TheBigOs EVO 13.5g/20L DIY AIO - Rock Flower Garden

[WV Reefer]

17 hours ago, TheBig053 said:

Tough day in TheBigO household. We had to put down our (almost) 13 yr old golden/aussie mix because of cancer this morning. She was a sweet dog for an alpha female and we will miss her dearly, but glad she is no longer suffering. I think the Nats loss on Thursday night was what finally did her in. She couldn't take anymore DC sports letdown and decided to check out. Sorry, using humor to avoid real feelings. 

 

RIP Luna, a.k.a Lu Dawg, a.a.k.a Sweet Lu, a.a.a.k.a Luna Tuna

 

Anyway, this happened the other night....

 

 

No, the anemone is not eating my clownfish! It's hosting it! Though I wish it would eat that damn shrimp....

 

Finally got the baffles of AIO chambers siliconed in the 20L, so it's getting wet tomorrow! 

 

The bew bulbs for the T5 were also delivered. I wanted a real blue look so I went with two ATI blue plus, one aqua blue special, and one purple plus. Here is a before and after between the used bulbs that came with the light and the new bulbs.

 

before/used

 

after/new

 

Gonna pick up pre-mixed water from the LFS to cycle the tank with and two pieaces of LR to conpliment the left over rock from EVO build that is now dry. More to come tomorrow.

Sending you good vibes ~~~~~~~ so sorry about Luna.

[Minmay]

Awww...im sorry to hear about your family's loss...RIP Luna ?

[fishfreak0114]

So sorry to hear about your pup  It's pretty neat that your clown started hosting!  I wish mine would host something.

[TheBig053]

Thanks guys. Its tough when our two-year old asks where she is, but time will heal. 

 

In other news, the 20L is finally wet! Got water in the tank with half live pukani rock from my LFS and half dry rock left over from the EVO build. First impression, the socce syncra 1.5 was way overkill for the return pump. I had to turn the flow all the way down to keep  it from emptying the third chamber and overflowing the display. Second, the water in the display sits about 2mm above the top of the holes i drilled for the overflow so they arent skimming the surface, doh! I'm looking for a small surface skimmer box attachmet at the moment. 

 

Here are a few shots of the finished product. 

 

 

 

 

And with water!!!

[TheBig053]

Two-yr old woke me up at 4 AM and then went back to sleep. Little jerk! JK, love you buddy. Since I'm up I thought I'd get a little early morning update in. 

 

Won two auctions on the local reef club forum this week for zoas and palys. These are the first new zoas and palys in the tank sonce May and they will likely be moving to the 20L once its cycled, more on that shortly. Heres a shot of the new additions.

 

Nuclear Death Palys (apparently a cross between Nuclear Palys and Green Death Palys)

 

Hot Rod Zoas

 

And a lonely Twizzler(s) polyp

 

I think I tend to sleep on zoas and palys since they seem so common, but I would like to add more to my collection over the coming months since there seems to be an infinite amount of colors out there. I also need to remove a large rock from the tank to perform some lawn maintenance and halt the GSP blitzkrieg that is threatening my purple fusions, rastas, and bam bams. 

 

Another quick 20L update. The sicce syncra 1.5 is a beast and was emptying the return chamber in seconds so I had to increase flow through the overflow holes and rear chambers. I made the existing over flow holes larger (1/2" to 3/4") and drilled three additional holes (all 1/2") in a row below the original holes. I accomplished this using a step drill bit at the suggestion of @Nart and it was way easier (and cleaner) than using the spade I was using previously. Wish I had known this from the start. Anyway, we got flow for days now!

 

Shot of the roided up overflow (pay no attention to the off center hole on bottom right! Thats what I get for eye balling it.)

 

Tank has been wet/cycling since Sunday. It has two good sized pieces of live Pukani from the LFS plus some dry real reef left over from the EVO, so I am just waiting for the dry rock to populate with bacteria before adding anything. I did add a small amount of ammonia to the tank on Tuesday that is being processed but the ammonia levels were still too high for my comfort to add anything. I don't intend on adding any fish to this tank in the immediate future, just coral frags for now, so I think once it finishes processing the ammonia dose and I perform a large water change I should be good to go. The low bio-load to start should allow ample time for bacteria to continue populating the surface of the dry rock. 

