My Big Beautiful Budget Breeder Build

[NY_Caveman]

Beautiful! I love Caulastrea!

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looking great.

Thanks man! Fighting hair and bubble algae ATM but not sweating it

 

[Retro Reefer]

Beautiful! I love Caulastrea!

thank you! I need to gather up all the new babies off of my substrate today and mount them, they are very tiny (smaller than pea size, skeleton and all) so it should be interesting

 

[Crabby48]

Your photos always looks great. So much detail in the FTS.
Caulastrea growth is crazy

 

[Fudsey]

I found a head of one floating around on the sand yesterday. Not sure if it's a baby or a broken head. Just going to let it be and see what becomes of it.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I found a head of one floating around on the sand yesterday. Not sure if it's a baby or a broken head. Just going to let it be and see what becomes of it.

Im not sure if it’s what they do in the wild but a head usually near the bottom of colony will self destruct into shards of skeleton with little bits of flesh attached.. after a few days the bit of flesh will puff up and look like a little head but with no mouth parts. I never tried to salvage the ones that I’ve had in the past but I have a bunch of frag plugs now so just for fun I’m going to see if I can mount a couple and see what happens

 

[Fudsey]

I grabbed it and threw it on the rocks but later it was gone, back on the sand.... No real skeleton that I could feel though.

 

[NY_Caveman]

My hermits have torn a couple of heads off. I just left them floating until they found a spot. So far they are all still alive.

 

[Retro Reefer]

So I’m about 8 weeks into my automated dosing and I can‘t believe the difference it has made in my ALK stability. when I was manually dosing my numbers where all over the place, as much as a 5-7 point difference between each test but now my swings are 2-3 points at most and my last three test done over a nine day period where identical! The other great thing is the reduced work load, it’s so nice not having to remember to manually add everything daily

#DoserForLife ;Hilarious

 

[Crabby48]

It’s nice when you buy a product and see more advantages then expected. I would never be able to keep track of manual dosing. I can barely remember to top off the auto top off.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

So I’m about 8 weeks into my automated dosing and I can‘t believe the difference it has made in my ALK stability. when I was manually dosing my numbers where all over the place, as much as a 5-7 point difference between each test but now my swings are 2-3 points at most and my last three test done over a nine day period where identical! The other great thing is the reduced work load, it’s so nice not having to remember to manually add everything daily

#DoserForLife ;Hilarious

I'm looking forward to this. The caulastrea colonies are impressive. Now I know why u have no room!

 

[Retro Reefer]

It’s nice when you buy a product and see more advantages then expected. I would never be able to keep track of manual dosing. I can barely remember to top off the auto top off.

I know right? lol, now it’s remembering to fill my ATO once a week and my cal and alk containers every few weeks ;Facepalm I have maintained all my past tanks parameters with water changes and Kalkwasser so this whole 2 part thing is new to me I think the biggest issue was dumping in a whole daily dose kinda whenever I thought about it along with my testing regiment which wasn’t much better was causing the perceived swings, but now with the doser the daily amount is broken into 6 parts and I’m testing at the same time every 3 days.

 

[madlos123]

what kind of overflow are you using? it looks like one of the eshops hob overflow. how is it doing any problems? do you recommend one or just drill it? i do too have a 40 gallon breeder and wanted to upgrade to a sump. thanks

 

[Retro Reefer]

what kind of overflow are you using? it looks like one of the eshops hob overflow. how is it doing any problems? do you recommend one or just drill it? i do too have a 40 gallon breeder and wanted to upgrade to a sump. thanks

Yes it’s a eshopps, it works fantastic with zero issues, I have been reefing for 3+ decades and have never drilled a tank (why would you ) there are so many benefits to a HOB overflow but the biggest for me is ease of installation and maintenance, in literally 2 minutes I can completely remove or replace the whole assembly! the only thing you need to do is have sufficient flow to prevent air pocket from forming in the U tube which if left unchecked will break siphon.

A few of the many benefits:

* typically cheaper than overflow box
* no drilling or risk of your breaking tank
* simple and easy 5 min < installation
* position it anywhere on tank, don’t like where it‘s at simply move it! (try that with drilled overflow)
* fully adjustable water level in your display (try that with drilled overflow)
* built in easy to service pre filter which I love!
* simple to clean.. just unplug drain line and lift the whole assembly off tank!
* need to do maintenance on it? just remove from tank and repair or replace in minutes (try to fix a drilled overflow on a full tank that’s inches from a wall, good luck with that )
* no leaking bulk heads
* something get sucked into overflow? simply lift it off and retrieve (try that with a internal overflow)

Get one and you to can spend all that extra time and money enjoying your tank

 

[Crabby48]

I know right? lol, now it’s remembering to fill my ATO once a week and my cal and alk containers every few weeks ;Facepalm I have maintained all my past tanks parameters with water changes and Kalkwasser so this whole 2 part thing is new to me I think the biggest issue was dumping in a whole daily dose kinda whenever I thought about it along with my testing regiment which wasn’t much better was causing the perceived swings, but now with the doser the daily amount is broken into 6 parts and I’m testing at the same time every 3 days.

Seeing some test results of Neptune’s trident testing throughout the day and night interest me on how much alk can swing with coral up take during the day then dosing a days worth and testing different times I could see that messing with you.
Excited to learn to dos but also enjoying the time not having to add something else to confuse me.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I have been really behind on my build thread, fighting hair algae the last few weeks which doesn’t make for the best pictures.. lol.

My NPS gorgonians are having a tough go of it as they attract algae like magnets so they have been getting a daily brushing and I also blow them off with turkey baster, the yellow one I shake in front of power head

I found the culprit as my phosphate finally shot up to .38 so I have been running phosguard for the last week and my Po4 is now down around .18 and falling.. the hair algae has been literally melting before my eyes so along with my new CUC members and lots of manual removal things are looking better

picture from today..

 

[Crabby48]

Hope the cuc keep up while po4 comes down. Sounds like you caught it in time to keep it under control

 

[Retro Reefer]

I have been super happy with my coral box skimmer, I’m surprised they don’t get more love? the controllable DC pump and precision gate valve make getting all sorts of skimate a possibility, I usually run it a little wet but I have been running it drier lately to cut down the amount of times I have to dump the cup (I’m lazy)

 

[Retro Reefer]

Hope the cuc keep up while po4 comes down. Sounds like you caught it in time to keep it under control

Im not sweating it to much, my gorgi’s suffering got me motivated to clear it out.. I’m also going to go ahead and let the coralline grow on back glass as I’ve been scraping it off, that will help with the nuisance algae tremendously.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Ur FTS's never disappoint. Loving it.