Pife's One fifty glass box build

[Pife]

It's coming along.
I'm working hard at maintaining stability with parameters. Trying to work the balance between low NO3 & PO4, and not letting them get too low.

I'm trying be able to keep and grow beautiful SPS like you guys...

I over here all envious of your new wrasse!

 

[Pife]

I started dosing Seachem liquid Stronium yesterday. 15ml. My test kit will be delivered tomorrow so I felt like getting a head start. From my reading it would be difficult for me to be even close to overdosing with that amount. I have a lack or coralline growth in my tank except for in the shaded areas. The growth on the back has been dead. I don't have enough time or motivation to warrant scraping it off.


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My calcium has been elevated for quite sometime, well over 500. I'm now dosing sodium bicarbonate daily to keep my alk up but lower my calcium. I use a Red Sea kit to test with and have read of the problems that they have had with quality control. After reading that it prompted me to order another kit. I chose a Salifert test that should be here hopefully by the end of the weekend. With any luck this will shed some light on the situation. If I can get my calcium down or if I have a defective test everything will almost be back in harmony.

 

[reefmutt]

Pife, I don't know anything about gluconate.
I know Seachem uses it in their liquid sr. And ca. Supplements.
It's probably just fine to use but I have heard that it can throw a calcium test off because the test kits can't read calcium glukonate properly..
Reall not sure if the same is true of sr. Gluconate.
Any thoughts or insight? Like I said, I'm just curious as I don't know anything about it. They've been using it long enough that if it were bad, they wouldn't be using it anymore..
Just looked up gluconate and it is an organic carbon.. wonder it it will feed denitrifying bacteria..

 

[Pife]

Pife, I don't know anything about gluconate.
I know Seachem uses it in their liquid sr. And ca. Supplements.
It's probably just fine to use but I have heard that it can throw a calcium test off because the test kits can't read calcium glukonate properly..
Reall not sure if the same is true of sr. Gluconate.
Any thoughts or insight? Like I said, I'm just curious as I don't know anything about it. They've been using it long enough that if it were bad, they wouldn't be using it anymore..
Just looked up gluconate and it is an organic carbon.. wonder it it will feed denitrifying bacteria..

Thanks for the information I'll have to look into that. The high calcium thing has been going on for months. Probably since I got the test kit.

 

[Pife]

I was trying to figure out the best way to get a refugium put on my system. I specifically wanted it to be able to grow macroalgae. I was scouring the internet and found a DIY algae reactor so After I seen Matt try one I knew I had to also. I ordered two sets of red and blue hydroponic grow lights from Amazon. Like usual two days later they were at my door. The only other thing I needed was a couple of reactors and some zip ties.


Here are a couple of freshly cleaned up Geo 4 by 24 reactors. I had them laying around so I thought that they would be the perfect thing to give this a test on.

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After they were all clean I started to get to work. I didn't do any special math and try to figure out how many wraps I was going to have or worry about equal spacing too much. I just want to get the light shining on the inside of the reactor. I know I wanted the plug for the electric to be near the bottom of the reactor so that's where I started. A zip tied the bottom of the LED string to the bottom of the reactor. A couple of minutes later and I had the first light wrapped around the reactor. Several zip ties later and I'm done.


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I'm pretty sure as soon as I turned it on a little Marty McFly smiled somewhere.


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Couple of more minutes and I had the second one all wrapped up and zip-tied just the way I wanted it done.


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I think this time when I lit it up Frankenstein came alive someplace


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Once my son goes to bed I'll finish Plumbing them in band stuffing a little algae in them. Very simple DIY thing to do. Pretty cheap to have a reactor or two laying around. The LEDs I bought were around 20 bucks each. I was specific in ordering a waterproof set.

 

[Jordan Kutun]

What brand and type of leds are they, I'm thinking about doing this too


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pife]

I haven't tested it yet but there are hundreds of different ones for sale. I would make sure you just get water proof ones.

 

[maxxII]

I've recently stopped using my ARID E18 if you want to borrow it to compare with one of your DIY reactors? Might be an interesting experiment?
What are your PO4 & NO3 levels currently?

 

[Pife]

I've recently stopped using my ARID E18 if you want to borrow it to compare with one of your DIY reactors? Might be an interesting experiment?
What are your PO4 & NO3 levels currently?

