takoattack

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Never made it to aquadome last weekend, and my travel plans have changed so these guys are still available this week and I'm open for a meetup at the dome this weekend 4/6-4/7. (12) pending for woods, (12) available

Here are some older (higher quality) photos from the last batch They now have more coralline coverage. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Need to trim down my population again. These guys are about nickel to quarter sized and covered in corraline. I have 24 available. Planning on going to aquadome this Saturday around noon if you want to meet up and buy direct. $2 each or $20 a dozen. Available for pickup tonight on the east side. Will be going for aquadome credit if I can’t make a quick sale. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I wouldn't chase phosphates if you don't have algae problems. Check out some of the videos / presentations from Richard Ross.

Interesting, I'll give that a try. I was having so much trouble maintaining stable alkalinity with water changes with black bucket that I switched to blue bucket. Both precipitate fast for me: storing without constant circulation, but at temperature. I also mix at temperature and keep a heater in each of my RODI and salt barrels. Some measurements I made: Black bucket would mix at 10.5 dkh, and in 48 hours would be 9.6dkh, after a week, 8.6dkh, after two weeks 8.5dkh. Blue bucket mixes 7.6-7.8dkh, after a week it drops to 6.2 dkh. I like to add saturated limewater until I get a number that will only swing alk within 0.05 dkh (depending on the size of the water change) Its a pain in the butt to have to measure alk 3-4 times per water change. I might try reef crystals next, based on BRS experiments. I had problems with low nutrients and high alkalinity, so moving down to a target of 8dkh also seems to be an improvement on my system. I have found that most people around here keep their alk around 8dkh, so its less stressful to have similar levels when introducing frags from locals.

It’s precipitation. Red Sea coral pro precipitates very fast in storage, especially at higher temps. Check the recent BRS video on YouTube about salt mix precipitation. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

-edit just realized i was replying to a very old portion of this therad- Have you found an air pimp that has an inlet that you could connect to an outside airline? I was going to experiment with micro bubbles, but wanted to run outside air as my house always has high CO2. I already did the hard part and ran 1/2 pex tubing though a few walls to get an outside line into my stand for my skimmer. Seems like I could hack something together with a USB charger and this pump: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2Pcs-DC-3V-6V-5V-370-Motor-Mini-Micro-Air-Pump-Vacuum-For-Aquarium-Tank-Oxygen/113589840598?hash=item1a727b6ad6:g:vJgAAOSwolpcSAVb&frcectupt=true

CO2 Reactor with 3/8” barbed fittings and flexible hose. Purchased in September 2018. decommissioned in January 2019. (4 months use, I ending up running a fresh air line outside. ) New price is 34.99 on BRS. I do not have any fresh media. Bulk media on ebay is more affordable, just search for "Soda Lime Granules" Asking $20. Located in East Austin near MLK train station.

Interesting, given the cost of media I decided to just run the outside air line. Less maintenance and rock solid 400ppm CO2 guaranteed. Good hack though! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

New home / well sealed and high CO2? It would be interesting to track to see how long the media lasts. My home is up in the 1000 to 1200 ppm CO2 range a lot and I added a scrubber which was only effective for a few days/ a week tops before the media began to expire. A little bit later I ran a 1/2 Pex line outside to bring fresh air into my skimmer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll take 14, 17, 23. Aquadome Saturday at 5pm works. Thanks!!

Ah yes, your 750 looks great.

