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rO.oster's BC29 revision 3.0 - Resurrected from Death


rO.oster

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@StephLionfish I didn't know either but I was glad to discover it.  They sound like a great originization and I would love to get a big mix of purples, pinks, and unique colors like green.  Great way to start a cycle!

 

Im doing a lot of staring at an empty tank, and my to do list is getting pretty short so I'm feeling ancy.  During revision2, the Asternia stars ate tons of coralline off the back wall, it was kind of unsightly for me.

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The tank has settled in and I did my first glass cleaning recently, so here is the best picture I can get until I play with Camera + some more.

 

eFxup2I.jpg

 

With the water temperature stable at 78F, I floated my pinpoint salinity and 0 ppm calibration fluid bottles in the tank to bring up their temperature, and then calibrated my Sybon Refractometer.  I broke out my old school Coralife DEEP SIX and compared results, and was very happy to see that it is dead on accurate still.  I love using my manual hydrometer since I don't have to baby a equipment part, its just a quick use and rinse and then put it away.  Another advantage I never realized was how accurate the DEEP SIX can be, the zone between 34ppt - 35ppt is large, so after the floating arm stabilizes its easy to see how close you are.  With my refractometer, the lines are very close together.

 

 

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StephLionfish

A few years ago when I had a macro/mantis tank I had at least red, purple, pink, and green coralline. The colors were gorgeous. Do you plan on keeping the back wall scraped?

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21 hours ago, StephLionfish said:

Do you plan on keeping the back wall scraped?

 

Definetly not, the glass is hard enough to keep clean!  The back wall is where I am hoping for a nice coralline backdrop to all the goodies in the display.   I do plan on some plating monti on the back wall, but I am concerned they will curl, plate and grow up and out, and not give me much to view from the front of the tank, except maybe their white undersides!?

 

A macro mantis tank sounds so awesome, those dudes are wicked smart!

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My replacement fuge light LEDs arrived yesterday.  I quickly went about thermal gluing, soldering, and heat shrinking them into place.  After installing the unit behind my tank, things are looking pretty funky.

 

jCmFMA2.jpg

 

My controller will turn on the fuge lighting at the same time the display goes dark at night and run time is 12 hours.  My main desire for running a fuge is to help minimize pH swings with the lighting, and keep a healthy population of copepods breeding in my system.  All nutrient export can be handled by the carbon and GFO.

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Looking awesome! Stayed with Deep Reds and Royal Blue for the refugium light?  300mA driver? Happy with intensity at first observation? 

 

I wanted to ask you more about the coraline accelerator...sorry to be lazy (I know you documented your other two adventures) but did you use the accelerant in those builds? Curious if a) results are faster B) results are more attractive/diverse

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18 hours ago, vitreous99 said:

Looking awesome! Stayed with Deep Reds and Royal Blue for the refugium light?  300mA driver? Happy with intensity at first observation? 

Yes, 4 x 665nm Deep Red and 1 x 448nm Royal blue driven with a constant current 350mA 13V all in one driver.  Initial observation is that it’s pretty bright and fully illuminates my chamber 2 chaeto rack volume.  With no cooling of the heatsink, I touched the enclosure box this morning after 10 hours on and it was room temperature.

 

18 hours ago, vitreous99 said:

I wanted to ask you more about the coraline accelerator...sorry to be lazy (I know you documented your other two adventures) but did you use the accelerant in those builds? Curious if a) results are faster B) results are more attractive/diverse

 

Just to be clear, ARC Reefs Purple Helix is not a coralline accelerator, it’s a bio tank starter that has nitrifying bacteria and coralline shavings and spores from many different varieties.  They state that the more varieties you have, the more the coralline can outcompete diatoms and nuisance algae for the resources needed to grow.  I’ve never tried adding this kind of product before, and past tank revisions still had a fairly good mix of coralline colors.

 

Products like purpleUP are a scam, all they provide is a CA and magnesium  boost and call it acceleration.  With no way to measure what your adding, your best bet is to test parameters yourself and replenish the levels in single doses to the right levels, or keep up water changes.  Having higher than normal levels doesn’t mean faster growth.

 

My goal for the result is more attractiveness and diversity.  The more diversity that grows in your biotope, the more self sustaining and stable it can be.  This is especially true for your CUC and sand inhabitants.

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Thanks for clarification around ARC Reefs Purple Helix... Similar to the FritzZyme I used, but with the addition of coralline samples. Interesting thought around coralline competing with diatoms. I haven't done my research on coraline Algea, didn't realize there was so much diversity there (strains & colors)... Makes sense of course. I'll dig in.

 

I'm a big fan of the concept (and more importantly the benefits) of biodiversity. Do you know where you are going to go with your "CUC and sand inhabitants"? 

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I recieved my order from ARC on Friday.  I placed my order Tuesday and the born on date was Wednesday, i'm  super impressed that it was bottled for only 48 hours!!

 

I have no experience boosting  with nitrfying bacteria during a cycle, and I currently have no extra ammonia source in the tank other than the rocks.  Should I add a chunk of shrimp?  I need to research the timings of the nitorgen cycle.  When do I remove the shrimp, when the diatom bloom appears? 

 

Given my clean baserock and introduction of the nitrifying bacteria, if I dont add shrimp, I am curious if it will impact how long my cycle takes to complete.

 

I guess it's time to get a API Reefmaster test kit.

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Looks like an interesting build! I've been impressed by the lime LEDs in my Nanobox lights, it's surprising how the light ends up being a natural looking color without any white LEDs. 

 

I used dry Reefcleaners rock in my 30g frag tank build. I really liked being able to take all the time I wanted to build the scape, and it was nice not to have to worry about pests and hitchhikers. But while I was able to seed bacteria and get good nutrient export going fairly quickly, it took forever for things to get truly mature and balanced. After a year now, I'm pretty happy with the results. 

