Midwest 200 Gallon Peninsula
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special-ops-s2k
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August FTS:
FTS UPDATE Time!
First off everything is doing well, the acros are growing and encrusting very nicely! In fact they are doing so well that I keep packing them in as they make it out of quarantine and I think I will reach capacity here sooner than I thought!
But the fun part of watching them grow is next and I am loving that!
Next the bad-ish news. July was an eventful month... Just a week after my last update post the AC in our house went out! Fortunately I was prepared for this and had a few cases of 20oz water bottles frozen solid for this purpose. I also immediately rushed to the local Home Depot and bought the largest portable AC they had!
Between these two things we were able to keep the tank temps from raising too much and we suffered no losses from the event. After our AC was fixed (turned out to be a bad capacitor) I ordered a spare in the event it fails again and put the portable AC in storage ready to come to the rescue next time. First potential crash was officially averted!
That's all for now, thanks for following along with me on this ever exciting journey!
FTS UPDATE Time!
First off everything is doing well, the acros are growing and encrusting very nicely! In fact they are doing so well that I keep packing them in as they make it out of quarantine and I think I will reach capacity here sooner than I thought!
But the fun part of watching them grow is next and I am loving that!
Next the bad-ish news. July was an eventful month... Just a week after my last update post the AC in our house went out! Fortunately I was prepared for this and had a few cases of 20oz water bottles frozen solid for this purpose. I also immediately rushed to the local Home Depot and bought the largest portable AC they had!
Between these two things we were able to keep the tank temps from raising too much and we suffered no losses from the event. After our AC was fixed (turned out to be a bad capacitor) I ordered a spare in the event it fails again and put the portable AC in storage ready to come to the rescue next time. First potential crash was officially averted!
That's all for now, thanks for following along with me on this ever exciting journey!
OP
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special-ops-s2k
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Whole house surge protector is the way to go! I'll do a post on it at some point but you can Google them and read up yourself, they are simple and not too expensive.
Thanks for following along!
drtechno
Active Member
Great thread, definitely getting some good ideas for my current setup.
Quick question - and I'm sure it's just because I'm lazy, but why QT your corals ? I thought corals you just dip/treat quickly, acclimate, then add to the tank ?
Quick question - and I'm sure it's just because I'm lazy, but why QT your corals ? I thought corals you just dip/treat quickly, acclimate, then add to the tank ?
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special-ops-s2k
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I apologize! I didn't notice there was a reply on this thread... I do realize that most don't quarantine their corals, however I have been able to find and stop several pests before introduction to my main display tank by doing so.
After several days in QT you may see pests you didn't catch on the initial inspection... Pest anemones, bad algaes... Etc. Having the corals in QT allows me to do a simple dip and inspection when they arrive. Then allow them to acclimate to my tank parameters/lighting schedule while still isolated from my display. If 2-3 weeks in you start seeing some of those unwanted hitchhikers you can dip several times over a period of days, you can treat the tank if necessary. You can also cut the corals off their original bases and reattach them to new plugs.
In the end all these measures have kept pests out of my main display tank and that's the main reason I QT my corals.
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September FTS:
Here's my September full tank shot, not much to update this month. I have just been mounting a few frags and keeping everything stable while it grows in. I did have my first Neptune gear failure... My temp probe on the main display just stopped staying in calibration! It happened all at once and drifted up in reading by 6-7degrees F in about 2hrs. I pulled it and recalibrated it. Then watched it the rest of the day, it drifted back out of calibration once again.
The next day I installed a new probe from another system I have here, calibrated it and it's rock solid. The original probe must have gone bad in some way. So I'll be keeping a couple spares in stock for this reason in the future!
Here's an end view shot:
Here's my September full tank shot, not much to update this month. I have just been mounting a few frags and keeping everything stable while it grows in. I did have my first Neptune gear failure... My temp probe on the main display just stopped staying in calibration! It happened all at once and drifted up in reading by 6-7degrees F in about 2hrs. I pulled it and recalibrated it. Then watched it the rest of the day, it drifted back out of calibration once again.
The next day I installed a new probe from another system I have here, calibrated it and it's rock solid. The original probe must have gone bad in some way. So I'll be keeping a couple spares in stock for this reason in the future!
