jestep

Wow, terrible to hear. Some of the first corals I got a decade or so ago when I went from FW to full reef addiction were from Brooks.

Not saying it's completely gone, but facebook has sucked the life out of many discussion forums, for the worse IMO as well.

The live live rock has always amazed me. Stuff is always interesting without even adding anything to it. I think I remember seeing a thread where someone had an octopus hitchhiker with some even.

That's awesome, reminds me of the Julian Sprung mangrove refugium.

FB groups have quickly and unfortunately taken over many local clubs. It's really a shame as well, since there is no posterity and no accountability for content, it's almost impossible to search them as well because Facebook's goal is interaction, not quality, which results in so much bad information out there and then it's gone, then regurgitated again on the same question a few weeks later. I've brought a thread up about this in the past, I got out of the hobby for some time due to personal reasons, but it was really sad seeing this club lose so much attention. It's really an incomparable resource for the hobby. Big forums of many different topics are suffering similar losses in interest as well.

The simple and relatively cheap answer is just get a generator. I have nothing against battery based systems, cost aside, but IME, nothing is going to be easier than a generator with a good engine. A good 4 stroke fuel injected engine is crucial though since ethanol in gasoline makes small carbureted engines almost unusable if any storage is involved. I went all electric with my push and riding lawn mowers because I got sick of rebuilding briggs and honda engines.

Unfortunately many of us have PEC for electricity, about 30% of Austin total, who offers exactly zero rebates or incentives on solar. I believe their buyback rate is close to or at zero now as well, they did have a promo period about 10 years ago where they offered decent terms on solar buyback, comparable to COA, but now I think it's less than wholesale even, which is like $.02 / kWh. I've got about 2500 sq ft of south facing roof, I would be all over solar if the break even time / cost wasn't about 25 years for me.

For freshwater, the classic eheims are unbeatable IME. They can last decades, I've run one in the past for like 10 years without even changing filter pads and it was fine.

For SW, definitely wouldn't recommend one either. Most of the denitrification is done in the tank itself. Canisters just make a good way to create a large nutrient storage container.

Check the Austin Reefers FB group, there were a bunch of really nice ones posted today or yesterday.

Just found this by accident, but Ryobi makes this 300W inverter for their 40V lawnmower batteries, which I have since I got a battery powered mower a while back. They also have a smaller 150W one for their smaller batteries.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-300-Watt-Powered-Inverter-Generator-for-40-Volt-Battery-RYi300BG/308736685

The cool thing about this is you can run emergency tank equipment for a really long time since lithium batteries are so much better than the lead acid ones in normal UPS's at running low power drawing equipment. With minimal equipment you could be good for more than a day on a single battery which beats any normal UPS and you don't have to deal with a generator. For example a Vortech MP40 on a lower setting could do as much as 80 hours on one 6Ah battery, anyone who has dealt with a UPS on their tank can attest how crazy that is. Some of the other brands may have them as well but a super useful product for aquarium emergencies and general power backup without dealing with gas, especially if you already have a mower using the batteries.

Didn't realize it was you who posted this on FB, but this is handedly the oldest one I've ever heard of in captivity, and fromias aren't far behind. I don't think most make it even a year.

Due to a whole load of personal stuff, I don't get on the forum frequently. But, I wanted to suggest to the mods / admin, maybe combining the subtopics back into the main ones at this point. I know there was a bunch of splitting about 4 or 5 years ago because it got overly complicated to keep track of everything in one forum. Was just looking at the general lack of activity these days and it's depressing for sure.

I know facebook has sucked up a lot of the daily what/how/where posts, which is really unfortunate because it's a god awful platform for something as complex as reef keeping, or aquarium keeping in general, but just wanted to make this suggestion to maybe make it a little less difficult to see all the posts without having to click through a bunch of individual forums. I try to push people to this forum as often as possible. Facebook is just one and done, never see a topic again, so you get the same questions all the time, with weird incomplete responses and what I can only describe as some sort of fanboy up-votes frequently on incorrect advice. There's no accountability or posterity in using facebook for advice that can cost people hundreds to thousands of dollars as well as significant emotional stress when someone accepts s*** advice from someone.

I also think the theme or platform change from the past hasn't helped. I don't use a phone, most forum software has much more user friendly ways to track topics that a user subscribes to, which this one used to, but that's been gone for years now. For an example, vBulletin forums have a settings page which shows all personal recent topics, it's absolutely the best page on the forum with all subscribed threads and subscribed forums, and this one used to have the exact same page, but no longer does. I can see my own activity, but it's not organized in a way that allows me to see threads with new replies at the top.

Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. I'm trying to get more involved again, but this has been one of the best resources I've ever seen including the huge reef forums, for quality advice that sticks around. Is a shame to see the activity down so much.

Looking for an Apex Energy Bar 8, preferably lightly used, if anyone has one they are wanting to sell. I have one freaking out on me.

