My Journey - from starting over to moving up...

blstravler · Aug 31, 2021

Since I moved from the old tank to this tank I’ve removed some of my bigger colonies and have added a lot of new frags. Here are some of the new ones -

BC Fire Engine -

BC Rose Vine -

blstravler · Aug 31, 2021

BC Age if Fire

BC Conveyor Belt of Fleshbunce

blstravler · Sep 5, 2021

Still working on my photography skills a little…

blstravler · Sep 5, 2021

New short vide -

blstravler · Oct 17, 2021

Tank has been doing well. Just focusing on keep my maintenance up to date. Happy I have the Trident and went to dosing - has made everything so much easier. Just have to really focus on Phosphates and Nitrates. My Nitrates have come down to 3.8 which is lower then I like so I’ve shortened the lighting cycle on the refugium to see if I can get things back over 5.

blstravler · Oct 17, 2021

Here are a few pics…

blstravler · Jul 16, 2022

It’s been a minute since I last posted an update. Here a current FTS -

blstravler · Sep 30, 2023

WOW been more than a year since I’ve updated this build thread. For the last year my goal was just to let things grow and try to dial back things to make maintenance as easy as possible. I haven’t added a fish or coral in at least a year. I just focused on parameters ALK, Cal, Mag, PO4 and No4. I kept dosing ESV 2 part and did monthly ICP test and dosed the elements that are recommended in the results. I did change salts a few times and finally ended back to using IO Reef Crystals.

This has all worked okay but recently my ALK intake has slowed and many of my corals have lost their color. I did discover my UV bulb died so I used that as an opportunity to upgrade my UV.

I’ve also noticed that my tank had gotten really dirty. The detritus build up in the tank and in the sump was crazy. So I cleaned the sump and I’ve gone back to blowing off my rock work weekly, something I had not been doing for the last year.

I’ve also decided to go back to dosing some of the KZ products I used in the past but stopped a year ago. So once those arrive I’ll post what I’m dosing and how often. For now here’s a few pics, will post a FTS later today.

Bpb · Sep 30, 2023

Man. That is a goals looking tank right there my friend

blstravler · Sep 30, 2023

Here a quick video. My pics above look a little odd to me, Video seems to have better color -

Tank September 2023

blstravler · Sep 30, 2023

Bpb said:
Man. That is a goals looking tank right there my friend

Thanks @Bpb how’s your new tank doing? Still have corals I got from you a few years back!

Bpb · Sep 30, 2023

blstravler said:
Thanks @Bpb how’s your new tank doing? Still have corals I got from you a few years back!

It’s been….better. But it’s been worse. I updated the build thread fairly recently. Glad to see yours is still thriving!

blstravler · Oct 6, 2023

So this is what I’ve started dosing from KZ. I previously dosed just Flatworm Stop and Coral Booster. I stopped that a while ago and will include them again moving forward along with others. I’ll judge any positive or negative impacts over the next 90 days and make a decision after that to keep going or not. Of course if I see any severe negative impacts I’d likely stop sooner.

This is everything along with the dose…

Product	Dosage Notes
Flatworm Stop	5 ml Daily
Pohl’s Xtra Concentrate	2.5 ml daily
Cyano Clean	10 drops daily
Coral Booster	5 ml every other day
Sponge Power Concentrate	5 drops every other day
Bio-Mate	5 drops twice a week
Pohl’s Coral Vitalizer	5 drops 3 times a week
Amino Acid Concentrate	5 drops 3 times a week
Pohl A-Balance	10 ml weekly
Pohl’s B-Balance	12 ml weekly

blstravler · Oct 14, 2023

This is going to be a long post....

One of the reasons I started KZ Products was my colors have been really of and things don't look like the have, my All intake has dropped and I was going nuts trying to figure out what was wrong, something had to be wrong. Then earlier this week I happen stumble across Bill Bramucci's tank aka @Epic Aquaculture and that lead me to @ReefBum YouTube interview of him here - ReefBum Rappin' with Bill - at the 46:30 mark Bill mention's he had a problem with a rusting magnet. He also said he saw poor color on his SPS and lowered Alk consumption, sounded familiar. So the next morning I checked all the magnets in my tank. I didn't find a rusting magnets. However, I found the magnets in both my COR 15 and COR 20 pumps massively deteriorating. I was shocked, they had been operating silently with out any noise or vibration. In the below pics you can see the black on the paper towel, that is the Inside of the pump magnet ground up. If you look at the pics of the inside of the pump you can see the grooves in the magnet. I did find what I believe to be rust mixed in with the black magnet grit. Not good. It was at this time I also found to that every Reef store in NJ is closed on Tuesday . After I stopped freaking out, I realized I needed to find a temp return pump. Unfortunately I had to use the COR 20 for a little while longer. I eventually replaced the COR 15 with a Sicce Syncra SDC 3.0 and the COR 20 with a Sicce Syncra SDC 7.0.

A few days later my Alk use is increasing and my colors look to be coming back. So thanks to @ReefBum and @Epic Aquaculture, if not for that video I wouldn't have found this issue until I was due to clean my pumps again in December.

blstravler · Nov 4, 2023

So after the pump debacle I’ve really been focusing on dosing the KZ products and just getting things in order. I’m back to blowing off my rock once a week with a small MJ 1200 and trying to keep things clean. I also made a change to the right side of my scape.

I sold off these two colonies -

I moved the remaining rock around and moved some smaller SPS pieces over to that side so they have some room to grow -

Still want to move a few things around before I make things permanent but I’m pretty happy so far. Might just have enough room for a couple new pieces!

blstravler · Mar 7, 2024

Haven’t posted in forever, tanks doing a lot better since I got things cleaned up. Taking the bad pump out was a big improvement.

I no longer dose any KZ products and I’m just focusing on my core elements and doing monthly ICP test and dosing what is low in the test results.

Over a period of 6 months I’ve come up with an average weekly dose of elements that I’m always low on for my monthly ICP test. This is now what I’m dosing weekly…