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Cultivated Reef

Spencer7

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

On 6/29/2022 at 1:49 PM, mitten_reef said:

Nice, looks like the old red planet I used to have, is it? 

Yes, thanks.

 

Also, tank is being moved tomorrow to the new apartment. Making water today in preparation. Wish me luck.

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Move went pretty well. One frag loss is as good as you can expect for moving an SPS-only, ULN system. 

 

Documented the experience (and my advice) here! 

 

Hopefully, the thread is shared around and gets an audience since I took the time.

 

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Doser is set up on the new tank. No frags lost after the move (just one crushed during). Colors are eh right now, understandably.

 

I'm bringing up my alkalinity, which dipped quite a bit from the move for whatever reason. I miss my giant ATO reservoir. Topping off manually right now.

 

Tank upgrades in mind...

- Add a low maintenance fish or two for some coral fertilizer (on top of NeoNitro/NeoPhos)

- Elevate sump rock on egg crate, add more biomedia

- Eventually, upgrade Hygger to another MP10 and move the Hygger to the sump (under egg crate) and run at night to help feed coral

- I need to setup a new ATO system...I'd like to swap my temporary cabinet (31x16x40") with something like a speaker stand (~14x12x48") which can support a reservoir above the sump water level, let me know if something comes to mind

- I haven't run a skimmer in a while (and removed the dormant one during the move), so I will laser cut a top to the sump, which should be really nice to have. 

- I'll get a couple new frags next weekend

- I lost the original RS170 return nozzle so rather than buy a new one, I've just 3D-printed a new one. I hope it will fit and make the tank quiet again. (edit: worked great)

 

I've stopped feeding ReefRoids, I think it had minimal impact on my acropora and just gave me a billion sponges, which then floated everywhere after the move. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

7/22/22

400 Ca

6.4 dKH

~0.00 PO4

 

8/4/22

400 Ca

6.0 dKH

~0.00 PO4

5-10 NO3

 

Was surprised to see my alk so low still. Manually dosed some and upped the automatic dosing amount. I need to setup NeoPhos on the fourth channel. It's tough/sensitive to manually dose and imbalance between NO3 and PO4 has led to tiny algae changes. I'll also reduce my nightly skimmer time from 8 hours to like 5 hours.

 

3.4 —> 4.2 mL /day Alk

3 —> 3.2 mL /day Ca

Nitrate stays at 1mL /day 

Overall, the tank looks nice. I think it will fill in in the next six months. About to leave for a week so fingers crossed for no disasters while I'm gone. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

How much would you guys adjust the Ca/KH dosages based off these numbers?

 

Along with dosing more NeoPhos, I need to get my Ca/KH up. Some corals are doing well, others are getting (I think) bullied out of Ca/KH. 

 

I wish I could say there was an explosion of growth but I think that will come once I can meet demands of all the frags consistently. 

_____________________________________

 

August 4th Testing and dosage adjustments:

Ca: 400

Alk: 6.0

PO4: ~0.00

NO3: 5-10

 

I changed...

Daily Ca:  9 mL --> 9.9 mL 

Daily Alk: 10.2 mL --> 12.3 mL

 

August 17th Testing:
Ca: 390 

Alk: 5.4

PO4: ~0.00

 

Note: these dosing amount are split between three dosages per day.

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What do we think about this?

 

Ca: 9.9 mL --> 16.8 mL     (69% increase)

Alk: 12.3 mL --> 21mL    (70% increase)

 

I realize my last adjustments were minimal after looking at daily dose volume vs. individual dose volume (3/day). 

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8pm Tonight

Ca: 380 

KH: 5.8

 

Increased to 21mL and 28mL /day, respectively.

 

From 16.8 and 21mL /day.

 

I feel like I should be seeing more growth and my alk should be rising faster...

Idk what's "normal" for an ~35gal acro tank dosing BRS 2-part.

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17 minutes ago, ifarmer said:

very beautiful tank.  

Thank you! It's getting there...slowly. There have been some resets.

 

What happened to your 2018 tank?

 

 

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8/25/22 (10pm)

pH:   8.5

KH:   5.9

Ca:   380

Mg:   1400 (not dosing, still fine)

 

Slow going. Crazy how my high my pH always is.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Daily dosages: 31.5mL Ca, 37.5 mL KH, 3mL NO3 

 

9/16/22 (12pm)

PO4:  ~0.00 

KH:  5.4 

Ca:   385

pH: 8.2

 

WHAT IS HAPPENING??? Corals are starting to look like shit. I dose more and more and it seems like it's done more harm than good. Values aren't going up but things also aren't growing...

 

I submitted a Triton ICP test last week.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a big precipitation event after I tried to raise my alk too quickly. The event was triggered by me doing a 10gal water change where I added some sodium carbonate to the freshly mixed SW before adding to the tank.

 

Those seed crystals of precipitation instigated more calcification reactions, meaning my alk actually dropped from 5.4 to 4.3 after adding that high-alk water. My Ca also dropped to ~300 ppm. 

 

I used bicarbonate to help recover. I had a crazy swing at one point where my alk went from ~6 to ~12 dKH. Surprised I only lost one coral from that.

