plyle02
Active member
Hi Matt,
Yeah Flikr for now, let's hope RC steps up and provides direct linking like the other popular reef forum recently did
Perry's AIO 50 cube
- Thread starter plyle02
- Start date
Hi Matt,
Yeah Flikr for now, let's hope RC steps up and provides direct linking like the other popular reef forum recently did
cham
New member
Yes, I would love some frags, especially those you scored from me, hint hint, acid trip
LOL, I got the acid trip directly from Mike that lived in Sanford (can't remember his RC name)
Darn thing grows so slow, but I hope to frag it soon
But I did get a metric ton of stuff from you, I lost the tri color which I'm bummed about because it was such a nice one.
Also have a bunch of RMF & Atlantis stuff from Mike when I was there getting the acid trip
plyle02
Active member
LOL, I got the acid trip directly from Mike that lived in Sanford (can't remember his RC name)
Darn thing grows so slow, but I hope to frag it soon
But I did get a metric ton of stuff from you, I lost the tri color which I'm bummed about because it was such a nice one.
Also have a bunch of RMF & Atlantis stuff from Mike when I was there getting the acid trip
Hey Charles, I spoke with Cindy, she said heck yeah, let's BBQ and have a few coldies, lol... Let me know when is good for you, I have weekends off, Saturdays are good. As you know, I like fresh cuts, so no need to plug, I will shoot you a message, I still have your cell. Yeah, the acid trip grew painfully slow for me as well. That one is not necessary until you have plenty of size, no hurry. Stay in touch brother, good to hear from you
Hi,
I did not have the aqua sd rainbow, but agree, many pics showcase these two corals in the same light, so not sure that there is really much of a difference, IMO. I highly suggest you visit Steve at Stormborn Reef, he has the goods! He also does not try and take advantage, with all the hottest stuff you see in Orlando, as many stores shop the same wholesalers. He will name something if he finds it unique and special, but is not naming basic stuff, even if the other shops do. He has been around a long time and has a seasoned eye for rare corals. Also gets maricultures in, and some of them will blow you away, I scored a purple humilus from there, going to be a stunner
plyle02
Active member
Update:
So I have not documented this on my system, since I have been sort of tracking an ongoing issue with this tank, and I have never experienced this before, so let me begin. I use a salt that mixes at 6.8dkh, and have been doing larger water changes each week at 25%, however, I would see alk increase in my tank on a daily basis of about .4dkh, which baffled me as I do not dose any minerals or trace. I decided to pull all the painted rock from the tank, most of it Real Reef Rock. I moved this rock into a separate tank I had laying around, now the tank is stable. In fairness, I had one more smaller piece of decorative rock that stayed in the system, and I was still climbing daily, but only at about.1-.2dkh. I removed it, and now only have real live rock from Fiji(air rock), and since removing all man made rock, I have now watched my alk stabilize. I am certain that this has caused me to lose about 6-8 corals since beginning this tank, and I am now seeing corals that looked washed out, burnt tips, and other signs of STN now coming back, showing polyps and gaining color. The single piece of live rock is around 20lbs, so not much natural filtration. I may add small pieces with corals mounted around the structure in time, but right now it looks pretty cool and simple, lol..
Part 2 of my update is tracking how NO3 and PO4 would work in my small system, especially due to it being limited for filtration area, as it is an AIO tank, and limited live rock. I was running about 5-10ppm on NO3 and 0.04 on PO4, depending on which day I tested, as the nutrients would creep until water change day, then go back down a bit. I have been using the Life Bio Fil passive in a mesh bag in the back of the filtration area. I had a BRS reactor lying around, I found a spot on the wall behind the tank, so it is hidden, and installed. I suspect about 150gph running through the media. From the time I installed it this way, I ran a NO3 and PO4 test 3 days later, without any water changes, and poof, NO3 no color change salifert, ZERO... PO4 also 0.00, so now I am using some of the AF supplements, as I need to get food to the corals. I am now feeding 2 times a day frozen, I only have 4 fish, but they are pigs. I cannot believe that running active with bio media versus passive would make this big of a difference. I am adding Bio S and Pro Bio S a couple of times per week, and NP Pro at a drop every few days. There is no real need for Phosphate remover at this point, and dosing. I suspect that if I dial down the flow rate through the media reactor, I might be able to control nutrients this way. Just thought I would share this experience. I am quite surprised to have ULNS in a AIO style tank as the skimmer is not over rated by any means.
Now the style of my system is a single low lying bommie, it looks pretty cool, I will have to upload a pic or 2 soon. The corals are looking better by the day, and the hopes for a minimalist display are in the works
So I have not documented this on my system, since I have been sort of tracking an ongoing issue with this tank, and I have never experienced this before, so let me begin. I use a salt that mixes at 6.8dkh, and have been doing larger water changes each week at 25%, however, I would see alk increase in my tank on a daily basis of about .4dkh, which baffled me as I do not dose any minerals or trace. I decided to pull all the painted rock from the tank, most of it Real Reef Rock. I moved this rock into a separate tank I had laying around, now the tank is stable. In fairness, I had one more smaller piece of decorative rock that stayed in the system, and I was still climbing daily, but only at about.1-.2dkh. I removed it, and now only have real live rock from Fiji(air rock), and since removing all man made rock, I have now watched my alk stabilize. I am certain that this has caused me to lose about 6-8 corals since beginning this tank, and I am now seeing corals that looked washed out, burnt tips, and other signs of STN now coming back, showing polyps and gaining color. The single piece of live rock is around 20lbs, so not much natural filtration. I may add small pieces with corals mounted around the structure in time, but right now it looks pretty cool and simple, lol..
