Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Tank Measurements

Temp ~ 78-80 (varies among the 7 thermometers)

Nitrate: 24 ppm
Alk 11 dKH
Phosphate 0.19 ppm
pH at 4 pm 7.7
Salinity 33.6 ppt; sg = 1.0253

Don’t think I need any more N and P dosing since I’m not feeding the fish.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I dosed some iron and manganese. No need to start AFR. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Switching phyto over to Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast Live tonight. It is quite a bit more concentrated, so I need to adjust the doser accordingly. RN says:

If you have not used Phyto-Feast Live before, start with 1 drop per gallon each day (1 teaspoon per 100 gallons) . Your animals will rapidly become accustomed to the phytoplankton (microalgae) and be able to feed on quite a bit more.

If your animals do not "clear" the water in less than an hour - back off on the amount you are adding because your systems is not fully digesting all the microalgae.

A common dosage for a mature system is 1-5 drops per gallon (1-5 teaspoons per 100 gallons) each day, depending on your tank setup and animal density

I plan to dose about 2 tsp per 100 gallons, or about 20 mL total per day. Still dosed at night and skimmer off for 2 h after dosing. :)

 

[jonelder68]

Tank Measurements

Temp ~ 78-80 (varies among the 7 thermometers)

Nitrate: 24 ppm
Alk 11 dKH
Phosphate 0.19 ppm
pH at 4 pm 7.7
Salinity 33.6 ppt; sg = 1.0253

Don’t think I need any more N and P dosing since I’m not feeding the fish.

How are you obtaining the nitrates and phosphate!?!? I feel like we have somewhat similar set ups and I’ve been doing every 12 hour 1ppm dose of ammonia on top of 6-7 feedings a day and still can’t get any detectable nitrates. Phosphate finally jumped from .02 to .04. @Miami Reef is coaching me (thank you sir!) but wow macros are hungry!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How are you obtaining the nitrates and phosphate!?!? I feel like we have somewhat similar set ups and I’ve been doing every 12 hour 1ppm dose of ammonia on top of 6-7 feedings a day and still can’t get any detectable nitrates. Phosphate finally jumped from .02 to .04. @Miami Reef is coaching me (thank you sir!) but wow macros are hungry!

I dosed 10 ppm nitrate at least twice, maybe 3 times when the Dino scare came up. Same for phosphate. :)

 

[jonelder68]

I dosed 10 ppm nitrate at least twice, maybe 3 times when the Dino scare came up. Same for phosphate. :)

You dosed nitrates not ammonia? Interesting. I have no Dinos showing up, though I’m scared of it coming. Everything seems balanced/happy. Actually thriving! So we’ll see what happens going to order some monti caps for SPS testers. @Miami Reef thinks nothing will starve considering it all. Going to up the ammonia dose slightly. Be interesting to see if can run with zero nitrates but dose ammonia and keep everything happy. So far your ammonia dosing is a game changer!

 

[Miami Reef]

Here are quotes from Randy’s thoughts on nutrients that I 100% agree with.

6. Finally, and very importantly, nitrate and phosphate are far from the only sources of N and P in a reef tank. They may not even be the most used sources. Other sources of N include ammonia (preferred by most corals studied over nitrate), urea (an organic excreted by fish), amino acids, other soluble organics, and particulates including detritus and whole phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria and other organisms.

The implications that aquarists need to be critically aware of are:

• Nitrate level is a poor indicator of total N bioavailability.

• In general, having a few ppm nitrate may not be needed, or used by corals at all in some systems, but it is insurance that there is sufficient N.

So yeah, having nitrate readings is fine and good; there is nothing wrong with it.

But having 0 ppm NO3 doesn’t discount the available nitrogen available in the form of ammonium you’re providing. N starvation won’t be the cause of death or suffering to your montiporas IMO.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You dosed nitrates not ammonia? Interesting. I have no Dinos showing up, though I’m scared of it coming. Everything seems balanced/happy. Actually thriving! So we’ll see what happens going to order some monti caps for SPS testers. @Miami Reef thinks nothing will starve considering it all. Going to up the ammonia dose slightly. Be interesting to see if can run with zero nitrates but dose ammonia and keep everything happy. So far your ammonia dosing is a game changer!

