Bpb

Cleared off two full frag racks and my whole sandbed. Only things left on the sand are permanent residents. Got most the sps mounted onto the rocks. May do a bit of rearranging, as I got tired of working on it (canopy is not conducive to easy aquascaping). May adjust things a bit, due to too much red next to red and so forth. Partially my fault. Green being such a common color, I've sought out mostly reds and purples. In typical fashion for me I overcompensated and now need more green and blue. Sps growth pics will be taken at the first of the month to make monthly growth chronicling easier. I've created kind of a softy/Lps corner on the short side of the tank past the overflow. Here's a pic of that. Turned out pretty good. Frag rack is mucking up the shot.

Farmer Ian has got me a frag of farmer Ty setosa waiting currently. However...I will be in town on the 26th I believe and would love to come by and pick a few things up then if you've got them. Pm or text me prices and inventory lol. Pretty zoas and smooth skin acros are on my radar as well

Well...interesting discovery. Slightly overshot my magnesium dosing. It was a little low in the 1100's, so I boosted it up over a week or so using BRS products. Rodi water with magnesium sulfate:magnesium chloride at a 3:5 ratio. Overshot it and it's hanging out right at 1700 ppm. I know that's not DANGEROUS, so I'm not trying to lower it, as it'll come down on its own. My observation though, bryopsis still growing. Little tufts all over the glass. Not worried as I know algae blooms come and go and algae doesn't really bother me that much. Tang nibbles it a bit. Emeralds have discovered it and pick off what they can reach. But the conclusion I've reached is that it must be something specific in Kent Marin Tech M that kills bryopsis, NOT simply raising magnesium levels over 1600 ppm. Fine with me. Going to order some at some point in case I get too irritated with it. My emerald crabs aren't eating any coral right now, and I see bubble algae disappearing little by little. The little buggers do like perch on the shaded undersides of my acros. Not that big a deal. Polyps still extended. Just wish they'd perch elsewhere. There are lots of other great locations to hide lol. Other good news. I kept all the ugly encrusted bases of the sps colonies I cut up and sold off. I was sure they'd all die but they actually haven't. Not only did the RTN and STN stop, but they're now growing back over the dead parts and new branches have formed where they were originally cut. Good stuff. I know you led folks will roll your eyes, but I gotta say. I love metal halides. I attribute the positive growth and transition success 90% to lighting. Could be wrong. My rainbow montipora has also completely grown back over the 2-2" pieces I had cut out to save in just 3 short weeks. I'm not gonna go bonkers on new species as I want my stuff to have ample room to grow out, but I'd still like to add montipora setosa, mind trick montipora, and superman montipora. I've still not decided where to put my rainbow montipora and sunset montipora. Encrusters look great but claim massive real estate if not careful.

It is. They have every other color under the sun, you just have to go through the actual human beings that work there if you want 420 nm LEDs in the strip. I have no idea why they don't add them to the spectrum module on the website

Lol just price checked them. I don't know why I had $150 stuck in my head as the cost new. They're $375 through most vendors. I'm gonna rethink that decision. I'll see about borrowing one. At this point I'm also still increasing the photoperiod weekly and will likely stop around the 8 hour mark, Then work on lowering the fixtures until heat isn't manageable. They're radiums, which according to Sanjay are some of the lowest par MH bulbs on the market.

They do, but their online build module lacks the 420 nm diodes which are fairly Important. A massive amount of photosynthetic absorption occurs there, as well as fluorescence Well Ty as I am serious about sps, I suppose it's not a terrible idea to buy one. Again. Sucks that it'll have to be new. I never see them for sale used. How do you calibrate them or are the factory calibrations pretty stable?

Good call Dustin

Yeah we had discussed it Ty, and you actually convinced me to go that route until I started pricing them out new. They're just not as affordable as one would think. And if they're not up used for sale, they're not up used. Nothing I can do about that. I also wonder if I'm encountering some low ligjting situation. My Miami hurricane chalice is dark purple instead of teal/turquoise blue, which indicates it's getting too little light. Lots of healthy browning in the acros too. Not angry browning. Just thick healthy zoaxanthellae changes running through the tissue with brown polyps which could also indicate low lighting as well. Granted, none are higher than half way up, but I was kind of hoping to have VERY high lighting up top and high lighting low down so I could put acros even on the sand. Might need to lower the halide down some too. The bases of the pedants are 12" off the water Zero bleaching anywhere. Par meter would be helpful, but who the heck wants to buy one of those

