Reefer 250 build
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tenurepro
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1 month growth pics.... The pics are not the greatest, but they show the changes well i think. So the really big movers were the monti's (forest fire digitata and christmas cap. Also good encrustation from some acros including the blueberry wine, cold water, cali torts and slimer. Birdsnest is doing great also. The two slowest movers were the red planet and the tenuis.
Just curious - is this typical growth rates of sps frags ? ... trying to gauge if i am on the right track!
thanks!
Just curious - is this typical growth rates of sps frags ? ... trying to gauge if i am on the right track!
thanks!
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Ron Reefman
Active member
IMHO you are on the right track and moving along very nicely. For just a month in a fairly new tank, your corals appear to be doing very well.
The thing to remember is that a small sps frag has very few areas of growth, say 2 or 3 tips and the base encrustation. But a good size colony of an sps coral may have 10, 20 or more growing tips. It seems like the colony is growing faster, but it's not, it's just growing more. There is a difference. Or an sps plating coral frag has only a 3" growth ring along the outside edge, but a colony that is just 6 inches in diameter has almost 19" of growth ring. So even with the same growth rate as the small frag, it will grow a lot more new coral.
Bigger corals don't grow faster, they just grow more. Some day in the not too far off future you will be fragging colonies down so they don't grow into each other.
The thing to remember is that a small sps frag has very few areas of growth, say 2 or 3 tips and the base encrustation. But a good size colony of an sps coral may have 10, 20 or more growing tips. It seems like the colony is growing faster, but it's not, it's just growing more. There is a difference. Or an sps plating coral frag has only a 3" growth ring along the outside edge, but a colony that is just 6 inches in diameter has almost 19" of growth ring. So even with the same growth rate as the small frag, it will grow a lot more new coral.
Bigger corals don't grow faster, they just grow more. Some day in the not too far off future you will be fragging colonies down so they don't grow into each other.
tenurepro
New member
tenurepro
New member
A few updates;
My blue star aka peacock wrasse piano is turning from a female to a male!
I noticed her colors were a bit off the past week and was worried that she is getting sick. Took some picks and compared...
Two weeks ago (0ct 10) she is clearly a female; black and white belly and the body is... well the perfect sunset
Today s(he) looks like this
Note more pink on face, new marks on belly and dark bands emerging on ventral and dorsal fins. Cool! Just hope the sex change isn't going to change the mellow tank atmosphere.
After about one month of hiding in a rock, my purple firefish is finally out and about. He disappeared after I added the leopard wrasse a month ago. I guess he though they were carnivorous. He always freaks out when I change something. Didn't see him for a month after I moved him from nano to reefer.
Finally - some new pics of pretty corals with the dslr
Some new zoas - eagle eye
The new sps frag - shockaholic. It's greenish yellow with nice soft blue polyps
And the blue Cali tort is showing a great range of color
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My blue star aka peacock wrasse piano is turning from a female to a male!
I noticed her colors were a bit off the past week and was worried that she is getting sick. Took some picks and compared...
Two weeks ago (0ct 10) she is clearly a female; black and white belly and the body is... well the perfect sunset
Today s(he) looks like this
Note more pink on face, new marks on belly and dark bands emerging on ventral and dorsal fins. Cool! Just hope the sex change isn't going to change the mellow tank atmosphere.
After about one month of hiding in a rock, my purple firefish is finally out and about. He disappeared after I added the leopard wrasse a month ago. I guess he though they were carnivorous. He always freaks out when I change something. Didn't see him for a month after I moved him from nano to reefer.
Finally - some new pics of pretty corals with the dslr
Some new zoas - eagle eye
The new sps frag - shockaholic. It's greenish yellow with nice soft blue polyps
And the blue Cali tort is showing a great range of color
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
solitude127
Proud user of IO Salt!
How's the skimmer doing? Still on a stand?
tenurepro
New member
I had to raise it a bit more using egg crate. Started overflowing a month ago for no obvious reason. It's not at about 5.5" below water.
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solitude127
Proud user of IO Salt!
great build. thank you for the info.
tenurepro
New member
4.5 month update; a month and a half ago, I started noticing some color loss on several sps. High lights, high alk and ultra low nutrients were the most likely culprits. So I cut the radions from 85% to 55%, and switched out the 80deg lenses to 120 wide angles lenses; cut alk from 11 to 8.5 dkh, added several fish + cuc and started feeding corals. I also STOPPED water changes to build up nutrients. Today my parameters are: alk 8.9 ca 435, mg 1360, nitrates 1 ppm, phosphates 0 (Hanna phosphorus ULR). Ph 8.2, 78f, 35 Sal. Fish are fat, Noticing improvement in color in the few frags that were growing pale but overall color is not great. I decided to get a par meter to help me tune my Radion xr15s gen3 pros. Went for the Seneye reef monitor based on BRS's review.
I did this map of par on my corals; radions were at 55% 18.5k (Ecotech's sps a/b+ program).
Ecotech's coral lab experiment, suggests to have sps between 300 to 200 par. My values were all lower than that. I was worried that the Seneye was underestimating par, but this par simulator for the radions suggested otherwise http://www.aquaticlog.com/radion
Briefly, you setup your program and light specs and the algorithm with let you visualize par at different depths and horizontal distances from the center of the Radion. The Seneye was actually bang on given the position of the corals relative to the light. I think the combination of the Seneye and the light simulator will be very helpful in figuring out how to tune the lights to get my sps in the 200 to 300 par range. For example; looking over the top left sps shelf; I can get these frags to 200-300 par if I up the intensity from 55% to about 80%. (Over a few month of course)
I had fun going from frag to frag and simulating how changes in light intensity would influence par. I quickly realized that I made some aquascaping / coral placement errors. The radions, even with the wide angle lenses, have hotspots right under the lights. I had placed a few acropora's on a 12" deep shelf that is now getting about 110 par. Most of my other acros are 6 to 8 inches deep. Using the simulator, I couldn't find a sweet spot intensity that would get the bottom right shelf to 200-300 par without potentially scorching the frags on the top shelf. My mistake was I should've designed my sps shelves to be mostly at the same depth to avoid overexposing or under exposing shallower or deeper frags.
So now I have a dilemma... do I raise up the bottom right shelf by 3 to 5 inches? (Easiest), lower all the top shelfs l by 3 to 5" (lots of work but possible) or simply keep it where it is. The deep sticks are still growing and they will get more light/ par as they grow up?...
What do you folks think?
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I did this map of par on my corals; radions were at 55% 18.5k (Ecotech's sps a/b+ program).
Ecotech's coral lab experiment, suggests to have sps between 300 to 200 par. My values were all lower than that. I was worried that the Seneye was underestimating par, but this par simulator for the radions suggested otherwise http://www.aquaticlog.com/radion
Briefly, you setup your program and light specs and the algorithm with let you visualize par at different depths and horizontal distances from the center of the Radion. The Seneye was actually bang on given the position of the corals relative to the light. I think the combination of the Seneye and the light simulator will be very helpful in figuring out how to tune the lights to get my sps in the 200 to 300 par range. For example; looking over the top left sps shelf; I can get these frags to 200-300 par if I up the intensity from 55% to about 80%. (Over a few month of course)
I had fun going from frag to frag and simulating how changes in light intensity would influence par. I quickly realized that I made some aquascaping / coral placement errors. The radions, even with the wide angle lenses, have hotspots right under the lights. I had placed a few acropora's on a 12" deep shelf that is now getting about 110 par. Most of my other acros are 6 to 8 inches deep. Using the simulator, I couldn't find a sweet spot intensity that would get the bottom right shelf to 200-300 par without potentially scorching the frags on the top shelf. My mistake was I should've designed my sps shelves to be mostly at the same depth to avoid overexposing or under exposing shallower or deeper frags.
So now I have a dilemma... do I raise up the bottom right shelf by 3 to 5 inches? (Easiest), lower all the top shelfs l by 3 to 5" (lots of work but possible) or simply keep it where it is. The deep sticks are still growing and they will get more light/ par as they grow up?...
What do you folks think?
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rvlcf
New member
Given the progress you have made, I would hold tight on moving things around. I do think the high alk, along with the ULNS probably contributed to the fading of the sps. My tank is running very similarly to yours except my alk is 6.75-7.0 dkh. Maybe try running the alk at 7 for a while and see how the tank does. Are you adding any amino acids to the tank? If not I would grab a bottle and start dosing that.
I get the desire to have things just right, but your tank is coming along nicely, getting good growth and doing well. I would try to lower alk and add aminos for a month or 2 then go from there. You could always move the rocks if that isn't helping.
Just my 2 cents.
I get the desire to have things just right, but your tank is coming along nicely, getting good growth and doing well. I would try to lower alk and add aminos for a month or 2 then go from there. You could always move the rocks if that isn't helping.
Just my 2 cents.
tenurepro
New member
Thanks for the input; I do add acro power twice a week along with reefroids. Perhaps I will just very gradually up the lights (5% per month) and evaluate
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tenurepro
New member
tenurepro
New member
Did a minor change in aquascape; move the top left tonga shelf rock with the acropora tenuis, blueberry wine acro and the Ora red planet; I rotates a bit and moved it back a bit. The corals on a he rock where not looking too good and we're getting blasted from the mp10 on the left side of the tank.
Lights: increasing the intensity of radions from 55% to 60% over 3 weeks. Nice and easy!
Chemistry; alk 8.9, ca 430, mg 1390. Dosing alk and ca. Phosphates are 0.009 ppm, nitrates finally climbing; 2.5 to 5 ppm. Wondering if I should keep it there or raise it a bit. I haven't done a water change in over a month; maybe should start now to keep nitrates from building?
Seneye + ph; using Seneye to keep track of ph. The slide was reading .1 higher than actual value measured with a fancy lab grade ph meter. After correcting for this, my ph ranges from 8.06 to 8.16 during the day. Pretty decent. Considering adding a bit of kale on my ato to raise it up a bit to average 8.2.
Corals - noticing color improvements in the purple bonsai and the tyree pink lemonade frags that faded a couple of month ago. Bonsai is now a light to medium purple (from white), and the tyree is now a light mint green with pale pink (from mostly white). So o think the reduction in alk, extreme light intensity and increase in nutrients is helping.
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Lights: increasing the intensity of radions from 55% to 60% over 3 weeks. Nice and easy!
Chemistry; alk 8.9, ca 430, mg 1390. Dosing alk and ca. Phosphates are 0.009 ppm, nitrates finally climbing; 2.5 to 5 ppm. Wondering if I should keep it there or raise it a bit. I haven't done a water change in over a month; maybe should start now to keep nitrates from building?
Seneye + ph; using Seneye to keep track of ph. The slide was reading .1 higher than actual value measured with a fancy lab grade ph meter. After correcting for this, my ph ranges from 8.06 to 8.16 during the day. Pretty decent. Considering adding a bit of kale on my ato to raise it up a bit to average 8.2.
Corals - noticing color improvements in the purple bonsai and the tyree pink lemonade frags that faded a couple of month ago. Bonsai is now a light to medium purple (from white), and the tyree is now a light mint green with pale pink (from mostly white). So o think the reduction in alk, extreme light intensity and increase in nutrients is helping.
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tenurepro
New member
tenurepro
New member
Do you have a Hanna phosphorous ULR checker but find getting the reagent powder into the vial frustrating? Check out this video for a little tip!
https://youtu.be/Rkhf691VAlA
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https://youtu.be/Rkhf691VAlA
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pelphrey
New member
This is a great tip! I shared it on YouTube, thanks!
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