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Seven weeks since the last time I saw a flat worm or an egg. To celebrate, putting another batch of acros into quarantine!

Everything survived the dipping and most of my corals have continued to grow. Consumption of alkalinity and calcium go down for about 24 hours after the dipping by 20% I would estimate. I am going to perform one final dip in 3-4 weeks just to be extra cautious, but I think I am back on track.
 

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Seven weeks since the last time I saw a flat worm or an egg. To celebrate, putting another batch of acros into quarantine!

Everything survived the dipping and most of my corals have continued to grow. Consumption of alkalinity and calcium go down for about 24 hours after the dipping by 20% I would estimate. I am going to perform one final dip in 3-4 weeks just to be extra cautious, but I think I am back on track.
Adam has some nice sticks. Did you got with a battle box or did you pick out select pieces?
 
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Adam has some nice sticks. Did you got with a battle box or did you pick out select pieces?

This is my second shipment from Battlecorals, and I selected the gilded lily and tijuana taxi. Communication with Adam is excellent and I've had a good experience with both my orders.

BF45706B-DC58-45CB-BAE7-B17832A6EA89_1_105_c.jpeg
IMG_5922.jpg
 
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One of my early fish additions seven months ago was a group of a dozen "purple queen anthias." I wanted to add a decent number early in the tanks life prior to adding any more active swimmers in order to improve my chances of success. Most of the fish arrived in excellent condition and using live baby brine shrimp elicited an early feeding response. Gradually the fish accepted larger food, and continue to feed well today.

The group of anthias I received are pseudanthias pascalus (amethyst anthias) based on the appearance of the females that are uniformly steely purple and lacking a gold dorsal stripe. Not sure if this contributes to why they have demonstrated a better feeding response then is expected with pseudanthias tuka. Ten of twelve survived past one month and continue to thrive today. They swim out in the center in the open and have established a clear hierarchy. There is a dominant male that keeps two subdominant males away from the center of the tank. There is some mild chasing, but no sustained or serious aggression. Routinely the dominant male performs a dominance display that I am tyring to capture on video.

The fish have been eating freeze dried mysis and calanus frozen mysis, brine shrimp, eggs, calanus, and even pellets. The automatic feeder helps with the frequency of feeding. I refill with freeze dried food once / week. The mixing tube gets cleaned once every 2-3 weeks.

Here is the current programming I'm using for the plank. The tank is fed 8 times per day with the feeder. The feeder was primarily intended for the anthias initially, but all of the fish and other inhabitants benefit from the frequent feeding.

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I had my blastos in an area without much light. One of them may be receding a bit and I can see part of the skeleton. I turned off all my flow and am target feeding it with reef roids. Will see if I can get it to bounce back.

I seldom turn off all my flow in the system, but realized it was time for some check valve maintenance. I don't rely on the check valves as the sump can accomodate the water when all the pumps are off, but I like the added precaution. I last maintenanced the valves about 4 months ago, but probably could benefit from cleaning more often.

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This is my second shipment from Battlecorals, and I selected the gilded lily and tijuana taxi. Communication with Adam is excellent and I've had a good experience with both my orders.

BF45706B-DC58-45CB-BAE7-B17832A6EA89_1_105_c.jpeg
IMG_5922.jpg

I agree. Adam is great to work with. I would recommend for your next "gift" to yourself is get a battle box. As some of the battle box corals are not on his website or at least that I could tell and can be real gems!

What source of freezed dried mysis and canalas are you using? I have Evansi anthias and feel very similar about them as you do for your purples. I feed 5 times a day but would like to do 3 and use auto feed for the others to get some time back in the day. I am curious if you think the freeze dried stuff would work if you auto feed it to the return section of your sump as I have a large euro brace and would have to make a custom tube to accommodate it.
 
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I agree. Adam is great to work with. I would recommend for your next "gift" to yourself is get a battle box. As some of the battle box corals are not on his website or at least that I could tell and can be real gems!

What source of freezed dried mysis and canalas are you using? I have Evansi anthias and feel very similar about them as you do for your purples. I feed 5 times a day but would like to do 3 and use auto feed for the others to get some time back in the day. I am curious if you think the freeze dried stuff would work if you auto feed it to the return section of your sump as I have a large euro brace and would have to make a custom tube to accommodate it.