Well...I'll preface this by saying I'm excited about owning them. Heard such fantastic things. I'm going to Austin Friday for a rehearsal and a gig, but I'll be leaving for town in the morning so I can go by aquadome and/or aquatek to check out a super actinic and the 14k reef spec prefab units they've both got in stock. Actually considering running two BML strips now instead of just one. One in front and one behind the mh reflectors. Like what paletta does with the reefbrites on his 300 gal basement tank. Being said, after two email exchanges a couple weeks ago they've went dark on communication. Cara said she was going to bring our conversation about the proposed layout to nick to see what he thinks of it, but never heard back. Yes, I'm irritated, but it'll get put together eventually. I may end up picking up a 14k unit, run it now, and have BML do a custom actinic strip, combining 405, 420, 450, and 470 nm diodes. OR buy a stock super actinic, and have them build me a custom full spectrum strip that contains a number of whites. It'll just depend on what I see in Austin this weekend. OR I could just forego any BML strips entirely and just build my mh photoperiod up to 10 hours and call it a day with no supplements. "Cheap" stunner strips have been suggested, but I'd want two 48" strips. That's $60 per strip, and $35 per power supply. If I'm ponying up $200 on stunner strips, why not throw down $50 extra and get a waterproof apex controlled strip from BML. I dunno. The radiums look spectacular. Love them. But I feel like if I got an led strip up front I'd be able to illuminate some shadow areas created by rock overhangs and eventually shadowing corals will create. At the end of the day, I just like buying cool gear for the tank. It's a problem

New additions to the tank. Picked up 3 emerald crabs at petco today. Buddy of mine that works there was good enough to pick out every emerald in the tank and let me closely inspect each one so I could pick out the three smallest females. I know mithrix crabs are almost always a gamble to some degree, but I've got several juicy patches of bubble algae going I figured I'd give them a try. They're slow enough that I am confident I can catch perpetrators fairly easily. Already have. After lights out I observed one brave emerald roaming the sand tirelessly. Convinced they're fairly dumb. It seemed to aimlessly just sort of pick at everything looking for something to come loose. Not deliberately eating anything but just very curious. Got irritated after it was clinging to and climbing all over the acros on the sand. I expect it to happen but was getting impatient and didn't want her to discover polyps before algae. Easily picked her up with the tongs after about 20 seconds of persuit. Plopped her right down on a big bubble algwe patch. Latched on immediately and watched with my own two eyes as she carefully picked individual bubbles off the mass and stuff them in her mouth area. Pretty cool. Turns out they literally do like bubble algae. 3 for my tank might be one or two too many, as I don't want them to starve, as I know that's when they typically go after fish and polyps, but I know enough locals that would gladly take one, plus I have an algae filled fuge that I'm convinced one could gorge themselves in. I wonder if emeralds are bad pod eaters. Couldn't find much into on that. Already seeing a lot of pods scurrying around in the fuge

Picked up another round of sps two days ago. Took a few snapshots and am trying the photobucket thing instead of attachments. Everything's looking ok so far. Best news is the Hawkins lives, for now anyway. I fragged off the top 1" or so of the mini colony in an effort to stop the STN that began weeks ago in the tank I picked it up from. Sandbed and frag rack are pretty full at this point. Also picked up a purple Acropora meridiana, Cali tort, purple slimer (can't find info online about this one, but that was the name given), strawberry shortcake table Acro, two different un named smooth skin acros, sunset montipora, and another random red Acro that has a sort of iridescent blue sheen to it. Happy to get some nice corals going, but can't wait to have a clear beach. Also hadn't planned on it, but I added about another 1/3 cup of bio pellets. I took the reactor out to clean it up a bit and noticed that my level of pellets has dropped noticeably since I filled it. Got rid of the MJ4000, and am now running the sicce syncra 3.0 on the low setting as the return pump, and a jaebo 3000lv dc pump as the reactor pump. Noise level has gone down significantly, and now the refrigerator and freshwater tank are louder than the reef. Unfortunately I can't run the reactor pump in the skimmer chamber to avoid catching pods. Just not enough room. Added some grape caulerpa and chaeto to the Fuge as well. There's a layer of detritus coating the Fuge which I'll leave for now as it seems to be a feeding ground for pods. A second concern is the rock flower anemone in the Fuge. Should I get that out? Is it going to consume the pods in there?

In keeping with the tradition of documenting every piece of livestock I add and remove...I'm sad and happy at the same time to report I'm now anemone-less. My RBTA decided to move out of its long time rock home, and get with the tank moving times and roam around. After seeing it go up and down the side glass and then proceed to the sandbed and get all handsy with my light-acclimating sps frags I had had enough. Sorry clown, but no more nem for you. Once it hit the sand I reached in and scooped it up and put it in a container and started texting everyone I knew asking if they wanted am RBTA. No one had money, but as I really didn't want the nem anymore and this guy caught my eye the other day, we called it an even trade. Some kind of Lps. No idea what it is. Bright neon orange center, with purple streaks and splatters. With a metallic dark green rim

LOL You're never home, man! Though I was gonna say I have alot of duplicates. If many of these end up surviving, I'd offer to sell you some cheap, or trade, but you're breaking your tank down soon.

