Bpb

Plus carbon is stinking expensive. I want to get the most out of it I can

You know Ty I've really considered just running it in a bag in my refugium/return chamber baffle. Looking back at all the amazing sps dominated TOTM winners on reef central from like 2000-2010, most ran carbon passively and it worked. It's just been so hard wired in me since I started reefing in more of the "modern" age of the hobby, that you only run media in reactors

Short update. Latest "Doh!" Moment. I've managed to get some tank work done while tiptoeing around a sleeping newborn. Yesterday evening I soaked my ato float switches in vinegar because they've been sticking a lot. I discovered this morning that apparently...I dislodged my CaCl line from the line holder in the sump in the process. Found the floor of the stand to be moist from about 15-2ml doses of calcium. Oops. At least it wasn't the alk line! Next. Skimmer is filthy. I guess it's been 4-5 months since cleaning, but sheesh. I can't believe it got that dirty that fast! Since I removed the BRS dual reactor I cannot imagine putting a reactor that size back online in my sump. It's just way too big for only filling each chamber 1/4-1/3 the way full. But...I've been wanting to run some carbon. I can see the water kind of coloring up (not just because of the new lights, but even water change water I've siphoned into a bucket is pure yellow like urine. I don't have a lot of nuisance algae, coral colors are all pretty good, PO4 and NO3 are all very low (0.01 ppm, and undetectable respectively), so I'm not trying to "clean" the water, just clarify a bit. I don't intend to run carbon 24/7, but I want to run it for a couple weeks here and there, especially since I need to frag my toadstool and Palau Nepthelia. Being leathers I expect a lot of allelopathy in the fragging process. BRS was out of the micro reactor when I did my Black Friday order, so i missed out on that, but I do have the TLF phosban 150 reactor just hanging out in the garage. Dumped the old bio pellets in the garbage that were still in it and did an overnight vinegar soak. Still kinda smells like eggs/fart but I scrubbed it real well so I think the smell should dissipate shortly. I reversed the "mod" I did to run bio pellets and returned the red grates it comes with. Being that the sponges are fairly loose and thin, I added a few layers of nylon needlepoint grid discs in the middle of the center pipe. They fit perfectly flush, and very snug. Snug enough for me to move with my hand to compact the carbon in between the sponges, and still hold with water pressure. Easy $1 mod that fixes one of the big faults of this cheap reactor. I will hang it on the sump, inside, since it occasionally leaks, and zip tie a mj1200 to the reactor body. Plug in and run for a couple weeks and just remove the whole unit at once. I'll update how it works when I actually install it

Fish posing for a nice shot just before lights out this evening.

Hey man how's your tank upgrade gone? I know you went a little bigger than me but I Rememeber our old tanks being pretty dang similar and upgrade timeline being close to the same. Haven't seen an update on your thread in a while

Thanks guys! A note on the color...some Acropora actually look a lot better under the 10k spectrum, as well as a few montipora. Though...I do admit I prefer the overall color of the radiums which I will be switching back to after these bulbs have reached the end of their useable life. It's funny you don't really notice growth seeing the tank day to day, but just two short months of time, I can see tremendous growth in the pics. Specifically from the purple montipora, green montipora stellata at the top in the middle, and the spongodes just to the right of the overflow. Wow...that looks like a good 30% increase in size. I see frequent pruning in my future to save room for slower growing Acropora frags. Free purple cap, stellata, and spongodes people! Who's up for a 2 hour drive!

Quick pic. No close ups yet. Maybe do a big bunch of them 1/1/15. Seems an appropriate starting point 9/24/2014 - Radiums and BML super actinic 100% intensity 11/29/2014 - XM10K and BML super actinic at 50% with two layers of window screen

Thanks fellas! Though no technically a premie, she delivered a few weeks early. Scheduled induction based on several factors for delivery day, however my wife went into active labor all on her own in the middle of the night the day prior

