Reefer 350

[markalot]

5 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

@markalot, I was thinking of taking 

the dkh to 9 and holding there. That’s what it used to be. Is .4dkh/day a reasonable rate of dKh rise, to go from my 6.8 up to 9?  I know by this point you are the Kh expert of NR!

 

     I don’t have a Ca test, but am just matching it with my Alk dosing since it’s a recommended 1/1 ratio. Plus, I never hear of a problem of “High Calcium”. Mg is holding steady with ATI part C.

 

Good question.  I would go slower and still expect something bad to happen.  You can get great growth at 6.5 KH, look at my tank.  Acros will turn food into growth if given stable params.   Based on your habits, which seem similar to mine, I just think low KH works better for you.  

[HarryPotter]

5 minutes ago, markalot said:

 

Good question.  I would go slower and still expect something bad to happen.  You can get great growth at 6.5 KH, look at my tank.  Acros will turn food into growth if given stable params.   Based on your habits, which seem similar to mine, I just think low KH works better for you.  

 

     Thats true, perhaps there is no reason to reach for a more "normal" alkalinity level if the corals are happy here. There have been too many changes in the tank recently between dosing Mg, the 8 bulb fixture, another powerhead, and aptasia-x. Its hard to keep track of (Or even guess at) what is doing what at this point. Hands have been a lot too with all the frags and stuff- it probably needs to be left alone for a bit. 

 

Thanks- I will check if it is still rising today and if so will take dosing down a bit. 

[HarryPotter]

Alkalinity is still 7.2, so I am not going to modify the dose.

 

I keep getting apex alarms for pH, perhaps it’s time to calibrate it (after ~3 years). I use it more as an indicator of a problem (dosing, lighting, etc) than for the actual value. 

[HarryPotter]

Darkness

 

 

Skimmer pulls out this much every three days or so. I think I’m happy with that.... or maybe I want more nutrients. Or maybe I want feed the RFAs more.  Or maybe there are too much nutrients given I have a tiny patch of cyano in the back right ?

 

 

I feel guilty for this urchin. Its entire life has been in either a rear chamber of an AIO or in my bare sump. I’ve always expected to find a bunch of spines and an urchin skeleton... but I guess it eats the crud. Not sure if it’s reef safe, nor do I want it to carry around all my frags. Pencil urchin maybe? 

 

 

Went after a few tiny aptasia I found. I also put aptasia-X onto the large spaghetti worms on my sand bed. I’m not sure if it kills them but wow they close up fast. 

[HarryPotter]

"History of Harry's Reefkeeping"

 

So this was my first reef setup. Picked the 28g tank up off craigslist for $50, and added corals and fish on day 1. Went great- ive never believed in cycles anyway . Had aptasia but other than that super easy, with 5g monthly water changes.

 

Oct 2014

 

 

 

Then, I discovered forums. @markalot, @teenyreef, @metrokat, and a few others were huge influences. I decided that I did NOT like the "pile of rocks" scape, and that a beautiful reef was about the corals and negative space (water)- not rock. I traded away most of the mushrooms and the LR. 

 

The new rock structure pictured below I still have, with all the hard corals attached. 

That little pale red cap is currently 12"x12", and constantly fragged. 

 

May 2015

 

Later, JBJ sent me their 45 AIO as an apology for their heater nuking my dads 300g cichlid tank. It was super nice of them- I mailed them the heater, and they acknowledged an internal defect and basically offered to let me pick something off their product line. I ended up with a JBJ RL-45 with stand, skimmer, and light.   This tank went pretty darn well and really got me hardcore into the hobby. Everything I put in their just grew and grew. I started fragging too and trading. I still have all these anemones, LPS, SPS, clam, everything except the purple montipora (which I traded). This tank got a used Apex Lite that I still use today.  It got 5g bi-weekly water changes.

 

You can see how this tank seems super healthy, but kind of "childish" and busy; corals and frags scattered everywhere. The longer Ive been in the hobby, the more I like an empty sand bed that is easy to maintain with powerhead blasting.  

Feb 2016

 

 

 

And my current tank- a red sea reefer 350. Got it off craigslist and sold all the extras. I ended up coming out even (the guys wife was making him sell, and he was clearly trying to hide how much all of his equipment had cost), and kept the tank, skimmer, return. Sold the 45g to a NR member. 