 

Now I'm at ~320 ppm Ca and ~9 dKH and dosing 48mL per day of each across six doses (Ca and alk are 2hrs apart). I also got the necessary adapter for dosing NeoPhos, so I'm dosing 1mL every other day.

 

The Triton test didn't show anything other than low phosphate and low iodine. 

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10/2/22 (3pm)

PO4:  ~0.00 

NO3: ~15

KH:  8.8 

Ca:   335

pH: 8.3

 

Based on these readings, I adjusted dosing...

 Ca:  48 --> 54 mL per day (across six doses)

KH: 48 --> 54 mL per day (across six doses)

NO3: 3 --> 2.7 mL per day (dosed at noon)

PO4: 1mL every other day --> 1mL daily (dosed at 9am)

 

I also dosed 30mL of Ca manually and did a 5gal water change.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Coral feeding and nutrients has probably been the biggest headache in this tank. 


- I'm not convinced NeoNitro and NeoPhos are getting the job done (potentially responsible for algae issues) 

- Acropower not convincing 

- Reef roids just seemed to grow sponges like crazy

- I liked EasySPS EVO gel but of course it's expensive and not always in stock (backup option, buying 1.5L size)

 

I'm going to experiment with Red Sea's AB+ and KZ's Coral Vitalizer and see if one of these helps me out. 

 

I'd like to find a solution that isn't reliant on heavy fish feeding (one fish and I leave the tank). 

 

Years down the road, I might go back to a Zeovit system. Automated mulm feeding for corals. 

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I'm seeing some good polyp extension with 4mL daily doses of AB+ food. 

 

Still dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitro but I reduced the amount of NeoNitro (and that might have reduced some algae on rock). 

 

My phosphates have tested 0.00 for months so I could consider increasing NeoPhos but I'm sure they're not actually at zero (common sentiment with Hannah Checkers) and I know the corals are getting something. Might be worth a test. If I add a couple fish, probably wouldn't do. 

 

I haven't bought coral in like 6+ months so if things are stable, I might be due!

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On 9/16/2022 at 5:54 PM, Spencer7 said:

Daily dosages: 31.5mL Ca, 37.5 mL KH, 3mL NO3 

 

9/16/22 (12pm)

PO4:  ~0.00 

KH:  5.4 

Ca:   385

pH: 8.2

 

WHAT IS HAPPENING??? Corals are starting to look like shit. I dose more and more and it seems like it's done more harm than good. Values aren't going up but things also aren't growing...

 

I submitted a Triton ICP test last week.

 

Did you check your magnesium? Could have been the cause.

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On 1/21/2023 at 1:29 AM, nh.reef said:

Did you check your magnesium? Could have been the cause.

Yea, magnesium has always been ~1400 without dosing. The last shock to the system was switching salts from blue bucket to RC. Before that it was mainly alk issues (compounded by precipitation). I switched from soda ash to bicarb in October and that seemed to make things easier for me. 

 

January 3rd

KH: 6.9 (3.5—>4.5mL *6 /day)

Ca: 475 ppm

NO3: 5-10

PO4: 0.00

 

January 6th - January 10th: Alk at 7.4

January 14th: Alk at 7.5, Ca at 450

 

1/18/23

KH: 8.1 (dosed at 4.5mL*6 /day, dosed 15mL extra)

Ca: 440 (dosed at 2x6mL)

NO3: 5-10 (dosed at 1.8mL/day)

PO4: 0.00 (dosed at 1mL/day)

 

1/21/23

KH 7.9 (Increase to 5x6mL, dosed 10mL extra)

Increased Ca to 2.2 x 6mL

Reduced NO3 to 1.4mL /day

Increased NeoPhos to 1.3mL /day

 

With daily coral feeding, I'm going to taper NeoNitro down. 

 

You can see Ca and Alk starting to stabilize and sync up. I let the slightly high Ca naturally lower as more alk was consumed. The tank is stabilizing and I'm seeing a little growth pick up so I increased both slightly. I'd like to maintain alk at around 8.5 dKH if I can without precipitation issues. 

 

Over the past year, I've gone from running the skimmer at night, to not running it (trying to help nutrients), to running it now 24/7. I think it's helped with algae a bit. I think the Brightwell nutrients may also take some blame here.

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Quick FTS I took yesterday, since I want to capture that "before" pic if things are going well...

 

The pagoda cup got huge so I broke it up into a bunch of pieces. Kept some, gave/threw away others. 

image.jpeg

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On 1/21/2023 at 11:24 AM, Spencer7 said:

1/18/23

KH: 8.1 (dosed at 4.5mL*6 /day, dosed 15mL extra)

Ca: 440 (dosed at 2x6mL)

NO3: 5-10 (dosed at 1.8mL/day)

PO4: 0.00 (dosed at 1mL/day)

 

1/21/23

KH 7.9 (Increase to 5x6mL, dosed 10mL extra)

Increased Ca to 2.2 x 6mL

Reduced NO3 to 1.4mL /day

Increased NeoPhos to 1.3mL /day

1/28/23

KH 8.3

Ca: 450

NO3: 5

PO4 0.00

 

Looks like my dosing adjustments worked out well. Idk if I should try getting to detectable PO4 or if the Brightwell products are responsible for my algae (which is just consuming them). MP10 and EasySPS coming tomorrow. Been doing the Red Sea AB+.

 

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