Mike's 200g

biggles said:
That pic of your little boy and his friend is awesome Mike :)



I had a similar experience recently however i placed a 100 micron felt bag in the sump and cleaned the glass just before lights off one night. That was the only place algae was growing except for a small amount on the front of the pump guards but if i cleaned it first thing in the morning i could see a visible sheen by the end of one light cycle so i knew something was feeding it despite the low or zero readings i was getting just like you Mike. 3 hours later i removed the algae straining felt sock and left the tank alone. First thing the next morning before algae had a chance to soak up too much phos i used the Elos high res phos kit and got a reading of about 0.060 rather than the 0.010 - 0.020 that normally registers. Nitrates using Salifert registered zero regardless of when tested.
I started dosing nitrate and vinegar two weeks ago and the colors and growth on ALL my acros, especially the ones that have been slightly sulky for a long time has been quite surprising. I dosed nitrate for 8 days and tested at 10. At day 7 i began dosing vinegar and at day 15 i'm seeing almost twice the production of skimmate daily than before carbon dosing and nitrates test at 5 now. Phos reads almost zero as usual but the glass is almost to the point of not needing a clean by the end of the day if you know what i mean. Still want both phos and nitrates lower but it seems that keeping both is important if you want EVERYTHING to color up nicely.

Sorry for the long post Mike but i really think you might be seeing the results of a nitrate starved system with highish phos levels just as i had. I saw improved colors just with the nitrate dosing even before starting the vinegar which surprised the hell out of me. :wildone:
Click to expand...

No worries about the long post, I like long posts with lots of good information. I might try what you said and see if I get a reading. Sahin also mentioned (in my other thread) about 36 hours no light then testing. I guess it's a similar idea.
What did you use to dose nitrate? I do have a bio pellet reactor and all in one biopellets on my shelf right now that I could fire up... But I guess if I actually do have 0 nitrate this is useless. Except the gfo part possibly bringing any po4 out. Maybe after I get nitrate up a bit I would start them (similar to your vodka)
 
I really want to be able to take late evening/ night pictures, but have a hard time getting it to show. For me this is the best time in tank. Colors pop most and fluoresce under the blues.
The efflo is one of my best pieces at this time. The green base glows and the purple rim is really fluorescent. During the day this piece doesn't show as nice coloration.
Any tips for the darker light pictures would be appreciated.

 
As it's the weekend I tried out biggles idea of wiping all the glass just before dark on Friday night, ran filter sock for couple hours them cleaned it out. I replaced the sock after I cleaned it just because I always run a filter sock anyway. Then I went down early this morning before lights on to test no3 and po4. The results are...... 0 and 0.00. Hmmm no change. I have also had my overflow "coast to coast trough" blacked out from light for 5 days now, to try and get rid of the algae growing in that, so I expected to see a ride in nutrients from that... But nope. Can't actually see if algae in them has died or not now though.
In dad news I think I may have lost 2 of my 5 tuka anthias. They were eating, but I know this fish is stupid hard.
 
A few things happened in tank. First I decided not to worry too much right now about the haze on the glass.
Second I am down to 2 tuka anthias from 5 (not a huge suprise there even though they were all eating).
The person whose corals I was looking after took them back, so 13 corals were removed. I bumped my dosing down a little. Not enough because 3 days later I went from 7.06 dkh to 7.7. No huge deal I just lowered the dose a little more.... Except I must have knocked the tube loose.. Now in 2 days without dosing dkh dropped to 6.6. Not ideal. So far nothing is showing any effects. Its amazing how much these corals take up each day.
I have also started dosing 3 drops (very low dose for my volume) of kz sponge power each night per biggles re omendation. And its always fun to add stuff! Only 3 days in so we shall see.
Finally I added a frag of ora Hawkins echinata. This is my second attempt at this coral. Last time was in my old tank and it rtn'd within 2 hours hitting my water! No idea why. This one is doing much better so far.
Thanks for reading.
 
Glad to hear everything is doing well in spite of the small stability issues. I used to run KH around 9 and it seemed like any swing would kill something, but down around 7.5 or 8 appears to be much easier and more tolerant of swings.

Sorry you had to lose those corals, but now you have buying opportunities! :fun2:
 
markalot said:
Glad to hear everything is doing well in spite of the small stability issues. I used to run KH around 9 and it seemed like any swing would kill something, but down around 7.5 or 8 appears to be much easier and more tolerant of swings.