So, per another discussion, I started nitrate dosing this weekend (2-18-2017). Will detail some of the process here since I've had more than 1 PM about it. As of now, it's obviously too early to make any conclusion or recommendation other than ones entirely out of logic.

Preface, almost anyone who doses a carbon source (vinegar, vodka, zeostart, brightwell biofuel, vibrant, etc.) or uses a significant number of biopellets can likely relate to either exhausting NO3 entirely or creating a NO3 / PO4 imbalance. This most often results in cyano, sometimes to the point where one can stop dosing and very predictably the cyano will disappear, and will come back shortly after resuming dosing. 

Coral, bacteria, and all organisms consume both NO3 and PO4. The ratio of consumption, or ratio they exist in an organism, is called redfield's ratio. So not to get too technical, but bacterial redfield ratio is roughly 6:1, NO3:PO4 and algaes range from 13:1 to 70:1, depending on the algae and a number of factors, algaes can vary their uptake depending on availability. 16:1 is commonly thrown around, but it's quite variable depending on the species and conditions. 

Anyway, for the purpose of this test, I am assuming a 6:1 NO3:PO4 bacterial uptake ratio, which is the primary concern when dosing a carbon source. Considering the amount of variability and utter lack of control in a display tank, this is largely irrelevant. As of right now and for a long time, I have undetectable NO3 in this tank to a resolution of ~20ppb, and due to fairly heavy feeding, I am constantly battling PO4 by using GFO in an overly complicated multi-reactor setup. Ideally I would like to get a balance of dosing NO3 that will allow me to use very little GFO.

My available options for dosing NO3 consist of:
KNO3
CaNO3
MgNO3
NaNO3

The most common option is Potassium Nitrate (KNO3), which is available as a commercial stump remover, also used in fertilizers as well as used in planted tanks as fertilizer. In a reef tank, it makes significantly more sense to use CaNO3 or MgNO3 for the obvious reasons of a reef environment actually benefiting from these elements, and much less so from potassium.

I choose MgNO3 because it contains a higher amount of NO3 by mass than CaNO3 as well as the added theoretical benefit of introducing additional Mg, which I'm always measuring lower than I would like.

I created a mixture of MgNO3 and RO/DI water at a concentration so that I can increase the NO3 in my ~100 gallon tank by 1ppm for every 10ml of solution that I dose. Right now, I'm starting out dosing 10ml per day. And if by chance the consumption of PO4 actually does occur at a measurable ratio to the availability of NO3, I will be removing an additional 1ppm of PO4 every 6 days.

Variability is a huge issue right now. Additionally, I do believe that much of the PO4 is bound in rocks and substrate and obviously being simultaneously consumed by GFO. I do not feed the same amount every feeding and do not feed the same amount of times every day, so my PO4 input is unpredictable. I am in the process of trying to identify how much PO4 is introduced with the food I am feeding just to get an idea of how much I need to dose. If it is possible to identify close to the uptake ratio, one could calculate the amount of MgNO3 that needs to be dosed over the same period of time that a known amount of food is introduced into the tank. Once could create a roughly zero-sum PO4 game without a ton of effort and without grossly overshooting the NO3:PO4 ratio in the other direction.

What I'm trying to avoid is completely unbalancing the ratio in the other direction, although it is an easy fix, I just need to feed more heavily, which everything in my tank should appreciate. My other concern is effectively dropping PO4 and NO3 so low, that the tank is nutrient free which is going to stress the corals. I plan on combating this primarily through measured feedings and conservative use of MgNO3 at first. I do add amino acids once per week, but I do not expect these to compensate for what I'm doing with the NO3 and PO4 levels.

Have you noticed issues with your phosphate level spiking up and down with each swap of GFO before the multi-tiered reactor setup?

I've always just swapped out once a month and my acros have never had issues with it.

I was getting pretty significant bouncing when I was changing it every 4 weeks. I actually tried just increasing the frequency of changing it out, and had trouble with dropping it too low. Then tried adding less on subsequent doses and didn't drop it enough, it was like I was always too low or too high with a single reactor. The multi setup just made it a lot easier all around for me.

Did you have a calculation for the concentration of KNO3 you used for your dosing? Trying to get this all on paper so I can accurately plan a dosing schedule. I calculated I need for my 380 liters of total volume, .62g of KNO3 to increase concentration by 1ppm. This is compensated for molarity.

I'm not sure what the maximum amount I can dissolve in water is going to be, but if I can add 62g to 1L of water, and then dose 100ml per day, it would add 1ppm NO3. If I can get away with dissolving double that, 50ml per day would increase NO3 by 1ppm.

If the brief research I've done on bacteria uptake is close to correct, the N:P uptake ratio is 6:1, meaning I need to increase NO3 by a factor of 6 to facilitate the consumption of 1 factor of PO4. That's something like 300ml of fairly concentrated solution, which is basically why you are able to dump this in your tank without serious chemistry issues.

