Gumbies R Us
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Tank looks great!
My Waterbox Peninsula Journey.
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- Thread starter AstroMelly
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- Tagged users Hair Algae Wizard
Who is the coffee drinker? Gary? Do you think he would maybe prefer International Delight Carmel Machiato to Coffee Mate? I know I prefer it a lot more and as an added bonus it cools your coffee down a bit.
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AstroMelly
Active Member
We can’t get those big ones anymore! Costco was the best place but they stopped selling those in the UK for some reason.
I keep all my 3D printed ‘stuff’ in them.
You’re right, it’s the snails who are always on the Nespresso machine!
We discovered coffeemate years ago by accident. We are not big milk drinkers and coffee mate doesn’t go off!
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AstroMelly
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Time for an update...
Artois is still doing great - he is 4 and a half months old now and is about 12mm nose to tail. He is still in the 22 litre 'pico' tank and has some anemone buddies which he enjoys trampling on.
I was reading back through my limited posting and realised we have recently turned a corner with the tank. We have been battling high nitrates since the start and tried a few different attempts at solving. I started dosing vodka in July last year and stopped a few weeks back. It was not working for us and here is my take on why.
First I started too slow. Having seen more recent posts by others it seems the regime I was following was outdated and started at too low a dose and increased too slowly. Randy Holmes-Farley had better suggestions on which dosage to start at and how to increment and it's quite possible even my finishing dose of 7.5ml per day of standard 40% proof vodka was not actually doing anything for the nitrate levels. In fact what it was doing was producing a lot of white flocculent material which I did not enjoy seeing flying around the tank. I did not fancy upping the dose further so when my latest dosing container naturally emptied I decided I had had enough and let it be.
With this in mind I decided it was finally time to rip out the glass baffles in the sump where the filter socks were previously (replaced with a ReefMat 1200 which has been great - apart from the drive module failure which was sorted by RedSea a few weeks back). The sump modification was not easy but I did manage in the end to remove the glass panels and the filter sock holders. I used the red sea sump modification kit which was actually pretty good but I did break the thin blades a few times after they got jammed in very tight gaps. Watch the you tube video if you are using this - it's pretty good. This modification opened up a (pretty small - 27cm*20cm) section of the sump which had only a small amount of flow (from the UV and RowaPhos reactor outputs) - probably around 1000 lph - I bought the Tunze Refugium light and a handful of Chaeto and set that in motion. The low flow seemed pretty good and the chaeto tumbled nicely at first. It's since stopped tumbling but I don't think that really matters as it is definitely growing. I give it a nudge now and then. At around the same time I decided to dose MicroBacter7 daily. I think it was to try and restore some bacterial balance in the tank which I am sure is off (red and green cyano etc..). Plus I had half a bottle (more than a year old) and I knew it could be used to try and reduce nitrates. This time (I did dose this before when we first set the tank up but not religiously) I followed the instructions and cut the skimmer and UV for 4 hours after each dose.
After just a few weeks of setting up the refugium I tested nitrates and for the first time since setting the tank up they have dropped without a water change. This was last weekend. I tested again today and they have dropped again. Dropping quite quickly at the rate of about 1ppm per day!
Not sure if it's the refugium or the daily dosing of MB7 but I am happy at long last that we are seeing a steady decline in NH3. I will be halving the daily dose of MB7 in the coming days in accordance with their instructions so will see what happens. I hope it is the refugium that is reducing the nitrate since this would be ideal.
Here are my parameters:
If that link does not work:
We did a 150 (~20%) litre (entire sump drain and clean) water change on Jan 13th (hence the small decline) and that is when the sump modification was done. Refugium was set up a few days later and MB7 dosing started Jan 21st. No water changes since Jan 13th and now you can see the trend!
So happy I am going to feed my corals tonight and not feel guilty for the first time ever!
Artois is still doing great - he is 4 and a half months old now and is about 12mm nose to tail. He is still in the 22 litre 'pico' tank and has some anemone buddies which he enjoys trampling on.
I was reading back through my limited posting and realised we have recently turned a corner with the tank. We have been battling high nitrates since the start and tried a few different attempts at solving. I started dosing vodka in July last year and stopped a few weeks back. It was not working for us and here is my take on why.
First I started too slow. Having seen more recent posts by others it seems the regime I was following was outdated and started at too low a dose and increased too slowly. Randy Holmes-Farley had better suggestions on which dosage to start at and how to increment and it's quite possible even my finishing dose of 7.5ml per day of standard 40% proof vodka was not actually doing anything for the nitrate levels. In fact what it was doing was producing a lot of white flocculent material which I did not enjoy seeing flying around the tank. I did not fancy upping the dose further so when my latest dosing container naturally emptied I decided I had had enough and let it be.
With this in mind I decided it was finally time to rip out the glass baffles in the sump where the filter socks were previously (replaced with a ReefMat 1200 which has been great - apart from the drive module failure which was sorted by RedSea a few weeks back). The sump modification was not easy but I did manage in the end to remove the glass panels and the filter sock holders. I used the red sea sump modification kit which was actually pretty good but I did break the thin blades a few times after they got jammed in very tight gaps. Watch the you tube video if you are using this - it's pretty good. This modification opened up a (pretty small - 27cm*20cm) section of the sump which had only a small amount of flow (from the UV and RowaPhos reactor outputs) - probably around 1000 lph - I bought the Tunze Refugium light and a handful of Chaeto and set that in motion. The low flow seemed pretty good and the chaeto tumbled nicely at first. It's since stopped tumbling but I don't think that really matters as it is definitely growing. I give it a nudge now and then. At around the same time I decided to dose MicroBacter7 daily. I think it was to try and restore some bacterial balance in the tank which I am sure is off (red and green cyano etc..). Plus I had half a bottle (more than a year old) and I knew it could be used to try and reduce nitrates. This time (I did dose this before when we first set the tank up but not religiously) I followed the instructions and cut the skimmer and UV for 4 hours after each dose.
After just a few weeks of setting up the refugium I tested nitrates and for the first time since setting the tank up they have dropped without a water change. This was last weekend. I tested again today and they have dropped again. Dropping quite quickly at the rate of about 1ppm per day!
Not sure if it's the refugium or the daily dosing of MB7 but I am happy at long last that we are seeing a steady decline in NH3. I will be halving the daily dose of MB7 in the coming days in accordance with their instructions so will see what happens. I hope it is the refugium that is reducing the nitrate since this would be ideal.
Here are my parameters:
If that link does not work:
| Feb 4, 2024 14:06 | 30.1 ppm |
| Jan 29, 2024 17:28 | 36.5 ppm |
| Jan 20, 2024 09:38 | 43.4 ppm |
| Jan 10, 2024 20:00 | 42 ppm |
We did a 150 (~20%) litre (entire sump drain and clean) water change on Jan 13th (hence the small decline) and that is when the sump modification was done. Refugium was set up a few days later and MB7 dosing started Jan 21st. No water changes since Jan 13th and now you can see the trend!
So happy I am going to feed my corals tonight and not feel guilty for the first time ever!
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