Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[twentyleagues]

The Blades have an acclimation feature, I dont remember how to access it though. How high in percentage of power do you want to go? And in what time frame are you thinking? You should be able to set it up to do like 7% a week or 1% a day and set it for "x" months, weeks, or how ever your heart desires.

 

[Miami Reef]

Phosphate 0.36 ppm steadily creeping up, maybe due to N dropping

How does N dropping cause phosphate to creep up? What’s your choice of export once it surpasses your threshold?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How does N dropping cause phosphate to creep up? What’s your choice of export once it surpasses your threshold?

The N being lower may slow down its ability to be taken up, which in turn slows growth and reduce uptake of everything else needed for growth.

Even with everything working perfectly as Hanna states, my nitrate may be as low as 2 ppm.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The Blades have an acclimation feature, I dont remember how to access it though. How high in percentage of power do you want to go? And in what time frame are you thinking? You should be able to set it up to do like 7% a week or 1% a day and set it for "x" months, weeks, or how ever your heart desires.

Thanks. I’m not concerned with manual adjustments as it is very easy, I just don’t want to damage organisms upping light too fast.

I don’t think I want get get up near 100%, to help the lights last longer, but getting into the 75% range seems reasonable to me. That would be about a 40% increase in absolute light intensity (not led setting %).

 

[twentyleagues]

Thanks. I’m not concerned with manual adjustments as it is very easy, I just don’t want to damage organisms upping light too fast.

I don’t think I want get get up near 100%, to help the lights last longer, but getting into the 75% range seems reasonable to me. That would be about a 40% increase in absolute light intensity (not led setting %).

I think a 5-10% increase every week would be ok

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think a 5-10% increase every week would be ok

Thanks. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Dang anemone is on the move again. I commented to my wife earlier today that it was less expanded than usual and in a few hours it has moved off the top of its rock island to the back side.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Green Chromis

It’s now been 4 months since the three green chromis were added. In my last tank I had green chromis a couple of times. Once I added 11 at once from the lfs. Like most people experience , they fairly rapidly dwindled down to almost none.

Many have attributed this aggression between the chromis. Others have attributed it to uronema. The fish I got were carefully quarantined and treated by Dr Reef, and the hope was that perhaps a group would last if not for uronema.

I understand 4 months is not long term, but the three chromis are all doing very well and do not seem to be aggressive toward one another. In fact, they and the yellow tang and the foxface are often grouped together.

So the experiment is so far a happy success.

 

[RobertK]

Overflow Design

Tank has two overflows, each with 2 holes in the tank bottom.

There are all sorts of designs for overflow pipes, including a very sophisticated 3 hole design by beananimal

Silent & Fail-Safe Aquarium Overflow System | BeanAnimal's Reef

Build the world famous "Bean Animal" silent and fail-safe aquarium overflow system. No noise, no adjustment, no floods. A truly set and forget setup that makes the Durso and Stockman style of standpipes obsolete! Build your own today!

beananimal.com

With two holes in each overflow, I went with a design that has two straight down emergency overflows (using the 3/4" pipes, expanded to 1" diameter at the top to reduce chances of a single piece of crud clogging it) that would go full siphon if needed, and two 1" pipes that have a top that looks like these (forget the name).

I used this setup in my previous version and it worked fine, perhaps because I do not run a ton of water through them. Very quiet.

Hi Randy,
I haven't read all 110 pages but I did find the part of this thread where you discussed your overflow design. I think you described what is referred to as a Herbie overflow. Are you happy with this? Do the two overflows remain in sync with each other? I'm planning a new 100 gallon tank and trying to decide between two corner overflows with Herbies or one central BeanAnimal overflow. Also where to your return lines enter the tank?
Thanks!

 

[MaDa Aquariums]

Randy’s Tank Guiding Principles

The tank itself is actually my old 120 gallon oceanic, 4’ x 2’ x 2’, that has been sitting the garage since 2016. Same for the stand and canopy that have been sitting in the basement. Hopefully, they have aged gracefully and will still function as expected, even if they have many old battle scars.

There are several important guiding principles for this system:

1. It is intended to mostly mimic a very shallow reef. That mainly impacts the lighting, which will be far less blue than most reef tanks, and will try to mimic the intense sunlight spectrum of shallow water, which also includes some UV. A prominent tank creature is intended to be an H. magnifica anemone, which can handle very high intensity sunlight. My wife and I also prefer the look of a sunny day in the tropics, as opposed to the cold blue of a deep dive. I found that my first reef tank looked best when lit by direct sunlight at those times of the year when it could be. That’s the look I’m aiming for.