 

That's all for now!

[TheBig053]

On 10/15/2017 at 12:24 PM, fishfreak0114 said:

So sorry to hear about your pup  It's pretty neat that your clown started hosting!  I wish mine would host something.

Thanks for the well wishes. Yes, it was pretty exciting when they started. I researched some methods folks had used to get them to host (forced proximity, taping a photo of other clowns hosting, etc) but that all just seemed silly. I just went all laissez faire and let em do what they do.

 

They still don't sleep in the nem since it closes up at night, but they spend all day in it. One at a time though. The nem is still pretty small (~3") so only one can fit in at a time. Hah! The other hangs out just below.

 

I also caught one of them catching bits of floating "stuff" (fish poop, pod molts, etc.) and bringing it to the nem the other day, so they're getting the hang of this relationship. However, I have NOT seen them share any fish food with the nem, greedy bastards! 

 

I have begun feeding the nems chunks of silverside. I was previously just giving them mysis when I fed my LPS. I find it funny that my small BTA (~1.5") and RFA are way more aggressive feeders than the larger BTA.

 

The RFA is just ridiculous. It took down a 3/4" piece of silverside in about 30 seconds this morning. It will also try to eat anything it can grab passing by, including snails! In one of my earlier posts I shared a photo of it trying to eat a small cerith snail. It actually got the snail all the way down its mouth and then spit it out when it realized it had a hard shell. The snail survived. I'm going to name the RFA Sarrlac.... 

 

[TheBig053]

Added a new FTS for the 7-month mark of my EVO and here is a new video of the tank. 

 

 

Got a bit of cyano on the sand that you can see at the end of the video. Nitrates have been a little elevated again, around 10 ppm. I think its a combo of some overfeeding and a hermit crab biting the dust that I didn't discover for a few days. Its gotten better since my water change/cleaning on Weds. I did a deep cleaning under the rocks on Weds to clean up the detritus built up under them. I also changed out another few gallons this morning to bring the nitrates down a little more. 

 

20L update! Finally moved the frag racks out of the EVO and into their new home. 

 

 

Haven't figured out what I want to do with the scape in here yet, so the rocks are just stacked where they won't topple over and don't take up too much space. I think, I'll eventually be moving the smaller BTA from my EVO down here since it has decided to set up shop so close to some SPS in the EVO.

 

That's all folks!

[TheBig053]

Woke up Tuesday morning and looked in the tank to see this....

 

 

Sarlacc (my RFA) reached up and stung the $h1t out of this acan. It shed its flesh down to the bone. I decided to wait until I got home to see if maybe it recovered. No such luck. When I got home it was all skeleton, so I pulled it. This is the first significant loss (first coral) in the tank. 

 

I decided to copen with the loss the only way I know how.... buy more coral! Picked up a few frags from a local reefer for the new 20L. Once they start growing I may add them to the EVO. 

 

WWC Rainbow Monti

 

Crayola Plana Acro (I am f@<€1*g shocked I got this detailed a picture on my iPhone)

 

 

and some fuzzy Hydnophora with blue polyps

 

 

Thanks for stopping in once again!

[Lugmos12]

All that GSP is amazing. I didn't know RFA could be that nasty

[TheBig053]

Thanks! I really wish I hadn't let the GSP attach to my main rock. I am going to have to take the rock out tomorrow and cut it back. I'll have to frag my remaining rastas and purple fusion palys to save them. The GSP looks great and is actually my wife's favorite (she has simple taste) and I just want to banish it from whence it came!

[Lugmos12]

1 minute ago, TheBig053 said:

Thanks! I really wish I hadn't let the GSP attach to my main rock. I am going to have to take the rock out tomorrow and cut it back. I'll have to frag my remaining rastas and purple fusion palys to save them. The GSP looks great and is actually my wife's favorite (she has simple taste) and I just want to banish it from whence it came!

LMFAO! I love watching my GSP flow - I consider it very relaxing.

[TheBig053]

I agree very asthetically pleasing, but its a ruthless killer. Much like Sarlacc!

[TheBig053]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here comes another long post but there are a bunch of pretty pictures at the end so just bear with me here. 

