KimP's in-wall room divider build

[+KimP]

A couple pictures I took last night.

Spaghetti worms. I love these guys. I didn't have any while my sandbed was an algae farm. After syphoning and rinsing the top, algae growing sections of sand every week, I have tons of them now.

The thorned oyster

[Miranda]

Your tank looks fantastic!

[+KimP]

Your tank looks fantastic!

Thank you it's definitely coming along.

[+KimP]

This yuma was moved to the sandbed Sat and I think it's quite happy there!

[FarmerTy]

Tank looked fantastic Kim this past weekend at the ARC meeting. Whatever you are doing, keep on doing it!

[+BobcatReefer]

I was going back through this thread yesterday after seeing the tank on Sat and had to have a laugh at some of the vids. Kim's got a tow-headed toddler on her hip in the vid, just like she did on Saturday...I had to doublecheck the date of the vid/post! lol - same mom, new kid! Also, same kid featured in one of the end-of-clip "outtakes running around being loud was the same one announcing it was his house too on Sat! Sounds like he's been consistent over the years, eh?

[+KimP]

I was going back through this thread yesterday after seeing the tank on Sat and had to have a laugh at some of the vids. Kim's got a tow-headed toddler on her hip in the vid, just like she did on Saturday...I had to doublecheck the date of the vid/post! lol - same mom, new kid! Also, same kid featured in one of the end-of-clip "outtakes running around being loud was the same one announcing it was his house too on Sat! Sounds like he's been consistent over the years, eh?

Lol! Yep. This build has taken so long my newest son is about the age of my middle one when we started. In the beginning I warned this would be the slowest build!

[+KimP]

Tank looked fantastic Kim this past weekend at the ARC meeting. Whatever you are doing, keep on doing it!

Thank you! I'm doing my best with it. Not sure I want to continue this big of water changes every single weekend but I'm going to keep it up until I have a plan to safely back off a bit without losing the progress I've made. Luckily all the rock scrubbing and sand washing isn't needed nearly as much anymore. That's what really makes the weekly maintenance time consuming.

[FarmerTy]

You know me and water changes! Let me know if you ever want to implement some of what I do to reduce your maintenance tasks.

[Christyef]

Kim, how many gallons do u change each week in your water changes?

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[+KimP]

Kim, how many gallons do u change each week in your water changes?

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25-30gal

[Christyef]

Wow! I've been topping off when my sump evaporates, but not significant changes.... It's such a pain in the rear. [emoji6]

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[+KimP]

Wow! I've been topping off when my sump evaporates, but not significant changes.... It's such a pain in the rear. [emoji6]

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Yes, it kind of is [emoji53] but worth it considering the difference in my tank without it. You're topping off with fresh water, right?

[Christyef]

Wow! I've been topping off when my sump evaporates, but not significant changes.... It's such a pain in the rear. [emoji6]

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Yes, it kind of is [emoji53] but worth it considering the difference in my tank without it. You're topping off with fresh water, right?

Yes ma'am. But IF I do do a water chng, I use salt. I have a 5 yo pink leather that I got from a fellow ARC-er, and it tends to droop if I don't do a chng. After talking w/ her, she said that's what makes the leather thrive.

All I use is a hose and a bucket... Like I'm stealing gas. [emoji12]. Can do abt 3 gallons and have to fill my sump back up bc my pump starts sucking air. [emoji16]

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[+KimP]

Wanted to post my weekly fts here too. The red algae must've gotten the hint after I killed all that was on the barnacle. It hasn't come back at all on the barnacle and is disappearing from everywhere else. Ha! Take that you invasive algae!

My alk has been hovering right around 7.4 and I'm working on pushing it up slowly a bit using the doser. I also set up an auto feeder to dump a little aragamight in 4 times a day in the sump. I found out Timfish does this and I think it's a brilliant idea! I don't want to run a calcium reactor but all the really nice tanks I've seen over the years all have one. I've been wondering how things might be different in my tank if I had one. So if this aragamight puts the same stuff in as a calcium reactor does (probably in a different way, I don't know much about calcium reactors), then I think this is a great thing to try out. We'll see! I can't imagine it'll hurt anything. I've used it at various times in the past with good results. *edited to add: I just had some time to read up on it and it's not quite what I thought, but still something I want to try, though it sounds like I should be adding it to the ato like kalk*

I tested Mg too after Dan and Meg's random drop and it's still at 1320. I need to check Ca again soon.

Today I received a small order from Cultivated Reef and boy do those guys do a fantastic job, just like the other reviews I've read of them on here. Excellent customer service and the best packing job of any place I've seen. The frags were all bigger than I expected and actually look the same or even better than the pictures for once. And I'm always happy to get frags from corals that are used to aquarium life. So that was fun today!

[+KimP]

Looking at the fts reminds me I need to get the other rocks drilled and get the pvc completely covered finally.

[FarmerTy]

I'm glad the fear and awe campaign against the red turf worked wonders for you.

I'm sure you already ran across this article that discussed AragaMight but just in case:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/7/chemistry

Just something I've been looking back over but over the years of no water changes, I've run a Triton test annually to monitor changes. I'm not going to get into the merits of the results of the Triton test but what I find interesting is how some of the levels have gone up in a year. With my only inputs to the system being foods, aminos, and my CaRX, it's interesting to draw some conclusions about the potential supplementation of some of these trace elements I may be getting from the melting of the CaRX media. While no hard conclusions can be drawn unless I completely isolate and test the CaRX media, but it's still interesting to see that my tank has kept or even increased certain elements such as K it Sr over time without dosing either. Something I believe you miss out on in a 2-part setup as you are dosing pure calcium carbonate in that scenario.

