[OPEN] Upright Joe

[rickjg]

Hey Joe,

I saw your thread on RC, cool idea for the contest.

Good Luck

 

PS - No smuggling from Belize, I think it’s against the contest rules.

[thebrian]

You could always open it up and cut the wires to the speaker

[Upright Joe]

Thanks Rick. I'm going out a bit on a limb but I'm excited about trying it

 

Brian - Agreed, the first time the thing wakes me up or ticks me off, the speaker's getting disconnected. What an absurd oversight not putting a switch on the thing to turn it off...

 

Anyhow, I got my first "livestock" into the tank last night.

 

Here's a pic:

 

[Upright Joe]

I tested my water params yesterday for the first time:

 

pH 7.8 (Old test kit, may not be very accurate)

Ammonia 1ppm

Nitrite .5ppm

Nitrate ~= 10ppm

Calcium 400ppm

 

It will be interesting to see how quickly the macro algae sucks up the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. I bet it happens fairly fast providing it doesn't die back a bit while adjusting to the new surroundings.

[Noonan]

Very cool. You dont often see a tank dedicated to marine algaes. If you decide to leave it, it would be a great tank for dwarf seahorses.

 

Where'd you get the tank at?

[Upright Joe]

I picked it up at my LFS. I was in a hurry, otherwise I would have ordered it from nanocustoms.com and saved $20.

[Upright Joe]

The raging diatom bloom I had going before adding the macro algae virtually disappeared the night before last. I tested my params again today. As expected, the macro algae went to town:

 

Ammonia 0ppm

Nitrite 0ppm

Nitrate <5ppm

 

It's not as bleak as it looks though. Luckily I have this:

 

 

1 pound of Potassium Nitrate

 

I also have 1 pound of Potassium Phosphate (it looks the same so there's no point in posting a pic).

 

Hmm.... potassium nitrate.... activated charcoal... If I only had some sulphur my tank could celebrate the 4th of July

[Upright Joe]

Just a quick update...

 

I'm seeing significant growth from my Halimeda, Prolifera, and Penicillus. My Graciliaria and Paspaliodes don't look happy though. If they don't turn around soon, I'll have to either investigate further or just pull them and replace them with something else.

 

 

Having finally reached a point where I'm confident that my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate have all bottomed out, I just dosed my tank to 20ppm of Nitrate. I'm going to watch it over the next couple of weeks to see how fast it gets sucked back out so I can have some rough idea of the macro's uptake. I would have just dosed to 5ppm but it's too hard to tell the difference between 5 and 0 with my test kit.

 

 

I am curious to see whether these Nitrate levels will produce a bloom of micro algae and if so, what type. I still have some diatoms visible on the sand and rock so perhaps they'll go through another bloom. Of course, it's very possible that my micro algae will continue to recede... we'll see.

 

Also, my calcium levels seem to be slowly dropping due to the Halimeda and Penicillus growth. I'm going to have to start dosing calcium soon in one form or another. Water changes would probably be enough now but I don't think they're going to be enough long-term. I have an aipstasia on one of my pieces of rock so maybe I'll go with the kalk approach and kill two birds with one stone...

[BelowH2O]

good thread. very original idea for this contest!

[lgoins]

are you sure thats not coke?

[Upright Joe]

BelowH2O, thanks much!

 

lgoins, while I haven't taken it to a lab for independent verification or anything, it was $2.17 per pound so I think it's safe to say that it is NOT cocaine.

 

I went ahead and dosed a little calcium today. I have an unopened bottle of Kent Tech CB part A lying around from when I first set up my reef tank and didn't know what to buy. I don't intend to use it for dosing calcium long term but it'll get me by until I figure out what I intend to do. The halimeda and penicillus had dropped the calcium from around 400ppm to around 320ppm prior to dosing.

 

Also, as of yet, there has been no undesirable algae bloom from dosing the Nitrate. In 48 hours, test kit color has visibly lightened also. I'd have to guess an uptake of 2-3ppm daily so far. I'll revise that figure as time goes on though.

[Upright Joe]

Oh, another thing I've noticed. I have a new Penicillus growing already - it's about 2" tall now. You can just see it starting to pop up out of the sand in my last picture. Pretty cool.

[Upright Joe]

Just got back from Belize... lots of changes over the two weeks I was gone... I'm swamped catching up with work right now but hopefully I'll be able to post an update this weekend.

[Maxvan1]

whats the algae in the back right?

 

Nice Halimeda (I think its Opuntia, right?)

 

Just and FYI you can cut (pinching works better IMO) the little circles off and put them in the sand, or glue it to a rock, and it will grow a new one. I have a 12" cube filled with it(acually, this is the tank holding all my stuff for my NC, as it isnt here yet)

 

I like the idea of an all algea tank.

 

If this where my tank I would take the mag float out (to big) and also put the therm. in the back)

[Samala]

Coming along very nicely, but I want an update! Shoot me a PM about how the algae is evolving (microalgae too) and your phosphate and nitrate levels. I still have shoal grass for you.. I'm glad to see the overall idea is working well.

[Maxvan1]

You still in it?