That's a great suggestion. Once I get everything back on the rocks, I'm going to take you suggestion and my next order will be a battle box.

I am ordering the freeze dried food from BRS. The mysis comes with a fair amount of powdered mysis which I sift out. Hard to say for sure what resolved my cyano issues early on, but I think cleaning the frozen and removing some of this particulate from the freeze dired food helped.

That's a really good point regarding the eurobrace. I was waiting for the new tank when I intially ordered the plank and had it on my rimless tank with no issues.

Transitioning to the new tank took a little work with Avast who were really nice to work with and incredibly helpful. I have a 1" double eurobrace that nearly 4.5 " wide. Avast built me a custom XL platform for the plank to accomodate 5".

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Next, I noticed the food would tend to float to the top which was not happening in my other tank and is sort of what the plank is designed to avoid. Due to the height of my eurobrace, the tube was not submersed to the same depth in the tank and not giving the food sufficient dwell time to become hydrated. Avast sent me a longer 8" tube which solved the issue.

Regarding putting the feeder in the return section, depending on the set up it could work. In my sump the returns feed a manifold to the refugium and pass water through the media reactors. I would be concerned with this lay out it would pollute the system. In some situations it could probably work, but I think it would be better to situate on the tank to ensure the food is getting to the tank. My fish are fat!

IMG_6016.jpg
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That's a great suggestion. Once I get everything back on the rocks, I'm going to take you suggestion and my next order will be a battle box.

I am ordering the freeze dried food from BRS. The mysis comes with a fair amount of powdered mysis which I sift out. Hard to say for sure what resolved my cyano issues early on, but I think cleaning the frozen and removing some of this particulate from the freeze dired food helped.

That's a really good point regarding the eurobrace. I was waiting for the new tank when I intially ordered the plank and had it on my rimless tank with no issues.

Transitioning to the new tank took a little work with Avast who were really nice to work with and incredibly helpful. I have a 1" double eurobrace that nearly 4.5 " wide. Avast built me a custom XL platform for the plank to accomodate 5".

IMG_2905.jpg
IMG_2907.jpg

Next, I noticed the food would tend to float to the top which was not happening in my other tank and is sort of what the plank is designed to avoid. Due to the height of my eurobrace, the tube was not submersed to the same depth in the tank and not giving the food sufficient dwell time to become hydrated. Avast sent me a longer 8" tube which solved the issue.

Regarding putting the feeder in the return section, depending on the set up it could work. In my sump the returns feed a manifold to the refugium and pass water through the media reactors. I would be concerned with this lay out it would pollute the system. In some situations it could probably work, but I think it would be better to situate on the tank to ensure the food is getting to the tank. My fish are fat!

IMG_6016.jpg
IMG_6017.jpg

Thank you for the details. I might have to give this a try in a few weeks when I get some more free time. I have access to a 3d printer and regular aryclic to see if I can make it myself. First step is to see if the anthias will take to freeze dried foods before I go through the effort.
 

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Thank you for the details. I might have to give this a try in a few weeks when I get some more free time. I have access to a 3d printer and regular aryclic to see if I can make it myself. First step is to see if the anthias will take to freeze dried foods before I go through the effort.

That would be cool if you can build it. The feeder has an auger mechanism where the food is contained that prevents clumps and breaks up the food as it gets dispensed. I like this feeder a lot.

What are you feeding your anthias right now? I progressed from live baby brine, to feeding frozen foods at the same time as the live food, and eventually mixed in the freeze dried food with the frozen. Now they will eat anything.
 

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That would be cool if you can build it. The feeder has an auger mechanism where the food is contained that prevents clumps and breaks up the food as it gets dispensed. I like this feeder a lot.

What are you feeding your anthias right now? I progressed from live baby brine, to feeding frozen foods at the same time as the live food, and eventually mixed in the freeze dried food with the frozen. Now they will eat anything.

I might be able to find something around work we don't use anymore and I can take home. If it ends up being more than $200 then obviously not worth it.

