Christopher Marks Posted March 2, 2021 Share Posted March 2, 2021 How are the new macro algae doing @Sealybomb? Noticing any new growth yet? I'm going to move your aquarium journal over to our Nano Reef Journals forum, where it should get more views 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 @Christopher Marks thanks!! I knew it was in the wrong place but couldn’t figure out how to move it!! 🤣 no growth on the macros yet but that’s to be expected I think as I’m measuring zero phosphate 😣 I will collecting my 2 clowns later this week so the macros just need to hang on a little Longer so I can start feeding frozen (still considering if I should dose phosphate to 0.02 but I don’t think I will!) 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 6, 2021 Author Share Posted March 6, 2021 A bit of DIY today 😎 a cover for all the sockets and cables. It’s not a fine piece of furniture just some mdf and a bit of paint, glue and some nails. Also a horse silhouette that I cut out a while back (was a gift for the Mrs who chucked it in a drawer!!). will be making/buying a box for the water bucket at some point..... with a bit of storage hopefully 🙏 3 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 11, 2021 Author Share Posted March 11, 2021 Water station almost complete. Been let down by 2 different LFS with regards to water quality. Hopefully it won’t happen again! 3 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 12, 2021 Author Share Posted March 12, 2021 Almost there!! Just waiting on my 30L bucket and install some plumbing to it and I will be good to go 😎🤞 3 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 12, 2021 Author Share Posted March 12, 2021 Very happy with this! The last test will be to see if the little float valve will stop the flow when I need it to! 2 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 15, 2021 Author Share Posted March 15, 2021 The one thing I didn’t want in the there! I glued it pretty good! I have only seen this one but assuming there are more ☹️ 2 Quote Link to comment
Zer0 Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 Hey awesome job on that cover for the cables and extension cords, it looks great! Very clean! As long as you get to the aiptasia before they start spreading you should be good. Just gotta stay on top of em, gluing them shut whenever you see one. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 @Zer0 glad you like the cover 😎 and yes I will be glueing them when I see them!! Mrs thought I was mad cos she just settled down to sleep and I’m like “sorry, I gotta glue this motherf*****!” 😝 then again she doesn’t understand why I got upset seeing “something tiny in my tank” 😂 2 Quote Link to comment
Murphs_Reef Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 13 hours ago, Sealybomb said: The one thing I didn’t want in the there! I glued it pretty good! I have only seen this one but assuming there are more ☹️ Little bast@rd. Hope you get it sorted. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 19, 2021 Author Share Posted March 19, 2021 Big day today 😎 went shopping (was worried the wife would be pissed, she wasn’t!) Cleaner shrimp, neon Gobi, Kenya tree and branching frogspawn frag 😜 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 24 hrs later and the 4 new inhabitants are doing well. Just had the cleaner shrimp picking at my hand, it tickled and had me grinning like a child 😃 2 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 Moved the light bracket into the 3rd chamber. Hear me out. I have a plan for chamber 2. I have an InTank basket for ch2 that I tried to grow Cheato in but it all kinda melted. So I binned it. I have seen, on here, that people have had the idea of an algae scrubber in ch2 and I am going to give that a go. I have a nice fuge light (see OP) that I paid a good bit of money for and I would like to put it to good use! At the moment I don’t feel like I have nutrient problems and everything seems to be going well (still early days of course) but I do have algae growing in the display which I plan on giving a clean next time. If I can encourage the algae to grow in a scrubber then I think that’s a good thing! The covers in the pics I have made to try and give a clean look and to avoid light spillage which it does very well. Ch1 is a media basket packed with biomedia and rubble topped with floss. Ch2 is a currently empty media basket. Ch3 return pump, heater, ATO (sensor and pipe) and the light bracket! Also there is a cube of floss in there to dampen the sound of the ATO, it works well. Please let me know your thoughts, good or bad. And I will update as time goes on. 1 Quote Link to comment
Zer0 Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 I think if you have success growing macroalgae in the display, you probably don't want to run chaeto in the second chamber. It wouldn't be necessary and might even do more harm than good in terms of enough nutrients available for your coral and display macro to grow healthily. 3 Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 yeah i agree those corals might grab all the available spare nutrients in which case there wouldn't be enough left for an algae scrubber, and you certainly don't want the scrubber to get nutrients before the coral can. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 53 minutes ago, Zer0 said: I think if you have success growing macroalgae in the display, you probably don't want to run chaeto in the second chamber. It wouldn't be necessary and might even do more harm than good in terms of enough nutrients available for your coral and display macro to grow healthily. Oops. Think I may have made this confusing. im not looking to grow Cheato. I did before .... kinda just to see if I could do it (failed). was toying with the idea of a algae scrubber. Only one out of 5 of my display algae is doing “ok”. But there is algae growing on the rear walls of the display. If it grows there no reason is there a reason it couldn’t be cleaned off then attempted to grow in a scrubber? Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 31 minutes ago, rough eye said: yeah i agree those corals might grab all the available spare nutrients in which case there wouldn't be enough left for an algae scrubber, and you certainly don't want the scrubber to get nutrients before the coral can. True that! Although I won’t be growing any NPS or SPS. The corals I do plan keeping should be able to mostly get what they need from the light and water changes. I’m also assuming I will heavy feed. thoughts? Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 4 hours ago, Sealybomb said: True that! Although I won’t be growing any NPS or SPS. The corals I do plan keeping should be able to mostly get what they need from the light and water changes. I’m also assuming I will heavy feed. thoughts? i think those corals that use the light have symbiotic algae in them that require the nitrates - also, you need nitrates for coralline algae to grow, right? i can never judge the tanks i see on this forum because they're always in blue light, so i can't say how much growth you have? if it's film algae it's no big deal. the snails love that crap. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 11 minutes ago, rough eye said: i think those corals that use the light have symbiotic algae in them that require the nitrates - also, you need nitrates for coralline algae to grow, right? i can never judge the tanks i see on this forum because they're always in blue light, so i can't say how much growth you have? if it's film algae it's no big deal. the snails love that crap. Thanks for your advice 👍 I have a good crew of snails that are doing a good job. Although it isn’t as algae free as I would like. I get that corals (esp softies and lps) need nitrate and phos and I am looking to keep that where it should be. I have an empty chamber (no.2) and a good light already in place. I’m thinking, when I have made it, on running a scrubber in there.... light will be on a timer and my thinking is IF (a very big if lol) this scrubber was so good that it’s causing number to drop then I can turn it off with no harm done. but what if it grows a bit of algae? My thinking is that would be a bit that isn’t in the display, can be removed easily enough and cleaned as necessary. my thinking is, when I’m stocked like I want to be there will be 4 fish and a handful of critters. This, I’m hoping will provide enough nutrients. dunno, for me it seems like a good idea..... saying that I thought turning chamber 2 into a fuge was a good idea too 😣 but this is all part of the fun right? ps, no coralline just yet ☹️ 1 Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 personally I would wait - in fact i have been waiting, and have considered putting a refugium in a back chamber but i want to make sure the tank reaches some sort of equilibrium and see what that is first. i have a ton of coralline as you may have seen in my photos, but also a healthy amount of GHA - which isn't receding, or if it is it's very slow, but also isn't spreading either. the GHA doesn't disturb me as much as an absence of coralline would. also, film on the glass doesn't bother me as much as hair on the rocks. i hope you're not looking at my tank as a cautionary tale 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 @rough eye haha no I’m not looking at yours as a cautionary tale 😆 I like what you have going on, really good that your GHA isnt spreading! I’m not to concerned that I don’t have coralline algae, sure I would like it all over my rocks but I’m still not sure I’m a fan of when it spreads all over glass ect. you say you are going to wait for your fuge, that’s all good (it’s your setup) but why wait until you have stability and then change something? Just my way of thinking I guess. 1 Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 7 hours ago, Sealybomb said: you say you are going to wait for your fuge, that’s all good (it’s your setup) but why wait until you have stability and then change something? Just my way of thinking I guess. because then i can see what the tank needs. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 22, 2021 Author Share Posted March 22, 2021 Cheap and time will see if it’s effective! I haven’t attached the mesh in place as I believe it’s held ok by the shape of the chamber and the basket. just set a light timer on for 14hrs a day which is mostly through the night. Any opinions? Let’s here them🙂 Quote Link to comment
DevilDuck Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 14 hours is a long time, unless you have a nitrate problem, I would start with 4-6 hours and monitor your nitrates. I was running my chamber 2 fuge on 12 hours and it was sucking up all my nitrates with chaeto. I had to reduce lighting down to 4 hours to get the growth and nutrient export to slow down. I'm experimenting with slower growing macro red Gracilaria in place of chaeto. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sealybomb Posted March 22, 2021 Author Share Posted March 22, 2021 @DevilDuck thanks for the advice 😎 it’s on a timer so if it is growing to fast I can turn it down. I will defo be keeping an eye on things!!! Any type of algae that grows in there that I can scrape off is a win in my opinion.... will keep up with testing and see how things go. Apart from WCs (which should be sufficient on its own) this will be the only form of nutrient export. Mainly though I just want it to out compete algae in the display.... if I have to add nori so my snails can eat then I don’t think I could wish for more! Fingers crossed 🤞 Quote Link to comment
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