Andre’s Full blown 300Gallon SPS Reeftank up within a week ;-)

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Little bit of trouble last weeks :-(
It was time to replenish some of my Pellets in the Nitrate reactor, so I went ahead and were trying to order some more of the XL NP pellets, and found out that those are discontinued ugh.........
However the manufacturer in Europe came up with another XL non tumbling pellet which promised as well to reduce much better Po4 as the previous ones and call them an All-In-One pellets. So I thought I do due to the fact that the old pellets are not available anymore to simply make the switch to the new pellet design.

BAD idea, the pellets looked very similar but they must have changed the Carbon source in these pellets. After 2 weeks of use with the minimal amount I did see bacteria issues on SPS corals and small outbreaks of diseases, likely from the new mix of carbohydrates. Also I had a small continuous bacteria bloom on the heterotrophic bacteria in the water. So overall I was very unsatisfied with the performance.

Nitrates I had trouble to keep it up with daily dosing to keep it detectable while Po4 kept rising.
That was the point where I was fed up with this carb blasting media and ditched the entire media completely for now.

Instead I was using for a few days small amounts of Vodka instead to avoid nutrient spikes. As usual, the Vodka did a great job, initial ethanol dosing bloom occurred a day later and tank cleared up within 2-3 days and Nitrates were stable again around 1ppm. Nevertheless this is not a long term solution, since I still have to use now small amounts of the undesired GFO to keep Po4 in check. Vodka only in the past has done a great job but never kept Po4 in my cases low enough as I wanted it. So I'm prepping for another method that I have in mind for this system ;-)

 
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Going forward..............

Thought about to start something I always wanted to do since I manage my Chemistry with a monthly ICP and relevant Trace element corrections.

I started on the weekend doing sort of a ZEO method! Just sort of!
The Zeo method itself basically does 2 things generally. First it provides apparently a balanced biology of No3 and Po4 consuming bacteria in an enclosed reactor........ that's what I like.

On the other end the routine of replacing the Zeolith in the reactor strips out a lot of trace elements which is part of the traditional Zeo method. You strip out basically everything, and then dose costly elements as per instructions.
That's what I don't like!
So instead of replacing the Zeolith, I will simply fill it with enough media over the next few weeks, up to the point where the media is enough to manage the desired nutrient levels, and stops to absorb the trace elements, and will use the reactor only to house all the bacteria I want in there. Means I won't replace the Zeolith!

Along with that I will do my monthly/bimonthly trace element corrections dosages and daily Manganese, Iron, Iodide and Chromium as usual in my 5 minute long routine ;-)
I just expect the Trace element absorption goes up for a while, until the Zeolith is saturated.

It is similar to what I normally do with my classic pellets, just with no automated carb dosing.
I will run the tank with this above setup and will use the Zeostart daily as part of my daily dosing routine and will see how it works.

In this fashion, the results should be equal or even better to what I do normally, just with the hassle of daily carbon dosing again.
 

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In the first picture you have 4 actinic blue, 1 azure, 2 super purple and 1 actinic but in the layout picture you have 3 blue actinic and 2 super purples. I bought an 8 bulb ATI PowerModule on Black Friday and wanted to follow @Diesel bulb combo as well but when all the bulbs are on with 2 super purples the light is too purple for my liking so this is the combo I'm running right now

blue actinic
tropic 6500
blue actinic
super purple
super actinic
blue actinic
aquablue
blue actinic

So my question for you professor is on the 7th bulb which is the aquablue would there be any benefit if I swap it for a super actinic, azure or blue actinic, right now when the all the bulbs are on it has like a 14k feel. I only ask cause I just had a Giesemann spectra which had a 20k bulb and 4 ati blue plus and I loved the 20k look with the blue plus it was blue with a whitish tint to it.
 

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You need an on-site lab to keep track of all your a since experiments

Got my icp results. Heavy metals . Working on water changes and trying poly filters. Will send another off soon.

Any updates fts?
 
