Old School SPS Reef v4.0

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4 happy fish just graduated quarantine! Integrated perfectly. I it’s added them after a feeding. I was concerned the striped blennies would dish out a whoopin but no beef to be seen.

1x Biota Filefish
2x Biota Rainfords Gobies
1x Mcoskers Flasher Wrasse

 

[drawman]

How's the tank Ben? It's Tim (coralreefer) from tcmas.

 

[spsick]

How's the tank Ben? It's Tim (coralreefer) from tcmas.

Hey Tim!

It’s doing ok. Had a couple colonies I’ve had for years melt on me due to fluctuations in pH that resulted in P04 bottoming out. I’ll get some pics here after I clean the glass.

 

[drawman]

Hey Tim!

It’s doing ok. Had a couple colonies I’ve had for years melt on me due to fluctuations in pH that resulted in P04 bottoming out. I’ll get some pics here after I clean the glass.

Well here is hoping they turn around. I'm running into something similar with the PO4 bottoming out so trying hard to inch it higher!

 

[spsick]

Long overdue update!

Tank is starting to hit it‘s stride. Unfortunately so is the bubble algae. AWC has benefits and in my case one of those is that it allows bubble algae to thrive unchecked from manual removal during regular WC. I’ve gone back to manual WC 7 gal weekly hoping to get ahead of it.

I foolishly tried CO2 scrubbing again as the tank suffers from lower pH- 7.8- 8.1. This lead me to bottom out phosphate from the big jump in pH and consumption. Coupled with the fact even 2 canisters online the first one had to be changed every couple days which does not work for my situation, thus causing greater inconsistency. Lost my big Hawkins and Flashlight colonies I’ve had since I got back into the hobby like 7 years ago. They made it through 3 moves and 2 tank upgrades. So, lesson learned.

Even though my only method of filtration is a big skimmer, I still have a hard time maintaining nutrients. Probably from a tank full of stony coral and rampant bubble algae. I have started dosing 2ml daily of neophos and this has been keeping me in the .03-.05ppm range and everything seems to be much happier.

On to the pictures! Not bad for an iPhone!

WWC Heartbreaker

BC Secale

Oregon Tort

RR Orange Passion

I think it’s ORA Purple Plasma but not sure.

My 2 fav acros ever! Gcarrols Ultimate Blue stag and Lime in the Sky. Very happy to have these back in my tank. They are bouncing back from the phos bottoming out.

Raja Rampage going nuts

FTS

 

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Looking back to when this tank was just a 40 breeder I’m blown away by how fast things grew and how good my polyp extension was. Only 2 things different were:

-I ran a lower alk- it was usually around 7 and now I run at 8 to more closely match the salt mix (Still blue bucket).
-had a FAT foxface that ate a ton of nori.

Which do we think was the secret sauce? Everything else on my system is ran exactly the way I always have.

 

[drawman]

Tank looks great Ben! Sounds like the neophos has been helping?

 

[spsick]

Tank looks great Ben! Sounds like the neophos has been helping?

Thanks!

Sure appears that way at least for this point in the tank’s life. More fish aren’t an option and I’m feeding as mI have as I can justify- 2 cycles daily from my auto feeder (mix of fauna Marin spirulina and TDO) and a cube sized chunk of LRS. My guess is the bubble algae is having the effect of a refuting and sucking up all the phosphate.

 

[drawman]

Thanks!

Sure appears that way at least for this point in the tank’s life. More fish aren’t an option and I’m feeding as mI have as I can justify- 2 cycles daily from my auto feeder (mix of fauna Marin spirulina and TDO) and a cube sized chunk of LRS. My guess is the bubble algae is having the effect of a refuting and sucking up all the phosphate.

I'm right there with you having a similar issue. Low on the bioload here and won't add any more fish at the moment.

 

[spsick]

Small update.

Bubble Algae and Nutrients
After a few weeks of going ham on the bubble algae during water changes I’ve gotten in under control for now and as suspected, it was soaking up a lot of nutrients. Stopped dosing neophos a few weeks ago and still reading .08-.09 on every test. Nitrates Pretty steady around 17ppm. I’d like to see these numbers come down but I’m going to let it ride for some time before any intervention.


