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jlanger's Reef Build: Episode II - The 120gal Strikes Back (1 Viewer)

Thank you for the the information threw experience. Goniopora are quickly becoming a new favorite of mine. And its always interesting to learn and find out what works. It would definitely be something to see how they've grown in the future.
 
Here's s couple of top down looks at the latest seven of the eight additions to the 120gal system; still on that sexy frag rack.

UC Elektra, UC Impure Spectrum and BigR Valentine's Day.
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Two frags of UC Siren, UC Royal Flush and UC Sweet Lips.
I was complete aware of buying two of the same frag; hedging my bets with that one.
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I moved seven other goni frags today to make room for these once I decide on which one goes where.
One of the newer frags that I picked up earlier this month is becoming on of my favorites. The pink tentacles on this coral are the brightest day-glow pink!
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H2OHOH said:
@jlanger what are you running Alk at?

How about nitrates and phosphate?
Click to expand...
Alkalinity is running at 7.6-7.8 dKH.
Nitrates have been 6ppm.
Phosphates have been 0.04ppm.

I just did my first water change yesterday after going two months without one. I've been trying to keep my nutrient levels up so I had forgone the water changes for a bit. I have been dosing nitrates periodically to get them up to 6-10ppm as the ATS unit has been very efficient at removing them.

Here's yesterday's algae harvest.
Fourteen day cycle; 451g (hand-squeezed dry weight)

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jlanger said:
Alkalinity is running at 7.6-7.8 dKH.
Nitrates have been 6ppm.
Phosphates have been 0.04ppm.

I just did my first water change yesterday after going two months without one. I've been trying to keep my nutrient levels up so I had forgone the water changes for a bit. I have been dosing nitrates periodically to get them up to 6-10ppm as the ATS unit has been very efficient at removing them.

Here's yesterday's algae harvest.
Fourteen day cycle; 451g (hand-squeezed dry weight)

View attachment 49450
Click to expand...

That's an impressive amount for 14 days of growth!

What do you do with the algae once you've pulled it?
 
DarkSky said:
That's an impressive amount for 14 days of growth!

What do you do with the algae once you've pulled it?
Click to expand...
The algae harvests have been "impressive" for the last half a year.
I don't remember who said it (but Sanjay or Mike Paletta come to mind) but good coral health comes from feeding heavy and filtering heavy. The trend has been to harvest about 350g of algae every two weeks. I've had two bumper crops and I can attribute those to when I do more broadcast feedings at night; and target feeding the Tubastraea.

I had been saving the algae in cups with the dates and weights written on them in case the study wanted more information for the research, but I just tossed them all out this weekend. There was also discussions with Bill about getting the algae over to Augsburg as a food source for the urchins, but it's not really feasible during this time.
When the algae is squeezed dry, it remains damp and doesn't have a nasty smell like it's rotting. So I wonder if it remains viable for a time after harvesting. I have thoughts about seeing if the algae can be saved and then used to seed new screens at a later date. I just don't know if the algae would respond with growth or decay when reintroduced to a wet environment. I do know that when we share algae with other people to seed a scrubber screen that we don't need to bag it in water. Algae submerged in stagnant water is when it decays and creates that nasty smell. 🤢

Good question. :)
 
Whether it's due to this week's feeding, yesterday's water change or a exhibiting a little-man complex, my Pixy Stix Goniopora (Bernardpora) sure wants to be noticed tonight.
This coral is considered to be a short polyped variety, but this one has really been looking nice the last few weeks. The frag disc is 2" in diameter and the typical polyps are almost an inch long; the elongated polyps are over two inches and those long blurry polyps behind the crown of the coral are also from this colony.

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jlanger said:
The algae harvests have been "impressive" for the last half a year.
I don't remember who said it (but Sanjay or Mike Paletta come to mind) but good coral health comes from feeding heavy and filtering heavy. The trend has been to harvest about 350g of algae every two weeks. I've had two bumper crops and I can attribute those to when I do more broadcast feedings at night; and target feeding the Tubastraea.

