Why I still love this hobby, my SPS tank all grown up!

[Ferrell]

Spectacular

 

[nova65ss]

Incredible well done!

 

[FarmerTy]

Great tank! I can always appreciate a non-blued out tank. This is what a beautiful acro-dominated tank should look like!

 

[usernam invalid]

Looking awesome joe I’ll catch up with you at the meeting next month

-jay

 

[BigJohnny]

Awesome tank my friend, a few questions:

1. What do you keep your Alk at?
2. Do you shoot for calcium around 500 and magnesium around 1500?
3. What is your peak par on average for your acros?
4. How long is your photoperiod?
5. Any idea why you have very high tungsten? Are you concerned?
6. Why is your iodine so high and are you concerned that it will keep going up and cause issues?
7. Same question with potassium, 480 is pretty high, better than too low though!


-Big J

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Triton dosing for alk/Mg/Ca 334ml per day using Triton

Is that dosing 334 ml per day for each of the 4 solutions or 334 ml per day as a combined dosing total?

 

[rck329]

Fantastic! An inspiration.

 

[Krzydmnd]

Drool

 

[reef80]

Those purple queens!!!

 

[reef80]

Those purple queens though....

 

[tigé21v]

Beautiful!!
Love the gyres. How do you have them programmed to run? It looks as if only the one on the left is running throughout the video? Besides your return, are the two gyres your only other flow?

 

[rickster]

Congrats, Phenomenal Growth, it's amazing to see a tank like yours. That's what I strive for, but will never reach. You bought all those corals online ? nothing from the lfs?
You have an amazing fish room, I'm so jealous!!

 

[BigJohnny]

Congrats, Phenomenal Growth, it's amazing to see a tank like yours. That's what I strive for, but will never reach.

certainly not with that attitude ; )

 

[Abhishek]

Amazing as always and glad you started the tank showoff thread in Reef2Reef .
Those purple queens are to die for man !!! How many times do you feed them and what ?
Have you noticed any ill effects with such high iodine ? Mine is exactly the same as yours and I have stopped iodine dosing .
Any improvement you have noticed with dosing zinc, vanadium and manganese ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[JBNY]

I enjoy the building process too. This is my first SW tank, but I have several FW tanks and the build, plan, stocking is my favorite part. I enjoy watching the fish swim around too, but overall, the build is the most interesting part. That's why I am now at 7 tanks working on 8! I am finishing my basement and my Mancave/Fishroom will be the last part of that renovation. This SW tank will be in my Family Room, but how well it progresses will be a contributing factor in what goes into my new reconfigured space which will give me room for several more 55 gallon tanks or two much larger tanks.... Time will tell whether they will be FW or SW...

If you have success with the SW tank, I think you will probably stay with it for other tanks. My tank is in the family room too, it's the best spot for it IMO.

Oh my goodness man! Your reef is amazing! And what you have accomplished in such a short time deserves some mucho congrats! Thank you for not forgetting about us over here at R2R!

thank you, there is love all around!

Good to see you over here Joe, tank is looking awesome. Your growth rate is truly spectacular!

Thank you, it's great to get out of the SPS forums once in a while.

That is phenomenal growth in two years. Congrats!. Any chances you have frags on the sand you want to donate ?

Thank you very much, I don't sell frags but I trade with people all the time, if you were local I could hook you up!

I spot Tukas ;Watching

How are you getting on with that shoal ?

Lovely SPS growth there !

Thanks, I've had the Tukas for about 1 1/2 years they are doing great I have 12 or 13 of them and 3 have turned into males. They even eat pellets now.

You said it well, when these systems roll they roll well, great looking tank! Your corals and rock work look amazing.

Thanks, yes when it's good it's great. All the rock is Marco rock.

 

[JBNY]

Great tank! I can always appreciate a non-blued out tank. This is what a beautiful acro-dominated tank should look like!

Thank you. I like the less blue tanks as well. Funny I am running Radiums which used to be considered so blue, not so much anymore!

