Top down shots

Big E said:
Hi Wally,

Thanks! I scanned your thread and I'll post some thoughts over there.... maybe it will help.

You've got some impressive DIY skills:thumbsup:

On fixing photos---
RC gave us the chance to edit photos........ I think till the end of August. Just go to any of your posts and hit the "edit" button on the post you want to add the picture.

Delete the photobucket url script and replace it with the new one from flicker. It's very easy.
Click to expand...

Two thanks. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

First for your advice on my Thread. 2 of of 3 of Your Recommendations Done. (Lighting/Sand Bed), Last is Changing over to ESV Dosing for (Alk/Calc).

I left you one question on My Thread about my new Lighting Schedule (8 Hours T5 not overlapping with MH 6 Hours). See the Graph I posted). If you have a chance, have peek and give your blessing.

2nd. That's great that we can edit OLD THREAD POSTS and Update Photo's till Aug. Never knew that, but now that I know I will take care of it right away.

BTW. Thanks for the DIY comment. I have many DIY skills in my pocket except keeping a SPS Frag alive. Appears I need more practice. Hopefully not much more with you helping me along.
 
It is sometimes astonishing how different looking a coral will turn out after being in captivity. That wild piece is a perfect example. The mother colony looks so completely different, I woulld never have seen even the slightest resemblance.
Speaking of pieces taking forever to colour up, I have had a piece of Tierra del fuego in my tank for easily 24 months. It has been moved a couple of times but not in the last year or so. It has decent 'shut down' colour and a bit of pe. It just sits there. After seeing yours, I am not moving it or removing it until it either grows or dies.
I also absolutely LOVE pink shortcake!
 
sensei said:
Ed,

Last week I detected that dosing pump from QT tank stopped dosing Cal.
I am not sure how many days since it stopped working but Cal dropped from 415 to 360
I fixed it and I am dosing manually a litlle less than 10ppm per day. I am now up to 390.
fortunatelly everything looks well in qt tank.

Have you had this kind of dosing pump malfuntions?
I detected this when I did my weekly tests, is there any other way to detect it sooner other than testing?

when you speak about stability, I believe that ALk is the most important parameter, isn´t it?
I ask becuase now that I had this episode I am adjusting Cal daily and I have not seen efect on the acros I have in that tank; if it would have been the alk pump I think it would have been a very different story?

thanks a lot
Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply........I missed this post.

Calc drifting low isn't a major issue. Low levels over an extended period would probably lessen growth.

My doser hasn't failed, but I do have one part of my setup that I consider important. My alk reservoir is very small, so I would notice if more or less was used up as I check and fill it almost daily.

A lot of people would consider this a pain but it takes me all of 2 minutes and I'll never have a tank crash due to a doser malfunction.

This allows me to test alk less often. I test alk approx every 7-10 days mainly to monitor growth.

This also keeps me "connected" to my tank. I like it this way versus having too much automation and relying on technology/controllers.
 
reefmutt said:
It is sometimes astonishing how different looking a coral will turn out after being in captivity. That wild piece is a perfect example. The mother colony looks so completely different, I woulld never have seen even the slightest resemblance.
Speaking of pieces taking forever to colour up, I have had a piece of Tierra del fuego in my tank for easily 24 months. It has been moved a couple of times but not in the last year or so. It has decent 'shut down' colour and a bit of pe. It just sits there. After seeing yours, I am not moving it or removing it until it either grows or dies.
I also absolutely LOVE pink shortcake!
Click to expand...

Yeah, wild colonies that have those insane bright un-natural colors never look the same.

Most of my dormant pieces woke up due to me switching tanks or moving them, but I get what you mean.

The shortcake has really been interesting in how it has changed since maturing into a colony.
 
Big E said:
Sorry for the late reply........I missed this post.

Calc drifting low isn't a major issue. Low levels over an extended period would probably lessen growth.

My doser hasn't failed, but I do have one part of my setup that I consider important. My alk reservoir is very small, so I would notice if more or less was used up as I check and fill it almost daily.

A lot of people would consider this a pain but it takes me all of 2 minutes and I'll never have a tank crash due to a doser malfunction.

This allows me to test alk less often. I test alk approx every 7-10 days mainly to monitor growth.