They get a variety mix of frozen foods. Mysis, brine, cyclops, rotifers, LRS Reef, Rods, clams, PE mysis, canalus,. I mix almost all of those in for one feeding. cyclops seems to be the favorite for the small evansi
 
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Really nice build you have here. Can you give us an update on the purple anthias?
Thank you

I have ten that survived past one month and are thriving after seven months. I think some of the keys were getting them to accept larger food and frequent feeding as with many anthias. I suspect having a decent number of anthias and placing them in the tank prior to a lot of more active fish helped the fish get more comfortable in the system which may have helped with getting them to eat. I feed the tank 8 times / day at minimum. Here's a link to a recent update, it's post#166

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sdreefs-330g-cda-acropora-dominant-mixed-reef.778823/post-9170731

Post #155 has a couple of videos where you can see them eating freeze dried mysis via the automatic feeder.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sdreefs-330g-cda-acropora-dominant-mixed-reef.778823/post-9149935
 

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Thank you

I have ten that survived past one month and are thriving after seven months. I think some of the keys were getting them to accept larger food and frequent feeding as with many anthias. I suspect having a decent number of anthias and placing them in the tank prior to a lot of more active fish helped the fish get more comfortable in the system which may have helped with getting them to eat. I feed the tank 8 times / day at minimum. Here's a link to a recent update, it's post#166

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sdreefs-330g-cda-acropora-dominant-mixed-reef.778823/post-9170731

Post #155 has a couple of videos where you can see them eating freeze dried mysis via the automatic feeder.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sdreefs-330g-cda-acropora-dominant-mixed-reef.778823/post-9149935
Oh, sorry. I did not notice the date on those two post to see that they were very recent.
 
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I have been thinking about bringing my calcium reactor online. I didn't start it earlier as I was concerned lowering the pH might affect how quickly the system matured. Now, I'm a little nervous about how this might affect the water chemistry and any adjustment period for my livestock while I get things dialed in. I'm trying to anticipate my alkalinity needs and how this might affect the systems pH.

So I decided to calculate how much I need to continue dosing the system. If I am miscalculating something, please let me know.

The aquarium volume is 330 gallons, but accounting for displacement there is about 260 gallons of water in the system which equates to approximately 1000 liters of water.

My current daily alkalinity consumption is 90 mL or alkalinity solution at a concentration of 1mL = 0.036 meq/L. 90 * 0.036 = 3.24 meq/L daily

The alkalinity I will be adding via the reactor is the concentration of the effluent minus the alkalinity present in the water initially. The current alkalinity in the system is 7.8 dKH which is approximately 2.8 meq/L

The output from the effluent from the reactor is unknown, but the manual reports a typical range is estimated to be 40-60 dKH. 40 dKH = 14.3 meq/L. 60 dKH = 21.4 meq/L.

So if the effluent of the reactor falls in the the typical range then
With 40 dKH output I will be adding between 14.3 minus 2.8 = 11.5 meq/L
With 60 dKH output I will be adding 21.4 minus 2.8 = 18.6 meq/L

Starting recommended effluent flow rate is 50 liters / 24 hours but can be increased up to 350 liters/ 24 hours.
With 40 dKH effluent output I will be adding 11.5 meq/L * 50 Liters / 1000L = 0.575 meq/L daily
With 60 dKH effluent output I will be adding 18.6 meq/L * 50 Liters/ 1000L = 0.93 meq/L daily

So at my current rate of consumption I will need to continue to dose initially as I convert over to the calcium reactor based on the initial calcium reactors recommended flow rate. I will need to dose the daily consumption minus the alkalinity added by the calcium reactor.

With 40 dKH effluent output 3.24 - 0.575 = 2.665 / .036 = 74 mL
With 60 dKH effluent output 3.24-0.93 = 2.31 / .036 = 64 mL

I’m making a couple assumptions. First, the alkalinity consumption in the system remains the same. It’s possible the reactor may reduce the pH and reduce consumption. Second is the concentration of the effluent which is a variable that I'm determining based on the reported typical range.

I will reduce the dosing a bit below the low range effluent calculation when I get the reactor started in order to avoid increasing the alkalinity, and will plan to manually make adjustments as needed.
 
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