Adventures in keeping a SPS reef

[Llorgon]

I added 20 cerith snails and a fighting conch to the tank yesterday. Coral colour continues to be improving, much not much growth or polyp extension.

 

I'm wondering if I need more flow in the tank? It's hard to tell flow when theres no moving corals in the tank. On that note, the wife is saying I need more movement in the tank. So the all SPS tank might be short lived. Might have to add some LPS to get some movement in there.

 

It looks like I am going to have to order fish online since there isn't much for fish in town. Anyone have tips on ordering fish? Never done it before. I am assuming acclimation is pretty much the same as buying one from the LFS?

[Llorgon]

Since the tank has been cycled I have been running the tunze refugium light on the sump. Having it turn on from when the main lights go off until the main lights come back on.

 

Today I finally pulled some of the gha out. Got a good half a cup and could have got more out if the dog wasn't bugging me to play.

[Llorgon]

Today I finally got around to testing the par on the tank. I'm using the seneye reef for a par meter so these reading are probably not the most accurate.

 

Overall the readings seemed pretty low. I have 2 sb reef lights set 10" above the water with glass tops. The lights are used and came with the tank. The guy I bought it from had a mixed reef with SPS. He was running them at 60% blue and 20% white. Which is what I have them at.

 

Judging by the par readings, are these lights starting to go or should I just bump up the intensity?

[Llorgon]

Bumped my light setting up to 70% blue and 40% white. Getting a little better par readings.

[Llorgon]

Starting to get some gha in the dt. Tried pulling it off with my fingers, but it's really stuck on the rock. I was able to get most of the sand free of gha at least.

 

I ordered a couple designer clowns that my wife picked out. Those should hopefully come this week. This is my first time shipping fish. Anything I should be prepared for or is acclimation pretty much the same?

 

I cleaned out a bunch of gha from the refugium. Got an entire cups worth out!

 

[Llorgon]

Picked up a forest fire Digi frag yesterday. 

Hoping the clown fish I ordered get shipped this week. I got an acclimation box to put them in just in case the yellow Tang is a jerk!

 

[Llorgon]

The clown fish I ordered finally arrived! It took 2 weeks for them to ship for some reason... I had to email about my order a few times. When it finally shipped they didn't include the unit number in the address... Lucky for me the FedEx guy called instead of just leaving. But they are here and alive. Plus I got one free astrea snail for my trouble.

Overall nice fish, but I wouldn't order from there again.

The clowns are an extreme Picasso and a blacker ice.

I also added another piece of dry rock to the tank to add some more hiding spots for future inhabitants.

[Llorgon]

Since the sb reef lights were having some issues. I decided to splurge and buy a couple of radion xr30 g5 blues for the tank.

They came yesterday and got them setup. They look nice and give off a ton of light. The fans on them are pretty loud and the Mobius app is pretty bad. But other than that no complaints so far.

[Llorgon]

All fish are doing well. The clownfish have grown a bit and the tang didn't really seem to care that they were added to the tank.

Since I got the pair of clowns I upped my feeding from once a day to twice a day. Since then my N and P04 have dropped to near 0. I've been dosing small amounts of both to try and bring them both up.

Corals seem to be doing ok. Not a ton of growth, but also nothing dying. Been having some trouble with colour. The birdsnest doesn't have any green to it and another unknown SPS is a really pale red.

I've sent away an ICP test to see if there's anything I'm missing parameter wise. Hopefully I get that back early next week.

[W1ll]

From what I've read, lack of colour in a birdsnest coral is a good indicator or low or unstable phosphates. Other than that, the digitata appears quite happy and the tank seems to be coming along well. Following along. 

[Llorgon]

That would make sense. When I tested my phosphates a week or so ago they were at 0.003ppm.

 

[DevilDuck]

18 hours ago, Llorgon said:

Since the sb reef lights were having some issues. I decided to splurge and buy a couple of radion xr30 g5 blues for the tank.

They came yesterday and got them setup. They look nice and give off a ton of light. The fans on them are pretty loud and the Mobius app is pretty bad. But other than that no complaints so far.

By default, the radion fans are always running. Supposedly this was to stop moisture build up, since you have a glass cover this shouldn't be an issue. You can set the fans to shutdown until they are needed: Radion G5: Adjusting Fan Settings – Customer Support (ecotechmarine.com)

 

 

[Llorgon]

3 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

By default, the radion fans are always running. Supposedly this was to stop moisture build up, since you have a glass cover this shouldn't be an issue. You can set the fans to shutdown until they are needed: Radion G5: Adjusting Fan Settings – Customer Support (ecotechmarine.com)

 

 

Thanks! Didn't know about that. It will definitely help with the fan noise.

 

I'll have to replace the glass tops since they don't fit well with the RMS mounts.

[Llorgon]

Played around with the new radions this weekend. Set them to 40% intensity on AB+. Left all channel and overall intensity at 100%.

 

Testing with the seneye par meter gave me mid - high 200 par on most of the rocks with a few places in the low 300. Might be able to bump them up more, but I'll see how the corals do with these settings.

 

I also finally switched from filter socks to filter floss in the sump. I kept forgetting to change the socks and my wife wasn't a huge fan of me cleaning them in the washing machine so hoping this is easier.

 

Still waiting for the ICP test results to come in. Once I get the all clear on the water I'll look into adding some more frags.

 

Also still looking to add some fish. Leaning towards a one spot fox face and coral beauty. Still waiting for the foxface to be in stock at the usual place I order fish from though.

[Llorgon]

This weekend I played around with some powerhead settings on the wave engine and I switched away from the glass top.

Used some egg crate and it doesn't look that bad.

Had some issues this morning with the radions and the time change. One radion came on early and the other one stayed off. Reset them and they switched. Manually set the time change and then had to identify each light in order to get them in sync again... Very annoying!

[Llorgon]

Since removing the glass tops, I've noticed a sharp increase in PH and some increase in ORP from the Apex.

 

I am having some issues with my temp though. I can't seem to get it to be above 77F and sometimes it seems to tip down to 75F at night. I have 2 heaters, a 200W and a 300W

I'm new to the apex, are my settings wrong?

200w:
on temp: 77
off temp: 78

300w:
on temp: 78.2
off temp 79

 

I have a feeling my settings are off on this.
 

[Llorgon]

Well I bought a longnose hawkfish. It was supposed to come yesterday, but so far nothing yet. Might be delayed due to all the rain and mudslides in the area the last few days. Hoping it comes today... alive, but not looking good.

[mitten_reef]

On 11/10/2021 at 7:34 PM, Llorgon said:

Since removing the glass tops, I've noticed a sharp increase in PH and some increase in ORP from the Apex.

 

I am having some issues with my temp though. I can't seem to get it to be above 77F and sometimes it seems to tip down to 75F at night. I have 2 heaters, a 200W and a 300W

I'm new to the apex, are my settings wrong?

200w:
on temp: 77
off temp: 78

300w:
on temp: 78.2
off temp 79

 

I have a feeling my settings are off on this.
 

I'm not familiar with Apex.  

But by the logic shown above, it'd mean that the 300W heater will never come on because the 200W is cut off at 78.  unless your tank equipment starts producing additional heat, you wouldn't reach the 78.2 threshold needed for it to come on.

 

A couple questions you might wanna consider.

Are the two meant to run in tandem (shouldn't they be the same program then)?  Or one is a back up for the other?  

Do you really need ON temp?  if so, should you set it something like 70 for both, to ensure the heaters stay on, and have the upper limit (OFF temp) to cut the power should the tank exceed your OFF temp?

 

  

[Llorgon]

Ya my logic on it was off. From what I have read, the Apex will turn the heater On when the temperature is below the "On Temperature" value, and turn it Off when the temperature is above the "Off Temperature" value.

 

So, I've changed the programming for both to be on below 78 and off at 79. Still can't seem to get the tank up to temp. The other night it dropped down to 75. No idea why. House stays the same temp and it wasn't overly cold out. Just started dropping around 8pm

 

It's weird.

[Chutsk10]

What are your temperature settings on the heaters themselves?

 

I program my Apex to turn on below 77 and off above 78. The heater itself is dialed in to around 79 degrees. This ensures it turns on when the Apex is on and if the Apex fails to turn it off the built in thermometer should turn it off before it goes above 79. 

[Llorgon]

I just checked and both are set to 79.

[Llorgon]

Hawkfish was delivered yesterday. Came almost a week late and very dead. So that was a bummer, but expected with the delay.

I seem to have solved my heater issue by setting both heaters to the same temperature. Now keeps the tank. At a nice 78f.

I picked up a few new corals. A pac man, rainbow loom and Bali green slimmer. All are doing well so far. Rainbow loom is more green than rainbow, but it was like that in the other reefers tank as well.

My wife says I have too much green in the tank and that I need something blue or purple.

With the addition of these frags, I'm probably going to have to get my doser up and running. This is my first time using a doser. Any tips on setting things up?

My alk and cal consumption don't seem to be consistent day to day and I usually adjust my manual dosing mid week to keep things from creeping up. What's the best way to deal with that with automatic dosing? Dose a bit less than I would manually?

[Llorgon]

Finally got my ICP test results back. It took a bit over a month!

 

The test shows my salinity is high, but I calibrated both my Hanna checker and refractometer and the tank water came out to 1.026.

 

I apparently have some aluminum in the tank. I would assume that's coming from my water source so I will have to check my ro/di filters.

 

Alk is fine, calcium is a bit high, but the bucket of instant ocean I was using had calcium at 500 so expected. No idea why magnesium is so high. How would I get that down?

 

Other than that trace elements seem to be extremely off. Any tips on getting those back on track?

[Llorgon]

Since the ICP test revealed a lack of some trace elements I'm going to try the red sea coral program in the new year. Hopefully that helps with the trace elements that are out of whack.

I bought a Eheim auto feeder. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to fit on the rim of the tank. So I am going to have to find a different way of mounting it. I'm thinking velcro.

 

As for the tank, everything is doing alright. I'm not seeing much growth out of any of the SPS and the pac man has lost some colour, but I seem to be getting good polyp extension.

 

One thing I have noticed with my octo pulse2 is I really need to stay on top of cleaning them. They very quickly get dirty and I can see the flow is diminished since I don't get the polyp extension. I have also had to up the percentage of them. Originally I had them set to 15-85% and now 35-85%.

[Llorgon]

I got some gift cards for Christmas so I decided to pick up some red sea products. Going to try out the red sea coral program. Hopefully that helps with the low trace element levels that don't seem to be kept up with water changes.