Waterbox 100.3 Orphek Back to SPS Reef Madness

lbacha

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Wife took some notes as I was testing par, if anyone can make them out!

Basically top of rock in middle is 500, bottom middle is 250-300, edges 200 with far corners around 150 so coral at any height will be above 200. The orphek is a long way from the bottom, I was surprised by these numbers.

5DB72923-310B-407E-A689-E26DA425C156.jpeg

What program are you running

On my shallow tank I run

Ch1 - 40%
Ch2 - 60%
Ch3 - 60%
Ch4 - 40%

My orphek is 18” off the water and I get about 200 par at 6”
 

lbacha

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For a few hours it's:

1 and 4 = 80%
2 and 3 = 100%


But tapers. Here is a screenshot.
D56F64C0-B8CE-4AA6-89AC-36C56A951631.png

Mine is a ramp as well, I start later in the day so I get more quality time with my tank after work

a01920bb64f6ff3c67b152faa7c4d4d8.jpg


We have a pretty close ratio for the colors. I like the bit more blue vs the 100% across all channels
 
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hart24601

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I have always reallyed like bazooka Joe chalice I used to have so when DD had one I figured should get it. Along with Ora Stellar Stylophora and mellonberry Monti. And since was in the mood spent too much on wwc auction:
868BFCF9-73E6-4CE6-B9E2-1904FF84AC78.jpeg
 
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hart24601

hart24601

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Corals all seem to have settled in well. Things are looking pretty solid. The dinos seem to be reducing, I was wondering how less effective the UV would be in the sump, and it is, but after a week or so it’s working – thankfully.


Clams in the sump seem to be doing well under the h380, not lost any appear to be growth on the derasas and squammy, can’t tell on hippos. Funny since the fuge is reverse cycle my alk doesn’t change much day night since clams take it up at night.


The mandrian I see picking at the rock a lot, and looks to be thick, so fingers crossed she will keep doing well, I am feeding the tank a tremendous amount though including live baby brine. I have been curious how much nutrients this system can export with just the skimmer, awc and macro algae, so far despite feeding more and more phosphate is .03 and nitrate at 2ppm but I need to test today. It’s really surprising to me that amount of export. Not sure if I talked about it but I put brightwell chaetogro on the 3rd doser head, just dosing a couple ml/day, that does seem to help the macro.


Slowly raising my alk back up to the 11 range, it just seems things take off so much faster at that level, although the amount of dosing needed is crazy. Just watching for precipitation, I do have a sicce 1.0 on the bottom of the sump that points up at the dosing lines to help mix it all together quickly.


Still worried about rock nems taking over the system. At some point I will have to try and taking some out of the tank, but it’s ok for the most part now. They do eventually kill the corals they touch.
 

lbacha

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I can’t wait to hear how the orphek and tht tank work over time. I really like that size and I probably would have pulled the trigger if I could just get the tank without the stand and sump
 
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hart24601

hart24601

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I can’t wait to hear how the orphek and tht tank work over time. I really like that size and I probably would have pulled the trigger if I could just get the tank without the stand and sump

The orphek was over the same footprint (not quite as wide) for a while already when the tank was a deep blue 33g and it has performed well, hopefully it continues!

Fingers crossed!
 
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hart24601

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Someone decided to pose for me. Not bad for iPhone, she seems to be doing well, looked to have a filled belly and at least isn't getting skinnier. She picks at the rocks a lot and I feed like crazy.

08E55F9B-E88E-4CAA-8B2A-5D8F9CB4F847.jpeg
3EAAAABF-E2CF-407B-8CEC-5A269A1BA7F5.jpeg
 
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hart24601

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It's pretty amazing how fast coralline can come. The black starboard already has spots and hasn't been a month yet.
 
