My 150g Cube Journey

[backbayreef]

Love the butterfly!

Thanks. I haven’t noticed it make a dent in the aiptasia garden though; just eating normal food, competing with the Tang Gang! It’s a beautiful fish nonetheless ;)

 

[DIFish]

Interesting. Mine looks the same — really. Are you dosing to keep up the top 3 or trace elements? Mine is done via a CaRx

I think that my SPS responded better/faster with higher pH; however, I didn’t see any other difference with LPS.

I use mainly Kalkwasser with a bit of All for reef to suppoement. Probably need to bump up my all for reef to get more trace elements back. Really do like the no WC concept though. I didn’t actually realize CaRx did trace too…. Maybe in the next upgrade.

 

[backbayreef]

I've done kalkwasser, 2-part, and All for Reef as well. Anything "liquidly" is a little bit too messy for me or I'm lazy? lol

Kalk, 2-part, and All 4 Reef are awesome for pH boost but the time & maintenance commitment is higher compared to a CaRx. For the CaRx, I don't have to replace the media once a year (perhaps longer now with my bigger GEO). I was mixing kalk/2-part/All 4 Reef stuff every week/or two with a fully grown SPS tank!

Magnesium: the CaRx does not dissolve Mg back to the water column & I didn't put the Mg media this round -- will do next time. I manually dose Mg twice a year in the meantime.

Trace elements: I don't think the CaRx will provide enough (or if any) trace elements for the reef aquarium. Granted that I have not done a WC close to 3 years and have not done an ICP test, things are growing and I have decent color, why bother? When things deteriorate, I will look into this.

 

[backbayreef]

As an update -- I used to have hundreds of aiptasias. Now, I think I found 8 total in the whole tank! The Klein Butterfly is a keeper for sure. Other than that, I have not focused on this tank - just letting things grow (into each other). I do need to frag those massive colonies though. I've been focusing on fully-populating the nem-only tank tbh.

 

[SeeFu]

do you have any issue with moisture entering your c02 scrubber? I always had a huge problem with that when I was recirculating.

 

[backbayreef]

do you have any issue with moisture entering your c02 scrubber? I always had a huge problem with that when I was recirculating.

Moisture is actually welcomed to prolong the media's lifespan -- they should settle on the bottom. If you use the IceCap CO2 scrubber (like me), make sure you pull air from the center port, not the side. The BRS video has it backward btw. The side port will "reciculate" through the skimmer's cup. That's how I have it & been super happy with the solution.

 

[backbayreef]

Our city decided to kill power for 8+ hours (twice) this week. Glad that these UPS+MP40s kicked in while I was away. I did have run home later to power up the portable generator for the heaters though. Temp dropped from 78F to 76F. Everything is doing fine - so glad I got the UPS + generator setup.

 

[backbayreef]

Latest FTS — I had to re-aquascape, was running out of room! The Cali Tort grew from a frag into a basketball-size colony. It went to the nem tank to free up space in the cube.

Note-to-self: stay away from stags unless you have a big tank! ;)

 

[backbayreef]

As discussed on another thread, my Alk jumped by 3dKH due to my negligence with the CaRx. So far things are still fine but will keep an eye on things.

 

[backbayreef]

and oh btw: I’ve been obsessed with nems lately (see my nem-tank build below)
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/oceanic-175g-bowfront-25g-frag-tank.995958/page-6
I’ve added a Chicago Sunburst to the SPS tank. I was told to not mix “high end” anemones. I’m somewhat skeptical tbh but don’t want to have an expensive lesson to find out!

 

[backbayreef]

Tank is on autopilot. Just added some acro frags today: Oregon Tort, Orange & Purple Dragon, Solomon Islands Milli, etc…

 

[backbayreef]

Just a quick update — there is no update! Ha

The tank is still growing - I made a few frags for friends & family. During the holiday, I’ve replaced the CO2 media — can you guess when?

 

[backbayreef]

Is it bad pegging pH above 8.5? Also, I’m considering to go with Kalk at night to even out the pH curve. Problem is, that will raise Alk, so can throttle back CaRx. The search for an Avast K2 unit…

 

[backbayreef]

Little update — pegging pH at 8.5 was not the best idea. I had some burnt tips on one colony closer to the water - not sure it was related. Additionally, N&P spiked to 75+/0.62, respectively. I brought P down to 0.32 with PhosphateRx though.

 

[backbayreef]

My son 3D printed some mushroom cages for propagation. Some random pics of the tank — totally on autopilot. Ha

 

[backbayreef]

This tank has been on autopilot— I managed to make some more frags for family and friends. Notably, I made a mini-colony of the TSA Fruity Pebbles from the middle-left of pic! It’s such an amazing species and a fast grower in this tank with high nitrates! lol

Speaking of that, I need to start carbon dosing since NO3 is still 75+. Corals are not complaining but I like NO3 to be under 20’ish.

 

[backbayreef]

Tank was on autopilot and got decent growth & color until last night. The EB832 was flashing white and the whole Neptune Apex went down. After a painful process of elimination, it turned out that one of the WAV pumps died and that took down the whole system. Likely they need cleaning and I'm definitely not going back to WAVs anymore. There were no messages, no signs, nothing! Last year, my Trident took the system down - similar deal.

It is rather disappointing to see such a matured Neptune system have such a fragile infrastructure & recovery. There should be a mechanism to shut down the offending device(s) vs giving up entirely!

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Wow, that sucks. Do you think there could be some code regarding amperage that could be used to shut items off if it goes to high or low?

 

[backbayreef]

So this was scary — I ran out of CO2 and alk got down to 5.22!!! The 8.xx reading was me using water from another tank since I didn’t believe the Trident. Well, I manually dosed alk, replaced CO2, and added more CaRx media. We’re slowly climbing back to 7.12.

The tank is fully stock with SPS — so far no signs of stress so fingers crossed!

 

[backbayreef]

Latest FTS — it’s boring, SPS grew out of the water and I’ve been too lazy to prune! Tank is now officially a little over 4 years old (last Thanksgiving) and still no water change. lol

Alk is recovering to 8.84 so I’ve dialed CO2 back. Absolutely love the CarbonDoser!