Mr. Fosi's drilled 20H

[Mr. Fosi]

And the livestock collection has grown tremendously of late

All beautiful pieces too.

 

Great stuff

 

Greater truth have never been said!

 

Here are some shots of the frags in the home tank, not all of them b/c they aren't all in places that are easy to photograph. They aren't all open yet, but they are getting there!

 

 

 

 

***TANK CHEM UPDATE***

 

I tested when I got home and I found:

 

pH = 8.2

Ca = 330 ppm

Alk = 9.3 dKH

 

In response, I added another 3 mL alk and 5 mL Ca. I haven't tested the pH but if past experience is worth anything, it is probably 8.2 right now.

 

So it seems as though my consumption is high?

 

The Sunset has stopped receding (THANK YOU WEETIE!) but it isn't growing like the orange is... I will keep up with what I have been doing until my weekly waterchange on Sat.

[BibleSue]

Those Evil Mel's will grow fast so give them some room. The Nuke will multiply faster if you give it mysis. Sorry about the grass on the French Silk Pie. I thought I found another one that wasn't grassy. I have a bit of an issue in a couple of areas in my prop tank but nowhere else. We were going to send a couple of other things but saw you got them from Lalani. Thanks for all you add to this site. You have helped us both as we have had to deal with different issues over time. Enjoy!

[Mr. Fosi]

I am sure the emeralds will take care of the grass.

 

Thanks to both of you! :) I hope they all do well under my care... I would hate to feel as though your generosity was wasted.

[BibleSue]

You are most welcome! Nothing is fussy that we sent you so all should be good. You might have to play with placement on the FSP to get the white to POP & the tubs to open.

 

FSP can look like this

 

or this (round white disk front kinda left of center)

 

[SeeDemTails]

Nice corals Fosi, some of my faves came from Weetie, she's the shat!

[Mr. Fosi]

So about my tank chem...

 

I did a 1g waterchange last night to clear out my bucket so I could get a full load today. I tested the water today and I came up with 9.3 dKH and 330 ppm.

 

After looking over ESV's recommendations for dosing, I think I am not dosing enough. I really should be dosing the full 1 ml/gal until I get it where I want it and in my system works out to about 6.5 ml. Maybe not so much on the Alk since it is at least in passable range right now but the Ca really needs to come up.

 

Rather than act like a tenderfoot and just dose a couple ml at night, I am going to do a full dose in the morning before I leave the house. That way, the system can run all day before I test it in the evening.

 

Tomorrow morning I will dose 5 ml Alk (b/c I don't need to raise it a full 2 dKH) and 6.5 mL Ca; results to follow.

[Deleted User 6]

she's the shat!

 

Past-tense? lol.

 

Fosi, nice new additions.

[Gerber77]

All those frags look great, how do you like the Odyssea fixture?

[Mr. Fosi]

I am using a Sunpod on this system in the thread title though the Odyssea 130W PC fixtures have served me well in the past and currently do fine over the lab tank.

[SeeDemTails]

You can dose as much CA as you want with no ill effets, I have never had any. Dont let the alk slide though because its a b*tch to get that back up quickly.

[Mr. Fosi]

I believe you speak the truth.

 

I have been reading over the results that I got from a reef chem calculator and it seems as though I can lay off the alk and probably just dose the Ca tomorrow... Or maybe tonight?

 

The calculator doesn't like my 1500 ppm Mg. I guess it just needs to eat it though b/c that's what my NSW comes in with at 35 ppt. At least I'll never need to worry about precipitating my Ca.

[lgreen]

I've been stalking your thread the last couple days seeing how you did your sump. Lots of little interesting scientific tid-bits throughout too.

 

Impressive collection of corals you got from the coral kitchen too. Hopefully they'll still be fraging corals by the time I get a tank set up!

 

edit: lots of spelling errors...I just woke up, haha.

[Mr. Fosi]

Hey 'Green! Thanks for stopping by.

 

If you want to see more about the sump, check out the latter half of my 20L thread. I put more info about the build in that thread than this one.

 

As for your sentiment about the Coral Kitchen, they are awesome and I hope they stay around and active for a good long time.

[lgreen]

Cool. I will check out your other thread.

 

I like that you just used a maxi-jet 1200. I'm curious if I went with a low flow rate through the sump if I could get away with out having to use a durso/stalkman standpipe.

 

Any thoughts on that?

[Mr. Fosi]

I would say that if yours has a flowrate like mine then you might be able to get away with it.

 

I have a stockman but because of how I constructed it, it doesn't function properly with the low flowrate that I have. I still get a little gurgling but it isn't bad at all.

[Weetabix7]

Have the frags opened up more for you today Fosi?

How's the Sunset?

 

If it helps you feel any better, I'm really having to wrestle with my Alk and Ca levels and dosing right now myself.

I think I may be having problems with Alk supplement being too concentrated and causing Ca to precipitate, but I'm not positive, still trying to figure it out.

