My Big Beautiful Budget Breeder Build

[Retro Reefer]

WOW! Very nice!

Thank you!

 

[najer]

Looking very nice.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Looking awwwwwful tight for space in there..

May need a frag tank soon

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looking awwwwwful tight for space in there..

May need a frag tank soon

I wasn’t planning on anything growing

 

[Retro Reefer]

Helped my brother-in-law this weekend and he gave me a neon green Povona coral, they can be quite aggressive so I’m not sure where I’ll place it but found a temporary spot for now.

 

[najer]

Helped my brother-in-law this weekend and he gave me a neon green Povona coral, they can be quite aggressive so I’m not sure where I’ll place it but found a temporary spot for now.

They do have a reputation, not always true!
Tank on led only evening now, remind me to get you a pic of one of mine and a monti tomorrow!

 

[wildcrazyjoker81]

Looks good. I know my 40B is packed and I constantly am looking at ways of adding more corals ha ha.

 

[Retro Reefer]

SD Venom growth over approximately 11 weeks

 

[NY_Caveman]

Awesome progression pictures!

 

[Retro Reefer]

Awesome progression pictures!

Thanks man.. It seemed that growth had been painfully slow since the March photo until I compared current picture to others. I’m now feeling pretty confident about adding more SPS to the system.

 

[cperry7467]

Did anything change in Feb/March in your tank? Higher alk, nutrients, lighting, flow, etc? That's quite a growth spurt in March compared to the previous months. Just curious if it just took that long to settle in or if you think it's related to a change made.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

SD Venom growth over approximately 11 weeks

Nice

 

[najer]

Nice, I love watching things grow!

 

[Retro Reefer]

Did anything change in Feb/March in your tank? Higher alk, nutrients, lighting, flow, etc? That's quite a growth spurt in March compared to the previous months. Just curious if it just took that long to settle in or if you think it's related to a change made.

The only thing I have been actually doing over the last couple months is changing over to Kalkwasser from 2 part, still trying to balance everything out and my Alk has dropped to about 7.6 from my normal 8.2-8.5 tank is also really young so I’m sure it’s still stabilizing.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Nice

Nice, I love watching things grow!

Thanks guys! Still waiting for that Pavona pic Simon

 

[Retro Reefer]

Since I stopped 2 part I’m struggling to maintain Alk, hopefully in time I can push my Kalkwasser enough to keep up.. still adding about 5ml Alk every other day but I have completely stopped magnesium and calcium. At this point I’m dosing approximately 1 quart of saturated calcium hydroxide solution between 23:00 and 9:00 am.

* I believe the calcium reading on March 11 was potentially inaccurate

 

[wildcrazyjoker81]

I tried to stop 2 part as well, but alkalinity demand became more than kalk was putting back in, so 2 part went back on. SPS demand on alkalinity is brutal in a small tank. I just recently switched to Fritz red box with higher alkalinity to see if that will help maintain levels, but for now I will stick with 2 part ESV B-Ionic. Good luck.

 

[najer]

Since I stopped 2 part I’m struggling to maintain Alk, hopefully in time I can push my Kalkwasser enough to keep up.. still adding about 5ml Alk every other day but I have completely stopped magnesium and calcium. At this point I’m dosing approximately 1 quart of saturated calcium hydroxide solution between 23:00 and 9:00 am.

I do actually understand how this works, sort of, balancing your cal and mag will pull your kh down, I am currently trying to balance the twins, my cal and mag were low, test kh daily, look at the shape of the graphs, it is settling!

 

[Retro Reefer]

I tried to stop 2 part as well, but alkalinity demand became more than kalk was putting back in, so 2 part went back on. SPS demand on alkalinity is brutal in a small tank. I just recently switched to Fritz red box with higher alkalinity to see if that will help maintain levels, but for now I will stick with 2 part ESV B-Ionic. Good luck.

I’m afraid I’ll eventually be in the same boat, I have maintained all my tanks with only Kalk but none have had any real quantity’s of SPS.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I do actually understand how this works, sort of, balancing your cal and mag will pull your kh down, I am currently trying to balance the twins, my cal and mag were low, test kh daily, look at the shape of the graphs, it is settling!

Glad you said “sort of” It seems like my calcium and magnesium are finding their happy place but Alk is still steadily dropping... I’m going to keep slowly pushing up my Kalk and hopefully I’ll eventually find the sweet spot