This also keeps me "connected" to my tank. I like it this way versus having too much automation and relying on technology/controllers.
Click to expand...

wow professor,
you have it all figured out!
we have so much to learn from you....

do you recall the exact size of your alk container vr your daily dose? I want to have a felling of how many days it can store.
If you could post a picture of you alk container and how it is set up with the tube that sucks the alk it would be great. Please tell me what kind of container you have choosen to make it easy to refill with out taking the alk hose out to avoid air in the hose every time you refill.

another point were I have had problems is in the union of the hose of the alk container. I use this push connect adaptor :

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/1-4-push-connect-bulkhead-tank-adapter.html

the hose from the doser pump connects to this adaptor and a hard acrilic tube goes down from the adaptor to the alk solution. the probelm is that over time the hose that conects to this adaptor allows some air in and the dosings may not be exact or in the worse case it only doses air!!!!

please let me know how have you simplified all this to avoid all this posible problems.

Thanks a lot Ed
 
Ed, what type of lighting does that tdf get? Maybe I will move mine.. see if I can get it going. Right now mine sits at the same level as a very well coloured and growing flat ssc.
In terms of light, do you think that is decent for the tdf? I think the ssc is perfectly placed for light. Would you give a tdf more or less light, or the same.
 
sensei said:
wow professor,
you have it all figured out!
we have so much to learn from you....

do you recall the exact size of your alk container vr your daily dose? I want to have a felling of how many days it can store.
If you could post a picture of you alk container and how it is set up with the tube that sucks the alk it would be great. Please tell me what kind of container you have choosen to make it easy to refill with out taking the alk hose out to avoid air in the hose every time you refill.

another point were I have had problems is in the union of the hose of the alk container. I use this push connect adaptor :

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/1-4-push-connect-bulkhead-tank-adapter.html

the hose from the doser pump connects to this adaptor and a hard acrilic tube goes down from the adaptor to the alk solution. the probelm is that over time the hose that conects to this adaptor allows some air in and the dosings may not be exact or in the worse case it only doses air!!!!

please let me know how have you simplified all this to avoid all this posible problems.

Thanks a lot Ed
Click to expand...

I use a 10 ounce water bottle with airline tubing and keep the tubing submerged. I keep about 120mls in the bottle, my current daily dose is 85mls.

I know you travel so you can't use something that small, but you can use a smaller reservoir.

I don't have a fancy sump or sexy equipment.............I just use what works best. I guess I could upgrade my cardbooard box table:D

alk containers by Big E 52, on Flickr
 
reefmutt said:
Ed, what type of lighting does that tdf get? Maybe I will move mine.. see if I can get it going. Right now mine sits at the same level as a very well coloured and growing flat ssc.
In terms of light, do you think that is decent for the tdf? I think the ssc is perfectly placed for light. Would you give a tdf more or less light, or the same.
Click to expand...

My TDF is at 325 par......my colony is at the same level as the shortcakes right now.

With standard ATI ballasts the red tipped shortcake has better red tips at higher levels.
 
Big E said:
I use a 10 ounce water bottle with airline tubing and keep the tubing submerged. I keep about 120mls in the bottle, my current daily dose is 85mls.

I know you travel so you can't use something that small, but you can use a smaller reservoir.

I don't have a fancy sump or sexy equipment.............I just use what works best. I guess I could upgrade my cardbooard box table:D

alk containers by Big E 52, on Flickr
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot Ed,
It is an excellent way to monitor that the dosing pumps are working apropiatelly. I have been having this uncertainty of a dosing pump malfunction for a long time and in this way I will be able to have peace of mind!!
 
sensei said:
wow professor,

another point were I have had problems is in the union of the hose of the alk container. I use this push connect adaptor :

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/1-4-push-connect-bulkhead-tank-adapter.html

the hose from the doser pump connects to this adaptor and a hard acrilic tube goes down from the adaptor to the alk solution. the probelm is that over time the hose that conects to this adaptor allows some air in and the dosings may not be exact or in the worse case it only doses air!!!!

please let me know how have you simplified all this to avoid all this posible problems.

Thanks a lot Ed
Click to expand...

That push connector shouldn't leak air. But since dosing is a vacuum/siphon (negative pressure), the push connector is designed for Positive pressure to keep things sealed via the Rubber Rings. That could be your problem. (You might be able to fix with a extra Push/Pull to close it up since normally high pressure like RO system would tell you it's not sealed since water would squirt out).

I had a air bubble problem with a different connector when I used a coupler between two pieces of dosing hose. Always worried about dosing Air since my dosing is small at this point.

Best way to solve is use one piece of tube, but not always possible.

But if you need a coupler like I need to, .... A small amount of Clear Silcone around the connectors solved the problem. (ensure connection is clean and dry) When silicone dries it will seal and air won't get in anymore.

Silicone can be easily peeled away to remove cleanly if you ever need to take apart things.

But I think your connector is simply not Locked in proper place for proper seal. Try that first.
 