It will be very interesting to see how the Purple Helix stuff works! 

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On 2/2/2018 at 9:33 PM, vitreous99 said:

I'm a big fan of the concept (and more importantly the benefits) of biodiversity. Do you know where you are going to go with your "CUC and sand inhabitants"? 

 

For the price and quality, I will once again get a 20L quick clean crew pack from reefcleaners, it cant be beat.   Dwarth ceriths (he gives you a ton of these), florida ceriths, nassarius, and nerites.  Nerites are quite agile at navigating scapes and  they will cross up and over into the back fuge at will, so they need a cover.  

 

Then, i'll get two small blue leg hermits to keep things in check for the short term, they are efficient at picking every thing over.  I usually end up removing one 6 months later because they start getting onery, and real estate starts getting filled.  When I had a yellow gorgonion in revision1, I remember it used to leather up and almost molt its skin every month or so, in which the blue leg would spend time meticulously cleaning it all off.

 

Bristle worms, spaghetti worms, asternia stars, those tiny white brittle stars, all good stuff for the sand and rock, and normally should or eventually will come in on your seed rock and frag plugs.  

 

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4 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Looks like an interesting build! I've been impressed by the lime LEDs in my Nanobox lights, it's surprising how the light ends up being a natural looking color without any white LEDs. 

 

I used dry Reefcleaners rock in my 30g frag tank build. I really liked being able to take all the time I wanted to build the scape, and it was nice not to have to worry about pests and hitchhikers. But while I was able to seed bacteria and get good nutrient export going fairly quickly, it took forever for things to get truly mature and balanced. After a year now, I'm pretty happy with the results. 

It will be very interesting to see how the Purple Helix stuff works! 

 

I'm really satisfied with it, I finally get that "bright" warm white look without having to crank things up to max.

 

It sounds like time is going to be the best ingredient to help this tank cycle properly!

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2 minutes ago, rO.oster said:

 

I'm really satisfied with it, I finally get that "bright" warm white look without having to crank things up to max.

 

It sounds like time is going to be the best ingredient to help this tank cycle properly!

Yep, like always! The longer I reef the more I realize just leaving things alone and being patient is the hardest part.

 

Oh yeah, there's also mint LEDs now, as well as lime. Even more minty goodness :)

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I think you should throw a shrimp in there... Need to feed those bacteria. 

 

My LFS told me to remove when I showed them this picture lol (there's a rotting shrimp in that cocoon). 

 

Then I started to ghost feed until I added our purple firefish. 

 

 

20180102_131435.jpg

 

Also, I think these are cool(see link)... Never got a basic API test kit... Brought water to LFS... And got the ammonia alert from this, kind of wish I had gotten pH too. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004HSQSLG/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1517719051&sr=8-5&keywords=Seachem+ammonia&dpPl=1&dpID=51WNzXk3cCL&ref=plSrch

 

 

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I gave up on the API ammonia test after I kept waiting for my tank to cycle and API kept telling me I had ammonia. I used the same test on one of my other tanks that was over a year old and it said that tank had ammonia too. Turns out it's just really hard to read. 

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Honestly, during revision2, I owned the two main Red Sea test kits and barley used them.  Since I was doing 20% water changes every 2 weeks along with GAC and GFO, everything read 0 all the time.  Those kits were also very pricey!  After awhile, I just monitored CA and ALK, and those levels never diminished - even with a moderate LPS and SPS bioload.

 

This time, I really just care about Nitrate and Phosphate along with CA, ALK.  That API Reefmaster kit is gonna give me a good ballpark reading for all of those at a fair price.  

 

In regards to the cycle progressing, i'm going to just allow things to balance and progress normally per the existing bioload, and not think too hard about it.  The indicators will be there, just like last time.  Already I am getting a chickenpox of diatom bloom starting to form.  A few more days and everything should be covered in brown.

 

 

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I settled on Red Sea Nitrate Pro and the Ca/Mg/Alk set and Hanna ULR for phosphate (which is too way too high right now).

 

By the way my diatoms gave off a lot of bubbles which had me worried but it all worked out in a few weeks... Now I'm on to green Algea of some sort.

 

When do you plan to do your first water change? 

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22 hours ago, vitreous99 said:

When do you plan to do your first water change? 

Not for a while.  I am watching carefully for the green algae phase and will put in for the CUC as soon as I see the signs.  Their biolode will shift the balance and i'm curious how well they will keep up as things continue to mature and grow over the next 6 weeks.

 

4 hours ago, Livia said:

It looks good so far

 

Thank you!

 

 

I'm happy to report that the diatom bloom is underway, but has not peaked yet. The two seed rocks from the LFS are now completely brown as they undergo the process, heres hoping some dusters and whatnot make it through.  The view from the left hand side.

 

Ov3298P.jpg

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4 hours ago, rO.oster said:

Just killed my first asternia star :rolleyes:, i've been rotating the seed rocks and inspecting every day.  YOU SHALT NOT PASSSSSSS

I just killed the first one in my 10g in about a year the other day. Zero tolerance policy applied. 

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The diatom bloom is in full effect.   Brown circular splotches on the glass and back wall too.  Every surface is coated with the soft golden brown hughes.  And when I look closely, GHA sprouts are everywhere, especially on the glass! I also seen the beginnings of the neon green splotches, so things will be shifting gears soon.  Time to order my CUC and keep an eye on my filter pad, the brown should disappear quickly.

 

lmNt0Ip.jpg

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So fun to watch this unfold... After going through this for the first time... I'm just 4 weeks ahead. Reading your posts are reinforcing all I've learned so far... Keep updating us. 

 

I just ordered GFO and ROX from Bulk Reef Supply... Thanks for tip there. 

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