 

I had a used Radion on the 45g, which I traded for a used ATI 6x54w through a facebook group. T5s rock. This tank gets mostly 20g water changes. 

 

The rock structure on the right is the original one, all the way from my 28g AIO. 

April 2018

[Pjanssen]

Great progression, Harry.  It's nice that you kept the original rock structure from you 28. 

[HarryPotter]

2 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Great progression, Harry.  It's nice that you kept the original rock structure from you 28. 

 

I just love how these 1/2- 3/4" frags turned into forests of huge branches  

 

TBT to original acros.

 

[HarryPotter]

6:30pm trying to razor glass-accidental frag ?

 

[Pjanssen]

Whoa! What did you accidentally frag?

[mitten_reef]

Is this a prequel to you telling us that you’re about to move on from the 350?  

 

Great timeline Harry!

[HarryPotter]

15 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Whoa! What did you accidentally frag?

 

A big piece of pink millipora! The photo looks odd because it was an iPhone photo and blue, so I adjusted warmth with an app. 

 

Today, April 21 2018 

 

Grafted cap from FMAS looks like it is happily encrusting onto my plug:

 

 

Stuff from ReefAPalooza doing pretty well. No growth yet, but polyp extension improving. They need another month before being mounted I think .  @markalot, think they might want more light? 

 

 

 

Slightly less busy rack rack after I brought over 6 frags to Boston. Some acropora are encrusting over the branches of others, needs trimming. I’m glad I buy 100 plugs at a time now ?. 

 

The center frag is the red millipora . Not great photos since just mah phone and an app.

[markalot]

They might grow faster in a little more light, hard to do from a frag rack unless it's in front and the glass is kept clean for the extra reflection.  BRS had some good PAR examples using T5's here they show how there's some extra light near the front of the tank due to reflection, but not from the back if the back is painted black.  

[HarryPotter]

44 minutes ago, markalot said:

They might grow faster in a little more light, hard to do from a frag rack unless it's in front and the glass is kept clean for the extra reflection.  BRS had some good PAR examples using T5's here they show how there's some extra light near the front of the tank due to reflection, but not from the back if the back is painted black.  

 

The good thing is that my light is 47 inches on a 48” tank- I really do get good light on the racks. Might raise it a bit more.

[HarryPotter]

Might be ##### with something something.  I see it on the bottom branches of several colonies, ranging all over the tank. @markalot what do you think- more photos? Corals all look super happy other than the dead/eaten/white areas.

 

Possibly causes:

• Alk jumped to 9 from 7.2 in 1 day. Not sure how that happened- maybe calibration solution stunted growth, so there was no consumption. 
• Apex calibration solution 
• AEFW?

 

 

[HarryPotter]

Whats odd is that everything looks great, with regular PE and even better color. So that makes me think that it could be a pest. 

 

[Asureef]

Hey man, I wouldn’t do anything at the moment just keep it stable and you should be okay.  I got random tissue lost like that as well when I left my doser on setup menu for like 2 days, alk dropped to 6.8dkh.  I turned the doser back on and tested again after 2 days and it was back up 8.2dkh.  A few days later one of my blue tip tenuis was getting tissue lost at the tips and some other sps as well at random spots.  

 

Often times, sps won’t show stress until days or weeks later due to our mishaps, but sometimes they pull through like nothing happened.  

[HarryPotter]

50 minutes ago, Asureef said:

Hey man, I wouldn’t do anything at the moment just keep it stable and you should be okay.  I got random tissue lost like that as well when I left my doser on setup menu for like 2 days, alk dropped to 6.8dkh.  I turned the doser back on and tested again after 2 days and it was back up 8.2dkh.  A few days later one of my blue tip tenuis was getting tissue lost at the tips and some other sps as well at random spots.  

 

Often times, sps won’t show stress until days or weeks later due to our mishaps, but sometimes they pull through like nothing happened.  

 

 Crossing my fingers! I did a water change in case it was a chemical issue, and am closely monitering Alk. 

[AvaS]

2 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

Whats odd is that everything looks great, with regular PE and even better color. So that makes me think that it could be a pest. 

