debbeach13 Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 Picked up the new coral Friday. I had the water tested while I was there. No3 - 0 dam it Alk. - 8.2 Cal. - 460 Mag. 1290 Po4 - .03 This morning I removed the corals from the frag plugs. I glued the Birdsnest and the golden Pavona to the empty rock. I put the Aussie Lord on the Acan rock. Then the Superman Rhodactis, Speckled Leather and Alpha Omega Zoanthids were each glued to their own piece of rock rubble. I of course broke a tiny nub of the birdsnest from the frag and just glued it off to the side. I will take pictures after they settle in for a couple days. 3 Quote Link to comment
PJPS Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 1 hour ago, debbeach13 said: Picked up the new coral Friday. I had the water tested while I was there. No3 - 0 dam it Alk. - 8.2 Cal. - 460 Mag. 1290 Po4 - .03 This morning I removed the corals from the frag plugs. I glued the Birdsnest and the golden Pavona to the empty rock. I put the Aussie Lord on the Acan rock. Then the Superman Rhodactis, Speckled Leather and Alpha Omega Zoanthids were each glued to their own piece of rock rubble. I of course broke a tiny nub of the birdsnest from the frag and just glued it off to the side. I will take pictures after they settle in for a couple days. Get those nutrients up (which you clearly are aware of). PO4 under 0.1 makes me skittish in a nano because things are perpetually in flux in such a small body of water. Nitrates above 10, phos over 0.1. You'll grow algae (healthy) so you need herbivores, but it keeps you away form dinos/cyano. Just my $0.02 🙂 Everything else is fine (cal is a touch high, but irrelevantly so). That's just young birdsnest, "fraagged" mine with a rigid feeding tube this morning lol. I was blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster effectively. 2 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 This is the best looking out of the bunch. Light on low and pump is also on. See the nub 4 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Lovely! Green birdsnest? I just picked up a birds of paradise but I like the polyp color on this one way better. 2 1 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 ORA Neon green from WWC. That picture also has my new WWC Golden Pavona . It’s tiny and looks pink/ orange. 1 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 Superman RhodactisAlpha Omega 5 Quote Link to comment
ml86743 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 That candy cane looks awesome! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
banasophia Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Yes, the corals all look happy. It’s interesting that your rockflower always looks dome shaped like that. Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 I don't know what is up with the RFA. It does eat, I just haven't found it's happy place yet. 1 Quote Link to comment
banasophia Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Hmm well it isn’t shriveled up or wandering around… maybe it is happy? 1 Quote Link to comment
Reef Casa Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Hows the rock flower doing 🙂 ? 1 Quote Link to comment
gena Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Nice collection of corals. They all look so healthy! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 The RFA looked the same this morning. Now it looks like this? I didn’t feed anything to the tank today. Well 30 minutes and it flattened again. 2 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 Yesterday I did a 1-gallon water change, new carbon and filter pad. Everything looked good last night. I meant to take a picture but forgot. Maybe tonight. Are you sitting down? I also ordered test kits! That's right I figured if I am going to have any chance at keeping the SPS alive I will have to track actual parameters. Expecting delivery from BRS on Friday. CA, KH/ALK, PO4, Mag, No3, and PH. Even with test results I will still use water changes, manual dosing a simple 2 part B-Ionic 1 Alkalinity and 2 Calcium and adjust feeding schedule. I hate testing and I suck at it. If I could afford it, I would absolutely buy a spin touch or Aqua spin. 6 Quote Link to comment
PJPS Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 5 minutes ago, debbeach13 said: Yesterday I did a 1-gallon water change, new carbon and filter pad. Everything looked good last night. I meant to take a picture but forgot. Maybe tonight. Are you sitting down? I also ordered test kits! That's right I figured if I am going to have any chance at keeping the SPS alive I will have to track actual parameters. Expecting delivery from BRS on Friday. CA, KH/ALK, PO4, Mag, No3, and PH. Even with test results I will still use water changes, manual dosing a simple 2 part B-Ionic 1 Alkalinity and 2 Calcium and adjust feeding schedule. I hate testing and I suck at it. If I could afford it, I would absolutely buy a spin touch or Aqua spin. The spin touch is fast & convenient but not amazing for accuracy. For that money, I’d want better results!, 11/10 for convenience. If I owned an LFS, it’s a service I’d offer. If I had your goals. Hanna alkalinity (dkh model) and hr nitrate, those are the two tomkeep SPS happy. NO3 under 20, Alk wher you plan to keep it.ca, mag (any tests), pH a cheap pen from amazon. Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 ^ I appreciate the suggestions. I already placed my order, and it is in transit. I will have to make do this time around. 1 Quote Link to comment
