My humble SPS journey - Shallow 80g

[joshky]

Hey Josh, great colors, glad to see you're bouncing back
Quick question, what's the coral in the 7th picture? The green and blue. I really like it and would love to buy it from wherever you got it )




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Wild Acropora valida, here's the mother my frag is from.

Looking really good! Nice pe on most and good colour generally.
So, you have finished with both fluco and Vibrant?
They look like they really cleaned up your tank..
Now that you are done, if you are.. just curious about where nutrients are now going and what, if any algeas are popping up again..



I would guess that it is a beautifully polyped but slightly Vibrant induced pale bonsai..

Vibrant was stopped back in January, Fluconazole was a one time dose for me back in January as well. I have no algae other than coralline and a bit of cyanobacteria left in my tank, the cyano I believe to be from my Reef Chili feedings but I'm not sure, it's not abundant by any means.

no3: 5 salifert
po4: 0.006 hanna ULR

 

[joshky]

What leads you to believe that Vibrant is really bad on livestock? What livestock in particular? I've followed the Vibrant thread and I've been dosing for about 2 months now, weekly, and I've not seen any downsides (other than having to dose KNO3 to keep nitrates up) to the product personally nor have I seen really bad effects from others perspectives as well.

All of my acros and maybe even my magnifica responded negatively to it and there have been other users with similar experiences to mine, I dosed for over two months myself and this has just been my experience. I think my issue mostly stemmed from my dosing regimen of 3x a week instead of the 2x that they suggested, so mostly my fault for experimenting. However, I know of a few others who followed the instructions for bryopsis treatment and they also had issues (not as severe), and I believe that (last I heard) UWC was going to lower the dosing amount due to the issues some users were having. Regardless it's a great product, but without close examination of your nutrients it can be very potent.

I also wanted to add one more thing to this. Think about Vibrant this way, it's creating a yo-yo effect in the sense that as you dose it, bacteria are colonizing and bringing your nutrients down, but also as you dose it your algae dies off and releases nutrients into your system. The instability caused by vibrant can lead to issues which is why a slower route is necessary and by dosing weekly such as you are, you shouldn't have as many issues, if you even have any at all. However, UWC was saying to dose twice weekly for bryopsis and when I first started I was one of the first few who adopted this product (albeit after it was brought up on that "other" forum, there are plenty of people who tried it before I did) immediately and gave it a go (hence my own experimentation with it). I was about to throw in the towel right up until vibrant was brought up, it gave me new hope and I was ready to try anything; so perhaps I was a bit overzealous in my approach, which is why I will personally tell users to proceed using it with caution. It's a fantastic product and it killed multiple algaes for me, not bryopsis, but even still I can't overlook what it did.

 

[reefmutt]

So in the end, now that you have no algea left, your nutrients are quite low.. any different than from before you started Vibrant?

 

[joshky]

So in the end, now that you have no algea left, your nutrients are quite low.. any different than from before you started Vibrant?

Before I struggled to keep nutrients in the tank and now I also feel like I'm struggling to an extent, I'm not sure I've found my equilibrium whereas before it felt easier. I'm fighting really hard not tinkering, because for a long time now I've wanted to try chaeto, which I think would help with overall stability without the bryopsis filling in that role. I've already purchased a poly filter to throw in the sump, I've never ran one before and I just want to be doubly sure nothing somehow got into the tank over the course of it being wet.

 

[markalot]

Hi Joch,

catching up. Any new pics. Those from March looked fantastic.

 

[joshky]

Hi Joch,

catching up. Any new pics. Those from March looked fantastic.

Sorry for the lack of updates, tank is still going strong and things are looking better all the time it seems. My reds have been a little off, I know you had a similar issue with them being more brick red than vibrant like I used to get; I wish I knew why, but I'm seeing improvement in my red planet very slowly. Growth is fantastic, some things are seriously huge right now and I'll be trimming quite a bit the next few months. No new photos right now, maybe next week before I trim some things I'll take a few photos. Just haven't really felt like keeping up with this, and until I get better camera/lens I don't really like taking photos because I have to leave the pumps off for so long trying to get decent pictures. It didn't use to bother me but that was when things were smaller and doing absolutely amazing (color-wise), now I try to eliminate any possibility of messing up my acros haha.

Anyways I will definitely try to get a FTS soon at the very least, thanks for checking in.