I had been saving the algae in cups with the dates and weights written on them in case the study wanted more information for the research, but I just tossed them all out this weekend. There was also discussions with Bill about getting the algae over to Augsburg as a food source for the urchins, but it's not really feasible during this time.
When the algae is squeezed dry, it remains damp and doesn't have a nasty smell like it's rotting. So I wonder if it remains viable for a time after harvesting. I have thoughts about seeing if the algae can be saved and then used to seed new screens at a later date. I just don't know if the algae would respond with growth or decay when reintroduced to a wet environment. I do know that when we share algae with other people to seed a scrubber screen that we don't need to bag it in water. Algae submerged in stagnant water is when it decays and creates that nasty smell. 🤢

Good question. :)
Click to expand...

Jason , that’s pretty amazing ! So can you provide some info on how much exactly is heavy feeding that you are doing to cause the ATS to perform well ?

Are you also dosing trace elements like iron , manganese to help with algae growth ?

Lastly , say a tank has every hour feeding of frozen food and coral foods and live phyto atleast 5-6 times a day , would you recommend the APIS 300 just to keep nitrates below 40 and phosphates below 1 ppm ? Do you an estimate of how high nutrients can be for algae to be inhibited from growth ?
Am not going into tank size as it’s much smaller than APIS300 rating.
 
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Heavier feedings have consisted of an increase in frozen foods being offered daily. I don't know the exact amount, but it's like 1-1/2 Oreo's worth of frozen food per day. I have also added a pinch of PE Mysis flake food to the thawed foods. That amount of food is shared with the 32gal, but the Oreo's share going into the 120gal. Nighttime feedings have been about 5-10ml of Reef Nutrition liquid feeds 2-3 times per week. The targeted feedings for the Goniopora are now once a week with the recipe previously posted.

I dose ESV's Transition Elements (iron, manganese, potassium, etc.) to cover trace element supplementation almost daily. I also try to dose AcroPower daily. Once a week, I'll dose a small amount of ESV's Iodine to help keep the potassium level up with the montipora growth. And based on test results, I will dose ESV Nitrate to keep my nitrates above 6ppm.

Managing higher levels of nutrients has been a conversation point with ATS performance. Those that are running a scrubber on a system with very nigh nitrates aren't seeing much of an affect from the scrubber. There may be a threshold where an ATS cannot perform to its best ability until nutrient levels are within a certain range. It's all conjecture at this point as no real studies have been done. I have not had any problems with having too high of nutrients and I cannot compare my experience with those that are having that issue as we are running different scrubbers. I do know that I was able to pull nutrient levels down when my nitrates were around 32ppm; I've tried to not ever get above that level.

I would be very interested to know how the APIS series of scrubbers are performing in various systems. I haven't heard much from personal feedback except for a few posts showing algae growth on social media. They do say that you won't often get positive feedback, it's the negative feedback that people like to post; and I haven't heard much of that either.
 
jlanger said:
Heavier feedings have consisted of an increase in frozen foods being offered daily. I don't know the exact amount, but it's like 1-1/2 Oreo's worth of frozen food per day. I have also added a pinch of PE Mysis flake food to the thawed foods. That amount of food is shared with the 32gal, but the Oreo's share going into the 120gal. Nighttime feedings have been about 5-10ml of Reef Nutrition liquid feeds 2-3 times per week. The targeted feedings for the Goniopora are now once a week with the recipe previously posted.

I dose ESV's Transition Elements (iron, manganese, potassium, etc.) to cover trace element supplementation almost daily. I also try to dose AcroPower daily. Once a week, I'll dose a small amount of ESV's Iodine to help keep the potassium level up with the montipora growth. And based on test results, I will dose ESV Nitrate to keep my nitrates above 6ppm.

Managing higher levels of nutrients has been a conversation point with ATS performance. Those that are running a scrubber on a system with very nigh nitrates aren't seeing much of an affect from the scrubber. There may be a threshold where an ATS cannot perform to its best ability until nutrient levels are within a certain range. It's all conjecture at this point as no real studies have been done. I have not had any problems with having too high of nutrients and I cannot compare my experience with those that are having that issue as we are running different scrubbers. I do know that I was able to pull nutrient levels down when my nitrates were around 32ppm; I've tried to not ever get above that level.

