FarmerTy's 215-gallon SPS Tank

[FarmerTy]

That zombieland is niiiiccceee

I have a soft spot for smoothies.

 

[Sweet Reef Corals]

That zombieland is niiiiccceee

I agree! It reminds me a lot of the Red Gecko

 

[FarmerTy]

Some full spectrum shots today.

RMF Bubbleyum

LRO Lunar lemonade

BC Bubblebath Unicorn

 

[FarmerTy]

CC Irish Table

CC Disney Jr

Tyree Purple Dragoneyes

 

[FarmerTy]

RR Olympus (just imagine baby blue tips)

BoomCorals Red Loripes

TCK Pikachu

 

[FarmerTy]

Y’all are going to think I’m crazy but after removing the denitrator 1-1.5 months ago that was keeping my nitrates from going back up to 40ppm... my nitrates stayed at 2.5 ppm and never raised back up.

So now I’m dosing sodium nitrate. What has this world come to? I got it up to 15-20ppm and dose 25ml/day to keep it there.

Phosphate still around 0.03ppm without any GFO or lanthanum use now. This is with it jumping from 0.05ppm up to 0.12ppm in a day before.

Moral of the story, should have swapped sumps a long time ago. Running socks, and refugium, and getting rid of all that muck at the bottom of the sump changed my nutrient issues around even with the massive amounts of food I feed.

 

[Sweet Reef Corals]

Y’all are going to think I’m crazy but after removing the denitrator 1-1.5 months ago that was keeping my nitrates from going back up to 40ppm... my nitrates stayed at 2.5 ppm and never raised back up.

So now I’m dosing sodium nitrate. What has this world come to? I got it up to 15-20ppm and dose 25ml/day to keep it there.

Phosphate still around 0.03ppm without any GFO or lanthanum use now. This is with it jumping from 0.05ppm up to 0.12ppm in a day before.

Moral of the story, should have swapped sumps a long time ago. Running socks, and refugium, and getting rid of all that muck at the bottom of the sump changed my nutrient issues around even with the massive amounts of food I feed.

Do you run your skimmer 24/7? I was having low nutrient issues after I added my 100g frag tank. Instead of over feeding and leaving myself open to other problems from that, I just put my skimmer on a 10hr schedule 8am-6pm and have a CO2 scrubber connected for that timeframe. It allows me to feed my normal amount, keeps my pH a bit higher for consumption/growth without bottoming my nutrients. If I get too low on PO4, I will feed a good amount of Reef Roids. If my NO3 gets too low, I’ll dose a bit of Brightwell Neonitro. Most of the time I am right in my desired sweet spot of .06/20
Just wanted to throw that out there...

 

[ScottB]

Y’all are going to think I’m crazy but after removing the denitrator 1-1.5 months ago that was keeping my nitrates from going back up to 40ppm... my nitrates stayed at 2.5 ppm and never raised back up.

So now I’m dosing sodium nitrate. What has this world come to? I got it up to 15-20ppm and dose 25ml/day to keep it there.

Phosphate still around 0.03ppm without any GFO or lanthanum use now. This is with it jumping from 0.05ppm up to 0.12ppm in a day before.

Moral of the story, should have swapped sumps a long time ago. Running socks, and refugium, and getting rid of all that muck at the bottom of the sump changed my nutrient issues around even with the massive amounts of food I feed.

Yup. Crazy about sums it up.

There is a school of thought out there, that assuming your food inputs are of sufficient quantity and frequency, having a lot of residual is less necessary than conventionally thought. And I am not talking about ZEO method either. I have seen it working pretty well and over long periods of time.

As an esteemed member of the He Man Dinoflagellate Haters Club, I am not about to give it a try. Just thought I would throw it out there to confuse and befuddle. Never too much of that going on.