I’ve been low dosing ammonia all along, just stopped today. But I wanted an immediate jump to deal with the possible dinos, and did not want to add a lot of ammonia without ramping it up.

 

[jonelder68]

Here are quotes from Randy’s thoughts on nutrients that I 100% agree with.







So yeah, having nitrate readings is fine and good; there is nothing wrong with it.

But having 0 ppm NO3 doesn’t discount the available nitrogen available in the form of ammonium you’re providing. N starvation won’t be the cause of death or suffering to your montiporas IMO.

In the name of science and validation will continue on . The variables from tank to tank is fascinating.

 

[areefer01]

Ok, let’s do a competition. Remember, lighting is very white.

Next coral should be:

1. Koji wada pink nepthea (such as at Tidal Gardens)

Koji Wada Pink Nephthea

#html-body [data-pb-style=E0X0NAN],#html-body [data-pb-style=KSOO4WQ],#html-body [data-pb-style=Q7Q37H0]{margin:5px}{{widget type="Magento\Cms\Block\Widget\Block" template="widget/static_block/default.phtml" block_id="237" type_name="CMS Static Block"}}<br><br>{{widget...

tidalgardens.com

Or
2. ORA cherry Red goniopora (say, at Cherry corals or Top Shelf aquatics)

ORA Cherry Red Goniopora Coral

Introduction to Goniopora Goniopora, scientifically known as Goniopora spp., are captivating Large Polyp Stony (LPS) corals celebrated for their vibrant coloration and distinctive, flower-like polyps. Commonly referred to as "Flowerpot Corals," these beauties bring a sense of movement and...

topshelfaquatics.com

ORA Red Goniopora #4

We keep our Goniopora/Alveopora growing under ATI Blue Plus and Reef Brite blue LED’s, nutrition is provided by Polyplab Reef Roids. Goniopora/Alveopora thrive in nutrient rich environments with detectable PO4, NO3, and a DKH of 8(many corals will respond poorly to high DKH, please take that...

cherrycorals.com

No vote here by me but I will say that when I was living in Okinawa, Japan the pink nepthea was very popular. I do not see many today and have found that the "true" Koji wada pink nepthea is hard to come by. If you are into names or lineage then always ask of the source. This is not a knock to Than/TG. I think he is a great person.

I kept a Pink Nepthea that I picked up from Marine Farmers and found it to be a very healthy, and fast, grower. It was a coral everyone noticed first due to the light shimmer of my lighting with its polyps. I lost the colony pretty quick though and I am not sure why nor have I found the root cause. At the same time I ran into a few other issues with similar corals but the rest of the tank was fine. Acropora, LPS, no issues.

Having said that if you can find a reasonable priced frag I don't think you can go wrong. Same applies to your other selection but the fuzzy polyp extension on the Nepthea is going to be a eye catcher for sure.

Hope your day is well.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

No vote here by me but I will say that when I was living in Okinawa, Japan the pink nepthea was very popular. I do not see many today and have found that the "true" Koji wada pink nepthea is hard to come by. If you are into names or lineage then always ask of the source. This is not a knock to Than/TG. I think he is a great person.

I kept a Pink Nepthea that I picked up from Marine Farmers and found it to be a very healthy, and fast, grower. It was a coral everyone noticed first due to the light shimmer of my lighting with its polyps. I lost the colony pretty quick though and I am not sure why nor have I found the root cause. At the same time I ran into a few other issues with similar corals but the rest of the tank was fine. Acropora, LPS, no issues.

Having said that if you can find a reasonable priced frag I don't think you can go wrong. Same applies to your other selection but the fuzzy polyp extension on the Nepthea is going to be a eye catcher for sure.

Hope your day is well.

Thanks, good food for thought!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Salinity

As noted above, the tank salinity is a bit low (Salinity 33.6 ppt; sg = 1.0253).

To slowly raise it, I mixed the AWC water to about 40 ppt. By changing 1% per day, salinity will rise about 0.06 ppt per day, and it will take about 3 weeks. It is thus a very slow process, which is fine.

That calculation assumes the pump dosers match. If they do not, then the change may be faster or slower, but it won’t be way off because they are close enough that salinity hasn’t changed much since I started the AWC a while ago.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Refugium

The growth in the refugium has experienced the desired change, with the dino-looking material being replaced by green algae on the grid:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Fighting Tang

The yellow tang seems to have lost his fear of the C & E News magazine cover that was keeping him from fighting his reflection in the back corner.

