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the sun sets today on kgoldy's all natural 90


kgoldy

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I was going to say, hey what is that huge white thing in there?! How is it going to purple up with your params off? Fume fume fume. I demand a WC for the tonga!

 

The corals looks great, just what your tank needed.

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I was going to say, hey what is that huge white thing in there?! How is it going to purple up with your params off? Fume fume fume. I demand a WC for the tonga!

 

The corals looks great, just what your tank needed.

 

 

Lack of WC is the secret to the purple! :P

 

 

 

So here's the latest project- 92 inches of neatly organized reef supplies.

 

Also- G10 came back from Canon. Picking it up tomorrow.

 

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So- I'm messing with the tank a little bit... I'm going to go from a salinity level of 1.023 sg to 1.026 sg (30 to 35 ppt).

 

The method:

While I'm not entirely sure this is a good idea... I mixed my kalkwasser this weekend with saltwater instead of pure RO.

 

While I'm not sure how the saltwater will affect the solubility of the lime... In theory, the salinity should rise in the system along with an increase in all other trace element levels- slowly enough that I can keep an eye on things and reverse any negative impacts.

 

I used 15 gallons of saltwater with a specific gravity of 1.019 to mix with my usual amount of kalk powder... And there was already about 5 gallons of regular kalkwasser in the reservoir- so I'm guessing the overall sg of the 20 gallons is around 1.014. With the total system volume being about 100 gallons of water... I'm thinking I should reach the right salinity level by next weekend.

 

In the meantime, I'm holding off on dosing anything else so I only have one crazy factor in the system this week.

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Bah. Of course when I'm refilling my ATO res the pump turns on and essentially throws a bunch of kalk slurry into the tank... pH shoots up to 8.42...

 

This time I was somewhat prepared and had vinegar at the ready (thanks new reef cabinet :happydance: )... Took it slow with a metered baster, and I now know that 60ml of vinegar drops my tank's pH from 8.42 down to my normal 8.23

 

Sweet!

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not as high as my tap water.

37ppm phosphates FTW

 

I don't really see any issues with your water parameter outside of phosphates. you should just run something that consumes phosphates...

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not as high as my tap water.

37ppm phosphates FTW

 

I don't really see any issues with your water parameter outside of phosphates. you should just run something that consumes phosphates...

 

 

Yeah, I've got a reactor that's been hanging on the side of my cabinet, unused, for about... 6 months. Haha. Guess I could hook it up.

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So- mixing saltwater to make kalk might be a bad idea, though I haven't gone as far as breaking out the test kits and setting up controls and everything to see exactly what's going on with all parameters.

 

The first thing that I noticed is that in my ATO reservoir the "cloudy part" of the kalk mix remained at almost the entire bottom half of the tank, where it normally settles to ~1" of the bottom within minutes.

 

I've been observing pH on my RKE head, and ended up dosing vinegar three or four times over the course of 5 hours before going to bed at around 2am. Eventually I ended up just putting about 150ml of vinegar into the ATO res to lessen the impact of the high alkalinity of the top off water.

 

I expect that my calcium level is going to be significantly higher because the vinegar will allow more calcium to be absorbed in the ATO res...

 

When I got up in the morning, the pH was back at the normal 8.2- so I'm assuming things are alright.

 

Some time tonight I'll take a look at the pH chart, which is plotted at 15 min intervals, to see what happened between adding the salt/kalk and waking up this morning.

 

 

Also- got my G10 back from Canon... Turned it on and saw a new start screen- so I'm guessing the camera had it's firmware updated. According to the repair sheet, my LCD was improperly displaying colors. I had no idea... so, maybe taking pictures will be a different experience now.

 

 

New pics tonight, I promise!

 

 

FULL SIZED IMAGES HERE

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Okay, pics time. I decided to try shooting in normal JPEG instead of RAW... And I think these pictures look like crap. They're fuzzy and don't seem to be as easy to edit. So... crappy pictures for now. Also, someone needs to teach me how to share from picasa/Google+ easier than right clicking on every photo for the web address then using the [i m g][/ i m g] button above... Like how photobucket gives you the code that copies to your clipboard in one click.

 

 

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The zoos at the center of this pic have been closed for a few days now... Think damn Vermatid snails are sliming them.

 

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So I've learned that piorites love being blasted with light. The christmas tree worms, not so much. When I got this, it was totally browned out- and at the LFS I actually thought it was just a dead rock. Going to have to sell this thing to someone with dimmer lighting...

