justin88

Picked up a bottle of nitraguard titanium. Its a carbon based nitrate remover that doesn’t take redfield’s ratio into account, ie it can remove nitrates even if there isn’t any phosphate. Nitraguard is biodegradable and will need to be replenished. Unlike biopellets, it doesn’t need a reactor. In fact it’s recommended not to use a reactor as it will self tumble into dust. Instead, you just need to put it into a media bag with an air stone to aerate it as it needs to be strongly oxygenated. Soaking it overnight as instructions to remove the dust. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Hi Clement, thanks for your feedback. I’m topping up with distilled water and using distilled water with aqua forest salt for WC. I’m aware small tanks can just rely on wc for nutrient export but unfortunately I can get quite busy with work and family (and I admit I am lazy to do wc) so I want to give chemical filtration a shot. Aiming for a low maintenance tank. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Update for the day: Nitrate: 20 ppm Phosphate: 0.25 ppm Current nutrient export is chemipure elite for carbon / gfo and a bag of sea chem matrix deep in the sump for nitrate export. The matrix was placed about 2 weeks ago. Not sure if the anaerobic bacteria has started colonizing it yet as nitrates still seem to be 20 ppm. But today, hair algae blooming everywhere. Guess the chemipure elite bag is gone. Wanna replace it with a IM Minimax reactor to run carbon / gfo / biopellets/ denitrate in the long run. Will pick up some nopox tmr as a quick fix to quickly reduce the nitrate and phosphate. On a separate note...the alveopora was getting worse and worse More polyps receding and not coming out. I read that when corals start to brown it could be a sign of lack of light and therefore they produce more zooxenthellae to compensate. Decided to blast a couple of hours of full ai prime intensity with mostly blue light. In the end the most of the alveopora polyps started to extend more normally although it didn’t reach its full height. Realized that because of the AI prime gooseneck, the light is about 25 cm higher than my previous hipargero aquaknight which is also rated at 30w. The additional height plus the light settings which weren’t at full power meant that the alveopora wasn’t getting enough light. So decided to program my own light schedule which is similar to what the hipargero was running with a plug timer last time. Purposely avoiding green and red spectrum for now because of the algae outbreak. No wonder people say the aquaknight can grow sps...it’s 30w but the light mount is very close to the water. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Part of alveopora not opening...suspect is snail fall onto it coz that side is very close to the glass [emoji29] Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

In action....trying out fellow bro LT’s light setting at 40% acclimation Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Finally cleared up the backlog and now actually posting something current and not from the past! Picked up a AI prime non hd from a fellow reefer bro today. Wanted a full spectrum and more ease controlling the light. The aquaknight has been great but changing settings is a pain in the ass. Now need to get a gooseneck. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

The kid watching Nemo and Marlin. She can actually call them Nemo and Marlin. When you have a reef tank and young children, watching Finding Nemo is a given and your tank doesn’t mean anything without clownfish. Wife and parents never cared about polyp extension and growth. Only care about a pair of cheap clownfish. [emoji849] Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Some growth! Also realized this one die die must feed at night when the dinner feelers are out. Very spectacular when it senses food and closes itself quickly Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Astrea snail mission impossible? The poor snail was fidgeting to get the hitchhiker away without success. Tried separating them to no avail. Eventually when the one sucking on to the fan went to the glass the hitchhiker quickly went to the glass and went his own way. One can only imagine what the hell was going on in their heads Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Room A: acanthophylia Room B: Acan Previously relocated it to the back to make space for the alveopora but didn’t realize the back was really bad for it. Almost lost all polyps [emoji24]. Think the flow might have been too strong. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Decided to put the acanthophylia / donut / meat / prata coral in a breeder box coz the shrimp always steals all its reef roids dinner 🤬 Hope to grow it big I guess this is now a 2 br flat? Tank upgrade syndrome is kicking in hard. Now can understand why people have a display tank and a frag tank. The breeder box is totally ruining the vibe! Oh well. Grow before show I guess. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Got an orphek lens kit...no more holding Oakley lens and looking like an idiot. Colors are also nicer...probably coz my Oakley is chiong Oakley hahahahaha Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Some progress pics Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Cleaner shrimp molted successfully! Had a small shock before realizing this was the molted shell...thought I saw a ghost haha Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Took over a clown pair from a bro decomming his tank. Spent almost 2 hours drip acclimating. Phobia of another fish death. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Spent $5 on this app called AquariumCam in the hope of getting nicer pics of my tank. Does live color correction so you can see it in real-time, but the colors are way to exaggerated. Also, it can’t handle the dark blues well. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Some nice polyp extension going on! Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Itchy hand wanted a real wavemaker to create turbulent flow instead of the laminar flow I was getting with my nano voyager, so I bought a jebao slw10. Looks very nice! FTS, also I realized I could use my Oakley lens as a filter While the min flow rate of the slw 10 is not stated (max flow is stated at 4000lph), it seems the lowest setting is around 1000+ lph. Can’t say for sure, but it seems a bit more powerful than my 1000lph sicce nano voyager. Also, the flow pattern seems to be wider. Spent a lot of time positioning the slw10 to get a nice turbulent flow pattern. Very hard coz the tank small zzz Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

So big until this acan colony has been getting stung by the green torch! Time to save the guy, cut the rock it was glued to and put it on a frag. New home away from danger Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

While the fish deaths have been quite demoralizing, the corals seem to be doing quite well and are getting bigger. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Another death in the tank, this time it’s the watchman goby. Not sure if it kanna stung by the torch....RIP Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

One day I realized my chiller temp probe was a bit off coz i dipped my hand into my FW and SW tanks and realized my SW tank was a lot colder even if both chillers were at 26c. After digging out my old thermometers and buying batteries, realized my chilller probe was calibrated a whopping 2.2c hotter. So when it said 26c it was actually 24. Luckily it wasn’t the other way [emoji28] Lesson learned...buying 2nd hand stuff doesn’t mean it has been calibrated before! Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Some shots of the tank...the tube in the background is the chiller return. Wanted to make sure the chiller return is not next to the chiller pump, but eventually after this I realized it’s ok, the temp is at quite stable even if the return is in the sump. Cleaner shrimp Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

After a few days sadly the percula clown passed. All parameters were ok and there was no physical wounds to be seen. My MIL said she saw it swimming happily at 6 pm, but when I checked the tank at 9pm it was motionless at the bottom. Very strange as it did not exhibit any abnormal behavior before that. Some people who I asked said it could be because of the moving stress. RIP Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

So quite a lot has happened since my last update... While buying an eshopps skimmer the seller asked if I wanted to take over his nuvo 10 and livestock since he was upgrading. It was at a good price and I said yes. My first time transferring a running tank, but luckily I prepared well and everything was quite smooth. Livestock: Percula clown Watchman goby Coral: Green torch Purple torch Purple torch frag Pink frogspawn Acan Acanthophylia / meat / prata coral Pearl bubble Alveopora Equipment Nuvo 10g tank Eshopps nano skimmer Aquaknight light Sicce syncra 0.5 return pump Sicce syncra nano chiller pump Chemipure elite Marinepure blocks Adding the water back into the tank at my place: After everything was set up...quite a lot of hair algae coz the seller was on holiday right before I took over My little set up Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app