Been a few weeks since a real update. Busy busy busy. First and foremost, not so much of a tank update, more of a life update: wife just gave birth on the 26th to our baby girl. Going to change things pretty significantly. Other "child" in the house is 17 years old so that's quite a gap. What an adjustment. The lack of sleep is definitely a thing, but...it's not so bad. I've battled true insomnia for most of my adult life, often going 4-5 days without so much as a wink of sleep so this is nothing new. I've come down with the flu though and had to leave the hospital early and have to stay at a safe distance from the baby so it sucks washing my hands every 5 minutes and dousing the house in Lysol wipes all day. Wish I could help more but hopefully it passes soon. Onto the tank. Bulk reef supply Black Friday order came in. They did pretty good. Only messed up two things out of the 45 pieces in the order. No big deal. I've decided to switch my bulbs per a lot of research and advice on the SPS forum on reef central. Installed two XM 10k bulbs this morning. Double layer of window screen should help the acclimation. Trying to goose the growth a bit and from eveththing I've been told...it won't be as pretty as radiums, but apparently they'll smoke them in growth. Everyone said to strap myself in if I thought my growth was good before. I understand that a lot of people have run these on m80 ballasts which I will be doing. It overdrives them to 380 watts a piece at 180+ ppfd which is double what my radiums were producing, and most of it is loaded on the 430 nm area which is perfect. I'm sure you guys already knew that. I've also decided that I want to start running my kalkwasser reactor. I need to get to about double the 2 part consumption I'm currently running in order to make the supplementation amounts equal but I decided to stock up on on more 2 part as well. Also picked up a couple years worth of RODI crap to replace everything. It's been 2.5 years on the same membrane and di resin but couldn't hurt to replace them despite the 0 tds reading. I've picked up various corals and a maxima clam as well since my last update. Health in general is good but I seem to be losing entire zoa colonies one at a time. No sign of nudis. It's frustrating but nothing I can do. Dips don't help. Just let it run it's course. If they die they die. I will say this...since increasing to daily reef chili and amino acid dosing my colors have improved noticeably. That is all for now. I'll try to snap some pics with the new lights on today

Love it. I think most people with a sw tank and a spouse/family have had that exact same conversation

Who's pumped about the Black Friday sale through BRS? This guy

Better to remove sand from a brand new tank and go with a heavier grain than wait until you have fish and corals in there. Also sand tends to move around a bit less once it gets some gunk in it

First clam. Purchased from petco of all places. Was opened a lot wider in their tank, real confidence booster! Granted it went from a single 24" t8 tube to a metal halide. 45 min temp and salinity acclimation, never hit air. Cradled in rubble on the sand. Opened about 1/2" for a few hours but closed back up. Gonna take it a while to photo acclimate? Watching it like a hawk. Hope it makes it First fungia. Recovering. 4 visible mouths on this one piece but they're all connected. Very pretty. Stole the role of brightest coral in the tank. Previous title holders were kryptonite candy cane and montipora setosa. This fungia is wicked bright Trying my hand at blastos again. Had bad luck with them previously but ready to try again. Not sure where to put them yet. Tank is getting crowded. Several new additions over the past week. 5 acros from Sam, plus a nice undata. Those aren't real photogenic yet, but they've been glued to their forever homes. I'm officially in "frag and sell to make room for other stuff" mode

Saw full polyp extension on my Hawkins yesterday for the first time ever. Very exciting. That is all

What about clownfish. Don't they eat aiptasia.

Perhaps onto the other common methods. If you've already got them I wouldn't push my luck lol. What about a copperband butterfly, or peppermint shrimp?

I personally haven't, but some friends of mine on marsh have/do, and I know I've read of one or two people on here who have/do, and read hundreds of accounts on RC and other forums. I know they tend to go after corals eventually. Friend of mine had one keeping aiptasia down in his 120 gallon very packed mixed reef for years and it never nipped. He recently added a new one to another tank and it went to town immediately on some acropora polyps and zoas. They appear to be luck of the draw much like dwarf angels.

Saw that you transferred a lot of corals as well. I was going to say, maybe let a filefish go to town for a month before adding coral, then remove and sell. Or...if you have the refugium space, put the aiptasia rock in there and let a filefish go nom nom. For me, it's hard to say. I think it was about at the 2-3 week period that I noticed the STN starting. And it wasn't all at once. Seemed like one coral at a time. My Oregon tort hung in there and looked great until like the 2 month mark, then died suddenly over a couple days. Read theories about STN possibly being related to an autoimmune dysfunction that can trigger related corals to follow suit, even if nothing is wrong. Just a theory... At any rate. Removing all filtration, letting algae grow, and dirtying up the water a lot helped to stop it and reverse the trend, Everything got really brown and ugly, but I'll take brown and growing over dead any day. I'd guess it was around the 4 month mark that I noticed growth rather than necrosis. Hope that helps!

I think all of our problems were related to acropora specificially and it was likely due to a large volume of water added, a lot of new rocks and fluctuation of alkalinity, salinity, and overall micro fauna levels. I lost 2 years and probably $500-1000 worth of acropa value within a month of transferring, Ty lost even more plus a couple fish due to bacterial blooms. Not sure about ole aggies troubles. At any rate it seemed to be limited to acropora. All zoas, softies, montipora, and Lps actually flourished just fine. Wouldn't sweat it too much for anything but acros. If you have acros, I'd recommend rehoming them for 4-5 months. I think RSW recently did a big tank change and had no problems.