Nitrates between 20 and 40 and po4 is limited low. I'm adding high po4 food slowly. I could and would be will to do a show by side. Pm me and we might be able to get together this weekend? Or text me if you have my number. I think it would be interesting. Thanks for the offer.

 

[Pife]

I've been getting some work done on my stand lately and the base is close to being done. With rain in the forecast for the whole weekend I might just finish it. All I need to do is mount four magnets in the right side panel and another coat of paint. And I have some sanding to do to the canopy and also paint it.

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[maxxII]

Stand looks good!
Regarding stuff I've learned about Chaeto:

Magnesium levels 1500 ppm or higher shut down photosynthesis and put Chaeto into stasis. Below 1500ppm.

Photo period should be no less than 6 hours, and no more than 18 hours. You just dont get any benefits at those two extremes and may cause problems.

You will also want to test boron levels in your system as low boron levels can limit growth in chaeto.

 

[drawman]

I really like that spath frag it will be cool to see that one grown out!

Nice work on the reactors! Do you have anything internal to keep them from getting clogged?

 

[Pife]

I really like that spath frag it will be cool to see that one grown out!

Nice work on the reactors! Do you have anything internal to keep them from getting clogged?

I don't have anything in side to prevent clogging. I will be feeding from the bottom up.

Last night I got one of the 2 plumbed. I'm now waiting for the Pvc glue to setup before putting water and cheato in it. I was also ready for bed. Today sometime. Hopefully during the day I'll get the other reactor plumbed and both of them online. For now I'll just be using a simple dial timer to run a reverse cycle.

 

[Pife]

I want to share a picture that isn't the greatest but shows a couple of corals that are some of my favorites in the tank.

I think the growth pattern of the lighter pinkish colored one in the bottom right with the yellow tips is by far my favorite right now in the tank. This guy grew from a single poly that I can't remember what it used to look like. I have had it for several years and it's finally growing again so it is exciting to see what it will turn into.

The millie to the right of the picture is just a bag of skittles with color. It has a green base and purple, pink, and orange throughout the body of it. I got it from a maricultuered piece from the lfs. It is very intriguing to see it morph into something special.

The greenish frag in the center used to be blue. It was a wild caught piece from bigglesland. Ever since the mini crash it's been working on going yellow. Every day it seems to be changing slightly.

Then above that and out of focus is a small pink lemonade frag that is actually yellow. I've never been able to get great colors out of one of these so is nice to see. It had great contrast with the pink polyps.

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[markalot]

Great to see things turning around! I love the DIY reactors and after seeing this and just coming from Matt's thread and seeing his I'm getting very tempted to replace LC dosing with a cheato reactor.

Also really like the recovery pics, of course. Having come from the same bad place I know how exciting it is when things turn around.

Are you doing any regular water changes?

 

[maxxII]

What are you running for lights?

 

[reefmutt]

I love that bubbly looking one in the lower centre right.
Looks like a bounce mushroom from above.
Very cool texture.

 

[Pife]

Great to see things turning around! I love the DIY reactors and after seeing this and just coming from Matt's thread and seeing his I'm getting very tempted to replace LC dosing with a cheato reactor.

Also really like the recovery pics, of course. Having come from the same bad place I know how exciting it is when things turn around.

Are you doing any regular water changes?

I'm excited to see what it can do. In happy I'm getting it back into shape. It's surprising that some corals that were dormant are springing to life. Yes I'm doing 40 to 120 gallons a month right now.

What are you running for lights?

250watt dragons breath (radium) on the left and ati t5 on the right with an ocean revive t247. Both are supplemented with 2 reefbrite strips.

I love that bubbly looking one in the lower centre right.
Looks like a bounce mushroom from above.
Very cool texture.

Thanks that is my favorite right now. It's such a weird growth.

 

[Pife]

With nitrates around 20 I fired up one of the cheato reactors. I am nervous about getting them both running and bottoming out my nutrients. I'm po4 limited so I have to be careful. I think messing with po4 is as bad as alk swings.


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It looks like I snapped this picture before I put zip ties on the tubing.

Here it is going full blast. I need to dig around for a timer or plug in another energy bar.




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After adding the macro algae it makes me wonder if I should put something down the center for it to grow into to make it easier to remove. I'm going to run a gauntlet of tests today to get a baseline.

 

[maxxII]

Dont remove more than 1/3 of the chaeto at anyone time.

You say you're PO4 limited low....what level are you reading and what are you using to test PO4? Still using the Hanna PO4 Checker, or are you using something else?