My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[DiscusHeckel]

Bulent,

Is there any particular reason to use it instead the "regular" GFO?
I had very very good experience using PO4x4.

Yes, there is, Alex.

My main concern with GFO is its ability to bind metals. At first glance it seems plausible that GFO binds harmful metals, such as arsenic. However, some other metals that are crucial to the colouration and growth of corals are also bound. This include, manganese, cobalt, nickel, and zinc. As Randy Holmes-Farley put it "Whether the binding of any of these ions is important in aquaria, and whether it should be considered a benefit or a detriment, remains to be established for each trace metal.". Based on my own experience, significant positive changes to the appearance and growth of my corals coincided with starting Bacto-Balance, which contains trace metals, and quitting GFO shortly afterwards. To further quote Holmes-Farley: "Since the effects of GFO on trace elements have not been clearly established in aquaria, it is possible that one or more critical elements may drop below optimal levels.". Finally, Hans-Werner Balling also recommended the use of aluminium-based phosphate binders instead of GFO if phosphate adsorbing is necessary while using Bacto-Balance. He gave an explanation, but sadly I cannot find the source, but it was to do with the release of soluble iron, which is mentioned in the link below.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.htm

EDIT: I have just read about PO4X4. It is a Dutch product and it claims to address the release of soluble iron into the water column. This sounds good to me. I may try it if I hit buffers with FM Ultra Phos or Seachem PhosGuard. I have a private supplier in the UK who can get me this product.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Acropora microclados at low tide. The new growth on the fragged sections of this colony makes it difficult (if not impossible) to guess which sections were fragged at the end of last November, which resulted in removing 40 sq in of body mass from the mother colony.

Acropora microclados (P1110494)

Acropora microclados (P1110493)

Acropora microclados (P1110489)

 

[markalot]

Huge beautiful colony!

 

[DesertReefT4r]

:eek2::eek2:

Acropora microclados at low tide. The new growth on the fragged sections of this colony makes it difficult (if not impossible) to guess which sections were fragged at the end of last November, which resulted in removing 40 sq in of body mass from the mother colony.

Acropora microclados (P1110494)

Acropora microclados (P1110493)

Acropora microclados (P1110489)

:eek2: that coral is wwwwoooowww

 

[Wrangy]

Gorgeous Bulent!!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

:eek2::eek2:

Huge beautiful colony!

:eek2: that coral is wwwwoooowww

Gorgeous Bulent!!

Thank you gentlemen.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I ran Phosguard for a long time in a reactor and had a neon green leather coral. I personally never had any issues, I do rinse all fresh media very well before use, slack in changing out media and don't run 100% of the time. My leather did very well, grew from a dime sized head to a soft ball in 2 years and even dropped about 6 baby heads off. I have also heard about the possible issues with aluminium new using Phosguard and did switch to BRS GFO cheaper just to be safe and is cheaper. Jme.

Thanks for this information. I have recently switched to Fauna Marin Ultra Phos. Interestingly, Fauna Marin's instructions clearly state that the media should not be rinsed.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

The latest video of my reef tank as of 26th February 2018. Water parameters:

KH: 6.4 dKH
Ca: 420 ppm
Mg: 1330 ppm

NO3: ~2.5 ppm
PO4: ~0.14 mg/L

The coral colours could be better as some of them suffered when PO4 moved beyond 0.1 mg/L.

 

[glaukos]

Man stop being so hard on your tank
Colors are aweeeeeesome and PE too!
Love the growth pattern of some corals in there:inlove:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Man stop being so hard on your tank
Colors are aweeeeeesome and PE too!
Love the growth pattern of some corals in there:inlove:

Thank you Mike. I appreciate your feedback.

 

[janci]

The latest video of my reef tank as of 26th February 2018.

Beautiful.
The tail of the fish @1.24 minutes is great.
That is one of the angels?

Looking at the polyp extension on the corals, it seems the fish are nog interested in them at all.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Beautiful.
The tail of the fish @1.24 minutes is great.
That is one of the angels?

Looking at the polyp extension on the corals, it seems the fish are nog interested in them at all.

Thanks.

Yes, you are correct. The fish you referred to is a male Genicanthus lamarck. Fish in this genus are not supposed to touch any corals as they eat mainly zooplankton and algae. I have three of them in my tank and they have been reef safe so far.

 

[Soolaimon]

Thanks OP. I am have a detritus problem and I'm following your steps you posted years ago (clean skimmer daily, filter sock daily and turkey baster).