2. The organisms will generally be mixed, including host anemones, SPS and other hard corals, soft corals, and even macroalgae in the display. That mix brings its own challenges that I hope we can overcome together. The lighting choice also has a big impact on which organisms will look and thrive the best.

3. The tank is in our living room, and thus needs to be as quiet as possible. That drives some equipment and design choices. Sump is in the basement, a floor down, which again has some challenges but also big advantages.

4. The tank needs to be largely self-sufficient for significant periods of time since I am not always there. That need drives some equipment choices, such as backup power, auto feeders, a security camera, and possibly devices that can tell me over the internet if they are working.

Sounds great! I love it when someone tries to really mimic an environment and goes deep in the ecosystem.
I just started a tank with kinda the same purpose a week ago, sure going follow this thread
all the best for this!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sounds great! I love it when someone tries to really mimic an environment and goes deep in the ecosystem.
I just started a tank with kinda the same purpose a week ago, sure going follow this thread
all the best for this!

Thanks!

A happy clown picture from yesterday:

 

[twentyleagues]

Thanks!

A happy clown picture from yesterday:

Thats good to see them still together! How's the stuff you were having issues with?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thats good to see them still together! How's the stuff you were having issues with?

I’m planning a detailed 6 month summary in the next few days, but soft corals just don’t survive. I’m going up go aggressive with GAC in case it’s some sort of toxin issue. I had been using it passively on my Tunze skimmer, but I’m planning to put it (ROX 0.8) into the magnum I used during the dino issues.

All of the corals I got locally are doing fine. Shipped commercial corals not so much.

The LTA anemone from Petco that was thriving and growing suffered some massive setback and is now barely visible under a rock overhang. I have little hope for it. Might be some effect from the gigantea in competition.

Fish are doing great. Coralline continues to expand. Sponges doing ok.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Chemistry and Dosing Update

Phosphate 0.34 ppm (fairly stable)

Nitrate 5 ppm (increased ammonium bicarbonate dosing pump from 49 min to 58 min per day, but I expect the amount dosed is not even close to 1.1 mL per min since the reservoir does not drop nearly as much as expected. It doesn’t really matter, since it is adjusted based on nitrate levels, but at some point I’ll measure the flow.

Alkalinity 7.83 dKH (upped AFR from ~24 to ~26 mL per day)

pH 8.15 at 1 pm

Salinity 33.8 ppt. I adjusted the salinity in the AWC reservoir up to 46 ppt from about 41. The dosing pumps doing the AWC must not be well matched so the offset salinity may be needed to target 35 ppt.

I dosed 0.06 ppm iodide. No iron or manganese today since the algae on the glass is growing very well.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Crab Fest

This guy a friend or foe?

I went after him with a net, and initially the magnifica grabbed the net. I was afraid I’d pull the anemone off the rock trying to free it, but it eventually let go.

Then I caught the crab more carefully and sumped it.

 

[RobertK]

Randy did you see my earlier question above? I hope you're not ghosting me! Thanks, Robert

 

[dwest]

Those front claws look too strong so I vote foe. It looks like an elegance coral mover to me

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hi Randy,
I haven't read all 110 pages but I did find the part of this thread where you discussed your overflow design. I think you described what is referred to as a Herbie overflow. Are you happy with this? Do the two overflows remain in sync with each other? I'm planning a new 100 gallon tank and trying to decide between two corner overflows with Herbies or one central BeanAnimal overflow. Also where to your return lines enter the tank?
Thanks!

I missed this. Sorry. The existing overflows have 2 holes in each. I describe the setup here:

Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

My next mixing station :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing: The rust is a nice touch. Just needs some salt creep! LoL!

www.reef2reef.com

I am happy with it. If I keep the flow low, it is adequately silent. It gurgles when I ramp up the flow, and I do that when not home, but when home I keep it silent.

Water flows out of both overflows, but more one than the other due to very slight tilt to the floor.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Those front claws look too strong so I vote foe. It looks like an elegance coral mover to me

It might be. It won’t find an elegance in the sump. lol

 

[RobertK]

I missed this. Sorry. The existing overflows have 2 holes in each. I describe the setup here:

Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

My next mixing station :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing: The rust is a nice touch. Just needs some salt creep! LoL!

www.reef2reef.com

I am happy with it. If I keep the flow low, it is adequately silent. It gurgles when I ramp up the flow, and I do that when not home, but when home I keep it silent.

Water flows out of both overflows, but more one than the other due to very slight tilt to the floor.

Thanks Randy. Yes I saw that part of the thread. With your tank up against a wall and the overflows on the back wall of the tank has there ever been a problem seeing into or accessing the overflow when you needed to?