Greg's 16 gallon DIY special - Bubble gum millie and FTS

[Koleswrath]

Love these guys. Love that they're growing.

Photo taken during the evening blues.

 

[Koleswrath]

Here's a tank overview during the dusk ramp down. I have one light going off a half hour before the other to get this sort of spotlight effect. 

[MrP]

8 hours ago, Koleswrath said:

Anyone have experience with dosing ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium chloride in place of Nitrate?

I've been dosing ammonium chloride to my larger reef for a few months now. I can't say that I see a noticeable difference, maybe a bit better growth, but it isn't hurting anything either. I haven't had detectable nitrates for a few years now so I'm skeptical that corals even need nitrate at detectable levels. I tried elevating nitrate slowly a while back and my alkalinity consumption decreased significantly. It caused something to halt alkalinity consumption, either some biological process or the corals themselves, I'm stumped. I do dose lots of phosphate, however. I can't seem to keep it elevated. It gets used up quickly.

[MrP]

I just read through your whole build thread. Such a neat well thought out setup. I like it!

[Koleswrath]

9 hours ago, MrP said:

I've been dosing ammonium chloride to my larger reef for a few months now. I can't say that I see a noticeable difference, maybe a bit better growth, but it isn't hurting anything either. I haven't had detectable nitrates for a few years now so I'm skeptical that corals even need nitrate at detectable levels. I tried elevating nitrate slowly a while back and my alkalinity consumption decreased significantly. It caused something to halt alkalinity consumption, either some biological process or the corals themselves, I'm stumped. I do dose lots of phosphate, however. I can't seem to keep it elevated. It gets used up quickly.

Hey thanks for sharing, this is great info. I read through the whole ammonia dosing thread on R2R yesterday and a lot of experiences seem mirror yours where people have not seen a large improvement over adding straight N03. Might not be worth the extra hassle of having to add it so slowly. 

With regards to N03 being measurable in excess in our tanks I think you're right. Mine will drop to unmeasurable for a day here and there with no drastic effects. I do think the corals pale a little at 0 but that might just be my mind playing tricks. 

 

P04 bottoming out was an issue for me as well. I stopped dosing P04 after I found that 1 scoop (Salifert Nitrate test kit red scoop) of reef roids every day will keep my P04 around 0.05. It's incredibly stable using this method. I also dose my water change water up to 0.03. 

Thanks again!

 

 

 

[mcarroll]

On 3/6/2024 at 4:07 PM, Koleswrath said:

I'd like to switch to Ammonia

Sounds like what you're doing is working.  Curious why you want to switch?

[Koleswrath]

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Sounds like what you're doing is working.  Curious why you want to switch?

Oh, you know, theoretical miniscule improvements in growth or color with no real proof other than some hobbyists anecdotal experience that is directly contradicted by some other hobbyist. Same reason we do most of the stuff we do.....😀

(I decided the juice isn't worth the squeeze and I'm gonna stick with the Neonitro for now)

Ideally, what I would really like to do is find a food that is extremely high in nitrogen. I feed frozen Calanus and Mysis three times a day and it doesn't keep any water column N03 in excess. My P04 can be maintained directly with Reef roids. I need to find the Reef roids of Nitrogen.

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, Koleswrath said:

Ideally, what I would really like to do is find a food that is extremely high in nitrogen.

Wondering what problems you're seeing when PO4 is good but NO3 is too low?

 

Usually, corals are pretty happy under those conditions, especially if there's at least "some" food available – which is usually the case in a tank where fish are being fed.  (Mechanical filtration will reduce this food source.)

 

Corals can even fix their own nitrogen internally if conditions dictate that...though maybe in limited amounts, prolly depends.

[Koleswrath]

59 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Wondering what problems you're seeing when PO4 is good but NO3 is too low?

 

Usually, corals are pretty happy under those conditions, especially if there's at least "some" food available – which is usually the case in a tank where fish are being fed.  (Mechanical filtration will reduce this food source.)

 

Corals can even fix their own nitrogen internally if conditions dictate that...though maybe in limited amounts, prolly depends.

No issues at all when NO3 is "low" (0.1-2ppm (otherwise known as a slight tint of pink when looking sideways on my Salifert kit) but when I go skiing or travelling for a few days and come back to a colorless NO3 test I notice the digitata is a little bit pale. I dose up a couple ppm and they brighten right back up in a day or two. Of course I'm also changing water and cleaning glass, etc. so it could be unrelated. 

I'm also thinking of copepods, bacteria and other microfauna who's populations I want to keep as stable as possible. Testable levels might help more with those critters and provide peace of mind that I'm providing enough input. I'd just like to find a food that could help with that. 

 

[Lennie]

On 2/26/2024 at 1:01 AM, Koleswrath said:

Dream fish right here!

 

Biota captive bred Mandarin. I think my son named her "Lenny" after a lawnmower blenny that was eaten by an anemone 11 years ago. He did not remember that event correctly. He was only 2 so I'll let it go.

