My 4ft Peninsula Tank Journal
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OP
OP
Where to start? I suppose stating the mantra “nothing in reefing happens quickly” is the best way to begin this update. About two weeks ago I noticed a few of my acros getting excessively white tips. After close inspection (something my wife would say I do a bit too often), and comparing growth progress photos, these tips did not appear to be regular ‘growth’ tips, but rather were burnt tips. Why? Well, I could think of any number of reasons due to me making changes.
Over the past two months I’ve:
Too much too fast. About 5 acros showed obvious stress with burnt tips. To make things more complicated I have a large golfball sized turbo snail that rubs/slides against just about everything. A few acros have what I can only describe as snail shell burn with parts that have been what appears to be “scraped off.” I also lost my OG Green Torch recently, the flesh just slopped off it over a 24hr period. Thankfully not terribly expensive, but I’m sad to lose it.
What do? Short answer: SLOW DOWN. I’ve backed off 20% on my lights. I reduced Kalkwasser dosing to 50%. This has hurt my pH stability, but I think my alk reaching ~10 (up from 8.1 in about 2 weeks) didn’t make things happy. I stopped all AFR dosing and will focus on water changes to replace trace elements in the near-term (AFR can come when it’s obviously needed.)
My Alkalinity dKh over the last 90 days:
You can see the immediate alkalinity increase after turning on Kalk 8/23. I feel I should have slowed my ascend over a much broader time range. Live and learn. You can see over the last 10 days my alk has been slowly dropping (I’ve adjusted it to about .1 dKh/day).
I’ve recently added a CO2 scrubber, hooked up to an air pump terminating to an air stone in my sump. This has resulted in a decent increase in pH. Graph below tracks my pH, air stone was added on 10/15.
So what have we learned? I need to just take it easy. Things will grow in their own time, and I must make fewer adjustments over longer periods.
Will follow up with some photos tomorrow! I’ve really loving the Brad’s Jaw Dropper colony and how it’s responding to high par. Some pieces in the tank couldn’t care less about the swings, they’re cruising.
In other news, my wife and I welcomed our second child in to the world, a baby boy. I'm off work for the next few weeks, and coincidentally am expecting 10 new fish to arrive either Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned for some fish shots!
Obligatory baby photo tax:
Over the past two months I’ve:
- Added three additional lights (Radion XR15 G6, AI Prime 16HD and 30W Led.)
- Increased light intensity, shooting for ~400 par at top of rocks (up ~50par from previous)
- Switched from AFR dosing to Kalkwasser nightly dosing with AFR supplement.
- Replaced refugium grow light with AI Fuge.
Too much too fast. About 5 acros showed obvious stress with burnt tips. To make things more complicated I have a large golfball sized turbo snail that rubs/slides against just about everything. A few acros have what I can only describe as snail shell burn with parts that have been what appears to be “scraped off.” I also lost my OG Green Torch recently, the flesh just slopped off it over a 24hr period. Thankfully not terribly expensive, but I’m sad to lose it.
What do? Short answer: SLOW DOWN. I’ve backed off 20% on my lights. I reduced Kalkwasser dosing to 50%. This has hurt my pH stability, but I think my alk reaching ~10 (up from 8.1 in about 2 weeks) didn’t make things happy. I stopped all AFR dosing and will focus on water changes to replace trace elements in the near-term (AFR can come when it’s obviously needed.)
My Alkalinity dKh over the last 90 days:
You can see the immediate alkalinity increase after turning on Kalk 8/23. I feel I should have slowed my ascend over a much broader time range. Live and learn. You can see over the last 10 days my alk has been slowly dropping (I’ve adjusted it to about .1 dKh/day).
I’ve recently added a CO2 scrubber, hooked up to an air pump terminating to an air stone in my sump. This has resulted in a decent increase in pH. Graph below tracks my pH, air stone was added on 10/15.
So what have we learned? I need to just take it easy. Things will grow in their own time, and I must make fewer adjustments over longer periods.
Will follow up with some photos tomorrow! I’ve really loving the Brad’s Jaw Dropper colony and how it’s responding to high par. Some pieces in the tank couldn’t care less about the swings, they’re cruising.
