Fugs' Mini Reef

[Fugs]

So I woke up to a lazy Saturday in Aus and I'm scrolling through my Facebook feed and I see a post from R2R.
Still in my half-woken state, I think to myself "whoa that pic looks really similar to my tank", scroll a little further... Fugs' Mi... "that IS my tank!" ;Wideyed
Thanks R2R team and to the visitors and fellow reefers, thanks for stopping by and don't hesitate to ask any questions.

Loving that sparkly gold fleck people eater! :)

Thanks najer, it's amazing what you see when you're close up. Definitely part of why I love reefing so much.

Nice start Fugs.

Cheers MikeA, I'm quite happy with how things are going so far.

Following. Its looking very nice. I am thinking of building a mini reef with 2xKessilA360 wide angle myself. Im glad I get to see your tank. Im loving it.

Thank you KevinDo, the WE Kessils perform brilliantly on a wider shallow system. These two were actually supposed to accompany a third over my "big" tank but that isn't quite setup yet (space concerns until we move). Possibly a little overkill but that is what the intensity knob/Kessil controller is for right?

 

[Fugs]

Couple shots from feeding tonight (something a bit different). Installed the doser on its rack underneath the tank today, will post some shots when I finish tidying up the dosing lines.

 

[Fugs]

Well, it had to happen eventually. First mistake came last night and today.
Was raising Alk slowly but surely at a really good and comfortable pace for the tank manually with a syringe.
Thought it might be time to break out the doser and relieve me of some work... whoops.. 2dKH spike over 36 hours. What's worse is I tested and saw a spike of 0.9dKH over the first 11 hour period and adjusted the doser to half dose in an attempt to set things right again (I should have turned it off!) but alas, it went up 1dKH over the next 10 hours. Will definitely have to do another calibration and mix a new batch of KH Buffer before I automate things again. I suspect my KH Buffer solution had increased in potency from mixing (seal wasn't water tight, lost some while shaking, didn't think it was much but apparently it was) and mild evaporation.
Needless to say, it annoyed some of my SPS. I guess the silver lining is that it did it at a constant, evenly dosed pace.
Will have to wait and see what it looks like in the morning. ;Watching

 

[najer]

Hopefully it will be ok, just let it go down again slowly, what did it spike at from what it was?

 

[Husker]

I just set up a doser for the first time on my 40 breeder to test it out before upgrading, I hope I don't have the same fate. I went a year using only kalk, but that isn't keeping up any more.

What sand do you have? I like it (maybe because it is a lot cleaner than mine)

 

[Fugs]

Hopefully it will be ok, just let it go down again slowly, what did it spike at from what it was?

It spiked to a total of 9.3 dKH from 7.4 dKH over an even 36 hour period since it was dosing 12 times a day (every 2 hours). I've just had the lights come on and though and some of the little finger-sized test frags of acro are looking a little annoyed but nothing is totally bleached or anything. I'm going to just let it naturally subside and re-test tonight to observe the fall over a 24 hour period.

I just set up a doser for the first time on my 40 breeder to test it out before upgrading, I hope I don't have the same fate. I went a year using only kalk, but that isn't keeping up any more.

What sand do you have? I like it (maybe because it is a lot cleaner than mine)

Don't worry too much about venturing into dosing. I've done it plenty of times in the past and it has worked out really well. This time was completely user error and I pretty much know what went wrong, just wasn't expecting it to escalate as soon as it did. Not to mention, it wasn't a full-blown disaster event really, just an unwanted swing.
I use Caribsea Aragonite Seafloor Special Grade Reef Sand, and you're just seeing the clean bits, mine gets dirty too!

 

[Fugs]

Update time.

I've been balancing the big 3 lately and I've finally put my dosing back onto automatic. Here's a picture of my measurements over the last couple of months.
You can see the swings and where things start to balance out after some careful tinkering and mathematics.

FTS

 

[KJ]

Looking very nice.

 

[Fugs]

Looking very nice.

Thank you. Going to pull some frags from my other tank back in this week as well as some new ones. Add some life to those barren rocks.

