solitude127
Proud user of IO Salt!
Any updates?
My 112G Cube Build Thread. I'm baaaaaaack!!
- Thread starter MrSandman
- Start date
MrSandman
Team RC
Ok. Another update...although minor.
I did reduce the intensity of the lighting down to 40% for both the LED's and the T5's when i said i would (which was on 3/27) about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Since then i also performed 2 30% water changes, threw in 5 of the largest turbo snails i've ever seen to eat up some of the hair algae, and bought 2 frags (zoas and duncans) at the LFS. Since last reporting, things have definitely improved in that nothing has died or bleached. I'm seeing more and more coralline spores popping up on the back glass, and my encrusting monti is really taking off. I have a few zoa colonies that are multiplying and a duncan frag that is eating like a pig. My flame BTA is doing great but my forest fire digi still remains bleached, but i'm going to try throwing it on the frag rack in the corner to see if i can get it to darken up a little.
If anyone wants to throw me a tester frag to see if it can maintain its color, i'm game. At 40% the tank looks really dim when compared to before.
I'm still not convinced it was the lights....but maybe the tester frag will show me otherwise. That's all for now.
I did reduce the intensity of the lighting down to 40% for both the LED's and the T5's when i said i would (which was on 3/27) about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Since then i also performed 2 30% water changes, threw in 5 of the largest turbo snails i've ever seen to eat up some of the hair algae, and bought 2 frags (zoas and duncans) at the LFS. Since last reporting, things have definitely improved in that nothing has died or bleached. I'm seeing more and more coralline spores popping up on the back glass, and my encrusting monti is really taking off. I have a few zoa colonies that are multiplying and a duncan frag that is eating like a pig. My flame BTA is doing great but my forest fire digi still remains bleached, but i'm going to try throwing it on the frag rack in the corner to see if i can get it to darken up a little.
If anyone wants to throw me a tester frag to see if it can maintain its color, i'm game. At 40% the tank looks really dim when compared to before.
I'm still not convinced it was the lights....but maybe the tester frag will show me otherwise. That's all for now.
MrSandman
Team RC
Hey Brian. Sure on the longspine if you think that will help. Never used urchins before for algae control so i'll have to go by your word. If it will work, then i'll give it a try.
Chalices are doing good. The pink boobies frag you gave has more than quadrupled in size and it was sitting on the sandbed the entire time. The other chalice (i forget the name) is doing well too but its in the shade.
If you can spare the 2 SPS frags, that would be cool for testing. Let me know when you want to meet up.
cali_reef
New member
Let me know if you want some out of my tank. I am around friday night and Sat morning.
MrSandman
Team RC
Hey Pierce. Thanks for the offer. At this point i'm just looking for some tester frags. I don't want to risk it with your stuff. Not yet at least.
Hey Brian. Thanks for the Urchin and 3 frags. We left in such a rush yesterday i never got to find out what the frags were. I know the forest fire and the tricolor.....but what was the 3rd? A Ponape birdsnest? Also that urchin is trippy. I thought he had an orange zoa stuck to his head and was almost tempted to remove it until it moved.
Thanks again for always hookin' me up.
dodgerblew
Team RC
Ramon I have a couple unmounted green slimer frags. I'm far but they're yours if you want them
Just a suggestion for your SPS. Give this stuff a try Sicce HyperKoral
I had similar issues with my encrusting SPS, after I began dosing this stuff the color jumped back in a few weeks. For $25 it's worth a try. I have a 75g mixed, using live rock and running a fuge. I am also running a similar lighting setup, however I'm running a T5 retrofit with 2 Kessil A360's, blueplus and coralplus bulbs as well.
I had similar issues with my encrusting SPS, after I began dosing this stuff the color jumped back in a few weeks. For $25 it's worth a try. I have a 75g mixed, using live rock and running a fuge. I am also running a similar lighting setup, however I'm running a T5 retrofit with 2 Kessil A360's, blueplus and coralplus bulbs as well.
discotu
Discotu
The third is Ora bird of paradise...I got this from you when you shut down and it has since taken off.