Shout out to Aquadome, for having a loaner program for PAR meters. Equipment: Red Sea Reefer 525XL with 3 AI Hydra26HDs placed equal distant on red sea's brackets. Sun System PAR meter with Apogee sensor. Experiment 1: Using BRS's recommended AB+ program (based on coral lab studies from Ecotech based on their radion schedule AB+) Measure different locations in tank: Experiment 2: t est intensity changes of different common program spectrums, and affect of modifying cool white (cw) channel intensity on AB+. Fixed location: Data: Hydra 26 HD Program Name PAR UV V RY B G DR CW AB+ (BRS calc) 211 118 101 82 65 6 5 19 AB+ whites 30 224 118 101 82 65 6 5 30 AB+ whites 40 234 118 101 82 65 6 5 40 AB+ whites 50 246 118 101 82 65 6 5 50 AB+ whites 60 254 118 101 82 65 6 5 60 AB+ whites 70 263 118 101 82 65 6 5 70 AB+ whites 80 272 118 101 82 65 6 5 80 AB+ whites 90 280 118 101 82 65 6 5 90 AB+ whites 100 294 118 101 82 65 6 5 100 AB+ whites 110 297 118 101 82 65 6 5 110 AB+ whites 120 305 118 101 82 65 6 5 120 AB+ whites 130 312 118 101 82 65 6 5 130 AB+ whites 137 322 118 101 82 65 6 5 137 Saxby (first peak) 294 40 64 114 105 8 11 66 Sexby Lo (first peak) 261 40 64 101 99 8 11 44 Key takeaways: Ripple in surface water can cause +/- 30 PAR excursions, based on bending light. Testing was performed with pumps off. Hydra26 spread was mostly even in the middle of the tank, however the front and back of the tank lost a lot of light. I think I will eventually build a floating hood fixture and add supplemental T5s in the front and back. Those Hybrid fixtures with LED pucks in the middle would be ideal. I was running Saxby for a while, which was a little too much PAR in my opinion. AB+ program at 100% seems to be a good balance for mixed reef. My left island is mostly low in the middle and tall in the back. The low middle spots get more PAR than the back top. I did not expect that, and may add some more height to this island. If I add diffusers to my hydras (I may) I will increase CW channel from 19% to something more like 50-70% to offset a loss of 15-20% PAR.

Just picked up a beautiful 5” Sherman from Robb and can attest to it’s beauty. Day 0 and 48 hours later photos below. He didn’t like the new island I made for him. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So much fire! I need a Mille harvest once my tank stabilizes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have two tubastrea (sun corals) in my bio cube: yellow and black/green. The yellow really are nocturnal, they are always open after lights out and before lights on. They take about 15 minutes to open up once they sense food, so I can only target feed them if i feed after midnight, or if i spend 30 minutes hand feeding the tank in the early evening. Because they don't fit my feeding habits I've had a hard time keeping them healthy. Typical feeding is to blow around food in the tank for 15 minutes with the return off. The blacks are better at catching food this way, and seem to be doing better now than the yellows. My nems and fish usually finish the food in 15 minutes before the yellows open up. I try to target feed them when I can after midnight. They are hard to photograph because they are rarely out when the lights are on. Yellow added January 2018: March 2018 - added black and green (feeding tentacles not out yet, it took a few days for the green to open up) May 2018 - Black and yellow (starting to "wake up" from feeding response) flesh starting to recede. August 2018 October 2018 December 2018

