FTS @ 13 months

Beautiful tank! Is that a RFA??

Beautiful.

Love the light spectrum!

15 hours ago, StephLionfish said:

Beautiful tank! Is that a RFA??

yeah, I had always planned to have one, and lucked into this one from a local guy.  there's an anemone shrimp hiding underneath it in that pic.  very cool combo.

Burt that tank has no dinos 

what was your summary action action set on this bad boy to rock it so clean 

36 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

Burt that tank has no dinos 

 

what was your summary action action set on this bad boy to rock it so clean 

I can't say for certain but this is the gist of what I do...im sure the answer is in here somewhere:
 

• weekly water change of 7.5 gallons...no misses in 13 months.  
• I aim to not have the Nitrates at 0....I like them at 7.5
• I do not mess with NoPox, Vinegar, Vodka or any of that kinda stuff.
• whites are very low...running heavy blues (75, 20)
• Purigen, Spyglass reactor with ROX, occasional SMALL amount of GFO (1/4 cup)
• Marinepure plate
• Skimmer 24/7...doesnt pull too much tho.
• Aquavitro Fuel 2x per week
• 3 fish total
• mesh filter socks replaced every 4 days
• 10-15 Cerith Snails
• 1x week blast rocks with baster
• Weekly stirring of 1" sandbed with a long metal rod.  Sometimes just sections if I get the vibe I'm doing too much.  I do always keep your drop test in the back of my mind...not sure I could pass it, but I am painfully aware of it.  I'll say this....any sandbed problem would quickly result in a rip and clean of that area.
   

The other thing....is that once the kids go to bed at around 9PM....I literally spend the next 2 hours daily staring at the tank, doing maintance, doing my Alk. testing, dosing the 2-part...cleaning socks, scraping glass, scraping the back wall, turkey basting the rocks....obsessing basically.  On the weekends, bump that to 3 hours....so in total, I'm the tank is getting 16-20 hours per week of very intense attention.

drop test? 

1 hour ago, jahnje said:

drop test? 

lol its a Brandon429 thing he always talks about.

He's mentioned before that "he can reach into it with a stick, stir it around, and grains fall up and back down, zero clouding."  Or he could pick up a handful of sand, and then drop it and it wouldnt be cloudy.

I'm not at that extreme by any stretch...but its a good reminder to try to tend to your sandbed on a regular basis.

Bottom line...every time I look at my sandbed, I think of Brandon249 and wanting him to be proud.  I don't think he would be....but its something to at least strive for I think.

aw ha!! yay.

my sandbed right now if stirred with a stick would have a minor cloud, so my own drop test passing is a c+ much like how I spent most of the 90s

but that's ok, its just reef waste and excess feed piling up as normal and when I can't stand it, or the glass being cyano-spotted, Ill clean that bed out and reset it back to perfection.

we're basically either playing catchup: not cleaning too much in the interim then doing a huge 1 off catchup cleaning including all sand all at once (easier for pico reefs due to tank size and volume) or the large tankers are typically mass cleaning their sandbed at least once, the hard way, and then doing -pre stirring- or focused deep cleaning as preventative meaning they'll not have to part it out again.

to have some clouding is ok, its marine snow system feed, I just like being OCD about it because reefing ultra clean prevents many invasions. some type of healthy balance in the two realms produces the pics we see above