Craigb350s SPS Maniac's Reef - Colours Update July18th

[Craigb350]

Bummer on the casualties.
Are the corals placed very close to each other?
I have several close, but until they do ot actually touch, all seems to go well.

Do you use probiotic salt before as well?
This salt can take out nutrients I believe.

Yeah the milli in question was closed, I am also looking at a new light for the algae bed as the one I have isn't really growing the cheato at the rate I want.

 

[Craigb350]

Aint been on here in a while,

The tank has had quite a few changes,
Started suffering a few losses of SPS down to STN, got a ICP test sent off straight away, Came back with high iron and zinc so off I went on the hunt for anything rusting.

Then hey presto, my trusty Reef Octopus skimmer pump had been rusting and in a BIG way,

So I ordered a replacement pump, went for the new Varios pump, in the hope that there's no metal parts so shouldn't suffer the issue in future, plus it had a few upgrades first being controllable and with float switch for the cup was a nice touch too.

New pump installed, I looked to cleansing the tank of heavy metals, polyfilter went in and 6 x 10% water changes carried out.

As of today the STN seems to have slowed down.

 

[Craigb350]

Next on the list I have been unhappy for sometime with the left hand side of my scape, I thought it was a good idea at first to go with a large plate, but as the tank has matured I no longer like the corals all being on one level.

I am currently building a new structure for the left hand side using Real reef rock, just on with fixing it in place then comes the task of swapping it out.

I have added another 2 interfaces to the IKS Aquastar computer, first being an extra PH for the tank monitoring, also a Redox interface to monitor the ORP level of the tank.

Still struggling to get the CaRx tuned in though, had numerous issues with the bubble tube clogging etc, Im going to switch out the ARM extra course media I think.

Times like this I think why did I switch to a CaRx from the Doser ....Doh!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Aint been on here in a while,

The tank has had quite a few changes,
Started suffering a few losses of SPS down to STN, got a ICP test sent off straight away, Came back with high iron and zinc so off I went on the hunt for anything rusting.

Then hey presto, my trusty Reef Octopus skimmer pump had been rusting and in a BIG way,

So I ordered a replacement pump, went for the new Varios pump, in the hope that there's no metal parts so shouldn't suffer the issue in future, plus it had a few upgrades first being controllable and with float switch for the cup was a nice touch too.

New pump installed, I looked to cleansing the tank of heavy metals, polyfilter went in and 6 x 10% water changes carried out.

As of today the STN seems to have slowed down.

Inexcusable especially for the know application it is intended for. It questions what type of testing is/was administered prior to release to the market. I understand salt is corrosive and these things can happen but for the cost of this equipment, you would think the materials would be of highest Quality

 

[Craigb350]

Inexcusable especially for the know application it is intended for. It questions what type of testing is/was administered prior to release to the market. I understand salt is corrosive and these things can happen but for the cost of this equipment, you would think the materials would be of highest Quality

I tried fighting the cause with the Reef Octopus UK rep, they were not for taking any responsibility, only the 3rd case of known faults on all of the pumps distributed worldwide, it was clearly defective thread inserts where the pump cover is mounted.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I tried fighting the cause with the Reef Octopus UK rep, they were not for taking any responsibility, only the 3rd case of known faults on all of the pumps distributed worldwide, it was clearly defective thread inserts where the pump cover is mounted.

I would suggest a replacement via ebay or amazon which will cost less. While its not a solution, it is an alternative for remedy

 

[Craigb350]

I would suggest a replacement via ebay or amazon which will cost less. While its not a solution, it is an alternative for remedy

I did, I ended up going for the Reef octopus Varios

 

[Craigb350]

Had the redox probe in for a couple of days its settling at +248 Mv.

 

[Craigb350]

Well the time come yesterday about pulling out the old scape on the left hand side,

I was thinking what on earth am I doing disturbing everything,
So I set about removing all the colonies and frags of the large plate,

Whilst working in there I was starting to realise how large some of the "frags" had grown

it looked with carnage in there all the corals sulking all over the sandbed, thought the water would never clear!!

So here's some pics

Before...

After...

At the minute I aren't too sure, but I just have to remember the corals are not yet placed in there new homes, it looks a lot more open with more swimming space, so the added bonus is the fish are loving that.

Just hope the new scape grows on me

That's all for now, all I can do is work on building the corals to there new homes, keep my fingers crossed I don't lose anything, and hope my tank bounces back!!