Last edited:
Wally,
you are right it is not supposed to happen, but it happens.
sometimes it is easy as you say, just pressing the tube in the connector, sometimes the silicon tubing gets pressed by the conector so over time the hose gets thinner and it leaks air.

Yes, the best way to avoid the problem is using one house from dosing pump directly into the liquid. I will change my setup in this way.

Thanks
 
sensei said:
Wally,
you are right it is not supposed to happen, but it happens.
sometimes it is easy as you say, just pressing the tube in the connector, sometimes the silicon tubing gets pressed by the conector so over time the hose gets thinner and it leaks air.

Yes, the best way to avoid the problem is using one house from dosing pump directly into the liquid. I will change my setup in this way.

Thanks
Click to expand...
That connector isn't made for Soft Silicone Tubing, it's made for Hard PVC type tubing which is very reliable (I'm surprised the soft silicone tube held) . Go with one tube and your problem will go away.
 
Hi Ed

I got some corals from you last year. Everything has been growing and healthy. However, this year my corals has been on the pale side. Here is an example of my red planetand bubble gum milli that I got from you. I tested my Nitrate today it is zero (red sea pro). I don't have fudge. I do run GFO, carbon and biopallet. My feeling is, the tank is too ULNS. After reading your post about PO4, N03 and corals color. I want to give it a try and increase the N03. What is the better way to increase N03? Thx

Ethan M
f8b5afce07df1ab88f89a30bb28e169c.jpg
7e83701f8f686bf54bb6cbb5d57461fc.jpg


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
Hi Ethan,

It's good to hear from you

I prefer reducing the export system versus dosing nitrate.......few questions first....

What is your fish load?
Is it just acros that look pale?
What's P04?
In that first picture is the skin towards the center actually bleached white or is the picture overexposed?

Btw---Those aren't my corals........I don't have a BG milli and red planet wasn't on your list from last year.
 
Big E said:
Hi Ethan,

It's good to hear from you

I prefer reducing the export system versus dosing nitrate.......few questions first....

What is your fish load?
Is it just acros that look pale?
What's P04?
In that first picture is the skin towards the center actually bleached white or is the picture overexposed?

Btw---Those aren't my corals........I don't have a BG milli and red planet wasn't on your list from last year.
Click to expand...

Hi Ed

My display tank is a 70 Gs,

Fish are

chromis x3
clownfish x2
Purple tang x1
yellow tang x1
Wrasse x 1

Total = 8 fishes

- Pale are across the board. But Acro seems worst. including my Meteorite.
- P04, 0.18 (Hanna checker) this is after increased feeding and frozen food.
- The first pic is not bleach, just cell phone over exposed but not by much.

My ATI light bulbs are

3 x coral +
2 x Blue +
1 x Aqua Special x 1

What I have or will be doing is not running GFO, Stop Biopellet reactors, run full light less than 8 hrs, and increase feeding. I don't know if I need to add more fish or not.

This is what some of the coral coral used to look like

I think this one I got from you?

Navy Tort?

<a href="https://ethanmanisone.smugmug.com/Reef-Pics/i-rjGhLML/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Reef-Pics/i-rjGhLML/0/969f9cfc/M/DSC03602-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

Meteorite before the pale

<a href="https://ethanmanisone.smugmug.com/Reef-Pics/i-JfSmDRV/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Reef-Pics/i-JfSmDRV/0/76cc9a19/M/DSC03543-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

BTW, you're right RP, and BG milli are not from you. I love your input and the know how information you have been sharing with us reefers.

Thank you

Ethan M
 
The tort looks sweet!

I would keep an eye on the P04..........if it keeps creeping up or you see more algae, you may have to run GFO again. I use half the recommended amount.

Rest of your plan sounds good.........the pellet reactor is too efficient. I've seen this many times.

You can always go back to carbon dosing later.......I prefer drop dosing a liquid. You have more control and can adjust if needed.

Keep in mind, it will take a good 2-3 months for real results.....just be patient.

Chances are your N03 levels will be fine without the BP reactor.
 
Pink lemondade brownish coloration

pink lemonade 052517 by Big E 52, on Flickr


I moved it more to the center of the tank so it would get full spectrum from all angles....same (par) distance from the lights.

pink lemonade by Big E 52, on Flickr


Here's some experimental porthole shots. I'm not a big fan of using it, but I wanted to shoot from angles and with the pumps on.

Porthole 101017 by Big E 52, on Flickr

Porthole 3 101017 by Big E 52, on Flickr

porthole 2 101017 by Big E 52, on Flickr

porthole 5 101017 by Big E 52, on Flickr
 
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