, water changes are also a form of trace element dosing. Take a look at the values for some of these from a Polish study:

Notice that the high values for Zinc, Manganese, Iron, and Iodine? No wonder my water changes with AF salt in the past were not as effective as they could have been without supplementation. I've seen correlation of these values elsewhere BTW.

With some mixes, combining water changes with Trace element dosing could be disastrous, while with others, they may work synergistically.

As I had no money or desire for buying lots of salt mix, I continued my regular dosing of DIY Zinc, Manganese, and Iron, and added Strontium to the mix. This is a replacement of water changing for me. My calcium reactor with reborn handles many other of the macro and micro-elements. Other than when the ALK dropped to 4.5, overall coral health has been very good and consistent.

Its easy as an overall method, the skimmer is cleaned about every three weeks, I pull out some Chaeto every other week, and I vaccuum up detritus when I feel like it. We will see how stability and simplicity pays off in growth an color, I feel like the tank is about to take off.

 

[Wazzel]

Glad to here the reef is still kicking.

 

[AkoAung]

So here is my current thinking, going back to April, I needed a way to reduce costs and complexity in the reef, and I had been reading about some of the Coral propagating superstars and how they ran their systems. The common thread seemed to be SIMPLE works. STABLE works.

Jason Fox's system, for example, uses all kinds of lighting with similar results from tank to tank. All tanks are plumbed to a central system and the article's writer reported not seeing one unhealthy coral in any of the tanks. His secret? Lots of flow, not too much light, live rock, lots of GFO and regular water changes. I believe he uses IO for his salt. No carbon dosing, no supplements, etc.

I also saw several threads where freshly made saltwater was sent for ICP Analysis - and one thing I noted was that the few elements that I have dosed, such as Zinc, Manganese, Iodine, and Iron were all over the map as far as concentration, with some having way higher values while others were close to NSW. What that told me was that for some salt mixes, water changes are also a form of trace element dosing. Take a look at the values for some of these from a Polish study:

Notice that the high values for Zinc, Manganese, Iron, and Iodine? No wonder my water changes with AF salt in the past were not as effective as they could have been without supplementation. I've seen correlation of these values elsewhere BTW.

With some mixes, combining water changes with Trace element dosing could be disastrous, while with others, they may work synergistically.

As I had no money or desire for buying lots of salt mix, I continued my regular dosing of DIY Zinc, Manganese, and Iron, and added Strontium to the mix. This is a replacement of water changing for me. My calcium reactor with reborn handles many other of the macro and micro-elements. Other than when the ALK dropped to 4.5, overall coral health has been very good and consistent.

Its easy as an overall method, the skimmer is cleaned about every three weeks, I pull out some Chaeto every other week, and I vaccuum up detritus when I feel like it. We will see how stability and simplicity pays off in growth an color, I feel like the tank is about to take off.

Extremely informative and enlightening. Thanks for this!

 

[markalot]

Hi Matt,

nice to see an update, glad to hear everything is going well except for the PO4 issues. Interesting observation on the birdsnests. my birds have slowed down of late but the acros picked up speed. :lmao: I can't be bothered to test PO4, just doing my one drop of PhosphateRx daily ... I should test I suppose.

 

[reefmutt]

So here is my current thinking, going back to April, I needed a way to reduce costs and complexity in the reef, and I had been reading about some of the Coral propagating superstars and how they ran their systems. The common thread seemed to be SIMPLE works. STABLE works.

Jason Fox's system, for example, uses all kinds of lighting with similar results from tank to tank. All tanks are plumbed to a central system and the article's writer reported not seeing one unhealthy coral in any of the tanks. His secret? Lots of flow, not too much light, live rock, lots of GFO and regular water changes. I believe he uses IO for his salt. No carbon dosing, no supplements, etc.

I also saw several threads where freshly made saltwater was sent for ICP Analysis - and one thing I noted was that the few elements that I have dosed, such as Zinc, Manganese, Iodine, and Iron were all over the map as far as concentration, with some having way higher values while others were close to NSW. What that told me was that for some salt mixes, water changes are also a form of trace element dosing. Take a look at the values for some of these from a Polish study:

Notice that the high values for Zinc, Manganese, Iron, and Iodine? No wonder my water changes with AF salt in the past were not as effective as they could have been without supplementation. I've seen correlation of these values elsewhere BTW.

