A reef on the 10th floor

[tcoyle]

Amazing looking tank! Question for you. With that much SPS, why get rid of the Calcium Reactor?

 

[JMacedo]

Umm nice growth?? :p

AH AH! The rocks have been growing like crazy! :D

 

[JMacedo]

Amazing looking tank! Question for you. With that much SPS, why get rid of the Calcium Reactor?

Thank you very much. In the end the Calcium reactor was struggling to process some 86litres per day @ 25dKH with a PH of 6.2 in order to keep Ca at least 380ppm but with the negative impact of having too high dKh (11dkh), so I would have to invest on a bigger Ca reactor and or having to add some Mg and Ca.

Balling allows me to precisely obtain the parameters I shoot for with more stability and better PH Level.

 

[Kswish74]

Guess which one of my fish loves bubbles...

Bubblessssss!!!!!!! Lol

 

[JMacedo]

My dosing... Nopox 14ml, Mg 24ml, Ca 60ml, Alk 260ml per day. I wonder why so much Mg, I was expecting way less!

 

[locito277]

Wow amazing!

 

[Andrey]

I started this month doing some changes and supplementing some Fauna Marin Products; Reef Vitality, Color Elements and Coral Balance but despite some improvements (better polyp extension), I have to say these colours were achieved before the Fauna Marin products with no supplementing, just fish poo and my homemade blend. Tank you so much for viewing my tank.

Dear @JMacedo,
thank you very much for your very intereesting video tour and gorgeous photos! I really do appreciate your reef story :)

Could you please give me some breef introduction about your expectation and what you finally achived using FM Color Elements? I'm thinking about using it, but also I have some concerns.... I wiil be very grateful for your advice and experience! :)

Thank you again for your attention! Greetings from Moscow! :)

--
Best regards,
Andrey

 

[JMacedo]

Wow amazing!

Thank you!

 

[JMacedo]

Dear @JMacedo,
thank you very much for your very intereesting video tour and gorgeous photos! I really do appreciate your reef story :)

Could you please give me some breef introduction about your expectation and what you finally achived using FM Color Elements? I'm thinking about using it, but also I have some concerns.... I wiil be very grateful for your advice and experience! :)

Thank you again for your attention! Greetings from Moscow! :)

--
Best regards,
Andrey

Hi Andrey,

Sorry for the late reply. I went on a trip with some friends visiting Thailand :)

https://youtu.be/oXTJZOZNe-4
I am still divided in between using or not using FM Color Elements. I started dosing FM Color Elements while using the Calcium Reactor but the FM Balling method already contain 3 bottles of trace elements 1 - Color and Growth, 2 - Health, 3- Metabolism, and I am still not very sure if my corals are benefiting from FM Coral Elements.

Also I dose FM Reef Vitality and read somewhere that we should reduce the dosage of trace elements and amino acids.

The thing is, I purchased several bottles of FM Coral Elements before starting the FM Balling Light method and I decided to keep dosing half of the recommended dosage and see how things go.

After the tank crashed, one and a half years ago, my sps corals achieved their best coloration after months of neglect and at that time I was using Red Sea Blue bucket salt, a calcium reactor and no dosing of anything at all and that is always on the back of my mind as perhaps for sps corals "less is better" of anything.

Probably when FM Color Elements runs out, I will try a period without dosing it and see if it makes any difference.

Many thanks, Andrey for the very kind words.

 

[Andrey]

Hi Andrey,

Sorry for the late reply. I went on a trip with some friends visiting Thailand :)

I am still divided in between using or not using FM Color Elements. I started dosing FM Color Elements while using the Calcium Reactor but the FM Balling method already contain 3 bottles of trace elements 1 - Color and Growth, 2 - Health, 3- Metabolism, and I am still not very sure if my corals are benefiting from FM Coral Elements.

Also I dose FM Reef Vitality and read somewhere that we should reduce the dosage of trace elements and amino acids.

The thing is, I purchased several bottles of FM Coral Elements before starting the FM Balling Light method and I decided to keep dosing half of the recommended dosage and see how things go.

After the tank crashed, one and a half years ago, my sps corals achieved their best coloration after months of neglect and at that time I was using Red Sea Blue bucket salt, a calcium reactor and no dosing of anything at all and that is always on the back of my mind as perhaps for sps corals "less is better" of anything.

Probably when FM Color Elements runs out, I will try a period without dosing it and see if it makes any difference.

Many thanks, Andrey for the very kind words.

Hi,

thank you so much for your comprehensive answer! :) To be frank I totally agree with you about overlapping features in some product lines. It's so tricky for me to understand the real value of using it. So I've decided to use only balling method and weekly water changes (10%) as a "less is better" approach.

