DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
To take a good picture of my super fluorescent green Montipora capricornis, I had to sacrifice some sections of the purple monaseriata, which seems to grow much faster than the capricornis.
My 65G Shallow Reef Tank
- Thread starter DiscusHeckel
- Start date
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thanks Dom. I appreciate your praise. How is the cat? I cannot get over that picture of the cat standing over your shoulder in your car.
Wrangy
Acrotrooper
Doing much better thanks
And yes haha he really is a special little cat :lmao::lmao:
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thank you Ed. That's a huge endorsement, which I highly appreciate.
Have you been able to read the long thread on Bacto balance? As you can see from my latest test results, even though nitrates have come down from 5 ppm to nearly 2 ppm, phosphates are also coming down albeit at a much slower pace. The phosphate reading is just under 0.024 mg/l now, but it was at about 0.046 mg/l last month.
Big E
Premium Member
I've read a good portion of it............biggest take away is that that Bacto balance is an all in one bottle system at it's basics.
I don't know why more people aren't jumping on the bandwagon when this is much simpler to use and you don't need GFO or other peripherals to make it work. It seems to handle the balance better and eliminates the skew associated with many carbon dosing systems.
Those multiple bottle systems create much more margin for error as well as promote dosing of un-needed substances.
When you can get the pure white skin on that echinata and pure colors on other naturally light colored corals, without losing the deep vivid colors on the other acros, you've hit a sweet spot.
That's perfect to me..........I don't like the all pastel look.
It's a credit to your skills as well..........it's not all in the products
Last edited:
Piper27
I love bengals
Thank you for your compliment. I appreciate it. This coral was identified as Sarmentosa by Andrew (@Biggles).
It looked like this when I bought it:
Thank you, that helps a ton! Where did it come from? Aussie?
I agree with big e in that you have certainly hit a sweet spot with color balance. Very well done.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thank you again. I was told by my lfs that the coral had come from Fiji.
FloformAustria
New member
wow Bulent!
Looking great! love your green monti!!
Looking great! love your green monti!!
reefmutt
Active member
I've read a good portion of it............biggest take away is that that Bacto balance is an all in one bottle system at it's basics.
I don't know why more people aren't jumping on the bandwagon when this is much simpler to use and you don't need GFO or other peripherals to make it work. It seems to handle the balance better and eliminates the skew associated with many carbon dosing systems.
Those multiple bottle systems create much more margin for error as well as promote dosing of un-needed substances.
When you can get the pure white skin on that echinata and pure colors on other naturally light colored corals, without losing the deep vivid colors on the other acros, you've hit a sweet spot.
That's perfect to me..........I don't like the all pastel look.
It's a credit to your skills as well..........it's not all in the products
+1
Perfect, Bulent!
I'm curious how the bacto balance would work on a system (like mine) where nitrate is constantly dropping to zero but phosphates stay elevated. My nitrate sinks seem to be very efficient but p is always a trick to control without gfo or other p absorbing medias..
Great pics of the fish gang bulent:beer:
They all look healthy and fat
I'm fond of nori too
The smell of garlic in it makes me always hungry.I swear almost every time i put some on the clip,i get a burger or something for myself too
Mike, you crack me up!!!
To take a good picture of my super fluorescent green Montipora capricornis, I had to sacrifice some sections of the purple monaseriata, which seems to grow much faster than the capricornis.
Absolutely stunning photo, Bulent!
All of your recent shots are fantastic and your colours really are perfect.
The k elements you have stopped using, what are the ingredients?
I remember Reefvet mentioning that feeding the fish nori produces a good amount of aspartic acid once the nori is digested by the fish..
It's a great, natural way of adding that amino acid to the tank..
Bulent, your tank has really come into its own.
Very nice job!
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thank you. They are resplendent anthias (Pseudanthias pulcherrimus).
Thank you. I am relatively inexperienced compared to majority of folks who contribute to my thread. So, hopefully they will chip in the discussion.
I would check your light's spectrum (mine is heavy on the blue spectrum) as well as PAR (mine receives ~400 mmol/m2/sec).
My coral seems to hold its blue colour in a different range of NO3 and PO4 values (NO3: 1 ppm-10ppm PO4: 0.024 mg/l-0.18 mg/l).
Potassium levels are next to check. My potassium levels are consistently above 400 ppm (420-430 ppm).