In other news, my wife and I welcomed our second child in to the world, a baby boy. I'm off work for the next few weeks, and coincidentally am expecting 10 new fish to arrive either Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned for some fish shots!
Obligatory baby photo tax:
Last edited:
Smite
2500 Club Member
Congrats on the baby boy! Future reef keeper I'm sure 
A fellow reefer gave me the tip of starting off at 1/2 saturation on the kalk solution, since I was paranoid about adding it and getting a spike. It's worked great, I was able to set my ml per day at 3000 which is most of my evap in a day, it's been super forgiving and easy to dial in. Every time I mix 4g of solution now, I'm slowly increasing my saturation and keeping the ml the same while testing. It's been a slow but steady ascent and now I'm seeing increase in growth without any alkalinity spike. Once I reach max saturation and evap then I plan to start cranking up my calcium reactor from that point.
Love that Brad's Draw Jopper. Hard to beat!
A fellow reefer gave me the tip of starting off at 1/2 saturation on the kalk solution, since I was paranoid about adding it and getting a spike. It's worked great, I was able to set my ml per day at 3000 which is most of my evap in a day, it's been super forgiving and easy to dial in. Every time I mix 4g of solution now, I'm slowly increasing my saturation and keeping the ml the same while testing. It's been a slow but steady ascent and now I'm seeing increase in growth without any alkalinity spike. Once I reach max saturation and evap then I plan to start cranking up my calcium reactor from that point.
Love that Brad's Draw Jopper. Hard to beat!
OP
OP
A few photos:
Brad's B Draw Jopper
RMF Acid Trip, TSA Optimus Prime to its left, and Vivid's Confetti below
Oregon Tort (additional stick on the left I hope join together)
Brad's B Draw Jopper
RMF Acid Trip, TSA Optimus Prime to its left, and Vivid's Confetti below
Oregon Tort (additional stick on the left I hope join together)
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
Beautiful baby boy! Congrats again!!Where to start? I suppose stating the mantra “nothing in reefing happens quickly” is the best way to begin this update. About two weeks ago I noticed a few of my acros getting excessively white tips. After close inspection (something my wife would say I do a bit too often), and comparing growth progress photos, these tips did not appear to be regular ‘growth’ tips, but rather were burnt tips. Why? Well, I could think of any number of reasons due to me making changes.
Over the past two months I’ve:
- Added three additional lights (Radion XR15 G6, AI Prime 16HD and 30W Led.)
- Increased light intensity, shooting for ~400 par at top of rocks (up ~50par from previous)
- Switched from AFR dosing to Kalkwasser nightly dosing with AFR supplement.
- Replaced refugium grow light with AI Fuge.
Too much too fast. About 5 acros showed obvious stress with burnt tips. To make things more complicated I have a large golfball sized turbo snail that rubs/slides against just about everything. A few acros have what I can only describe as snail shell burn with parts that have been what appears to be “scraped off.” I also lost my OG Green Torch recently, the flesh just slopped off it over a 24hr period. Thankfully not terribly expensive, but I’m sad to lose it.
What do? Short answer: SLOW DOWN. I’ve backed off 20% on my lights. I reduced Kalkwasser dosing to 50%. This has hurt my pH stability, but I think my alk reaching ~10 (up from 8.1 in about 2 weeks) didn’t make things happy. I stopped all AFR dosing and will focus on water changes to replace trace elements in the near-term (AFR can come when it’s obviously needed.)
My Alkalinity dKh over the last 90 days:
You can see the immediate alkalinity increase after turning on Kalk 8/23. I feel I should have slowed my ascend over a much broader time range. Live and learn. You can see over the last 10 days my alk has been slowly dropping (I’ve adjusted it to about .1 dKh/day).
I’ve recently added a CO2 scrubber, hooked up to an air pump terminating to an air stone in my sump. This has resulted in a decent increase in pH. Graph below tracks my pH, air stone was added on 10/15.
So what have we learned? I need to just take it easy. Things will grow in their own time, and I must make fewer adjustments over longer periods.
Will follow up with some photos tomorrow! I’ve really loving the Brad’s Jaw Dropper colony and how it’s responding to high par. Some pieces in the tank couldn’t care less about the swings, they’re cruising.