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In the first picture you have 4 actinic blue, 1 azure, 2 super purple and 1 actinic but in the layout picture you have 3 blue actinic and 2 super purples. I bought an 8 bulb ATI PowerModule on Black Friday and wanted to follow @Diesel bulb combo as well but when all the bulbs are on with 2 super purples the light is too purple for my liking so this is the combo I'm running right now

blue actinic
tropic 6500
blue actinic
super purple
super actinic
blue actinic
aquablue
blue actinic

So my question for you professor is on the 7th bulb which is the aquablue would there be any benefit if I swap it for a super actinic, azure or blue actinic, right now when the all the bulbs are on it has like a 14k feel. I only ask cause I just had a Giesemann spectra which had a 20k bulb and 4 ati blue plus and I loved the 20k look with the blue plus it was blue with a whitish tint to it.
Honestly the settings and installation depends a bit on the personal taste and appearance you prefer.
I would not do 2 Purples, that always turned out a bit too much red.
Running 4 blue actinic is great for fluorescence, supported by at least 1 super actinic for more par. Then 1 purple and 1 azure in the center during the entire photoperiod gave great appearance. The remaining 2 paly a bit around with light and appearance and use super actinic or even 1 more blue actinic in the overall setup.
Remember I run the LED in the center which I use for fine tuning my appearance with a lot of blues on.

My current combo since a while is front to back:
actinic blue
super actinic
actinic blue
azure
LED CLUSTER
purple
actinic blue
super actinic (if not this I use another actinic blue)
actinic blue


Hope that helps ;-)
 
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You need an on-site lab to keep track of all your a since experiments

Got my icp results. Heavy metals . Working on water changes and trying poly filters. Will send another off soon.

Any updates fts?
Lol, well maybe true.
Send me your ICP to look at, if not done already through FB.
Choose the salt wisely you use for larger water changes.
A lot of times certain metals can be faster reduced by just adjusting the overall parameter to better levels to engage corals to grow, which reduces metals faster than water changes.
I see a lot of salt brands that make some metals even worse.
 
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Update on the Zeolith media change..........

No3 went up a little, Po4 went through the roof as expected.
Used now a bit of this dangerous GFO with the result of some bleaching and loosing colors.

I hope the media reactor becomes better performing soon, so I can take out/reduce the GFO asap.
Overall tank is doing all right, considering this significant change.

I put my daily Manganese and Zeostart (for now my carbon dose) on the Doser, for more stability.
 

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I can’t keep no3 up without dosing it but po4 will go through the roof if I’m not careful with feeding. Should I just dose more no3 to try to bring down po4? I’m not dosing any carbon. I did go bare bottom.
 

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Thanks for the reply, I guess I’ll keep the combo I’m running now. No one ever mentions how powerful those LEDS are on the Powermodule I run heavy blue on those as well.
 

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In the first picture you have 4 actinic blue, 1 azure, 2 super purple and 1 actinic but in the layout picture you have 3 blue actinic and 2 super purples. I bought an 8 bulb ATI PowerModule on Black Friday and wanted to follow @Diesel bulb combo as well but when all the bulbs are on with 2 super purples the light is too purple for my liking so this is the combo I'm running right now

blue actinic
tropic 6500
blue actinic
super purple
super actinic
blue actinic
aquablue
blue actinic

So my question for you professor is on the 7th bulb which is the aquablue would there be any benefit if I swap it for a super actinic, azure or blue actinic, right now when the all the bulbs are on it has like a 14k feel. I only ask cause I just had a Giesemann spectra which had a 20k bulb and 4 ati blue plus and I loved the 20k look with the blue plus it was blue with a whitish tint to it.

I never had 2 purple bulbs.
As we speak I got a mix of 5000k and 6500k
7558E65E-E54A-467D-B735-C0A772CB99AF.jpeg
 
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D00-A678-D-DBAA-42-F0-B7-AC-3-B36-D4-B6-B2-FA.jpg


Belated update on the new reactor media ;-)

Few days ago I had an Oooops on the Po4 levels, so I removed all the GFO hopefully forever!
 
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So after a few more days running the reactor, Po4 remains in the 0.06mg/L range with No3 dropping to 1, expecting No3 will lower toward zero soon.
However, I will be focused on Po4 levels as the key variable to be in the 0.02-0.04 range.

Tank is doing great and corals like the less carbohydrate saturated environment ;-)
 

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So after a few more days running the reactor, Po4 remains in the 0.06mg/L range with No3 dropping to 1, expecting No3 will lower toward zero soon.
However, I will be focused on Po4 levels as the key variable to be in the 0.02-0.04 range.

Tank is doing great and corals like the less carbohydrate saturated environment ;-)


just wondering do you have any lps, favias, or mushrooms? I'd like to have a mixed reef and wondering if they would even grow in a nutrient poor environment..
 
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just wondering do you have any lps, favias, or mushrooms? I'd like to have a mixed reef and wondering if they would even grow in a nutrient poor environment..
Yes I do !!!!
To answer your question, I do a very simple but effective trace elements dosing regime!