Sorry you had to lose those corals, but now you have buying opportunities! :fun2:
Click to expand...

We shall see if everything stays ok. Yep always fun to buy new stuff...not so fun on the wallet though.
 
The fun of buying corals always seems to outweigh the not so happy wallet...
Just realized how much I sound like my wife when she's buying shoes......
 
Couple more pics for everyone. Some showing the good and also showing the "pale" problem I have on a couple.
First my pink lemonade seems to be recovering really nicely now.



And cropped in for a close up



Next a better shot of the baby pink milli with green polyps



This is one that makes me think I may have too low nutrients? Too much light? Not sure. You can see the darker tissue in the base and some under and around coralites. Branches are light, tips have purple in them. I got it sold as a frag of pearl berry a while ago..... Looks nothing like pearl berry. Any ideas would be greatly welcomed. The piece is growing.

 
These shots look like very happy and healthy corals...
I don't think that pearlberry looks off..
Are these shots taken under just blue LEDs?
It would be easier to really see how the coral looks with more white in the shot, I think..
Yes, that pearlberry looks like it is being grown in low nutrient water, but it doesn't really look like its unhappy, to me..
I'd love my pearlberry to look like that..
 
reefmutt said:
These shots look like very happy and healthy corals...
I don't think that pearlberry looks off..
Are these shots taken under just blue LEDs?
It would be easier to really see how the coral looks with more white in the shot, I think..
Yes, that pearlberry looks like it is being grown in low nutrient water, but it doesn't really look like its unhappy, to me..
I'd love my pearlberry to look like that..
Click to expand...

Yeah the pics were taken under too much blue, I was doing a water change in the evening and thought I would just grab the camera and take a couple.
Thanks for the input about the pearlberry. I guess it was just the patches of darker tissue throwing me off. The coral still looks good and is growing.
 
Mark, that post is from the page I linked to.. Jeesh...
I think there are other photos of it later in the thread and it changes a bit..
 
Question for all My sps keepers. What do you guys Do when you have acros getting close to each other? Obviously branches can be snipped, but I have the encrusting base of a selago and the base of my Ora borealis getting real close. Just let nature happen? Try to move the borealis (involve breaking it off the encrusted base)? I purposefully kept all encrusting montis on their own island for this problem, but now acro bases are doing the same thing. Thanks for any help
 
MichaelW said:
Question for all My sps keepers. What do you guys Do when you have acros getting close to each other? Obviously branches can be snipped, but I have the encrusting base of a selago and the base of my Ora borealis getting real close. Just let nature happen? Try to move the borealis (involve breaking it off the encrusted base)? I purposefully kept all encrusting montis on their own island for this problem, but now acro bases are doing the same thing. Thanks for any help
Click to expand...

If I have another decent area to relocate, I would do that.

However, in the past I've left corals alone to fight it out. I have a tenuis type and another unknown acro; at first the unknown's base got stung, but it held on...and over weeks, it actually toughened up and grew the base back...months later, an invisible border was drawn up...I considered it a draw. :rollface:

I say let battle commence. If one gets attacked too much, intervene.

However, if it a millepora are anywhere near, most other acros have no hope...intervention will be required for a one off action or if left in place, repeated action.
 
If you have to cut the acro off at the base and abandon the encrusted portion i would leave them be and deal with the ensuing battle Mike. It's not hard to take action against the obvious winner in the aggression stakes. Use a 1/2" rusty chisel and gently chip 1'4" away from the winner's growing edge where the acros met. If you repeat this a few times you'll see the acro slow its encrusting in that direction many times and focus its attention in an easier direction - exactly like the loser acro will do when one edge begins coming under attack.......

If it's in a spot that you can't get a sharp stabby thing into then use a 60ml syringe with the screw fitting and attach some 1/4" airline. RO at boiling temp and simply touch the acro tissue and sqeeze gently - the result is instant.

I frequently stick sacrificial pav or stylo frags between two acros to slow down their meeting, you can stick such a frag right on top of the spot where two acros are having a fight - a blob of putty has a calming effect on aggressive acros......:reading:
 
It's interesting.. When populating a tank with frags, this proximity issue that comes up sooner than when adding colonies. Colonies provide much more space between coral bases.. And intervening in a branch fight is pretty easy.. I'm going to have some base encrusting wars very soon..
I'm glad to have this advice from the reef masters, Beevis and Butthead.... I mean sahin and biggles.. :)
 
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