He's already using a nyos skimmer. Next it'll be orpheck's and he'll be measuring his tank in liters..... wait that's my plan
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Fishfoo's IM170 EXT (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Fishfoo
- Start date
OP
OP
Equipment wise I would say the GHL KHD has paid for itself 100 times over. Keeping my alk rock solid for almost 4 years straight is a huge part of it I would think. And since I use DIY AFR that means that when the alk is stable everything else is as well.For what do you attribute your already amazing color and growth? That Acropower on a doser and a bunch of blue T5s?? Sorry Iām always prodding you for information no wonder you post so seldomly
Aside from that, I think itās super important to make sure nutrients are well above zero. Believe it or not, my tank is still consuming PO4 at an insane rate, and I dose ~.15 ppm worth of neophos every other day. IMO you never want nutrients to bottom out, so why try and walk the line of āJust above zeroā. That usually leads to a nutrient rollercoaster of bottoming out then going just above zero and bottoming out again. You always want readily available nutrients for your sticks, and Iād rather be on the higher side to ensure they never fall to zero if I forget to test for a week.
FWIW I run 4 Blue+, 2 actinic, 1 purple+ and 1 coral+. So really not as blue as youād think. If I had to guess Iād say itās around 14k when all lights are on. Could be wrong though.
OP
OP
Lol cut me some slack I just moved! This is also the one unfinished/mechanical room in the house. The wife gave me the green light to put it in the finished part of the basement, but Iād rather have more room and the sump out from under the stand.
But I guess looking back at my old tank, that didnāt have much as well, so I guess I do like the more minimalist look
Will definitely be adding some sort of rug/carpet/flooring at some point though
Dude thatās insane! So are you keeping your tank closer to .1 or something?
Iām struggling to keep mine up right now and exploring heavy feeding but I think dosing is my next step as Iām dosing nitrate to keep that above zero as well.
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reef junkie
Senior Member
I think I would have filled that bucket with tears if I had lost all those beautiful corals. The new set up looks amazing. Loved seeing all those beautiful corals you were posting before moving. Looking forward to that again!!
OP
OP
Yeah I try for .1 if possible and NO3 around 20 (currently at 27)
Id agree with the nutrients also. Throw in a Hanna accuracy of 5% or .02 on phos....you just have the chance of bottoming out too quickly. Ive been running mine at 10 and .1 and looking last night I felt the PE on my OP and Heartbreaker colonies have never been greater, looking more like millis. I got tired of the 00 test then hurry and dose.
Do you run a sterilizer on your tank?
OP
OP
It's the white thing to the right of the sump
Ah yes. Did you have room for it when the sump was under the tankIt's the white thing to the right of the sump
OP
OP
Yes, just had to get a bit creative when it was under the tank of my last build. Had it coming off the return manifold and it was drilled into the ceiling of the stand
Those bags of media? Anything special or just mostly rubble. Do you like those more than the media blocks. I suppose you can remove and rinse those as needed
OP
OP
Pond Matrix
I honestly forget. LED's ramp up/down over a 12 hour period. I think one set of t5's (4 bulbs) run 6 hours and the second set (4 bulbs) come on 2 hours after the first for 6 hours. Makes more sense if you see a picture. I'll try to get one soon of the schedule
Keenan got any tips on how you established your Neophos dosing in the midst of chasing kids around? I really need to get my chit together and get mine up but I just donāt have time to test every day. I feed so much and today PE was looking especially good so I tested and got 3ppb (.01ppm) gahhh
OP
OP
Funny you mention this. For the past 2-3 years I've just been hand-dosing adhoc. I was always nervous about putting it on a doser as I'm not the most consistent with my testing. However, I'm at the point where manually dosing has become both a hassle and inconsistent in itself.
TLDR I just hooked up a 2L of neophos to an open dosing head and currently have it dosing 40ml a day, spread out as 8 doses of 5ml. I'll let you know how it goes!
I really wish I knew what exactly was decimating my po4 for all of these years. I thought it was the bacteria from vibrant that probably never left my system (hate that stuff) or maybe it was all the coral I had. But now with this tank there isn't a ton of coral so I'm not quite sure.
its always the coral... thats why i always aim to keep a large crappy coral in the corner of the tank, away from view. it just stabilizes the tank... some how....
had a Green sylo doing that job for a long time, and then moved to a green plating monti
OP
OP
So I lied and havenāt taken the DSLR out to take pics just yet. I will soon as there are some pieces I want to document before fragging. Hopefully this week sometime.
Some tank updates:
incorporated yet another @RSnodgrass product into the tank. Loving the slide-loc quick release lever screws.
I also added an Avast kalk stirrer. Iāve always been a huge proponent of kalk, however in the previous build I used it in my ato, and that was a little sketchy (worked great though). I also wanted to try something new so here we are. So far I absolutely love it and wonder why I didnāt try one sooner. I have it hooked up to a GHL doser which doses 2880ml over 96 doses (every 15min). Below is a graph showing the improvements to ph since adding it.
Iām pulling water directly from my RO reservoir, and couldnāt think of a better way to keep the dosing tube straight, so I glued it to a 1ā union
Question: for those of you with sps, what do you do when a piece starts encrusting out of control? Do you put kalk paste on the encrustment? Chisel? I have a few pieces like the one below where it is literally taking up 1/4 of the rockā¦ Iāve done kalk paste before and it did a good job but the dead encrusted skeleton was a bit unsightly for a while. Might try a chisel this time around.
Some tank updates:
incorporated yet another @RSnodgrass product into the tank. Loving the slide-loc quick release lever screws.
I also added an Avast kalk stirrer. Iāve always been a huge proponent of kalk, however in the previous build I used it in my ato, and that was a little sketchy (worked great though). I also wanted to try something new so here we are. So far I absolutely love it and wonder why I didnāt try one sooner. I have it hooked up to a GHL doser which doses 2880ml over 96 doses (every 15min). Below is a graph showing the improvements to ph since adding it.
Iām pulling water directly from my RO reservoir, and couldnāt think of a better way to keep the dosing tube straight, so I glued it to a 1ā union
Question: for those of you with sps, what do you do when a piece starts encrusting out of control? Do you put kalk paste on the encrustment? Chisel? I have a few pieces like the one below where it is literally taking up 1/4 of the rockā¦ Iāve done kalk paste before and it did a good job but the dead encrusted skeleton was a bit unsightly for a while. Might try a chisel this time around.
Interested to know options on the encrusting. I've tried laser but was ineffective as the coral tissue sub surface regenerated within days.
@Fishfoo has to be your heartbreaker I had your frag on my 8-9 hole rack, its cover the entire rack, and surrounded my OP. Has hit the glass and growing more and more. My concern is, mine has grown over/around a tank corner/seam....and I don't want to compromise a tank seam by removing it :/
When I plumbed my ATO/AWC I used rigid down tubing to within 1" of my tank bottoms.....I think I found via Amazon?
I had your frag on my 8-9 hole rack, its cover the entire rack, and surrounded my OP. Has hit the glass and growing more and more. My concern is, mine has grown over/around a tank corner/seam....and I don't want to compromise a tank seam by removing it :/When I plumbed my ATO/AWC I used rigid down tubing to within 1" of my tank bottoms.....I think I found via Amazon?