fenderchamp's 3.5 gal bow front

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

Looks like it’s starting a new plate

[fenderchamp]

11 heads now. Started with 1.

[brandon429]

hey great job updates for sure, can you remind me what is the feed your tank gets, we're rehabbing up another nano reef on rtr and we wanted to move beyond just mysis alone/what are  you feeding them 

[fenderchamp]

21 hours ago, brandon429 said:

hey great job updates for sure, can you remind me what is the feed your tank gets, we're rehabbing up another nano reef on rtr and we wanted to move beyond just mysis alone/what are  you feeding them 

The whole thing I've done so far I do is this.  I don't track anything exactly or feed every week exactly the same.

 

Very consistently 

1. I top off about 1 specimen cup per day of water from my oranda tank, which is prime treated tap water, 40 breeder with 2 Fish in it.  It's run bare with a sponge and a little air filter (it's fairly dirty) even though I change the water about %100 a week.   I think the reef gets some organics from this.  I've been doing this since the pico tank was probably  3 months old, when I figured out how easy it was, to simply dip a cup in the oranda tank instead of using RODI.

2. Cbalance alkalinity supplement A/B 1 ml each per day

 

Pretty consistently

3. live phyto a few drops 3-5 days a week, starting at about a year.  I would dose a little bit of phyto-feast prior to starting the live. 

 

As described.

4. frozen brine hikari cube 1/2 cube 2-4x a month.

5. PNS yellow snow 1-5x a month 5ml at night

6.Red Sea AB+ 5-7 times a month 3-5ml (this is huge dose for this tank).  I've done this as much as 2x a week before.  I've also done this at 1 ml dose a few a times a week for probably the first year after a few months.

7. not so much lately but an occasional dose of reef chili.  I usually give it a heaping provided spoon, in a 1/2cup of water, and when I'm doing this maybe 1x a week. 

 

Using Redsea coral pro salt I mix it my self with RODI I get at LFS: 'Fish Freaks' every week, and mix at 35.0 I'm changing water %100 a week more or less.

 

Additionally, I've dumped a variety of live pods into the tank a couple of times. 

 

and I forgot I give the crabs some (like 1-5) new-life-spectrum gold fish small sinking pellets, slightly more than once a week and have been since I first started up the tank.

 

 

[fenderchamp]

man oh man. 

 

I've been using 2ml (1 ml each) 2 part Two little Fishies C-Balance,  in this tank for a good while now.  I start at 12DKH with a fresh water change and usually end up at 10 or so at the end of the week or so, the 2ml seems to raise the DKH in the tank about 1DKH.   I haven't been measuring the Alkalinity much lately, so anyway I did yesterday.

 

 I think it's been 9 days since the 100%, when I measured the salinity according to my gizmo was 35, I have been adding the supplement every day except for the first.  

 

The alkalinity was at 7.4, that was in the afternoon after I added the supplement.  I don't think I want to add it 2x a day so I think it's time to do a fresh water change, measure everyday and see which way the wind blows and tweak my dosing volume, that's the plan in any case.   

 

What would happen, I'm sure it's been done, if I quit dosing,  stuck to weekly water changes (seems dumb) and let the alkalinity tank even more every week?  @brandon429 is that what you are doing now or do you still dose 2 part?

 

In any case, I'm not going to quit doing large frequent water changes, as I'm convinced of their effectiveness.

 

Any thoughts or comments about pros and cons of dosing, using a doser on a tank this small, what sorts of usage levels might be occurring with other elements supplied by this supplement that might be coming into play, water change frequency and volume adjustments.  I'd be curios to hear what people think. I do recall @Jon-Paul abandoning his doser and embracing the water change by itself. 

[brandon429]

I pretty much stopped dosing 2 part just bc over the years I got lazy and Maritza vase reef hasn't dosed her pico / is on year nine / so I decided to try and it has been ok for a few years now on my setup 

 

*that doesn't mean i think my alk isn't low at times I'm sure it is... my main focus is hq feeding + water changes = I focus on clean protein in and out export and keeping polyp mass growth pretty consistent. 

 

My reef is simply ok not being at stellar sps alkalinity

[fenderchamp]

4 hours ago, brandon429 said:

I pretty much stopped dosing 2 part just bc over the years I got lazy and Maritza vase reef hasn't dosed her pico / is on year nine / so I decided to try and it has been ok for a few years now on my setup 

 

*that doesn't mean i think my alk isn't low at times I'm sure it is... my main focus is hq feeding + water changes = I focus on clean protein in and out export and keeping polyp mass growth pretty consistent. 

 

My reef is simply ok not being at stellar sps alkalinity

I wonder what the swing is before/after water change on a typical week.  How long to do you stretch it sometimes?  do you ever feed 2x before the change?

[fenderchamp]

1 minute ago, fenderchamp said:

I wonder what the swing is before/after water change on a typical week.  How long to do you stretch it sometimes?  do you ever feed 2x before the change?

I'm more interested in what we can get away with than what we should always do, not that I have any intention of changing my routine much, but... you know life happens, and our picos, the ocean are not.

[fenderchamp]

What’s going on with this cyphestria?