Prostar 90v2

[rc8t6353]

Now with the bad stuff it's the way lol, back to the fun stuff. My sump is pretty small but wanted to have a place for some cheato. I removed the media cups and used that section for some macro algae. I had the light from my last tank. I got the cheato from a local reefer. So far I like it. I'm seeing more pods and I even saw a baby brittle starfish down there. The cheato has also grown in the month since going in. This is right after getting the light put in. The cups are gone now and that area is already half filled with cheato.

 

[Reef Puncher]

Got busy on the tank today! No distractions lol. Underneath my last tank was a spiderweb of wires and dosing lines. I also had the benefit of a corner that no one could see, so I put all the power supply bricks back there. I don't have that option now. The warden said everything must be beneath the tank..... Challenge accepted. I went to Menards and broke out a the few tools I had and came up with this control board.

you did a much better job than me with organizing the cables and wires. i have same tank. look at my ****** mess of a tank. BTW i dont like the plumbing, with smaller sumps like this, its very hard to get back in the return pumps area and do any cleaning or seeing whats going on because the pipes block you. i replaced my filter socks with red seas plastic cups, and use super cheap filter floss. that way every 3-4 days i can just toss it and not worry about washing socks anymore. its made my life so much easier. i also replaced the auto top off. i bought a 5 gallon reservoir (its actually a black trash can that looks like a reservoir haha) and use the tunze osmollator ATO. its kept me from filling it up every 2 days to now every 5 days.

 

[luis angel]

Following along, I have the same tank, great job with the tank thread

 

[Reef Puncher]

Following along, I have the same tank, great job with the tank thread

heyyyyy i have the same doser! and the same tank haha. the doser works well for $80. i did run into a problem of one of my 4 doser motors crapped out on me. had it for 10 months before it went out. the other 3 still work.
Can i suggest tossing the filter socks and getting this link here. It made my life so much easier using those and cheap filter floss from amazon. i spend $15 bucks on floss and it lasts me like 2 months. I just cut the fliter rolls into like 8 inch squares, put em in a bag, and when its time i just toss old one and shove new one in. takes like 10 seconds. never have to deal with hassle of washing socks again.

Here is my 10 month old tank.

 

[luis angel]

heyyyyy i have the same doser! and the same tank haha. the doser works well for $80. i did run into a problem of one of my 4 doser motors crapped out on me. had it for 10 months before it went out. the other 3 still work.
Can i suggest tossing the filter socks and getting this link here. It made my life so much easier using those and cheap filter floss from amazon. i spend $15 bucks on floss and it lasts me like 2 months. I just cut the fliter rolls into like 8 inch squares, put em in a bag, and when its time i just toss old one and shove new one in. takes like 10 seconds. never have to deal with hassle of washing socks again.

Here is my 10 month old tank.

Beautiful tank, That filter basket thing is a great idea, I'm buying them this week to try and see how it goes.

 

[rc8t6353]

you did a much better job than me with organizing the cables and wires. i have same tank. look at my ****** mess of a tank. BTW i dont like the plumbing, with smaller sumps like this, its very hard to get back in the return pumps area and do any cleaning or seeing whats going on because the pipes block you. i replaced my filter socks with red seas plastic cups, and use super cheap filter floss. that way every 3-4 days i can just toss it and not worry about washing socks anymore. its made my life so much easier. i also replaced the auto top off. i bought a 5 gallon reservoir (its actually a black trash can that looks like a reservoir haha) and use the tunze osmollator ATO. its kept me from filling it up every 2 days to now every 5 days.

Under my last tank looked exactly like yours lol. You don't wanna see behind that control board lol! I usually do the same with the cups and floss. I've been looking at bigger sumps for those same reasons.

 

[rc8t6353]

What's up everyone. Got a few updates on the Prostar and the Mancave Nano. Let's start with the Nano. I've pretty much just been doing bi weekly water changes on this tank. I'd like to add another Nano LED light, and a skimmer to this tank eventually. I added a frag of palys recently but that's it for coral additions. But, while at my LFS I was looking for some peppermint shrimp. I'll get into why in a few posts lol. But I saw this cool looking little goby chilling out in a shell. When I asked about it, they had forgot he was in there lol. I say he because in the process of trying to catch it, we found him next to another of the same goby flashing his fin! I was really excited because that makes me think they're paired. I still don't know exactly what kind of goby they are so if anyone wants to chime in, it's appreciated lol. Here they are!

