Bpb

Some progress being made slowly but surely. Positive growth. Happy with improvements in color. But happiest of all that my tank is actually NOT cursed. I began to swear it was cursed. Not sure what most these acros are actually called and I'm ok with that. Most of them just random acquisitions. Sad and happy to inform that down the line here in the not so distant future I'll be taking a brief break from the hobby. We are about to list our house and try to get ourselves into a forever home (or at least a 20 year home). My tank is aged enough as it is and not the nicest so I don't know how much longer I'd feel comfortable with the seams or stand. Especially considering how much has been spilled in it. I'll be keeping my eyes out for something bigger, nicer, and hopefully newer. Considering maybe an sca 150 package. Sadly reef savvy will not likely ever be in my budget. Wanting to end up in the 120-180 range. I like the idea of a 150 because it would require zero equipment upgrades. Just a little extra leg room. I digress. Haven't told the wife yet that we will have to budget in a bit more money for a tank upgrade lol. I'll be pretty hard headed about this one. Sad that I'll basically have to sell off fish and coral I've had for many years. Just no logical way to keep them during a move like I anticipate. My rocks are also infested with aiptasia and discosoma shrooms I just cannot manage to stay on top of. I'm tired of one at a timing them and want to just nuke my rocks and start over completely. Be patient for a year or so then start in with acros again. Hopefully next time around no crashes and no interruptions. Just once i want a tank packed with colonies I can be proud of Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

You'll be terribly disappointed to find out that's just the top of an old frag plug that is epoxied to the the rocks that has green and red coraline algwe on it. The urchin keeps it from getting dirty. It's been there for years

One last pic for the day. Oldie but goodie. Still one of my favorites despite the treasure trove of Aqua culture acros available today. Hawkins echinata. May I have better luck with this one than previous attempts it's small but I love it's placement color wise with its surroundings

The bright orange ones are just your run of the I'll montipora caps. I had a bigger one growing but didn't like where it was so I broke it up and discarded most and moved some healthy pieces to the bottom side of the tank so they don't shade anything in the future. They're actually more of a pink/salmon color but the camera shows them as Orange for some reason. The other one i think you're talking about is an orange and purple leptastrea. Encrusting LPS. One of my favorites. Not a real rarity but not something you see all over the place. I hate that mine is basically trapped. Cannot encrust any further. It is flanked on all sides by stuff it isn't powerful enough to push back

Few updated pics

Interesting observation. I'm very happy with growth right now. Ive been letting the tank run a little warmer. No fans or anything. Tank hangs around 80-81. Not terrible. With this recent heat wave the house has been a few degrees warmer, struggling to keep cool and the tank crept up to 83.7 degrees before I intervened. Two clip on fans later and now the temp stays between 78-79 degrees 24/7. Since doing that alk has climbed a bit. Would the lower temps have possibly slowed coral metabolism and growth down a touch? I don't notice it visually. Just the numbers. Most recent test results: 78 degrees warm 8.6 dKH 450 ppm Ca 1400 ppm Mg 1.5 ppm NO3 0.05 ppm PO4

Honestly, the virtually 100% overwhelmingly positive reviews on it, going back literally decades, from some pretty respectable folks in the hobby, as well as average joes is what really speaks volumes. There are a lot of fad products and knee jerk reactions to new stuff that you have to be cautious of when review hunting. But lifereef stuff in general (much like MTC, and GEO) seems to be generally loved by all their users. And for a very long time. Even if it's just the "eye test" that sheer amount of positive recommendation gets my attention. Secondly to that I really like the idea of never having to clean my skimmer. Or at least MUCH less frequently. We all have things we hate doing. Some people hate water changes. Some people hate bulb changes. So they'll spend a lot of money and go to great lengths to avoid them. Cleaning my skimmer has been an unusually unpleasant and time consuming task for me. I do expect the lifereef performance to outdo my bubble magus. Better build and by design it'll have more and smaller bubbles. But beyond that I look forward to the greatly reduced maintenance. It's up sized enough that if I eventually move up to a 180-200 gallon it'll still work perfectly well. Plus....at this price I couldn't say no. I'll break even when I sell my bubble magus basically. Can't argue with a free upgrade

New toy came in the mail. Going to be a challenge getting this big guy to fit. Always fun finally acquiring a piece of gear you've been covering for years

