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BPB'S 90 GALLON SPS DOMINANT


Bpb

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These were the pics from day one of the change. Worked on it from about 6pm to 2am. Drained the water and mixed it evenly with the new stuff. Most the rock hung out in a brute can with a powerhead, and any rock with coral, as well as the fish and snails went into the storage tote with heater powerhead and apex probes. It remained in there overnight.

So far the only faux pas I made was that I plugged the temp probe into the Ethernet jack, so the temp climbed up to about 83 degrees over night but nobody seems effected since I discovered it. Easy corals for the most part.

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This was first thing the next morning. Removed all the rock from the brute and got it mostly aquascaped since the water had cleared up. Then with the help of fan use and heater swapping I got the fish water and the tank water both at 80 degrees so I added them over and there is where I stopped. Had to go to Austin.

Yesterday I moved around some rocks a but and slapped my T5 onto the tank just so the corals didn't get too hungry. In the evening I moved the side cabinet to the other end and did the wiring, as well as put the canopy up. I'll post pics with the halides on later. Only going to run them for 3 hours and will wait till this evening

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Thank you sir! No socks or floss or sponges or mechanical media of any kind. Just the skimmer, bio pellets, and rox 0.8 carbon going. Water was crystal clear as if the tank had been running for years, in under 48 hours. No major ammonia spike or even nitrate. Truth be told I haven't tested phosphates. I reused most of my sand and did not rinse it because I wanted to keep as many pods and as much bacteria as I could. So far so good. The purple cap is starting to fade at the edges and that's ok I expected it. Birds nests look good still though. Toadstool snuck about 1/2 polyp extension out in the dark this morning as well. Can't wait till these halides come on this evening. 6pm-9pm

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Canopy shot with the whole set up in the dark. I'm going to try to give BML a call on the phone tomorrow on a lunch break if I get one and ask to get something built so I can enjoy some morning and night viewing if I'm home. This 3 hour photoperiod to start with is rough lol

However, as of today, let there be light. Just a FTS for now. I'll take more detailed shots soon but here it is. Man these radiums are bright!!! Single canopy fan and the temp tops out at 80.1 degrees with ambient room temp at 74 degrees. I think it'll work

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Also. Tests today

Salinity 1.026

Temp: 78.5 low, 80.1 high

Ph: 7.7 low, 8.1 high

Alk: 7.4 dkh

Ca: 550 ppm

So somewhere along the way in the tank transfer, the alk and high calcium have precipitated which is what I wanted. Now I'm actually dosing alk to bring the calcium down, and once I'm at 8.4 dkh and 420 ppm calcium I'll aim to stay there and start bringing my sps back over. Need to show some discipline and give it a few weeks of running and stabilizing. Need more peppermints. Observing closely under the bright lights today I found 4-5 humongous aiptasia, bigger around than quartets. They had been hiding in out of sight spots and are now revealed. My toadstool hates it's new spot but gonna have to get used to it. Being in a corner is the only option at this point so hopefully it comes around.

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As promised...debut pics! It's not much to look at, but this is my base line. Sorry some are blurry. Best I can do with iPhone camera. For some reason I get these weird frequency tracer lines going vertically

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Jonathan those are some very nice pictures. Your toadstool is looking happier now. It is all looming very nice. Can't wait to see it with all your sps back in there.

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

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Thanks buddy! Was awesome coming home from work to see all it's polyps out rocking back and forth in the wave. Tank is a lot whiter in person than in pics. The pics are actually close to what I'm going for which I think a BML super actinic strip will help provide

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Thanks buddy! Was awesome coming home from work to see all it's polyps out rocking back and forth in the wave. Tank is a lot whiter in person than in pics. The pics are actually close to what I'm going for which I think a BML super actinic strip will help provide

well let's hope you can figure the light situation out soon and get a light.

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

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Thanks victoly. Definitely on Team Radium. Though I'd like to try the Ushio 14k bulbs one of these days as Sanjay and Mike Paletta hail them as the current heavyweight king of acropora growth and color power from a lot of reading I've done. I'd need new ballasts for those though so I'll let these radiums run for another year or two before I consider changing.

Manny, I've got the lighting situation figured out and will be ordering my super actinic strip tomorrow 100% definitely. Getting the standard model because the XB one only offers about a 10-15% increase in par which just isn't super necessary I don't think for supplements. The only issue I'm having is there are alarmingly few real world pictures and videos of super actinic strips in use alone, and even fewer used in conjunction with radiums, and none (outside of BML website) with white balance correctly adjusted. Would love to see pics of it but I trust the reputation and reports of how good they are and I like the spectral layout of them so I'm willing to grab one and find out.

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Really hoping its what you're after. I know how the and research you put behind your decisions so I would hate for this BML strip not to be what you're after.

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

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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

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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?

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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.

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