 

I've always been a bad news first kid of guy, so let's start with the ugly. I've been dealing with an ongoing low Alk issue and recently began manually dosing both tanks to keep it up around ~8.4 dKH. I recently tested a fresh batch of SW made with Fritz RPM and discovered that my salt was only mixing to 7.0 dKH at 1.026 SG. I brought a sample of the freshly mixed SW to my LCS (Local Coral Shop, they don't have much in the way of fish, so it's coral shop until further notice!) and had him test the water. He confirmed my Alk test results at 7.3 dKH. Okay, great! We have confirmed I have a bad batch of salt mix, but wait, there's more! I asked him to check the salinity on the SW just out of curiosity, and because I know someone else that had issues with their levels being off because the refractometer was not calibrated correctly. I had just tested checked the salinity at home before I left and it was 1.026 so I thought he was f*****g with me when he said "1.030, that's really high man!". Umm, what? 1.030? Check it again! Well the 1.030 reading was confirmed and I feel like a jack ass. I've been using this calibration fluid I found on Amazon to calibrate the refractometer whenever there had more than a day or so between uses. 

 

 

I've been following the instructions on the back for calibrating. I keep it in the same room as the refractometer so they are the same temperature and I allow the solution to sit on the prism for 45 seconds to allow it to adjust. Apparently, this stuff is only accurate when it is 77 degrees F. The only people who keep their houses at 77 degrees are 80+ yr olds. Guess I should have been microwaving this crap before each use.

 

When I got home, I recalibrated the refractometer with RO/DI and tested the fresh SW...... 1.030, oooff! Next I tested the salinity in each tank to see how high I'd actually been running them. Well, thankfully it wasn't as bad as I feared. Each tank was at 1.028 but it would appear that not only has my salinity been high but likely bouncing around for a few weeks. I think this coupled with the low Alk issue is why my coral growth has slowed over the past several weeks. I also have two pieces of monti cap in the EVO that don't look happy. The color has been fading the past week or so.

 

Anyway, I changed out a small amount of water in each tank to start bringing down the salinity and will continue the process over the next few days. I'm shocked and thankful (see what I did there turkeys?) I didn't kill anything because of this. Whats surprising is that while my corals have not been thriving recently they have still been growing/encrusting slowly. I am excited to see how they react once I get things under control. I plan to contact Fritz about the bad batch of salt mix and hope they will replace the big box I have.

 

Now for the bad! I have hair algae sprouting up in the EVO. It began about two weeks ago but things got real hairy (I'm on a roll today!) about a week ago. It's been primarily confined to the sand bed but there are few spots on the rock as well. I pulled it all manually and have replaced the bag of phosguard I've been running in the rear chambers with some GFO (Seachem PhosNet). I think I caused this outbreak when I deep cleaned (lifted and cleaned under rocks) about three weeks ago and stirred up a bunch of waste in the sand bed. Doh! 

 

Alright, the good! The 20L has been humming along nicely outside of some lighting adjustments (height and duration) as I learn these T5s. The added space has allowed me to continue my coral hoarding exploits! 

 

I met up with a local reefer about two weeks ago that has an incredible looking SPS dominated 300 gallon tank that is montipora bottomed. Thats right, not bare bottom, monti bottomed! The whole bottom of the tank is covered with caps and encrusting montis. He also has a ton of great looking acros, milles, etc. that he frags and sells to other local reefers. I picked up some nice chunky frags from him for a great price given the size of the frags. Here they are. Sorry for the blues!

 

Sapphire Mille - has great blue/purple color, even some red highlights.

 

Orange passion plana - teal flesh with brown polyps. Hopefully I can get the polyps to color up orange like they are supposed to.

 

WWC Blueberry Fields

 

Vivids Rainbow - a little browned out at the moment, which is apparently common when first added to the tank. Still has some blue tint and red/purple tips. 

 

These have all begun to encrust and I am slowly moving each up higher in the tank. Hopefully someday they will color up and I will learn to take a photo of my coral that doesn't look like its from the Eiffel 65 music video!

 

This past weekend I won a few pieces in a eBay auction hosted by my buddy Ben with Supreme Reefs (Local Coral Shop). Got really awesome deals on all these pieces. I paid only about 1/4 of the retail price, or less, on these. The Party Crasher was a ridiculously good deal. Anyway, more eye candy! 