 

[markalot]

Good luck with your tank, glad to hear the Alk spike wasn't so bad. I made a similar mistake a year back, Alk usage dropped and instead of turning off the doser to see where I was at I cut the dose in half and ended up spiking to 11. Needless to say I lost a lot of acros.

 

[Fugs]

Good luck with your tank, glad to hear the Alk spike wasn't so bad. I made a similar mistake a year back, Alk usage dropped and instead of turning off the doser to see where I was at I cut the dose in half and ended up spiking to 11. Needless to say I lost a lot of acros.

Thanks markalot, it definitely pays to check measurements before making moves. Not only that, it pays to check the methods of measurement also!
I added a bit more salt than usual to my mix last night because the salinity was a little low after my water change. Wasn't a huge difference (showing 1.024 on refractometer instead of expected 1.025) but I thought I had better check just in case. Turns out, once I tested my AccuraSea bottle, I was actually 0.001 out of alignment on calibration. So I had been adding Salt for nothing! This was an occasion where I got away with it because it was only salt and a minor increase. Luckily, I wanted to raise my tank to 1.026 anyway, so it all worked out in the end.
Learning from mistakes is what improves our husbandry efforts. Some of us (like me) just take longer to learn than others :D

 

[Fugs]

Update:
New SPS frags: 3 small Mille colonies, 1 Acropora, 4 varieties of Seri, and added a Goniopora frag from a club day a while back that's been sitting in my other tank.
Had another silly mistake by not putting check valves on my doser lines. Another Alk spike a couple of days ago, because of course it chose to siphon the one dosing line that had Alk supp in it... no damage really as it was a slow constant drip. Once my check valves arrive everything should go back to normal.
So 1 day before the 2 month mark I started to get coraline algae spots on my rocks, it's been flourishing ever since. Happy with the way things are going now.
Latest FTS

 

[GoVols]

Is the 180 the first Bubble King you've ran?

 

[Fugs]

Is the 180 the first Bubble King you've ran?

Yes. I love it so much.

 

[GoVols]

Yes. I love it so much.

I've ran a BK for years and I'll never go back to another brand.
They are high dollar but worth every penny.

Thanks for sharing your build and it's going to nice to tag a long.

Regards, GoVols

 

[Fugs]

I've ran a BK for years and I'll never go back to another brand.
They are high dollar but worth every penny.

Thanks for sharing your build and it's going to nice to tag a long.

Regards, GoVols

Agreed, very impressed with the performance.
Thanks for stopping by!

 

[jordimex]

Following very nice build!!! BTW what do you use as a controller?

 

[Fugs]

Following very nice build!!! BTW what do you use as a controller?

Thanks jordimex!
The only controller I use is the one for my Kessils. I have a Seneye Reef but that's only to monitor pH & NH3 (and PAR readings).
If you're referring to the measurements, that's my manual input on Aquaticlog.

 

[jordimex]

Thanks jordimex!
The only controller I use is the one for my Kessils. I have a Seneye Reef but that's only to monitor pH & NH3 (and PAR readings).
If you're referring to the measurements, that's my manual input on Aquaticlog.

i am fairly new to reef keeping only a couple days actually i am building a Reefer 250 and i am checking on buying an apex but its kinda expensive i was looking into the seneye would you recommend it?

 

[Fugs]

i am fairly new to reef keeping only a couple days actually i am building a Reefer 250 and i am checking on buying an apex but its kinda expensive i was looking into the seneye would you recommend it?

The Seneye is more of a monitor of a few parameters and an alert in an emergency (can send alerts when it's out of water, eg. tank has burst or sump has a blockage etc). Apex equipment will give you all sorts of control far beyond the baseline monitoring the Seneye does. The PAR meter aspect was actually one of the most attractive features to me initially but seeing my pH behaviour and knowing my NH3 = <0.005 is comforting.
I would say it is helpful but certainly not necessary. Neither is a controller for that matter but it's all quality of life, peace of mind and personal preference when considering the cost and value.
The hope is to purchase a controller system in the future but like you said, "kinda expensive".