Here's an end view shot:
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special-ops-s2k
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October FTS:
Little late on my FTS update, been super busy at work and haven't had time to post. Not much has happened with the tank lately, the consumption is up quite a bit of my 2-part so things are definitely growing! I just installed a Kalk stirrer and am using a Kamoer continuous duty dosing pump to push water through it. Hopefully that will lower my 2-part usage and keep my elements stable until I get my calcium reactor online. I'll know better next month when I have more data on how well the kalk reduces my 2-part use.
Little late on my FTS update, been super busy at work and haven't had time to post. Not much has happened with the tank lately, the consumption is up quite a bit of my 2-part so things are definitely growing! I just installed a Kalk stirrer and am using a Kamoer continuous duty dosing pump to push water through it. Hopefully that will lower my 2-part usage and keep my elements stable until I get my calcium reactor online. I'll know better next month when I have more data on how well the kalk reduces my 2-part use.
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November FTS:
Trying to do better on my FTS update this month. Halloween was the 1-Yr Anniversary of life in the tank, I added the first mollies on that day and tester corals not long after. It's hard to believe that in only a 1-Yr span so much has changed! The tank is nearly fully stocked with the fish I have planned, and is packed with SPS in every space available! Here's to another year of experience and success (fingers crossed) and I can't wait to see this tank grown in. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and helpful advice as I have undertaken this journey, I truly appreciate it!
The tank has been staying stable, I've reduced my 2-part use by about 50% by adding the kalk stirrer so that's good. I've also been trying to work on my nutrient levels... No matter what I do the po4 level stays at 0.00
I have started dosing Neophos and will hopefully be able to report detectable phosphate in my next monthly update. The tank gets monthly ICP tests and as usual the latest one came back all good... My Strontium level was slightly low so I'll be adding some manually in the form of a Triton supplement. That's it for my update this month, enjoy the photos!
On a side note the RRC Rainbow Splice has been growing nicely.
This is from June
Today's update / 1 week post "surgery"
Trying to do better on my FTS update this month. Halloween was the 1-Yr Anniversary of life in the tank, I added the first mollies on that day and tester corals not long after. It's hard to believe that in only a 1-Yr span so much has changed! The tank is nearly fully stocked with the fish I have planned, and is packed with SPS in every space available! Here's to another year of experience and success (fingers crossed) and I can't wait to see this tank grown in. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and helpful advice as I have undertaken this journey, I truly appreciate it!
The tank has been staying stable, I've reduced my 2-part use by about 50% by adding the kalk stirrer so that's good. I've also been trying to work on my nutrient levels... No matter what I do the po4 level stays at 0.00
I have started dosing Neophos and will hopefully be able to report detectable phosphate in my next monthly update. The tank gets monthly ICP tests and as usual the latest one came back all good... My Strontium level was slightly low so I'll be adding some manually in the form of a Triton supplement. That's it for my update this month, enjoy the photos!
On a side note the RRC Rainbow Splice has been growing nicely.
This is from June
Today's update / 1 week post "surgery"
Ashish Patel
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Wow, I remember when this thread started and knew it was destined for greatness! Finally got your Acros taking off!!
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special-ops-s2k
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Thanks for the encouragement and for following along since the beginning! Yes my Acros are finally growing and starting to look like more than frags! I can't wait for them to grow out over the next 6-12 mos
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Hello All... Been a long time since I updated this, had some health issues, but things are going well and the corals have grown a bit during my absence from R2R! I'm back!
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Thank you for the compliments! Yes it's pretty awesome growth for sure. I run a kalk stirrer to keep my PH up and add some of my demand for cal/alk. Then handle the rest of the demand with 2 part... I have a carx but haven't cut it online yet for fear of destabilizing the system until I have backup colonies of all the coral in my stand alone frag system. Once I have that "insurance policy" I'll take the plunge. That was supposed to already be don't but the past year delayed things somewhat.
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Tonight's view...
lake985
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Absolutely beautiful tank and great growth in the last year. I'm curious, how much 2-part are you dosing daily along with the kalk stirrer doing its thing? I'm getting a bit tired of refilling my cal/alk containers every few weeks, and was thinking of supplementing with kalk before taking the anxiety-inducing plunge into a CaRX. Thanks.
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