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M&C 20G Red Sea Max Nano - 1.5 year update


M&C

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20 minutes ago, M&C said:

Well that didn't take long. One of our clownfish has decided to take up residence in the torch coral, hopefully the other one follows suit!

 

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That’s a nice looking torch! 😊

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16 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

That’s a nice looking torch! 😊

Thanks! It's definitely our favorite coral. It has probably expanded 3-4 times as much as it did compared to when we saw it at the store. I don't understand how all that coral fits inside that little skeleton 😄

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Who doesn't love more pictures? Overall pretty happy with the tank's progress so far. Would love to see more of our pink-streaked wrasse but at least he comes out a few times a day. A little disappointed with the frogspawn. It's a nice shade of purple but it's pretty dull and as you can see below it doesn't fluoresce under blue/UV lights. In retrospect it wasn't the brightest coral at the LFS but I just figured it was under suboptimal lighting. I'm willing to give it more time but will probably replace it with a brighter frogspawn in the future. 

 

September FTS:

pehl22H.jpg

 

Top down shot of our clownfish and its host:

MjcvICn.jpg

 

In other news I rented a PAR meter from BRS which was quite illuminating. No one wants to see all the data and spreadsheets, so I'll just say I was surprised how low the PAR values were with the AI Prime HD. I'm using a slightly modified version of the recommended BRS settings with a diffuser and I was getting ~340 PAR at the top of the rockwork (directly under the light, about 6 inches from the water surface), but nowhere else in the tank was over 200. Taking the diffuser off showed about a 10-15% increase across the board but still lower than expected. Cranking the CW up to 40% brought everything up more in line with an SPS dominant tank but I didn't like the color spectrum. I don't think I'll end up changing the light settings but we're probably a little more limited with SPS placement than I thought at first, and I'll have to move the new montis to some new spots. Overall I thought it was pretty cool to finally have some objective data for optimal coral placement rather than just eyeballing it.

 

I've also been keeping a closer eye on water parameters lately now that things are settling and starting to show some growth. Nitrates consistently hanging around 2.5 which I'm okay with. Phosphates went from 0.03 > 0.07 in 4 days since my last water change so I'm probably going to dial back the broadcast feeding with Reef Roids/Reef Chili to once per week. Alk dipped from 9.6 > 8 over the same time period (fresh batch mixes to ~11). Not sure if that's from excess organic acids from heavy feeds consuming alk or coral growth, since I didn't think our frags were large enough to have that big of an effect yet. We'll see if the alk consumption changes with reduced feedings, otherwise we will have to start dosing a little earlier than expected. 

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On 9/19/2019 at 1:02 AM, xM3THODx said:

love the look! Sometimes I wish I had a spot for a torch, especially these gold ones coming from Australia. 

Thanks! I love the gold torches too and used to have one in an old tank, but I just couldn’t imagine paying $350 for a single head when they used to go for a third of that. Maybe when the torch craze dies down I’ll look into it again.

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TerribleLobster

Tank looks great! I really want to rent a PAR meter as well to really dial in how much light I'm really getting.  I started my 20 G a few weeks after you. Let me know if you have any advice. 

 

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TerribleLobster
1 minute ago, William said:

You could bump up your white channel for 2-3 hours a day when you are not home in order to bump up your par. 

Good call, I think I'll do this with my tank as well.

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1 hour ago, William said:

You could bump up your white channel for 2-3 hours a day when you are not home in order to bump up your par. 

I thought about doing this but decided to just get another AI prime actually.

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2 hours ago, TerribleLobster said:

Tank looks great! I really want to rent a PAR meter as well to really dial in how much light I'm really getting.  I started my 20 G a few weeks after you. Let me know if you have any advice. 

 

Looks like a good start, I really like that aquascape. I guess depending on what kinds of corals you plan on keeping I'm not sure that Kessil will have enough spread for the whole tank, but honestly I don't have much experience with them. I guess that's a question a PAR meter can answer better than I can 😊

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Just a few quick updates, I'll try to remember to take some new pictures tomorrow.

 

Added a second AI Prime HD the other week and we're really happy with the result. Set up a nice color spectrum (based on the AB+ settings) while still getting around 300-450 PAR near the top of the tank, 200-250 near the middle, and 150-200 on the sand bed. Slowly ramping up to that intensity now over the next month.

 

As far as maintenance we're still trying to dial in the right balance and we'll probably be tweaking things still over the next month to get alk, nitrates, and phos where we want them. Decreased water changes to 5g weekly, continuing heavy feedings, and manually dosing 2-part twice a week. 

 

Here's a teaser for some new coral action (no they couldn't all fit on the frag rack 😄)

BZnQm4S.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/19/2019 at 6:04 AM, M&C said:

Who doesn't love more pictures? Overall pretty happy with the tank's progress so far. Would love to see more of our pink-streaked wrasse but at least he comes out a few times a day. A little disappointed with the frogspawn. It's a nice shade of purple but it's pretty dull and as you can see below it doesn't fluoresce under blue/UV lights. In retrospect it wasn't the brightest coral at the LFS but I just figured it was under suboptimal lighting. I'm willing to give it more time but will probably replace it with a brighter frogspawn in the future. 

