Hart's 120 3/4" starfire expansion!

[hart24601]

So I have peppermint shrimp now for the aptasia but have been wondering why I only see 1 at night. It then occurred to me that the I have the ceramic rock on 1"X1" starboard spacers that are 1/4" thick to get flow and lots of the critters like to live under that. Including my green brittle star. It would be easy pickings for his thick arms to wrap around shrimp under the rock - after lights out I noticed he has a very full disk so I think he has been snacking! Time for sump duty. Out of water I measured his body at over 2" and total size of over 15".

 

[jzaso]

Ouch-"green death" is the nick name for those stars- love sleeping fish or anything slow lost three mandarins before i figured it out! peps worked for me hawkfish keeps them in line and well hidden!

 

[jzaso]

Btw, awesome build hart!!

 

[hart24601]

Thanks!!!

Hopefully this solves the case of the missing shrimp! Never had an issue with him, but when they get big I suppose it's a matter of time. Everyone always enjoys seeing him though, so maybe the sump will just be his forever home if he can avoid me when moving equipment!

 

[hart24601]

Well the eheim 300W heater is proving to be really inconsistent. It doesn't seem like it matters where I adjust it, the temp just kind of stays in the same ballpark and looking at the apex power use it seems random when it kicks on. I have lowered the temp to try and keep the tank around 76 from 78, and it had been staying in that range (ish) of 75-77 give or take, but I left the door open last night and it dropped down to 73.something. Not that I have a big issue with that, but looking at the power chart it didn't even turn on for more than 30 min last night, and when the tank was at 77 it would kick on and off for a few min.

I will keep it for a backup, but I just don't like that strange pattern of when it switches on and off. After looking around a bit I am going with the finnaplex digital controller with 500w deluxe titanium element. I still have the max value shutoff on the apex, I like having two controllers on it!

 

[hart24601]

The finnaplex heater seems pretty nice. The element is much shorter so I have more sump room so that is plus.

I turned up the kalk as demand is increasing but have reached or exceeded what I can dose now as the pH hit 8.45 yesterday, for now that is fine, but when demand goes up I might have to turn the kalk down a bit when increasing 2 part as I have a lot of sodium carbonate that will raise the pH a little, might be enough to hit the 8.5 cuttoff I have to shut off the dosers. I thought about no longer running the skimmer line outside, but if anyone I lived with noticed I removed the 1/2" tube that I fought so hard for to drill through the wall... well it might be trouble!

I also ordered a digital refractometer, I have a hard time telling the lines with the one I have now. I also dropped it... I think the salinity in the DT is ~1.025 and I am going to raise that to 1.027 just for fun I guess.

 

[hart24601]

Oh yea, I forgot to add that I got 2 fire shrimp, 1 skunk cleaner and 10 peps now that I am no longer feeding the brittlestar with peppermint shrimp. All seem to have settled in, I would like another couple of skunk cleaners, but I will wait a while. For now the fire and skunk are out and nabbing food, so I think they survived the introduction. I have found shrimp to be touchy with acclimation the 1st day or so. The butterfly was immediately trying to get the sunk to clean him, neat to see.

 

[blesk]

Perfect tank if I cont ask vhot mode you use on your gyre .

 

[hart24601]

Perfect tank if I cont ask vhot mode you use on your gyre .

Thanks! Right now I am using pulse mode at 70%. I was using 100% but the clams don't like it. 20 second pulse currently. I like the long pulse as I feel the SPS polyps can grab food in the slack times - no hard evidence to that, but I don't think they could when there was a constant heavy flow - at least I never saw it.

I also have a vortech mp on the bottom behind the rock, I don't know what % it runs, it's the old type before the lighted indicator, but I run it at maybe 60-80% on reefcrest mode. It doesn't do very much but keep detritus from building up back there.

 

[hart24601]

Borrowed the clubs PAR meter and made my PAR map! Based off some corals getting lighter and this map I am going to use acclimation mode on the back right and front left light reducing them by 35% for 2 months. I will keep watching the coral in other areas, there is a lot of PAR. I run the 80% values for 2 hours and the 80/32 values for 8 hours plus an slow 4hr ramp to noon and a 2hr ramp down at night.

 

[hart24601]

I want to try and get a higher resolution image....

Edit: Eh, good enough! I have the power point on my computer so I can tell the values easier.

 

[hart24601]

Maybe this is better...

 

[hart24601]

He is going in QT. I think largemouth bass are reefsafe.

 

[gettaReef]

What's your guess as to why the back right PAR numbers are quite higher than the rest? Do you have a different fixture above the back right or is it the same as the rest of the back of the tank?

 

[hart24601]

What's your guess as to why the back right PAR numbers are quite higher than the rest? Do you have a different fixture above the back right or is it the same as the rest of the back of the tank?

Same lights, the ceramic rock is higher there, can't see from that picture, but you can sort of see it with the photos that are straight from the front. The coral there is only 4" under the waterline. They are used to being blasted, I could turn down that light, neat part of the director, but they seem alight with it. I will have to see color going forward though.

 

[hart24601]

I have notice something playing with the PAR meter that I am happy to see. You can see the value for the partially shaded brain coral is still pretty high, in the past using LEDs it seems like once you are out of the light the values pretty much drop to 0, I am pleased to see high values over the underhangs, like the green elephant ear, I was shocked to see that much PAR as it's not really under any light. Same with the mint pavona coral in the front - over 300 PAR with no fixture over it. Hopefully this means the use of multiple fixtures spaced out wide and high means good even coverage with lots of fixture overlap.

 

[hart24601]

Some nice extension today over lunch, hope this means he is doing alright!

 

[hart24601]

I have noticed kalk is making a skin in the sump, I don't have a lot of flow in the sump, ~500 gph (at max, less when dirty) plus the overflow passes underwater so there is very little movement. I tossed in an old powerhead that I have and will see if it helps stir things up a bit, I have read some posts that people prefer to have the sump accumulate junk, but it's not easy to clean for me, plus I think it would be better to have the 2 part and kalk dosed into more flow rather than sit on the surface. I tired to have the gfo reactor mix the surface, but that is generally turned down pretty low so even when pointed at the top not much happens.

Seems pretty nice so far, I can't really think of a downside.

 

[revhtree]

Great job buddy!

 

[hart24601]

So what do you do when you can't sleep? You get out the 365nm UV flashlight and take photos! These were not easy to take all with camera in 1 hand the the LED light in the other with the narrow beam it has, but I think they are pretty cool! It's cool to see which corals fluoresce under the UV and where the locations are on the coral. The Orphek blue only LED light doesn't work nearly as well for this, but it does light up the tank much more.

Merulina showing the crazy sweepers it has, they can be much longer. I have never seen such long sweepers and from such a thin coral, the clear tentacles reach out a true 3" but those I can't pick up with the UV:

Bazooka Joe, this guy is crazy pink in the day, it's really becoming my favorite coral colorwise. And it was free due to a vendor mistake a couple years ago, it died down to 1 eye and has come back since then:

A coral that is yellow during the daytime from golden basket, the photo is above not many posts back:

The tricolor that won the growout contest:

Cali and Oregon tort. The cali is crazy under UV, but pretty much solid dark purple during the day and the OT is just blue! But how they change with UV:

Green digi and a blue tip green slimer (with digi in back):