In other news, my wife and I welcomed our second child in to the world, a baby boy. I'm off work for the next few weeks, and coincidentally am expecting 10 new fish to arrive either Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned for some fish shots!
Obligatory baby photo tax:
What are your N's and P's? I've found maintaining higher pH tends to suck up more of everything. It's definitely a challenge and requires frequent testing. If I just had a baby, I would probably not be aggressively chasing pH haha. I forget who, but someone mentioned maintaining higher pH is similar to driving a race car. It's easier to lose control. Now what if you were driving a race car with a formula bottle in one hand and a baby in your lap. =P
Not saying you should ditch kalk, but I would do whatever is easiest to maintain and proven to grow acros.
OP
OP
It seems it's rarely ever just 'one thing' affecting the health of my animals. My latest discovery and battle came when I noticed a huge problem late in to the night. I witnessed not just one, but TWO of my mithrax crabs eating my Acropora's flesh. I suspect that adding Chaeto to my refugium led me here. The GHA in my display has completely disappeared over the course of a month. No GHA means Acros are on the crab menu? I did my best to ‘overfeed’, but that’s a balance that appears to not have been successful.
To recap the problems: too much light has led to some bleaching. Too much kalk also leads to bleaching. And now these punk crabs decide to ruin my parade as well. So after donninga red headlamp and numerous failed attempts over a few nights, I finally managed to I remove the big offenders. One crab went to my 18" GHA-infested cube, and the other is chilling in my refugium bucket. I know of at least 1 more emerald in the tank, and unfortunately TWO gorilla crabs I’m trying to figure how to get out. I have not seen any gorillas munching though, so they seem content with leftovers.
I figured out those above problems about two weeks ago. Today, things are looking really good. I see no more burnt tips or munched flesh. My parameters are leveling out decently as I’ve landed on a reasonable nightly Kalk dosage. I have Captiv8’s Nitr8 and Phosph8 diluted and on dosing pumps, along with A4R at the ready should I need it. I’m testing almost every day to really try and stabilize and automate. I see encrusting on just about everything, with corals actually thriving instead of just surviving. Slow and steady is the key and I've just got to learn some patience while things grow at their own pace.
Sump picture with the CO2 media reactor air line, NO3/PO4 dosing.
My params over the last 30 days. Trying to very slowly raise my Alk to ~8 again.
Here’s my Cali Tort coloring up real nicely.
TGC Inner Core, RRC Rainbow Splice, Big R Candyland, BC Spainbow, BC Rainbows Army. I guess you could say I have a thing for rainbow-named pieces.
To recap the problems: too much light has led to some bleaching. Too much kalk also leads to bleaching. And now these punk crabs decide to ruin my parade as well. So after donninga red headlamp and numerous failed attempts over a few nights, I finally managed to I remove the big offenders. One crab went to my 18" GHA-infested cube, and the other is chilling in my refugium bucket. I know of at least 1 more emerald in the tank, and unfortunately TWO gorilla crabs I’m trying to figure how to get out. I have not seen any gorillas munching though, so they seem content with leftovers.
I figured out those above problems about two weeks ago. Today, things are looking really good. I see no more burnt tips or munched flesh. My parameters are leveling out decently as I’ve landed on a reasonable nightly Kalk dosage. I have Captiv8’s Nitr8 and Phosph8 diluted and on dosing pumps, along with A4R at the ready should I need it. I’m testing almost every day to really try and stabilize and automate. I see encrusting on just about everything, with corals actually thriving instead of just surviving. Slow and steady is the key and I've just got to learn some patience while things grow at their own pace.
Sump picture with the CO2 media reactor air line, NO3/PO4 dosing.
My params over the last 30 days. Trying to very slowly raise my Alk to ~8 again.
Here’s my Cali Tort coloring up real nicely.
TGC Inner Core, RRC Rainbow Splice, Big R Candyland, BC Spainbow, BC Rainbows Army. I guess you could say I have a thing for rainbow-named pieces.
How big are the gorillas? I had some luck leaving glass vials with bits of frozen krill in them (multiple at a time) leaning at different angles on the rockwork/sand. Change out in the AM if nothing caught. Sometimes they were eaten by something, sometimes not. Then one day, an angry gorilla crab was waiting in a glass vial to say hi.
