JHunt's 30x30x18 SPS Shallow Cube

[jhuntstl]

2/19/22 to 5/27/22 shots is coralline heaven, like textbook definition success.

Beautiful animals! The couple stalled/struggling pieces still a mystery what's irritating them?

Both the Orange Passion and BC Thanksgiving lived through the crash, so I'd imagine that has something to do with it. The Orange Passion was well on it's way back with good encrustment, but it half STN'd a few months back. So it is stalled again. It has some aiptasia near it as well. Hoping the Copperband Butterfly gets to work soon.

 

[jhuntstl]

Very sad day. I have lost a member of my favorite duo. It was a pleasure watching both of them grow together over the last 14 months.

Mr. Trochus will be missed sorely. I have glued his shell and Mr. Bivalve to a tile.

Trochus Tribute

 

[Gedxin]

RIP Mr Trochus. You served well.

 

[jhuntstl]

So I finally got my kH Guardian working. I refurbished the unit myself and did many upgrades over 4 months ago. I still could not get the dang thing to work, so I shelved it out of frustration. Finally found the motivation to investigate last night. I had accidentally swapped the 12v power supply with a 19v. It was the cause of all my issues.

I shelved the thing for 4+ months and it look me maybe an hour last night to figure out what the problem was. Everything works fine. They're latest update even offers cloud based reporting, so I can check my alk while I'm away from home.

 

[Gedxin]

Nice! It's kind of funny you got it working after all this time, largely because you aren't really concerned with where your Alk is anymore ('cause of 8.3 pH), ya? Love the ease of getting measurements though for sure - if I had room I'd get one.

 

[jhuntstl]

Nice! It's kind of funny you got it working after all this time, largely because you aren't really concerned with where your Alk is anymore ('cause of 8.3 pH), ya? Love the ease of getting measurements though for sure - if I had room I'd get one.

I am concerned with it getting too low. And the ultimate goal has always been to keep alk and pH stable. So I'm glad I finally got it working!

 

[Gedxin]

Saw this shirt and thought of your build. I may buy it for myself to be honest https://reefaddictsmerch.com/kalkwasser-reef-tank-t-shirt/

 

[jhuntstl]

Mostly happy reef. Feeling a little less like a tank full of frags.

I hit the mother lode when it comes to swings in the last 1-2 months. You name it. It swung.

Lost a couple bigger pieces, but mostly small newer stuff. All acropora.

 

[Gedxin]

Beautiful video, so much random flow and everything is loving it! I'm also right there with you, with swings and loses. I've got to write up a post that details my struggles (and successes to some extent with pH at least.) I'm currently awake at the hospital helping my wife feed our new baby boy, so I will get around to posting...soon.

Also what param(s) would you say are swinging the most and you feel was the culprit?

 

[Projects with Sam]

Beautiful video, so much random flow and everything is loving it! I'm also right there with you, with swings and loses. I've got to write up a post that details my struggles (and successes to some extent with pH at least.) I'm currently awake at the hospital helping my wife feed our new baby boy, so I will get around to posting...soon.

Also what param(s) would you say are swinging the most and you feel was the culprit?

congratulations!

 

[jhuntstl]

Beautiful video, so much random flow and everything is loving it! I'm also right there with you, with swings and loses. I've got to write up a post that details my struggles (and successes to some extent with pH at least.) I'm currently awake at the hospital helping my wife feed our new baby boy, so I will get around to posting...soon.

Also what param(s) would you say are swinging the most and you feel was the culprit?

Congratulations on the baby boy! Very exciting.

My first major swing was no3. I think this may have done the most damage. I put it on a doser and mistakenly let it run for a few minutes before I realized. About 15-20ppm dosed at once. I had two maricultured acros RTN that night, and a couple more that went a day or two later. Otherwise the response to elevated nitrates has been very positive. I am seeing some of the best PE in a loonnnng time. Especially tenuis. I peaked at 27, now at 17.

Po4 up next. Started dosing this as well. I also changed up my feeding routine to AmericanReef HPD. I should have suspected it had a lot of po4. Anyways I didnt quite catch on to my rising phosphates until I was over .3, peaked at .45. Down to .12 now. Personally, I don't think anything cared about this swing.

