brent

Hey bros! It's been a long time since I've posted an update. I'm sure people are wondering if I've thrown in the towel. Well, I'm still here. I haven't had much to say since I haven't made an addition in months. Lately, I've just been trying to keep parameters as stable as possible and keep my hands out of the tank. In order to lower my electricity bill, I installed two fans in the cabinet blowing over the sump. The tank now requires a lot of fresh water top up (2 gallons per day) but I'm spending less on power, which is great. I'm really loving my calcium reactor. It has really simplified my maintenance routine and I've stopped testing kH daily. I went on holiday for 3 weeks and miraculously everything did fine. The fish were a bit skinny since the autofeeder jammed up with salt creep but everything else was good. Many of the corals are doing so well that there's a lot of competition for space and light nowadays. I'm going to sell off some of the larger and fastest growing colonies. Unfortunately, it always seems that the corals which are worth the most are also the slowest growing... In any case, here some photos from today. Enjoy

Thanks all

Thanks bro!

Hey bros. Any idea if Iwarna is open today or tomorrow? Thanks!

I took some shots under the moon lights:

Bartlett's Anthias

I haven't made an update for a long while. I ran into some issues with alkalinity stability, which triggered STN on some of my corals. IT was a long battle, but I managed to save a vast majority. I've since added a CA reactor to my setup and my alkalinity has stabilized. Other than that, I've just tried to keep my hands out of the tank and let nature take its course. As you can see, I added a couple of anthias that are now eating pellets. Since I've had to feed my tank a lot more to keep the anthers healthy, the other fish have also gotten quite fat. FTS Some close ups

Anyone know the damage for the blue tailed tamarin wrasse from LCK? TIA

Thanks bro

Hey bros. Any blue linckia starfish spotted? Thanks

I believe that Madpetz has the dried stuff http://www.madpetz.com.sg//index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=&products_id=628

For everyone else's reference, none of the aquarium shops were able to help me. I guess they don't keep spare parts. By pure luck I managed to find a shop that specializes in welding and gas equipment that was extremely helpful. For future reference, the name of the place is Yew Cheong at 51 Kallang Place and they carry every type of Co2 fitting including replacement stems and nuts.

Hey bros, Does anyone know where I can go to get the stem and nut replaced on a Co2 regulator? I have a US regulator and I want to swap out the nut so it fits a local canister. Thanks in advance

CF has a bunch

Hey bros. I'm on the lookout for some nice anthias. Has anyone spotted some blue eyed (lyretail), barlett's, sunburst or resplendent anthias? Thanks in advance

Thanks bro!

Any more chevrons bro?

My SRO 1000 LSS is a great skimmer but it's only rated for 160 gallons with a light load. I have 160 gallons with a heavy load and so it's underrated for my tank. It was awesome on my previous shallow tank but I've more than doubled my water volume since then. I tried compensating for the additional load by getting the automatic neck cleaner, which helped out. However, I didn't have enough clearance in my cabinet to put my skimmer at the ideal water height and use the neck cleaner. So, I decided to upgrade to something that can handle my bioload. I'll be selling off my skimmer and auto neck cleaner soon

I've decided to upgrade my skimmer and get a new sump. Here is the sump design. This time I decided to keep it relatively simple. I'll be using CRA again since they've always taken good care of me.

Hey bro. I use DD salt and yes I need to dose a lot of Mag. These days I'm dosing over 500ml of 2 part daily using a dosing pump and I'm still having problems keeping up with consumption. It looks like I'll need to get a calcium reactor in the near future.

Thanks bros I also find it absolutely amazing. If I hadn't taken photos, I wouldn't have even realized the transformation. One of these days I would like to see your legendary tank! Thanks bro. Did you recognize the radioactive BN frag I got from you?

Nice bro! Looks like I should have made the trip out to LCK.

I’ve decided to post a number of photos detailing some successes over the last year along with some failures. It’s easy to always rejoice at the successes but sometimes we learn the most from the failures. I picked the photos to tell a story and so many of them aren’t very good photos. If you have any suggestions to resurrect the failures, I would appreciate the advice. Failures Pink Digi – This one has had problems since the beginning. It’s very sensitive and I’ve had to prune dead parts from bleaching a couple of times. The strange thing is that all other digis in my tank grow amazingly well. Jan13 Sep13 Pink Green Unknown Coral – It doesn’t ever look unhealthy but it also doesn’t really grow. Jan13 Sep13 Tan Acro – This one hasn’t done anything the entire year. Jan13 Sep13 Successes Pink Stylo Aug12 – Here it is the day I first got it. It was one of my original frags in the RSM. Jan13 - Here it is starting to take off in my old shallow tank Sep13 - Bam. It has really done well in my current tank. Purple Valida Oct12 – I got this almost 1 year ago. Here it is in the RSM. Feb13 – It didn’t start to do well until I moved it to the top and placed it horizontally. Sep13 Radioactive BN Jan13 - First day Feb13 Sep13 Stylo Jan13 – This isn’t the first photo but I had problems with it before this since a worm attacked it, which forced me to cut off at least 30% of the frag. Sep13 Yellow BN Sep12 – Quite small. Photo is nice though. I believe that this was shortly after I purchased it from a fellow reefer. Dec12 Apr13 – pretty pretty obvious my PO4 levels were high Sep13 Blue Green Acro Jan13 Sep13 Blue Digi Jan13 Sep13 Random Acro (I'm terrible with names) – Good grower but PE doesn’t seem as nice recently Jan13 Jun13 Sep13 I hope you've enjoyed seeing the progress over the last year.

It's so nice not having to worry about sandstorms! Thanks bro.

I've been battling with excessive ALK and CA consumption. In order to help combat it, I decided to give up the Bare Bottom and adopt a Shallow Sand Bed. I'm hoping that this will help on a couple of fronts. Since the sand I bought is made from aragonite, it should be able to help buffer the pH and replace some of the CA & ALK. Also, I believe one reason for the excessive ALK & CA consumption was that both the back and bottom of the tank are completely covered in coralline algae. While I like coralline, it seemed to be growing so quickly that it was using up a lot of CA & ALK. Hopefully, by covering the bottom with sand and stopping the growth, it will leave more minerals for the corals. If this doesn't work, then I'll definitely need to invest in a Calcium reactor. Regarding the sand, I learned my lesson from last time and didn't buy sugar fine sand. This time I bought Caribsea Special Grade Reef Sand and I have to say that I really like it. Since it's larger and heavier, even with a lot of flow in my tank the sand remains relatively stationary. I also like the glitter lines from the LEDs and the brighter look of the tank with sand. I haven't had a chance to take a good FTS but here are couple of other photos. The first one is a new piece that I picked up at Pinnacle. The other one is an older frags that recently started coloring up.