Looking awesome joe I’ll catch up with you at the meeting next month

-jay

I'll be there,

Awesome tank my friend, a few questions:

1. What do you keep your Alk at?
2. Do you shoot for calcium around 500 and magnesium around 1500?
3. What is your peak par on average for your acros?
4. How long is your photoperiod?
5. Any idea why you have very high tungsten? Are you concerned?
6. Why is your iodine so high and are you concerned that it will keep going up and cause issues?
7. Same question with potassium, 480 is pretty high, better than too low though!


-Big J

1) Alk at 7.7 dKH

2) Ca is normally 450 and Mg 1440, I think my test kits might be too old (Salifert), I adjusted this to lower those parameters after the test results.

3) Around 500, I measured it a few years ago when I settled on my lights but haven't looked at it since. Par at the bottom of the tank was around 180, still more than enough to grow acros obviously.

4) T5 are on for 13 hours (7:30 am - 8:00), MH on for 8 (12pm-8pm), Reefbrite LED on from 6pm to 9:30pm.

5) Tungsten is high from a rusted shaft on the wet side of an EcoTech MD40, I threw it out and the number, while still high, is much lower than it had been. It was 320 back in April when I finally found the cause. I am just letting it drop on it's own, which it is, so I'm not concerned anymore.

6) Iodine is high because I have been dosing I for the last two years, I must have measured wrong when I was making the solutions or something, it had never been higher than 40 in the past. I removed I from my dosing solution for the time being and it should drop naturally pretty quickly.

7) I added extra K last year and the K value was the same last time I had an ICP test back in April, I probably added a little too much. 480 I am fine with. You will never get perfect numbers, I try to look at only things that really could cause a problem, then just leave rest alone. I think we cause more problems trying to correct things that don't need to be corrected than if we just left them alone. I'm a big fan of being lazy.

Is that dosing 334 ml per day for each of the 4 solutions or 334 ml per day as a combined dosing total?

334ml of each of the solutions. I am using the Triton Elements not their new Core7, so I use about 10x as much as the Core7 product.

Beautiful!!
Love the gyres. How do you have them programmed to run? It looks as if only the one on the left is running throughout the video? Besides your return, are the two gyres your only other flow?

I just alternate each side every 12 minutes. they each ramp up to 60% for 12 minutes than switch. I tried MANY different programs, This ended up being the one that worked best for my tank. Also it was the easiest to do.

Congrats, Phenomenal Growth, it's amazing to see a tank like yours. That's what I strive for, but will never reach. You bought all those corals online ? nothing from the lfs?
You have an amazing fish room, I'm so jealous!!

Thank you, I am sure you can get to the same level. I don't do anything that special, IMO. Only a few were bought locally, mostly a few wild corals, but I make them just break off a small frag and grow it from their. So maybe 10% of the corals came from the LFS, all the others were either bought online or came from frags from peoples tanks.

Amazing as always and glad you started the tank showoff thread in Reef2Reef .
Those purple queens are to die for man !!! How many times do you feed them and what ?
Have you noticed any ill effects with such high iodine ? Mine is exactly the same as yours and I have stopped iodine dosing .
Any improvement you have noticed with dosing zinc, vanadium and manganese ?

Regards,
Abhishek

Thanks I love those Anthias too. I feed them twice a day when I feed the rest of the tank. They eat Pellets and Hikari Mysis shrimp, the same thing I feed the rest of the fish.

The high Iodine is a recent number. I think I mixed some solution wrong and put too much Iodine in it. It was never that high. I stopped dosing Iodine for the present time, but so far nothing bad has happened. I agree it's not the best to have that much iodine and immediately threw out my dosing solution and remixed it without Iodine.

I think that the Zinc, Vanadium and Manganese help with coral health and color. Mostly I think it helps them stay healthy and resist problems like burnt tips etc.

 

[MCooper]

W O W !!!!!!!!!!!

 

[DangerDave]

Looks good! Great job! [emoji1303]

 

[Abhishek]

Thank you. I like the less blue tanks as well. Funny I am running Radiums which used to be considered so blue, not so much anymore!



