Schnitzel's SPS

steevareno · Jul 27, 2017

Chemi clean works wonders.

Fishnugget · Jul 28, 2017

Schnitzel, I am dealing with the same thing. I had a recent outbreak of cyano because I neglected to do a water change for 2-2.5 months. However, I read somewhere that performing more frequent and smaller water changes was the answer while siphoning as much cyano as possible.

I usually do 50 gallon water changes once a month to my 200 gallon tank and decided to do 20-25 gallon water changes bi-weekly. Since I did this, I have no cyano on my sand bed but there is still very little on rocks. I was about to use red slime remover but thought I would give this a try first and the results are my tank is improving and the cyano is receding. I did see a little bit of green hair algae patches towards the back of my tank on my gravel grow but its much better than the horrendous cyano and easier to siphon out. I plan to remove those green fuzz balls this weekend.

ashr · Jul 28, 2017

steevareno said:
Chemi clean works wonders.

But will mess with your skimmer for a couple weeks.. Mine did anyways.. haha

SchnitzelReef · Sep 16, 2017

Reefbrites only

ReeferMadness80G · Sep 16, 2017

SchnitzelReef said:
Reefbrites only

I just got a tech strip! They're so nice! Your sticks look amazing as always!

steevareno · Sep 16, 2017

Sweet!

hatfielj · Sep 17, 2017

I was trying to decide what kind of lighting I want to do on my new system, but this thread has solved it. I was considering doing a combo of T5, Reefbrite, and Radions vs just going with all T5's and Reefbrites (which I have run before). After seeing this thread, the decision is clear. How many bulbs do you run and how many radions? I was thinking of doing 8 bulbs on a 30" wide tank, or should I go with 10?

Twocorns · Sep 17, 2017

I think he only runs with 2 48" 8 bulb ATIs, 2 XHO 48" Reefbrites, and removed the radions ages ago.

Trevor40 · Oct 12, 2017

Now that you have had some time with the ATI fixture, what photoperiod are you running?

lolgranny · Oct 12, 2017

Beautiful tank, i just moved towns and upgraded to close to the same dimensions. Your coral are beautiful, wish i was closer so i could come see it in person.

What are you taking photos with i notice a cell phone on some and a filter, but what kind of filter? Thanks! Take care

dragonfish · Oct 13, 2017

AMAZING TANK

lolgranny · Oct 13, 2017

Did you epoxy your rocks together?

steevareno · Oct 13, 2017

ashr said:
But will mess with your skimmer for a couple weeks.. Mine did anyways.. haha

It makes your skimmer go nuts till you do a WC then it's out of your system.

SchnitzelReef · Nov 8, 2017

Unfortunately I had some RTN going on in my tank. 3 different colonies were affected. I sent some water in to Triton, and everything looks pretty normal. I did 3-40g water changes, and the RTN stopped. I wish I knew exactly what caused it, but in this hobby that seems impossible. This was the first time since I started this tank 4 years that I’ve had this happen.

Here’s my triton results.

sk8elenex92 · Nov 8, 2017

Was it the first time you used GFO on the tank?

Reefanatik · Nov 8, 2017

SchnitzelReef, would you recommend the Actinic Blue Tech(6 LEDs per foot) or the Actinic Blue XHO (12 LEDs per foot) for MH supplements?

Bouncingsoul39 · Nov 8, 2017

The super high Lithium was not considered as a possible reason for the tissue necrosis?

ReeferMadness80G · Nov 8, 2017

Reefanatik said:
SchnitzelReef, would you recommend the Actinic Blue Tech(6 LEDs per foot) or the Actinic Blue XHO (12 LEDs per foot) for MH supplements?

Great question, I’ve been wondering this myself. I do know, the LEDs in each fixture are the same, there is just more of them (like you stated). I feel the answer to your question really depends on the tank, for a shallow tank like I have I feel the tech strip does a great job, however a deeper tank you may want to use the xho. Some have said that the spread is better with the xho but believe me, these fixtures don’t have a problem when it comes to spread! Now, I will say during peak lighting with the fixture you’re supplementing, I don’t think you’ll visually see much difference in appearance, as the LED gets washed out with heavy white of T5 or MH. I use the tech LEDs on the ramp up and ramp down period and it does great, my corals really pop with the LED and that’s what I was looking for. I hope my opinion helped you a little bit!

Bouncingsoul39 said:
The super high Lithium was not considered as a possible reason for the tissue necrosis?

I’ve read articles in the past about Lithium in the reef tank, and I believe it’s usually added by supplementing calcium and alkalinity with calcium chloride or can be found in some salt mixes. From what I remember his level isn’t really abnormally high for most reefers, and hasn’t known to be a reason for RTN or anything negative in SPS or LPS.
Now, I would assume like anything else in a reef tank, the fast stuff is usually bad, so if something caused the Lithium to jump that high quickly then I’m sure that could possibly cause RTN.