The Panic 220 SPS and 270 Mixed Reef

[panic]

The byropsis is gone! I removed the giant purple formosa from the 220 and stacked some rock in it's place that I've had in the sump for years. Moved the mp40s around a bit to get flow to all sides of the new rock and made sure there are plenty of good placement options for the new frags coming. Last night I was looking in the tank before the lights went out for the first time of the day, and all of the sps have deeper color and more PE compared to just 2 days before. Finally things are stabilizing.

I just watched a video warning against using carbon to scrub water in a reef tank because it takes too many of the essential elements from the water. Well, it's been 2 weeks since I stopped using carbon...

 

[panic]

I have been using the Salifert phosphate test kit and it shows that I have almost nothing detectable, but I didn't believe it. I feel like I should be getting better colors out of my sps. I ordered a ULR Hanna check and it shows that I have .2 ppm phosphate! I have cleaning my tanks like a madman over the last several months and there is hardly a spec of detritus anywhere, so I decided to start removing the sandbed from the 270. I have never been a fan of sandbeds, but I thought it would be good to have when I decided to step away from the hobby awhile back. Kind of like a Berlin style system. Well, I think that the sandbed is so full of crap and phosphates that it's affecting my water quality no matter what I try to do to keep my system and equipment sqeeky clean. I siphoned out a some of the sandbed with a water change and my suspicions were well aimed. It was disgusting. I'm going to remove as much as I can over the next month, leaving only an inch or so around the front and sides for aesthetics.

 

[panic]

I ran the air intake from my skimmer out of the basement window to help out with pulling less co2 in to the water. I’m running kalk through topoff water that I would like to dial back and eventually delete because I prefer to add less stuff if possible. Downside is that the cold 7 degree outside air lowers the water temp and the heaters are struggling to keep the temp up.

 

[panic]

I tested Nitrate for the first time in about 19 years (no joke) with a new Salifert test and as far as I can tell, they are less that one. I don't like this test since it just looks clear to me, maybe a little color if I try the 10x reading, but it's pretty much zero. I think that dosing vinegar stripped it and I want to bump it up a bit to get some more color back in the coral before increasing the light intensity back up so that I don't burn my sps. I found potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate to both be safe methods, with the potassium having the potential to raise potassium levels in the water too high - not an issue if running a large fuge with lots of macro. I have soccer ball size in my fuge, so I ordered some sodium nitrate to dose lightly. I'll dose 1 tsp once a week and check nitrate the next week before dosing til I get up to 5ppm. I used the calculator on greenleafaquariums.com which says this should raise nitrate about 1.6ppm per dose for my 500g system (I multiplied by .84 since I'm not using Potassium Nitrate).

Sodium nitrate that I ordered:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/222600000/sodium-nitrate-8-ounces-fine-powder-996?ref=related-1&frs=1

Potassium Nitrate that I almost bought:
http://greenleafaquariums.com/products/potassium-nitrate-kno3-1lb-bag.html

 

[panic]

A frag I made of my Licorice Loripes awhile ago is looking pretty cool today. Much better than it looks in my display.

 

[panic]

I rarely ever look at r2r on my PC since the iPhone is so convenient, but I was flipping through r2r on the PC and noticed the pics I have taken with my iphone that looked good on the phone happen to all look like junk in full size. I have a Canon 5d and some nice L-series lenses that I haven't used in years, so I wanted to see what I have from the past that I actually spent some time photographing. I found some old pics from years ago before the 180 turned in to a 220. Reminds me that I need to break out the good camera and macro lens again.

 

[eran]

Looks good sir. Do you still live over in Lakewood? I bought a bunch of frags from you way back in the day. I live just down the road now. Do you know if Dave still has a tank up?

 

[panic]

Hey Eran! Yeah, still in the same house. Dave still has the tank going but is just softies now. Rusty is completely out of the hobby. I went over to his house to pick up that 100mm macro lens about an hour ago, so I can start taking decent photos again.

 

[eran]

I just picked up custom tank that is 60” x 30” x 22” with a 30” external overflow. I’ll be creating a build thread here shortly. It’s been about 5 years since I had a reef tank and it’s been fun getting to see all the new reef equipment since my old 300gal tank with halides and vho’s!

