Mark's Nanobox Powered 40B -retired-

[sprite]

28 minutes ago, markalot said:

 

Thanks Sprite.  One day I may have a tank without any SPS, which I think would make my life so much easier, but not yet.   I am amazed how well the caps have grown even though Alk has been bouncing around.  

You have no idea how many times the past yr I have thought about no sps after all my tank went through with aefw and dinos. ?? my tank should have mini colonies right now ava I'm still looking at frags??

[mitten_reef]

23 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

Hi Mark,

 

Really love the colors in your tank! Can you share your NBR Quad settings?

 

Thanks, 

@markalot Can you share your Bluefish magic sauce? ^^

[markalot]

7 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

@markalot Can you share your Bluefish magic sauce? ^^

 

[mitten_reef]

1 hour ago, markalot said:

 

Thank you, gonna have to try that out!

[vlangel]

Man Mark, those top down shots are beautiful!  I sure don't see any decline, just lots of amazing, colorful coral.

[markalot]

Very busy and the tank needs a water change bad.  I started added vinegar to the topoff a month ago (vinegar + 3 tsp saturated Kalk per gallon RODI) and this has kept KH fairly stable but algae has slowly disappeared and some of the corals, especially the torch, are unhappy.  Needs a water change and some food!  I added a new PolyFilter and some carbon to try and clean up the water a bit.  I suspect that big leather is starting to adversely effect some of the corals.

 

[teenyreef]

Looks good, Mark - do you think the problem is low nitrates because of the vinegar? Or just chemical warfare from the leather? Also, how are you liking the T5 strip now that you've had it for a little while? I've thought about doing something similar over my IM40 to reduce shadowing from the Wide Quad.

[markalot]

4 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Looks good, Mark - do you think the problem is low nitrates because of the vinegar? Or just chemical warfare from the leather? Also, how are you liking the T5 strip now that you've had it for a little while? I've thought about doing something similar over my IM40 to reduce shadowing from the Wide Quad.

 

Hi Teeny.

 

I really like the T5.  I had an AquaBlue special in it for a while, really lightened up the tank visually, but I just could not stand the color.  Running a Coral+ again and it really makes the tank look more evenly lighted but not so overwhelming that you lose the shimmer.

[teenyreef]

6 minutes ago, markalot said:

 

Hi Teeny.

 

I really like the T5.  I had an AquaBlue special in it for a while, really lightened up the tank visually, but I just could not stand the color.  Running a Coral+ again and it really makes the tank look more evenly lighted but not so overwhelming that you lose the shimmer.

Thanks - that gives me something to think about, then. Like you, I'll have to figure out some way to mount it without looking too bad

[markalot]

49 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks - that gives me something to think about, then. Like you, I'll have to figure out some way to mount it without looking too bad

 

Ha, mine looks bad.  I need some kind of a makeshift hood to hide it.

 

I didn't answer the vinegar question ... I will test tomorrow but I suspect 0 N and 0 PO4 with PO4 being the issue since I add CaNO3 daily.  The addition of vinegar helps reduce nitrates and since I add Nitrates this has probably dropped PO4 too low.  My little fish just don't poop enough!

[Mariaface]

Time for more fish!  

[markalot]

This beautiful beastie was walking across the sandbed this morning.  I haven't added anything orange and if he's eating the orange zoas then he's not doing a very good job.

 

[teenyreef]

Wow, that's beautiful!

[markalot]

3 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Wow, that's beautiful!

 

He's flushed, could not take the chance, but it was quite striking.   

 

Nitrates are 10, yep 10, so that means PO4 is zip, and that's exactly what I measured.  Probably why corals are upset and algae is dying back.  I will stop dosing nitrates and see if I can regain some balance.  It's easy to forget how quickly vinegar or other carbon based dosing can work.  

[markalot]

It appears lack of PO4 was a significant issue, again, and again I damages some corals.  No complete losses yet but  my pretty blue trumpets will need to make up for a lot of lost heads.

 

I dosed 2 drops of Seachem PO4 yesterday and today and just like that things have perked up.

 

The torch coral is still hurting but the healthy heads have thick polyps so with some targeted feeding I should be able to get it back to good health.   The SPS did not seem to mind, naturally.  As long as nitrates are elevated SPS seems immune to very low PO4.

 

 

Some of my random shots have focus issues ... oh well, it's all I have.

 

 

 

 

I can't capture the true color of this but it's a nice blue with greenish base. Growth is creeping down over the rocks as it shoots up digits at random.  Damn cool monti.

