Soulpatch's build thread (ongoing)

Yea, no harm in giving the RSRE a shot if it was free.

For the acros, they have such little flesh, even if a colony kicks the bucket, the nutrient spike will be minimal. If anything, algae just grows directly on the skeleton, and you toss it.

I'm waiting in line for a frag of Oregon Tort from a local reefer who is growing out. Everyone has a few favorites... I've already got a few growing (hawkins echinata, paletta pink tip, ORA chips), but there's always room for more!
 
soulpatch said:
Right now I am putting in 5 ml if just dosing and I have roughly 25 gallons of actual water if you inclulde all my plumbing, reactor, and skimmer... So that amount to roughly 2ml/10 gal.

If I do any spot treatment via paste I downgrade to 1 ml per 10 gal and dose 2.5 ml
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info did the trick.
 
awesome. Chances are it will come back since new rock leaches phos so either run GFO to counter that or be prepared for on going spot treatment.
 
The rock i have was in a live rock bin at lfs at a high salinity(1.046). I started running GFO 2 weeks ago hoping that would knock it back. No such luck. Spot treatment is on my agenda. Thanks again.
 
Well I changed the water tonight but it was late so I will test tomorrow night when I get home. I needed to feed and let the tank settle some before I tested.

That said I did shoot a vid of spot treating with peroxide paste. Here is the link:

https://youtu.be/iktnG5GQg6k

Here are some pics with the water drained from tonight as I was waiting for the treatment to finish. They are top down so nothing special:










Here is a hitchhiker brittle star on my clam:



Again with this awesome cart. Makes getting whatever I need easier:

 
Ugh Unsure what happened but my one acro has gone to a better place. I am not sure if lowering the lights ****ed it off as it was my one SPS doing great under the higher lights.

This all said I think I m done purchasing SPS for a bit. I have my acans growing well and my zoas and palys are spreading great as well. I think I might get more of those and let the tank grow out with the LPS and zoas I have now. The couple sps I have left can grow if possible but I wont suppliment them till these are all stable and growing well...
 
Sorry to hear about the acro. It took all of my willpower today to not buy another few acro frags from the LFS which I stopped by on my all-day-NYC trek. They were 30% off, so really nice UC frags, 30% off (at least I hope it applied to them), and they had some helfrichi firefish which both my wife and I want to get one at some point. No such luck on either.

But I did put in a custom order for female mccosker flasher wrasses so that my male will have someone to flash at. And they're pretty fishes. Then maybe a helfrichi!

I never know what the heck is going on with specific corals. My acros are growing like weeds and coloring up nicely, but yet my ORA red planet is whiting out a bit, and my anchor/hammer coral is shriveled up. Parameters are perfect, actually bothered testing them on Friday for the first time in a month. Who knows.

Hope the rest of your stuff keeps growing, especially once you're running more stable with the bryopsis gone and the peroxide dosing over.
 
Hey Soul, I'm thinking on upgrading my pumps from hydor korrolia to either an mp10 and gyre, or 2 mp10's. Whats your thoughts on the gyre? Pricey little pump, but from what I've seen of it, seems like its worth the price.
 
I like the gyre but if you are like me you will need another pump for deadspots. I have my RW4 still running in the tank. My only complaint with the gyre is the lack of apex control but that is supposed to be changing here shortly. If they get that squared away then I am good with it. Cleaning might be a bit of a pain as it is due to be cleaned here shortly with the RW. Maybe this weekend and then I can report back on whether it was a pain or not.

Reef - Yeah my alk was a little high but fixing that slowly this week. I am just not having my luck with my SPS save for my one purple Stylo that looks fantastic. I have a frag of green slimer that might take off but need to give it more time. My bonsai is stable but not extending like it should right now but also not receeding at this point.

So I am thinking regardless I might go for more of an acan/lps garden with some brains and such scattered in. I get quite a bit of enjoyment feeding the acans and LPS whereas the SPS while pretty doesn't do much for interactivity.
 
Thanks for the opinion on the gyre! I'm always looking for the next thing too, though honestly I couldn't be more happy than I am currently with the single MP10 on orange mode (I think it's reef crest?) at 50% power. If I want to clean up detritus, I just crank it to 100% for a few minutes, it kicks up all of the detritus in the tank, and then that falls into the back chambers (in theory, I should probably use filter pads).

There's a lot of value in the LPS garden idea. I saw a nice little one last weekend when I bought frags. He had a bunch of neat blastos and acans, and a few other neat LPS corals as well.

I just like the challenge and colors of SPS. Although I'm really starting to wonder about the growth rate under LEDs. I guess I can't talk since I haven't measured PAR, but my colors are fantastic, and I get some growth, but man is it glacial. Except for my one A. Formosa (Stuber Stag), that thing is growing branches all over the place. It'll be interesting to see how it does color and growth wise as it spreads across the lighting from blues to UV/white/colors towards the center of my LEDs.

Can't go wrong with LPS, especially since you've got other life priorities, they should have a comfortable safety margin if you need to get away for a while or change focus for a season.
 
I just think with the summer I wont restock my SPS should I lose any others. I am finding in talking to my LFS that acans are hard to come by right now as is decent ricordea which I apparently have no issues growing. I have a good number of babies coming in on my acans that should be ready to be cut in coming weeks/months. My wife also doesnt see the appeal in the sps which is hard to keep spending money on frags and gear. I think I might leave this tank the clown/LPS tank and wait for SPS till I get the bigger tank up and running.