I would be very interested to know how the APIS series of scrubbers are performing in various systems. I haven't heard much from personal feedback except for a few posts showing algae growth on social media. They do say that you won't often get positive feedback, it's the negative feedback that people like to post; and I haven't heard much of that either.
Click to expand...
Thanks Jason for the post ! Am very tempted to attempt it but since I have no experience with scrubbers , haven’t pulled the trigger yet .
I have noticed when nitrates go beyond 70-80 and phosphates above 1 ppm , even algae or atleast hair algae tends to slow down a lot more . That makes me wonder if scrubbers can work better with nitrates below 50-60 ballpark and phosphates less than 0.9-1 ppm
 
Here's the official 2021 Full System Shot of the 120gal system.

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As of today, January 2nd, 2021:
- I have fifty different pieces of Goniopora, Bernardpora and Alveopora. And there are still a few varieties that I want to add to the collection.
- I have been fragging the plating Montiora corals as they're growing rapidly. I haven't seen any signs of Monti-eating nudis for quite a while, but I still don't trust that the system is free of them.
- The Lobophyllia corals are so-so; two are struggling but the rest are growing. I may remove them all someday if I decide I need the room for more gonis or tubastrea.
- All five fish are healthy and fine. The tuskfish is still shy and territorial, but my favorite.
- Maintenance this year has been very easy after the issues of that first year. Wild collected live rock in the sump, algae turf scrubber, protein skimmer and calcium reactor have kept all water parameters in check for the year.

Plans for the new year include:
- Mounting those goniopora frags! (I dislike frag racks own my display; even if they're sexy ones.)
- Acquiring that pair of G. semifaciatus angelfish that I've been waiting for.
- Adding more Tubastarea colonies to fill in under some corals and ledges.
- Combatting bubble algae in the display; likely adding a foxface to start.
- Hopefully begin fragging some of those larger goniopora colonies to make room for the others.

Here's a nice photo of the resident gardener in her garden.

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When I turn off the four MP40 powerheads, the goniopora corals fluff up and fill the entire main shelf of the garden.
The clownfish is doing a great job tending the garden; should give her a raise.

Watch in HD for better video.
 
Looks really nice Jason.

When you do frag the goniporas, I'd be interested if your thinking of selling some.

John
 
As my corals are growing larger, they're starting to encroach on one another's personal space. As the goniopora garden looks very nice being all filled in, it turns out that the Bernardpora do not tolerate the full-sized Goniopora corals. The goniopora corals are slowly being killed off where the bernardpora can extend and make contact.
So a week or so ago, I added a fourth rock to the tank that will become a bernardpora garden. Now that it's been in the tank for a while and I've made sure it fits well with the rest of the reef, I started to remove the Bernardpora corals from the main reef and will attach them onto the new rock soon. I'm hoping to have everything finished up before the virtual meeting.

Here's a video from this morning that shows just how extended some of these "micro-gonis" can get; even when just plopped onto the substrate.

 
Doing a thing... did a thing.

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This was just a test run to see what I need to prepare and/or change for the next time when I'll likely be fragging a number of pieces.

I had made a small tray for acclimating/fragging/holding frags a while back. It's very convenient to keep frags and inverts in there before they are placed into the display systems. There's a nano heater in the top right corner to keep the water temperature at 77°. The two cups at the top are for a coral dip and a rinse. And I'm using the Slide-Loc frag rack to hold the frag plugs. I can raise it up put of the water during the glueing process and then lower it back down to allow the glue to set before returning the frags back into the main system.

The new frags are back into the main display and I'll monitor them to see how well they respond to the fragging.
Overall, it was a slick process and I'm much more confident about when it's time to start cutting up some of the nicer corals.

Before the next session, I am definitely going to find/make a pan for the saw to sit into to keep water contained. I watched a video prior to this session and they recommended the towel; I'd recommend a pan or tray.
 
Since I was hosting a virtual meeting, I needed to mount a good thirty or so corals in their respective gardens.
I'll fill in the details later when everything has settled in and opens up, but here's three quick iPhone photos through those orange-filtered sunglasses.

The Montipora dominated side of the reef.

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The new Bernardpora Garden; details to follow.

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And the rescaped Goniopora Garden.

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