mcarroll's 100 Gallon System

[mcarroll]

It's been a while, but I finally re-tested my tank and it was interesting!

My doser is even closer to being dialed in – even though alk and calcium are both low, it's not as low as before and it's over a much longer pertiod. And my nitrogen dosing seems to be working on the PO4-removal.

S.G. 1.023
Alk 2.39 meq/L
Ca 350 ppm
Mg 1200 ppm
NO3 0.25 ppm
PO4 0.30 ppm​

This is the first time in history I've not seen S.G. go up due to dosing. Instead, it went down due to the phenomenal amount of skimmate I've been pulling out along with the Potassium Nitrate and Amino Acid dosing.

More to come on that....

 

[mcarroll]

So, photos will have to follow, but on my low light tank, one of the polyps on my Favia seems to have "blown out" due to the high nutrients and low light – this polyp was facing directly away from the lights, almost in total shade.

The rims of the polyps have been almost black since nitrate dosing commenced, so I've had my eye on him anyway.

I cut down the nitrate and amino doses by 50%, but took me a while to get around to testing and the "blow out" spread to some adjacent polyps. So about a week ago I cut off all N dosing until I could do this round of tests.

From the tests, I think it may have been the PO4 coming back down on top of the low light and relatively high nutrients.

I also noticed some bacterial growth in my KNO3 solution.

It would be surprising to me if this would hurt anything, but it's also something I noticed right about the same time as the polyp blowout. Just in case, I will make smaller batches in the future to assure freshness – this one was 32 oz.

If/when I restart KNO3 it will be half again the rate that I was dosing and I don't think I'll dose amino acids for the foreseeable future. If there was any effect from dosing, I'm not sure what it was. (Will finally get to see if @Russ265's suspicions are confirmed if my cyano patches shrink or go away.)

 

[mcarroll]

I should add that alkalinity has been up and down over the last couple of months too.....not to the detriment of anything else in the tank as far as I can tell, but if this polyp was in marginal circumstances...

 

[mcarroll]

April 2014

September 2016


What can we learn from this?

 

[Frop]

26 hours later, I've clocked 7.49 kWh.

I think that places me at about $0.82 (€0.59) per day in power usage, on average. That's about $299 (€219) per year.

(Technically two+ extra hours of morning light, et al. are on that tab, so it's really still just a conservative estimate. Actual is somewhat less.)

-Matt

Ya I did the same thing when I moved in to almost everything. I've been doing it less recently. But I always think about wattage when buying any fishtank anything. Since it's on a lot. Our rates here are .16/.25/.31

There is a meter I found online. It recognizes energy signatures in your house. Then with an app you can tell exactly how much something like the fridge or microwave cost you yearly. Super cool. It monitors all your electronics by being in the electrical box.

 

[mcarroll]

I had been feeding my Barnacle Blennies Reef Nutrition's R.O.E. for about two bottles worth.

I ran out and my source dried up, so lately I've just been using Spectrum flakes until I figured out what do try next. It's a good backup.

As a trial, I picked up some Ocean Nutrition instant-baby-brine-shrimp.

Sits on the shelf for sale at room temp, but needs refrigeration after opening. Started feeding it last night....could take a little bit for the Blennies to adapt as this is quite a bit smaller than R.O.E. The squeeze bottle is a missed convenience....I may have to improvise.

I also got my Aqua Medic plankton reactor moved over to the tank...just need to finish the install and find my air pump. It's missing!

...and picked up some OSI brine shrimp eggs (the larger Salt Lake variety I believe) to hatch. (The tiny pouch version though. Just a few grams to start off.)

 

[mcarroll]

Just wanted to post that after this amount of time recovering, I've seen the corals growth and the pod population explode.

The pods (which appear to be mostly amphipods) – and cleanup crew in general – are finally having an effect.

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THIS STARTED I CAN SEE IN THE TANK WITHOUT HAVING TO SCRAPE!!!

It looks like a miracle even though it's still not "pretty". Will post a pic when I get some time with the tank later.

 

[mcarroll]

And maybe a little context to that... I have been letting the tank fuzz out without cleaning any algae anywhere for at least several weeks at this point, so the front glass has not been more than about 5 to 10% viewable. Compared to this now:

(The autofocus makes it look a lot worse than it actually is since it is focused directly on the algae layer. And the amphipods are all waving "Hi!")

 

[mcarroll]

 

[mcarroll]

It was actually startling to notice how clean that hydnophora skeleton is. I was scrubbing that daily...sometimes more.

Those wall photos are just to show the pod-fest....as well as the algae.....every grey or white speck is a pod. The algae is mostly cyano, but it's interesting that the main cyano patches are degrading at a noticable rate. I every caught a bristleworm inside the main patch snacking away for a few days in a row.

 

[mcarroll]

those look like...something bad...repost coming.

 

[mcarroll]

Cleanup crew at work:


And who doesn't love a time-lapse!

 

[mcarroll]

April 2014

September 2016

The rest are today...

 

[mcarroll]

It appears to have grown far more in the last 6 months than in the previous two years.

 

[mcarroll]

There were supposed to be Acro's growing on this rock, along with a couple of Monti's. Thanks a lot mushrooms! :mad:

 

[mcarroll]

I recently re-tested and surprisingly alkalinity was dead-on, Ca was a little low at 350 ppm, but Mg was sky-high/off-the-charts. I recalibrated the Mg dosing head and sure enough it was a little off. I just pulled the dip-tube out of the Mg stock solution for now and I'll re-test in a few days – once levels are back to normal I'll recommission the Mg pump head.

I also got tired of mixing single gallons of two parts, so I mixed up two 5-gallon buckets this time.

I also re-built the phytoplanton reactor so the air-pump only comes on for a little time a few times a day. (Following a guide I found.) I restocked it earlier today, so maybe tomorrow I'll have some nauplii to put in my DIY separator!

More to come...

 

[mcarroll]

Ooh.....forgot to mention that PO4 and No3 were pleasingly high and very close to prior readings from months ago.

 

[mcarroll]

Plankton Reactor
Need some light and some heat for better/quicker hatching, but allowing for those deficiencies (~36+ hours hatching time) it's all working well!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Heat lamps?

 

[mcarroll]

Not sure yet – that's a good idea!

I have some SMD's that are like these little strips, but mine are pre-wired into a series of strips instead of just singles:


DD01W 10pcs Pre Wired White Strip Led Light Self-adhesive Flexible 12V ~ 18V

I was thinking of trying to stick a series of 3-5 of them to the reactor's mounting frame directly behind the reactor and maybe there'd be a little heat transfer too....doubtful it'd be enough heat though.