HighEndOfTheLow's Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL

[Brew12]

And we're back, tank ticked along nicely and all accounted for.

It's a bit of a suprise how much sand has been blown around just by cleaning the gyres, nothing desasterous but I'll probably give the sand bed and gyre angle a tweak.

Interestingly there's also been a a bit of growth on some of the sps not 100% sure why but nor am I complaining (muses I wonder if detritus has been stirred up from the sand and given them a bit of a boost)

Anyhow hopefully with any luck I'll be the proud owner of an Alkatronic unit tomorrow!

Whilst measuring available space I took some photos of the inside of the cabinet.

Dry side, the units are cheap and were a short term solution, theres one in front of the other so I may take the front out as it would give me quite a bit of space back.

STC-1000 controlling 2 x 300 watt Titanium heaters so far it hasn't missed a beat.
Maxspect gyre and Duo controllers
Skimz skimmer controller

The gyres are on the old APC1000 ups (it had a new battery not that long a go) but the UPS is also something I'm considering moving

Small battery powered light and the small form factor smoke alarm

Then on the wet side

Did you mention what brand camera that is? Looks like it gives a very nice shot inside the sump!

 

[highendofthelow]

Did you mention what brand camera that is? Looks like it gives a very nice shot inside the sump!

It's a Wansview Pebble camera. Cost was about £25 on Amazon. It is pretty much plug and play with app and web interfaces. Also has infrared which is also nice.

Luke will make an update in a bit when his new toy is in situ

 

[dragon99]

Enjoying the build! Have you considered the Tunze CA reactor, it's fairly compact?

 

[highendofthelow]

Ok so sorry for the slight radio silence the Alkatronic is in and testing currently but isn't actively dosing any solution (I'm still manually dosing But plan to let the unit take over once I've got the Alk up to my desired limit) as a side note my sparsely stocked tank is using roughly 1 dkh a day! With my dKH reading 5.85 at the moment (told you it was low!)

I had a few teething problems which after discussing with Eric and Jonas from Alkatronic have been ironed out!

Randomly I also ended up going over to an associates house (friend of a friend kinda thing) as they were having some major tank issues (nice guy, awesome tank but was starting have a bit of a nose drive as he was converting it FROM triton to a more conventional setup) and got given a few frags with the offer of more! (Who doesn't love free frags!)

I ended up with a Miyagi tort/ Miyagi tort look alike, a red Dragon A.Carduus

And a NOID acro which was looking worse for wear but was one of his favourites.

I've also got my name down for a frag of an SPS that I think was an Oregon Tort look alike once its fragable (he has a medium colony it's just very compact growig) . Best part is he's 10 minutes down the road from me!

They've had a quick inspection last night and again this morning and currently acclimatising in my sump

All in all things are looking quite optimistic ^^
(Ignore the bubble algae and aptasia on the rock, I need to remember to drop it off to my LFS but keep forgetting as I said he could have it)

 

[highendofthelow]

Enjoying the build! Have you considered the Tunze CA reactor, it's fairly compact?

I haven't admittedly partially because of the large system requirements but I will take a look, I'm ideally looking for a "smart" Ca reactor and things like CO2 cylinder low/empty warnings are a big selling point

 

[highendofthelow]

Ok so a few more tank jobs completed today,

Since owning the Alkatronic ~6 days I've safely but effectively brought our tanks chronic low alk from ~4.7 to around 7.2
(I've always ran tanks around 7-7.5 dkh I simply didn't see a significant improvement running it higher and at the time running ULNS/Zeo "Alk burn" was an issue I was aware of at elevated levels)

I've also activated "active mode" so the Alkatronic will supliment Alk now taking over my manual dosing which should offer a smoother more stable tank.

I'll still need to buffer calcium accordingly until I order a Cx reactor.

But took the opportunity whilst making some fresh Alk solution to set it up properly and do a bit of tidying up In the cabinet.

I've also moved the new frags from the sump to the sandbed in the display to aclimatise for a few more days under the light.

I intend to clean the glass tomorrow (ran out of time today) and put a few photos up.

I also dropped the rock off to my LFS that was in my sump freeing up some space.

 

[highendofthelow]

As promised spent an hour or so generally razoring the glass (majority of that time was moving snails onto rocks...) and took a few photos

First the 3 new frags given to me

Then some more random shots

 

[highendofthelow]

I quite enjoying hand dosing anyway [emoji849][emoji28]

I'll throw up some better photos once they've acclimatised.

 

[Brew12]

I quite enjoying hand dosing anyway [emoji849][emoji28]

Hmm... me thinks someone did some shopping!

I'll throw up some better photos once they've acclimatised.

 

[highendofthelow]

That I did! It's actually a place I haven't seen In years and I'm pleased to say they'd up their game and had a nice chat with a young lad there who was pretty clued up.

I ended up coming back with

2 x tenius/similar

1 x spathula (apparently it came in blue it's now taken a green tint, the LFS suspect it needs more light it was however dirt cheap)

1 x smooth skin. My first thought was am echi but I'm not 100% it's similar ether way

1 x acropora microclados not quite an SSC but it has some super potential seeing all sorts of colour in it at the moment

Its crazy how different these look under sunlight only!