 

[FarmerTy]

Do you run your skimmer 24/7? I was having low nutrient issues after I added my 100g frag tank. Instead of over feeding and leaving myself open to other problems from that, I just put my skimmer on a 10hr schedule 8am-6pm and have a CO2 scrubber connected for that timeframe. It allows me to feed my normal amount, keeps my pH a bit higher for consumption/growth without bottoming my nutrients. If I get too low on PO4, I will feed a good amount of Reef Roids. If my NO3 gets too low, I’ll dose a bit of Brightwell Neonitro. Most of the time I am right in my desired sweet spot of .06/20
Just wanted to throw that out there...

Yes, it runs 24/7. I don’t ever like turning it off for the pH/oxygenation benefit.

 

[FarmerTy]

Yup. Crazy about sums it up.

There is a school of thought out there, that assuming your food inputs are of sufficient quantity and frequency, having a lot of residual is less necessary than conventionally thought. And I am not talking about ZEO method either. I have seen it working pretty well and over long periods of time.

As an esteemed member of the He Man Dinoflagellate Haters Club, I am not about to give it a try. Just thought I would throw it out there to confuse and befuddle. Never too much of that going on.

I’ve had 2.5ppm of nitrates for several months now and at least in my system, I wasn’t a fan of the coloration of my acros. They looked better at 40ppm in my opinion. I don’t really want to keep 40ppm of nitrates so going with 15-20ppm. So far, even though it’s been a week, colors are so much more deeper and richer for me so I’m running with it. It can hope it’ll only get better as more of the corals adjust to the higher nitrates again.

Don’t you dare mention the D work around this thread...boo dinos! Sadly, my backup system is under their relentless attack right now and I’m throwing everything at them to try to win the battle.

 

[TuxUrchin07]

dang! Nice tank

 

[ScottB]

I’ve had 2.5ppm of nitrates for several months now and at least in my system, I wasn’t a fan of the coloration of my acros. They looked better at 40ppm in my opinion. I don’t really want to keep 40ppm of nitrates so going with 15-20ppm. So far, even though it’s been a week, colors are so much more deeper and richer for me so I’m running with it. It can hope it’ll only get better as more of the corals adjust to the higher nitrates again.

Don’t you dare mention the D work around this thread...boo dinos! Sadly, my backup system is under their relentless attack right now and I’m throwing everything at them to try to win the battle.

Sorry. Do you have an species ID yet? If not, a microscope? Between me and @taricha we can set you on a proper glide path over on the "Are you tired" thread. There is a lot of hocus pocus discussed there, but a few folks know the drills pretty well.

 

[FarmerTy]

Sorry. Do you have an species ID yet? If not, a microscope? Between me and @taricha we can set you on a proper glide path over on the "Are you tired" thread. There is a lot of hocus pocus discussed there, but a few folks know the drills pretty well.

I don’t yet. Maybe a local has a microscope I can put it under and post for ID. I appreciate the offer!

 

[FarmerTy]

Maybe subtle but to me in person... colors are getting much more deep and saturated with the 20 ppm of nitrates than 2.5 ppm nitrates.

RR Lady in Pink

Servos Spanish Sunset

MattV Psycho Asylum

 

[ScottB]

I don’t yet. Maybe a local has a microscope I can put it under and post for ID. I appreciate the offer!

A phone video through the eyepiece at 400X will do the trick nicely.

The treatment themes are largely the same across species: feed competitors and kill/remove dinos. Some, like large cell amphidinium, are much harder to treat than others though. Others like ostreopsis are a walk in the park with a well placed, sized & paced UV.

 

[LRT]

I’ve had 2.5ppm of nitrates for several months now and at least in my system, I wasn’t a fan of the coloration of my acros. They looked better at 40ppm in my opinion. I don’t really want to keep 40ppm of nitrates so going with 15-20ppm. So far, even though it’s been a week, colors are so much more deeper and richer for me so I’m running with it. It can hope it’ll only get better as more of the corals adjust to the higher nitrates again.

Don’t you dare mention the D work around this thread...boo dinos! Sadly, my backup system is under their relentless attack right now and I’m throwing everything at them to try to win the battle.