I've never calculated the total mass of PO4 my tank is producing, so going to figure that out to get a baseline of what I'm actually needing to deal with per month here.

Wow! 1 cup/week? I use 1.5 cups/month on my 215-gallon! Though I will say that my coral population is probably acting like a good nutrient sponge just by volume and my biopellets are uptaking some of that phosphate as well.

Actually a net of 2/3 cup a week, but a lot. I've gone down to a 3 reactor GFO regimen, and doing incrementally 1 cup per week, with the 4th week idle. The idle week allows me to readjust the estimated amount up or down. I started a 4 reactor one to minimize bouncing phosphate, but the 3 reactor method has actually been more stable and less prone to overdoing it.

When "they" mention ulns being to low on nutrients and that you need to increase your nutrients, I honestly wish "they" would say just increase your nitrates. My opinion is there is no need to ever increase phosphates. As long as you have some fish and are feeding them daily, you're getting enough phosphates to keep your corals happy. My example is the perfect one... Zero detectable phosphates, I still run GFO, but I feed the heck out of my tank so it gets its daily phosphate dose.

That's really my thinking. I have upped my feeding to about 3 times per day on average, at least once per day is with a frozen which tend to be significant PO4 sources. But, even GFO reduction would be beneficial, I think maybe even desirable for control purposes, but I'm currently at 1 cup per week right now...

I never thought I would intentionally dose nitrates on a reef tank, but a light bulb more or less went off and at least in theory it can solve a lot of High PO4 and NO3/PO4 imbalance issues. I'm glad someone else has at least tried it though but I definitely see potential risks in overdoing it. I did get an extremely accurate doser recently, so might start slow dosing to see where it goes.

The effects should be almost immediate, correct (as in days)? I imagine PO4 uptake is going to be quickly apparent with a moderately accurate baseline and minimal other changes that would affect it.

Revisiting this. Is anyone still playing with KNO3 dosing of any sort?

Short backstory, I have extremely efficient NO3 export and have been dealing with PO4 through the use of GFO. I start getting cyano around .06 - .08ppm PO4. However, my NO3 is completely undetectable. It's undetectable using a Salifert NO3 doubling the reagent on the same volume of water, which translates to a resolution of 20 ppb. It's low.

So my thinking here, is that by dosing KNO3 it would allow a more controlled uptake of PO4 possibly eliminating the necessity to use GFO at all. Obviously this has to be carefully planned and controlled, but presuming the redfield ratio holds true and I don't somehow lose the bacteria necessary to process my NO3 and PO4, the addition of nitrate will allow the system to process the excess PO4. I suspect this comes at a risk of overdoing nitrate and stripping the system of PO4 entirely, but someone correct me if I'm completely off here at least in theory.

So the stirrers are to stir the solution your dosing?

Yeah, some of the bacterial ones, and probably a few others, settle really badly, so the dosers come on and mix the whole bottle up for 30 seconds or so before the pumps come on. They have a magnetic pill looking stirrer that is dropped in the bottle, and the quickly rotating magnet on the base spins the pill while it's in the bottle. Basically like a mini vortech.

I was experimenting by daily hand dosing the last month or so, and without shaking the bottle, the first 2/3 of the bottle is almost like water, and the bottom 1/3 ends up being close to honey consistency. It would be the opposite pulling it from the bottle but definitely needs mixed. Otherwise, they're not necessary for most dosed chemicals that form a solution, alk and Ca and Mg for example, shouldn't need stirring unless they sit for an extremely long time.

Slight change of plans, going to route dosing lines from my garage where my CaRX is at to keep the space under my sump clear, but it's ready to go. Base is the perfect size for 2 stirrers and 2 larger 2 gallon jugs for dosing alk and ca, or can easily fit 6 - 8 stirrers on the lower platform.

For the tubing, I got 1/4" ID steel pipe from https://www.zoro.com/black-pipes/c/7207/ . They have multiple sizes, this is the same type of tubing you see in industrial furniture, but I used smaller tubing instead of the normal 1/2 - 1" pipe. This stuff is fairly flexible though so I definitely wouldn't use it for anything heavy. Looks really good though. I cleaned and de-greased the heck out of it, coated with a spray primer / rust inhibitor then 2 coats of dark bronze spray paint, and 2 coats of clear enamel sealant. Still probably won't completely avoid rust, but not being under the stand should help a ton. Attached with 3/4 stainless screws and 1/2" nylon fasteners.

I'll try to start posting FTS's again at some point. I pretty much have my actinics on any time I'm around the tank so got a little boring posting all blue photos every time. Also, dealing with a bizarre bubble algae outbreak that seems to get worse, the lower my nutrient levels go.

