My 65G Shallow Reef Tank
- Thread starter DiscusHeckel
- Start date
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
joshky
Acros & Wrasses
Great photo to show off your tank! Looks amazing!
I love the desalwii transformation, very pretty. Also good luck with the humilis frag, I'm sure you'll have that thing colored up in no time!
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Dear Josh and Mark,
Your are very kind.
I can offer you some close-up photos, which I have just taken:
I have been dosing KoralColor since 2nd March daily as per Andrew's guidance. My current dose is 0.25 ml per 240 litre. Strictly speaking I should have been dosing 0.2 ml per day. I have stopped dosing everything else, including Tropic Marin NP bacto balance.
My current water parameters are as follows:
KH: 7.30 dKH
Ca: 420-425 ppm
NO3: 10 ppm
PO4: 0.092-0.14 mg/l
Your are very kind.
I can offer you some close-up photos, which I have just taken:
I have been dosing KoralColor since 2nd March daily as per Andrew's guidance. My current dose is 0.25 ml per 240 litre. Strictly speaking I should have been dosing 0.2 ml per day. I have stopped dosing everything else, including Tropic Marin NP bacto balance.
My current water parameters are as follows:
KH: 7.30 dKH
Ca: 420-425 ppm
NO3: 10 ppm
PO4: 0.092-0.14 mg/l
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Why is that? I used Brightwell's Potassion before with good results. KoralColor is the second Brightwell product. Is Brightwell not a trusted brand?
It is early days for me to make a judgement one way or the other. I would like it to work for me.
Gorgeous Bulent! Acro's are looking pretty special
Thank you Dom, but surely not as special as the ones you fortunate folks are getting over there. :hammer::sad2:
Thank you.
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Wrangy
Acrotrooper
haha we have been exceptionally lucky of late with the quality of stock that has come in and the sorts of pieces we have access too! You guys get access to generations of tank hardened frags that are jut stunning that we could never get, like hawkins or any of the dragons
haha
SputnikNYC
New member
Unbelievable tank!!! How high is you fixture sits above the tank?
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
I have been dosing KoralColor for ten days, but only half the strength as Andrew's dosing strength, i.e. 0.5 ml per 600 l. I have not yet noticed anything colour wise, but there has been a growth spurt. Having said that my nutrients have increased quite a bit (i.e. NO3: 10 ppm and PO4: 0.092-0.14 mg/l) because I stopped dosing various potions that regulate nutrients in the water column, so that they would not cause any interference as some potions contain iron among other trace elements. Normally I would expect deterioration in colouration and see brown symbiont on corals. But the colours are holding and as good/bad as ever depending on one's point of view. So, may be KoralColor is working after all.
My echinata receives about 490 mmol/m2/sec PAR (minus 10% due to tank screen). My latest PAR measurements are on here.
Thank you. My fixture is about 7 1/4" (or ~18.5 cm) above the water surface.
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reefmutt
Active member
Hey Bulent, the tank is looking really good. Your desalwi has coloured up very nicely.
And the ice fire is holding its classic colors even with the strong light.
Are you using the Salifert Trace Hard as well or just Koral Color?
I'm curious to see where your nutrient go now that you have stopped using the bacto balance...
I'm actually a bit confused as to why you chose to stop this as well as to dose the Koral color..
This is two significant parameter changes at the same time..
Weren't your nutrients previously lower?
With the increased nutrients, you may have seen an intensifying of colors even without the addition of Koral color..
I'm thinking out loud a bit here..
I personally feel that in Andrew's case, it is his naturally occurring parameters - n:5 p:.03 which play an important roll in the interaction of the Koralcolor/trace hard additions, BUT NOT the fact that he uses nothing to lower nutrients..
I guess what I'm saying, or asking or looking for discussion on, is whether it is more important to stop all other nutrient maintenance while adding your Koralcolor or to keep your current (pre stoppage of bacto balance) conditions stable while adding it..
And the ice fire is holding its classic colors even with the strong light.
Are you using the Salifert Trace Hard as well or just Koral Color?
I'm curious to see where your nutrient go now that you have stopped using the bacto balance...
I'm actually a bit confused as to why you chose to stop this as well as to dose the Koral color..
This is two significant parameter changes at the same time..
Weren't your nutrients previously lower?
With the increased nutrients, you may have seen an intensifying of colors even without the addition of Koral color..
I'm thinking out loud a bit here..
I personally feel that in Andrew's case, it is his naturally occurring parameters - n:5 p:.03 which play an important roll in the interaction of the Koralcolor/trace hard additions, BUT NOT the fact that he uses nothing to lower nutrients..
I guess what I'm saying, or asking or looking for discussion on, is whether it is more important to stop all other nutrient maintenance while adding your Koralcolor or to keep your current (pre stoppage of bacto balance) conditions stable while adding it..