Here's close up iPhone pics of all the specimens I retrieved last night. Tried to get as close and clear of shots as possible. These will be helpful for growth and coloration purposes. I'll remove the two dead blue stag pieces eventually

Well it wasn't what I wanted or planned to do, but I had to make an emergency trip to a buddy's place at 10:00 PM as I was leaving work last night because several of my SPS colonies he was holding began to RTN extremely quickly. Lost an entire 6"-20 branch colony of ORA Stuber Stag in a 48 hour period. I asked if I could wait till the weekend and he sent pics and said "I don't know why its happening, but if it were me Id not wait any longer" so I came back in alot more SPS than I wanted to introduce this early, but they were going to die in his tank for certain. Matter of fact lost a couple individual glued branches overnight last night. I picked up mini colonies of Raspberry Cheesecake Acro, Stuber Stag, Red Millie, Tricolor Valida, Jeremy's Montipora, and Northern Lights Nasuta. Not happy about bringing them back so hastily, but I've got the frag rack on the front glass nice and low down, and did a 10 minute bayer dip on each one at 10 mL/2 cups. The good news about the whole ordeal is aside from the branches that were already showing RTN when I got them home, nothing else is showing it and they retained their dark color. I also got a decent sized Stomatella snail hitchiker on a plug which I rescued before the dip. This time I let the guy attatch to my hand and hang on, instead of screaming like a girl and flapping my hand like last time one got on me. I'll post pics when I can get some light

Fts for fun. Close ups for growth purposes. Going to chronicle monthly to track growth.

I think I will win the award for most over documented tank build. I haven't worried tko much about my magnesium levels, knowing they're low. I've used that to my advantage and allowed the calcium to precipitate a bit because it's still too high. I understand that high calcium in the presence of appropriate alk and magnesium levels is fairly harmless so it's not that big of a deal, but I'm always going to be chasing that "just-slightly-elevated-but-balanced-natural-seawater-parameters" until I get there. Decided to test magnesium yesterday and as expected it came in low on the Salifert test. It's still good, but I've only got maybe 2 tests worth left in it. Anyhow I got 1110 ppm, so I'll be dosing 20oz a day of the 3:5 magnesium sulfate:magnesium chloride mix for the next 5 days or so to bring it up to 1500 ppm. I figure I've got roughly 100-110 total water volume gallons if estimate so that should do it. I have another unopened magnesium test kit ready as well. Do you guys add you magnesium as a bolus dose, a slow slow pour/trickle, or an all day drip dose? I've always drip dosed it but wonder if that's a waste of time Certainly feel Ty's pain about not having an autopilot tank. Never realized how much a settled mature tank with heavy coral and coralline load will stabilize parameters. I feel like I'm chasing chickens here. Anyhow everyone hates text an loves pics. I only have two pics to share. Nothing special. Haven't changed my livestock or rock scape any. Just an over the shoulder view from the couch. I end up spending more time looking over my shoulder than at the tv in front of me. Also picked up a new pump from victoly. Thanks Ian, good to meet you. I'll be putting this cd pump in the skimmer chamber and running it on the lowest setting to power the reactors. My over analytical thought process is that if I'm using my refugium for pod production, why run my reactor manifold AFTER the fuge, so the pods will get caught up in the reactors and then skimmed off. So now I'll be running a dedicated return pump, and separate reactor pump. Another small complaint is the light spill outside the back of the canopy is intense. Wish I could reduce that somehow without closing it in. Temp management has been a breeze, pun intended. Still awaiting word on the BML strip. I'm worried my current layout will look too purple. Also bumped the halide photoperiod to 4 hours today. 30 minutes a week. Everything seems very happy. Especially the zoas

Lol well I was kind of hoping for something more pro-active than reactive. Truthfully I just expected my purple cap to be dead by now, but instead the color is deeper, polyp extension more pronounced, and it's growing. I'll try one thing at a time though and give it a month or two to actually get everything back. The fun part now. Sps wish list recommendations? What are some awesome pieces I should look for to diversify a bit. I'm set for stags and leggy growth. Want stumpy bushy stuff like Millies, Valida, tabling growth ect?

Not opposed at all to waiting. What sort of tangibles should I be looking for in deciding when though? Aside from stable salinity, temperature, and alk testing?

6/21: 9.1 dKH 6/22: 8.6 dKH 6/23: 8.1 dKH. 0.5 dKH a day on the dot. Alk pump going back on at a reduced dose time. As soon as I get it locked down would y'all say it's safe to start slowly bringing stuff back over? My purple montipora cap, bird of paradise, and rainbow montipora are not only still alive but showing visible growth since I fragged them the day before tank change. Obviously I don't plan to bring EVERYTHING back at once, but a few pieces at a time.

