drummereef
Team RC
Drool! The colors on the monti undata make me go... :crazy1: Amazing colors!
Pete's 110 build
- Thread starter psteeleb
- Start date
I'm all caught up and subscribed! Your tank looks amazing! It is cool how much stuff i'm learning! I probably won't be able to contribute much since I don't have any experience, but I am a fan!
One question, how do you get all that life in your refugium? I plan on starting a tank soon with dry rock, It was suggested that I dose with MB7 to help get things started. Will that get me some life like that, or do I need to do something in addition to that? Thanks! Again, awesome tank!!
David
One question, how do you get all that life in your refugium? I plan on starting a tank soon with dry rock, It was suggested that I dose with MB7 to help get things started. Will that get me some life like that, or do I need to do something in addition to that? Thanks! Again, awesome tank!!
David
drummereef
Team RC
I don't want to steal Pete's thunder as he's a true master of the hobby, but MB7 is only a bacterial supplement. It will not give you the diversity of micro organisms Pete's refugium has. Additions of healthy live rock, rock rubble, live sand, macro algaes, feeding, and time to flourish will help.
I don't want to steal Pete's thunder as he's a true master of the hobby, but MB7 is only a bacterial supplement. It will not give you the diversity of micro organisms Pete's refugium has. Additions of healthy live rock, rock rubble, live sand, macro algaes, feeding, and time to flourish will help.
Ok, cool. Thanks! So, the MB7 will give good bacteria (unseen critters) to help things out. Then, live sand or live rock, will give me those cool pods and such? Am I thinking of it correctly?
psteeleb
Team RC
thanks for the kind words and glad you are learning something from my build as that's what sharing on this forum is all about.
As for the refugium life, as Brett indicated you will not get that from dead rock. I'm a big believer in bio-diversity and maximizing natural filtration; starting with higher life forms down through microbioal. But to do this you need to provide a lot of surface area for them to live in, or lots of live rock.
Think of your mini eco sytem (aka reef tank) as a pyramid with your fish and higher life forms on the top, your clean up crews below that, then macro life, then micro life on so on, with the lowest level being bacteria. Each level of that pyramid has populations and diversities that can be thousands of times more then the one above and all those critters need a place to stay.
Establishing these populations in the right diversity for your system doesn't just happen over night. And to make things more difficult the populations will compete for their own nitch in the pyramid. This is why many systems, even top notch ones often get algea blooms for the first year or so, as algeas are fast growers and can out compete others for nutrients. A robust system will have a diverse set of life forms that constantly compete with others for their own nitch in the pyramid. The reason you see so many early system algea blooms is things like sponges, feather dusters clams and other filter feeders take time to reach meaningful populations. And if the fast growers (like algeas, or bristle worms) are left unchecked they can over populate, over consume, and eventually kill off the less established life forms. This over population of fewer types of life forms will often lead to a system failure (as is the case with old tank syndrome)
Even the best steward, mother nature, see's these cycles of over population and die offs. Reefs have them as do forests. To sum it up not only is establishing a diverse system important but keeping it diverse is just as important, you can do this by introducing new live rock to the syetem every couple of years
Now onto some more modern approaches:
Many people have beautiful reef tanks with minimal biodiversity, most do this with a focus on corals, and have what are known as low nutrient systems. You can get some great looking corals this way but with the a low nutrient system you will also get slower coral grwoth and likely less polyp extension (why waste energy catching food that isn't there). Another sucsessful spin off of this approach is specialized coral feeding that minimizes bio waste by focusing on the specific suspected needs of the coral. These system also tend to be low bio load or few if any fish.
Another popular apporach these days are minimal aqauscape systems that have higher bio loads / nutritional demands then the levels of live rock can naturally support. In order for these systems to be successful you have to replace the missing levels of biodiversity and/or populations with other means . If you dont you will eventually end up with build ups of things like phosphates and nitrates. You can remove these excess wastes with more frequent water changes, and/or mechanical filtration (like higher end skimmers, or the use of GAC, GFO), and/or use natural means to export the excess with things like macro algeas in a sump or an algea scrubber where the algea consumes the waste and then you remove and toss the algea.
Another more recent popular approach is to increase the otherwise natural level of bacteria in live rock and live sand by stimulating growth with things like carbon dosing or using a media reactor with biopellets.
HTH and happy reefing
psteeleb
Team RC
Thanks and believe me, I appreciate the feedback. And I'll add after 30 years I am still on the reading and learning side. :reading:
drummereef
Team RC
Like I said, Pete is the reef MASTER! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
syedjilani
Active member
gr8 :thumbsup:
phillyfishguy
New member
Pete thanks for taking the time and explaining reef keeping. It really helps new people out like me.
psteeleb
Team RC
Thanks for the kind words Brett, but if what you say is true then why do I feel more like a slave the the tank :lol:
thank SJ
anytime, I'm just glad to be able to share some things I've learned by reading forums like this one, or by trial and error
Thanks for posting
drummereef
Team RC
Haha! :lol: :rollface:
psteeleb
Team RC
For a quick update on kalc dosing
I dose 15 seconds every half hour as long as pH is under 8.15, at max this will provide about 1/2 my daily top off. The rest of the top off is with RO/DI water controlled with a standard float type ATO
I use kalcwasser dosing, as I find the corals just seem to do better with it then without it. I suspect it's mostly a higher pH thing but it may be due to some other chemicals in the kalkwasser.