Stocking list is pretty much complete at this point, except 1 fish may be going because it was purchased by accident, or rather accidentally sent in place of another more peaceful fish...

Purple Zebrasoma Tang

Male Lyretail Anthias

Royal Gramma

Pair of darwin ocellaris clowns (female is 20+ years)

Springers Damsel

Talbots Damsel

Ocellate Damsel (Peaceful so far but we'll see)

7 Blue/green Chromis

Couple aptasia annihilating peppermint shrimp

4 or 5 emerald crabs who are not adequately keeping up with bubble algae plague

I am considering a few more damsels / chromis. I'm finding some success treating them like African cichlids where the aggression is spread out so much that none perish if you have enough of them in the tank. I'd had bad luck even with blue/green chromis in the past but these with the 3 damsels seem to be working great. The female clown is by far the dominant fish in the tank.

Well I guess I completely forgot to update this for more than a year. Not much has happened. Going back into dosing some stuff, but keeping the CaRX going. This time going with a high end dosing setup for carbon and bacterial additives, on the fence right now between the CaRx or 2 part, or some combination. I've had a really hard time getting the PH low enough in this reactor to work effectively. If my drip rate is too low, I get CO2 in the reactor which messes with the pump, and if it's too high, I have a hard time getting any Ca and Alk benefit from it. There's some sweet spot I just haven't been able to keep it at. Goal is to get a very low but stable nutrient levels and stable alk and ca that doesn't require me to manually dose a half dozen things every day, like most zeolite based setups.

Got a GHL 4 pump doser for xmas this year which uses very nice stepper motors instead of brushless ones, which I've had really bad experiences with.

I just built this stand for it yesterday using 1/4" steel tubing. Still need to paint and seal the piping since it's not stainless, but found a killer deal on a 1in thick HDPE cutting board on amazon for under $20. Not sure what the deal with that is, but I should have purchased a few of them because they're up to $90 now, I was planning on getting one for actual cooking. I'm watching it hoping they sell the 1in ones for this cheap again. Would make probably the best actual cutting board I've ever seen. Anyway cut it on a table saw with a nice 100T blade, didn't even need to sand it.

I offset the lower rack so that if I ever setup a slave dosing pump, I can easily run 2 - 4 pump dosers on here while keeping the tubing very manageable. This fits under my stand with just enough room at the top to fit the pump housing. Planning on putting my UPS on the lower level, a little bit of safety as well since it will be off the stand and above any potential water from leaks if they ever happen.

Nice pictures! I haven't been there since 2006 and I don't remember them having any coral tanks back then. Is the large reef sunlit? It looks very similar to the Waikiki Aquarium display tank. I wonder how they keep detritus from building up under all of that rock!

I think it's artificially lit, or at least has a ton of supplemented lighting. It was really overcast and cloudy so no way it could have been this bright without some major artificial lighting.

No idea on the flow. I couldn't see a single pump or return and there was a hardly a single dead spot in the tank so they have something moving a significant volume of water.

I've seen a ton of reef tanks at public aquariums and this is one of the most well thought out and balanced systems I've seen. I wish I could have gotten a behind the scenes on this one. I doubt I'd ever be able to setup something this large but would love to see the specifics on how it's setup.

Figured I'd revive this rather than start a new thread. We just went here on Sunday, still looking great, they have 1 large reef tank that is amazing. Here's some pictures from this trip. It's a bit pricey of an aquarium, but it's still very well thought out. I think we lucked out with a ton of road construction and a Seahawks game going on because we basically had the aquarium to ourselves.

Largest single BTA I've ever seen by a long shot. This is my daughter's hand next to it, but it was probably 14" x 16".

Same tank:

Here's some of their main reef tank. Just guessing it's in the 2000 gallon range:

Left Side:

Right:

Lot's of very simple SPS that are incredibly healthy and everything is obviously well fed. The idol clearly owns this tank. But tanks like this are the reason many of use were lured into the hobby.

30"+ Bubble coral:

Tabling acros, montis, and seriatoporas:

Jellyfish:

Moon jellyfish kreisel tank:

We watched the dwarf cuddlefish for about 20 minutes. If these guys had a longer life, I would probably devote all of my tanks to them...

Not inclusive by any means, just posting some of the more interesting photos I was able to get. There's a ton more displays for native pacific northwest life tidal pools, salmon, seals, sealions, otters, large tidal touch pools, a huge viewing tank right as you enter.

It is definitely not something to be taken lightly. I've done black bear 4 times. This year when we had passed the point of no turning around it started storming and pouring. So all the way down the steps and switchbacks it was raining and very foggy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I do not like that road, can't imagine it in the rain. The exposure is just way too much and sliding 10 - 15 ft just thinking of braking doesn't even qualify as unnerving when sitting above a 2000 ft cliff. I'd mountain bike it..., but not going to jeep it again.