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Grigor's ATS Version 2 (1 Viewer)

marty9876 said:
Feed more! Phosphate uptake limited by nitrate availability? I haven't followed the theory on that much.

My guess is between gravity (junk settling to the lowest point) and lack of any predators your frag bin would be getting a little funky.
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Once GFO pulls it down, I can take offline and play around with feeding more and or different combinations. Keep and eye on it and see if it stabalizes or starts to increase again.

The one note: Since the copperband ( around Feb ) I feed alot more rinsed frozen mysis w/ selcon & zoe that I ever did before. I go through a whole 16oz slab per month ( 1/4 of it per week ). Copperband still won't eat any pellet or other frozen food. I have to feed alot at once so the Copperband can get his share because of the fierce competition. Occasionally it will peck at the nori but that's it. Perhaps that's adding more nutrients than my old daily food additions.
 
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I stand corrected. Nitrate test about the same as it has been. Light pink at high resolution. Hard to tell from the color chart anywhere between .1 - .5 ppm.

One thing I completely forgot about is the bulbs. They are about due. I'll change them out.
 
so do u feed some of the algae u scrape off this to ur fish or does it get thrown away?

could you grow macro algae on these screens?
 
You throw it away as an export.

After you scrap it off it while I guess you could attach some to an nori clip it would probably be a bit messy and most would just fall off the clip.

Macro algae probably wouldn't grow on the screens becuase of the flow it would quickly get overrun & outcompeted.
 
Well, my first real test with the ATS. During last weeks power outage, I was swapping things in/out to keep the overall wattage down for the generator. At some point I turned off the ATS lights. When power back on I made sure everything was plugged in but not realizing only the extention cord to the ATS was plugged in but not the ballast directly. So........... ATS was without lights for about 8 days. Screen looks pretty rough, usually when I pull it out is weighs several pounds now just barely even the weight of the screen itself. I scrapped off real good both sides but it back on. It looks green but not sure how quick it will bounce back.

Hindsight there were some clues that I ignored earlier in the week. Morning pH lower than normal and on Saturday took a phosphate reading and was the highest ever at .21. Since the lights are on mostly at night though I didn't get the visual clue until it hit me Monday morning the fish room looks dark.


So will do carbon twice a week instead of once. 40+ gallon change will step up to 2 per week instead of one.

Hopefully it will bounce back quickly and NOT have to endure the slimey brown stage of screen during the process.


On a positive: Tank still looks great. Would never know it by looking at the show tank itself. Frag/sump no major algae issue to detect as well.
 
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Under normal conditions, do you also use GFO to help control phosphate or does the water changes & scrubber keep your phosphate levels in check?
 
Good question, I used GFO only once about 4 weeks ago ( 4 hours a day ) because phosphate levels had been creeping up from the more normal ( for me ) .06- .08 up to .1-.12. I took it off just before vacation haven't used it since.

I don't plan long term to change my water schedule it's still 1 bag ( rated at 50g but really more like 40g ) per week of Instant Ocean. Tank has been doing great that way and fits with my siphoning substrate routing so don't plan to change.

The goal is not to use GFO on a regular basis and didn't have to for the first 15 or so months. When it levels creep up plan to modify my feeding habits to adjust. Only run GFO on a periodic basis when phosphate levels get out of whack too far. Ideally want to get as close to .02ppm as possible but my tank does fine at .06-.08 so I'm fine with that as well. So if .1 or higher is when I'm most likely use GFO to try to compensate.
 
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Somehow my phosphate levels bounce from ~ .06 range to .42 range when not running GFO. Not a exact correlation between the swings and GFO usage (which I was running mixed in with ROX) but I've had two swings which is almost a pattern. ATS and macro fuge with 40g water changes ever other week or so.

I just put a cup of GFO online in a reactor, see what happens I guess. My intention is not to use GFO but not sure if I can make that work.
 
Latest update: tank has been looking great but phosphate levels still rise.

Been having to use gfo, especially after adding another 3 large tangs. 2 tangs have been rehomed recently so bioload load should be back closer to normal.

Planned action:

I have enough flow and t5s are long enough, to increase the screen size from 18x10 to 22x10.

If that doesn't keep up then may have to resolve that regular gfo use may be necessary or thin out a few more fish.
 
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LowersMyBP said:
Current fish list please! The link in your signature doesn't keep up with the changes!
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32 total

10 Green chroms ( all small to medium)
6 Yellow tangs (1 large, 5 medium )
4 Kupang Damsels
2 Regal tangs ( both large)
2 clowns
2 flames angels
1 scotts wrasse (large)
1 melenarus wrasse (large )
1 african exqusite wrasse
1 yellow coris
1 longnose hawkfish
1 copperband butterfly
 
LowersMyBP said:
Current fish list please! The link in your signature doesn't keep up with the changes!
Click to expand...