 

[rc8t6353]

The Prostar is almost back at the levels I would like. I've been doing 20 gallon water changes and I've switched out the chemipure to bring my nitrates and phosphates down. For my big 3 I've started dosing All for Reef along with kalk. I decided to go this route because my kalk container is only 1 gallon. After adding the CO2 scrubber I was having a hard time keeping my Alk up with my limited amount of kalk. I'm starting slow and slowly lowering my kalk dose at the same time. I'm testing Alk every 2 or 3 days until I get the kalk and AFR dialed in. I'm aiming for 9-9.5dkh. My mini refugium is doing good. It's about time to trim some cheato.

 

[rc8t6353]

I'm not very excited with the way the tank is looking right now with the coral loss I had. Of course now I'm really thinking about changing up the scape. So I have some rock cooking in a bucket of

water change water. I've got one of my frag racks full of coral ready to be mounted but I'm not sure if I'm gonna switch things up yet lol. Some good news, I think one of my orange line cardinals is holding eggs/babies. He's not eating and his mouth looks full. I'm pretty sure I saw him spit an egg out then catch it again. I know they probably won't survive, but it's cool to know I have a breeding pair!

 

[rc8t6353]

What's up everyone who's following along. Kinda of a lot of updates. Mostly all good this time, with just a lil bad lol. So let's get the bad stuff it's the way. I had been struggling to keep my ALK up above 7 for a bit using only kalk, so I started AFR on a doser. I switched salts from Fritz to Instant Ocean as well. My nitrates and phosphates also got outta hand for a bit. Nitrates were 53.7 and phosphates were .28! As soon as those numbers flashed I started preparing for a pretty decent sized water change. I also pulled out an Aquamaxx Reactor and got it going with gfo and carbon.

 

[rc8t6353]

Mixed up 30 gallons of Instant Ocean and filled the reactor with what I thought was a smaller than recommended amount of Kolar GFO. The day after the water change and adding the reactor, my nitrates were at 25.4 and phosphates at 0.00 ! The Kolar GFO is some very potent stuff lol. I turned off the reactor, dosed some neophos, and fed the tank a little heavy to get them back up. I put the reactor on a open smart switch timer so it doesn't run 24/7. With the reactor running 2 hours a night, my phosphates are at .19. Still high but now I can play around with how long it runs until I get them to stick around the .05-.1 range.

 

[rc8t6353]

I lost a hammer that was struggling ever since my ALK swing. I'm pretty sure that was the last coral that was affected. But good news is I've got a few corals ready for placement. I harvested about 6 palm sized green and purple hairy mushrooms to make some room up front. Here's a few pics. There's a few of the new frags in there.

 

[rc8t6353]

What's up everyone. Time for a lil update. This time there's actually no bad news thank God lol. Tested the Prostar water this morning.
Nitrate- 38.4
Phosphate -.04
Alk- 10.6
That was before a 20 gallon water change with IO. The ALK is a little high so I cut back on the kalkwasser dose some more. The AFR should be doing most of the lifting for the main 3 by now. The kalkwasser is only dosed at night. I'm pretty happy with where my phosphates are. Right now the reactor with GFO runs for 3 hours a night. It's allowing me to feed 2 cubes a day, and a once a week mixture of coral foods without the phosphates going high.

 

[rc8t6353]

Some more good news. There were a few SPS that I thought were goners when I had the ALK swing. I kept the Setosa even though most of the flesh STN'd. I happy to say that it's growing some flesh over the dead skeleton and so is another no named SPS. Here's the latest FTS from today, after the water change. I'm still not giving up on my SPS and LPS mixed reef dreams lol.

 

[rc8t6353]

Here's a few coral shots from today. I have a rack of coral ready to mounted to replace my losses. I'm really excited about the three in the first picture.

 

[rc8t6353]

A while back I posted a pic of one of my LFS tanks, the smaller of the two. I remembered to get a pic of the main display. But I forgot to use my orange camera lens. It's quite stunning in person, and what I want my tank to look like eventually.

 

[rc8t6353]

Just a few coral pics from today.

 

[rc8t6353]

Grabbed a few top down shots while feeding today. I'm starting to think this is the best angle for pictures and viewing lol.

 

[mch1984]

I was going to read through the whole thing, but it's getting late, and my bed is sounding good at the moment. The tank is looking great. I'm glad you found a spot to grow a little macro. I have had success with that method and don't know that I'll do another tank without it.

I did read through a couple of pages and will have to do some more catching up later.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Grabbed a few top down shots while feeding today. I'm starting to think this is the best angle for pictures and viewing lol.

I always love seeing top down photos!