Pico's RedSea Max S 500

[picoreef78]

Did a 10% water change yesterday, ABout to use up the RedSea Pro and migrate to the blue bucket. I should find a salt mix with a dKA of 8. 

 

Lost a fire fish into the new top 😞 Got his head stuck in the netting. 

 

Here are pics from water change plus feeding while doing a water change.

 

 

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Trying to get a good before  and after picture of the Birdsnest. it has colored up and polyped up since titrations down and stopping NOPOX. 

 

December 29 2019

 

 

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March 27 2020. 

 

i seemed to always have trouble keeping these, wondering now if my water was too clean. 

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Need to find my water parameter measurements. 

 

Last one

 

Hanna all 8.9 dKA (previous 4 days ago 9.1)

RedSea AlK pro 8.4

RedSea all 8.5

RedSea Ca 410

 

Got low Ca up and high alk down over a period of 1 week and a half. Halved the alk for slow drop And  restarted , upped the Ca drip rate and gave extra 100 ml per day x 3 days worth to get up from 370

 

Need to find where I wrote down my schedule so I can write it down here and reference it. But have it 11, 12, 1, 5, 8, 11 alk and Ca 8.30, 10:30, 11:30, 1:30 and 5:30. making sure not to dose at the same time to avoid precipitation. Dosing 15-20 ml at a time. 

 

Getting a cyano bloom, might need to restart NOPOX at a low dose or stop AcroPower. 

 

Changed my lights today from AB+ to BRS Hydra 26 recommended spectrum

 

 

[picoreef78]

New parameter values

 

RedSea Pro kit

Alk 9.0

Ca 430

Mg 1600

 

NO3 0.50

PO4 0.04

 

RedSea kit

Alk 9.0

pH 8.2

 

Hanna

Alk 9.8

PO4 0.01

 

Consistent between Red Sea and another divergence between RedSea and Hanna. Tank looks good, trying to get stable dosing rate for now. Ordered Caetomorpha for the macro algae Reactor. Thinking of changing out KCL for the Brightwell ChaetoGro daily dosing, hopefully will keep the algae alive. Nutrients slowing increasing should be able to use by the Cheato.

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IMG_2853 by Alejandro Magadan, on Flickr

 

Poison Ivy A Millipore. So far looking pretty good and starting to encrust. 

 

 

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IMG_2864 by Alejandro Magadan, on Flickr

 

Blue and gold Leptastrea

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It's been a while. Needed to clean up around the rainbow stylopora. Put back up the blue Montipora digitata. Clean up the pink birds nest. 

 

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Wow forgot I posted this up. 

Sold the large basket ball sized Birds-nest> got to big to mount again and too lazy to frag it. 

 

I need to trim some of the birds nest they are going gang busters. Anyone have good pruning tips?

 

Sucking down 150ml/day of alkalinity and 100 ml/day of calcium. (both the BRS products)

 

Having trouble keeping the castor rector workin well. My cheato dies on me. Despite that. Running the foam fractionated. 

 

No carbon dosing.

 

[picoreef78]

Frag or just take whole coral and trade in? I kind of hate to fray them but some will need fraging. The Strawberry Shortcake and Walt Disney Tenus getting overrun. The Birds nest with crazy fast growth. 

 

Anyone with good pruning protocol?

 

[mcarroll]

2 hours ago, picoreef78 said:

Anyone with good pruning protocol?

Honestly?  98% of my frags end up in the trash as there was never a local market for more than a frag or two.  Local stores didn't play the buyback game...and of course now there aren't local stores....local-online classifieds were dead too.  I think I sold maybe six frags ever.

 

I saved all the significant chunks that were "wasted" though....I have a veritable ton of homegrown rubble and a few nice big homegrown skeletons that will all find use someday.

 

Caveat that all...if you have someplace that will pay you for colonies – sell your colonies.  That is a no-brainer.  Ask them how they want you to do it since they are holding the $.  Don't ask us.  😉  If they are serious (and if you want help) they might even remove the colonies for you.  Someone like this (or a store like this) is a rarity IME though.

 

Same goes for fragging....if you know there's demand for frag ($ just waiting), then by all means frag away.  Just don't make assumptions because compared to selling a colony fragging is somewhat risky, a lot of work and fairly expensive if you don't sell what you think you will sell for the price you think.

 

So my guidance is to focus on doing exactly what it takes to keep your tank  and corals rolling forward.  Just don't let it get too overgrown because it only gets harder to sort out later.  If you have to sell or trash frags to do it, so be it.

 

(Hope the helps....prolly not the answer you were really looking for.)

[picoreef78]

There is a local fishstrore who bought my other large birds nest color for $100. 

 

I feel bad because the grew a ton this past year and I like seeing the large basketball sized, colonies, they are just taking over now. 

 

Thank for the advice. Will feel the large colonies. 

[picoreef78]

Happy 2 years!

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Finally did light pruning. Tried to get out the back birds nest for trade in but it just wasn’t having it. Trimmed my awesome blue mystery acropora to let more light in to Walt and Strawberry.

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They have light! Aqua SD Rainbow Millipora, Walt Disney A Tenius and Strawberry shortcake A microlados.

Have had Ok growth, really need to better the alkalinity, keeps dipping down to high 4 dKA.

 

No carbon, macroalgae reactor with no Chaeto (can’t find it) PO4 0.02 and NO4 0.50. Bad water change habits 10% every 1-2 weeks (sometime to busy to do)

I do a Ly feed about 3 times a week

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Finally google Fast Growing Blue Acro and found by fast growing mystery coral

Acropora hoeksemai

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Early morning maintenance, reef just turning on!

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new corals! It has been a year.

Got a Tyree Pink Lemonade. This thing was bullet proof in my last tank, but not tornado proof 😞

Pro Corals Rainbow Acropora

JF Aquaman montipora (looks like Jedi mind trick)

Reverse Sunset Montipira (doing great until it wasn't in th move to the new tank

 

And a Pink Shortcake? Whatever that is was a freebie .

 

 

[picoreef78]

Been a while. Lost my reverse sunset and Jed ai mind trick Mounties. Took out a large birds nest. The Walt Disney looks great, have a 6 inch frag I accidentally knocked off. Two new arrivals today. Carribean Sunset  and a Sexy Corals Orange Passion (lost my old one to an urchin. Fingers crossed. 

 

 

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Reformat now installed (missing the correct converter in the connection packet. Whisper quiet.

 

Goodby washing nasty filter socks. 

The Orange passion with my macro lens and Avast marine camera tube. 

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Upside down sump!