I run a CA reactor for primary Ca/Alk replenishment. The Ca reactor is run only durring the lights on hours to avoid dropping the pH further at night.
this chart shows a couple things
1) my normal 24 hour pH swing is from 8.1 to 8.3, but this chart shows a slight pH downturn as the kalk powder in the reactor lost it's potency (last recharge was about 20 days prior - so almost 3 weeks).
2) we had a lot of people over at the house for two days and you can see the influence a large number of people can have on the tank pH by decreasing the O2 levels in the house.
3) late in the chart, I recharged the kalc and you can see that I'm back to my normal 8.1 to 8.3 pH swing
4) the bottom of each valley is when the lights turn on and the peaks are when the lights turn off
I dose 15 seconds every half hour as long as pH is under 8.15, at max this will provide about 1/2 my daily top off. The rest of the top off is with RO/DI water controlled with a standard float type ATO
I use kalcwasser dosing, as I find the corals just seem to do better with it then without it. I suspect it's mostly a higher pH thing but it may be due to some other chemicals in the kalkwasser.
I run a CA reactor for primary Ca/Alk replenishment. The Ca reactor is run only durring the lights on hours to avoid dropping the pH further at night.
this chart shows a couple things
1) my normal 24 hour pH swing is from 8.1 to 8.3, but this chart shows a slight pH downturn as the kalk powder in the reactor lost it's potency (last recharge was about 20 days prior - so almost 3 weeks).
2) we had a lot of people over at the house for two days and you can see the influence a large number of people can have on the tank pH by decreasing the O2 levels in the house.
3) late in the chart, I recharged the kalc and you can see that I'm back to my normal 8.1 to 8.3 pH swing
4) the bottom of each valley is when the lights turn on and the peaks are when the lights turn off
drummereef
Team RC
Hey Pete - when you add Kalk as top-off or partly top-off in your case, how do you manage Alkalinity? Does each batch of Kalk mix up to the same Alkalinity? And, since top-off needs vary throughout the year with climate change how does this effect your ability to monitor Alk levels?
psteeleb
Team RC
good questions
the first part about the kalk batch - the nice thing about kalc is at full saturation it is constant. The TLF reactor will hold one cup of powder and under my current settings this keeps the dose water saturation level constant for about 20 days.
As for the evaporation variable; I hope I have the right answer as kind of ran into this up front.
Initially I wanted to maximize the kalc dosing, but due to the situation as you describe I decided to cut back the dosings to a maximum of one gallan a day. My system will evaporate between 2 to 3 gallons a day depending on house temperature and humidity. So the kalc dose stays constant and the RO/DI feed by the ATO are what are in flux as it makes up the difference.
I was taking alk readings daily as I got the Ca reactor tuned in, but I was also introduicing new corals and am getting decent coral growth, so demand was and continues to increase. Currently everythign seems to be keeping up with demand but I continue to get Alk readings at least weekly and will make increased demand adjustments using the Ca reactor. Bottom line is the Kalc dosing remains very constant
(unless it depletes
) The Ca reactor is controled by a Milwalkee stand alone pH controller. Right now the Milwalkee is plugged into the APEX for tank low pH "off" controll only. I do want to eventually move 100% of the Ca control to the APEX so I can make adjustments while away. Guess it's time to get another EB8, but wait, I just spent my monthly budget on a Tunze Nano wave box... :beer:
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psteeleb
Team RC
yes and it's a real problem for people that have super insulated homes, Some people will actually run a tube from the outside to there skimmer just to get more O2 into the system to bring their pH up.
when the weather is nice here in Texas a lot of our local club members start to comment on how their pH suddenly went up. They tend to forget or just don't know about the open window to increase your pH trick. :lol:
I will add, I am still amazed by just how much a few extra people in the house or an open window can make on the tank pH
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drummereef
Team RC
Congrats on the new wavebox! I'm feeling a new video come on. 
That makes perfect sense about the limited, measured Kalk doses. I've always wondered how people managed Alk when just adding Kalk to top-off as it's so random depending on evap etc... Your system blends the best of everything while maintaining constant Alk, which to me is ideal.
That makes perfect sense about the limited, measured Kalk doses. I've always wondered how people managed Alk when just adding Kalk to top-off as it's so random depending on evap etc... Your system blends the best of everything while maintaining constant Alk, which to me is ideal.