 

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Maxi on the left is from first trade, one on the right is from the last.

 

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Fishing line to prevent Kat's branch from tumbling and mashing my frags. (Again.) Haha

 

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I now understand why people are crazy about chalice. These things are sweet.

 

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No idea what this thing is... It's tiny. Bright green and purple. Kind of looks like favia, it's not fluffy like an acan.

 

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Purple gorgonian from Reef Cleaners is doing awesome under the waterfall. It's where I dump all filter feeder formula, mysis and ... uhh.... having a Rick Perry moment... what's that red stuff called?

 

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Yellow maxi is the one I bought the day of the big trade... It's the one that went missing for a few days then decided to come out and hug my most successful SPS frag.

 

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Can't ever get GSP to glue to walls... Didn't work in my biocube, and not working in here. Trying tying it up against the wall with fishing line.

 

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put a frag plug on a magnet.. and let the gsp hang on that through the glass- your gsp will take over then.. nothing like fishing line to get in its way etc etc.. it will eventually grow

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You can kind of see in this pic... That's not detritus- almost every bit of substrate is occupied by spaghetti worm tentacles. Probably the hardest working part of my CUC.

 

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Stupid majano anemone popped up out of nowhere... Only noticed it yesterday, and it's huge. It's getting assassinated as soon as I'm done posting pics.

 

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Don't know what the bright green stuff with orange dots is... But I love it. Camera didn't like focusing on it for closeups though...

 

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I think that blue SPS is Blue Tort... It was getting smothered by zoas when I got it- so I ripped them all off yesterday. Zoos look fine despite being treated very harshly with a razor and pliers- just hope the SPS survives.

 

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Here's some of the offending zoos.

 

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SPS at the upper left quadrant is one of the originals from Mr Coral. It was encrusting well... Then a bit of a die-off happened randomly about a week ago. Looks like it might have been stung by that yellow maxi.

 

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Whatever this SPS is... that's the real glow it has, while the rest of the photo is a bit darker than in person. Brightest thing in the tank.

 

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ORA Derasa next to ORA poop colored Maxima. No idea why I bought that thing... Didn't look nearly close enough before I picked it out.

 

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Ranbow Monti in a barnacle. Doesn't look happy... It's my favorite frag that I got from the trade, but I can't figure out why it looks so crappy in my tank.

 

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Darth Maul paly's went from 2 heads to... however many are in this photo. Since I dosed some trace elements, they're suddenly significantly larger. The change occurred literally overnight.

 

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Not sure what the browned out SPS is in the top right quadrant is... Looks similar to the suffering rainbow monti- but pretty sure it's not that.

 

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I like the pink zoos. Very different from the rest in my tank.

 

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Stupid #####ass YWG pair... If they're not sold by the frag swap, they're getting tossed in the street.

 

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Like this green acan... for some reason one of the fish or crabs keeps moving it no matter how much I glue it down. It looks pretty beat up as a result. :angry:

 

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Some sort of hornet?

 

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The zoa/paly's on the right (x-men?) might have something eating them... Haven't seen anything yet, but as you can see, they look a little chewed on.

 

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Orange polyp SPS is one of my favorites. Any idea what it is?

 

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Don't know what that thing is in the center... It was a frag that looked dead from Mr Coral, but it looks like it's making a comeback.

 

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The green ones are the damn super palys that I want to kill... Happy thing in this pic though- got a new palm tree with orange stripes on the "branches"... Looks sweet.

 

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Cool little (favia?) frag down there. I'll mount it when it grows a bit more.

 

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Happy Samhains up front and center. Really like the tiny zoos. Anyone know of other morphs that small?

 

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When coraline is growing on your charcoal... You've probably had it in there too long.

 

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This is why I no longer maintain the thread on the macro forum... The mantis tank is now more about nutrient uptake than display.

 

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I'm letting you know that the next time you are out of town, ^^ this whole entire thing will vanish.

 

And since we are friends I just want you also to know that I am here to take the burden off any of those frags off your shoulders.

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I'm letting you know that the next time you are out of town, ^^ this whole entire thing will vanish.

 

And since we are friends I just want you also to know that I am here to take the burden off any of those frags off your shoulders.

 

 

That's a base rock. Be careful. ;)

 

 

p.s. See that little orange speck in the skeleton up above those paly's? That's the only surviving Mr Coral acan.

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