Griev's IM-200 Mangrove Lagoon

[Griev]

My mangroves are being very dramatic about their repotting into a bigger container and having saltier water.

I borrowed the local club's par meters to take some readings at full blast (100/100 blue/white channels and 100% intensity), definitely confirming these lights are plenty strong enough for SPS as long as you don't do what BRS did and turn off almost all the white channel. Lots of high par areas for SPS and some nice LPS/softie zones.

 

[infinite0180]

My mangroves are being very dramatic about their repotting into a bigger container and having saltier water.

I borrowed the local club's par meters to take some readings at full blast (100/100 blue/white channels and 100% intensity), definitely confirming these lights are plenty strong enough for SPS as long as you don't do what BRS did and turn off almost all the white channel. Lots of high par areas for SPS and some nice LPS/softie zones.

Love those lights! BRS did them a disservice by doing that. I wonder if they knew the SKY was coming soon...

 

[Griev]

Love those lights! BRS did them a disservice by doing that. I wonder if they knew the SKY was coming soon...

Yeah I get wanting to let folks who run their tanks blue what the par would be, but why not give numbers for how the light was designed to be used as well? I love that they're passively cooled, built solid for industrial use, and water proof.

 

[infinite0180]

Yeah I get wanting to let folks who run their tanks blue what the par would be, but why not give numbers for how the light was designed to be used as well? I love that they're passively cooled, built solid for industrial use, and water proof.

I wish there was a lfs who had one local to me so i could see it. Im running MH/T5 right now and love the look. It ifs anything like MH then i would deff consider it at some point!

 

[Griev]

 

[Griev]

Fishbombed

 

[Griev]

Playing around in Fusion360 to make an autofeeder bracket that prevents pellet food from floating over and down the overflow while allowing me to keep the mesh lid on. The eurobracing and mesh lid made this a bit of a fun challenge! We'll see if I measured everything correctly in a few hours

Bracket v.Beta

 

[Griev]

Had to do a quick v2 to push the "chute" out more. Forgot to account for the frame of the mesh lid.

V2 works perfectly! 3D printing still blows my mind.

 

[TheWB]

Had to do a quick v2 to push the "chute" out more. Forgot to account for the frame of the mesh lid.

V2 works perfectly! 3D printing still blows my mind.

That’s really cool. I’ve always been impressed with your 3d printing skills, all the way back to the Pinky rescue device.

 

[Griev]

That’s really cool. I’ve always been impressed with your 3d printing skills, all the way back to the Pinky rescue device.

Yeah I was surprised at how well it worked! I had to rescue him twice and then the third time he missed the back. RIP you stupid daredevil of a fish.

 

[Griev]

Did some fragging and gluing today!

ALK has dropped from 9.5 to 8.8 so I'll need to start dosing soon.

 

[Griev]

Now that All for Reef comes in a powder it's way more realistic for a large tank. Ordered some from BRS, let's see if it's worth all the hype. I also did the RO tubing and fittings upgrade for my DOS and got the dosing containers all set up for when the powder comes.

You'll notice the two 120mm fans. Tank was creeping up past 80, so as a proof of concept I wanted to see if two little fans were enough to cool roughly 220 gallons of water. Well look for yourself;

At this point I'm convinced that if you run LEDs, you have absolutely no need for a chiller unless you run your house really warm or something. Just point some fans at your water and hook them up to your Apex as a "chiller".

I also got my Trident back from being worked on by Neptune (I don't think I purged it properly before I boxed it up. All the lines were clogged and I couldn't get them opened up.). I like running mine topless because it's just easier to make sure the lines aren't pinched and easier to swap out the reagents. Cover it with a little towel so the algae lights don't throw off the readings.

ALK testing is running on the money, but CA keeps giving me a bad range. Might have had a bad batch of calibration fluid or something. More fiddling needed.

 

[Griev]

I'm hoping as the blue Sympodium and zoa grow around each other it'll look like a vein of flowers in a field.

Euphyllia rock is looking good. Can't wait for everything to grow in more.

 

[Griev]

So figured out why my Trident tests were failing;

Luckily Neptune support was pretty great and quickly sent a new stir bar for free. Now it's been working perfectly the last two days. Keeping the fingers crossed.

I also set up my All for Reef dosing. 5,000lm container dosing 20ml per day to start. Looking forward to seeing how it compares to my previous tank where I was dosing two-part.

 

[Griev]

My mangroves from the old tank ended up never bouncing back. I guess the combination of repotting and readjusting to saltwater shocked them too much? Had to order some replacements.

 

[Griev]

Bumped up my All 4 Reef dosing from 20 ml (half the recommend starting dose) to 30 ml after about a week. Alk was staying stable until the last two days, and it was creeping lower to about 7.8.

Both my original order of Spotbreast angelfish and the replacement order never made it. Half the fish were unhealthy as soon as I got them (lesions, malnourished, really beat up, etc.) and the rest ended up bloating up and dying after looking healthy for a week or so. Now I know why this vendor was so inexpensive.

 

[revhtree]

Looks very cool! That Euphyllia rock is going to be nuts!

 

[TheWB]

Bumped up my All 4 Reef dosing from 20 ml (half the recommend starting dose) to 30 ml after about a week. Alk was staying stable until the last two days, and it was creeping lower to about 7.8.

Both my original order of Spotbreast angelfish and the replacement order never made it. Half the fish were unhealthy as soon as I got them (lesions, malnourished, really beat up, etc.) and the rest ended up bloating up and dying after looking healthy for a week or so. Now I know why this vendor was so inexpensive.

That’s a shame. It’s one of the reasons why I’m reluctant to put any new fish in my tank. I’ve been lucky with what I have and I’m afraid adding something new is going to either die quickly and just waste my money or die slowly and nuke my tank in the process. You just never what you’re getting. I realize that your situation is different because it’s new stocking. I hope the next order goes better.

 

[Griev]

Some new local additions. Love how active they are and they really seem to like the rockwork.

Sunday means testing nutrients. Still undetectable on the nitrates. With the new fish it shouldn't take long.

 

[Griev]

Well, somehow my display tank got the marine velvet that came with the angelfish I ordered online.

I know it's not from the anthias, as they were in a coral tank at the LFS, meaning they'd already been through copper.

My best guess is that the velvet dinospores managed to get on a net or other piece of equipment between the QT tank and my display tank.

I caught what fish I could and put them into the clean QT with cupramine as soon as I noticed visible symptoms last night, but alas all but one clownfish and a mandarin died over night.

Starting a fallow period I guess...