year progression

[itz frank]

frag all ye 'ole corals and give them to me for safe harbor. I can't turn my lights up anymore so I can't torch them via light. ;D

 

[firemedix911]

Ain't that the truth always trying ti get more. Whatever growth and color we get we allways want to squeeze it even more.

 

[dadummy]

That's the way this hobby goes for most of us brother. A little bit here and a little bit there. Trying to change it all at once would make you broke as heck. :blown:I had the magnetic ballasts and went to electric HQIs. I did like you, designed the canopy to fit my pendants. I have the lumen bright minis. Love them. Also run a fan when temps goes over 79.5.
Brother bottom line is you are kicking *** with your set up. I just started experimenting with mine. I placed a couple of corals to test. We'll see how it works.

Have you measure par in the tank? What numbers are you getting on the top of the rocks and at the sand. And average lets say. Sorry about all the questions trying to get and idea of what to expect. It's scary for me bc I have my frag tank with the T5s dialed down so I'm very hesitant to move all the stuff over. :uhoh3:

yea man, slow and steady. I haven't measured Par, so no help there. I broke the tank down and transferred all the corals into a frag system to treat AEFW and do some work on the house. After tank was back up and cycled I fragged some of the bigger colonies for starter frags, and killed a bunch the first few months. Didn't think tank would ever turn around. Once things stabilized I slowly added frags saving a piece in the frag tank in case I lost something, and I did. I also mounted the frags on plugs and randomly glued the plug to the rock so it could be moved if it didn't like the spot. Even frags from cultured or wild acro do ok. They usually brown out or get pale, and color back up if they survive. It's probable that some of the cultured that don't make it wouldn't have made it anyway since the corals died in both systems.
Another good thing about not transferring the whole colony into the new system is I was able to trade,sell and give away a bunch of frags.
My theory is stick a frag in where ya want it and if it lives great, if not oh well.
Frag tank was lit by 2 150w hqi , 4 54w T5 and didn't have too many issues with the tank raised frags upon transfer.
Feel like I am rambling on, best of luck with your new system, I am sure it will be awesome

 

[itz frank]

stick with your T5/LED, colors were better back when I ran that combo last go around. Besides you don't want 250w heaters on top of your tank lol On the other hand I can pump in 5 gallons of kalk every 2 1/2 days which IMO helps with growth. Using 7 tsp kalk per 5, so still have some time before I need to finish building the calcium reactor and fill out the divorce papers

Man, Just read this. Couldn't see the FTS because photoshop is blocked at work :lolspin:

But I'm only about 25 gallons lighter than you and I run 3tsp per5-6gallons top off. Also, for comparison, that water volume lasts me 7 days and keeps me around a 7.5 alk.

 

[dadummy]

cool man, I started out with 2tsp per 5g, calcium held steady the whole time. When alkalinity dropped I would bump it back up with sodium carbonate and increase the kalk. If alkalinity would rise from the kalk, I would lower the amount added. For a while I was anal and would clean the top off bucket every couple fill ups. Now being lazy again, I toss in the kalk and let her go. Occasionally when really lazy I run a bucket of top off with out any addition of kalk to use up the residual.

 

[itz frank]

cool man, I started out with 2tsp per 5g, calcium held steady the whole time. When alkalinity dropped I would bump it back up with sodium carbonate and increase the kalk. If alkalinity would rise from the kalk, I would lower the amount added. For a while I was anal and would clean the top off bucket every couple fill ups. Now being lazy again, I toss in the kalk and let her go. Occasionally when really lazy I run a bucket of top off with out any addition of kalk to use up the residual.

I'm just surprised about the amount of top off you use up. it's a lot. You use twice the kalk in half the time.

growth looks great, thou.

 

[dadummy]

I am surprised kalk is still holding. In the past go around with this tank and back when I had a 90g, I didn't have the evaporation I do now. I used to have do dose two part along with full strength kalk. Plus now I don't have too many monti caps, growing like weeds.

you are off to a great start, you will be pumping in more kalkwasser in no time

 

[rovster]

My tank evaporates about 10-12 gallons/week. My ATO resovoir is about 12 gallons and it runs dry all the time if I dont refill every weekend.

 

[itz frank]

My tank evaporates about 10-12 gallons/week. My ATO resovoir is about 12 gallons and it runs dry all the time if I dont refill every weekend.

Wow. This must be a result of not having a canopy? Because I fill my ATO every Sunday. It never varies. I'm empty on Sunday.


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[rovster]

I think it's a combo of no canopy a ton of flow and surface agitation. My 30 gallon also evaporated a ton because it was open top and I had a 250 halide with fans blowing full blast across the surface...

 

[dadummy]

runs dry, like my wallet. I toyed with the idea of a larger reservoir. Float has gotten hung up and pumped the whole 5 or what was left of it into the tank. That's when I know it's time to soak the float in vinegar . If reservoir was larger, who knows what may happen?

Definitely no canopy has more evap.. The frag system has no canopy and guzzles top off. Every time kalk is dosed in the frag, bad things happen. Even tried using a dosing pump and adding it very slowly. Tanks are BB with very little LR. Every tank is different, so someone reading this may think pumping kalkwasser into their tank is a great idea. Best advice I can give is start off slow and find out what works for your tank

 

[Diesel3443]

Im not even sure how much I evaporate. My RO is plumped to the tank.

Thank god for the profilux to turn off everything if something gets stuck lol