This guy is doing better. Some new branching going on. So many requests for it I wish it would hurry up and grow more though so I can cut some off and not destroy the whole thing Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Big league. Yuge. Following Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Couple new sps pieces today Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jeez look at those fingertips. Someone needs to moisturize Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Fixed it quick. Let this be a reminder to you masterflex users. Maintain your roller tubing. Yikes. This one was toast. Even had a hole. Thanks for the reply ty. Big bubble purged immediately once I swapped the tubing Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What a disaster. Woke up to a familiar sound. Air trapped in the return tube of the calcium reactor. Effluent line not running. I am not sure how to even troubleshoot this and with a full day of family stuff planned I have no idea what to do. I guess I'll throw some kalkwasser in my ato and guess wildly how much I'll need. This is the last thing in the world I needed to happen with the tank. This single hiccup is enough to make me want to go back to 2 part dosing Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks man! Been a long time coming Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think I find myself as part of a rare group of people who actually have their tanks IMPROVE with the addition of a new baby. I've seen so many elite level reefers fall by the wayside, have tank crashes, or quit all together when they start having kids. Not this guy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My issue I take with peppermints is every single one I've had just destroys my lps. They just reach in and relentlessly rip their stomachs out of every single mouth to try and get to the food I feed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Brief rundown on tank and life. Life first. Two little ones is harder than I imagined. Parker is about to turn 4 months old and Ava is 2.5 years. They're an absolute handful. We have made monumental strides in her sleep training finally, and have applied our mistakes to him and he is sleeping really well too...that being said. With work and both of them I'm still only getting maybe 4 hours sleep a night. We don't have a room for Parker right now so he is still in our room unfortunately. We will be looking to buy our first home in the next year or so to accommodate the family growth. Otherwise everyone is all good. I reached a come to Jesus moment with the tank a couple months ago and wanted to just tear it down. Everything had been struggling so long I just couldn't get a grip. So I made some changes and it has turned a complete 180. I'm getting color and growth I've been yearning for for a long time. Nutrients are about fully under control. Tested two days ago. PO4 at 0.03 ppm and NO3 at 10 ppm. NO3 is a hair high still but coming down gradually. After investigating every form of carbon dosing heavily I decided to give vodka dosing a try. My criteria were it had to be super simple. Didn't want a bunch of equipment. The less the better. And cheap. So vodka was the clear winner. I've brought nitrate down to 10 ppm from 32+ ppm and PO4 down to 0.03 from 0.42. Aside from a couple lps that were struggling to begin with, everything is humming now. Acro remnants that had been dormant for a year or more are spreading again and have all sprouted new growth buds all over. Couldn't be happier. My chief complaint now is the same as last time I carbon dosed. It seems to cause aiptasia and discosoma shrooms to explode with growth. I have to constantly smother both in kalk paste but they seem to be popping up by the dozens. When I do my next tank, whenever that may be. It'll be done with all brand new dry rock, lots of bacterial additives, and only select corals will convey, And done with surgical precision to not bring any shrooms or aiptasia over. I just can't seem to get a handle on them. Otherwise everything is good. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm still alive. Here are a few pics from today Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Update it! I'm a terrible local reefer. This guy lives maybe 2 miles away and I still haven't been to check it out in person

I should elaborate on that. I may have addressed it at some point in the build, I may not have. So in the first year of this tank I ran GFO intermittantly here and there, fed sparingly, and kept an enormous amount of chaeto and grape caulerpa in the fuge, as well as having a healthy amount of red turf in the display. After months of reading zero on PO4 and NO3, I decided to just remove one aspect of the tank and tossed all the macro algae. Around that time my urchins absolutely decimated all of the red turf in the display. I really took the KISS approach and stripped the system down to big skimmer, calcium reactor, lots of flow, and thats it. Over time as feedings became heavier and heavier, with the complete lack of any conventional PO4 and NO3 control methods present (besides occasional water changes, which we all know is a horrible method for controlling nutrients) my nutrients began to climb steadily. I'd see NO3 come in at 10-20 occasionally, and PO4 creep up to 0.1 and I'd do a couple big water changes and back off feedings, but those are only temporary fixes. My tank is probably overstocked by most standards. I think as the last year has gone on, the PO4 present in food and fish waste has just accumulated in the water column to the point its bonding to the rock and sand, and leeching back out constantly, keeping heavily elevated levels in the water column, but zero algae to speak of (neither nuisance nor ornamental) to remove it. NO3 is easier to maintain. Reduced feedings will show dramatic and immediate effects in that parameter for me. Cut back and double rinse frozen foods, and suddenly in one weeks time NO3 is half what it was previously, without a water change to help. PO4 not so. Its a bit more persistent, so I decided to employ a GFO reactor again to lower it and keep it appropriate. Due to my heavy stock, I cant not feed, so I dont think the KISS method is really doable for me long term without nutrients spiraling out of control. Am I seeing problems with coral? Eh...on and off. I can't definitively say its a PO4 related issue but I know conventional wisdom says my levels are way too high so its an easy thing to address. As far as Nitrate goes. I'll continue to monitor it. If i really feel like I'm struggling with it much longer I may try the probidio bacteria vials. I really dont want to mess with a biopellet reactor again as that just adds yet another bit of complexity I don't care to fiddle with again. That's my somewhat educated analysis of my tank's current state and how it got there

Totally missed this reply. I think it was just months and months of heavily over feeding everything. It's coming down though. PO4 was 0.22 ppm and nitrate was 16 ppm the other day. Trying not to take it too fast Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You'll be surprised to hear I don't actually own one. I should though. I have a small amount of detritus down there but not much. My intra sump flow is actually pretty turbulent. My return pump is way over sized so I have about 500 gph pointed directly down at the bottom and it keeps any detritus from settling Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My sump is an absolute mess Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Woohoo. For the first time in a long time, maybe 2 years or more, I'm running a gfo reactor again. Phosphates staying up in the 0.4+ppm range and not coming down with water changes or careful feeding. I am starting slow. 5 tablespoons of HC GFO for my 83 gallons total water volume. Hopefully I don't make anything mad Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk