Pete's 280 log

[spleify]

Awesome!!!

Spleify

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13383158#post13383158 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BigJay
I have the leftover frozen stuff to make more. Do you have a food processor?

The stuff smells foul but the fish love it. It's packed full of phosphates. I'm planning on feeding it as an occasional treat. I'll have to bring a little by.

If you're free this weekend sometime we still need to head to Neptunes. They have achilles tangs and I might head over and take a look.

sounds like a plan - keep me posted. Right now I'm not sure what the weekend has in store, but I'll probably be doing some stuff outside with the cooler weather.

I like the achilles but prefer the powder blue, wish I could have both

We have a food processer but I doubt my wife will want me using it on raw seafood. I'll keep an eye out for a small one on sale.

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13383456#post13383456 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spleify
Awesome!!!

Spleify

thanks

 

[VengefulSakhmet]

The coral looks specatcular.

 

[psteeleb]

with new bulbs installed for a couple days now, and running Kalc that increased and stabilized both Ph and Alk for about 3 weeks now, my SPS are looking nice

here are a few top downs I took tonight and last night
lighting is 3 250w 12k Reflux on Lumatek ballasts and 2 165w actinic VHO's

here is a general top down of the right side of the tank

here is a frag of Marc's A. Granulosa - unfortunately part of it was not getting enough light but it has since been moved

this blue tabling acro I got from SERVO is making a nice comeback

this crayola, A plana, from Marc is taking off nicely

as is this blu green table from SERVO it also is making a nice comeback

off in the corner is my smaller chips colony, it will get moved this weekend

 

[michika]

What are you running for kalk, and how are you running it?

 

[psteeleb]

and here are a few from the center section of the tank (some repeats)

a general area top down with a large chips colony in the center

a purp/blue prostrata that is making a great recovery from AEFW

a mille from MakoJ

green birds nest

blue tenuis

this Pink Jade finally looks like it's getting it's pink back

as does this Aqua Delight

this acropora sp, from Marc is looking nice

and one of my fovorite survivors of both red bugs and AEFW
acropora sp aka "the blob"

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13388104#post13388104 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by michika
What are you running for kalk, and how are you running it?

the calcium hydroxide (kalc) is made up of half ESV and half some left over I got from a local club member

I dose 3 gallons of kalc a night in one gallon intervals. I have a small two gallon tank that that is filled from my main RO/DI reservoir. When it fill's I have an over flow tube that prevents more then a gallon of RO/DI to be gravity fed to my GEO Kalk Reactor. The gravity feed line has a solenoid valve that is hooked up to my RK2 so if Ph goes up to much it shuts off. By dosing at night and the high Ph shutoff I hope to keep my Ph swing within 0.10 maybe even lower.

A timer turns on both the Kalc reactor stir pump and the RO/DI feed and runs for 5 minutes. It is set to come on at 11:30pm, 4:00am and 8:00am. Basically the first dose (the 11:30 one) sits ready to gravity feed until the Ph drops to 8.15, usually around 12:15 or so. Right now my daytime high looks like its around 8.20 to 8.22ish, and the low looks around 8.14ish but I don't check it all night. I want to get a used laptop and hook up my RK2 to start recording my 24hrs swings. I eventually want to add a CA reactor that I'll run only at night and set it to work on the high Ph swing to curb it down some during the day.

 

[michika]

Very interesting! Thanks for the diagram too!

 

[ReefEnabler]

corals are looking nice.

so the pump that supplies the small resevoir is not hooked up to the float switch at all?

do you worry about dosing more kalk than the evaporation would be?

my swing is still much lower than yours (7.9 at night) but I am only doing evaporation topoff, no nightly scheduled dosing. I might have to give that a shot.

 

[melev]

Pete, your pictures tell it all. Lots of happy corals.

Anthony told me you've been replacing your bulbs recently, and I just wanted to remind you to shorten the photo period somewhat due to the reflectors you have. The PAR between an old Reeflux 10,000K and a new one is significant. Take a look at the right bulb in both of these pictures:

That is a 25% (or more) increase in PAR just by switching out the bulb, and nothing more.

Also, if you want to run your 400w bulbs, please put them on a timer for an hour or two. I'm just afraid you'll forget and nuke the tank if you get called away for an emergency.

I don't know how much PO4 is in the fishfood I make; I'll let Anthony do the testing on that one. I just know my fish never complain. When we made up some batches yesterday, we made three different types, and I gave some of each to Anthony to take home and try out. Tonight, I used some from two of the batches, so some was chunkier while other parts were very fine. It was a cloudy mess, but everyone was sucking it up.

Glad I dose vodka.

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13388531#post13388531 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RyanBrucks
corals are looking nice.

so the pump that supplies the small reservoir is not hooked up to the float switch at all?

do you worry about dosing more Kalk than the evaporation would be?

my swing is still much lower than yours (7.9 at night) but I am only doing evaporation top-off, no nightly scheduled dosing. I might have to give that a shot.

