Another Aussie SPS tank

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Sorry if I missed it in the thread, but how did you mount the kessil's with the ATI fixture? TIA

 

[Char lie]

good gosh 10 t5 and 3 kessil bet you get 500 par in the bottom corner of the tank lol beautiful tank!

It's a lot of light that's for sure. Pros are that the stags love it and I don't have to use ceiling lights in my apartment as the tank is bright enough haha, although the cons are that it's practically impossible to keep much lps and a lot of other acros need to be shaded..

Hi Charlie, I have been following you on Instagram (F1j1marine) for a while and when I say that Reef2Reef posted you tank photos I was excited! I had to sign up to say congrats on the success and thanks for sharing your progress with everyone. You have inspired me in many ways to keep my tank as neat and colorful as yours.

Thanks again and all the best bro.

Thanks a lot mate

Beautiful growth! Your reef looks amazing.

Thanks

Very beautiful ! My favorite .....

Thanks mate

This is one of my favorite tanks of all time.

Haha thanks mate the Facebook cover photo looks sweet

That growth is insane! Keep up the good work!! I love the minimilistic scape!

Thanks, less rock is better in my opinion

..... and there was sand on the bottom! How long, why?

There was 1mm sand to start with although it all ended up at the back of the tank when I increased the flow due to the corals starting to restrict water movement when they grew, only put 3mm sand in it a few weeks ago and turned down the flow a touch so it doesn't blow around

lets chat about your aus blue tip echinata ... i got a large piece in from aus, granted its got a long trip from GBR to Rhode Island, flights, tanks, boxes, weather all leading to stress.
well mine was a real beauty when it landed in my QT and still looked great after a round of bayer dip in my acro QT then to my Display and she looked dynamite for a couple months. fast forward a few months and i can't seem to get that vibrant blue tip and the polyp extension i used to see. so hard to pinpoint why/how to keep her happy. i'm not one to move this piece around, i have a spot on the lower 1/4 of tank on rock where indirect flow is nice. i'm debating my practice of what i'd call fairly aggressive 'turkey basting'. my sand tends to blow around and i guess i feel better about basting the rock work and the acros.

So share any trends/treatments you've seen specific to this piece. can you pinpoint things she likes/dislikes out of your husbandry practice. i don't see myself radically changing my setup overall, but maybe some dosing/treatment changes or other small tweaks that i'm willing to experiment with. of all i'm thinking its the basting it doesnt like. appreciate your thoughts.

and i also do very small amount of Pohls extra, 2-3 ml , 2-3 x per week. 325g system (120g tank, large rubbermaid sump, ATI 8x54 + Reefbrite LED Strip, seachem salinity salt, CA reactor, massive SRO 6000 skimmer, biopellet, lots of SPS Aussie colonies, and 40+ fish well fed) 8.5dKH, 2ppm NO3, .06 PO4

i love aussie tanks, and your tank is great thanks for posting.
-Greg

Hard to say mate without knowing your tank personally.. Mine never shows any polyp extension on the branches during the day (polyps are out at night) although shows polyps on the main stem, it's also in pretty low light compared to the rest of my tank. In the last few months mine has acquired a nice yellow base which was never there when I got the piece and recently when my nitrates have crept up a bit to 2-4ppm the yellow has definitely become brighter. It's a wierd acro compared to the norm, when you see pics of it in the wild it's pretty much always the only type acro visible, so it obviously comes from rather different conditions to the normal reef area that's littered with most Acropora. Maybe just try moving it to less light if it's turned pale and more light if it's turned brown, it's an acro that certainly responds badly to incorrect light intensity from my experience

amazing tank !

Thanks

Sorry if I missed it in the thread, but how did you mount the kessil's with the ATI fixture? TIA

There should be a couple of pics on page four I think

 

[Aleks]

What is dosed calcium, magnesium and Alk day?

 

[Char lie]

What is dosed calcium, magnesium and Alk day?

Worked it out the other day: My tank uses 4.4dkh of Alk, 29ppm of Ca and only 3ppm of Mg a day. Based on 900x750x500 (with 480mm water level = 324L) display plus ~50l sump, minus a bit for volume of tanks internal stock, which equals approx 350L.
Eg. Alk is 153ml/day of RS foundation B which is a few times stronger than standard Randys recipe mix I have noted (1ml/100L = +0.1dkh), therefore 3.5ml/350L = 0.1dkh, therefore 153ml/350ml = 4.37dkh

I am probably going through more mag as the ASW I use for water changes usually has a mag of 30ppm higher than the tanks Mg level. Considering I do 30% wc a week I guess 30% of the discrepancy between the tanks water and the new ASW will be also added weekly (+9ppm), although this is only ~1ppm a day which isn't a significant difference. New ASW always has almost identical Alk + Ca.

 

[revhtree]

That's a crazy shot!

It's a lot of light that's for sure. Pros are that the stags love it and I don't have to use ceiling lights in my apartment as the tank is bright enough haha, although the cons are that it's practically impossible to keep much lps and a lot of other acros need to be shaded..