I do not test iodine. I dose Tropic Marin A- elements daily. This product contains potassium iodide among other anionic elements. In addition, I dose 1 drop of Lugols solution (Tropic Marin Pro-Coral iodine 3 times a week).
I am not aware of any other trace element or halogen or heavy metal that can impact on the blue colouration of a coral.
I hope this helps.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your praise. This is very encouraging for me. I appreciate it.
If I remember correctly, Hans-Werner Balling does not recommend the use of this product unless you have fairly high background nitrates (e.g. 5 ppm or more) and relatively low phosphates (e.g. around 0.1 mg/l). The product actually adds nitrates and phosphates while at the same time reducing them by means of adding mild organic carbon. Hence, some nitrates and phosphates are always left behind ensuring that corals do not starve. Let me know if you want to read this very long thread on bacto balance, which has been posted on a German forum. In your case, you have bubble algae. For me this indicates that true nitrates may well be much higher than your test kit registers. When I started bacto balance my nitrates were about 0-0.2 ppm, but I had cyano.
The K+ elements contains the following cationic elements:
barium, boron, chrome, cobalt, iron, copper, manganese, nickel, strontium and zinc.
Yes, I remember Reefvet's comments about nori. I tend to feed nori at least once a week. However, my nori sheets do not contain any garlic and do not smell particularly good and hence they do not trigger any feeding stimulus on me :spin2:. Having said that I enjoy watching my fish feeding on nori.
Last edited:
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
I've read a good portion of it............biggest take away is that that Bacto balance is an all in one bottle system at it's basics.
I don't know why more people aren't jumping on the bandwagon when this is much simpler to use and you don't need GFO or other peripherals to make it work. It seems to handle the balance better and eliminates the skew associated with many carbon dosing systems.
Those multiple bottle systems create much more margin for error as well as promote dosing of un-needed substances.
When you can get the pure white skin on that echinata and pure colors on other naturally light colored corals, without losing the deep vivid colors on the other acros, you've hit a sweet spot.
That's perfect to me..........I don't like the all pastel look.
It's a credit to your skills as well..........it's not all in the products
Thanks again Ed. You have boosted my confidence further.
I do not think Tropic Marin is particularly good at marketing their products though they are very good at answering questions promptly. I had no idea about the bacto balance until my lfs gave me a bottle free of charge, so that I could experiment to see if it would solve my cyano problem. I am glad he did. A few local folks who came to my house to see my tank have already started to use the bacto balance. I think there may be a dozen of us in the UK who are using this product. I know that this number is a bit of a joke, but may grow in time. I have already started to work on a document about the bacto balance, which will give answers to various frequently asked questions. I will get it rubber stamped by Hans-Werner Balling, who has agreed to look at it. I will then publish it on a UK forum with the hope that it will form the basis of a growing knowledge base similar to the one on the German forum.
Regarding your view on pastel look, I concur with you. Although I look at pastel colours with much admiration, I still prefer the kind of colours that you are pulling, deep and rich. I have made very good progress on the pink colours. I now want to get hold of an A. hyacinthus for the red challenge.
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
Thank you Flo. I wish it grew a little faster than the purple monti.
Your latest presidential election result was a close call, wasn't it?
reefmutt
Active member
I wonder if all the native algea growing in the tank also produces aspartic acid when digested, or if it's only the nori..
Well, between the bubble, bryopsis and (recently returned) cyano I have growing - not to mention the dsb, cheato fuge and 12 liters of matrix, I'm sure I could come up with a few nitrates if I had to!! Actually, I do run around 2 ppm at the moment and p is at .07 with po4 absorbers running, so I'm not far off from recommended starting levels for bacto balance..
I recently tried my own version, using kno3, cano3 and np pro.. But I had to use such high doses of nitrates and np pro to get p to budge, I got uncomfortable doing it.. Not to mention excessively high calcium levels..
I don't think it is even readily available in Canada.. I'd probably have to special order it...
I'm thinking seriously about giving it a try... I'm going to look into its availability around here..
Bulent, I'm also curious as to why you would stop using the k+ and only continue with the other.. And while we're at it, what's in the other supplement?
I understood from your post that because you got to a certain dose of bacto balance, you needed to stop the k+ and I don't really understand the relationship between the two..
I'd be curious to have a look at that thread..
FloformAustria
New member
you heard of it in the UK? wow
yes very close, but there is something fundamentally wrong in austrian politics... i voted for the winner but not because i agree with him just because i wanted to save us from the other one and that´s not how this should work ...
people are angry...