32 total

10 green chromis (small-medium)
6 yellow tangs ( 1 large, 5 medium)
4 kupang damsels
2 regal tangs (both large)
2 clowns
2 flame angels
1 copperband (medium)
1 scotts wrasse (large)
1 melanurus wrasse (large)
1 african exqusite wrasse (medium)
1 yellow coris wrasse
1 longnose hawkfish

The ones recently added were a large yellow & large regal.

Rehomed red sea sailfin, purple tang, coral beauty angel.
 
I can't help but wonder which ones live together where. It just sounds awesome.

When I went to Marty's meeting and saw the angels, that was what sealed the deal for me. I thinned the 180 down to SPS only and dove in. Think you might go that route some day given the flexibility you have with three separate tanks? I know you dream of that semilavartus. You have enough leathers to fill up at least one of those tanks....

Sounds great, David. Too bad about the phosphates.
 
The highest reading on phospates without gfo got to .2ppm but I know without gfo it would have gotten higher. Last check it was back down to .06ppm.

Tank was doing well and good growth around that level before so not thinking I have to keep much lower.

I did notice acros stopped growing and is what made me take action. I have read that .2 levels can reduce growth by 43%.

I still do my 1 bag I/o (approx. 40g at 35ppt). I never miss a week on water changes.

New frag tank did add another 60g but frags don't really add much bioload but I'm up too about 700 frags in the system.

Like you say variables/bioload is always changing. Hard to know which things contribute more to the rising levels.
 
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Finshed the mod last night about a 20% screen size increase. Screen is now at max size ( without rebuilding the enclosure ) at about 22.5" Wide X 10 Tall. Rated at 20 cubes. I'm also at the max flow I can provide and still use my herbie overflow as the input. The show tank just can't handle anymore flow. Only tweak left without starting over is the replace the ballast. They are workhorse ballasts that do slightly underdrive the bulbs. So could switch out with a T5 spec ballast or Icecap/Coralvue.

No major algae concerns. Definately no hair algae but the show tank rock is starting to turn more brown in the upper high light zones. Last phosphate test ( w/ gfo running 6 hours per day ) is okay but not great at .085ppm. Definately improved from the .2ppm prior to adding gfo.

Would like to hold off selling more fish but will see once I max out my ATS tweaks. Adding a skimmer is not in any plans. I know ATS can work just got to get is resized for the extra load of fish getting larger and more frags.
 
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What are you using as a measure to see if screen size increase helps? Gfo usage, po4 levels, water change frequency, increase feeding with equal water quality etc.

My ats and macro fuge is no where near able to keep up with po4 levels, I'm curious if a bigger ats would help. Half tempted to give up on the whole natural approach of po4 control.
 
My maintenance has been unchanged, still do my 1 50g bag of IO water change every week. Siphon sandbed etc. No planned feeding changes as I have already in the last 3 months reduced yet phosphates still rise. So down from 5 feedings a day to just 3.

Couple of things to measure. Right now I'm only concerned about the phosphate accumulation so still tracking the phosphate levels. I'm going to continue to run GFO as long as levels are .08 if then do fall then I will pull the GFO and see if system can handle on its own. Observation is certainly 1 but not really measurable. Main measurement is algae production. Every week I harvest about 2 cups of algae. I'm expecting ( once seeded ) to pull out something > 2 cups. Then if/when improve the lights I expect larger harvest then I know the improvements are justified. But yes, it's a trial and error and just trying to maximize current ATS before building a bigger one. Version 1 ( much larger but according to the food intake rules was way oversized but tank did the best with it ) was pulling out an entire quart of algae and my fish load was smaller and less frags so I'm quite positive that the algae production can be much greater than what it's currently producing.
 
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Did you increase your screen size after you helped build my ats? :D

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2
 
Yep, just 2 days ago. It's been slowly not keeping up over the last several months. ATS was able to keep up just fine back at March stocking levels.

Since my flow can handle a larger screen, I'm already using 24" bulbs and the ats enclosure can handle the larger screen I went ahead and did it. Just about $10 in pvc parts is all it has ammounted too.

My fish load is probably higher than you plan to keep plus the frag systems. Your tank is going to have a skimmer plus unlikely to have as large of a bioload so I wouldn't change your ATS until you have a reason too.
 
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David Grigor said:
If that doesn't keep up then may have to resolve that regular gfo use may be necessary or thin out a few more fish.
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I hear CBB's really create a mess I could help ya out there and take that one off your hands :)

/joking

On a serious note maybe check your TDS meter against another source and make sure you're not seeing a spike there. with your maintenance schedule it may be something as silly as high TDS from your RO unit.
 
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