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hart24601

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Been almost two weeks since checked nitrate and phosphate. I have been feeding the tank small amounts many times a day plus live baby brine, however things look good so have not felt the need to test. It seems to be in a sweet spot with the macro now, tested 0.030 PO4, 2-3ppm nitrate. Nice! I have noticed more steady nutrient reduction auto dosing a few ml of chaetogro daily. I am generally not a fan of dosing something and not testing, however for macro export I have changed my tune in this situation. Even with AWC the nutrients seemed to bounce around some, so it supports the idea macro is reducing *something* faster than even 1% daily wc supplements.
 

lbacha

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Been almost two weeks since checked nitrate and phosphate. I have been feeding the tank small amounts many times a day plus live baby brine, however things look good so have not felt the need to test. It seems to be in a sweet spot with the macro now, tested 0.030 PO4, 2-3ppm nitrate. Nice! I have noticed more steady nutrient reduction auto dosing a few ml of chaetogro daily. I am generally not a fan of dosing something and not testing, however for macro export I have changed my tune in this situation. Even with AWC the nutrients seemed to bounce around some, so it supports the idea macro is reducing *something* faster than even 1% daily wc supplements.

Po4 and no3 are my biggest headaches. I autofeed twice a day and have doubled my fish load and if I miss a day or two of adding frozen then my nutrients tank fast. I’m really hoping something like reefbot becomes reliable so it can alert me when nutrients are dropping so I can feed more or better yet dose nutrients via a doser if I’m not there to feed.

Len
 
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hart24601

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Po4 and no3 are my biggest headaches. I autofeed twice a day and have doubled my fish load and if I miss a day or two of adding frozen then my nutrients tank fast. I’m really hoping something like reefbot becomes reliable so it can alert me when nutrients are dropping so I can feed more or better yet dose nutrients via a doser if I’m not there to feed.

Len

What do you normally keep the levels at? This system doesn't seem to drop levels to 0 using just macro, but I have not tested it very well yet.
 

lbacha

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What do you normally keep the levels at? This system doesn't seem to drop levels to 0 using just macro, but I have not tested it very well yet.

I shoot for <.1 po4 and 5 ppm no3.

I have 2 small tanks tied together so my bioload of fish is small therefore not a ton of fish waste turning into nutrients. I also have a fuge full of Xenia that my 2 domino clowns live in. My wife said I can’t tear down their home so tht doesn’t help the nutrient issues (Xenia is a great nutrient export by the way)

I only run my cheato fuge for a couple hrs a night and if the ph drops below 8.2 (this doesn’t happen tht often)

If I feed normally nutrients stay up but if I stop feeding the fuges, coralline growth and coral growth with strip the tank of nutrients fast

Len
 
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hart24601

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Went over to one of my friends yesterday who has a huge coral system and picked up a few things. Of course I legitimately didn’t plan on getting anything (this was a trip with my other friend to stock his 300) but I am weak…. Like all of us at times he has been preoccupied with other things in life so his systems took a hit, but most coral survived if not thrived and it’s still really nice coral. We cut up a few things and I took waaay too many corals! But they are just so pretty and when it’s the friends price how can you not pick them up?


I will try and get pics later but got a JF beach bum and a little jawbreaker mushroom as the two highlights. Friend price (plus he knows I don’t sell coral, just keep them and we all share back and forth if someone loses one) was $50 each which is just bonkers cheap (beach bum is $600 on JF site… jawbreaker mushrooms used to be even higher). He has a ton of these ultra-high end corals, lot of LPS rare ones too like chalices. Also got some cali and Oregon tort, a few tips of fox flame, various birdsnests to kill, JF rainbow stylo and a whole host of other acros some fancy named and some he aquacultured from maricultured stock. Seriously if anyone is in central Iowa check out Matt VanSloten via Iowa via central iowa reef society on facebook. The pics can’t begin to cover it and just drive to Cedar Rapids to visit.


The even bigger coral news for me is that I bought a WWC jellybean chalice. I have wanted one for well over half a decade since they were introduced. It’s my favorite coral of all time. Now I don’t normally care to have lineage, since I don’t resell really I just like what is pretty, but there are a few that I do like to know they are the real deal if high on my all-time want list. I saw cornbread, who has a bit of a nefarious reputation for photoshop, selling frags of jellybean. He is a large enough vendor who sells extremely expensive pieces for me to consider legit since he says it’s WWC. He sells tiny frags and the pics are really saturated, but I know what to expect with jellybean. I think I was lucky, he sold a frag on ebay few weeks ago that was well over 300, and there was another auction with a lot of bids on a JB of his frag that wasn’t quite as nice so this one seemed to slip under the radar and I got it with no other bids. What sold me on this one is it has all the colors and even extending into the mouth. It should grow out really well.

5B8995AB-642D-4AB3-A604-8DC3813C35ED.jpeg
 
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