Greg's Reefing Saga ( photo dump )

[Staticmoves]

1 minute ago, ReefGoat said:

Far left lower corner away from where I’m planning on putting everything. 
 

im planning on it being a big showpiece away from everything 

My wife loved the one we had, and gave me proper shite when I broke it out to make room.  If you have the real estate, they are a beauty.

[ReefGoat]

Well here before long it’ll be 2 months for the 80g. Things are going relatively smoothly. I’m getting ready to fire up an algae reactor in order to keep my nutrients in order. Right now I’m changing 20g a week to keep my nitrates below 20 and I’m adding 8 drops of lanthanum chloride on water change day to keep the phosphates below .10 

 it’s working well but I’d rather be changing out 10 percent a week (8g) and not having to add LC. So I’m going to utilize an algae reactor. Other than that things been great. I did pull all my corals besides my Zoas from the 5g and put them in the 80g. 
 

pics to follow

This one loves feeding time 

[ReefGoat]

Free coral that just cropped up. It had to have came in on the live rock. Because I didn’t add it. Toadstool leather coral maybe? 

Another freebie hitchhiker. Mushroom? 

[ReefGoat]

Nice and fluffy looking. 

[ReefGoat]

Just a tiny bit of growth for this one. But still got a LITTLE bit bigger. Just a little bit lol. I think it’s still settling in. 

[ReefGoat]

This is 100% showing growth. You can’t even see the sides of the frag plug anymore. It’s encrusted over it. 

This one’s being a dick. Colors nice but ZERO growth. 

[ReefGoat]

Last but not least. My favorite picture of the night. 

[ReefGoat]

Proof of life photo dump 😝 

[ReefGoat]

This big tank is so much easier to care for it’s not even comparable in the least bit. I really don’t see myself ever having a tank under 75g ever again. I never realized how much I was struggling to keep everything stable in all my other smaller tanks. I thought that’s just how it was. I water change every Sunday and do a nice cleaning and tidy up anything I noticed and put off during the week. I only put my hands in the tank on Sundays. I test on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 
 

Alk is constantly at 9.0

 

phosphate tests 0.03 on Monday and by Friday it’s around 0.05

 

Nitrate gets dropped to 16ish on water change day and is usually back up to around 18-20 by water change day. 
 

calcium and mag I test every two weeks and it’s usually right at what my salt mixes to and isn’t fluctuating too much. The last test was 420 calcium and 1300 magnesium. 

[ReefGoat]

To maintain what’s listed above. I’m doing 20g a week water changes. Under sized skimmer running 247. Change out floss in both intakes every two days. I also am adding 3ml per day all for reef. I’m slowly ramping it up weekly. I will stop increasing by 1ml every week once I see it spike past 9. I’ll know I’m adding too much at that point. 
 

I feed new life spectrum pellets when I get home from work and about 1 hour before lights off. I feed frozen, 1/4 cube frozen Mysis and 1/4 cube of frozen Emerald Entree. Reef roids 1 a week, broadcast. 
 

instant ocean salt 

[Reefkid88]

Wowzers,that red Acan is SURELY red lol jeeze. Looks amazing. Are you shotting pics with a phone ? If so which one ? 

[ReefGoat]

1 hour ago, Reefkid88 said:

Wowzers,that red Acan is SURELY red lol jeeze. Looks amazing. Are you shotting pics with a phone ? If so which one ? 

Meh it’s a little hard to get the true color. I’m doing what I can to make it look OK. It’s red but it’s not as RED as the photos make it. It’s got a orangey red in person. I struggle greatly to get photos that look like it actually looks to my eyes. So I just get what I think looks cool lol. 
 

iPhone 14 with Orphek orange filter. 
adjust warmth and brightness. 
 

I did not mess with any other things like saturation or the color adjustments. 

 

 

[Reefkid88]

Do you have a pro setting on your phone ? I know some iPhones don't,but some do. This is why I like Androids,all my pics are taken with my S24 in PRO mode. Should look kinda like this of you have it. Most of my pics do turn out darker but the colors fors the most part are about 95% correct. 

[ReefGoat]

2 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Do you have a pro setting on your phone ? I know some iPhones don't,but some do. This is why I like Androids,all my pics are taken with my S24 in PRO mode. Should look kinda like this of you have it. Most of my pics do turn out darker but the colors fors the most part are about 95% correct. 

I don’t have that on mine. It’s just the regular 14

[ReefGoat]

This photo was taken 30s ago. 
 

Didn’t touch any settings just the IPhone and the Orphek. 
 

the photos do look different also depending on what time of day. Because my lighting schedule changes through the day. Right now it’s got a less blue. Later on tonight it’ll be full blue. 

[ReefGoat]

Same photo after adjusting warmth +15 and brightness -10

[ReefGoat]

This is what happens when I mess with saturation and vibrance 

[ReefGoat]

Well looks like I made it 3 months lol. 
 

I added an AI Prime to the tank that I had laying around. So now I’m running the two Hydra 32hd and one 16hd. The tank is MUCH more evenly lit now. Looks way better. I also cut away some of the film on the back and added a Amazon pink grow light on the back and threw in some of the peices of rock that had a ton of macro growing on it in that chamber. I also scooped up some chaeto. Those are the only changes I’ve made to the tank since last update. All levels are currently stable and I’m doing good keeping them in the variance goals that I’ve set to keep them in. The only thing I’ve noticed is that since booting up the “Refugium” 2 weeks ago my phosphates have went down to 0.02 on the Hanna. They never register as 0 but I’m worried about the margin of error. So I’m currently watching them closer and testing them more and dosing phosphates to keep them around 0.05. I have to put them in about every 3 days to maintain that level. Alk is still rock solid at 9 using 5ml of AFR every day besides Sunday. 
 

for Christmas I’m getting the hydros XP8 energy bar so I’ll have my automation and monitoring back up and running and I’ll also be able to automate the AFR dosage with the Minnow. 
 

that’s about it. Im ready for more fish! Probably the next thing I add will be 2 clowns, 1 fire fish and a couple other small fish. 

[ReefGoat]

Euphyllia garden grew a little bit. Got 5 more so now I’m up to 9. 

Little bit o growth. I’m hoping this one cups instead of plates 

[ReefGoat]

These are multiplying pretty good 

[ReefGoat]

As far as coral stocking goes I’m working my way from right to left. Now that the Euphyllia garden is complete on the right. I’m going to finish out the Acan garden with probably about 6 more pieces. That should do it. Then I’m going to focus on encrusting corals (leptos, cyphastria, encrusting montis, encrusting LPS, couple chalices). By then I think I’ll be comfortable starting to add some monti caps and some acros. The final additions will be sand bed stuff and a nice clam likely.  
 

That’s the plan at least lol. 

[ReefGoat]

Lights off pictures.

[DNR88]

That live rock is amazing! 😄

[ReefGoat]

1 hour ago, DNR88 said:

That live rock is amazing! 😄

Yeah I think it’s really helped make this tank easier so far. Way easier actually. I struggle greatly with dry sterile setups. 
 

The only drawback I’ve had is that I have to keep a close eye on a couple patches of macro that is pretty fast growing. I just take the pieces out and give a scrub with a brush and put them back in. That’s the ONLY problem I’ve had to complain about. 

[TheCoffeeReef]

Loved catching up on your tank progress dude; its looking lush and bold!

 

Have a thought about your phosphate, if I've followed the updates right you've been seeing growth snd added more coral; those over time will need more input to maintain balance - I've overlooked that and increasing my flow to balance the development. Hope it doesn't come across as teaching granny to suck eggs 👌.

 

I'm jealous of your Duncan colony!