Serenity Reef

FloformAustria said:
wow i thought it would be more...

you´re going to fill it again with siporax?
Click to expand...

Hey Flo - well the Siporax went back in the wier!
I am really happy with the performance regardless if it catches detritus , since I have not used a filter sock for five months and performed no gravel syphon cleaning it's all good. Hopefully these babies take off when the weather warms up a bit here as the tank gets down to 24C during the night.:thumbsup:
 
slin1977 said:
Hey Flo - well the Siporax went back in the wier!
I am really happy with the performance regardless if it catches detritus , since I have not used a filter sock for five months and performed no gravel syphon cleaning it's all good. Hopefully these babies take off when the weather warms up a bit here as the tank gets down to 24C during the night.:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

nice! you find 24°C cold? haha i need something below 20°C to sleep tight! :D

but i am happy with my siporax too!! but will have to use more to get my nitrates really down!

Cheers
 
I tried to tell you guys this fancy media we are all using is a crap magnet..... watch out for a sudden nutrient drop Nils in a few days as the cleaner media rapidly populates with bacteria. Be interesting to see if you notice what i see mate.

Love that last FTS, the acro colors are looking beautiful mate. The poseidon missiles will launch within six months tops i reckon.......... both my zebra dartfish went intercontinental within a few months........ ;)
 
Agreed.. Any day now, they are going to take off..
It's going to be quite amazing.
So, is the siporax loose in the sump, now, or in a container of some sort?
 
Great progress with the acros. I haven't cleaned my matrix reactor yet, it's full of detritus and sludge, but I am having issues getting nitrates above zero so I figure I'll leave it be.
 
Hello Flo Andrew Matt and Mark

Matt, the Siporax is back in the coast to coast
Andrew , yes I noticed the shift in colour toward pale as well as improved biofilm production on the glass as less algea tended to populate the glass.

This weekend I replaced three T5 with new and fitted two weeks that were three months old, this is my attempt to kick start these babies which seem to be plodding along.
Taking it easy (see below)with all the dosing of supplements, looking to see the effect of the new T5 on the SPS.
Haven't noticed anything remarkable since adding Zeo AA CV and sponge power to the tank every alternative day for two weeks.

Let's talk modularity for a minute.



As you can see in this photo above , it shows the modular design of this reef, the concept of mounting my frag plug onto a bigger grow plug was copied straight from Biggles reef.
Here you can see the mounted plug slipped off the structure during the night.
Need to try a new type of super glue to hold the plug down.

Mounting the frags this way has many advantages for my reef.
Firstly the islands can be removed from the tank as there are three separate structures.
The frag can be re attached in situ or with the island removed.
A dead frag can be replaced easily with this method.
An infection or bugs (hope never happens) can be treated easily.
Bigger plug means basing onto plug, some basing is resulting in new growth tips around the base which I'm really pleased about.
 
Just keeping you up to date with progress.
Frags hit three months. No issues really, just trying to crack the colour code. I've got a long way to go. Firetruck has started turning red and is growing tips.
Here is Strawberry shortcake showing encrusting.

 
Hey Nils, good to hear everything is going ok mate. Your pics show some very pale pigments buddy, are you dosing any metals such as zinc or copper. I go out of my way to supply fatty foods to the fish because i noticed a big surge in pink/red/orange pigments when the fish were ichy and i was soaking all their food in hufa - fatty acids etc.

You know you're staying with a reefer next month who has no SPS in his tank............ lots of zoa and clammy stuff to see though......:p
 
biggles said:
Hey Nils, good to hear everything is going ok mate. Your pics show some very pale pigments buddy, are you dosing any metals such as zinc or copper. I go out of my way to supply fatty foods to the fish because i noticed a big surge in pink/red/orange pigments when the fish were ichy and i was soaking all their food in hufa - fatty acids etc.

You know you're staying with a reefer next month who has no SPS in his tank............ lots of zoa and clammy stuff to see though......:p
Click to expand...

Cheers for the help. Yes there are some very pale pigments going on in the tank atm. I tried some AA and CV a fortnight ago and that caused nuisance algea bloom. I stopped that dosing.
There has been no Biggle juice or KNO3 / PO4 dosing for a month .
The water is certainly at 0 for No3 and Phos.