Just got an Aqualifter in the mail today and am hoping to try glennr's idea for a DIY doser for just my Alk component.

 

Thanks for the Coral Kitchen compliments guys!

BibleSue is going to be shutting down her Prop Tank very shortly, but the upgrade I am planning will have a Prop Tank integrated into the sump, if I can ever get it off the ground!

[BibleSue]

Also, my contest tank is a smaller version of prop tank. Primo easy to grow stuff mostly.

[Mr. Fosi]

Everything is open except for the single zoa polyps (armageddon and nuclear green). Even some of the Tubbs are open, though not yet at 100%. Those two sinlge zoas want to open but the shroom on the armageddon frag is crowding it and the other one just isn't all there yet.

 

I had to do some gluing today b/c the sand was too crowded and eveything was falling all over. I snipped off the bottoms of the frag plugs and superglued them to some of the rubble from my sump.

 

I don't want to get too permanent with placement yet b/c I still have some stuff coming from Urchinhead. Probably a green monti, some palys, some zoas and perhaps some micromussa.

 

In the meantime, I will keep kicking the Ca/Alk around... I tested tonight and Alk is finally up to ~9.9 dKH but my Ca had dropped to 270 ppm. I'm tellin' ya, there is some serious demand in this tank even though nothing is very big. I dropped several ml of Ca in there this evening and I will test it tomorrow morning. If the alk still looks good tomorrow and the Ca is up closer to where it shoudl be, I am going to rig up a kalk drip.

 

I have an aqualifter that has just been sitting around so I may enlist it to do the kalk. The other option is to get one of those inexpensive peristaltic pumps off scottyreef... I'm not sure I want to drop more $$ right now though. I've spent plenty on livestock recently and I think it is time to chill out and let the dust settle.

[Mr. Fosi]

Alk = 9.6 dKH

Ca = 330 ppm

 

I guess the Alk has evened out a bit b/c I didn't dose much this morning. The Ca just won't come up though... I dosed 10 ml this morning before I left.

 

Also, pics I promised to the Reef Chicks.

 

First a suck pic. I wish I could get a better shot of that Armageddon zoa! I hope that thing reproduces and quickly 'cause me wants more!

 

 

 

 

 

Now some non-Reef Chicks frags.

 

 

 

 

And finally, I figured out how to shoot the Madracis. You can see the the center of the large colony is irritated by the vermetid to the right... And people say that they don't affect corals. I've tried gluing the little bastard shut but I always miss b/c I can't see what I am doing when I do it in the tank and I dare not pull the rock out b/c of the massive green sponge that is on it.

 

[BibleSue]

Looks good in there. You are right about the Tubbs. Just play with location but give a few days to a week in each spot. It took them a bit to open on the upper left shelf to the left of my 150 MH light but they were happy there ever after. The are doing well 2/3 of the way up in my contest tank under 50/50 PC lights.

 

If you feed mysis to the Armageddon it will grow multiply faster for you.

[Mr. Fosi]

Thanks for the suggestions. Perhaps I will try some spot feeding on the lone zoa.

 

I'm working on getting some Coral Frenzy and/or Cyclopeez as well. I have a skimmer and I do waterchanges so I think it is time to feed with something better than Tetra Marine flakes and the very occasional mysis.

 

Also, those gorgs are snatchy pigs! They grabbed some fairly large bits of flake and made them disappear very quickly.

[roy91079]

I use a Kodak EasyShare V550. The trick is to use macro mode, make sure your focus is right and take a lot of pics. If you take a lot of pics you can winnow them down to the best ones.

 

Plus, you need to do a little post processing to correct the colors.

 

Here is your photo with a little post processing.

 

 

I manipulated:

 

- Levels

- White Balance

- Vibrance

 

I also ran Unsharp Mask. All of this was done in the GIMP.

 

In other news: PC lamp spectrums don't shift over time.

 

Hey Fosi,

 

Is there anything you can do with a girl at work that keeps hitting on me? She could use a little work.....

[Mr. Fosi]

Depends!

 

I did my first meaningful post processing job on some 1.0 megapixel photos taken for my (now) wife's homecoming. I took her and one of her friends and her friend ended up looking horribly demonic with totally white eyes in a couple of the photos.

[Carinya]

Wow, you weren't kidding! What awesome additions. Should grow in just beautifully.

[BibleSue]

Thanks for the suggestions. Perhaps I will try some spot feeding on the lone zoa.

 

I'm working on getting some Coral Frenzy and/or Cyclopeez as well. I have a skimmer and I do waterchanges so I think it is time to feed with something better than Tetra Marine flakes and the very occasional mysis.

 

Also, those gorgs are snatchy pigs! They grabbed some fairly large bits of flake and made them disappear very quickly.

 

You could hand feed with tweezers after your rinse the mysis well. I do that when I feed. I have never had the gorg latch on to anything but I don't have fish in the prop tank & not much in the 10g. The six line gets everything before it ever leaves the surface of the water. I'll have to check it out!