[+KimP]

I'm glad the fear and awe campaign against the red turf worked wonders for you.

I'm sure you already ran across this article that discussed AragaMight but just in case:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/7/chemistry

Just something I've been looking back over but over the years of no water changes, I've run a Triton test annually to monitor changes. I'm not going to get into the merits of the results of the Triton test but what I find interesting is how some of the levels have gone up in a year. With my only inputs to the system being foods, aminos, and my CaRX, it's interesting to draw some conclusions about the potential supplementation of some of these trace elements I may be getting from the melting of the CaRX media. While no hard conclusions can be drawn unless I completely isolate and test the CaRX media, but it's still interesting to see that my tank has kept or even increased certain elements such as K it Sr over time without dosing either. Something I believe you miss out on in a 2-part setup as you are dosing pure calcium carbonate in that scenario.

That's the article I found last night. At first I was really excited about it, but then got to thinking, why would anyone run a carx if they could just dump some powder in their sump? I knew there had to be a catch. I know it can't hurt anything, so I'm going to leave it on while I research it more. I test alk every night and Mg and Ca often so it'll be interesting to see if it does anything to those levels.

[FarmerTy]

We should make a support group for daily alk testers. [emoji17]

[+KimP]

We should make a support group for daily alk testers. [emoji17]

Lol, you too? Do you always test everyday or are you getting something dialed in right now? Or is it because you just put all that coral and fish back in?

What I wouldn't pay for an alkalinity probe.

[FarmerTy]

Just out of habit now but more so when I put everything back in. It's been pretty steady for awhile now that I go about 2-3 days in between now.

It's like the person who invented AC... I'd give my first born to him and my 2nd to the guy that makes me an alkalinity probe.

[jolt]

We should make a support group for daily alk testers. [emoji17]

I would have to sign up for that one!

[FarmerTy]

We should make a support group for daily alk testers. [emoji17]

I would have to sign up for that one!

You were the first person I thought of when I made that statement!

[Timfish]

. . . I'm sure you already ran across this article that discussed AragaMight but just in case:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/7/chemistry . . .

Kim, we discussed aragamight very briefly but I'm afraid I didn't go into a lot of detail and Ty brings up an important subject. It's essentail aquarists understand the chemistry involved in our reefs and Randy Holmes-Farley does an excellent job of explaining some of it. But it's important to look at the whole picture, to pay attention to what is happening in our tanks, to keep abreast of the science and what is being accomplished by others. I certainly do not question the basic equations Dr. Holmes -Farley talks about. What gave me pause when I first read it many years ago was Tropicorum (the oldest coral farm in the US) had been using Aragamight quite successfully as their sole supplement for several years before his article. Quoting Richard Perrin "We have long believed that the CaribSea product, called Aragamight, is really good and have been adding it to our tanks regularly for some time. We get it from CaribSea in 100-pound bags and add it daily. The advantage is not just the jump in calcium that one would expect, it is a multipurpose additive that has a lot of other components besides calcium."¹

A second observation is an apparent assumption the pH in an aquarium is homogeneous and Aragamight would not dissolve. I know from many years experience even though I may test acceptable pH levels in the open water column in my tanks there are certainly micro environments that will be dissolving calcium, this should be obvious to anyone who has grown any stoney corals for any length of time. Any close look at the base of a coral skeleton that has died from lack of light as the colony grows will see dissolution of the skeleton (See the attached photo for closeups of a Birdsnest skeleton dissolving).

Since that article was posted there has been some fascinating science supporting the direct ingestion of fine calcium particles by corals. Something not discussed much 12 - 15 years ago but is fairly commonly accepted now is an important source of food for corals is fish poop (earliest reference I can remember is Borneman's 2001 book on aquarium coral husbandry). Research² done 5 years ago shows a significant percentage of fish poop is calcium and magnesium carbonate crystals. Besides phosphate and nitrogen, corals are also benefiting by direct ingestion of particulate calcium and magnesium carbonate. (This raises some curious questions about the role of bioeroders in our systems providing calcium. )

1) Coral, June/July 2005, pg 11 & 12

2) http://www.pnas.org/content/108/10/3865

[Timfish]

Kim, how many gallons do u change each week in your water changes?

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25-30gal

We started do weekly water changes in January to remediate the red hair algae problem. Actually our main reason was to get Kim's tank looking better by the monthly meeting in February which was supposed to be at her house but was rescheduled to Ty's. It would have taken longer but we could have taken a more leasurely approch like we did with Mike's tank with his green hair algae problem, http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/34556-hair-algae-a-case-study/?hl=%2Bhair+%2Balgae%2C+%2Bcase+%2Bstudy

I think it's important to point out Kim had a good selection of herbaviores but they were not keeping up. Using water changes and manual removal we have been able to shift the equilibrium in her system so the various nuisance algae are on the wane and her herbavores are able to keep up. This is the same thing that happened with Mikes tank. If Kim want's to back off to 15 - 25% a month now I don't think she's going to see a recurrence of the probelm. With Mike's tank we're now doing roughly 15%-18% every 4 - 6 weeks and his corals and anemones are continuing to grow and thrive.