40B Without a Catchy Title

[Eisernes]

Oh wow that's awesome, are you monitoring your phosphates as well? That's the one most people seem scared to drop too low too fast.

I am but I don't trust the test kit. It shows anywhere between 0.02 and 0.04 and hasn't changed. I was starting to have a hair algae problem but over the last two weeks it has completely disappeared. I also have a small patch of cyano about 2" x 2" on the sand that is shrinking.

[lilmatty5dimes]

great tank. looks really good. love those sticks you got. can't wait to see them grown out.

[Eisernes]

Been a long time since I updated. The tank is still chugging along. I proved to be spectacularly unsuccessful trying to keep sps and even my lps has struggled. I think it was due to underfeeding. I have a millie frag coming next week. It will be the first time in about 7 months that I have tried to keep sps so fingers crossed.

 

I have added a couple of small fish since February. I would really really like to add an anemone and a pair of clowns but I'm a little concerned about it disturbing the peace in the tank. Everyone has their own little den and I know anemones kind of do what they want. We'll see.

[Eisernes]

Tested CA and MG for the first time in months and they ended up being pretty low. CA was 300 and MG was 1200. I'm going to try to raise them up to 450/1350 over the next few days then start evaluating daily usage.

 

I'm also playing around with my bulb combinations. Right now it's -

 

B+

True Actinic

B+

Purple+

B+

B+

 

I think I'm going to pick up an aqua blue special and see how that works in place of one of the B+'s. I replaced a Coral+ with the actinic yesterday when I changed out all of the bulbs and it seems to highlight some of the colors a little more.

[markalot]

Hmmm,

 

300 CA would harm if not kill SPS, so that may be your issue. Do you dose 2 part? Personally I test Alk, easy test, and make sure to keep it stable, and then dose an equal part A and B of two part. This has caused my calcium to level out and stay steady. For mag I rely on high mag in the salt mix plus maybe a quarter cup of mag every week or so.

[Eisernes]

I have the BRS 2 part kit with the jugs. I hadn't been testing because I only had a couple small LPS's in there for months. I figured the water changes were keeping it up but guess not.

 

My alk for whatever reason is fine at 9.6. I tested all three levels three times this morning. I thought the alk should have been lower if the other two were.

 

Once I get things leveled out again I will be looking into getting a BM doser or something similar.

[GHill762]

any updates? getting better color with t5?

[Eisernes]

any updates? getting better color with t5?

Yeah I really like the t5's. I don't think I will ever have another LED light with individual diodes. I would still like to try MH one of these days.

 

The tank is at a standstill right now. The bio pellet disaster really fouled it up but it hasn't fully crashed. I'm slowly saving it. The fuge and more frequent water changes is helping with the cyano. There has been a large improvement from two months ago. I may try vodka dosing or GFO to see if that will take it over the top. There is no SPS left but my z's and p's are happy. I'm hoping by the summer to try SPS again.