Lurch72's 350 Reefer build

Blutspitze · Sep 2, 2019

So sorry to hear about the other issues that you're facing. The #reefsquad folks should be able to help you out. I had a bunch of issues with my QT and adding new fish in the past, and could be any number of things. Glad that the Gramma ended up showing its face, at least

. Most of the little fish are REALLY good at hiding.

Lurch72 · Sep 2, 2019

Blutspitze said:
So sorry to hear about the other issues that you're facing. The #reefsquad folks should be able to help you out. I had a bunch of issues with my QT and adding new fish in the past, and could be any number of things. Glad that the Gramma ended up showing its face, at least . Most of the little fish are REALLY good at hiding.

My wife fed the QT a few minutes ago and text me to let me know the remaining two ate like pigs, so that's at least positive.

Blutspitze · Sep 4, 2019

That is good news; glad that everyone is still eating well.

Lurch72 · Sep 8, 2019

So, I now feel like I own a reef tank. I bought a LPS/softie pack, 16 frags, from a fellow R2R member. Much larger than the frags available locally. They arrived on Friday, got a dip and went in to the tank. I've got everyone on the sand for now acclimating to my lighting. Here are a few pics:

Lurch72 · Sep 8, 2019

So much more going on now.

Blutspitze · Sep 9, 2019

Oh wow! The new frags are looking amazing! How long before you start moving them up?

Lurch72 · Sep 10, 2019

Blutspitze said:
Oh wow! The new frags are looking amazing! How long before you start moving them up?

I'll probably let them acclimate at least two weeks on the sand and see how they do. They all seem to be doing well and are happy with the Reef LED 90s.

I'm not loving my Gyre at the moment though. It's at the lowest setting and still giving some of my corals more flow than they want. Also, it's always just in one direction which looks unnatural and I don't know if that's good for the corals. I may have to look at switching them out with multiple wave makers to get more control.

Blutspitze · Sep 10, 2019

Unfortunate to hear about the gyre - hope you can figure out a solution for it

Lurch72 · Sep 12, 2019

Blutspitze said:
Unfortunate to hear about the gyre - hope you can figure out a solution for it

Thank you, I believe I have. Even though my gyre doesn't have the reversed pitch impeller installed, through much experimenting I found that operating it in reversing gyre mode, coupled with strategic aiming of the return pump nozzle might be the ticket. I played with up/down times and flow rates until I found something that really seems to be working. The reverse setting seems to break up the flow in the tank just enough. I now get something of a wave surge, coral is moving in different directions and nothing is getting hammered. I'm now seeing much better polyp extension on the corals like my frogspawn, that didn't seem to like the previous flow.

Blutspitze · Sep 12, 2019

Lurch72 said:
Thank you, I believe I have. Even though my gyre doesn't have the reversed pitch impeller installed, through much experimenting I found that operating it in reversing gyre mode, coupled with strategic aiming of the return pump nozzle might be the ticket. I played with up/down times and flow rates until I found something that really seems to be working. The reverse setting seems to break up the flow in the tank just enough. I now get something of a wave surge, coral is moving in different directions and nothing is getting hammered. I'm now seeing much better polyp extension on the corals like my frogspawn, that didn't seem to like the previous flow.

That's great! Glad to hear that you figured something out that'll work.