With some mixes, combining water changes with Trace element dosing could be disastrous, while with others, they may work synergistically.

As I had no money or desire for buying lots of salt mix, I continued my regular dosing of DIY Zinc, Manganese, and Iron, and added Strontium to the mix. This is a replacement of water changing for me. My calcium reactor with reborn handles many other of the macro and micro-elements. Other than when the ALK dropped to 4.5, overall coral health has been very good and consistent.

Its easy as an overall method, the skimmer is cleaned about every three weeks, I pull out some Chaeto every other week, and I vaccuum up detritus when I feel like it. We will see how stability and simplicity pays off in growth an color, I feel like the tank is about to take off.

This is very interesting Matt. Will make me go back and evaluate my change to h2ocean salt from IO.. and AF before that..
But I would think that frequency and size of one's wc would play a large role in whether it is helping or hindering a certain tank..

 

[mhucasey]

Happy New Year everyone!
I have achieved almost zero maintenance reefing, after a few PITA events in the tank. That's part of the reason for not being around here for a while. I haven't had a lot of spare cash so buying corals was off the table for that reason and because the damn flatworms came back!!!! I went years without them despite not dipping anything, and I'm now convinced that my array of wrassess kept them away/contained by eating their eggs. I haven't had money to buy more fish, and that last two wrasses I bought(Yellow Coris) were eaten the first day, so no wrasses in the SPS tank.

I pulled out every Acro, chipped off any encrusting acro growth, and made a bunch of room by pushing all the rockwork to one side of the tank. I then glued all acros to plugs or stones and began dipping them every 5 days, four dips total. I used Potassium chloride dips, bringing the concentration up to 2000-2500 ppm while dipping. EVERYTHING falls off the corals and plugs very quickly when dipping like this. I scraped eggs, looked closely at everything, and threw out any coral that just wasn't going to make it.

The first dip of a few corals yielded so damn many flatworms I was surprised the affected corals were still alive. By dip # 3 no flatworms were seen. I did dip #4 and also saw no more worms, so I left the corals on their plugs on the bottom and observed for a few weeks. A couple of trouble corals were test dipped after a few weeks and no more worms were seen, so I began re-constructing the reef.

By this time I had a full-on Aiptasia infestation(Its always something in this hobby) so I bought a file-fish that didn't seem very interested in Aiptasia. I then noticed that the Flubber tank had zero Aiptasia, which I figured out was due to Furiosa, the Imperator Angelfish. I ended up moving Furiosa to the SPS reef, shuffled some corals around between tanks, and completed re-construction. Almost every bit of Aiptasia is now gone!

This whole time, I have only done the following Tank maintenance: cleaned glass, cleaned pumps once in six months, and siphoned up detritus. I pulled out Chaeto from the Fuge and Chaeto reactor every few weeks, and cleaned the skimmer once every three months. Other than feeding fish, that's literally it.

I'm not dosing anything, I'm not testing anything, I haven't changed the lights in a year, and I haven't changed the water in a year either. What I do have is stability. The Acros are growing and some nice color is returning. I'm just letting it ride and seeing what happens....

 

[Ucantwin]

Glad to see an update. Any pics to go along with the update?

 

[mhucasey]

I took a pic today, it's not very good:

Some people say our dogs are spoiled. Here is one, wearing a sweater, under a blanket, laying on a blanket knitted for him by my wife. He's sleepy because he just had a big bowl of pork stew that I make for all the dogs rather than buying canned food. I don't see it...

 

[Reefpuck]

Sounds like a PITA...but glad to hear that you're making progress on getting everything back up and setup. Tank looking good.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I'm not dosing anything, I'm not testing anything, I haven't changed the lights in a year, and I haven't changed the water in a year either. What I do have is stability. The Acros are growing and some nice color is returning. I'm just letting it ride and seeing what happens....

This sounds good to me.

Happy new year Matt.