Reefer 350

[pappadumplingz]

58 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

Corals moved around to avoid the wandering BTA

 

 

When an anemone dictates how you run your tank haha. Such power from such an unintelligent organism.....

 

[HarryPotter]

45 minutes ago, pappadumplingz said:

When an anemone dictates how you run your tank haha. Such power from such an unintelligent organism.....

 

        Yep! I have four now, one in the original location, two hiding in between the overflow and the rock structure, and now that wandering one on the right side of the center structure. The wandering one is behind the clownfish in this photo, the frogspawn & torch have been moved forward onto the sand to avoid it. 

 

       Something is weird with my phones camera, the stand looks "off" colored here. Probably doing something wrong? However the tank coloration looks very well represented. Photo from yesterday. @DaveFason may be swinging by in early april, and he is pretty badass with a camera. 

 

     The wiring is terrifying in my stand . One big knot of cables; I cant get anything out. Something to work on. 

The stand doesn't even close properly since the skimmer and refugium wiring goes in front of the tank instead of behind LOL.

Unfortunately my breakout box's wires (water level+leak alarms+ power kill redundancy+feed mode button) are disconnected due to all the 'pulling and yanking. 

 

Have a few things on the way:

 

• Red Sea Coral Pro (48 gallon) from @Marine Depot
• ATI Essentials 3 Supplement also from MD using rewards points. Never tried it before, why not . 
• Replacement ATI ballast from BRS since unfortunately MD doesn't carry them 

 

I am really liking my RFA rock again. I started to spot feed them and they have tripled in size in weeks, covering any algae and just being beautiful. I didn't know I was starving them. 

 

[tanacharison]

It took me a entire day to

sort out my cables from last week.  I have a bunch of plugs that ran into nothing. ? Are you still getting of frags to support your addiction?

[HarryPotter]

5 minutes ago, tanacharison said:

It took me a entire day to

sort out my cables from last week.  I have a bunch of plugs that ran into nothing. ? Are you still getting of frags to support your addiction?

Getting of frags? Im guessing you meant selling frags, in that case yes. I have been fragging a lot and have a big rack full of nice acro frags. Milliporas, teniuses, red planet, a single yellow efflo frag, and a bunchhhh that I don't have a proper name of. I havent bothered putting montipora frags on plugs since I don't know if I could get $5 for em.  

[tanacharison]

3 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

Getting of frags? Im guessing you meant selling frags, in that case yes. I have been fragging a lot and have a big rack full of nice acro frags. 

You know what I was saying  PMing! 

[HarryPotter]

On 3/8/2018 at 8:16 AM, Travis said:

Harry, have you thought about using either Triton or ATI Essentials?  Both take care of your alk/calc/mag/trace.

 

I am running ATI Essentials with great results, better color, better growth.  No sticks in my system, so your results may vary  

 

    I just got a bottle of ATI essentials #3, the magnesium and trace elements. Do you dilute yours or dose the concentrate? I have no idea how much to dose given I use B-Ionic for Ca and Alk.

 

     It comes in a 500ml bottle that is meant to be diluted by a factor of 10 in 5L of water. Can I just dose 4ml of the concentrate, the equivalent of 40ml diluted, instead? I have the BRS 1.1ml/min dosers @Marine Depot would you guys know (as you sell both b ionic and ATI) or am I better off emailing them? 

[HarryPotter]

Hot damn... took some top downs after feeding. @DaveFason

 

 

@teenyreef I still dont think its a red planet xD

 

 

I think I spy an actually grafted part on the WWC grafted cap  

 

 

 

 

'rack aint looking half bad either!

 

 

Never loved this colony but its looking nicer every day

 

[JBM]

I must say. You have a nice rack. 

[mitten_reef]

How do you keep Millie’s so happy?  

 

And that frag rack ?, only if I had room for more corals. 

[HarryPotter]

12 minutes ago, JBM said:

I must say. You have a nice rack. 

 

I only took photos from one.... of four! Im constantly breaking branches that are battling. 

I haven't fragged the ASD Rainbow Millipora yet, because I felt guilty for managing to bleach it high up, then brown it out on a low rack xD

However some of those lower branches are heading to battle the purple bonsai.. so time to chop! 

 

11 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

How do you keep Millie’s so happy?  

 

And that frag rack ?, only if I had room for more corals. 

 

My guess is violently insane flow and reef roids. Like when you think its ridiculous and you'll tear the polyps off, ramp it up another 50%!  Lol 

 

 

[Cannedfish]

I don’t like to do this often, but on the non-linear absurdist scale between a VHS copy of Homeward Bound and an old coconut covered in glitter, you’re tank is obviously a birthday card full of scratch-off lottery tickets! Incredible!

[mitten_reef]

37 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

My guess is violently insane flow and reef roids. Like when you think its ridiculous and you'll tear the polyps off, ramp it up another 50%!  Lol 

I got the reefroid part covered.  This just confirms to me that my tank doesn’t have enough flow. Every time I see a video from ppl I followed, my reaction is always “dang, so much flow”. 

[HarryPotter]

38 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

I don’t like to do this often, but on the non-linear absurdist scale between a VHS copy of Homeward Bound and an old coconut covered in glitter, you’re tank is obviously a birthday card full of scratch-off lottery tickets! Incredible!

Thanks

[Lynaea]

Those top downs are gorgeous, think I finally get what all the fuss is about with those fuzzy sticks. 

 

 

[benjho]

ncei!!!

[HarryPotter]

On 3/28/2018 at 10:15 PM, Lynaea said:

Those top downs are gorgeous, think I finally get what all the fuss is about with those fuzzy sticks. 

 

Its all about the challenge for me! Plus, you wont find LPS with some of these colors  

 

 

 

[mitten_reef]

 

That is richer than most nice photos of RP that I've seen, form seems similar enough though.  You should name it purple planet then!  And start promoting it as limited edition corals 

[HarryPotter]

24 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

 

 

That is richer than most nice photos of RP that I've seen, form seems similar enough though.  You should name it purple planet then!  And start promoting it as limited edition corals 

 

Its does grow and appear different than ORA red planet-I am getting almost all vertical growth, with no branches aiming outward. In my small colony, it looks like a corallite from a branch grows into another branch right next to its original. Not a branch reaching outward before it thickens up: hence very little "expansion". That could be due to lighting/flow though, a multitude of possible factors. I have never fragged it, but I am tempted to cut off a few inner branches, that are in the the center of the colony, to see what happens with growth pattern. 

 

[teenyreef]

On 3/28/2018 at 5:31 PM, HarryPotter said:

 

    I just got a bottle of ATI essentials #3, the magnesium and trace elements. Do you dilute yours or dose the concentrate? I have no idea how much to dose given I use B-Ionic for Ca and Alk.

 

     It comes in a 500ml bottle that is meant to be diluted by a factor of 10 in 5L of water. Can I just dose 4ml of the concentrate, the equivalent of 40ml diluted, instead? I have the BRS 1.1ml/min dosers @Marine Depot would you guys know (as you sell both b ionic and ATI) or am I better off emailing them? 

I've  been using mine diluted for the last six months or so. It's a big change from concentrated liquid dosing and it took a while for me to tune in the right amount because you dose so much more. But I din't think there's any reason you have to dilute it as long as your doser is precise enough to dose the exact small amount you need. The BRS doser should be able to handle it since it doses so slowly.

 

Top downs look awesome! And I agree, whatever that coral is, it doesn't look like red planet. But it's beautiful

[HarryPotter]

7 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I've  been using mine diluted for the last six months or so. It's a big change from concentrated liquid dosing and it took a while for me to tune in the right amount because you dose so much more. But I din't think there's any reason you have to dilute it as long as your doser is precise enough to dose the exact small amount you need. The BRS doser should be able to handle it since it doses so slowly.

