Took a few photos, tank lookes sexy. Ow!

[lolgranny]

Hi Brotha

Work has shown some signs of life just recently so I am hopeful.

I will strongly caution you from adding any bottled substances to your tank with its current state of health being about as good as it gets.Adding
aminos or buying into any other school of thought other then what you currently are practicing will probably result in a negative response.
I have done it many times before learning the hard lesson that getting back to what you have now takes long and is difficult..
Adding more fish or feedings while increasing good husbandry(strong export) with water changes etc... and keeping your
bulbs fresh along with rock stable alk in the NSW range or slightly higher will eventually get you the deeper colors you desire IMO and in a much safer,gentler way.Strong growth like you are experiencing with good PE and health is not easily achieved.I would do my best to not disrupt this

Im glad to hear business is pickin up, we are finally too. March was killer for us with the weather, so hopefully it turns again for us. Its been cool this month, but this week its suppose to go from 50 to 89 lol. Crazy *** Chicago weather.

I hear ya completely with what your saying thats why ive been on the border with it. The only fluxuations im having is with my alk, but i test it daily these last few months to make sure that im not having any sways one way or another anymore. Keeping it right about 8.6-9.3 . I would love to add more fish, but with the size tank im pretty heavily stocked at this point. I think it comes down to better export like your suggesting. Personally i think i need to invest in a automatic feeder to give the fish some food more then once a day. As it is right now im feeding before i leave for work and i dont get back till 13hrs later when they are sleeping. Ill take your word for it boyo and hold off on additives i have said i didnt want to add all that crap for a long time so why change now when i know it has to do with feeding.

Are you still running a sand bed in your tank? Im curious because i dont know what i want to do in my 180, im thinking about going with a SSB and if it becomes a issue i can take it out.

nice progress!

looks like it may need a bit more nutrients in that system though. colors are a bit light

Thanks! I couldn't agree more! Ive been trying to feed as much as i can when i can, but working 70hrs a week keeps me from home

 

[brahm]

well done!

 

[buddythelion]

Wow! Drastic improvements. Mind sharing what were the up and down of this tank and some things you learned along the way to get it from where it started to where it is now? Sounds like there would be some good advice!

 

[lolgranny]

well done!

Thanks brahm!!

Wow! Drastic improvements. Mind sharing what were the up and down of this tank and some things you learned along the way to get it from where it started to where it is now? Sounds like there would be some good advice!

Hey buddy! When the tank was first put up it went through its cycle with all that nasty algae, although i was told i got pre cured / pre cooked live rock i didnt trust that so i waited about 3months before adding anything but 5 chromis(i was in no rush). Started slowly. Personally if you take everything slow you will get better results then rushing it. For a while i was having a problem with alk swings, then low alk, then high alk. It was truely a PITA for me to find the sweet spot and keep it there. I started manually dosing 2 part, then went to a doser, then swapped to kalk, when i realized fully saturated kalk was not enough i put the doser back online with it. I keep up on changing my GFO / GAC every 2.5 weeks, and i typically do water changes of 5-7g every week. I clean my skimmer head every 3 days, and i clean the entire thing every 6months. I had a issue with cyano for a while, but that took its course and all is well now. I change my filter socks every 3 days. Truthfully the biggest factor is staying ontop of things for me, i test alk every morning before work, test ca once a week and i test po4/no3 if something looks out of wack. You can start to tell after a while when something isnt "right". Patients/time and keeping up on maintenance. Also i dont add anything i cant test for, all these different solutions that are out on the market can help as weve seen in other tanks, but if you can do the same w/o why not? If i could change anything right now i would- change my lighting out, i hate my fixture. I would also get different reactors, these BRS ones suckkkkk! lol.

 

[lolgranny]

Also, 0TDS Ro/Di is a MUST!! Keep ontop of this and make sure, this is why i had the hair algae in the 1st photo. I was getting water from my LFS before i bought my system. That made a HUGE difference!