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Thanks OP. I am have a detritus problem and I'm following your steps you posted years ago (clean skimmer daily, filter sock daily and turkey baster).

You're welcome. I hope these chores help you in long term.

As you know, I did them to deal with cyanobacteria. However, I am much more relaxed in these days. As cyanobacteria are no longer an issue for me, I no longer use filter socks. Instead of cleaning my skimmer's cup daily, I use a manual self-cleaning head. Blowing rocks on a regular basis is a good practice, which I still endeavour to do regularly, if not daily.

 

[reefmutt]

Looks great, Bulent. Growth and pe are pretty amazing and colors are fantastic.
Are you still using the GoPro? The depth of field on that camera is huge. I love it. The video makes the tank look like it’s 3 feet deep.
The Miyagi Tort has settled in perfectly.
Your gomezi seems to be a different shade of blue.. is it just the camera? Phosphates?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Looks great, Bulent. Growth and pe are pretty amazing and colors are fantastic.
Are you still using the GoPro? The depth of field on that camera is huge. I love it. The video makes the tank look like it’s 3 feet deep.
The Miyagi Tort has settled in perfectly.
Your gomezi seems to be a different shade of blue.. is it just the camera? Phosphates?

Yes, I am still using GoPro, Matt. Thanks for your feedback. I am really happy with the camera. A. gomezi is still the same. It could well be the camera angle as you can see some purple mixture in the recording. I will make another attempt to record just this coral shortly.

The miyagi tort is showing some polyp extension, but has not started to grow yet. I use coral growth as the ultimate indicator for a coral's contentment.

I measured PO4 earlier today and it was just over 0.14 mg/L. I have used less than the recommended amount of FM UltraPhos so far to enable the tank to adjust to it. But I increased the amount of media to the recommended dose today (i.e. 50 gr per 200L). NO3 is stable (2.5 ppm). I am dosing Elimi-NP at the recommended dose and Bacto-Balance at 1/4th of the recommended dose. I will suspend Bacto-Balance from tomorrow for a few weeks to see what happens to NO3 and PO4.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Update:

It is a confession time. I am not very good at keeping anthias alive. One of the three red saddleback anthias (P. flavoguttatus) I purchased recently died a few hours ago. Its stomach was badly emaciated. This is very puzzling to me because it ate very eagerly and even more eagerly than the evansi anthias, which I purchased at the same time. And yet the evansi anthias are still alive and kicking. This knocks my confidence in keeping anthias in general and deep water ones in particular.

On a more cheerful note, PO4 has finally blinked and has come down just under 0.14 mg/L. I carried out four water changes this week (4 X 12%). I am still using FM Ultra Phos (75 gram per 250L). NO3 is steady at 2.5 ppm. I have recently decided to reset my tank in the sense that I am taking it back to the state it was in before I had replaced my previous protein skimmer, Deltec SC 1350, with an oversize skimmer, Deltec SC 1455 last August. The first step I have taken is to decommission the Deltec SC 1455 and restart using my old Deltec SC 1350. I have never been happy with the former because I could not get consistent foam head even though it produced good skimmate. The second step I have taken is to start to dose the same amount of Bacto-Balance I was dosing last August. Finally, I have stopped overfeeding my fish and gone back to my 3-frozen-cube of food-a-day routine despite having more fish than I did last August. I will eventually increase the amount of food once PO4 is under control and corals' colours go back to what they were last August.

The corals keep going even though their colours have suffered quite a bit. However, I am generally content with them.

Finally, here are a few recent photos. The first five were taken last week and the last three were taken a few hours ago:

P1110502

P1110510

P1110516

P1110523

P1110542


P1110554

P1110560

P1110564

 

[DiscusHeckel]

"Dances with Polyps"

 

[ramseynb]

Wow, that is some crazy polyp extension! Are you dosing anything or using any type of "system" (ZEOvit, etc, etc)?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Wow, that is some crazy polyp extension! Are you dosing anything or using any type of "system" (ZEOvit, etc, etc)?

I dose the following daily:

• Tropic Marin supplements (NP-Bacto-Balance, K+ Elements, A- Elements and Elimi-NP);
• KZ Sponge Power.

I also dose Tropic Marin Reef Actif and Fauna Marin Ultra Easy K weekly and Tropic Marin Pro-Coral Iodine three times a week.

Cheers