Also think that I mortally wounded one while trying to catch it--pinned it with my tongs, and while it did get away, I might have crushed it, as I haven't seen it since, going on a few months now.
Also think that I mortally wounded one while trying to catch it--pinned it with my tongs, and while it did get away, I might have crushed it, as I haven't seen it since, going on a few months now.
Petcrazyson
5000 Club Member
Gorillas get rlly big and can weigh over 450 pounds. They can be aggressive.
OP
OP
One gorilla is about the size of a nickel, the other is about the size of a quarter. Good tip on the glass vial - I'll have to try it! They're definitely not welcome and I need to get them out ASAP.
OP
OP
Things are humming along here. My little baby boy is 7 weeks old, and this tank is nearly 7 months old. Time sure does fly.
A number of updates to share. 1) New fish, 2) New coral 3) Progressive kalkwasser dosing 4) keep it steady
This past week I received 4 piece battle box black friday order from Battlecorals. 6 nice looking frags came:
1. Yellow spathulata. This has since RTD’d the same night I got it.
2. Bohemia
3. Last supernova
4. Cyclops
5. Honeycomb
6. RR Wolverine
Excited to see these bad boys color up! Expecting to purchase a few more frags locally too.
A number of updates to share. 1) New fish, 2) New coral 3) Progressive kalkwasser dosing 4) keep it steady
- Received my order from Dr. Reef’s Quarantined Fish the other day. It’s been a real struggle getting healthy fish that are able to make the journey overnight. Not only were they unable to ship a few due to health issues quarantining, but two arrived DOA: diamond goby and female ignitus anthias. This third katherine’s wrasse was looking very poor (heavy breathing and lethargic movements) - I immediately did a rapid water acclimation and transferred to my sump. If she died, at least I’d have an easy time getting her out. Fast forward to that night and it’s swimming around! My last wrasse died on the third day seemingly out of nowhere. This morning she was swimming around normally, inspecting her home. I took a chance and transferred her to the display. She’s since done really well throughout the day, with only a few flashings against the other wrasses in the tank. Crossing fingers everyone is able to get along.
- I’ve received quite a number of acros over the past 6 weeks, mostly from local reefers. Out of maybe 15 or so, two have STN’d, with one more struggling a bit. Params are pretty stable these last 30 days so I’m attributing the deaths to stress and possibly incorrect lighting/flow locations. I'm having difficulty finding where to place all the frags. I still have a number of holes/voids to mount on rocks, but am reallllly struggling to determine what deserves a prime location.
This past week I received 4 piece battle box black friday order from Battlecorals. 6 nice looking frags came:
1. Yellow spathulata. This has since RTD’d the same night I got it.
2. Bohemia
3. Last supernova
4. Cyclops
5. Honeycomb
6. RR Wolverine
Excited to see these bad boys color up! Expecting to purchase a few more frags locally too.
- Progessive kalkwasser dosing
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
Love the hammer garden you got going on!Things are humming along here. My little baby boy is 7 weeks old, and this tank is nearly 7 months old. Time sure does fly.
A number of updates to share. 1) New fish, 2) New coral 3) Progressive kalkwasser dosing 4) keep it steady
- Received my order from Dr. Reef’s Quarantined Fish the other day. It’s been a real struggle getting healthy fish that are able to make the journey overnight. Not only were they unable to ship a few due to health issues quarantining, but two arrived DOA: diamond goby and female ignitus anthias. This third katherine’s wrasse was looking very poor (heavy breathing and lethargic movements) - I immediately did a rapid water acclimation and transferred to my sump. If she died, at least I’d have an easy time getting her out. Fast forward to that night and it’s swimming around! My last wrasse died on the third day seemingly out of nowhere. This morning she was swimming around normally, inspecting her home. I took a chance and transferred her to the display. She’s since done really well throughout the day, with only a few flashings against the other wrasses in the tank. Crossing fingers everyone is able to get along.