Yeah the urchin is cool...I still have one in my display from when I was cycling my tank and had algae issues. I'll prob pull him one of these days just to see what impact he has.
Yeah the urchin is cool...I still have one in my display from when I was cycling my tank and had algae issues. I'll prob pull him one of these days just to see what impact he has.
MrSandman
Team RC
Another update:
About a week after my last post i decided to do a "lights out" on the tank to help solve my 1" long hair algae problem. The hair algae was really getting out of control and the snails just couldn't keep up with the growth. Here is what it looked like at its worst. Note, if you want to see what hair algae looks like when it waves at you click on it. Its a video:
The lights were out for 3 days and afterwards, the rocks were nearly spotless. There were some small tufts of hair in a couple areas but what this did was allow the turbos (and the urchin) to mow those spots down and since then they've been able to keep the rocks spotless. In fact, i'm worried that the 6 turbos might starve so i've been throwing nori in the tank once a week to supplement their feeding.
During that time i also have done 3 water changes and have shut down the 2-part doser and have reverted back to kalkwasser dosing via my Geo kalk reactor. The reason for this is because i noticed that one of the solutions of my 2-part smelled a little odd, so i stopped dosing for the time being.
As for what caused this whole debacle, i still don't know. I'm thinking that it could have been a bad batch of water. At the time when i had the issues, i had some major landscaping work being done in the yard and i was storing my Brute trash bins outside (sometimes with mixed water). One day i had noticed someone dumped their lunch into one of the bins. So who knows what else could have made its way into the bin before someone realized it wasn't a trash bin. My other thought is a bad batch of 2-part (possibly caused by the water again). It could have also been the lights being too powerful. Who knows.....all i know is that it appears to be gone now as the corals are all growing well.
So, after the lights-out everything has been going well. Corals are all showing good growth and i've since ramped up the T5's to 80% while the LED's are still down at 40%. The intensity of the LED's scare me so i'm using them purely for dawn/dusk/night effects. The frags Brian gave me 5 weeks ago have all started to show signs of growth and encrusting at the bases.
Last week thursday Pierce (again) hooked me up with frags (and colonies...lol). Although its only been a few days, the new frags are doing well with full polyp extension and i'm hopeful that i can now move forward.
So here is a picture from my phone taken a few minutes ago:
Some other notable events to the tank:
-About 2 weeks ago i removed the GFO from the ATB reactor and threw in biopellets.
-I've been changing the carbon in the return chamber every 2 weeks.
-Even with the recent heat wave i haven't needed to run any fans/chillers thanks to the Neptune Apex alerts and my Nest thermostat.
Next few weeks i'm going to be starting on an outdoor mixing station and housing it all in a deck storage box in the backyard. Since the tank is in the back of the house and the garage all the way in the front, this is my only option.
So that's it for the update.
About a week after my last post i decided to do a "lights out" on the tank to help solve my 1" long hair algae problem. The hair algae was really getting out of control and the snails just couldn't keep up with the growth. Here is what it looked like at its worst. Note, if you want to see what hair algae looks like when it waves at you click on it. Its a video:
The lights were out for 3 days and afterwards, the rocks were nearly spotless. There were some small tufts of hair in a couple areas but what this did was allow the turbos (and the urchin) to mow those spots down and since then they've been able to keep the rocks spotless. In fact, i'm worried that the 6 turbos might starve so i've been throwing nori in the tank once a week to supplement their feeding.
During that time i also have done 3 water changes and have shut down the 2-part doser and have reverted back to kalkwasser dosing via my Geo kalk reactor. The reason for this is because i noticed that one of the solutions of my 2-part smelled a little odd, so i stopped dosing for the time being.
As for what caused this whole debacle, i still don't know. I'm thinking that it could have been a bad batch of water. At the time when i had the issues, i had some major landscaping work being done in the yard and i was storing my Brute trash bins outside (sometimes with mixed water). One day i had noticed someone dumped their lunch into one of the bins. So who knows what else could have made its way into the bin before someone realized it wasn't a trash bin. My other thought is a bad batch of 2-part (possibly caused by the water again). It could have also been the lights being too powerful. Who knows.....all i know is that it appears to be gone now as the corals are all growing well.
