Bpb

Been a few weeks since I've posed to this. Things keep moving along. I've kind of reached a happy place that I know each day that passes is another day of maturity and stability which always yields positive results. Good stuff. Because things seem to keep changing regularly I'll try to keep the sad stories of coral death to a minimum. Some stuff has continued to die back, some stuff is gone entirely, and some new stuff (non sps) has struggled randomly. All good. The tangibles are in line. My Sicce Syncra 3.0 has been rattling like no one's business lately, and it's supposedly a silent pump, so after taking it apart I discovered the impeller magnet was completely swollen and cracked. That's 10 months use before it broke. What a joke. Unfortunately since I didn't register it at the time of purchase I'm not sure there's much I can do about getting a replacement. We will see what unfolds. Due to that I'm using the Jebao DC return pump which truely IS dead silent and is plenty powerful enough. I'm happy with it. Downside is...no manifold built for it yet so no carbon running. For the first time in a couple years I'm down to no extra filtration. Just lots of rock, lots of flow, magnetic ballast halides, a skimmer, and a big refugium. Very old school. I've got some red turf going on now that is present on most the sunny sides of the rock work, and I pick cladophora out regularly to keep it manageable. Alot of the old school folks are big on letting algae blooms run their course, and lately I tend to agree with them. I'm not stressing at all, just managing it. Without further adieu here are a bunch of pictures. Forgive the grainy over exposed quality. Running this much light plus the leds at 100% for the photos kinda freaks out the iphone. Hope the 6+ takes better pictures than my 4s. Shot of some zoas. The Sunny D's are growing well. Montipora Spongodes continuing to grow, encrusing onto the rocks and overflow well. Newbie snuck in the pic Had this birdsnest for a while. It's real tan/brown and ugly. Any tips? More light? Less Light? It's on the sandbed Screamin' green birdsnest from Manny...From Ty. Thanks alot Ty, you wouldnt frag this for me before when I asked lol. Couldnt mess up that precious football sized colony Montipora Setosa from Victoly. This is easily the brightest thing in the tank when the leds are on alone. Why the heck does it have to grow so slow though More zoa progress. Oddly enough my favorite bright pink unnamed zoas all died real quick over about a week. I keep seeing a bristle worm roaming around in that spot, wonder if he's the culprit There's now a big blank spot in the back Cyphastrea had bleached almost white before when I added the leds. It's now acclimated and regained almost all its color Red turf algae bloom all over.

I maintained my alk a little low for a couple years (6.7-7.0) area. I was running biopellets for a while during that time and I understood you were supposed to run alk a little low. I'm running a higher nutrient tank now with higher light (and more algae as one would imagine), so I still maintain ca & alk through 2 part automated dosing, but alk runs substantially higher nowadays from around 9.8-10.0 dkh or so.

In other words, check your salt formula and food and trust you're probably fine on trace elements and don't try and dose something that is kept in such miniscule concentrations

Instant ocean plus a bottle of TLF acro power amino acids for the win

Instant ocean here. I've hopped back and forth between instant ocean and reef crystals. Expensive salts are every bit as inconsistent. I wouldn't go so cheap as to use Top Fin salt from Walmart, but drs foster smith has the cheapest salt and shipping prices on the web. 200 gallon box of instant ocean is under $50 last time I looked and free shipping at $50 purchase.

Mixed reefs are indeed very difficult. Biopellets are a slippery slope. They did wonders for me initially, but once I added the "recommended amount" after ramping up over a couple months stuff just started to tank. STN on several acros that had been happily growing for months. Zoas all but ceased growing entirely as well as most Lps. I ended up taking them offline. I think they can be helpful, but if your nitrates hang out between 0-1 ppm and phosphate stays under 0.06 or so, I don't see the point in using them as the water is already pretty clean. I like what Ty said about using much less than the recommended doseages. I had 1.25 cups in mine. Way too aggressive. If I ever use them again I'll only use 1/4 cup tops for my 90 gallon

The tweaking continues. Haven't really seen the tank much for the past few days. I've been increasing my BML strip intensity 5% per week roughly and was at 80% as of today. Ever since adding the LEDs I've noticed a lot of bleaching of Lps, particularly chalices and cyphastrea and all of my zoas have shrunken to very tiny. The more I increase the LEDs, the worse it gets. I kinda was hoping stuff would come around and acclimate but I gotta bail on it. Due to heavy algae growth, and pale/irritated corals, I've decided to change the one thing I hate changing which is light. Down to 6 hr metal halide photoperiod and altering my led output to a 1 hr ramp up and ramp down, peaking at 50%, and then only running them at 20% while the halides are on. Stuff truely does look awrsome under the LEDs alone, so I wanna keep them going, but as they're deceivingly powerful, and I'm showing signs of light shock, I'll keep them to a primarily dawn dusk effect and not run them very strong while the daylights run. Hopefully this helps

Cleaned up a little and took some blue out. Possible Green Starburst PE offered on the big forum. Thoughts?