- I’ve received quite a number of acros over the past 6 weeks, mostly from local reefers. Out of maybe 15 or so, two have STN’d, with one more struggling a bit. Params are pretty stable these last 30 days so I’m attributing the deaths to stress and possibly incorrect lighting/flow locations. I'm having difficulty finding where to place all the frags. I still have a number of holes/voids to mount on rocks, but am reallllly struggling to determine what deserves a prime location.
This past week I received 4 piece battle box black friday order from Battlecorals. 6 nice looking frags came:
1. Yellow spathulata. This has since RTD’d the same night I got it.
2. Bohemia
3. Last supernova
4. Cyclops
5. Honeycomb
6. RR Wolverine
Excited to see these bad boys color up! Expecting to purchase a few more frags locally too.
Before purchasing a kalk stirrer, I read numerous complaints about potency drop off and saturation problems. I'll admit, I hoped these reports were unfounded. Well suffice to say, I've found them to be true. Your most 'accurate' dosing day is immediately following filling the kalk reactor - from there's it's a downhill slope, each day your dosing solution will be contributing a bit less to dKh, calc and pH buffer. This is very frustrating to 'balance' - and I was needing to dump in kalk weekly as well as daily increase dosing time manually to counter act. My solution? I proframmed a base kalk dosing amt (for when it's just been filled) and then calculate and progressively increment the amount dosed each day. I've been doing this for a week now with very promising results. Nothing too complex, but should stabilize things even more with little on-going involvement from me. Just need to top off kalk every week ish.
- Progessive kalkwasser dosing
Are you able to program the doser to increase each day or are you making the changes manually? If that's programmable in your controller, I'm impressed!
How much kalk do you put in you k1? Have you tried adding more or moving the stir bar lower? I think I would put a couple cups in mine. Maybe more. Also does your ro feed line go all the way to the bottom of the chamber?
Great have garden. Also, the wolverine acro looks like Groot.Things are humming along here. My little baby boy is 7 weeks old, and this tank is nearly 7 months old. Time sure does fly.
A number of updates to share. 1) New fish, 2) New coral 3) Progressive kalkwasser dosing 4) keep it steady
- Received my order from Dr. Reef’s Quarantined Fish the other day. It’s been a real struggle getting healthy fish that are able to make the journey overnight. Not only were they unable to ship a few due to health issues quarantining, but two arrived DOA: diamond goby and female ignitus anthias. This third katherine’s wrasse was looking very poor (heavy breathing and lethargic movements) - I immediately did a rapid water acclimation and transferred to my sump. If she died, at least I’d have an easy time getting her out. Fast forward to that night and it’s swimming around! My last wrasse died on the third day seemingly out of nowhere. This morning she was swimming around normally, inspecting her home. I took a chance and transferred her to the display. She’s since done really well throughout the day, with only a few flashings against the other wrasses in the tank. Crossing fingers everyone is able to get along.
- I’ve received quite a number of acros over the past 6 weeks, mostly from local reefers. Out of maybe 15 or so, two have STN’d, with one more struggling a bit. Params are pretty stable these last 30 days so I’m attributing the deaths to stress and possibly incorrect lighting/flow locations. I'm having difficulty finding where to place all the frags. I still have a number of holes/voids to mount on rocks, but am reallllly struggling to determine what deserves a prime location.
This past week I received 4 piece battle box black friday order from Battlecorals. 6 nice looking frags came:
1. Yellow spathulata. This has since RTD’d the same night I got it.
2. Bohemia
3. Last supernova
4. Cyclops
5. Honeycomb
6. RR Wolverine
Excited to see these bad boys color up! Expecting to purchase a few more frags locally too.
Before purchasing a kalk stirrer, I read numerous complaints about potency drop off and saturation problems. I'll admit, I hoped these reports were unfounded. Well suffice to say, I've found them to be true. Your most 'accurate' dosing day is immediately following filling the kalk reactor - from there's it's a downhill slope, each day your dosing solution will be contributing a bit less to dKh, calc and pH buffer. This is very frustrating to 'balance' - and I was needing to dump in kalk weekly as well as daily increase dosing time manually to counter act. My solution? I proframmed a base kalk dosing amt (for when it's just been filled) and then calculate and progressively increment the amount dosed each day. I've been doing this for a week now with very promising results. Nothing too complex, but should stabilize things even more with little on-going involvement from me. Just need to top off kalk every week ish.
