Pete's 110 build

[lanshark]

I’m pretty standard here;
pH = 7.95 to 8.2 in a normal 24 hour period, more interested in the swing then total
temp = 79.5 – 80.5
Salinity 1.026 – I try to keep it here or between 1.025 and 1.026
Alk 8-9.5 but has been 10
Ca 450 ish, I don’t see much difference if this drops to 350 or is up around 500
Mg 1350 – 1450, lower and my Monteporas start to fad
Po4 – undetectable to less then 0.03
N03 - I use to say undetectable but have learned to live with 1-2pmm

Pete,

Really appreciate your generosity with this kind of information exchange.

For those reading this thread, there are jewels of information throughout.
:bounce1:

"why extend a polyp if there is never a reason too"' love that line. i've already seen improvement in corals after making some feeding changes. I was only feeding fish and very little to LPS. Added a little phyto too.. Had never seen the feeding response in SPS as I do now. Going to try kalk in top off to offset co2 effect on ph at night like you're doing in the future too. All good stuff. :spin3:

Big thanks for posting your water parameters. The reason that is so helpful to me, for example, I have never been sure what ph values will truly stifle SPS success. My range is not outside yours and that is encouraging.

I presume you arrived at the major values based on success. Could you pass along just a quick thought on just these parms;

Alk - why lower range 8-9 vs. 10 to 12 range per say? Your experience?
Temp - why not say 77 to 78? What High/Low range has caused you trouble?
SG - have you noticed anything at 1.025 vs. 1.026?

Thanks!

 

[psteeleb]

Pete,

Really appreciate your generosity with this kind of information exchange.

For those reading this thread, there are jewels of information throughout.
:bounce1:

"why extend a polyp if there is never a reason too"' love that line. i've already seen improvement in corals after making some feeding changes. I was only feeding fish and very little to LPS. Added a little phyto too.. Had never seen the feeding response in SPS as I do now. Going to try kalk in top off to offset co2 effect on ph at night like you're doing in the future too. All good stuff. :spin3:

Big thanks for posting your water parameters. The reason that is so helpful to me, for example, I have never been sure what ph values will truly stifle SPS success. My range is not outside yours and that is encouraging.

I presume you arrived at the major values based on success. Could pass along just a quick thought on just these parms;

Alk - why lower range 8-9 vs. 10 to 12 range per say? Your experience?
Temp - why not say 77 to 78? What High/Low range has caused you trouble?
SG - have you noticed anything at 1.025 vs. 1.026?

Thanks!

I use to keep my alk just over 10, it wasn't for an improvement in corals but liked the idea of a little buffer in the event a Ca reactor fail. But since running bio pellets (or any carbon source) there seems to be some evidence or connection between carbon dosing with high alk levels causing burnt edges on corals, so I dropped it some.

Temp - I don't have a chiller so I didn't want to push too low. My main goal was to reach a point that I could control within 2 degrees through evaporation fans and a heater. My goal was somewhere between 78-82 with the 82 as a hard max on a summer day. I tweaked it for several months trying to avoid spikes up and down and just ended up there. I'm doubt a degree or two higher or lower would make that much difference but I can't really say. Higher temps should increase metabolism and may get more growth but it may also get paler colors and vice versa with lower temps. But like I said I kind of just work into it and was happy. My 300g ran about a degree warmer on average.

1.025 vs. 1.026 SG, I've never seen much difference between the two but the 1.026 gives me a little buffer in the event of a top off related issue that would drop the SG (like a stuck float or small leak). It's happened to me a couple times so I just plan for it. I have noticed negative effects on some more sensitive corals as the SG reaches 1.024 or lower.

 

[iwishtofish]

Stunning pictures, Pete, as always. Thanks for sharing. I love seeing your colorful montis and chalices.

 

[psteeleb]

That is such a cool diagram, did you use a specific program to make that?

thanks Alex

It's just a spreadsheet that I set the column widths to make the cells square then filled the colors in.

I've notice my corals in the center under the T5's are browning some. I use to have the T5's set for 5 hours but cut back when I added the new corals a few weeks back. I'm going to set them back to the 5 hours for now and may go longer in a couple days to try and bring out more colors for those corals in the middle. I even notice that individual corals will be more colorful on the LED side then the T5 side.

 

[mess7777]

If you had a do-over would you still use the T5 or go all LED?

Reason I ask is that I find your colors to be among the best I've seen, and if I could just build your exact hood I would do that!

thanks Alex

It's just a spreadsheet that I set the column widths to make the cells square then filled the colors in.

I've notice my corals in the center under the T5's are browning some. I use to have the T5's set for 5 hours but cut back when I added the new corals a few weeks back. I'm going to set them back to the 5 hours for now and may go longer in a couple days to try and bring out more colors for those corals in the middle. I even notice that individual corals will be more colorful on the LED side then the T5 side.

 

[psteeleb]

If you had a do-over would you still use the T5 or go all LED?

Reason I ask is that I find your colors to be among the best I've seen, and if I could just build your exact hood I would do that!

thanks

At first I thought I would eventually end up with all LED's but right now I'm leaning toward the mix as I think some corals may need the spectrum that the T5's offer.

I just upped the light duration back to 5 hours on the T5's and may take it to 6 or 7 in the next week or so to see if I can get the corals in the middle to color up some and go from there.

 

[psteeleb]

Go figure this one - at least this guy admits it's not his tank. I wonder if he's making money off it through the advertisements.

