- Joined
- Mar 4, 2017
- Messages
- 127
- Reaction score
- 184
One year in and I am ready to break down my tank. What a wretched waste of life, money, and time.
I am at the point where I don't know what is up and what is down. There is a wealth of information out there and the only bit I trust comes from Randy Holmes Farley, mcarrol and a few of the other posters I see here. Everything contradicts all other info. All over the place I see no P04 is the answer. Yet I see people dosing specifically for it. Years ago we strived for no nitrates. Now people add them. We have better lights now. But when I used t5's and MH combos my tank grew and looked incredible. Now I am on led's and nothing grows. Get a par meter they say. But outside of buying one that I will use a total of 3 times per tank unless I am playing with it, there isnt one to rent in my area. Now that that bit of useless crying is out of the way I will get on with the point.
40 breeder, 20 long sump, 2000 gph flow (including return), two broken Chinese black boxes reconfigured with cree royal blues Philips lime and bridgelux 4500k 6500k red/orange and cyan for color with meanwell ELN 60 48D dimmable drivers on 2 channels per box.
As of right now:
0 phos
20 nitrate
0 ammo
0 trite
440 cal
1300 magnesium
1.024 sg
Stock list:
5 Mexican turbos
A handful of various sand sifting snails and 4 red leg hermits
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Fire shrimp
2 serpentine stars
2 Carmel clowns
Red stripe Eibli angel
Red spotted hawk
6 line wrasse
Green birds nest (bleaching again)
8 inch wall hammer
4 head lime and pink colored frogspawn
4 head torch
Duncan
Kenya tree
Various zoanthids
Orange/peach colored monti cap
Superman monti
Idaho grape monti
2 Candy canes
Nearly dead Jedi mind trick monti
A brown and green favia that started hitting the bricks the last two days.
My LPS are kicking butt, that is the only bit of hope I have. Maybe I am getting something right. I suspect my fatal error may habe been trying to do a mixed reef in a 22 inch deep tank. The Kenya tree grows (dang it). Zoas have slowed sustantially since I swapped out lights.
I am doing 2x 10 gallon WC's monthly using DD Aquarium Solutions H2Ocean pro formula. The only suplement I dose is Acropower.
3 months in, I battled bryopsis. Thank you R2R and Prsnlty (I think I got that right) and MCarrol(we talked about leds, I did my first rig on my FO. Its great and I can at least keep softies in there) for the advice and time you spent with my questions. I beat back bryopsis with fluconazol. It killed off all of the algea in my tank (macros were fine).
Then came dinos. 3 days of darkness and peroxide dosing won.
Then came Huricane Irma. Tanks were on a generator for 2 days, it fried. 5 days with no electricity. I lost my Jedi mind trick, RBTA, plum crazy acro, tri color bali, coral beauty and valentini puffer(from my FO) 1 week later I tarted getting Dinos again. They are on a candy can frag, Idaho grape monti, and of course by the end of the day my substrate is absolutely covered with it and it looks like I am a very successful bubble farmer.
Name some books for me please! Direct me towards something or someone in Jacksonville Florida who can help get me moving in the correct direction. Burning hundred dollar bills every week sucks but it isn't the worst. The worst is that I took this hobby on and all of the living things that I am buying are dying, because of my lack of knowledge. I repair software/plc's and the 6 million dollar or more robots that the software runs. That is easy. Recreating a slice of nature inside of a 36 x 18 x 22 glass box is not easy. It is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.
I am at the point where I don't know what is up and what is down. There is a wealth of information out there and the only bit I trust comes from Randy Holmes Farley, mcarrol and a few of the other posters I see here. Everything contradicts all other info. All over the place I see no P04 is the answer. Yet I see people dosing specifically for it. Years ago we strived for no nitrates. Now people add them. We have better lights now. But when I used t5's and MH combos my tank grew and looked incredible. Now I am on led's and nothing grows. Get a par meter they say. But outside of buying one that I will use a total of 3 times per tank unless I am playing with it, there isnt one to rent in my area. Now that that bit of useless crying is out of the way I will get on with the point.
40 breeder, 20 long sump, 2000 gph flow (including return), two broken Chinese black boxes reconfigured with cree royal blues Philips lime and bridgelux 4500k 6500k red/orange and cyan for color with meanwell ELN 60 48D dimmable drivers on 2 channels per box.
As of right now:
0 phos
20 nitrate
0 ammo
0 trite
440 cal
1300 magnesium
1.024 sg
Stock list:
5 Mexican turbos
A handful of various sand sifting snails and 4 red leg hermits
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Fire shrimp
2 serpentine stars
2 Carmel clowns
Red stripe Eibli angel
Red spotted hawk
6 line wrasse
Green birds nest (bleaching again)
8 inch wall hammer
4 head lime and pink colored frogspawn
4 head torch
Duncan
Kenya tree
Various zoanthids
Orange/peach colored monti cap
Superman monti
Idaho grape monti
2 Candy canes
Nearly dead Jedi mind trick monti
A brown and green favia that started hitting the bricks the last two days.
My LPS are kicking butt, that is the only bit of hope I have. Maybe I am getting something right. I suspect my fatal error may habe been trying to do a mixed reef in a 22 inch deep tank. The Kenya tree grows (dang it). Zoas have slowed sustantially since I swapped out lights.
I am doing 2x 10 gallon WC's monthly using DD Aquarium Solutions H2Ocean pro formula. The only suplement I dose is Acropower.
3 months in, I battled bryopsis. Thank you R2R and Prsnlty (I think I got that right) and MCarrol(we talked about leds, I did my first rig on my FO. Its great and I can at least keep softies in there) for the advice and time you spent with my questions. I beat back bryopsis with fluconazol. It killed off all of the algea in my tank (macros were fine).
Then came dinos. 3 days of darkness and peroxide dosing won.
Then came Huricane Irma. Tanks were on a generator for 2 days, it fried. 5 days with no electricity. I lost my Jedi mind trick, RBTA, plum crazy acro, tri color bali, coral beauty and valentini puffer(from my FO) 1 week later I tarted getting Dinos again. They are on a candy can frag, Idaho grape monti, and of course by the end of the day my substrate is absolutely covered with it and it looks like I am a very successful bubble farmer.
Name some books for me please! Direct me towards something or someone in Jacksonville Florida who can help get me moving in the correct direction. Burning hundred dollar bills every week sucks but it isn't the worst. The worst is that I took this hobby on and all of the living things that I am buying are dying, because of my lack of knowledge. I repair software/plc's and the 6 million dollar or more robots that the software runs. That is easy. Recreating a slice of nature inside of a 36 x 18 x 22 glass box is not easy. It is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.