Jackson's Old School 200 IM Nuvo Ext

[Huskereef]

I was dosing 130ml per day before I switched over to kalk as the primary source. Now with the increased evaporation from the frag tank, I am dosing 12000 ml of kalk daily and 70ml of esv magnesium to maintain levels. No added 2 part yet. As expected, ph range shot up. It now stays 8.15-8.5 range depending on room co2 (even with a co2 scrubber). This has made me see the need for an HRV to exchange the air in the room. I’ll get to that eventually lol.

Glad that you’re enjoying the thread. I’ll be updating more often soon. A lot has changed. This system is seeing some of the fastest growth that I ever had, however, there are many corals that simply won’t grow! Very frustrating. Some of these stunted corals seem to start growing when I get them into the frag tank under the led. I suspect that the the halides are shocking some of the led grown corals that I get, specifically overly blue spectrum grown with a combination of high nutrient. Full spectrum grown corals seem to grow right away.

Blah blah here’s some pics :)

Love the pictures, I’m starting to get puddling on some new battlecorals I bought about 2-3weeks ago. Kalk as primary additive is interesting. I’ve been thinking about that, also dosing ESV 2 part now. I have the IM lagoon also in basement so I’m sure I could use the PH boost. Are you using a kalk stirrer?

 

[jackson6745]

Love the pictures, I’m starting to get puddling on some new battlecorals I bought about 2-3weeks ago. Kalk as primary additive is interesting. I’ve been thinking about that, also dosing ESV 2 part now. I have the IM lagoon also in basement so I’m sure I could use the PH boost. Are you using a kalk stirrer?

Thanks. Yeah using the smaller avast stirrer fed by an ecotech versa. I love this setup. Very consistent. I purposely went with the smaller stirrer so I can pick it up and dump it out (12 days at this dose point). I’m able to keep the kalk solution ph steady this way without a kalk mess and no clumps. I’m adding 70ml esv magnesium to keep level 1350. My tank is in the basement too, I feel you on the low ph. Since running the skimmer air line outside and dosing kalk, I rarely see below 8.15. Most of the time it’s 8.25 morning and 8.5 end of photoperiod. Growth took off with those numbers.

 

[jackson6745]

A little over a year now. Growth and colors have been very good lately on most stuff. Of course a few problem corals that look at me and flip the finger while they do absolutely northing. Part of the game I guess. One day they'll wake up! Lighting has been upgraded from 250w radiums on HQI ballasts to 400w radiums on electronic ballast. The result is a more blue spectrum with 120 more par. Nitrates and phosphates have been on an upward trend. I really don't want to fully depend on a carbon source for nutrient control. I will be adding in an algae scrubber soon. Now that my trace are dialed in, I'm sure the scrubber will consume a bunch. Excuse the cloudy video. I have a light orange photo gel that I use to accurately depict the color but it's pretty scratch up.

 

[Perry]

Looks awesome Richard!
Really diggin the colors ;)

 

[jackson6745]

Looks awesome Richard!
Really diggin the colors ;)

Thanks Perry my man!

 

[delv2323]

Lemonade looking incredible...

 

[jackson6745]

Lemonade looking incredible...

Will look better when it’s 12” :zany-face::face-savoring-food:

 

[jackson6745]

The tank has been doing extremely well. I ended up adding an ice cap algae scrubber to the sump to help with rising nutrient levels. It’s worked extremely well but caused me to start dosing iron and manganese to keep up with the consumption. A couple of months later I’m pretty much full blown moonshine dosing all of the dailies and making monthly corrections. The colors and growth really started to explode since. I actually pulled many corals out of this tank to stock a separate system but that’s a different story ;)



I also made a lighting alteration. I discovered that AI blades fit into the Gieseman Spectra T5 section like it was made for it. It literally locks in place where the groove for the t5 shield is with no customization. The par and color pop increase is substantial. Highly recommend it to anyone running this fixture.

 

[Anna K]

Absolutely love the progress of this tank!

 

[jackson6745]

Absolutely love the progress of this tank!

Thanks Anna. I appreciate that! I’ve been lazy updating this thread. I have to take some better quality pics!

 

[jackson6745]

June 6th 25’ chugging along! Things going well. Goni got to the point where they were stinging acros, so I isolated them on a rock, and made them the center piece of the tank. They seem so happy right now. I switched back to 250w halide from 400w. With the added AI blades, par got really high. I didn’t feel that I benefited with the added full spectrum par, quite the contrary dealing with a lot of corals that are blue light adapted. The tank is mostly dialed in on reef moonshine at the moment and corals are responding very well. Just need time and stability for a while. Fingers crossed

On

 

[jackson6745]

Goni rock

 

[REEFRIED!]

Looking good man.

 

[jackson6745]

Looking good man.

Thank you!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Goni rock

I love the Goni Rock!

 

[jackson6745]

I love the Goni Rock!

Thanks! Me too. Couldn’t figure out what to put there for a long time lol.

 

[Blitzrunner83]

What did you take the last photos of the SPS with?

 

[jackson6745]

What did you take the last photos of the SPS with?

The better pics are with an Olympics tg-7. The pics not as clear are iPhone 16 pro.

 

[Perry]

Colors and coral health are off the charts, seems you have found that zen spot on your reef, now we have to simply duplicate 24/7. Well done brother, super stoked to see such an amazing reef thriving like this one!

 

[jackson6745]

Colors and coral health are off the charts, seems you have found that zen spot on your reef, now we have to simply duplicate 24/7. Well done brother, super stoked to see such an amazing reef thriving like this one!

Thanks Perry! I appreciate the good words buddy. I always have the input from videos in my head, particularly the content from your old cube which was run more natural.

Here I am with a bare bottom system that gets filtered hard, probably too hard, and it makes me think of your system and even my old sandbed cube where things were more natural. Not to hate on bare bottom, but there’s a level of instability to it that I find annoying. I don’t mean typical parameter swings, that’s stable. I mean types of swings that I can’t can’t test for.

In my old sandbed system I could basically do whatever I wanted and the corals were fuzzy and happy the next day, in this system if I suck up the detritus from the sump, clean out my external overflow while kalk pasting aptasia, do a larger than normal water change, or get low on nitrates and or phosphate, I see this polyps suck in right away and I’ll see the alk climb a bit. It’s short lived but makes me second guess my approach. Somehow I seem to be filtering out available foods for the corals whether it be available nitrogen, aminos/micro-fauna, or planktonic life.

I’m probably overthinking this but having success different ways in the past make me know something is missing. My old system used to nurture sensitive corals into bullet proof versions of themselves from the time they were added. This system can be hard on smooth skins at first, especially if I give too much light. Anyway, I think I’m going to be pluming in another tank to the system to use as a refugium with rock and sand in the hopes of having it crawling with all kinds of pods and bugs etc.

Sorry for the long response, but your old system with All those nice smoothies has me thinking lol.