 

That first frag is absolutely incredible!! I need one! Is it the no name mystery from RAP? If so I need to know where you got it so I can find myself one ASAP! ?

[markalot]

I don't see anything suspicious in any photos, that's not what AEFW looks like.  I suspect Alk swing damage, probably from a previous swing.  

 

If you stopped it at 9 you might be ok, but fgure out what went wrong.   Remember if you keep changing things the balance will be thrown off, it's best to do nothing.  Each little change adds up for acros and 2 weeks later everything seems like it's going crazy when things are still reacting to whatever happened 2 weeks ago.  Usually at this point we make more changes and in 2 weeks more chaos until it's all gone.  You need to get stable and stay there for a while.

[HarryPotter]

1 hour ago, AvaS said:

That first frag is absolutely incredible!! I need one! Is it the no name mystery from RAP? If so I need to know where you got it so I can find myself one ASAP! ?

 

The first frag is a Sexy Corals Orange Passion. Might want to wait on getting acros until the tank is pretty stable  

[HarryPotter]

26 minutes ago, markalot said:

I don't see anything suspicious in any photos, that's not what AEFW looks like.  I suspect Alk swing damage, probably from a previous swing.  

 

If you stopped it at 9 you might be ok, but fgure out what went wrong.   Remember if you keep changing things the balance will be thrown off, it's best to do nothing.  Each little change adds up for acros and 2 weeks later everything seems like it's going crazy when things are still reacting to whatever happened 2 weeks ago.  Usually at this point we make more changes and in 2 weeks more chaos until it's all gone.  You need to get stable and stay there for a while.

 

     I figured out how Alk went wrong. I have had a line of code, to skip dosing if pH is over 8.35. Apparently that was causing it to not dose for roughly 1/3-1/2 of the schedule. Reading back, I have posted about seeing pH of 8.4+ in the last few weeks. So I recalibrated the probe (and dumped the fluid in the sump by mistake), and it’s  readings decreased  by .2. The pumps were then free to dose 24/7, as my pH never hit the limit. Alk spike.

 

[AvaS]

7 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

The first frag is a Sexy Corals Orange Passion. Might want to wait on getting acros until the tank is pretty stable  

I will for sure but have had it stable with no swings so far ?? I have the Texas Tort in there and it has been doing really good with great polyp extension and color so will be hopefully getting some acros in the future! Having one got me addicted! 

[markalot]

56 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

     I figured out how Alk went wrong. I have had a line of code, to skip dosing if pH is over 8.35. Apparently that was causing it to not dose for roughly 1/3-1/2 of the schedule. Reading back, I have posted about seeing pH of 8.4+ in the last few weeks. So I recalibrated the probe (and dumped the fluid in the sump by mistake), and it’s  readings decreased  by .2. The pumps were then free to dose 24/7, as my pH never hit the limit. Alk spike.

 

 

Yep, I did the exact same thing last year.  I ended up putting the safety at some ridiculous PH because I keep calibrating but the tank PH keeps rising.  Normal during the day is 8.63 and my off point is 

 

If pHc > 8.80 Then OFF 

 

Still works, as an extended Alk dose quickly spikes the PH, but the real fix is a new PH probe as I think mine is just too old now.  

[WV Reefer]

On 4/20/2018 at 10:55 PM, HarryPotter said:

Darkness

 

 

Skimmer pulls out this much every three days or so. I think I’m happy with that.... or maybe I want more nutrients. Or maybe I want feed the RFAs more.  Or maybe there are too much nutrients given I have a tiny patch of cyano in the back right ?

 

 

I feel guilty for this urchin. Its entire life has been in either a rear chamber of an AIO or in my bare sump. I’ve always expected to find a bunch of spines and an urchin skeleton... but I guess it eats the crud. Not sure if it’s reef safe, nor do I want it to carry around all my frags. Pencil urchin maybe? 

 

 

 

I think that is a rock boring Urchin...... it must like it back there in the muck. 

[HarryPotter]

7 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

I think that is a rock boring Urchin...... it must like it back there in the muck. 

 

I thought it is this:

 

https://m.liveaquaria.com/product/3080/shortspine-urchin?pcatid=3080&c=530+3080