 

[teenyreef]

I love these shots, especially those green monticaps.

 

I'm more and more convinced that my down spell in the 10g tank was due to bringing PO4 down too far and too fast, while also trying to get nitrates low at the same time. In Mike Paletta's recent articles about the "masters", what really jumped out at me was that almost every single tank had low PO4 in the range we are accustomed to go for, but nitrates were way higher than the conventional wisdom of "5 or below". In fact, most had nitrates over 10. And many of them dose little, if any, trace elements, and most don't do anything fancy about feeding coral food or supplements, either.

[DaveFason]

7 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I love these shots, especially those green monticaps.

 

I'm more and more convinced that my down spell in the 10g tank was due to bringing PO4 down too far and too fast, while also trying to get nitrates low at the same time. In Mike Paletta's recent articles about the "masters", what really jumped out at me was that almost every single tank had low PO4 in the range we are accustomed to go for, but nitrates were way higher than the conventional wisdom of "5 or below". In fact, most had nitrates over 10. And many of them dose little, if any, trace elements, and most don't do anything fancy about feeding coral food or supplements, either.

I totally agree and have been practicing the same. I think we went through a time period that all tanks should be stripped of everything and we add trace's. To top it off LEDs were pushed hard this time period and believe it discouraged many. 

 

Mark - Incredible tank! 

[Weetabix7]

8 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I love these shots, especially those green monticaps.

 

I'm more and more convinced that my down spell in the 10g tank was due to bringing PO4 down too far and too fast, while also trying to get nitrates low at the same time. In Mike Paletta's recent articles about the "masters", what really jumped out at me was that almost every single tank had low PO4 in the range we are accustomed to go for, but nitrates were way higher than the conventional wisdom of "5 or below". In fact, most had nitrates over 10. And many of them dose little, if any, trace elements, and most don't do anything fancy about feeding coral food or supplements, either.

 

Interesting. 

So were they just getting the nitrates from fish poop, or what?

[teenyreef]

8 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

Interesting. 

So were they just getting the nitrates from fish poop, or what?

Fish poop is definitely the best source for coral food! My take is that the corals were being fed as a side effect of feeding the fish, either through left over/decomposing food, or as fish poop. I just thought it was interesting that with all the variety of coral food like reef roids, plankton, amino acids, etc., etc., that so many of us use, many of the tank owners didn't use them at all, or only used them sporadically. And these are tank owners recognized for some of the most colorful corals around.

[samnaz]

Wow, your tank is so freakin beautiful. Such incredible photos. I saved a bunch of them, and made one my comp background... hope you don't mind. If I were you I would totally stay home all day long and just sit infant of that tank, haha. 

 

I've got a Nanobox Quad on the way. Your tanks got me soo excited for it. Maybe one day my tank will be almost sort of as pretty as yours, I hope.  

[markalot]

13 hours ago, samnaz said:

Wow, your tank is so freakin beautiful. Such incredible photos. I saved a bunch of them, and made one my comp background... hope you don't mind. If I were you I would totally stay home all day long and just sit infant of that tank, haha. 

 

I've got a Nanobox Quad on the way. Your tanks got me soo excited for it. Maybe one day my tank will be almost sort of as pretty as yours, I hope.  

 

Hi Samnaz, thanks.  Good luck with your tank!

[gena]

Looks outstanding as usual, Mark!!!!  I wish I could go shopping in your tank .

[markalot]

On 6/2/2017 at 11:24 AM, gena said:

Looks outstanding as usual, Mark!!!!  I wish I could go shopping in your tank .

 

Thanks Gena ... looking forward to seeing your new tank ... do I see a new thread yet?

 

--

 

So dosing Phosphate has indeed improved the torch health and I swear some of the montis have improved color as well.  I dosed 2 drops daily for 4 days and stopping for now.  I did a 6 gallon water change today, the first in months.  Things are happy.  I finally have time to just sit in front of the tanks and enjoy them.  Things have grown a bit since I last did this.

[markalot]

A few pics after the water cleared.  I scooted the SPS rocks back just a bit and moved a few corals around to make room for a piece of Blueberry Capitata (montipora) that broke off in the big tank.  I also broke a big fat plating piece of the Mystic Sunset weed so I moved it in here as well.  I forgot about my poor orange/green Leptoseris  being shaded by the bird so I broke it off and moved it up front.  Amazingly is survived in almost no light.

 

 

Brought the macro out for a few closeups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[markalot]

Shaded Lepto