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Hi Matt,
Thank you for your perceptive questions and comments.
I do not use Salifert Trace hard. I used to use Tropic Marin K+ (cationic) elements and A- (anionic) elements. I stopped using them when I started to experiment with KoralColor.
Up until I started using KoralColor, I used Tropic Marin NP bacto balance, which contains inorganic phosphates and nitrates, organic phosphates, organic carbon as well as cationic trace elements. This product served me really well in keeping nutrients at fairly manageable levels despite having 16 constantly hungry fish in a 240-litre set up. When I started KoralColor, my nutrients were as follows:
NO3: 5-10 ppm
PO4: 0.092 mg/l (or 0.03 mg/l P)
The reason why I stopped using it was that I did not want iron in the product to interfere with KoralColor. I am aware that without some sort of nutrient export strategy, using only KoralColor may not be sustainable in my set up. However, I thought that for a two-week trial, not using NP bacto balance would not rock the boat.
You may be right that perhaps KoralColor has more pronounced effect when nutrients are fairly low and that as my nutrients keep going up during my trial, I may not know whether any possible improvement on colour intensification is due to KoralColor. Having said that I can also argue that increased nutrients should increase zooxanthellae density on corals and thus some corals at least should start to exhibit brown tinge. The fact that my colours are maintained may be due to KoralColor because it manipulates zooxanthellae's chlorophyll .
Arrgh my head hurts.
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reefmutt
Active member
So, there's only a slight increase, so far.. well.. keep an eye on that!
This is the problem trying to replicate somebody's success in a different system.. Almost impossible to really compare apple with apples..
You may be right about the Koral color's effects on the coral.... we shall see! looking forward to seeing the results..
Why did you decide to only go with Koral color and not the full BJ? (sorry.. couldn't resist..)
This is the problem trying to replicate somebody's success in a different system.. Almost impossible to really compare apple with apples..
You may be right about the Koral color's effects on the coral.... we shall see! looking forward to seeing the results..
Why did you decide to only go with Koral color and not the full BJ? (sorry.. couldn't resist..)
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Get a reef tank I said.....It will be relaxing, I said.....:spin1:
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
I made a few changes last night. I slaughtered my Acropora copiosa colony, which lost roughly 1/3 its body mass. I had to take the colony out of the water three times to get the shape I wanted. The colony still looks very big. As a result of fragging, I gained a quite a large space in the middle part of my tank, which created an opportunity for two medium-size corymbose-shape (or table-shape) Acropora colonies. In addition, I created a fairly protected spot from strong lights on the branching rock for the desalwii as per Andrew's advice and placed the coral without using any putty/glue. I simply anchored it among the short but strong branches of the orange M. digitata. I am hoping that the desalwii will bond itself naturally to the montipora skeleton after stinging it. The only problem I anticipate is that the flow might prove to be much stronger on this spot than its previous place on the bottom glass. The rate of its polyp extension will signal to me as to whether it is happy or not on this new spot. So far so good. I can see fairly good polyp extension.
I also went to my lfs yesterday afternoon to swap a bucket Tropic Marin Pro-reef salt. The batch I had gave me the impression that Tropic Marin forgot to add alkalinity and magnesium salts in it. Despite stirring its content before the first use, the new salt produced 5.8 and 6.2 dKH alkalinity in two separate salt mixes. Magnesium was even worse (1195 ppm). Now I have got a new bucket from a different batch. I am hoping that it will be OK. While I was there I bought a large wild-collected Acropora microclados frag, which showed a promising colour potential. Soon after I put it in my tank late, it extended its polyps. All being well I will place it on its permanent position by this weekend. Here are two photos I took earlier.
I also went to my lfs yesterday afternoon to swap a bucket Tropic Marin Pro-reef salt. The batch I had gave me the impression that Tropic Marin forgot to add alkalinity and magnesium salts in it. Despite stirring its content before the first use, the new salt produced 5.8 and 6.2 dKH alkalinity in two separate salt mixes. Magnesium was even worse (1195 ppm). Now I have got a new bucket from a different batch. I am hoping that it will be OK. While I was there I bought a large wild-collected Acropora microclados frag, which showed a promising colour potential. Soon after I put it in my tank late, it extended its polyps. All being well I will place it on its permanent position by this weekend. Here are two photos I took earlier.
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reefmutt
Active member
Very nice Bulent.
Im sure the deforestation pain is worth the new coral gain.
The microclados looks nice and healthy and I bet you'll get more colour out of those polyps than you expect.
I wouldn't worry about flow in that desalwi. I bet it will like it.
Curious to see a new fts after the 'butcher' job.
Im sure the deforestation pain is worth the new coral gain.
The microclados looks nice and healthy and I bet you'll get more colour out of those polyps than you expect.
I wouldn't worry about flow in that desalwi. I bet it will like it.
Curious to see a new fts after the 'butcher' job.