Your dreamfish and I have something in common 

 

 

Nice tanks &fish!^^ 

 

On 3/2/2024 at 10:24 PM, Koleswrath said:

Not a fan of lids. Made this one from polycarbonate and some kind of plastic mesh. 
I might try black bridal veil to see if it’s less of an eyesore.

I have to DIY something like this lid. If you followed a video, could you please share it with me? Or if you did it yourself, I would love to hear how. I am not really a DIY guy :))

[Koleswrath]

39 minutes ago, Lennie said:

Your dreamfish and I have something in common 

 

 

Nice tanks &fish!^^ 

 

I have to DIY something like this lid. If you followed a video, could you please share it with me? Or if you did it yourself, I would love to hear how. I am not really a DIY guy :))

That's a good all around name! Thanks for the kind words!

The lid might be tough without a router but possibly doable. I used a cabinet saw with a triple chip blade for plastics and a router table with a spiral upcut bit to make the dado for the screen. I used a single piece of polycarbonate. You could do a decent job with just a jigsaw/straight edge and various grits of sandpaper but the dado would be tough. 

If you're just dipping your feet into DIY the screen door type kits from Red Sea/BRS are pretty customizable and don't require tools. 

[Lennie]

9 hours ago, Koleswrath said:

That's a good all around name! Thanks for the kind words!

The lid might be tough without a router but possibly doable. I used a cabinet saw with a triple chip blade for plastics and a router table with a spiral upcut bit to make the dado for the screen. I used a single piece of polycarbonate. You could do a decent job with just a jigsaw/straight edge and various grits of sandpaper but the dado would be tough. 

If you're just dipping your feet into DIY the screen door type kits from Red Sea/BRS are pretty customizable and don't require tools. 

Im not from the US. So many products available there, are not available to me sadly.

 

I will try to find a way to make my own. OR, better option, I will make a friend that is good at DIY stuff 😆

 

 

[PeterU]

5 hours ago, Lennie said:

Im not from the US. So many products available there, are not available to me sadly.

Put your location in your profile, may affect who answers your posts or how people respond.

[Lennie]

5 minutes ago, PeterU said:

Put your location in your profile, may affect who answers your posts or how people respond.

Done 🙂

[Koleswrath]

Stepping up a level with a new addition this week since the Cali Tort is doing well. This beauty should help me dial in my lights to their final settings. I'm at 80% of the BRS AI Prime settings and from their measurements and settings I'll need to bump up a few more times to get to 90%. This should correlate to around 300 PAR at 6" depth where the Millie is. 12" depth should be around 200 for the majority of the tank which is a nice range for the corals I'll keep.

If this Bubble gum millepora turns darker pink or purple I'll have to push up a bit more. 

 

Ain't she purdy!

[Koleswrath]

Happy anniversary to this system for being 1 year OSTREOPSIS DINOFLAGELLATE FREE!!!

No recurrence even after adding some fresh dry rock to this bigger tank when everything was transferred over. I'm chocking that up to "cooking" the dry rock in a dark tub with Ocean Direct live sand for a few months. 

 

FTS March 10, 2024

 

 

 

[mitten_reef]

there're some potential spots for a clam or two in this tank...I think.  If you can keep an acro happy, you can keep a clam.

[Koleswrath]

6 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

there're some potential spots for a clam or two in this tank...I think.  If you can keep an acro happy, you can keep a clam.

Nice!.. gonna have to start researchin. Probably start looking at Derasa eh? 

[mitten_reef]

56 minutes ago, Koleswrath said:

Nice!.. gonna have to start researchin. Probably start looking at Derasa eh? 

From the general care requirements, i have both maxima and derasa, and I don’t think they’re any different in care.  I do prefer the shape and coloration on maximas more than derasa. 

[Koleswrath]

2 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

From the general care requirements, i have both maxima and derasa, and I don’t think they’re any different in care.  I do prefer the shape and coloration on maximas more than derasa. 

Awesome, good to know! Really appreciate it! 
I’ll look em up and wait for my LFS to get one in (I think he usually gets them from Biota).

[Koleswrath]

Thinking about moving the birdsnest lower or giving the little colony away and starting from a small frag lower in the rockwork. I've been cranking the lights up a little each week for the Millepora and it's probably getting to be a bit much for the birdsnest. 

Speaking of the Millepora, it seems to be in a good zone of light and flow. It hasn't darkened up and it's been nice and fuzzy.

Had to pick some bubble algae off the rocks during my water change today. Took a few rocks out and steak knifed it up into the old water. Don't think the Cali Tort was a big fan of that. 

 

Weekly FTS.

 

 

 

This angle shot really shows how that stark white dry rock I added a month and a half ago has matured. Not a speck of uglies on any of the new rock I added. Was very surprised. Curing dry rock in Ocean Direct live sand is definitely a good candidate for further evaluation.