Ryan - Correct, the Kalc system is not hooked up to the float switch. I was counting on having enough capacity in my sump to over fill at night and evaporate off during the day. The normal top off would only add if there was more then 3 gallons of evaporation.

That said the weather got cooler and my evaporation dropped to less then 3 gallons, and my water level in the sump elevated. This created a problem when the main pump was off, so I turned my fans on 24/7 to increase forced evaporation. For now this seems to be boosting the evaporation level high enough to compensate for the 3 gallons of Kalk added. But, I'm cautiously watching it.

My low swing was around 7.95-7.98, this morning tight before the 8:00 dose it was 8.05, lower then I had hoped, but still better then what it use to be. But that may also be an indicator the Calcium hydroxide is used up, as it seems to maintain a low in the 8.14ish range when fresh. As you can tell I'm still learning and tweaking.

and thanks

Ryan - you got me thinking about it again - if evaporation rates don't catch up I may cut back to 2 gallons, or, add in a high level shut off float switch. thanks

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13388681#post13388681 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Pete, your pictures tell it all. Lots of happy corals.

Anthony told me you've been replacing your bulbs recently, and I just wanted to remind you to shorten the photo period somewhat due to the reflectors you have. The PAR between an old Reeflux 10,000K and a new one is significant. Take a look at the right bulb in both of these pictures:

That is a 25% (or more) increase in PAR just by switching out the bulb, and nothing more.

Also, if you want to run your 400w bulbs, please put them on a timer for an hour or two. I'm just afraid you'll forget and nuke the tank if you get called away for an emergency.

I don't know how much PO4 is in the fishfood I make; I'll let Anthony do the testing on that one. I just know my fish never complain. When we made up some batches yesterday, we made three different types, and I gave some of each to Anthony to take home and try out. Tonight, I used some from two of the batches, so some was chunkier while other parts were very fine. It was a cloudy mess, but everyone was sucking it up.

Glad I dose vodka.

thanks Marc - your advice is always welcome. I'll put the 400's on a temperature controlled timer this weekend. I visually had guessed the new bulbs may be 20% more but your data shows more, it's almost surprising how much more the new ones emit then the old ones.

For the most part all of the SPS appear to be responding favorably to the now bulbs and tank positions with exception to one mille (the one from you), it's not burning, just has retracted its polyps some. Oddly enough the other mille loves the new conditions as it is taking off with PE and signs of growth. No tip burns etc. but I have no problem reducing the photo period an hour or two.

 

[psteeleb]

A. Plana (from Marc), two month progress

day one 7/27

here it is on 8/29 a month later

and yesterday, 9/20 (3 weeks later) and new bulbs - notice the core colors didn't chage a whole lot - but that new growth is super nice

Think I should give Marc a frag :lol:

 

[melev]

:lol: I took a top down picture of mine today, so people can see it under <i>normal</i> lighting. :lol:

 

[psteeleb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13393239#post13393239 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
:lol: I took a top down picture of mine today, so people can see it under <i>normal</i> lighting. :lol:

Like mines abby normal .:lol:

The biggest difference I think is mine are under Reflux 12k's where you are running the 10k's. When I run the 10ks my colors change significantly, more reds (but they also 400 watters).

Get a top down of the plana under your 10k's and lets see how much different it looks to the original piece in the frag you gave me. I'm also noticing the new growth seems to be thicker, may be due to the one in my tank being in the direct flow of both my closed loop and one of my returns. I have another piece of the plana up closer to the surface, it's not doing the same (but I think the light is shaded), I'll try to get a picture of it tomorrow

 

[psteeleb]

kalc update

kalc update

Saturday morning my Ph was below 8.0, so I added more Lime to the reactor and Sunday and Monday mornings the low was 8.15ish. So it looks like the Lime I put in lasted about a week, maybe 6 days. I'm thinking seriously about hooking up a flashing light or some other sort of indicator that will let me know when to add Lime based on low Ph readings (more of a reminder then anything). Still learning & tweaking

 

[psteeleb]

I pulled about 10 acros today (nana, mille, prostrata, granulosa, a stag, and others) and dipped them in a 150% Revive solution for about 3 minutes each with a power head running. I found some small snails, asterina stars and a couple brittle stars but that was about it. Close inspection found no predator AEFW's or their eggs. I'm going to continue the routine every few weeks to make sure. So unless they were microscopic the corals I pulled didn't have any.

 

[psteeleb]

I traded a piece of my purple gorg for this purple tip prostrata a few months back. Up til a week agao it was just hanging around in my frag area not getting much light. Now that it has been moved, and with the new bulbs, it's starting to color up nicely. The purple tips are now showing up and would't it be a nice combination if the body got more of that florescent green in it.

 

[psteeleb]

after the metal halides where out and the atinics were still on I decided to play with my camera some. Using a coffee filter folded over many times and covering most of the flash with my fingers only letting a little bit through the folded filter here are a couple results

a small green birdsnest colony with the small amount of flash reflecting off the back glass

and my blue tenuis frag