Kalkwasser
Added an Avast K2 kalk reactor with a BRS 50ml doser trying to get ph in better shape as I was dipping down into 7.7 territory and barely touching 8 during the day. Set the kalk reactor to do about 75% duty of my daily evaporation and adjusted 2 part accordingly. I’m now closer to the 8 at night and 8.25-8.3 during the day. I’ll run this for a while and see if the benefit is worth the additional maintenance and equipment. I should get the doser in my basement and pull out of my RO bin to cut down on lugging jugs upstairs but the cautious reefer in me is reluctant. I’ve always been of the camp of limiting top off water reservoir size for safety, in the event an outlet were to stick on. One never has but if it did I guess 30 gal of kalk isn’t much different than 1 gal of 2 part alkalinity in terms of tank nuking potential so idk.

I’ll take some more pics to make this thread a little more interesting!

 

[spsick]

I guess I have a couple decent shots on my phone.

JF Dayglo Favia with a weird green infected section

Heartbreaker plugging along nicely

Some sideboob action!

Acro I got from my friend Carl. He called it highlighter but it’s different than the highlighter I had unfortunatel. Not as bright and more polyps. A pretty coral nonetheless.

 

[Pico bam]

Looking good Ben, Can't wait to pick up the corals!

 

[spsick]

Looking good Ben, Can't wait to pick up the corals!

Thanks!

 

[drawman]

Tank looks great Ben! That heartbreaker is nice!

 

[spsick]

Tank looks great Ben! That heartbreaker is nice!

Thanks Tim!

I ordered an Avast porthole with a xmas gift card so I can take pics without T5 bulb reflection

 

[spsick]

I sold my Raja Rampage and Space Invader colonies as they were getting too big for this tank. I knew all consumption would go down so kept an eye on it, seemed to hold but sure enough 2 days later it shot up 2 points to 10! Yikes! Everything looks ok and I shut off the kalk and 2 part and I’ll test every 12 hours as I want to bring it down slowly. I partially attribute it to adding kalk to the reactor so if I want to continue use I’ll need to add a PM2 module so I can monitor saturation. 2 part has been rock solid for me for years so if can’t get consistency I’ll pull it and live with low pH.

Avast porthole came so I snapped a few pics. iPhone 13 mini does a dang good job, I just adjust color temp a tiny bit to reflect what I see.

RR Orange Passion

Blue sponge trying to out blue my smaller Oregon tort colony. It only looks this blue from above, it’s more purple from the viewing panes kind of like how clams do that.

new RR Firecracker frag and my bubble algae plague

Hawkins and BC Secale both courtesy of Coral Euphoria. I highly recommend Abe if you are Looking for healthy Acropora!

Tyree Lime in the Sky and GC Ultimate Blue stag. Can‘t get good pics of these but I’ll be happy when they are the centerpieces of my tank.

 

[spsick]

Pretty weird. My tank was consuming .6 dkh a day but I’ve had kalk and 2 part off for 2 days and it’s still 9.3 this evening. I’m sure those 2 LPS were soaking up a lot of all but dang!

 

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Ended up pulling the Kalk reactor as it was just creating more instability and drilled a hole in my house for a fresh air line to my skimmer. Since then stability has been way better. No drastic drops when my wife and/or I am home for the day.

Added a couple frags courtesy of @Battlecorals Superb Owl sale and they are looking great!

Peek-o-train, battle de fuego, and sex feast

 

[drawman]

Looks solid Ben!

 

[spsick]

Swapped out at Blue Plus for an Actinic and started dosing 2ml a day of acropower. PE looking better already although both are very minor changes.

I wish my Oregon tort would grow up instead of down! It’s doing great so tough to complain!

Finally got an ok pic of how amazing the color on @gcarroll Ultimate Blue stag is!

BC Aquaticman looking dim next to the flashlight