Thanks a lot mate


Thanks


Thanks mate


Haha thanks mate the Facebook cover photo looks sweet



Thanks, less rock is better in my opinion


There was 1mm sand to start with although it all ended up at the back of the tank when I increased the flow due to the corals starting to restrict water movement when they grew, only put 3mm sand in it a few weeks ago and turned down the flow a touch so it doesn't blow around


Hard to say mate without knowing your tank personally.. Mine never shows any polyp extension on the branches during the day (polyps are out at night) although shows polyps on the main stem, it's also in pretty low light compared to the rest of my tank. In the last few months mine has acquired a nice yellow base which was never there when I got the piece and recently when my nitrates have crept up a bit to 2-4ppm the yellow has definitely become brighter. It's a wierd acro compared to the norm, when you see pics of it in the wild it's pretty much always the only type acro visible, so it obviously comes from rather different conditions to the normal reef area that's littered with most Acropora. Maybe just try moving it to less light if it's turned pale and more light if it's turned brown, it's an acro that certainly responds badly to incorrect light intensity from my experience



Thanks


There should be a couple of pics on page four I think

 

[Char lie]

That's a crazy shot!

Thanks mate

 

[Aleks]

Thanks for the detailed answer.
What salt is now used?

 

[Char lie]

Thanks for the detailed answer.
What salt is now used?

Just Red Sea salt, the normal one in the blue bucket, not the coral pro one..

 

[echopiece]

Just curious, do you use the blue bucket because of cost? I assume you would have to dose to make-up what you would get from the coral pro? I hear a lot of guys using the blue bucket, and am tempted to try it myself.

 

[Char lie]

Just curious, do you use the blue bucket because of cost? I assume you would have to dose to make-up what you would get from the coral pro? I hear a lot of guys using the blue bucket, and am tempted to try it myself.

The coral pro has an Alk that is way too high and will spike the Alk whenever a water change is done. The main advantage of doing water changes in my opinion is to replenish all the obscure elements that aren't tested for, or recognised by hobbyists and shouldn't be used to boost Alk or any of the main elements. The blue bucket is good because I can perform large water changes and not have any swings in Alk due to the new ASW having almost the exact same Alk as the current water. Stability is the most important thing, especially Alk stability

 

[Aleks]

Thanks for the detailed answer, I really appreciate it.
What level of calcium is now in the display?
What is the level of magnesium?
What is the level of carbonates?

You can SAMP photo?

 

[Char lie]

Thanks for the detailed answer, I really appreciate it.
What level of calcium is now in the display?
What is the level of magnesium?
What is the level of carbonates?

You can SAMP photo?

Sorry for the late reply,
Ca is kept at 425ppm
Mg is kept at 1290ppm
Alk is kept at 134ppm
There should be a sump photo on the first page

 

[Char lie]

Uploaded this to Instagram and forgot to upload it here


Top left: Feb 2015 Top right: Jan 2015
Bottom two pics: Feb 2016
iPhone pics so the blues look a bit splotchy.

Tanks been running well up until about a fortnight ago when I randomly had a rather large and sudden decrease in Ca,Alk etc uptake. Testing every night so the Alk didn't swing much at all, only increased about 0.6dkh although uptake slowly decreased over a few days to about 70% of the previous uptake...
Absolutely no clue what had caused any of this, no change that I have noticed in colour although the growth tips were certainly not as white on the aspera showing a reduction in growth. It has slowly been increasing although still only at about 85% of previous uptake.
Only thing I can think of is that the day before this started I changed a ceiling light fitting. Had to fill some holes in the ceiling, sand and paint. I was certainly stressing that some copper wire maybe got flicked into the tank while the tips were being trimmed. Although I highly doubt this happened.
Everything seems to be sorting itself though out after a few large water changes etc

 

[echopiece]

Looks beautiful still. Maybe some of the drywall dust got into the tank and made things unhappy? Water changes and carbon should help. Hope you get it sorted out soon!

 

[luke33]

Awesome tank! Out of curiosity have you thought about eliminating the kessil's and adding a few blue e5 led tube's that would go in your ati fixture. I recently did this and love the cleaner look as well as being able to stick my arm in the tank now without hitting the led supplements hanging on the outside.

But with your tank running so well not sure I would change anything!

 

[Salt Creep]

Your tank is stunning! Very nice color and growth.

 

[Char lie]

Looks beautiful still. Maybe some of the drywall dust got into the tank and made things unhappy? Water changes and carbon should help. Hope you get it sorted out soon!

Thanks mate

Awesome tank! Out of curiosity have you thought about eliminating the kessil's and adding a few blue e5 led tube's that would go in your ati fixture. I recently did this and love the cleaner look as well as being able to stick my arm in the tank now without hitting the led supplements hanging on the outside.

But with your tank running so well not sure I would change anything!

Thanks mate
Thought about it although not sure where they're available in Australia. The kessils are for extra par too, so not too keen on removing them now and changing lights..

Your tank is stunning! Very nice color and growth.

Thanks

 

[Char lie]

This weeks batch from the clowns:

 

[revhtree]

Amazing growth! Love the clowns too!

 

[Char lie]

Amazing growth! Love the clowns too!

Thanks mate

Picked up a little juvenile Harlequin tuskfish yesterday, I do have a pair of blood shrimp in my tank but they're already close to 4 years old. I'm hoping by the time he gets to the size of the last one I owned a few years ago (bottom pic) and has an appetite for shrimp they will have surpassed their lifespan and disappeared due to old age...
The blood shrimp are currently about twice the size of the tuskfish and have become very dark in colour and reclusive, not sure they will be there much longer although they do still spawn regularly, which the anthias love haha.