 

JF Outerspace Psammacora

 

ATL Cyphastrea

 

JF Party Crasher Cyphastrea - the polyps on this thing are so bright it messes with the contrast

 

Here is a top down that came out a little better. 

 

Crimson Micromussa

 

Red/Orange and Teal Acan

 

Found this little stomatella snail hitch hiking on the micromussa frag

 

And last but not least...... a fish for the 20 L! I found this small starry blenny at the LFS.

 

It's a bit shy and hides when I come to the tank, but is always watching anyone in the room. Hobbies include munching algae off the rocks, frag rack, and glass, long walks on the beach, and fart blasting fairy dust all over the tank. Seriously, when this thing poops, its magical. 

 

I haven't been able to settle on a name for it yet though. I consider it my little basement troll (tank is in the basement) but I can't think of any good troll names from movies or literature. It also reminds me of dragon, so I could go that route. I was thinking Smaug initially but he's not evil and he hoards algae, not gold. Then, being a child of the 80s I was leaning towards Falcor. Another option was a play on an every day name that incorporates "blenny" but so far all I got is Blennifer. So I'll let you all choose! Cast your vote in the replies. I am open to suggestions.

 

A. Smaug

B. Falcor

C. Blennifer

D. Write in

 

Thanks for checking in folks and Happy Thanksgiving!

[WV Reefer]

35 minutes ago, TheBig053 said:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here comes another long post but there are a bunch of pretty pictures at the end so just bear with me here. 

 

I've always been a bad news first kid of guy, so let's start with the ugly. I've been dealing with an ongoing low Alk issue and recently began manually dosing both tanks to keep it up around ~8.4 dKH. I recently tested a fresh batch of SW made with Fritz RPM and discovered that my salt was only mixing to 7.0 dKH at 1.026 SG. I brought a sample of the freshly mixed SW to my LCS (Local Coral Shop, they don't have much in the way of fish, so it's coral shop until further notice!) and had him test the water. He confirmed my Alk test results at 7.3 dKH. Okay, great! We have confirmed I have a bad batch of salt mix, but wait, there's more! I asked him to check the salinity on the SW just out of curiosity, and because I know someone else that had issues with their levels being off because the refractometer was not calibrated correctly. I had just tested checked the salinity at home before I left and it was 1.026 so I thought he was f*****g with me when he said "1.030, that's really high man!". Umm, what? 1.030? Check it again! Well the 1.030 reading was confirmed and I feel like a jack ass. I've been using this calibration fluid I found on Amazon to calibrate the refractometer whenever there had more than a day or so between uses. 

 

 

I've been following the instructions on the back for calibrating. I keep it in the same room as the refractometer so they are the same temperature and I allow the solution to sit on the prism for 45 seconds to allow it to adjust. Apparently, this stuff is only accurate when it is 77 degrees F. The only people who keep their houses at 77 degrees are 80+ yr olds. Guess I should have been microwaving this crap before each use.

 

When I got home, I recalibrated the refractometer with RO/DI and tested the fresh SW...... 1.030, oooff! Next I tested the salinity in each tank to see how high I'd actually been running them. Well, thankfully it wasn't as bad as I feared. Each tank was at 1.028 but it would appear that not only has my salinity been high but likely bouncing around for a few weeks. I think this coupled with the low Alk issue is why my coral growth has slowed over the past several weeks. I also have two pieces of monti cap in the EVO that don't look happy. The color has been fading the past week or so.

 

Anyway, I changed out a small amount of water in each tank to start bringing down the salinity and will continue the process over the next few days. I'm shocked and thankful (see what I did there turkeys?) I didn't kill anything because of this. Whats surprising is that while my corals have not been thriving recently they have still been growing/encrusting slowly. I am excited to see how they react once I get things under control. I plan to contact Fritz about the bad batch of salt mix and hope they will replace the big box I have.