- Progessive kalkwasser dosing
OP
OP
Thanks! I'm impressed with the hammers, they've been getting hit with some serious light as I blast my acros - they're all growing well and add some fun movement .
The doser is the bubble magus ts4, it has one dosing speed you can select, so to do anything dynamic you've got to program. I knew this when I bought it though. I'm a software engineer and coding something to do this for me was just an enjoyable project. I also am able to use JavaScript instead of something custom like Apex, which seems nightmarish.
I dump about 1/4 cup of kalk each week. That leaves a pretty decent lump on the bottom. The stirrer is pushing through it constantly, I don't think I can lower it, can't see the plastic as it moves really. RO line stops a few inches below the bottom. I can try adding significantly more kalk but it seems like 2 weeks is the max between refills before significant under saturation is noticed (dosing not meeting Alk demand.) That's mentioned in Avast's site though, refill every 2. Honestly in my forever setup I will have a brute filled with it like you do. Way more exact.
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
Maybe try a half cup or more and see if it makes a difference. If I remember correctly you can adjust the height of the stirrer. I kept mine close to the bottom. I saw a picture of someone's ro line cut just below the water line. That made me scratch my head a bit. Just making sure you hadn't done the same. I only checked the pH of my k1 a handful of times, so no idea if it kept its potency or not. Just trying to be helpful.
When I went to Macna I got a chance to talk to Dr Craig Bingman. He did a seminar on kalk. Anyways, the potency stuff is still an issue with the large reservoirs. Even if they're pretty tightly sealed, they will lose potency if they're sitting around too long. He recommended I mix up the sediment or add a bit more kalk once a week.
That doser looks nearly identical to the Aqua Excel I got. Good price too on that one! Have you stocked up on replacement pharmed tubing yet?
Petcrazyson
5000 Club Member
So where are the new fishies?
OP
OP
Ahh, great request! This build thread is loaded with corals, I definitely am not giving my fish their due credit.
Golden Rhomboidalis Wrasse
New Katherine's Wrasse
Orchid dottyback (just transferred from my cube), Whitetail bristletooth/yellow-eyed kole tang
new DaVinci clownfish with a photo bomb from the katherine's wrasse
yellow tang with a few acros
Special thanks to @jhuntstl for giving me gif ideas/motivation.
Ghostbuster
Active Member
Your system looks real nice and balanced! Just read through your thread this morning and you’ve been real busy . One recommendation I have is raising your nutrients more by maybe doubling your feeding, and don’t change your other tank parameters, like dosing and lighting (keep the same schedule going; set it and forget it). I’ve noticed that seasoned reefkeepers will increase nutrients (nitrates&phosphates) with increased or intense lighting schedules. I just noticed one of your graphs showed extremely low nutrients, which means you could be starving your coral. So, feed a little more, relax and watch your tank grow. If you find you really, really need to do something else with your tank, then only work on keeping your pH stable throughout the day and night. But, that’s not a biggie though. You have a very large assortment of coral that will take off and fill your aquarium up in the next six months to a year; it’s gonna look amazing
OP
OP
Thanks for the advice! Absolutely agreed on raising parameters, it's been a real struggle keeping NO3/PO4 > 0 since starting the tank. I've been liquid dosing each hourly for many months (via a doser for about 1 month now thankfully.) Only very recently have I been able to back off slightly on the liquid dosing as I've landed on a reasonable feeding regiment with a measured export.
One thing counter to what you've said....I am gradually changing the lighting schedule. The short of it is: migrate to T5s as the primary light source, with LEDs as ramp ups/supplements. I've got too many acros spread out and the LEDS are just way too spot/directional heavy. I had them on for 6 hours each, with only one hour overlap. Goal is to change this to all four bulbs on for four hours together (maybe 6 hours eventually). I've significantly reduced my LEDs intensity and am slowly increasing the overlap of the T5s. Been at this for about 2 weeks now and things are looking good, best polyp extension I've ever had I think. Likely the increased nutrients have helped or are the main cause too!
Petcrazyson
5000 Club Member
Really nice polyp extension
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