 

Top downs look awesome! And I agree, whatever that coral is, it doesn't look like red planet. But it's beautiful

I called ATI and they said I shouldn’t have any issues dosing concentrated part 3. The alkalinity one wouldn’t dissolve properly if you didn’t dilute it, but the Mg is fine. ATI instructions call for a 1/10 dilution. I set the doser to 4ml of part 3, which I guess is equivalent 40ml of the “diluted” solution. But I’m using B ionic for Ca and Alk, so it’s kind of complete guesswork. I think I may lower it to 2ml, just because I would rather under-dose something a new additive than overdose it. 

 

 

When I get the replacement ATI ballast, the “not-red-planet” will get more light and hopefully become more vibrant and show more colors. 

 

Thanks  

[teenyreef]

That's a good point about the alk solution. It takes forever to dissolve.

 

I use all three and dose the same amount, using alkalinity level to determine how much to dose, shooting for 7.5. Then I manually dose every few months if I need to increase calcium or mag. I like the idea of doing all three because they include related trace elements in each of the three solutions. So in theory, witih no water changes, you keep all the parameters including trace elements at the right level. Of course you have to do the ICP testing to make sure. But so far in my 40g tank, it's working great. No water changes since last October now.

[Travis]

I am running ATI as well, diluted and dosing equal parts. No water change since November. So far so good! I really hope this works out in the long run. It makes the tank so easy to care for. All I have to do is replace the carbon every so often, clean the skimmer cup and top off the dosing and ato reservoirs. Oh and feed the fish and clean the glass. 

[HarryPotter]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

That's a good point about the alk solution. It takes forever to dissolve.

 

I use all three and dose the same amount, using alkalinity level to determine how much to dose, shooting for 7.5. Then I manually dose every few months if I need to increase calcium or mag. I like the idea of doing all three because they include related trace elements in each of the three solutions. So in theory, witih no water changes, you keep all the parameters including trace elements at the right level. Of course you have to do the ICP testing to make sure. But so far in my 40g tank, it's working great. No water changes since last October now.

 

1 hour ago, Travis said:

I am running ATI as well, diluted and dosing equal parts. No water change since November. So far so good! I really hope this works out in the long run. It makes the tank so easy to care for. All I have to do is replace the carbon every so often, clean the skimmer cup and top off the dosing and ato reservoirs. Oh and feed the fish and clean the glass. 

 

Okay, quit bullying me, I’ll buy ATI for my next batch of Ca/Alk ?

 

Awesome to hear that it’s effective- I still do 20% monthly water changes. So you guys mix up your sand frequently too? 

 

Im away for the weekend, so I took the new Mg dosing down to 3ml. Checked ATO, cleaned skimmer, and fed a little extra. I also made 4 frags of Sunny D zoanthids, because I have several colonies in different spots around the tank ?. I throw my 2” disk of Sunny D’s anywhere there is bare rock, a month or two layer I can remove the disk and it’s propegated with gorgeous Z’s. Super fun. 

[teenyreef]

Yeah, Sunny D's grow like weeds! Pretty weeds...

 

I do stir up my sand bed a lot, but that's because I'm trying to reduce/eliminate the hair worms that irritate all the corals. With the no-water-change routine, you need some way to export stuff, which usually means either a big refugium or carbon dosing, together with a skimmer. I use NoPox which keeps nitrates and phosphates in check. I just check parameters ever week or two, and if I see a significant upward or downward trend over a month or so, I adjust the NoPox dose.

[Travis]

Yep I give my sand a stir once a week. Sometimes less if it just looks good. 

 

I do not run a fuge, they smell horrible IMO. I have seachem pond matrix and a brightwell no3 export brick. Along with my skimmer. 

 

Initially I had to dose nopox to bring my levels down but I only did that for about two weeks. My PO4 runs between 0 and 0.02 and mu no3 is about 4. It has been stable for months even with 11 fish. 

 

I feed the fish medium to heavy and let their poo feed the corals.