PJPS Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Literally any will work 😊❤️ I was just stating that those comparatively low cost solutions get you 95% of the way to spin touch in terms of ease-of-use. It’s not as convenient but nowhere near the money.❤️ It’s also way more accurate Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 This is probably considered terrible thinking. Human or machine performing and interpreting the test just leave a lot to be desired. Testing is for tracking trends or consumption, 1 Quote Link to comment
banasophia Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Yeah I love my Aquaspin because I really struggled to interpret the results of the different color based tests I tried and I didn’t care for Hanna checkers and gave them away… plus testing multiple tanks takes a long time… getting my own Aquaspin was definitely a splurge but it has been worth it to me…. wish you lived close and we could share. 1 Quote Link to comment
PJPS Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 2 minutes ago, banasophia said: Yeah I love my Aquaspin because I really struggled to interpret the results of the different color based tests I tried and I didn’t care for Hanna checkers and gave them away… plus testing multiple tanks takes a long time… getting my own Aquaspin was definitely a splurge but it has been worth it to me…. wish you lived close and we could share. For multiple tanks, I can’t imagine. I only plan to kinda keep an eye on PO4 in the second tank. If we had a second tank we needed any insight into, thecspin touch would quickly become a consideration. Those hanna checkers take the colour comparison part out, but still have the rigamarole of testing. I’d happily sacrifice accuracy for convenience in a reef. Alk is the only one I want accurate, and even then only on an acro tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 I e-mailed aquaspin. Filed out the form but never heard from them. I looked at touch spin it was $1,399 + $200 for 50 disks. 1 Quote Link to comment
banasophia Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 1 hour ago, debbeach13 said: I e-mailed aquaspin. Filed out the form but never heard from them. I looked at touch spin it was $1,399 + $200 for 50 disks. Yeah that sounds about right 😬😳🤑… I think it went up some since I got mine. It was my big bday when I got it… totally rationalized it since we had originally talked about taking a trip for my bday but changed our minds… and I figured it would be about the same price as a Trident with Apex and reagents but I could use it on all three tanks and it seemed easier to figure out. The downside is that it only tests to the 0.1 for phosphate so that will not be enough resolution for some people. My phosphates run high though in my tanks, at least 0.1, so it’s not an issue for me. Also it gives you alkalinity in ppm so you have to use a calculator to determine dKH… I have an app that does that for me. When I bought mine they had only been selling them to LFSs, but the rep said they were opening it up to sell them to individual hobbyists, here’s my rep Vicky’s reply about it from Oct 2021: Yes! You can spread the word for sure. They will need to go to our website to create an account (shop.apifishcare.com) and if they are located on the west coast, I will be the one who approves them. I appreciate the business and am glad you like the machine. Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 I am unfortunately on the east coast. I filled out the form again. I am actually considering checking if a LFS that uses one can order one for me. To me it makes sense that if a store uses the aqua spin that customer seeing it might want one. This time I did hear back. Unfortunately, I was told that at this time the unit is only sold to stores. I replied and mentioned that sales have been allowed to individuals on the West Coast and to let me know when they are allowed on the East coast. 2 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Yikes, and I thought the Hanna checkers were unnecessarily expensive. I'm still stingy when it comes to testing phosphate everyday using a sachet of reagent. I'll use my Salifert P04 instead most days. 1 Quote Link to comment
PJPS Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Just now, Koleswrath said: Yikes, and I thought the Hanna checkers were unnecessarily expensive. I'm still stingy when it comes to testing phosphate everyday using a sachet of reagent. I'll use my Salifert P04 instead most days. Keep an eye on PO4, don't let it consume you as it did me once upon a time. Now, not 0.0 is all I worry about. If Dong Zhou can run AcroGarden at 0.5 PO4, why would I think I know better? I'm not saying run at 0.5, just that the worst it'll do is grow algae, so you add herbivores. 0.0 brings dinos and weeks long bouts of despising the nightmare your tank has become. Any PO4 reading is in the safe zone as far as I'm concerned :). I too am a broke boy, so testin anything but alk on the SPS system is just trend monitoring. I do test NO3regularly in that tank, acros can get pretty unhappy in really high (>25 for SPS) NO3 Quote Link to comment
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