Holy Crap....I can't believe I'm posting an update, I really have to get better at this. Pics soon to follow.
Tank Parameters
Salinity 1.025
Temp 78 F
pH 8.24
Ca 425 ppm
Mg 1600 ppm (Raised to battle Bryopsis)
Alkalinity 9 dKH
NO3 0
PO4 0
Live Stock
15 SPS frags
6 Acan colonies
Mated pair of Cherub Angels
2 green Chromis
1 Juv. Orange Shoulder tang.
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Coral Banded Shrimp
2 Emerald Crabs
5 Porcelain Crabs
I still need to get more fish. The tank looks kind of empty. Ideally I’d like to get 4 more Chromis, 4 Sunset Anthias ,<-lost my last 4 and a couple of wrasses.
Summary of the past few months:
So the tank is now 7 months old and things are coming along, fish are in and frags are growing. I have to admit that I was slacking big time on siphoning out detritus. I cleaned out my whole system and have made the commitment to get better with the siphoning. I also removed all of my rock from my sump which was trapping detritus. My phosphates and nitrates were on the rise fueling a recent algae bloom. The icing on the cake was my neighbor blowing through a full packet of mysis in 1 week - It wasn't pretty. I lost my 4 Sunset Anthias I recently purchased.
To help combat the algae problem I started dosing 5 ml of Vodka a day to help cleanse the system through bacteria export. I've noticed a significant amount of algae die off once I started this as well as increased water clarity. I may even start Prodibio to add additional bacterial populations to the tank. If I notice improved results I'm prepared to stick with it. If it doesn't work for me so be it. I might also get a few new pieces of LR to help reseed my tank.
I recently removed 1 of my modded maxijets and added a Vortech MP40W. It has a much smaller profile, much wider flow, and it's controllable. I will be adding another one shortly with the battery backup. I think I’ll hide the modded maxi’s along the back wall to blow detritus toward the front for easy removal. I'm also thinking about removing my closed loop as I don't really see much benefit from it. I don’t like the flow pattern and I'd love, to not have to look at the 6 1†45* elbows. The savings of not having to run a Dart 24x7 is gravy.
Dosing
Initially I was going to add a calcium reactor, but I decided to give Randy’s New and Improved 2 part solution a go. So far all of the corals are really responding well and coralline is really starting to take off. In addition to the 2 part I’m adding Kent Coral-vite to replace some elements and minerals removed from skimming. My plan is to get a dosing pump to do this automatically in the future.