Lol can definitely do worse. EVERYTHING could die. Not just acros. Hope the transfer goes smoothly

Following for updates

Beautiful craftsmanship on the sand and canopy. Came together so well. I'm a big fan of the sort of aged painted finish look. Following along to see how the build progresses

Couple pics for fun. Palau nepthelia is growing astoundingly well. This was a 1" 2-3 branch nub when I set the tank up in June. I may sell the whole colony though as to reduce leather toxin issues. Any ID on this chalice? Looks best completely shaded where only the LEDs and light reflected from the glass hit it. The daylights are fully shaded by my purple cap. Green montipora stellata is growing super well but it's at the apex height of the tank. Wonder what kinda par it's getting. I really think it's impossible to bleach it. The more light I give it, the better it looks. And lastly an led alone pic from a distance. Love the way it looks. Phone can't do it justice. These BML strips are so bright for how little wattage they use.

Happy to follow up the previous report that things are indeed improving still. I've been steadily increasing my led intensity by 5% a week and will get to 100% eventually. I don't know that they're helping much with growth but I do like the blue illumination of shadows and they really give vibrancy to the softies and Lps. The effect is more pronounced at higher intensity as well. As in even during dawn/dusk ramp up and ramp down, the colors of fluorescence are more impressive at higher intensity. I may or may not have posted this bit of lighting modification as well, but as we know, window screening has been a staple in metal halide par control and acclimation. I had intended to build some window. Screen panels that fit the tank rim to use for bulb changing and what not, but after moving a mind trick montipora frag up too high too fast and bleaching it, I went ahead and got that going a month or two ago. At Home Depot they had prefabricated window screens that fit my tank rim perfectly, so I purchased two and stacked them both for a month, then removed one. The look of the tank got significantly dimmer and the montipora as well as other species started to darken their colors a good amount. As of last weekend the mind trick which I had presumed as dead, turned a corner and has developed a bold deep lavender color and the polyps are darkening to their ideal red. When the LEDs alone are on, the center starts to glow green so it's definitely on the mend. I removed the final screen so the lights are at full intensity. Noticeable growth spurt of sps in the last week. Next step is to buy some S hooks and start lowering the halides closer to the water. I'm trying to get everything slowly acclimated to higher par levels because my next immediate goal is a bulb change. Some of you may know, most probably don't, but my wife and I are expecting a baby girl this December. Won't be long now. That's important because I know I will be very very busy to say the least. I have two jobs, we have one son who is in high school, my wife is in nursing school and not working, so with all that plus a newborn, my funds and ability to do a lot of tank playing are about to be cut dramatically. My goal now is to grow the tank out as quickly as I can. To do that, I'm honestly willing to sacrifice the "Radium look" in order to speed up growth. My growth is decent, but frankly I want better. I've decided to give XM10K bulbs a try and I'll be using my m80 ballasts. They're gonna over drive the bulbs heavily, putting upwards of 380 watts through each bulb and over 180 ppfd. This bulb/ballast combo is the second highest par combination of the 250 watt class, second only to the iwasaki 6500k, and only by a hair. After lots of advice on reef central, and thinking it over, I'm gonna give it a go. I expect probably 6-9 months of useable life from the bulbs but all other parameters the same, the consensus I'm getting is that they'll smoke the radiums on growing power and I should be surprised at how well they work for that. I'll switch back to a more 20k look eventually after I get some growth filled in I have a lot of nice acros coming my way in the next two weeks courtesy of manny/Sam and some friends on marsh-reef in Houston. Enough that I'll need to sell some birdsnest colonies and digis to make room. Ideally I'd like to have a comfy stock of pretty new sticks and new lights burning by December, because after that, tank purchases will be on hold for the next 6 months to a year. STN of my acros has officially stopped entirely. What died, died, but what remains has began growing. Under the blue LEDs I can see where coral tissue starts to kill the red turf algae as it grows, because the red turf will fluoresce bright orange for a couple days as it dies and the coral encrusting spreads. I've been witnessing this with all species and much to my pleasant surprise I saw this happening near the Hawkins frag which is a positive sign that it's starting to grow again. Woohoo! As mentioned I've taken this as my tanks open invitation to go acro crazy and do this thread the justice I promised so many months ago. Next issue is this...I purchased an avast marine kalkwasser stirrer months ago. Never used it. Just go a gallon of kalk in the mail. Hmmm. So now that the tank is finally doing well, I'm debating on using it. My plan was to stop 2 part, run the kalkwasser reactor until it wasn't enough, then bring two part back online as needed. With a 90 gallon that ought to be sufficient. I could go calcium reactor but with my water volume, even a packed acro dominant tank should be manageable through 2 part. Problem is...I have no way of knowing if 1 gallon a day of fully saturated kalk will be more or less ca/alk supplementation that the 50ml or so I'm dosing a day on ca and alk via 2 part. I don't want to put the kalk rx online and have an alk spike or drop and totally muck up all the good fortune I've recently had with tank health. Ideas? Try it and hope it will be similar to what I'm supplying already? Sell it and just keep with two part alone? Sell the two part and kalk rx and buy a carx instead with the profits? Please let me know what you sps types think

Tell you what this thread was becoming misleading with all the bare rocks and softies. Hasn't been much of an sps dominated affair as advertised. Not for lack of trying