 

[markalot]

Good to hear Josh, at least things are moving along even if colors are a bit off.

 

[Wrangy]

I'm with Mark, that's all good news But hurry up and get some new pics without disturbing the babies What about a top down viewer?

 

[Charley Diesing]

How is your multi-barred angelfish doing?

 

[Patrick Cox]

I decided to not dose a form of no3 (for now), and decided to start broadcast feeding reef chili to see if that'll help colors and growth. I am also considering adding KZ Pohl's Xtra Special to my arsenal to dose alongside the Sponge Power that I'm already dosing if I don't see a significant change in a month or so. I'm open to other ideas if anyone want's to talk me out of going this direction, just thinking out loud.

Hey Josh,
Where have you ended up on your dosing? How is it working? Thanks.

 

[joshky]

Good to hear Josh, at least things are moving along even if colors are a bit off.

I'm with Mark, that's all good news But hurry up and get some new pics without disturbing the babies What about a top down viewer?

Thanks guys, I'll try to do some photos soon. I had some top down viewers but found them hard to take photos with under T5s, maybe I should give it another shot in the future.

How is your multi-barred angelfish doing?

It stopped eating and withered away on me unfortunately, wish I had better news.

Hey Josh,
Where have you ended up on your dosing? How is it working? Thanks.

Right now all I do is KZ Sponge Power, 4 drops daily. I was at one point not dosing anything at all, but I really feel like the health of the tank is better with sponge power being doses.

 

[joshky]

Little rusty at taking photos it seems, here's an updated FTS.

 

[reefmutt]

Cool swirly artsy fartsy reflection shot!
Josh I really like where your scape is going.
Nice and open. The large colonies already look great and when that blue tort and other smaller pieces catch up, it's going to be really really nice.

 

[Pife]

Nice scape. What are the dimensions of your tank? It looks huge.

 

[codydemmel4]

everything is looking great! love the openness too

 

[markalot]

Looking great Josh!

 

[joshky]

Cool swirly artsy fartsy reflection shot!
Josh I really like where your scape is going.
Nice and open. The large colonies already look great and when that blue tort and other smaller pieces catch up, it's going to be really really nice.

Thanks Matt!

I thought that shot would be neat to show the water movement for newbies lurking, kind of give a reference of what my flow looks like, which I feel like I need to add to soon. Never enough flow.... just hard to crank it up too much, I hate bare spots. I really feel like a gyre would be perfect for this tank because of how shallow it is.

I'm thinking about selling my massive duncan colony to open up the scape even further, it's gotta be near 400 heads right now I'm sure (smaller kind), then I can move the magnifica rock further away from the left island and give the acros more room to grow long term.

I love the oregon tort, but man it grows so slow for me; I know it's slow for most, but I don't know, I think I've held it back quite a bit. Knock on wood I haven't had any issues for months now and as long as things continue to go that way I think it might finally have the chance to take off, I see lots of baby branches just ready, waiting to do something.

Nice scape. What are the dimensions of your tank? It looks huge.

Thank you. It's the deep blue tank, 48x24x16, not very big.

everything is looking great! love the openness too

Looking great Josh!

Thanks you two, appreciate it. :beer:

 

[stevejrnc]

wow this was an amazing 25 pages
getting the same tank together hope i could get close to what you've done

 

[joshky]

wow this was an amazing 25 pages
getting the same tank together hope i could get close to what you've done

Hopefully you can learn from some of my mistakes and have a better tank. :thumbsup: Thank you for the support, appreciate it.

Tank is still running stable, mostly doing well, but ever since beating bryopsis I still haven't gotten the colors back that I used to have. I tried chaeto to see if maybe I just needed something to soak up some nutrients like the bryopsis did for me and it died off on me (guessing lack of nutrients); after that I stopped running a skimmer (almost 2 months now) and I'm seeing better colors on some pieces, but overall things are still "meh" so my enthusiasm for updating just isn't there. No job right now either so funds have been tight, haven't really done too much recently of interest, hopefully I can land a better job than my previous one soon and reboot my passion.

Thanks to everyone who supported me throughout my journey, you guys are awesome.

 

[MK3_LUV]

Just read through the whole thread again a couple of days ago, still one of my favorite threads here on reef central. Glad to hear you're still in the hunt man, glad you arent giving up! Keep it up!

and if any frags of that Oregon Tort ever come up for sale, I would love to be first in line.