I'll be there,



1) Alk at 7.7 dKH

2) Ca is normally 450 and Mg 1440, I think my test kits might be too old (Salifert), I adjusted this to lower those parameters after the test results.

3) Around 500, I measured it a few years ago when I settled on my lights but haven't looked at it since. Par at the bottom of the tank was around 180, still more than enough to grow acros obviously.

4) T5 are on for 13 hours (7:30 am - 8:00), MH on for 8 (12pm-8pm), Reefbrite LED on from 6pm to 9:30pm.

5) Tungsten is high from a rusted shaft on the wet side of an EcoTech MD40, I threw it out and the number, while still high, is much lower than it had been. It was 320 back in April when I finally found the cause. I am just letting it drop on it's own, which it is, so I'm not concerned anymore.

6) Iodine is high because I have been dosing I for the last two years, I must have measured wrong when I was making the solutions or something, it had never been higher than 40 in the past. I removed I from my dosing solution for the time being and it should drop naturally pretty quickly.

7) I added extra K last year and the K value was the same last time I had an ICP test back in April, I probably added a little too much. 480 I am fine with. You will never get perfect numbers, I try to look at only things that really could cause a problem, then just leave rest alone. I think we cause more problems trying to correct things that don't need to be corrected than if we just left them alone. I'm a big fan of being lazy.



334ml of each of the solutions. I am using the Triton Elements not their new Core7, so I use about 10x as much as the Core7 product.



I just alternate each side every 12 minutes. they each ramp up to 60% for 12 minutes than switch. I tried MANY different programs, This ended up being the one that worked best for my tank. Also it was the easiest to do.



Thank you, I am sure you can get to the same level. I don't do anything that special, IMO. Only a few were bought locally, mostly a few wild corals, but I make them just break off a small frag and grow it from their. So maybe 10% of the corals came from the LFS, all the others were either bought online or came from frags from peoples tanks.



Thanks I love those Anthias too. I feed them twice a day when I feed the rest of the tank. They eat Pellets and Hikari Mysis shrimp, the same thing I feed the rest of the fish.

The high Iodine is a recent number. I think I mixed some solution wrong and put too much Iodine in it. It was never that high. I stopped dosing Iodine for the present time, but so far nothing bad has happened. I agree it's not the best to have that much iodine and immediately threw out my dosing solution and remixed it without Iodine.

I think that the Zinc, Vanadium and Manganese help with coral health and color. Mostly I think it helps them stay healthy and resist problems like burnt tips etc.

First of all , thank you so much for answering my queries . Am also intrigued by vanadium , manganese and zinc dosing . I do triton test every 3 months and they show consistently 0 . Triton has advised me to dose them along with nickel and boron .
Do you use triton chemicals for these or your own mix . If your own , could you share where did you get them and how do you mix and dose them ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[JBNY]

First of all , thank you so much for answering my queries . Am also intrigued by vanadium , manganese and zinc dosing . I do triton test every 3 months and they show consistently 0 . Triton has advised me to dose them along with nickel and boron .
Do you use triton chemicals for these or your own mix . If your own , could you share where did you get them and how do you mix and dose them ?

Regards,
Abhishek

I buy the Vanadium from Triton, you use so little it should last you a few years. All the others I buy from ebay or Amazon and mix myself.

You can use Triton if you want, no issues with it at all. But each Triton bottle is around $35 and with the amount I would dose each bottle would last around 2 months. Buying it dry and mixing my own solution cost about $43 total and will last me more than 5 years.

I started with the dosage based on what Triton recommended and have increased the amounts based of subsequent tests.

Mix recipe for the SPS Blend Trace Elements is
into 1 liter of rodi I mix
Manganese Chloride 0.25g
Zinc Chloride 0.14g
Potassium Iodide KI 0.80g

Then I dose 1.8ml per 100 Liters per day.

Right now I have the Iodine out of the mix. But I think it was a mistake on my part and I measured it out wrong, for the last 2 years Iodine was around 40 with dosing the above formula.