Just set up my first reef tank.

[vetteguy53081]

Update: Woke up to severe bleaching of bird's nest coral(see picture). I think it could be STN/RTN (base had been white for a week or so), low salinity (I'll explain below), or the clown goby (%$#%@~!).

Salinity: I replaced my return pump back in May with Aquatop SWP-480 192GPH after failure of the factory pump (it had granulated carbon in it, maybe it's still okay?). This resulted in a water level increase in the tank. This led to a massive salt creep problem. This led (I think to a decrease in the salinity from 1.025 to 1.023).

Fixed it this morning with some plastic hose(see picture). I upped the water change from 0.5L/day to 1L/day and decreased the ATO refill rate from 0.7L/day to 0.2L/day. Will run it like this for 7 days to get an increase from 0.31 to 0.34ppt using 0.35ppt new salt water.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve(40*.31+x*.35=40*.34,x)

Any thoughts?

Water parameters are here.

Lights look awefully bright. Birdsnest and most stoney coral do best under heavy blue (75% blue, 20% white) and moderate water flow and salinity at 1.026

 

[furcifer208]

Lights look awefully bright. Birdsnest and most stoney coral do best under heavy blue (75% blue, 20% white) and moderate water flow and salinity at 1.026

I'm using an SBOX16 (165W blackbox) at 10% white 30% blue. He's doubled in size over the last 6 months. Here is a pic without the UV filter.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'm using an SBOX16 (165W blackbox) at 10% white 30% blue. He's doubled in size over the last 6 months. Here is a pic without the UV filter.

Colors look good. May be low alk and CA. Do you know your levels?

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!!

 

[furcifer208]

We fragged the Birdsnest and managed to save quite a bit of it. It was going fast.

Colors look good. May be low alk and CA. Do you know your levels?

Alk is 8.0 dKH
Ca++ is 420 ppm.
historical numbers are posted above and here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xRFsHI2Uod7Wn1qVOf9tVT0EXFdA-zVsg-0yzB5L6UI/edit?usp=sharing
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/just-set-up-my-first-reef-tank.413831/page-3#post-6224086

 

[furcifer208]

... 15 months glamour shots.

My float valve keeps clogging. I got Double w/ Bracket from autotopoff.com but my aqualifter pump gravity siphons. Any suggestions for how to prevent my tank from siphoning into my ATO reservior or my ATO reservoir from siphoning into my my tank? Also the pump is too weak to pump from my lower reservoir so I need to go from high to low. I have a Jebao DP-4, could I hot-wire pump 4 to work on the float switch maybe?

 

[BeejReef]

Dont know your exact set up. Secure your topoff outlet hose above the sump (not submerged). That way can't back siphon to reservoir. If reservoir is below the level of the hose feeding the sump, or should not siphon that way either.

 

[motortrendz]

You should set up your own build thread on here. Oh yea and Welcome. Lol

 

[furcifer208]

You should set up your own build thread on here. Oh yea and Welcome. Lol

I'm actually not sure how to do that. Can I just move this one over to the build thread place? Or do I need to start a new one? I use a google site so I'd have to maintain both. I would like to move this post out of the meet and greet forum to member tanks although I do like the periodic welcome's. Besides I still feel like a newbie even though the tank seems to be doing well for now.

P.S. I just noticed that my raspberrypi web server was down: http://www.opalstreetpi.org so I changed my signature to the google site. I must have "downed" it messing with my ATO.

 

[furcifer208]

Webcam is up again thanks to a replacement raspberry pi.

http://www.opalstreetpi.org:8081/

and

http://www.opalstreetpi.org:8082/

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

A very late welcome to R2R