 

[panic]

I just picked up custom tank that is 60” x 30” x 22” with a 30” external overflow. I’ll be creating a build thread here shortly. It’s been about 5 years since I had a reef tank and it’s been fun getting to see all the new reef equipment since my old 300gal tank with halides and vho’s!

Nothing grows sps like halides. LEDs look prettier though.

 

[eran]

How’s your system doing? I’m ready to get some starter frags in my tank. I have an aquatic life t5 fixture now just running the t5’s. I need to pick up some leds and throw in some corals for a test.

 

[panic]

How’s your system doing? I’m ready to get some starter frags in my tank. I have an aquatic life t5 fixture now just running the t5’s. I need to pick up some leds and throw in some corals for a test.

Man it's doing great, I need to post some new photos. I spend most my time in the summer chillin on the dock! The new frags are still small but are encrusted nicely and starting to branch out. I had to trim a couple of those already to keep them apart, and I had to frag my Pinky the Bear because I needed to trade it for an ASD Rainbow. I have some nice ones in the frag tank that would be great starters.

I really love my Radions and now that the newest batch has encrusted, I'm dialing the red, green, and white channels down to 12% from the AB+ program of 24% which I think will help the colors pop a little more in the frag tank only. I'm interested to see what the difference will be from the the same corals in the display. I have an ATI Blue + T5 over the frag tank to supplement the Radion xr30g4, but I'm going to swap that out for an actinic also.

 

[panic]

Ok, I can deal with this. Removing half of the sand from the 270 helped. I’m emptying about half a 5g bucket every 2 weeks. Another 2 months and both tanks will be bare bottom.

 

[C. Eymann]

Awesome to see that both you and Inky are still in the hobby, I remember Rusty getting out as I grabbed an old pH monitor from him a few years back.

Sucks that Dave's tank got fried from chloramines and now he went softies.

Is shadowramy still around? he had a pretty epic tank as well, I wonder if Matt and his Dad, Marvin ? are still around?

 

[panic]

Awesome to see that both you and Inky are still in the hobby, I remember Rusty getting out as I grabbed an old pH monitor from him a few years back.

Sucks that Dave's tank got fried from chloramines and now he went softies.

Is shadowramy still around? he had a pretty epic tank as well, I wonder if Matt and his Dad, Marvin ? are still around?

Hey! I haven't seen Dave's tank in ages, but he made me a frag rack a few months ago. Both he and Rusty live really close to me so I see them every once in a while. The other guys I haven't talked to. I know Shadowramy moved to a different state, and Marvin got out of the business as his son was going off to college. JDA is the only other KC guy that is still around, also moved out of town, and he is very active here on r2r.

 

[panic]

I started getting shocked if I stuck my hands in the frag tank if I’m in the fish room with bare feet, but not when I’m wearing shoes. I tracked it down to a MJ1200 that I had feeding my calcium reactor. To the trash, problem solved.

I have always feared anything that plugs in to a wall socket going in to my tank, so I have been moving over to “wires out of the water equipment like the Ecotech stuff. I also like for my essential equipment to never turn off.

My calcium reactor has been a headache since I bought it getting dialed in. Always a needle valve getting plugged up, then the solenoid goes out, the feed pump won’t prime after a power outage, drip rate changes for no reason I can find. FinallyI found a regulator that works and now I have decided to add a continuous peristolic pump. I bought the Kramer and had it set up in like 5 minutes, no joke. I have it pulling water through the reactor, so it’s on the effluent side. It works like a champ. I just turn the dial if I want to speed it up or slow it down.

Here it is, and love it so much I do:

 

[Bj’s Reef]

I heard they are great pumps. We use peristaltic pumps at our facility and they are trouble free. I plan to get one like yours when I setup my calcium reactor.

 

[panic]

One year ago I posted a pic of this slimer and pink lemonade. The growth on these two is pretty fast.

 

[Radman73]

Beautiful tanks!

 

[Cristy17]

Just read this thread. You have handled everything so nicely that the hobby has thrown your way! Congrats on coming back and doing so well. Your tanks are beautiful. I learn so much from R2R members like yourself. Although I have been in the hobby 30 plus years with some breaks in between, there is always something to learn! Thank you again!