Ideas?

Funny funny. I like your idea manny. I actually have some greenbay packer zoas on the same rock I want to remove so I'll use that as an opportunity to do that as well. Ill pair it with a water change that way I will have a couple 5 gallon buckets to change the coral over to while it voids out all it's fluid. Good thinking indeed. I'll also do a carbon change in the process as well

Not much new to report. Lots of algae starting to come up. Good and bad. I'm getting coraline growth unlike any I've had before. But the red turf, GHA, and Cladophora are pretty prevalent. Oddly enough not really any cyano or bubble algae anymore. I literally dont see ANY bubble algae and that used to literally cover every surface of every rock. I've dosed KNO3 and KH2PO4 a handful of times and it's actually holding now. I've also slowly increased my alk over the last few weeks as I'm no longer running a carbon dosed ULNS, I can actually enjoy the benefits of a higher alk Tests for today yield: 1.025 salinity 9.1 dKH 400 ppm Ca 1680 ppm Mg 0.5 ppm NO3 0.05 ppm PO4 woohoo! Acros are just about all gone now. The Cali Tort and Hawkins seem to be hanging on the best but have about 0.5" of stn at the bases of each for several weeks now, but doesnt seem to be advancing noticeably. Red planet and Purple Meridiana have about 1" of healthy tissue left. Really stunk watching like 6" of tabled red planet growth slowly die. Montipora are all looking great as well las softies. I want to find some small rock rubble, maybe baseball sized at most but flatter, to start putting my zoas onto. They're forming mats on the sand but I feel like zoas don't grow as fast when they only have sand grains to attatch to. I'd like to have a proper zoa garden. Working my way up to 100% on my BML super actinic. Also considering lowering my halides a couple inches closer and shortening the photoperiod, but I'm apprehensive because all of my chalices and cyphastreas have bleached almost totally white since I've added the LEDs and are slowly but surely regaining their color. I've got encrusting montipora all over the rock work now. I may regret it later, but we will see. Encrusting montipora looks better than bare rock and when it comes down to it I'll just put my acropora directly on top of the montis. Question for you softie keepers. I've got a large toadstool leather. Stalk is about as big around as a baseball bat, and cap is about 10" across. It has a "baby" growing out from the base, but the baby is getting large. The trunk is about 1.5" in diameter. I want to cut it and sell it. Will slicing through that large of a portion of a leather coral cause a massive leather toxin spike and reek havoc? I've fragged it before but only small bits, never such a large piece.

No problem at all. I'm always eager to get advice in all forms. I was quick to dismiss the pest theory but am now willing to accept just about anything. All good though. With time it'll stabilize and look good again. Excited to be doing something a little different in the meantime with montipora and zoas

Yep I hope mine look like those in the pic eventually. Glad to have them either way being that they're a less common color morph. Maybe not downright rare, but I don't see them very often. Giddyorion...not sure whether I fully agree with the alk assessment or not. Your experience being certainly more valuable in your own methodology than my word. I'm actually aiming to slowly increase my alk over time to the 9-10 dkh area, but not to combat RTN. I've actually ran my alk fairly low for my entire time in the hobby, for about a year keeping it down at 7.0 and had fantastic growth and colors. For the last year and a half I've kept my tank pretty stable at 8.4 dkh give or take 0.2 dkh or so at any given month. Now that I'm no longer running gfo or doing any organic carbon dosing, I just don't see the need to run alk so low, and I understand along of Lps actually will yield better colors under higher alk, and some micro algaes being less than happy...could be hearsay though. Either way the undetectable phosphate and nitrate the past couple years have been my motivating factor for low alk. I actually just got my first phosphate reading in over a year, last week. It's just shy of 0.01 ppm and I'm aiming for 0.03-0.05 or so.

Thank you sir! I'm warming up to them some. I was actually kinda disappointed at first. You gotta look at zoomed in pics to see the real details in them, and they have zero pop under the BML super actinics. I think they'll look better once they form a nice colony. I could be splitting hairs here though. Theyre basically sandwiched in between my Armor of God and Sunny D palys. Those are two especially bright color morphs, so it might just be difficult to appreciate the subtle beauty of these Space Monsters.

