Panic's 360g SPS Peninsula
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OP
OP
Thanks!
Sabres429
Active Member
Could you send me your radion schedule?!
Very nice updates, Doug! Amazing home theater setup too!!
OP
OP
that's pretty much it in a nutshell - right off the ab+ program, nothing fancy
Thanks! I had an ugly phase there - I will elaborate next post
Yes!
OP
OP
It's a lazy Easter morning around the house today so it's a prefect time for a reef update. The system has had some growing pains after adding all the extra water volume of 360 gallons with the addition of the new display. I lost several colonies and most of my expensive frags I have collected over the last year, all of the Malaysian acros 2 months ago. Growth slowed, lost lots of color, everything looked pretty blah starting around month 4. I think part of the issue was not enough flow. I have added another mp60 which has improved growth and eliminated any detritus buidup which is a great indicator of flow getting to all corners of the tank. I think the marco cement I used for the rock pillars leeches something in to the water that acros don't like. Building the rock structures is the only change in chemical or material introduced in to the system. ICP testing never showed anything out of normal range though. I believe that the bacterial leveled out and overcame whatever was making the corals unhappy. Color returned, growth exploded. All was good.
Then...
My Aquarium Engineering ACR started leaking and becoming extremely inconsistent. Every day was an adjustment trying to chase .5+ dkh swings all day. The corals started looking really bad, I was having some STN issues, my oldest most hearty colonies were having burned tips. I was so busy following that and work and normal life stuff that I hadn't double checked my Alkatrnic calibration in a couple of weeks. Well once I did, I found that the dkh was 6.6 where thre Alkatronic was showing 8.3-8.5. I slowly raised it back up to 8 (+/- .2) and am leaving it there to match the Red Sea dkh level. It has been 2 months since correcting the issue and everything has been doing great for about a month. The last 2 weeks have been an explosion of growth and color, PE is crazy on everything, the acros are back in cruising mode. The bases are back to doing that cool grafting thing with the streaks of color.
Photos to follow soon!
Then...
My Aquarium Engineering ACR started leaking and becoming extremely inconsistent. Every day was an adjustment trying to chase .5+ dkh swings all day. The corals started looking really bad, I was having some STN issues, my oldest most hearty colonies were having burned tips. I was so busy following that and work and normal life stuff that I hadn't double checked my Alkatrnic calibration in a couple of weeks. Well once I did, I found that the dkh was 6.6 where thre Alkatronic was showing 8.3-8.5. I slowly raised it back up to 8 (+/- .2) and am leaving it there to match the Red Sea dkh level. It has been 2 months since correcting the issue and everything has been doing great for about a month. The last 2 weeks have been an explosion of growth and color, PE is crazy on everything, the acros are back in cruising mode. The bases are back to doing that cool grafting thing with the streaks of color.
Photos to follow soon!
Acropora52
Active Member
Sorry to hear about your struggles but things are looking great now! Hopefully you'll cruise along. I've had a few hiccups recently as well but getting closer to stable
OP
OP
Thank you - I’m so used to everything being so stable and smooth that any downturns drive me bonkers. I hope you get your hiccups scared out of your system soon too
OP
OP
My Lucky Charms is barely hanging on right now and I doubt it will make it. I think it is weak from Alk swings, low ph, and amino dosing.. It took a turn for the worse when my Alk got so low a couple months ago and has been been getting more faded by the week. I gave it a potassium chloride dip last month to make sure I didn’t have any pests irritating it, which was clear. I dipped it in witch hazel today following the Reef Moonshiners method so hopefully color will return. Im holding off on any aminos and doing my best to keep ph up. It’s one of my favorites and the last acro to color back up, so hope it pulls through.
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i had a bit of a crash myself. from aug 21 until just last month, i prob lost 10-15 frags/colonies. was brutal. turns out my lights were set way to low. I'm guessing that's why I had such a hard time getting frags through quarantine too, light intensity set to low.
Good luck getting the tank back on track. seems like an endless game we're playing.
Good luck getting the tank back on track. seems like an endless game we're playing.
how do you remove that check valve without getting water all over the floors?The tds out of my rodi was 9 on the out and 15 after the membrane so I swapped out all of the filters. I flushed 10 minutes and dumped about 30g of the first of the rodi water. Still 15 on the membrane and zero on the final output. The old membrane was only about 3 months old and right at 4 weeks on the rest of the filters. I wonder if either I keep getting bad membranes or if that meter is off. The meter was replaced last month too.
Anyways, on to the fun stuff!
The tank is about 1/4 full so I’m looking at probably 5 days til I’m ready to mix in the 6:1 ratio of Red Sea and Red Sea Pro. This gives me right at 8.6 dKH for the mix. I’ll mix for half a day and circulate it with the other 500 gallons.
I glued some 3/4” plywood strips to the back of the frame to hold panels in place to hide all the wires and stuff for the lights and powerheads. I used 1/4” Masonite and painted it wall color so it blends in. I’ll use some magnets to keep the panels flat. There will be ones for the sides too but I’ll wait til the tank is stocked and I’m finished messing with the powerheads, wires, lights etc. I already have grubby paw prints from putting the back panels in place so I’ll wait til last to do the trim pieces so everything stays looking nice.
OP
OP
I’d close the gate valve right above it, loosen the nut on the check valve to let the water drain, wrap a towel around the pipe underneath it to capture the excess water that comes out
MartinM
Valuable Member
I’ve setup I’ve been following this for several months. I’m old to the hobby but new to SPS. Why do you hesitate to dose aminos and how are you keeping nutrients up?
Because I love clams and have a dozen (!) I’m having a hard time keeping nitrates above .5 and detectable PO4 despite medium fish bio load, heavy feeding, and heavy AB+ dosing, and lately, only rubbing the skimmer a few hours per day. I think it’s why my SPS fade it go brown so badly. Some have color, some don’t. Interested to learn from your experience!
Because I love clams and have a dozen (!) I’m having a hard time keeping nitrates above .5 and detectable PO4 despite medium fish bio load, heavy feeding, and heavy AB+ dosing, and lately, only rubbing the skimmer a few hours per day. I think it’s why my SPS fade it go brown so badly. Some have color, some don’t. Interested to learn from your experience!
OP
OP
I feed my fish very heavy and often. I use several types of frozen food and feed spectrum pellets sparingly, flake only when I’m in a hurry. I have quite a few fish but not really for my system volume. The amount I feed keeps the nitrates and phosphates up 25-30 and .08-.12 - the phosphates would be much higher but I have to use gfo to keep them at bay. I don’t like adding chems to the water if possible unless they are essential elements - it gets so expensive. I have been teetering on trying the Reef Moonshiners method though. Red Sea salt does a fine job so far per icp testing - everything comes back within normal range. Happy reefing!
MartinM
Valuable Member
Thanks! I have a medium bio load that I feed heavily (mainly a custom frozen formula but also pellets), but the clams just strip all the nutrients so fast which I think is the main problem. might be time to accept that I like clams more than sticks 
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