I decided to try something more on point. Taking out my old Burgess atlas of aquarium fish, I cut out a page with a large parrot fish. He now avoids that area, but is challenging himself in the front glass. lol

I take it as a good sign that he now treats the tank as his territory and wants to defend it, but if anyone has any suggestions on if and how to do anything more, I’m open to it. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Tunze RO Controller

I haven’t talked much about the Tunze RO controller. It is designed to automatically keep an ro water reservoir full. It has two sensors that go into the reservoir (turn on and turn off the water), and are magnetically held in place through the wall. That holding works fine through a Brute can.

Those sensors control a solenoid which controls the flow. Roger Vitko cautioned that it can get clogged with deposits on some tap water, and suggested it could be put after the DI to completely prevent that concern. However, on looking through the water flow opening before installing it, it has what look like brass parts inside. Consequently, I would only put it before the di. I decided to put it after the carbon and sediment cartridges but before the ro membrane and di, striking a balance between clogging and possible release of metals. Here’s a pic of the solenoid in place.

The control interface is shown below. It shows that it has power, and whether it is calling for water, not calling for water, or has timed out because it was calling for water too long and stopped as a safely feature. The time can be set at 12 (default) or 24 h. I just ran it and it timed out after 12 h. I pressed the reset and it is running again.

At this point early in my experience with it, I’m not entirely willing to let it run fully on its own, but I’ve seen no problems with it functioning as it claims. I have been letting it fill to the upper sensor, turn itself off, and then I close the water tap valve that it is connected to. Thus there is no chance of a water problem when I am not around.

As I get more experience with it, I’ll keep the thread updated, but so far I am quite happy with it. I had plenty of floods on the old tank ro system by me forgetting to shut off the water. Fortunately, in those days the water drained to a place in the basement floor where there was no cement and the sewer pipe goes out. But now the ro storage is in a place where overflow would be more of a problem, and between the sensor control and the time out feature, I’m hoping it never happens. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here’s a picture of the yellow tang near the elegance. Both are doing great.

 

[Jari]

Thinking ahead, what goniopora corals do folks think would look best in white light? Any?

I believe most if not all of them look pretty also in white light. Could you consider Bernardpora as well? The red ones are quite nice, I have one next to favias.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I believe most if not all of them look pretty also in white light. Could you consider Bernardpora as well? The red ones are quite nice, I have one next to favias.

Thanks, I’ll look into that. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Tank Cooling

Tank cooling has not been needed so far, but next week it gets to around 90, so it may be needed. That makes now a good time to finalize the setup and leak check.

The cooling system itself is detailed here:

Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

And of course everything we read is true.....so that's one amazing pump, lol.

www.reef2reef.com

It is controlled by two inkbirds. The primary one, which does not get any power unless the secondary one also agrees cooling is necessary, is set to 81 deg F to send power to the cold water solenoid. Any temp above that it sends power. Any temp below 80 turns off power (I think that is how the 1 deg F differential from the set point operates in cooling mode).

The secondary is set to 79 deg F. Any temp above that it sends power to the primary INKBIRD. Any temp below 78 will shut off that power. Again, I think that is how the cooling differential works, but will verify when the tank starts to warm up.

There’s a picture of the inkbirds set up, with the primary dark from no power and the secondary showing the current water temp and the temp it sends power to the primary.

Thus, this is how I see things going.

Normal temp for heaters is around 78-79.

Temp rises above 79 on the secondary, it sends power to the primary, but nothing else happens.

Temp rises above 81, primary sends power to solenoid that cools the tank. Temp should control in the 80-81 range. Of course there will be hysteresis, but this is the expectation.

In a failure of the primary stuck on, the secondary will cut its power when temp drops into the 78 deg range.

System check shows no leaks and water going to refill backyard pond (which I have to do anyway) only when both inkbirds call for it. All seems good to go for summer!

Note that some folks may remember a big spring filled pond I showed a while back at our country place. This is a different, little pond at our other place. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Might be a coincidence, but so far the yellow tang is avoiding the back corner with the parrotfish picture. He’s acting more normal, grazing the rock, instead of fighting his reflection endlessly. At least a temporary success!