Old School SPS Reef v4.0
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spsick
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Thanks Tim!
Ran an ICP test as I figured I should have one when the tank is doing well. Everything looked perfect except my Potassium and Iodine were both high. I’ve been dosing them a little as they test low with my Salifert kits. Guess I need to throttle back the dose a little!
K was 445
I was 104
Ran an ICP test as I figured I should have one when the tank is doing well. Everything looked perfect except my Potassium and Iodine were both high. I’ve been dosing them a little as they test low with my Salifert kits. Guess I need to throttle back the dose a little!
K was 445
I was 104
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spsick
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Not much to report here other than decent continuing coral and bubble algae growth.
I try to stay ahead of the bubble algae with this cool tool from Fish of Hex that scrapes them and sucks them out but I just never have enough water to do it with 7g a week water changes.
I have been doing manual water changes just to stay on top of the bubbles algae and detritus in the sand. The convenience of AWC is nice but is not without sacrifice.
Some coral pics:
Heartbreaker 2 years in from a frag:
RR Orange Passion 3 years in from a frag but I’ve chopped a few frags off it.
This flashlight has doubled in size in 9 months, and Aquatic Man starting to take off:
Cool side shot:
I try to stay ahead of the bubble algae with this cool tool from Fish of Hex that scrapes them and sucks them out but I just never have enough water to do it with 7g a week water changes.
I have been doing manual water changes just to stay on top of the bubbles algae and detritus in the sand. The convenience of AWC is nice but is not without sacrifice.
Some coral pics:
Heartbreaker 2 years in from a frag:
RR Orange Passion 3 years in from a frag but I’ve chopped a few frags off it.
This flashlight has doubled in size in 9 months, and Aquatic Man starting to take off:
Cool side shot:
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spsick
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About a year ago I ran a line to bring fresh air in to my skimmer from outside.
My tank always did fine with a pH range from 7.8-8.1 but since we moved into a smaller house the fluctuations were greater when both of us were at work the same time or the windows were open in the spring/fall which caused alk usage spikes and dips. This leveled all that out and now tank is 8.0-8.3 no matter what.
I don’t like to bring it up as the hysteria BRS created around pH annoys me as people had thriving reefs with lower pH (including myself and you probably) for years before this recent trend. I sure wasn’t monitoring pH when I had a 1 bedroom apartment and that may have been my most successful tank before all these gadgets.
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spsick
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Currently I’m running 2x Coral Plus, 2x Blue Plus, 1x Purple Plus, and 1x Actinic.
When the actinic is toast I’ll swap it back to a Blue Plus as I tried it for a year and do not think it gave the same benefit as the old UVL actinic did to be worth the sacrifice in output.
I get the from BRS or my local shop if I’m there around bulb time.
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spsick
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Reporting back in my crackpot idea:
Made a little sand siphon filter assembly to work on detritus and not have to burn through 20gal of new water in the process.
Hooked up a Sicce 1.5 to a 1/2” threaded RO canister with a 5 micron sediment filter spilling into a bucket. Worked very well at pulling the detritus and keeping the water output perfectly clean.
Downsides:
-hard to get siphon going as the pump creates no vacuum. Had to fill the canister and still suck start it which was precarious.
-clogged the filter by the time I had ran about 5 gallons. Perhaps I can wash and reuse.
Ultimately the juice was not worth the squeeze. If I had a bigger tank I would work harder on this but honestly it was more work that it was worth to save some gallons worth of salt.
Made a little sand siphon filter assembly to work on detritus and not have to burn through 20gal of new water in the process.
Hooked up a Sicce 1.5 to a 1/2” threaded RO canister with a 5 micron sediment filter spilling into a bucket. Worked very well at pulling the detritus and keeping the water output perfectly clean.
Downsides:
-hard to get siphon going as the pump creates no vacuum. Had to fill the canister and still suck start it which was precarious.
-clogged the filter by the time I had ran about 5 gallons. Perhaps I can wash and reuse.
Ultimately the juice was not worth the squeeze. If I had a bigger tank I would work harder on this but honestly it was more work that it was worth to save some gallons worth of salt.
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spsick
Valuable Member
FTS from the other day:
Ran an ICP test. Only thing of note was strontium was super low so I bumped that and will add .5ppm/month to keep it in line.
Corals are looking a little pale and I have even increased feeding and adjusted the skimmer to run more dry. I think the bubble algae is just soaking up nutrients reducing availability to corals as my nitrates are like 2-5 and phosphate is .04.
I need to take a full day to pull every rock and scrub it but that’s a monster task.
Got a baby 2” purple tang in QT right now as a friend locally told me he has several in different tanks and they all wreck bubble algae so fingers crossed. He blazed through all the hair algae in the QT tank in a meter of days so that’s promising.
Ran an ICP test. Only thing of note was strontium was super low so I bumped that and will add .5ppm/month to keep it in line.
Corals are looking a little pale and I have even increased feeding and adjusted the skimmer to run more dry. I think the bubble algae is just soaking up nutrients reducing availability to corals as my nitrates are like 2-5 and phosphate is .04.
I need to take a full day to pull every rock and scrub it but that’s a monster task.
Got a baby 2” purple tang in QT right now as a friend locally told me he has several in different tanks and they all wreck bubble algae so fingers crossed. He blazed through all the hair algae in the QT tank in a meter of days so that’s promising.
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spsick
Valuable Member
It’s funny how I have a few acros that aren’t growing at all (I should move them) and then this happens. I cut frags from where these 2 branches are 5 months ago and these are 2”+ already. Fragging can really can encourage growth on stagnant parts of colonies!
Picked up this nice frag of JF Solar Flare 2 weeks ago from a friend, it’s on the sand bed and already sprouting new growth! Maybe I should move my BC Sex Feast Millie that hasn’t grown at all to the sand haha
Picked up this nice frag of JF Solar Flare 2 weeks ago from a friend, it’s on the sand bed and already sprouting new growth! Maybe I should move my BC Sex Feast Millie that hasn’t grown at all to the sand haha
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spsick
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Made a couple minor tweaks that seems to have woke up a couple stagnant acros.
Added an hour to all bulbs on time to 7 hours, turned up AWC from 7g to 10g/week, added a feeding ring so all the pellets go in the tank instead of 40% going straight to the overflow.
Added an hour to all bulbs on time to 7 hours, turned up AWC from 7g to 10g/week, added a feeding ring so all the pellets go in the tank instead of 40% going straight to the overflow.
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