Bpb

12/29/2014: added a white band possum wrasse. Don't expect to see it for a week or two though being that it's about the size of my index fingertip and they're typically pretty shy by nature. I keep saying that I'm done adding fish. Truthfully though, I know I can fit a few more in without becoming too silly about overstocking

Now are we talking...bits of flesh that didn't die will form new fungias, or...totally dead inert skeleton will start forming babies out from seemingly nothing?

I follow. I have all those conditionals. Some things I put at the end of the code were mainly to avoid the fan and heater fighting each other, but also I noticed that it's easier for the fan to keep the temps lower if they start lower, rather than if I let the temp climb then the fan kicks on. I'll post pics of my code in order fan,heater,lights. And temp for good measure.

Skeletons will definitely stay. I've got the apex programmed but part of that is the "if mh on, fan on" deal in addition to a temperature conditional. The fan just wasn't doing the trick since it was clogged. I also set the heater "If mh on, then off" since it didn't seem like I would ever need the heaters on with this much light but I may have to revisit that programming after watching the numbers today

Double whammy tank flub. Noticed temps creeping up bit by bit in the last few weeks. Attributed it to the new lights. Well it's been cool out so I opened the windows yesterday. Before bed after the lights went off I checked the apex. Yikes. Ph spiked at 8.6 with no runaway alk doser or anything. Just the open windows and no one in the house all day. Temp also spiked at 82 degrees. Considering how I usually run 78-79, and 7.9-8.2 ph...something is up. Looking at my canopy fan, I noticed it was running but i felt no air. Twas completely clogged with dust. Vaccumed it and cleaned it up. Now temp topped out at 78 today and got as low as 76. That's a wider swing than I like over a 24 hr period, with the ph spike as well. A little STN on my Acropora meridiana. Bummer. Hopefully it stops. My fungia fragging experiment was also a failure. I must have been too sloppy or should have iodine dipped or something.

Someone buy these lights! If I were local if have bought them just to have at that price. Heck I'd even pay the seller the asking price x2 to deliver them

Following your footsteps Ty. Got surgical with the fungia just now. Been busy so I haven't had a chance but I now have 3 distinct but not yet circular orange and purple fungias and then a 4th piece of flesh but no mouth that may or may now grow into one. Good stuff. Also. I hate Formula One frozen food. Stupid "gel binder" completely prevents it from breaking apart at all even when thawed completely, and the cubes sink immediately and fall behind the rocks to eventually be worked into the sand by the snails long before the fish notice it. What a pain. I'm going to have to look into homemade frozen food. Unfortunately we have no whole foods or central market here though so I don't know where I would find those fresh ingredients. They don't carry them at heb and Kroger. That's all for now.

Looks right as rain today

Thank God. Only thing I've changed is the carbon addition we discussed earlier. Parameters checked yesterday have been the same for weeks. All 8.4 dKH, 440 ppm calcium, 1480 ppm mg, 2 ppb phosphorous, undetectable nitrate, 8.3 ph now, 79.8 degrees warm, 1.025. I'll just chalk it up to the stylo being irritated about something and expect it to bounce back. May remove the carbon tomorrow if it doesn't improve

I'll preface by saying I haven't added anything new to the tank in well over a month. Everything has been fine. No STN, no visible pests ever. No bite marks ever. My purple stylo always looks awesome and has been one of my best growers and fuzziest specimens. Just today spontaneously I noticed it had about half polyp extension. Never done this before. Didn't think much of it. Maybe a crab bumped it or something. Just got home for the evening. Still looks bad. I look closer and see black spots all over it. About the size of sesame seeds. Any ideas? Again this is totally out of nowhere. I've never seen any evidence of predation and nothing new for a while

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

Condolences. Neon polyp undata is one of my favorite sps corals. Hope it is resolved eventually

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

No kidding!!!!! I've got one big boy aiptasia about 1.5" in diameter at the oral disc that is so fast and I can never get to before it retracts

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

Tried to pm again on reefbrites but your box is full