 

[Brew12]

That I did! It's actually a place I haven't seen In years and I'm pleased to say they'd up their game and had a nice chat with a young lad there who was pretty clued up.

I ended up coming back with

2 x tenius/similar

1 x spathula (apparently it came in blue it's now taken a green tint, the LFS suspect it needs more light it was however dirt cheap)

1 x smooth skin. My first thought was am echi but I'm not 100% it's similar ether way

1 x acropora microclados not quite an SSC but it has some super potential seeing all sorts of colour in it at the moment

Its crazy how different these look under sunlight only!

It's almost impossible to get nice specimens that size in the US. Those look fantastic!

 

[highendofthelow]

It's almost impossible to get nice specimens that size in the US. Those look fantastic!

Trust me the grass is always greener the grass is always greener... ;-)

Our biggest issue is tenius frags are really difficult to source, which lets face it is what the slot of the AAA grade sps are these days.

We admittedly are seeing a nice glut in Australian sps at the moment due to what's going on with Indonesia.

 

[highendofthelow]

Oh also forgot to add I picked a bottle of phyto up which is something I've wanted to try for a while, we'll see how it goes if it works out well I'll look into producing my own.

No idea why these have come out so blue but was in a rush as we have to nip out!

And the older frags

And finally a few quick random shots

This one's interesting you can see the branch re colouring up on this tight cluster acro from Australia that browned up as soon as it went in my tank. Interestingly it started coloured up immediately once my Alk got up to ~7 dkh and is quite pleasing to watch the progress.

 

[highendofthelow]

Some slightly better shots of the frags they're still a touch out white balance wise but getting there.

Anyone got any guidance or tips on dosing phyto? I'm kinda guessing it's dependant on volume, density of phyto etc but I was thinking skimmer off in the sump algae section for an hour or so to boost pod numbers etc

 

[najer]

Love that purple ring, pic 2, looking very happy overall and healthy!

 

[highendofthelow]

Love that purple ring, pic 2, looking very happy overall and healthy!

It's a Australian acropora spathulata ^^ it's currently purple /blue tipped with brown and silver polyps, apparently it came in blue so it'll be interesting to see how it changes, they're a unique growth form and pretty unmistakable.

They're typically out of my budget as a colony and frags tend to be slow growing I believe but the price it was I couldn't pass

 

[najer]

It's a Australian acropora spathulata ^^ it's currently purple /blue tipped with brown and silver polyps, apparently it came in blue so it'll be interesting to see how it changes, they're a unique growth form and pretty unmistakable.

They're typically out of my budget as a colony and frags tend to be slow growing I believe but the price it was I couldn't pass

I tried one a while back, 2 weeks in it let go, probably 1 to many different lots of different water after transport.
Love yours, keep us posted please, as you said the growth form is gorgeous!

 

[highendofthelow]

I tried one a while back, 2 weeks in it let go, probably 1 to many different lots of different water after transport.
Love yours, keep us posted please, as you said the growth form is gorgeous!

Sorry Najer, didn't see you reply. We'll I can thankfully say touch wood the frag is doing well good PE etc and a slight darkening in the skin,

On a tank update perspective things the tanks now drinking Alk solution and new growth is evident on various frags which is promising.

Made some more alk solution today as it was getting a bit low and noticed that I had a slow leak on the Alkatronic "alk out".

On investing it appears the connector just wasn't quite screwed in tightly so another half turn and a wipe down hopefully that should be alright.

Noticed a baby (literally 1-2mm size) ric today which was a nice surprise hopefully I can source some more rics as I've always wanted a ric garden but never had a suitable spot. My current 6 are happy in a corner.

My maxima clams doing something a bit weird, it's virtually lying on it's side, it's happy and all just it keeps naturally gravitating that way, not sure if it probably should be mounted on a rock soon as they are rock dwelling naturally.

I'm also considering reorganizing one or two frags to try and maximise the "premium" spots nothing interesting just a bit of monti and a tri colour.

My LFS is also currently in communications with the Deltec Supplier so hopefully I'll have a Ca reactor soon.

Once I've got my Ca reactor I'm probably going to buy some trace elements as I'm not dosing anything currently and know for a fact my colours could be improved.

 

[highendofthelow]

So trace elements happened before Ca reactor, I figured I I can maintain Alk Calcium and Magnesium manually for the time being but trace elements are harder

I toyed with picking up their black label but figured I'd hold off for a bit first, let's just start with some basics first.

Then because Liz has a good eye for things...

In there's a pink/rose milli, what looks like a pink lemonade, and a few no id's (one green stag one pale)

Plus this acro, it's a tight cluster form sold as a tri colour but this one is much bluer in person And not like tri colours I've previously dealt with (obviously that's a bit of a sweeping catch all for various acro sp)

And finally super nice red base yellow eyed chalice to go with my collection

 

[najer]

Nice additions, can't wait to see the chalice settled.