Very nice sir.
What kind of par do you run at in shallow tables?
Where do you keep your alk?
Sorry about all the questions.
I'm seriously thinking about giving sticks a shot here soon and your system is quite the inspiration.

 

[FarmerTy]

A phone video through the eyepiece at 400X will do the trick nicely.

The treatment themes are largely the same across species: feed competitors and kill/remove dinos. Some, like large cell amphidinium, are much harder to treat than others though. Others like ostreopsis are a walk in the park with a well placed, sized & paced UV.

Got a buddy with a 150-watt emperor UV right down the road. I’ll get to identifying and then borrow his unit.

 

[FarmerTy]

Very nice sir.
What kind of par do you run at in shallow tables?
Where do you keep your alk?
Sorry about all the questions.
I'm seriously thinking about giving sticks a shot here soon and your system is quite the inspiration.

I run 300-450 par in most frag tanks... one I run 650 par. Display around 275-500... depending where you are.
Alk around 8-9 dKh.

Main things for sticks:

1) dip everything like a mad man... when troubleshooting issues for others, I almost always find pests at the root of the issues.

2) Get healthy frags... healthy frags are a huge difference between a colony in a year or staring at the same frag a year later with hardly any growth.

3) Monitor your Params diligently initially when first starting up. Keep Ca, alk, and Mg within their ranges at all times. I don’t mind keeping Calcium and Magnesium a bit higher than average to keep from dipping below into the danger zones (<380ppm Ca, <1280ppm Mg)

4) Nitrates I prefer around 10-20ppm... PO4 <0.1 ppm

5) Par - I try to keep everything around at least 300. I’ll go higher or lower than that depending on their reaction. Too light and I’ll move down... too dark and I’ll move up as a rough rule.

6) Feed often... and get rid of the wastes to manage the nutrient levels mentioned above.

 

[LRT]

I run 300-450 par in most frag tanks... one I run 650 par. Display around 275-500... depending where you are.
Alk around 8-9 dKh.

Main things for sticks:

1) dip everything like a mad man... when troubleshooting issues for others, I almost always find pests at the root of the issues.

2) Get healthy frags... healthy frags are a huge difference between a colony in a year or staring at the same frag a year later with hardly any growth.

3) Monitor your Params diligently initially when first starting up. Keep Ca, alk, and Mg within their ranges at all times. I don’t mind keeping Calcium and Magnesium a bit higher than average to keep from dipping below into the danger zones (<380ppm Ca, <1280ppm Mg)

4) Nitrates I prefer around 10-20ppm... PO4 <0.1 ppm

5) Par - I try to keep everything around at least 300. I’ll go higher or lower than that depending on their reaction. Too light and I’ll move down... too dark and I’ll move up as a rough rule.

6) Feed often... and get rid of the wastes to manage the nutrient levels mentioned above.

Awesome thanks man!
What does you dip regimen consist of?
I pretty much have Nitrates and Phosphates locked in right on point to those levels.
After my tank upgrade im going to keep a cpl tables going and give it a shot.
What would you reccomend as a good beginner stick while I get comfortable with dosing and keeping params in check?

 

[FarmerTy]

Awesome thanks man!
What does you dip regimen consist of?
I pretty much have Nitrates and Phosphates locked in right on point to those levels.
After my tank upgrade im going to keep a cpl tables going and give it a shot.
What would you reccomend as a good beginner stick while I get comfortable with dosing and keeping params in check?

Dip regiment procedures outlined here:

Triple dip - combo

So, I've been having fun prophylactically dipping all my SPS before gluing everything to their final spots. The reason I've decided to do this you ask? Well, I've decided my relaxed dipping methods without QT for corals is going to end now. I have too much money in livestock at this point to...

www.reef2reef.com

I mainly do the potassium chloride and will use Bayer for sensitive acros. The interceptor I’ll dose annually for the display system and the backup frag system I do when needed or every 3-6 months.

Any of the classics are good ones to start with. Long history of surviving in captive conditions.