Lionfish 90(ish) gallon peninsula build

[fermentedhiker]

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[fermentedhiker]

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[fermentedhiker]

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[fermentedhiker]

So my alk is a bit low, but the tank usually complains when I dose it. Perhaps the elevated phosphate is part of that problem?

Potassium is a little low but not enough to be a problem I would think.

Silicon, nickel, and zinc are elevated. Time for some polyfilter maybe?

Iodine is low can fix that easily enough

Manganese is low but I'm not sure if that's significant in a reef or not

So there may be some explanation in the data of why I struggle with clams and nems and some acros fail to thrive.

 

[fermentedhiker]

So I've decided to stop fighting with this system. It seems like every time I try to bring Alk in line the whole tank goes bonkers. So I'm going to be converting it to a primarily LPS system. I'll be lowering the light intensity down which should cut back on my algae issues a little but also should make the lionfish an marine betta happier

To help with the algae at the moment I added 10 nerites and 1 emerald crab. Also got a purple condy from Bluezoo and put it in this tank.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Redid the light schedule on the razors to lower the intensity. Added a green goni and an elegance from the lfs. Goni seems happy. Elegance looked great for four days but has been mostly closed up for the last three.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Long time no update. Tank went downhill is slowly making a comeback now. I built a waterchanging station in the basement to make doing large water changes easier. The tank is still running high nitrates and phosphate in spite of the large water changes. Skimmer is only collecting a modest amount. Using LC to get the phosphate down(around 116ppb yesterday). Oddly the chaeto in the fuge has been stalled for months even with the high nutrients. Planning on changing things up as things get ship shape(hopefully). I'll be moving the Barrier clownfish and the Eilbi angelfish to my 125 to make room for dwarf lionfish.

Current coral list;
CR magic mushroom
CR superman mushroom
superman rhodactis
Carlgreni mushroom
umbrella mushroom
darth maul porites
meteor shower cephastrea
superman montipora

Fish stock list;
Eibli angelfish
Barrier clownfish
Marine Betta
One spot foxface

Inverts;
purple reef lobster
banded coral shrimp
various snails.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Took a trip up to cultivated reef. Came back with a bunch of frags and a bit poorer.

Red St Thomas
Red Carlgreni
CR commoners envy
appleberry palawalensis
a Green RFA and a couple zebra RFA

 

[fermentedhiker]

Got a jebao doser today. I don't have time to set it up tonight, but I've verified that all the heads work. Tomorrow evening when I get home the plan is to calibrate them and start dosing tropic marin "all for reef". I'm hoping this will work instead of two part since this is a predominantly lps and softie tank. I am having a little trouble with the reservoir setup though. I got 1 gallon cereal containers from Walmart(tall and narrow) and drilled it for a 1/4" murlock bulkhead. The airline going to the doser works fine. The 1/4" acrylic rod fits but doesn't make an airtight seal. Which is disappointing because every other line I've tried isn't stiff or heavy to stay near the bottom of the container. hmmmmmm.......

On the plus side after another big WC my Nitrates are finally starting to drop. Phosphate is under control thanks to phosphate RX. Once the system is stable if the Nitrates continue to be an issue I'll use one of the doser heads to start carbon dosing. I expect it will be necessary once the lions are in the system.

 

[fermentedhiker]

So i've got the doser working with the "all for reef" and vinegar/vodka. Really low amount of both to start. 2ml a day each at this point.

Got a few corals from Vivid to fill things in.
Purple Goni
Strawberry fields Goni
Sparkle Goni
Psychedelic Mushroom

Seeing a bit of a diatom bloom on the sand. I would blame it on the carbon dosing but it was happening before I started it.

 

[fermentedhiker]

The commoners envy wasn't doing well(I think I was cooking it with too much light) so I moved it to another tank to hopefully recover. It seems to have nice PE and has gone from cream to pinkish in a couple days. Hopefully it'll recover long term.

Decided to do an experiment and put the skimmer on a timer. So it's off from 9PM until 7AM and then on all day.

Alk has been holding steady at around 7.5DKH(Hanna)
SG 1.026(Milwaukee)
Nitrate is 12-25 NYOS
Phos 200+ ppb(Hanna)
CA 490 salifert
Mag >1500 aquaforest

So I'm going to use some phosphate rx to bring the Phosphate better inline with the nitrate. Probably up my carbon dose from one to two times a day(2ml) and see what that does after a week.

The Mag being so high is a bit puzzling. I am dosing to maintain ALK but only 2ml per day of TM all for one. I suppose if it isn't being consumed if this small amount could be slowly driving it up?

I do have a bit of a diatom bloom on the sand lately, but that started before the carbon dosing when I started doing bigger WC. I only have three SPS in the system(Darth Maul porites, superman monti, appleberry) The appleberry has lost some color(more cream less green). Color on the superman monti is good but it doesn't appear to be encrusting yet but it's only been in the tank for a few weeks so maybe that is just impatience on my part. The Porites is a slow grower under normal circumstances so I wasn't expecting much growth(went in the same time as the superman monti)

Also dropped the peak intensity on the white channel by 5 percent as I think I'm hitting the corals on the top of the rockwork(just a few inches below the surface) with a bit too much light.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Did an icp test to see if things were back in line. Mostly good. Nitrates and Phosphates are high which I knew. Iodine, Bromine, manganese low which I don't think is a surprise. Al I'm thinking is from the marinepure block that may be breaking down.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Decided to do a triton N-DOC test. Still trying to digest what it means but it's more information to process and try and understand.