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[drummereef]

Go figure this one - at least this guy admits it's not his tank. I wonder if he's making money off it through the advertisements.

What the... Ha! This guy's got some serious cojones to use your video like that. 25,000+ views is impressive to say the least. Good PR for you though. :lol: I'm a little upset however, he didn't cite me as fan club Pres. :rollface:

 

[psteeleb]

As promised here is a video of the TLF (now recirc) reactor in use. Prior to this video I was using an older model MJ 1200 but it used an impellor intended for the MJ900 and therefore provided a less then satisfactory flow. The slower flow ended up allowing the bio pellets to clump into a solid mass.

I searched the usual on-line and local stores for the right impellor but couldn't find one as the pump model is outdated. I ended up going with the new MJ 1200 Pro series and as you can see in the video it provides plenty of flow, too much actually, so I'll probably end up downsizing it to a MJ 900.

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[psteeleb]

....... :lol: I'm a little upset however, he didn't cite me as fan club Pres. :rollface:

haha I like it :lol2:

 

[Taqpol]

Man, that is really not ok that that guy just stole your video with zero credit. I would definitely contact youtube and see if they can take it down or force him to put a proper citation.

On another sad note, did anyone else take a look at the comments on that video? A surprisingly large portion of the commenters thought the tank was fake or CGI...

 

[hobbby3]

Go figure this one - at least this guy admits it's not his tank. I wonder if he's making money off it through the advertisements.

WOW! This is actually one of the Videos I had marked as a favorite to show my family and friends why I want a Coral Reef tank. Thanks for the great footage Psteeleb, I subscribed to your channel and removed it from my favorites.

 

[psteeleb]

video of mostly acropora polyps on 3/20
with 2 gorgonia

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[sahin]

Wow I thoroughly enjoyed watching that. I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but what camera and lens are you using to shoot those videos?

 

[drummereef]

Awesome video again.

Another recirc pellet reactor question for you... As long as there is a pump doing the recirculating, does it matter if the "feed" and "effluent" lines are different sizes? For instance, would it matter if 1/2" tubing feeds the reactor but 1/4" tubing is the effluent from the reactor? Both would be on ball valves to control the flow to and from the reactor - along with the pump that is obviously controlling the flow/tumble within the reactor.

Or is it better to roughly match the tubing sizes for feed and effluent for some reason, even if they are independently controlled by valves?

 

[psteeleb]

Wow I thoroughly enjoyed watching that. I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but what camera and lens are you using to shoot those videos?

thanks - it's a Sony camcorder HDR-XR150, it takes great close ups within a limited range but its not so great at full tank shots

Awesome video again.

Another recirc pellet reactor question for you... As long as there is a pump doing the recirculating, does it matter if the "feed" and "effluent" lines are different sizes? For instance, would it matter if 1/2" tubing feeds the reactor but 1/4" tubing is the effluent from the reactor? Both would be on ball valves to control the flow to and from the reactor - along with the pump that is obviously controlling the flow/tumble within the reactor.

Or is it better to roughly match the tubing sizes for feed and effluent for some reason, even if they are independently controlled by valves?

thanks Brett

Having two sizes wont mater with restricted flow. You can uese two valves, and that will give you finer control, but you only need one. When using one it's best to valve the inlet. A valve on the outlet will create presure on the reactor. The reactor pressure shouldn't be a big deal unless a fitting comes loose or something like that.

 

[drummereef]

Having two sizes wont mater with restricted flow. You can uese two valves, and that will give you finer control, but you only need one. When using one it's best to valve the inlet. A valve on the outlet will create presure on the reactor. The reactor pressure shouldn't be a big deal unless a fitting comes loose or something like that.

Great! What I'll probably do then is feed the reactor with 3/8" tubing from my manifold which already has an available ball valve. Then I'll run 1/4" from the reactor to the skimmer - open, no valve. That way the "flow-through" will be controlled from the feed side. Unless you see a problem with this plan...

 

[psteeleb]

Great! What I'll probably do then is feed the reactor with 3/8" tubing from my manifold which already has an available ball valve. Then I'll run 1/4" from the reactor to the skimmer - open, no valve. That way the "flow-through" will be controlled from the feed side. Unless you see a problem with this plan...

I think you will be happy with that; it's basically what I have

 

[feh]

Nice acros and gorgonia. Hows the sunset and undata doing?

 

[psteeleb]

Nice acros and gorgonia. Hows the sunset and undata doing?

The Sunset never got hit as hard as the Undata, most I noticed was some polyp retraction and still seems to have some. The Undata isn't out of the woods yet, I want to say the damage is done and not getting worse but it's not looking what I would consider healthy yet and still can go either way. Right now I hope stability will work in its favor. The Bio pellets are running slow as shown in the video and the No3 is hanging right around 2-3 ppm. I'm running my Alk lower (right around 7 dkh) but not sure it's doing much either way.

The other Montes are doing fine. There are a couple acropora that seem to have some skin damage but are holding their colors so not sure if it was High Alk with bio pellets related or not.

thanks for checking up on them

Here are some updated Acropora pics

Strawberry Tabling Acro

unknown Acropora Sp. wild coral - check out how the radial polyp is like a slot on this in two places. Maybe it’s some sort of hybrid growth caused by the high No3, or, maybe just how it starts branching. It's a very pretty coral I got as a frag from a friends wild colony.

and a top down of it - sorry about the reflections, I should have used my photo box