 

Now for the bad! I have hair algae sprouting up in the EVO. It began about two weeks ago but things got real hairy (I'm on a roll today!) about a week ago. It's been primarily confined to the sand bed but there are few spots on the rock as well. I pulled it all manually and have replaced the bag of phosguard I've been running in the rear chambers with some GFO (Seachem PhosNet). I think I caused this outbreak when I deep cleaned (lifted and cleaned under rocks) about three weeks ago and stirred up a bunch of waste in the sand bed. Doh! 

 

Alright, the good! The 20L has been humming along nicely outside of some lighting adjustments (height and duration) as I learn these T5s. The added space has allowed me to continue my coral hoarding exploits! 

 

I met up with a local reefer about two weeks ago that has an incredible looking SPS dominated 300 gallon tank that is montipora bottomed. Thats right, not bare bottom, monti bottomed! The whole bottom of the tank is covered with caps and encrusting montis. He also has a ton of great looking acros, milles, etc. that he frags and sells to other local reefers. I picked up some nice chunky frags from him for a great price given the size of the frags. Here they are. Sorry for the blues!

 

Sapphire Mille - has great blue/purple color, even some red highlights.

 

Orange passion plana - teal flesh with brown polyps. Hopefully I can get the polyps to color up orange like they are supposed to.

 

WWC Blueberry Fields

 

Vivids Rainbow - a little browned out at the moment, which is apparently common when first added to the tank. Still has some blue tint and red/purple tips. 

 

These have all begun to encrust and I am slowly moving each up higher in the tank. Hopefully someday they will color up and I will learn to take a photo of my coral that doesn't look like its from the Eiffel 65 music video!

 

This past weekend I won a few pieces in a eBay auction hosted by my buddy Ben with Supreme Reefs (Local Coral Shop). Got really awesome deals on all these pieces. I paid only about 1/4 of the retail price, or less, on these. The Party Crasher was a ridiculously good deal. Anyway, more eye candy! 

 

JF Outerspace Psammacora

 

ATL Cyphastrea

 

JF Party Crasher Cyphastrea - the polyps on this thing are so bright it messes with the contrast

 

Here is a top down that came out a little better. 

 

Crimson Micromussa

 

Red/Orange and Teal Acan

 

Found this little stomatella snail hitch hiking on the micromussa frag

 

And last but not least...... a fish for the 20 L! I found this small starry blenny at the LFS.

 

It's a bit shy and hides when I come to the tank, but is always watching anyone in the room. Hobbies include munching algae off the rocks, frag rack, and glass, long walks on the beach, and fart blasting fairy dust all over the tank. Seriously, when this thing poops, its magical. 

 

I haven't been able to settle on a name for it yet though. I consider it my little basement troll (tank is in the basement) but I can't think of any good troll names from movies or literature. It also reminds me of dragon, so I could go that route. I was thinking Smaug initially but he's not evil and he hoards algae, not gold. Then, being a child of the 80s I was leaning towards Falcor. Another option was a play on an every day name that incorporates "blenny" but so far all I got is Blennifer. So I'll let you all choose! Cast your vote in the replies. I am open to suggestions.

 

A. Smaug

B. Falcor

C. Blennifer

D. Write in

 

Thanks for checking in folks and Happy Thanksgiving!

Blennifer for sure!  

 

Or, Puff the Magic Pooper!  “puff the magic pooper, poops in the sea”

 

  

[TheBig053]

Been a while since an update. Rescaped with a mini cycle, and now a new plan. Going SPS heavy in the tank. Heres a few recent shots of the tanks. 

 

FTS

 

Encrusting and the sapphire is coming

 

Fuuuzzzzy

 

More fuzzzz

 

Feed me!

 

 

[TheBig053]

Work and homelife have been crazy busy, so I haven't been updating this journal as frequently. Anyway, we had our local aquarium club winter meeting yesterday and I picked up a few goodies, thought I'd share some eye candy here ?

 

RMF Jared's Rainbow Mille

 

A blue/green with red polyps sarmentosa (the guy I bought it off of was nice enough to throw in another big chunk for free!)

 

Tyree Pink Lemonade (looks much more yellow in person)

 

RMF Acid Trip Mille. This thing looks insane. I hope I can keep the colors as it is now with the greens, pinks, and yellows. It's an amazing looking piece.

 

 

Here are few photos of some more tenured residents. 

 

Sapphire Mille - back around the holidays I borrowed my local clubs par meter and discovered my lights were set too low. I've been cranking up the intensity over the past several weeks and this mille seems to be a big fan. It's turning an aquamarine blue/green and really glowing.

 

 

Here is a shot of a Myagi Tort that I picked up back around Christmas time. It's seems happy and has held its color well. Even seeing a little new growth from the base. 

 

 

And I finally scored some Sunny D's. Been wanting these for awhile. Thanks @Nart! 

 

 

I am trying out chaeto again in Chamber 2. I was able to get a great deal on the InTank Chamber 2 basket and will be using the same light as before but covering up a few of the LEDs, so its a little less intense. I think I fried the chaeto last time because the light was too strong.

 

Still battling a little bit of hair algae and cyano on the sand. I've been pretty stingy in my feeding and increased water changes to twice a week since my nitrates are still hovering between 5-10 depending on the timing through out the week. 

 

Other parameters seem to be pretty good. I've been dosing ESV B-Ionic two part in equal parts morning and night. This has really helped stablize my Alk and Ca.

 

No3 - 5-10 ppm

Po4 - 0 ppm (I know its not true zero, because the algae is getting fuel from somewhere)

Alk - 8.4 dKH

Ca - 450

Mg - 1450

pH - 8.2

Sg - 1.026

 

That's all I got for now. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

[TheBig053]

Quick update and photo dump. Everything is plugging along pretty well and the hair algae that sprouted up is pretty much gone. However, the cyano on my sand bed is holding on strong. I am going to continue to stick to my routine maintenance schedule and be patient. I also had a brief issue with some tissue necrosis on a few pieces of SPS but that has subsided. I think its because I didnt realize the tank began consuming more Ca and Alk until there was already an Alk swing. I've adjusted my dosing amounts accordingly and will be keeping a closer eye on the Alk. Shame on me for not testing for 3-days ?.

 

Anyway, on to the good stuff! The chaeto I added 1.5 weeks ago in chamber 2 has already doubled on size and my nitrates seem to be holding steady around 5 ppm. Will test again and reevaluate the effectiveness before my water change on Saturday. I had to put small pieces of tape over each LED diode to keep the light from burning the chaeto. The indirect light seems to be more than enough for it. 

 

LED tape job

 

Chaeto fuge in action! I know, so exciting! Hah.

 

I picked up a second AI Prime HD today. I am going to run both over the EVO. I know, i know, it's way overkill on a tank this size. I plan to cut the light intensity down quite a bit. I think the SPS will really benefit from the increased spread/coverage. I have wait until next week to set it up since the hanging kit won't be delivered until then. Here are my current settings for anyone that is interested. 

 

 

My plan is to cut the intensity in half for both lights. 

 

Coral/tank photos!

 

My favorite acan and its new little minions.

 

New heads coming in on my little crimson micromussa.

 

Not the best photo (let's be honest, none of these are good photos, hah) but it captured three of the newer arrivals in one and caught the rainbow mille beginning to color up. I'll be attaching these the rock/permanent homes this weekend. 

 

Left: Rainbow Mille

Center right: Pink Lemonade

Bottom right: Blue Sarmentosa

 

I noticed this fan worm poking out of this astrea snail's shell a few months back but never got around to taking a good photo. Here's the best I could do. I thought it was pretty neat.

 

That's all!

 

[TheBig053]

So this happened today.....

 

 

Double barreled AI Prime HDs! Let there be light!  

 

I've cut the intensity on the lights in half since there are two of them. Hopefully the SPS likes the increased spread. 

 

I am not happy with the look of both lights on the AI hanging kits, so I am going to explore some other mounting/hanging options. One idea I had was fixing two of the mounting arms directly to the wall behind the tank and then using the brackets from the hanging kits to fasten the lights to the arms. I think this will be a much cleaner look. 

 

Heres an FTS with the new light set up at peak intensity. 

 

 

Please excuse the cyano on the sand bed. I also need to declutter and get some frags glued down this weekend.

 

 

[Nart]

That is one bright evo kit lol. Probably one of the fanciest looking Evo's

[TheBig053]

4 minutes ago, Nart said:

That is one bright evo kit lol. Probably one of the fanciest looking Evo's

I think you can see it from space! You can probably see the cyano from there as well....  

 

Patience! 

[TheBig053]

Big things happening today in the EVO!

 

Finally (only 10-months into the tank) got around to moving the power strip, ATO, and other equipment to the cabinet under the tank. I'll call it medium level cord management...

 

 

My large female standard oscellaris has been bullying the smaller clown much more aggressively in the last two weeks, so shes been replaced (moved her to the 20L). Taking her place is this little Picasso! 

 

 

Getting along just fine with the small oscellaris so far. 

 

And last but not least, Quahog the derasa clam! This guy gave me quite a scare when I was adding him to the tank. I picked it up by the base of the rock it was attached to and by the shell with the other hand. It felt like the foot had become loose during transport but I turned it over gently a few times to "burp" it. As I was turning it the foot came completely detached from the rock and I freaked out thinking I tore the foot. I immediately set it down on the rock in my tank and it opened within a minute or two. I think it must have mostly detached itself from the rock during the car ride home and I just helped it finished when turning it over.

 

Anyway, its been in the tank for almost two-hours now and still seems perfectly fine. Reacting to light, etc. Here it is....

 

 

That's all for now!

[Lugmos12]

What's your dosing plan?

How do you know how much impact the chaeto has on nutrient levels?

 

That's a really sweet looking setup lol

 

[sugar]

Lugmos beat me to it!  I saw you have ESV B-Ionic and am also interested in your dosing regime!

 

I just received my ESV this week and started as instructed on the bottle... 1mL per 4g of water.  For my Lagoon 25, which is about 20g of water, I've just dosed 5mL of each component daily.  It seems like most people are dosing 1 to 1.5mL of each component per gallon for their tanks to reach balance.  I'll probably stay with this beginning dose for a week, see what the results show next week, and increase by 50% or something for another week, test, adjust, wait a week, etc?? I'm just dosing manually and hoping I can get away with every other day.

 

How did you figure out the perfect dose?  Lots of testing and adjusting?? Any tips or advice from experience appreciated!!  I thought I was doing so well not having to dose... but once my tank hit 10-11 months the alk was hard to keep at 7 with water changes.  Womp.

 

Thanks!!  Love the thread so far, and love seeing fellow AI Prime users!

[TheBig053]

47 minutes ago, Lugmos12 said:

What's your dosing plan?

How do you know how much impact the chaeto has on nutrient levels?

 

That's a really sweet looking setup lol

 

Thanks!

 

I've been dosing equal parts of b-ionic 2 part. Three ml morning and night. However, I think this is causing small swings in my alk because of the dose amount. I am planning to finally calibrate my jebao dp-4 tomorrow and setting it up to spread the dose amount out through the day. 

 

As far as the impact the chaeto is having, historically nitrates started the week (after water change) around 5 ppm. By the end of the week the nitrates would be up to 10 ppm. Since adding the chaeto about three weeks ago my nitrates have streadily dropped and have been holding steady this week at 2 ppm. I can't say with 100% certainty its because of the chaeto, but the chaeto is growing so I think its likely the reason for the drop in nitrates.

[TheBig053]

2 minutes ago, sugar said:

Lugmos beat me to it!  I saw you have ESV B-Ionic and am also interested in your dosing regime!

 

I just received my ESV this week and started as instructed on the bottle... 1mL per 4g of water.  For my Lagoon 25, which is about 20g of water, I've just dosed 5mL of each component daily.  It seems like most people are dosing 1 to 1.5mL of each component per gallon for their tanks to reach balance.  I'll probably stay with this beginning dose for a week, see what the results show next week, and increase by 50% or something for another week, test, adjust, wait a week, etc?? I'm just dosing manually and hoping I can get away with every other day.

 

How did you figure out the perfect dose?  Lots of testing and adjusting?? Any tips or advice from experience appreciated!!  I thought I was doing so well not having to dose... but once my tank hit 10-11 months the alk was hard to keep at 7 with water changes.  Womp.

 

Thanks!!  Love the thread so far, and love seeing fellow AI Prime users!

So I just started with 1 mL of each and tested regularly. As Alk and Ca started to drop I would increase the dose. Lots of testing and adjusting. Trying to keep my alk around 8.4 dKH and Ca around 450 ppm.