Try a sea hare, or a very small tang with a rehoming plan. I had a big “new tank” bloom on my biocube and a sea hare took care of it. Fun to watch creature. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I do not have a par meter. I’m using light profiles that have multiple user success in the same tank size and mounting arm. That was one of the allures if a Red Sea tank. Recently I have dialed down the light to see if that helps. I’ll be looking to rent a par meter to sanity check the intensity in the new year. (I think aquadome has one that they will rent?) The alveopora has been in here for 7 months, and the Gorgonian was added about 2.5 months ago. It’s regularly has full polyp extension but not in these photos. The big Cyphastrea and Pavona have been in about 6-8 weeks and just started to take a turn for the worse in the last week or two. I have another cyphastrea frag on the rack that is growing out over the plug. I just did a 5 gallon water swap with my 2 year old nano that runs higher nutrient. Will check in after the new year. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don’t think anyone will balk at adding more fish. I’m going to postpone my water change this cycle and start up a qt when I get back from Holiday travel. I’ll pack my fish sitter food containers a little bit heavier. I also think low nutrient and high alk may be a problem, I’ve read a lot about that from various forums and was starting to transition with the new salt. This theory wasn’t something that everyone universally agreed on, but there were multiple first hand experiences that aligned with that. Surely if I get frags from systems that keep alk in the 7-8 range it’s a shock just to get started in 9.5. Thanks for the feedback! I’ll check out some of the different aminos. Will probably put one on my doser. I haven’t been needing kalkwasser as the small amount of corals don’t pull much out of the water. My plan is kalkwasser once demand starts to rise. And I’ll likely add in two part if I can’t keep up with kalk later. I know most of you guys run calcium reactors so I might go that route. My low ph issues made me a little weary of this approach. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you use this with a dosing pump? Does it need to be refrigerated? What is your dosing regiment? There was only one high P04 reading with Hannah ULR, looking back it may be measurement error. I tested again after 24 hours with gfo and a 30% wc. And it was back down. If those two things couldn’t strip the phosphates that far it was likely a bad reading. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I pulled the gfo and took some more photos: Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good comments thanks, that one spike in PO4 was after a two week work trip when my girlfriend was feeding the tank (I suspect she over fed) before I started gfo. There was a bit of bryopsis that popped up. I used gfo and a 30% water change reduce that. My bioload: (which I didn’t think was small) Mimic tang Chevron tang Two snowflake clowns Three Lyretail Anthias Three chromis Fire fish Saowisata Wrasse Two skunk cleaners Porcelain crab Rock urchin 2 big turbos 3 nasarius 1 queen conch 1 strawberry conch About 60 trochus snails (they bred, still thinning the herd) I feed at noon and 4pm with an auto feeder (pellets and nori) and about 2 cubes worth of frozen at about 7pm every day. About 4 times a week I also mix in reef roids and or coral frenzy. I was experimenting with adding trace elements as well, did a few bottles of Red Sea reef energy AB for a bit, and now using acropower. I didn’t see a change in coral health when adding either of these. I have been getting coraline coverage over the last few months. As you suspected I did start with dry rock and seeded some sponges in the sump from my nano Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Are you post processing or adjusting white balance on camera at all? I find the most joy in using my macro lense when I don’t need to upload and edit and dump straight to my iPhone. My old canon entry level dslr has a custom white balance feature where you can use a previous photo to automatically set a new white balance. It ends up extreme with blues, but I find it fun. Examples below. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Reaching out for advise. I have an 8 month old reefer 525xl deluxe that was planned to be sps dominant and low nutrient. I have been struggling with most types of sps health where color will start to dull after 1-2 weeks, and after 3 weeks the tips and bases tend to start loosing flesh, then around week 4 it’s a rapid decline. This has been happening with Motis, digis, acros, birds nest and pavona. I have an alveopora a chalice and a plate coral that have been in the system for about 6 months and have been doing well. I run an oversized skimmer, and about two months ago started running a carbon reactor and a month ago started running gfo. Before that I used a few bags of chemipure. I regularly change 25% of the water every two weeks. I mix my own at 1.025 and use a 6 stage BRS 150gpd RODI system. Up until last month I was using black bucket Red Sea coral pro salt. I’m now trying to reduce alkalinity and transition to blue bucket. I was almost always in the 9.5-10dkh range through this tanks history and am now down to 9.1 and slowing targeting blue bucket levels of 8dkh. I was running the David saxby light program on the three hydra 26s that came with the delux. I’m starting to experiment with custom profile that is lower intensity. I got icp water test results in today and they don’t really show much other than healthy water that aligns with my at home testing. My home is well sealed and the CO2 levels in my house are 800-1300ppm. I installed a CO2 scrubber but I think the media expired but I can’t really tell. My pH ranges from 7.8 at night to 8.0. I’m considering this as a possible problem and considering running an airline to the outside of my house to the skimmer. I try to keep NO3 at 5ppm. At one point I dosed spectracide to get up to 2.5ppm from undetectable, this was about 3 months ago. My PO4 is very low. Like 0.03- 0.05 range. Here are my recent home tests and the icp data from the same sample. Is high alk and low nutrient a bad combo? Is 1.8ppm dissolved CO2 (calculation) a problem? Is there another possible contamination in the water that icp test will not find? Frustrated reefer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk