Rovster's Custom Reef Savvy build......FINALLY!!!

rovster said:
Thanks guys I have not updated in a while because my tank hit another funk. Like a moron I decided to change my lighting program, which in turn shocked my corals which in turn led to an alk spike that set my tank on a bit of a roller coaster with some collateral damage. This was about 2 months ago and just now things are really starting to show significant improvment. Alk consumption was stalled for like 3-4 weeks with a few minispikes as I tried to dial it in. I went to mostly manual dosing for a little while but now I've got my dosers nearly dialed in again so looking forward to getting on cruise control again. Things have definitely started to improve but they are not as nice as last update.

Another issue I had is I have a couple of failures in the putty I used for my rocks so a couple of colonies just plopped over. I've relocated a few corals and messed a few up just handling them but overall things are on the up and up. I did decrease my lighting intensity and as soon as my alk completely stabilize I'm going to start increasing that to get it to where it was as I notice that although corals are looking good with good PE, colors aren't popping and things are overall dull and dark which seems to me a little more light is in order.

Maybe if in a few weeks things look good I'll post some new pics. Thanks for stopping by:D
Click to expand...



What was your light schedule like before and after? I'm guessing you changed it pretty drastically to get that big of a change? I've made numerous changed to lighting, from different led fixtures to going 100% T5s, and never saw an alk spike.
 
Well I had a custom program I designed for my radions. I was running them at 60% at the time. The AB+ program I changed to is MUCH bluer but has a much broader curve so I decreased the intensity 10-15% for acclimation. I did not change the T5. At the time I hadn't touched my dosers in a couple of months so things were really stable and I was checking alk every few days. A couple of days later I noticed my elegance was retracted which in my tank is a dead giveaway alk spiked. Sure enough it was high and thats when the burning tips started and I just couldn't get a handle on it. I had a few frags even RTN overnight but most just got really bad alk burn. In retrospect I should have turned off my dosers and monitored alk more closely. I've noticed in the past whenever I make changes sometimes it takes my corals a day or 2 to sort of adjust and go back to normal. I also question my RO water so I changed my filters but no doubt my alk spiked out of nowhere.
 
Rovster's Custom Reef Savvy build......FINALLY!!!

That's interesting.

Like I said earlier, I used to run radions/T5s. I was running the AB+ schedule for months, and wasn't really happy. The color of the tank looked great, and corals were happy, but growth wasn't there. I talked to a couple people I trusted, and they told me to try running my radions at all colors 100% for a few hours a day, and see what happened. I was pretty surprised by the difference it made. I did see a jump in algae growth. I was cleaning my glass every other day, vs every 3-4 days. But my acros seemed to be responding very well. The WD made one of the biggest improvements. I've since switched my lights over 2 all T5s (got tired of guessing), but I just wanted to throw that out there. Seemed like acros responded well to getting blasted by all channels 100%.

Have you ever considered it, or tried it?
 
Actually I've always run a short period in the middle of the day with everything 100% . I've always felt that acros need a few hours of intense white light for best results and to be honest I really like the white look. Now I'm back to my original program and things are growing again how much is the lighting and how much is the stable alkalinity who knows? I've always had good results with my custom program but when eco-tech said AB+ program was better than T5 I just had to see for myself regretfully . Plus, I hated how blue that program was.

Ive never had algae other than bubble so can't comment on that.
 
It's funny because the best my cube ever looked was with the AB+ program. gave me the best growth too. which was non existent.
 
So I did some maintenance yesterday. I noticed my dosing containers were full of crap so I washed those and made up new solutions. There was brown crud at bottom of alkalinity and a white fungus growing in the calcium. Not sure how much of an impact that made but we'll see.

I also realized my original T5 are over a year old so swapped the inner bulbs. I swapped the ATI B+C+ for Giesemann Aquablue Azure and Super Purple. It's slightly whiter which I like but still nice tinge of blue.

Was sitting on the couch icing my foot and took this pic. I adjusted the colors to what I think my colorblind eyes see. This is all 4 T5 and radions on the all blue or 20k setting. It gets much whiter as the day progresses which I like.



Overall things looking ok. Most of my corals are recovering and are growing again. Some are a little slower. My sand bed is littered with corals I pulled down so excuse the mess.
 
Tank has been in recovery mode for what seems like forever. It seems I get in a groove and then I screw it up. Last time was a few months ago when I accidentally pulled the feed from my doser out and my tank went a couple days without dosing and my alk dropped to below 5. Some suffered but they are coming back. A few pieces still look like crap but many are looking good. I took this video a few days ago using a light amber filter. Excuse all the racks and clutter on sandbed most of those pieces are destined for my Zeo side tank....

 
Dang Danny it looks very good. I cringe when i see that rbta lol, i want one so bad but nop. All your missing is the teal echinata if i can save it. :)
 
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