DaveFason Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Looking good! Shoot me over these photos on my email. I would love to share on FB. -Dave Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 26, 2014 Author Share Posted February 26, 2014 Looking good! Shoot me over these photos on my email. I would love to share on FB. -Dave I will send you an email with them here shortly. Thanks Dave! I justed added a few more corals (last ones for a while) from Pacific East.. Here are their pictures (hopefully they will look similar to this in my tank in a couple of days) Angel Eyes Chalice Rainbow Ricordea Flordia Christmas War Coral Toxic Pools Favia Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 would love to see pics of them in your tank. PEA takes great photos.... my last order, some looked almost as good as their photos while some look worst than i expected. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 26, 2014 Author Share Posted February 26, 2014 would love to see pics of them in your tank. PEA takes great photos.... my last order, some looked almost as good as their photos while some look worst than i expected. I was going to post some of them in my tank, but I do not have my DSLR at work. Plus they are all not looking 100% right now. Hopefully I will have some posted up by the end of the week. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Well I had to make a small mod to my PicO tank. The return pump has just too much flow to be controlled with one nozzle.See my thread here:http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/341687-loc-line-size-on-pico-tanks/ Here is a pic of the new return line assembly... Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 would love to see pics of them in your tank. PEA takes great photos.... my last order, some looked almost as good as their photos while some look worst than i expected. I was just talking to a friend about the whole "photo" thing. I have saved every WYSIWYG picture for every piece of coral I have ordered and none of them are a true representation of what the coral looks like. I have even played with my white/blue ratio and I cannot even make them come close on some. With PEA being a more well-know company, I really expected their pictures to be a better representation of the coral's color than some of the others out there. Their pictures were definitely not as bad, but still not as accurate as I would have liked. Is there anyone out there that sells WYSIWYG coral and does not doctor their photos or take them under some goofy lighting? Link to comment
HVani Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 WYSIWYG is such a crap shoot. I have not ordered from PEA so I can't comment on that, I have ordered from Saltcritters before and NOTHING has looked like their pictures online. Not even under just actinic LEDs. The place I have had the best luck getting true WYSIWYG items is Reef Gardener. Her picture: My picture I'm not a great photographer but you can see how close they are. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 Here are some random pics, but I apologize in advance for my lack of photo skills... Here are the new pieces from PEA that I added to the tank... Everything is looking nice and healthy, but I have not seen the Chalice or the Favia do anything (no tentacles)...My Frogspawn almost completely killed one of my Acan's. The Frogspawn's feeder tentacles are literally 7-8 inches long and I had no idea! Here is a picture of the one that is about 75% healed... Here is my other Acan... Also I moved my Hammer to a "lower flow" location and it seems to like it much better... Hopefully I do not have it too high on the rocks... Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 http://myreeftoyours.com/ is pretty good with pictures. Free shipping at $135 and their prices are lower than PEA. PEA shipping is crazy high and their prices are pretty high too, but the quality is pretty good. Keep in mind that most vendors take pictures of the corals in very SHALLOW tanks with the light right above the coral so they always get great colors and minimum distortion. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted March 22, 2014 Author Share Posted March 22, 2014 Just a quick update. I have been out of the office for the past week and will be gone again for 1 more week.I have someone watching/feeding my tank and I am starting to develop some more algae problems (almost like another diatom bloom). So I am not sure if it is being fed too much or what. Also my Duncan has not been looking well, see my other thread -->http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/343218-something-growing-at-the-base-of-my-duncan/ I just realized that my tank is a little over 3 months old and I have it stocked pretty heavily, so I was wondering if my Purigen & ChemiPure needed to be changed. I read somewhere that most people only leave them in about 3 months. So I think since I am in the office today, that I will go ahead and replace those just to see if it makes a difference. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 Well the tank is looking semi-better. The Duncan still looks pissed off most of the time. I realized that my phosphates were around .07 ppm, so I have done a couple of water changes to try to get that down (probably a result of over-feeding). Anyway, yesterday I picked up a Kryptonite Candy Cane (10 Heads) and a small Brick Red Montipora from a local reefer. I feel like I have most of the well-know LPS so I may want to start looking into some SPS. If I can get this phosphate problem locked down, then I will try out a bird's nest or something simple. More pictures to come once I get this algae under control... Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 Well I had a 40% off coupon from Saltcritters so I decided to give them 1 more try. I just ordered a couple of Zoa & Acan frags. Well, the pictures look absolutely nothing like what I got. Even if I turn on my blues 100%, they still look nothing alike. I feel like I got a good deal for the price, but I will NEVER be ordering from them again. I am consistently battling phosphates from .05 ppm to .10 ppm. I do 20% water change every week and only feed 4-5 times a week. I am probably feeding them too much, but I have a 5 minute timer and I only feed them as long as they are actively eating it. The only reason I do it that much is because my clowns start to pick on each other if they do not get fed every other day or so... Anyway, I just started researching external reactors for my tank (no sump & no room in the tank). I am thinking about putting a Phosban 150 reactor in the stand and running GFO to try to get my phosphates/algae under control... Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 19, 2014 Author Share Posted April 19, 2014 Just a quick update... I got a Zoa Pack from Coral Gardens Aquaculture last week and I am really excited by all the new color in the tank --> See the thread here: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/344410-3-more-75-polyps-for-75-shipped-zoa-packs-available/ Also, I finally decided to get a TLF Phosban 150 reactor for my tank as nothing I do seems to help with the Phosphate problem (I refuse to feed less). Check out the discussion here: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/344401-reactor-in-a-nano/ Well, I knew there was going to be problems with the reactor and I was right. The MJ600 pump (that comes bundled with the reactor) makes a horrible noise when setting the flow using the ball valve. Anything below full blast and it rattles like crazy. I even tried a MJ400 pump and it did the same thing. After doing some research, it turns out that these power heads cannot take any sort of head pressure without rattling, so I had to order a new pump. I ordered a Eheim 600 Compact in hopes of solving the problem. The Eheim pump is flow adjustable without using the ball valve. I will post up pictures of the setup as soon as I get the new pump in... Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 Tank is looking good man! Would love to see a new FTS up in this thread Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 27, 2014 Author Share Posted April 27, 2014 So I have added a couple of birdsnest from 2 different local reefers and a few Zoa's since this pic was taken. I really want to get my algae under control before I do a more recent FTS. In other news, the Eheim pump is SOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the MaxiJet. It is dead quite no matter how much I adjust the ball valve. I will never own another MJ pump. So the reactor has been running for a while now and I see no real difference in the algae. I have changed the GFO once and I think I will continue to change it every week (with the water change) until I see the phosphates/algae go away. I have not tested for phosphates since I changed the GFO, but before I changed it there were pretty much the same. I will be posting up my picture of my mounting/hanging solution for the reactor so that other can see how to make a PiCo tank run a skimmer and reactor with no problem (and it not be an eye sore)... Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 love the torch on the sandbed. is that a frogspawn on the sandbed too? Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 27, 2014 Author Share Posted April 27, 2014 love the torch on the sandbed. is that a frogspawn on the sandbed too? Yep. Good eye! Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 Just snapped a view pics of my Reactor setup on my PicO tank... It is hidden pretty well with it hanging behind the Skimmer and I do not have to worry about a leak draining my tank (as I would if I put it in the stand)... It does not stickup much higher than the skimmer and it is hard to notice... (especially from the front)... Can you even spot the reactor from the front? Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 ur tank is looking AWESOME! Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 updates? more pictures? really like how your tank is looking Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted May 28, 2014 Author Share Posted May 28, 2014 Well the update is that running the reactor really really screwed with my alkalinity levels. And I am still battling to get my frogspawn back. It seemed to really be the only coral affected, but it looks bad. Everything else looks OK, but not great. I had to just stop running the reactor, because I was having to be put teaspoon of baking soda in the tank per day just to keep up with the continually dropping alk leverls. I am not sure if I was running too much phosban or what (5 teaspoons). I tried just running the reactor at night, but that did not make a difference. So I stopped running the reactor and about 4 days later, all the algae popped back up and my frogspawn started looking just a tiny tiny bit better. I have been doing a 20% water change every 3 days, and I am still do not have everything back to looking like it was... So frustrating... I am going to try to reactor again with less phosban (I guess??) and only run it about 6 hours a day and see what that does. I am not going down that road until I get the tank back to normal though... Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 sorry to hear about the frogspawn. is it both or the one up top? when i dropped in phosguard, it cleared up my algae real quick but i think it contributed to my tank not doing so well. i stopped running it and now algae is back...argh. hope things work out for you. Link to comment
TaterTot24 Posted August 18, 2014 Author Share Posted August 18, 2014 Well I have not updated this in a while because I am so disappointed with my tank. No matter what I do or what I change, I cannot seem to get things to go right. Whether I take advice from online or local reefers, I never end up with the promised outcome. And this is not my first saltwater tank and as a engineer I know how to follow directions and do things correctly. Anyway, at this point I am too embarrassed to put up a picture of the tank. I am still having trouble with my frogspawn and issues with algae. Also, none of my ZOA are opening up like they were when I first got the tank. I have started using kalkwasser in my ATO (a small amount) and I am now consistently in the 8.4-8.5 pH range. It also helps my alkalinity problem brought on by the gfo. I got 2 peppermint shrimp to help with an aiptasia outbreak I had. I think I am due to replace my purigen and chemipure, so I am doing that this week along with replacing my gfo in my reactor. Anyway, my tank is stuck in the land of mediocrity and is continually getting worse instead of better. I thought and older tank was suppose to do better... Link to comment
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