Salinity? Ya that too. Nothing too major, from 35 to 32ppt over I'm gonna guess like 2-4 hours. I took the strainers off my frag tank overflow for one night and some rogue piece of plastic from a nori clip quickly clogged it. My emergency drain prevented any flooding, but it was set too high. Sump level went down, gravity ATO fed around 8g. I'm guessing kalk went into overdrive for a while too. So lots of extra freshwater. Took about 10 days to get it back to 35.

I also discovered my eheims could not keep up now that the weather has been cooling down. I think my worst swing was 3-4 degree drop over about 6 hours. Not that big of a deal, but very concerning when you're getting alerts all day at work. Lowest I got was 75. I did upgrade to the IM Helios 2x500w and all is good since.

Alk. Remember I posted those beautiful logs maintaining around 8dkh and 8.3pH 24/7? Well I'm back up to 11+. This happened quickly over a few days and I believe was a result of the frag tank incident. House has not been getting as much fresh air either, so that is certainly a factor as well. I'm just going to let it slowly drop again.

I think that's it. This was all over 40 days or so.

I did send out an ICP to Fauna Marin. Everything was okay for the most part. A couple metals slightly elevated and some traces that were low. The weird one is I have insanely high silicates. I can only assume this is an RO problem. I'm pretty good about changing filters, so I'm skeptical. I plan to send out another in a week or two.

I should note if I didn't in a previous post. I got rid of my filefish and solved my aiptasia issue. Filefish became a polyp nipper and I had some freakishly huge aiptasia that were likely stinging more than I knew. Between 6+ peppermint shrimp and a copper band, I no longer see them in my display.

 

[jhuntstl]

Alk tends to be anywhere from 9-13 nowadays. The swings are over days or weeks. pH still solid at 8.3 day and night. I had intentions to stabilize alk, but I've decided I don't care. It would require ambient co2 management, which is taking things a bit too far imo. Well more like I don't want to spend the money.

Dosing no3(5ml/day) and have been maintaining mid to high teens. Last reading was 15.7. I left my po4 doser on for a month without testing and I'm currently somewhere above .9. Likely well above 1.0. Maybe even 2.0! It's been a few weeks since I made this discovery. I've noticed some browning(especially acro polyps), but otherwise growth and health appears to be unaffected across the board. I turned off the doser and will let them fall, but I'm uncertain where I want to maintain them.

I am dosing magnesium(40ml/day). Isol8MT at 5ml/day diluted, so maybe .25ml of the concentrate. I just added potassium, but only set it to dose 1ml/day for the time being.

Photo dump.

Got a cyano, aiptasia, bubble algae issue down in the frag I need to deal with...

 

[Sean Clark]

How are you maintaining your pH so solidly?

 

[jhuntstl]

How are you maintaining your pH so solidly?

I dose kalkwasser to maintain 8.3pH(controlled by a probe). I don't shoot for a specific alkalinity. My frag tank is reverse light cycle and well stocked to help with pH stability. I also have quite a bit of evaporation in my setup and increase it if need be with fans. So I'm able to dose quite a bit more kalkwasser than a traditional setup.

 

[jhuntstl]

PE!!! Po4 still .9 to who knows.

 

[jhuntstl]

Came home today to the whites peaking. My po4 actually fell to .63, but I was worried it was falling too quickly and set the doser to 1ml/day. A couple days later I was flashing .9 again. So I believe I have a doser calibration issue.

 

[mdb_talon]

Looking great

 

[jhuntstl]

Looking great

Green torch I got from you made me raise all my Tunze and totally change my flow! It was getting its tips clipped off haha. Growing too fast! It was all for the best though. Flow is better than ever.

 

[mdb_talon]

Green torch I got from you made me raise all my Tunze and totally change my flow! It was getting its tips clipped off haha. Growing too fast! It was all for the best though. Flow is better than ever.

Haha spread the word I got healthy torches!! Sadly I think looks better in your setup than it did when in mine

 

[jhuntstl]

Haha spread the word I got healthy torches!! Sadly I think looks better in your setup than it did when in mine

It's gotten big!