My observation in this year the tank is running, is that even under lower nutrients, the LPS, Shrooms, Zoa and other softies are doing extremely well with the supplementation of certain metals and traces!
- I had a one head Indo-Gold Torch I bought in March. I had this guy so fully and fuzzy that I had in July 3 heads, and I sold 2 of them and did continue with that single head. By now I can see that single remaining head split into about 6-8 more heads and likely need a cut as soon the individual heads are grown out enough to be cut off.

-Had one head of a branching Gold hammer in March too, is now 12-15 heads somewhere.

-Had Candy cane with about 4 heads left in January when I started the tank, now have 2 colonies each baseball size and I sold recently a third in that size since.

-Got a friend send me about 7-8 plugs with fancy high end zoa, with one polyp each, turned within 3 months that the zoas started to take over the frag rack. Then I glued them into the rockwork, but unfortunately the File fish started to munch almost all of them within a day or two :-( ……… So I did let him retire.

-Have a Juggernaut and Maui Wauwi which I can see and observe the bubbles on. Both do very well.

-Have some other shrooms to kind of indicate the effects of softies under these conditions.

So in the past I never had luck with any of those while maintaining SPS in LNS conditions. But that was before my trace element dosing regime.
Now with the Zeolith in the reactor the game is different rather than with my previous bio pellets I used but are not available anymore.
So this Dosing and testing regime I do continue, and will provide me clarity on a theory I have what may be the key to a successful mixed reef under LNS, maybe not ULNS but I will see.
My goal is to use the Zeo media to manage nutrients in low but detectable range with not overusing carbohydrates as with pellets or other products!
Some important traces I do see suddenly disappear already while using the Zeolith in the reactor.

Those for example are metals such as Nickel, Zinc, Cobalt, Chromium and Manganese. Manganese I contribute a lot of fluorescence and metabolism activity to.
Also I do not want pastel colors on my corals such as on the classic Zeo system.

Will see how it turns out, I just do this a few weeks and the reactor just became active, so the interesting part starts now.

-Andre
 

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Yes I do !!!!
To answer your question, I do a very simple but effective trace elements dosing regime!

My observation in this year the tank is running, is that even under lower nutrients, the LPS, Shrooms, Zoa and other softies are doing extremely well with the supplementation of certain metals and traces!
- I had a one head Indo-Gold Torch I bought in March. I had this guy so fully and fuzzy that I had in July 3 heads, and I sold 2 of them and did continue with that single head. By now I can see that single remaining head split into about 6-8 more heads and likely need a cut as soon the individual heads are grown out enough to be cut off.

-Had one head of a branching Gold hammer in March too, is now 12-15 heads somewhere.

-Had Candy cane with about 4 heads left in January when I started the tank, now have 2 colonies each baseball size and I sold recently a third in that size since.

-Got a friend send me about 7-8 plugs with fancy high end zoa, with one polyp each, turned within 3 months that the zoas started to take over the frag rack. Then I glued them into the rockwork, but unfortunately the File fish started to munch almost all of them within a day or two :-( ……… So I did let him retire.

-Have a Juggernaut and Maui Wauwi which I can see and observe the bubbles on. Both do very well.

-Have some other shrooms to kind of indicate the effects of softies under these conditions.

So in the past I never had luck with any of those while maintaining SPS in LNS conditions. But that was before my trace element dosing regime.
Now with the Zeolith in the reactor the game is different rather than with my previous bio pellets I used but are not available anymore.
So this Dosing and testing regime I do continue, and will provide me clarity on a theory I have what may be the key to a successful mixed reef under LNS, maybe not ULNS but I will see.
My goal is to use the Zeo media to manage nutrients in low but detectable range with not overusing carbohydrates as with pellets or other products!
Some important traces I do see suddenly disappear already while using the Zeolith in the reactor.

Those for example are metals such as Nickel, Zinc, Cobalt, Chromium and Manganese. Manganese I contribute a lot of fluorescence and metabolism activity to.
Also I do not want pastel colors on my corals such as on the classic Zeo system.

Will see how it turns out, I just do this a few weeks and the reactor just became active, so the interesting part starts now.

-Andre
I need one of those Indo Heads for my new tank once I start adding corals!
 
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I need one of those Indo Heads for my new tank once I start adding corals!
They are vey nice but take a lot of room. They tentacles go out for hunting a couple of inches in the night and really killing neighbors, lol.

Hence I like to keep this guy small, even while very valuable for sale.
 
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