All good fellas. It'll get itself sorted out. Maybe I'll just do an all softie tank, or fowlr. Not. Water tests for today: 9.1 dKH 550 ppm calcium 1.026 salinity 5 ppm nitrate In other news I can't remember if I had mentioned it, but on the 55 gallon, in order to prepare for metal halides I actually set my heater to run a little warmer up at 81 degrees. Nowadays the larger body of water has the temperature much more stable. I turned down the heater to allow a little wider range of temp through the day so now it bottoms out at 78 degrees, but with the metal halides on, it takes them 2 hours to completely top out at exactly 80.0 degrees every time. One fan kicks on and the temp holds right there so I'm actually running cooler now with the new lighting than I was previously. Good stuff. I get to keep them

Definitely in the correct outlets, I think I just may have said to myself that I need to switch the outlet to off, and not actually done it, or pulled up the app on my phone and done it, but possibly before the app established communication and a timeout occurred which actually happens more often than not. Either way. Fixed now. Hope it comes down soon. What a mess. Was hoping to start pulling some sps over sooner than later seeing that my montipora and birdsnests aren't showing any signs of RTN but looks like I'll have to wait it out a few more weeks. In other news, my purple meridiana, red planet, and Hawkins echinata all RTNd in the tank they are being held in in Houston. So incredibly bummed about it, but it was a risk I willingly took. The guy tried to frag off the healthy tips. We will see how it goes. Looks like over half the tissue perished before it was addressed. Almost makes me wish I hadn't gotten rid of angthing to begin with and just went ahead with it on my own

Heard back again today and she is gonna run the ideas by Nick (BML Co-owner) and see what he suggests. I may consider keeping it as is or just replacing a single cool white with another royal blue. Cara is recommending going with more 470 blues as it will appear visually brighter, but having seen 450 vs 470, I strongly prefer 450 nm as it has a deeper more pleasing color to my eyes, even though it is dimmer. I'm ok with it being a little dim. I don't want moonlight dim, but definitely don't need to compare with my radiums in brightness. That would be overkill. I actually would like a much dimmer look for late night viewing. Awaiting response. Today I discovered problem number two. So a couple days ago I got alk reading in the lower 9 dkh area. I cut my alk pump, so I thought. Tested again today. 11 dkh at around noon. I thought. Hmm...that's odd. Left for Houston. Returned just now. Checked my apex...alk outlet still set to auto. Either I forgot to turn it off or it glitched. I'd believe either. Glad I caught it tonight. I think I'll unplug them physically to be safe. Doh! Hopefully my <900 ppm magnesium level will encourage a bit of precipitation in this high light high ph high flow high oxygenation environment. I knew I kept a bunch of Halimeda alive in my refugium for a reason. Also inspecting the Fuge closely yesterday. Saw some very pretty but very large orange and black striped amphipods scurrying around. I really need a copepod pack though. Petco had a dead bag of tisbe pods. I need to hit up someone with a good healthy refugium.

No sour grapes at all here. Thrilled that the folks at BML finally got back to me. Here's our proposed spectrum for my custom single strip. I want something somewhere between a super actinic and a 20k metal halide clone unit. A definite blue/violet dawn dusk light, perhaps powerful enough to add a little pop while the radiums are on. Just enough white to bring out the reds pinks oranges and yellows, but not enough to drown out the intense pop provide by blue an violet LEDs. Something like a super actinic vho or a giesemann pure actinic bulb. Deep dim blue/violet. The red arrows are 420 nm, Thinking about ditching one or two of the cool whites and adding another royal blue and 420, and just running a single 3000k warm white in each 12" section. Thoughts?

Tested alk this morning before work but didn't have time for a calcium or magnesium test. Alk up to 9.2, from 7.4 in 5 days. It's a significant increase in a short amount of time but nothing Lps and softies can't handle. I've been only running my alk doser program for a few days now for 2 minutes an hour. Surprised at how fast that brought the alk up but I guess with very few sps in the tank it's to be expected. I set the outlet to "off" today instead of "auto" in lieu of today's test. I'll dose up my magnesium if necessary and then let it ride. Next goal is to get my Aquarium Specialty order placed for the LEDs and several other small misc things to make my life easier. Also need to load up on pods because my mandarin is getting hungry. I have no doubt that I have adequate rock mass to sustain him, but definitely need more pods so I'll be hunting for a couple bags of tisbe pods. Also been toiling over a new return pump but am picking up victoly's jaebo DC return pump to power my media reactors and will use my Sicce syncra 3 as the return. It's a silent pump and I want to have my reactor pump pulling water BEFORE the refugium making two pumps preferable. Otherwise I'll be pulling pods from the fuge, running them through the biopellets and skimming them right off. No bueno. That's all for now