We are still awaiting word on one position and I have internal positions open to me here at my current company which would give a bump in pay and such. The house is currently in spruce up mode where I fix and patch things needing done so we can list in the fall or late summer. Hopefully I am in a new home by year's end or early next year. Then the larger tank gets started.
 
well I stopped at my LFS last night to pick up a new acan and a yuma. Been confirmed that my alk is still a bit too high. I think the red sea salt was a bit much or I hit a patch of higher alk on the top. Who knows. I bought a bucket of RC over the weekend at Petsmart sale for 30 with a 10 rebate I need to send out. 20 for a bucket is a steal...

I will switch back to that then mix the salts for a bit so I can use up my Red Sea...
 
It's the salt. I was looking to the RSCP salt, but too many complaints of waaaay too high alkalinity, especially if you're dosing as well (which I believe we both are).

I'm on my second batch of RC salt. I bought the bucket from BRS since I had a big order anyway, and the $10 rebate was a nice touch off the top. I have to remind you to keep the salt dry though. Easier with a bucket than with the bag, but still worth keeping in mind. My salt was left in the bathroom under the sink, where we shower, so I believe the humidity got into the salt and precipitated the alkalinity, which left grainy calcium bits in the bottom of the mixing bucket when mixed, and the alk and calcium were never very high (usually around 7dkh and 380/400) in a freshly mixed bag. I switched to a new bucket and keep it in the bedroom, and the new salt doesn't precipitate anything when mixing it, and the alk and calcium stay higher in freshly mixed SW.

My LFS had a sweet deal on frags this weekend, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything else, despite how good a deal it was (30% off frags! they had nice SPS/acros, some really nice rainbow acans, and a few gonioporas too). I'm just out of space.

I'm thinking about continuing my progression of increasing the light levels in the tank since lowering them didn't stop recession on my red planet, I think it's just a finnicky coral. I'm going to slowly start increasing the light levels again because I want the growth to take off.

Also, since you swore off an obsession with SPS, I'm going to be sure to upload lots of SPS porn now that I got a macro lens to take some nice pictures :p
 
ReefWreak said:
It's the salt. I was looking to the RSCP salt, but too many complaints of waaaay too high alkalinity, especially if you're dosing as well (which I believe we both are).
Click to expand...

Not dosing yet. I was on my way then I went to red sea salt and it negated that need to the opposite side of the spectrum. So large water changes with RC for a bit.

I'm on my second batch of RC salt. I bought the bucket from BRS since I had a big order anyway, and the $10 rebate was a nice touch off the top. I have to remind you to keep the salt dry though. Easier with a bucket than with the bag, but still worth keeping in mind. My salt was left in the bathroom under the sink, where we shower, so I believe the humidity got into the salt and precipitated the alkalinity, which left grainy calcium bits in the bottom of the mixing bucket when mixed, and the alk and calcium were never very high (usually around 7dkh and 380/400) in a freshly mixed bag. I switched to a new bucket and keep it in the bedroom, and the new salt doesn't precipitate anything when mixing it, and the alk and calcium stay higher in freshly mixed SW.
Click to expand...

Yeah I use the buckets for just this reason. I do wish RC was like Red Sea where they also put the salt in a bag inside the bucket. That extra layer is nice to have.

My LFS had a sweet deal on frags this weekend, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything else, despite how good a deal it was (30% off frags! they had nice SPS/acros, some really nice rainbow acans, and a few gonioporas too). I'm just out of space.
Click to expand...
Bah never out of room. You just need to sell off something that is not doing it for you. I am loading up the pics of the 2 pieces I got last night.

I'm thinking about continuing my progression of increasing the light levels in the tank since lowering them didn't stop recession on my red planet, I think it's just a finnicky coral. I'm going to slowly start increasing the light levels again because I want the growth to take off.
Click to expand...

I am as well as I think it was mainly the high alk that caused my demise and not the lighting in the tank. This also explains why my one frogspawn was really showing its mouth the last couple weeks.

Also, since you swore off an obsession with SPS, I'm going to be sure to upload lots of SPS porn now that I got a macro lens to take some nice pictures :p
Click to expand...

I did not swear them off but am taking a break from buying them till end of the summer. LOL. I still have four pieces in my tank though they have all receeded and I hope the new salt fixes that. I have my bonsai, green slimer, purple stylo, and orange acro. Though the acro is barely hanging on at this point.

You can post all the SPS you wish but I will go toe to toe with you with my beautiful acans.... lol
 
BarryV said:
soulpatch did you buy a new camera?
Barry
Click to expand...

No I took those with the LFS underwater camera.

I am going to try using my gopro underwater and if I do not win a lookdown box in a current contest will be buying one for the DSLR in June.

I think with my gopro I can get the same quality if not slightly better then the pics I took at the LFS.
 
I'll be interested to hear how you set up the pictures on the gopro. I have a gropro and dslr, and am never happy with my pics. I think it might be the post-processing that I have to learn though, as daylight non-aquarium pictures usually come out very nicely.

It's also hard with the 29g biocube because the curved front glass, and I can't do top down except through the feed door because the lights are moved too far out of the way to light the tank with the top open big enough for the camera to fit and take pics.
 
I haven't fully solved the lighting issue when I open the tank except to think that I can use a flashlight or something. I think the best bet is underwater pics.

I also need to figure out lightroom as I have that but dont know how to use it. Wife also wants phiotoshop for further processing...
 
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