Part 2 of my update is tracking how NO3 and PO4 would work in my small system, especially due to it being limited for filtration area, as it is an AIO tank, and limited live rock. I was running about 5-10ppm on NO3 and 0.04 on PO4, depending on which day I tested, as the nutrients would creep until water change day, then go back down a bit. I have been using the Life Bio Fil passive in a mesh bag in the back of the filtration area. I had a BRS reactor lying around, I found a spot on the wall behind the tank, so it is hidden, and installed. I suspect about 150gph running through the media. From the time I installed it this way, I ran a NO3 and PO4 test 3 days later, without any water changes, and poof, NO3 no color change salifert, ZERO... PO4 also 0.00, so now I am using some of the AF supplements, as I need to get food to the corals. I am now feeding 2 times a day frozen, I only have 4 fish, but they are pigs. I cannot believe that running active with bio media versus passive would make this big of a difference. I am adding Bio S and Pro Bio S a couple of times per week, and NP Pro at a drop every few days. There is no real need for Phosphate remover at this point, and dosing. I suspect that if I dial down the flow rate through the media reactor, I might be able to control nutrients this way. Just thought I would share this experience. I am quite surprised to have ULNS in a AIO style tank as the skimmer is not over rated by any means.
Now the style of my system is a single low lying bommie, it looks pretty cool, I will have to upload a pic or 2 soon. The corals are looking better by the day, and the hopes for a minimalist display are in the works
reefmutt
Active member
Wow, that's very interesting about the faux rock. I guess if it were made out of a concrete type material, it could leach buffering compounds.. I guess in a larger system, or one with more corals and growth, one might not even notice..
There is obviously a sweet spot for biomedia.. you seem to have found it, Perry.
Looking forward to new scape pics..
There is obviously a sweet spot for biomedia.. you seem to have found it, Perry.
Looking forward to new scape pics..
plyle02
Active member
Yes,
12 years at sps keeping, I literally thought I was going mad... And yes, I have read about mineral leaching, but I did not think it would grow this fast. Combining daily alk increase with new corals is a no no, and I am lucky any corals are still alive, lol.. I scanned my 16 sps corals, a week ago, I though maybe I would end up with around 10-11, about 5 corals looked awe full. I now see PE in all but 1, and thinking I will recover on all but maybe one, it is holding in there too, so maybe not. I am stable at 8dkh now, but wanting to see it drop to around 6.8-7.2dkh, and hold. I suspect that as the corals begin to grow and become healthy, they will start consuming, then I will go online with comp 123 system. The biological media seems to like a constant source of water flowing through it to become effective. Perhaps many tune their flow rate too low as well, I am moving a fair amount of water over and through the media, it is also detritus free this way. Funny thing about it is that even my 120 gallon would never go ULNS, close, but that is why I think my corals maintained the saturation. Cheers Matt :beer:
plyle02
Active member
Sharing some angles of the reef structure update, corals still on the brown side. Now the alk is stable and under 8.0dkh, I think the corals will settle and then begin to color, at least I hope so
[/url]IMG_8367 by Perry Lyle, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]IMG_8366 by Perry Lyle, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]IMG_8370 by Perry Lyle, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]IMG_8371 by Perry Lyle, on Flickr[/IMG]
plyle02
Active member
Thanks Matt, I am having fun with this little setup
I really love how Andrew(Biggles) has a low lying style shallow display, you see such little rock work in his setup. I like how he places corals on different rocks then sort of places them, as the corals grow, all you see is acro on acro after acro, this is what shows such vibrancy in his array of colors My intent now instead of the original pyramid design has forced this outcome. Soon we shall see Greg,
Thank you for looking in on my new setup, a smaller one indeed, but I am still in the hobby and stoked to try something new. I see that things are coming back around for you as well, so I will have my eyes peeled looking for updates. Hopefully I can get these corals to grow my friend! This setup does have some potential, so fingers crossed
plyle02
Active member
Hey Mate,
I did my do diligence in eliminating possibilities, I documented test after test for about 2 months. Each week before a 20% water change, I saw 1.5dkh increases, without any dosing. Given I have frags and the demand would be low, I knew I should slowly see alk decrease throughout the week, and likely a 25% water change would suffice until they took off. I finally decided to do some research, the only thing that I could logically think of is something sourcing alk back into the water. I checked RODI and it was like it should be, zero. So I pulled all decorative rock except one small piece, it too was later found to be leaching in very small amounts. I tested the bin where I stored the decorative rock and noticed that the alk climbed in that tank, whereas my display started to slowly stabilize. Not sure what or why, and up to this point, I have never really had anything negative with RRR. In a larger system with larger corals, likely you would never detect. Anyway, my structure was reduced to one single larger shelf of Fiji live rock, that was air freighted in, I will only use real live rock with any new display moving forward, some drawbacks, but paling in comparison to the benefits
Cheers
Zoahoarder
Member
Dang that's crazy how the rock was leaching alk. Glad you found the source of the problem so you can get some sps in the tank. Looks great by the way.