Great video with amazing nature! Many thanks!

--
Best regards,
Andrey

 

[Alfrareef]

Hi Macedo.
How it's NOPOX impacting your reef? Any algae/ciano break?

 

[JMacedo]

Hi Macedo.
How it's NOPOX impacting your reef? Any algae/ciano break?

Hi there,

I am well over two years, probably three of using NOPOX. It has worked brilliantly as Nutrient reducer since day one, nonetheless I used to love and hate NOPOX!!

Loved it as it always kept my tank at undetectable levels of NO3 and PO4 but before using some Fauna Marin Products I was battling ugly rock coatings of brown bacteria (Cyano included). I used to have to peel it from the rocks as it was competing for space with the corals.

Nowadays I am convinced that Reef Vitality is helping in keeping my rocks clean and also I have some Chemiclean in case Cyano will be back as I just add a 7h Hydra 52 fixture.

As you can see in the pic below I have no intention to change to other method of reducing nutrients in the next two years... at least!:D

 

[JMacedo]

Made some changes... the montipora spongodes grew too big and it was time to say goodbye and make room for the corals growing on the back panel.



Now the tank looks like this:

 

[JMacedo]

Feeding...

 

[oneilwiz]

Wow such a mind blowing tank ! That's inspiration there for me. I find keeping SPS very challenging for me. I want to do a specific dominated tank for example maybe a softie/ LPS only or SPS only tank ....

 

[revhtree]

Hi Andrey,

Sorry for the late reply. I went on a trip with some friends visiting Thailand :)

I am still divided in between using or not using FM Color Elements. I started dosing FM Color Elements while using the Calcium Reactor but the FM Balling method already contain 3 bottles of trace elements 1 - Color and Growth, 2 - Health, 3- Metabolism, and I am still not very sure if my corals are benefiting from FM Coral Elements.

Also I dose FM Reef Vitality and read somewhere that we should reduce the dosage of trace elements and amino acids.

The thing is, I purchased several bottles of FM Coral Elements before starting the FM Balling Light method and I decided to keep dosing half of the recommended dosage and see how things go.

After the tank crashed, one and a half years ago, my sps corals achieved their best coloration after months of neglect and at that time I was using Red Sea Blue bucket salt, a calcium reactor and no dosing of anything at all and that is always on the back of my mind as perhaps for sps corals "less is better" of anything.

Probably when FM Color Elements runs out, I will try a period without dosing it and see if it makes any difference.

Many thanks, Andrey for the very kind words.

Love it!

 

[seastar]

I am a huge fan of what you've done with this tank and I am going to model my new approach more inline with what you have done here, fantastic stuff!

 

[cutty_chris]

Hi Andrey,

Sorry for the late reply. I went on a trip with some friends visiting Thailand :)

I am still divided in between using or not using FM Color Elements. I started dosing FM Color Elements while using the Calcium Reactor but the FM Balling method already contain 3 bottles of trace elements 1 - Color and Growth, 2 - Health, 3- Metabolism, and I am still not very sure if my corals are benefiting from FM Coral Elements.

Also I dose FM Reef Vitality and read somewhere that we should reduce the dosage of trace elements and amino acids.

The thing is, I purchased several bottles of FM Coral Elements before starting the FM Balling Light method and I decided to keep dosing half of the recommended dosage and see how things go.

After the tank crashed, one and a half years ago, my sps corals achieved their best coloration after months of neglect and at that time I was using Red Sea Blue bucket salt, a calcium reactor and no dosing of anything at all and that is always on the back of my mind as perhaps for sps corals "less is better" of anything.

Probably when FM Color Elements runs out, I will try a period without dosing it and see if it makes any difference.

Many thanks, Andrey for the very kind words.

Sorry if I missed it, what what type of camera are you using?

 

[JMacedo]

Wow such a mind blowing tank ! That's inspiration there for me. I find keeping SPS very challenging for me. I want to do a specific dominated tank for example maybe a softie/ LPS only or SPS only tank ....

Thank you very much! The thing with sps is that we have to establish some rules since day one and stick with them IMHO! The more growth you have the less margin for error you have, keep everything VERY STABLE. I agree sps can be challenging at times, but if they die it is because we are missing something.

Getting the right knowledge and equipment before purchasing our reef friends is a must but it is easily doable nowadays. :)

 

[JMacedo]

I am a huge fan of what you've done with this tank and I am going to model my new approach more inline with what you have done here, fantastic stuff!

That's a huge compliment! I am feeling humbled and honored! THANK YOU!