 

September FTS:

pehl22H.jpg

 

Top down shot of our clownfish and its host:

MjcvICn.jpg

 

In other news I rented a PAR meter from BRS which was quite illuminating. No one wants to see all the data and spreadsheets, so I'll just say I was surprised how low the PAR values were with the AI Prime HD. I'm using a slightly modified version of the recommended BRS settings with a diffuser and I was getting ~340 PAR at the top of the rockwork (directly under the light, about 6 inches from the water surface), but nowhere else in the tank was over 200. Taking the diffuser off showed about a 10-15% increase across the board but still lower than expected. Cranking the CW up to 40% brought everything up more in line with an SPS dominant tank but I didn't like the color spectrum. I don't think I'll end up changing the light settings but we're probably a little more limited with SPS placement than I thought at first, and I'll have to move the new montis to some new spots. Overall I thought it was pretty cool to finally have some objective data for optimal coral placement rather than just eyeballing it.

 

I've also been keeping a closer eye on water parameters lately now that things are settling and starting to show some growth. Nitrates consistently hanging around 2.5 which I'm okay with. Phosphates went from 0.03 > 0.07 in 4 days since my last water change so I'm probably going to dial back the broadcast feeding with Reef Roids/Reef Chili to once per week. Alk dipped from 9.6 > 8 over the same time period (fresh batch mixes to ~11). Not sure if that's from excess organic acids from heavy feeds consuming alk or coral growth, since I didn't think our frags were large enough to have that big of an effect yet. We'll see if the alk consumption changes with reduced feedings, otherwise we will have to start dosing a little earlier than expected. 

I would love this spreadsheet. Thinking about setting op a LPS/zoa focussed nano with one AI prime HD. 100 par at the sandbed should be more than enough for that.

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19 hours ago, Daan Hijmans said:

I would love this spreadsheet. Thinking about setting op a LPS/zoa focussed nano with one AI prime HD. 100 par at the sandbed should be more than enough for that.

1 AI Prime HD should be good for that. There were some areas on my sand bed getting as low as 50 PAR but I think there was some shading from corals higher up. Just need to be careful when you plan your rock work. Learning more about PAR and light requirements has definitely influenced how I will plan tanks in the future. 

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3BKBYMa.jpg

 

A nighttime picture to highlight some changes. Added quite a few new corals since the last update with a focus on starting the SPS rock up top and the acan garden around the middle. Moved the duncan off to the left which I think gives a better balance and opens up the center more. The frogspawn (moved to the sand bed in the back) of course decided to color up nicely right as I was considering getting rid of it, so now I've been debating where to put it again. Everything is looking pretty happy and healthy except for that watermelon chalice in the sand bed on the left. I think I bleached it under the double AI Prime HDs and have it shaded under to duncan for now, hopefully it recovers. 

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Yikes, phosphates measured 0.68 today!! I started using Polyp Booster the past week or so during coral feedings and I think I must have overdosed it. Can't think of what else would have caused that. Nothing looks unhappy surprisingly, but a big water change is in the works. 

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10/14/19 FTS:

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Things are coming along nicely, still fiddling with coral placement as it's starting to get crowded on the rock work. I think a few more corals and a new fish are on the horizon before the year is over, otherwise we're happy to watch things start to fill in. My Christmas wishlist also includes an Apex controller, we'll see how that pans out.

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On 10/12/2019 at 7:06 AM, M&C said:

1 AI Prime HD should be good for that. There were some areas on my sand bed getting as low as 50 PAR but I think there was some shading from corals higher up. Just need to be careful when you plan your rock work. Learning more about PAR and light requirements has definitely influenced how I will plan tanks in the future. 

Yeah, I know about PAR. I Live in Holland and it's hard to come by a PAR-meter over here. So I try to get guestimates from people with similar tank dimensions and the light I want to get. 

Thanks for the reply man :) 

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Was nervous to leave town for 4 days last week but everything looked great in the tank when we got home. But don’t take my word for it, here’s our new warpaint scolymia under the evening light.

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Some Saturday afternoon pictures. Tank is 3 months old now, really loving how things are coming along.

 

SPS rock, colors are amazing under the double AI Prime HDs, just wish we had a camera to really bring out the best colors. Maybe for Christmas? Vivid's fundip, oregon tort, green slimer, forest fire digi, setosa, Vivid's phantom, and an unknown montipora + acro which were includes as freebies in a recent order. There are a few others which weren't pictured. 

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Pink/orange and green acans!

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Neon green candy canes which you can see glowing against the rocks behind.

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Just in time for halloween, our jack-o-lantern lepto finally decides it wants to spread to the rocks.

BuisPq6.jpg

 

Queen of the tank! You have no idea how hard it is to get a somewhat non-blurry picture of these clowns.

QZvRVcL.jpg

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15 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Tank looks great for 3 months, and Wow! what a coral selection.  I can't wait to see what it looks like when it grows out.

 

Thank you! We are very happy with the corals, most of them are from Vivid Aquariums. Almost always really impressed with the quality of their frags. 

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After getting phosphates under control the last 2 weeks I checked again today and it was 0.34 with the Hanna tester. Something felt off so I tried a control with 0 TDS RO/DI water and even that measured 0.16, so it's way off. After running a few more tests I think the issue is that the reagent mixes poorly, not sure how to fix that. Any thoughts? 

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