So, after the lights-out everything has been going well. Corals are all showing good growth and i've since ramped up the T5's to 80% while the LED's are still down at 40%. The intensity of the LED's scare me so i'm using them purely for dawn/dusk/night effects. The frags Brian gave me 5 weeks ago have all started to show signs of growth and encrusting at the bases.
Last week thursday Pierce (again) hooked me up with frags (and colonies...lol). Although its only been a few days, the new frags are doing well with full polyp extension and i'm hopeful that i can now move forward.
So here is a picture from my phone taken a few minutes ago:
Some other notable events to the tank:
-About 2 weeks ago i removed the GFO from the ATB reactor and threw in biopellets.
-I've been changing the carbon in the return chamber every 2 weeks.
-Even with the recent heat wave i haven't needed to run any fans/chillers thanks to the Neptune Apex alerts and my Nest thermostat.
Next few weeks i'm going to be starting on an outdoor mixing station and housing it all in a deck storage box in the backyard. Since the tank is in the back of the house and the garage all the way in the front, this is my only option.
So that's it for the update.
reefish123
New member
Congrats Ramon, it looks awsome. Gotta get me one of those Nest thermostats.
solitude127
Proud user of IO Salt!
nice Ramon. What reactor are you using for your BPs?
MrSandman
Team RC
Running the ATB reactor but it has it's issues. Seems like it's not the best reactor for media that needs to tumble.
solitude127
Proud user of IO Salt!
Best budget reactor IMO, is the Aquamaxx. Hi end would be the reef dynamics.
MrSandman
Team RC
Been about a month so I thought i'd snap up some pics and post an update.
So far so good. The tank is in cruise control. I've been doing water changes about every 3 weeks about 25% at a time. Everything seems to be growing well and i haven't had any losses at all. I'm still supplementing with my kalk reactor and I don't plan on switching to my dosers until it fails to keep up. So far so good. Oh yeah, if anyone wants to start throwing some frags my way, i won't refuse!
Rainbow Monti from Pierce
No idea what this is from Pierce. Anyone know?
Lakers Zoas. Bought these.
Forest Fire Digi from Brian
These were sold to me as BEBB's zoas. Is this true?
Red Hornets. I think Shirley gave me these?
Tubbs Zoas. These were donated.
Some random acro from Pierce
Green Stylo? from Pierce
So far so good. The tank is in cruise control. I've been doing water changes about every 3 weeks about 25% at a time. Everything seems to be growing well and i haven't had any losses at all. I'm still supplementing with my kalk reactor and I don't plan on switching to my dosers until it fails to keep up. So far so good. Oh yeah, if anyone wants to start throwing some frags my way, i won't refuse!
Rainbow Monti from Pierce
No idea what this is from Pierce. Anyone know?
Lakers Zoas. Bought these.
Forest Fire Digi from Brian
These were sold to me as BEBB's zoas. Is this true?
Red Hornets. I think Shirley gave me these?
Tubbs Zoas. These were donated.
Some random acro from Pierce
Green Stylo? from Pierce
MrSandman
Team RC
More pics:
Don't remember who gave me these or what they are called.
I think this is a Garf bonsai from Pierce
Cali Tort? from Pierce
These were sold to me as Sunny D's but they need to color up a bit more.
That's it for now! Thanks for following.......
Oh yeah, anyone looking for a 1/4HP Tradewind chiller or an SWC 160 cone skimmer, let me know. Willing to trade for corals or other equipment!
Don't remember who gave me these or what they are called.
I think this is a Garf bonsai from Pierce
Cali Tort? from Pierce
These were sold to me as Sunny D's but they need to color up a bit more.
That's it for now! Thanks for following.......
Oh yeah, anyone looking for a 1/4HP Tradewind chiller or an SWC 160 cone skimmer, let me know. Willing to trade for corals or other equipment!
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