 

[Craigb350]

Hopefully try and get a few more corals stuck down later, so it looks less like a wasteland

 

[Craigb350]

Okay so, I worked on the new scape today cherry picking the sps I wanted to go back on here’s the results, also new t5 bulbs came so I am running 4 x ati blue plus for 3 hours max alongside the leds

 

[Craigb350]

Well just when you think everything was recovering, something else comes up!!!
Come downstairs this morning to a tank alarm going on the IKS.

Looks like the solenoid has had it on the co2 regulator, so that's the calcium reactor offline, Just ordered a replacement hopefully it will be here tomorrow.
Going to have a go at repairing the one on there now, I have been told you can take them apart and clean them, so will try that too!!

Will have to try and combat the alk swing when the lights come on, but rescaping the tank with sulking corals recently has caused the alk to raise.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Hi Craig, just went throught your thread, nice tank! The wrasses were beautiful.
Sorry for the hard time your equipement is giving you, as they say s*** happen, and sometimes in this hobby when something goes wrong it’s more than one thing and quite fast (tell me about it). Keep the upper lip stiff!

Speaking of calcium reactor, do you like it usually, is it stable?
I’m currently running 2 part and ponder over the possibility of getting one myself.
Thanks

And a last one, about the aquascape and coral placement, i’m currently in the same process and i came up with getting the corals on 3/8 acrylic rod (glue to secure the small frags, drill hole and epoxy for the colony).
Then i pierce my rock more or less 1 inch and insert the coral. This method allow me to change the corals easily or to remove them for treatment.

 

[Craigb350]

Hi Craig, just went throught your thread, nice tank! The wrasses were beautiful.
Sorry for the hard time your equipement is giving you, as they say s*** happen, and sometimes in this hobby when something goes wrong it’s more than one thing and quite fast (tell me about it). Keep the upper lip stiff!

Speaking of calcium reactor, do you like it usually, is it stable?
I’m currently running 2 part and ponder over the possibility of getting one myself.
Thanks

When its works its brilliant, keeps a stable kh in the tank of 8.4, a few times I have set it and forgot about it, they take a patience to "dial" them in, choosing the right media etc, I have had issues with the regulator and and bubble counter.

I am currently running on the ARM extra course media but im having to drive it quite hard to get the effluent up. PH in the reactor is 5.75, Im going to switch to the D&D Rowalith media which I can run at a higher PH in the reactor which in turn will keep the tank ph abit higher.

 

[Rakie]

Evergrow Aquaocean v2 it5012

Interesting! I like seeing new products. I like the spread it gives.

 

[Craigb350]

Interesting! I like seeing new products. I like the spread it gives.

Yeah it’s good I’m hoping to run similar to the wwc schedule, so running the t5s for longer and using the leds to control the par, this way the t5s will give even better coverage.

 

[Craigb350]

So this weekend I went ahead with getting the t5 tubes, went for 4 x ATI Blue plus.

I have been waiting on them a while and I have now set my lighting schedule to match the WWC setup, Using the t5s as the bulk of the light all day with the leds finely tuned to match.

I did this using a par meter, at first I measured all the points around the tank with the old setting. The meter I used monitored the spectrum and PUR.
The PUR on the old schedule was 67% useable, on the WWC schedule with a range of between 190-300 par in the tank I was recording 79% PUR.

So im hoping this is the way to go, I have also been looking at flow as a big factor in my tank with the change of the scape.

On my 500 litre (132 us gallons) for you guys ;Yuck I was running 2 Vortech pumps each end of the tank offset, these were running anti sync on reef crest mode all day.

I picked up a Reeflink, so the plan is to mix up the flow through the day. As well I have also picked up a third Mp40 with I plan to run on the left hand side, but don't know which mode to run, as I want provide as much varied flow as I can for the sps.

As you can see things have turned quite blue lol

You will have to mind the sandbed, I have a frag swap coming up here in the Uk so that's my temporary frag rack on the sand bed.

Never had the reeflink before so im hoping I can get my head around it to control all the pumps, but I think I should be hitting the magic 50 x turnover.

Enjoy!

 

[Craigb350]

Also forgot to mention im going to raise the lights up another 6" to help with LED blending, they should be 20" from the waterline.

 

[Rakie]

Sorry I missed it -- what type of LED's are those again? I looked and couldn't find their name

 

[Craigb350]

Sorry I missed it -- what type of LED's are those again? I looked and couldn't find their name

https://www.marinefarm.co.uk/evergrow-it5012-aquaocean-marine-led-light

Don't know how true it is but there was an article saying the unit was using basically Radion LED's.