With that in mind the situation was rectified this afternoon when 5ml KNO3 was added to the tank giving a reading of 25ppm on Salifert and 2 ml PO4 was added giving a reading of 0.00 on Hanna - a extra 1ml PO4 was added out of disgust at that reading.
Furthermore 1ml of BJ was added at that time usually the dose is 1.5ml

It was certainly worth a try dosing the two Zeo products on thier own without the BJ this past month to get a feel for the tank.
There is no doubt that by tomorrow evening my nitrates will be down to 1 or 2 on Salifert due to the enormous capacity of Siporax.

Furthermore part of this past month observations included the omission of the daily Siporax stir as was part of the first two month ritual.
Stirring I believe to be necessary for feeding the SPS .

Yes a few things have been going on however I won't be using the CV or AA as they caused the same problem in the first version of this tank.

Back to basics again , BJ at 1ml Lugols at 2drop KNO3 at 1ml PO4 at 1ml , stirring the Siporax daily - let's see how this goes over the next fortnight...

As for the fish feedings, they get frozen brine , NLS and Tetra min Flakes .
On a side note there could be too much Siporax in the system (10 litres )

Cheers!
 
If you want to raise both phos and nitrates just add one drop of hufa a night for a couple of days Nils - it will achieve all the things you are trying to do with the nitrate and phos dosing in a much better and color inducing way buddy.
I dosed a drop of hufa one night and the glass was wavy green within 3 hours of lights on the next day - it's not expensive so i hope you give it a try with the lugols and BJ.

Totally agree on the media being a great bacteria food source.

I turkey baste the matrix every 3rd or 4th night as the acros show a strong feeding response when i do it. Any media full of bacteria is great for bacteria feeding i think, i would give my reactor a shake a couple of nights a week if i ran one.
 
biggles said:
If you want to raise both phos and nitrates just add one drop of hufa a night for a couple of days Nils - it will achieve all the things you are trying to do with the nitrate and phos dosing in a much better and color inducing way buddy.
I dosed a drop of hufa one night and the glass was wavy green within 3 hours of lights on the next day - it's not expensive so i hope you give it a try with the lugols and BJ.

Totally agree on the media being a great bacteria food source.

I turkey baste the matrix every 3rd or 4th night as the acros show a strong feeding response when i do it. Any media full of bacteria is great for bacteria feeding i think, i would give my reactor a shake a couple of nights a week if i ran one.
Click to expand...

Andrew , thank you for the helpful advice.
I'll mix a dose of n-3 and n-6 hufa this arvo , a drop for the frozen brine and the rest for me.:eek1:
:lmao:
 
Here is a photo after adding 5ml KNO3



Here is a photo 24 Hours later.



On that note added 5ml KNO3 last night and 6 drops of hufa.
SPS looking brighter today.

Must check KH as its climbed to 8.3 due to flow restriction on effluent rate.
 
Let me give you a helping hand.
Dose the nitrate and phosphate into your ATO.
It will give you small dose through the day.
Watch your corals colour up.
 
Had a bit of a incident last night , I've got no idea how it happened as it happened faster than my brain could process.
Whilst dosing a drop of Lugols, I managed to split the dropper teat, squirt a half full dropper Lugols into the tank with the rest ending up on the floor boards and my newly painted walls.

Decided that I'll have dinner first before starting to rectify the situation with water changes.
Tested the water after giving things time to settle.
Here are the results after the mishap.I decided not to follow up with water changes saving the pleasure for the weekend instead.

 
I bet by then, you'll test just fine for iodine.

Is that your glycemic index counter behind you iodine test?
All ya gotta remember, simple carbs = bad. Fat, protein = not so bad. :)
 
Last edited:
reefmutt said:
I bet by then, you'll test just fine for iodine.

Is that your glycemic index counter behind you iodine test?
All ya gotta remember, simple carbs = bad. Fat, protein = not so bad. :)
Click to expand...

Hey Matt,
😀 Nope it's not a glycemic chart.
I tend to use the count down timer on the microwave and usually balance my test kits up against it. Funny how I've never used the microwave for much else!
 
Been dosing 2ml KNO3 morning and night as well as 15ml in my auto top up which adds roughly 5ml KNO3 over 24 hours.
Here is the auto top up water test.



Here is the test before the night addition, two different test kits for comparison.
Result 0 - KNO3. Same thing for phosphate, the Siporax deals with it swiftly.

 
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