Well. Carrying on with the build, I've distinctly noticed and recognized the 5 stages of grief related to Acropora loss. No big deal. I've reached acceptance and know that one day my tank will be Acro appropriate again in time. And I'll use that to be ultra picky with what I add and who I get it from. But as of now carry on. Picked up new frags yesterday. Some pics are tough to get clear due to their locations on frag racks. Montipora are tiny but I've had good luck with them so far so I hope it lasts. Mind trick monti Superman monti Mint green cyphastrea Tyree space monster zoa Octospawn (not technically mine, but holding it for a while). Hopefully be tracking down some more good looking montipora and zoas.

I'd love to try the plusrite bulbs, but the fact that I run m80 ballasts, I'd need to replace them every 3-4 months because of how much they'd be over driven. Cost would end up being a wash vs radiums

You just help correct my nuisance algae ID. This whole time I thought it was bryopsis. Nope. It's cladophora. This stuff has literally formed a curtain on the back glass. Cannot see the glass at all anymore. Tomini tang bites and picks and tugs but cannot seem to break it free. It's even difficult for me to by hand. Apparently tech m is ineffective against it. Any advice?

I would love a cheetah as a pet. Or even a bobcat. Yes. Im a cat person if you can't tell

Well sadly enough the final two acros that were holding out have finally given in. Call it 100% STN on all acros in the tank. 4 species completely extinct from my little Ecosystem with the rest to follow shortly. While I haven't seen any visible evidence for pests, I am beginning to submit to the possibility that I may have picked one up along the way just no telling from where. As previously mentioned it is only Acropora doing this. The montipora continue to grow visibly almost daily. That's one good thing. Luckily...I have a few non-Acropora corals on the frag racks that I've been struggling to decide where to put. Question: if indeed I am dealing with red bugs or aefw...how long does the tank need to be Acro fallow before I can safely try again? At some point they'll exhaust their food source and die off right? Or will they move onto montipora and stylos, and eventually Lps? Pests are the one area I've not researched too heavily. For now I will be looking into finding more zoas, Lps, and montipora, possibly ending up with a higher end montipora dominated tank.

Agree with Ty it's easier to replenish trace elements via water changes, and if your sps really start to take off, through a calcium reactor. Problem with bottled trace element supplements is they contain too many things to reliably test for, and on top of that are mostly water. In the long run salt mix for water changes is cheaper. For a 65 gallon, a 200 gallon box of instant ocean or reef crystals will run you $45-50 on foster smith with free shipping and last close to a year depending on how aggressive you are with water changes. In that time you will likely have run through more than $50 in trace element supplements, and at concentrations that are filled with question marks.

Some more STN pics. Thrilled with the colors I'm getting and the polyp extension. Just so bizarre. Usually when I see posts and pics of dying sps it's accompanied with bleaching, polyp retraction, or generalized ugliness. These are dying while beautiful. Please mind the bryopsis. Haven't been in a huge hurry to pick up tech m. Speaking of, Ty, I'll be in town Friday. You still got any?

Heck yeah they got the good test strips! All the tests are on one single card! Pretty cool. In all seriousness, captainK, by no means do I claim to be infallible, but I've always been a very careful tester and have used several different all testers over the years and Always get similar results. No strange spikes or drops anywhere along the way...but...I'll always agree it's good to get other opinions and if wouldn't be a bad idea to bring a water sample up to the dome next time I come to town...though I'd probably trust Victoly more than them, based on both his excellent gif production AND his hopefully-will-one-day-be-stickied lab procedures write up

That's the goal! 7-14 ppb is my goal. Guess it's not such a bad thing that I accidentally dumped my skimmer cup into the sump. Seriously. Maybe?

Tests for 8/9/2014: Temp: 80.0 (apex currently) Ph: 8.20 (apex currently) Salinity: 1.026 (refractometer) Calcium: 430 ppm (Red Sea pro) Alkalinity: 8.2 dkh (Red Sea pro) Magnesium: 1700 ppm (Red Sea pro) Phosphate: 0 ppb (Hanna) Nitrate: 0 (Elos) Didn't take pics of the Red Sea tests, but as this was my first time using the Elos kit, decided to snap a shot. Really hating how low phosphate and nitrate are. I know we strive for low, but nowadays, it seems difficult to keep them elevated slightly. Can't say for certain that this is the cause for the STN, but they're the only things I can measure. Do y'all think the Mg being that elevated could be an issue as well? I'll do a 10% water change this evening either way.

Pmd