0.2KGal Reefer

[DrunkG0D]

Some addition updates. Got some goniopora, alveapora, elegance, hammer, torch, mushroom farm and cyphastrea going. 

[DrunkG0D]

Short update. Spent the last 2 weeks raising the parameters since the salt mixed up low. Finally got to around where I want it to be latest readings:

 

Alk 8.8

Ca 466

Mag 1440

Nitrate 12

Phosphate 0.04 

Changed out my gfo cos gfo still a tad too high for my liking. No visible algae in the display and a tiny bit in the refuge. But the chaeto has exploded in growth so thats a good sign. Have been feeding twice a day 1 cube of mysis each time. Fish are happy corals seem happy. Sortof happy with the mushroom garden now and have gotten a funghi garden going. Triton dosing for part 1, 3a and 3b are at 15mls a day with part 2 at 7mls a day. Tested adding a few short frags of easy sps and some encrusting. They seem happy. Am still slowly ramping up the light duration and intensity. Should hit the peak in another 8 weeks or so by gradually increasing the time the t5's stay on. At the moment the leds are on to 80% intensity for about 4 hours with the t5's for an hour at peak. The rest of the time the leds are only operating at 15% with a 2 hour ramp up and ramp down before and after peak. 

[DrunkG0D]

Welcoming kai kai and jia jia to their new home. 

[DrunkG0D]

Photo update, picture taken on 22nd Nov.

Then... went away for a 5 day holiday and came back to this:

Brown brown everywhere.... after a bunch of cleaning it looks better now.

Added in 3 tux urchins to help with the munching of the more stubborn algae and have cut back the DT lighting schedule to 9 hours with the T5's only coming on at mid day for an hour.

Slowly ramping things back up to normal.

Latest readings:

Mag 1660

Phosphate 0.01

Nitrate 2

Alk 9.1

Cal 449

 

Need to start feeding more... been struggling with very low phos and nitrate.

[alexcyf]

Means it’s time to stock up!


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[DrunkG0D]

Going through some disease issue now with the fish. Been dosing reef medic. Now on day 12 of the dosage. Doesn't seem to be clearing up. It doesn't look like ich and I'm inclined to think it's velvet but yet it isn't spreading so quickly and I haven't lost any fish except for a yellow tang. It started with the purple tang and he is still showing spots and is patchy but all of the fish are still eating very very well. I'm just going to continue dosing reef medic for another 8 days to complete the 20 day dosing regiment and will see how it goes from there.

Some new additions to the tank.

 

[DrunkG0D]

WOW! It's been a year since the last update. Alot has happened in a year but the most prominent being life got in the way of the reef and it fell into neglect for more than 6 months. The reef also suffered from vermatids and bryopsis that required action. In september I decided to get my act in order and sort out this reef. So I decided on a 2 week daily 10% water change followed by a 7 day break then another 2 week daily 10% water change to get all the parameters back in order. 

Somewhere around mid October I finally completed the water changes and started dosing again. After a week or two I finally found the sweet spot and everything has been rock solid stable ever since.

I had lost some coral during the course of the neglect but the reef constantly surprises me. Corals that were on the brink just stabilized and started booming. Corals that I thought were dead revived and have now started booming. I replaced my gonio garden with a hammer garden. Added a torch garden. Added 4 new sps colonies and other bits and bops. Looking forward to 2020, adding more corals and watching them grow. 

 

[Hotwater]

impressive built! keep the updates going please

[teck4300]

Nice torch and hammer garden

[DrunkG0D]

Thanks guys. Will try to keep the updates going regularly.

Have took on a 2nd hand Alkatronic to test but not happy with the consistency of the device. Not so easy to use. Will probably not use it for dosing at all. Have been very happy with the accuracy and my own determination of dosage requirements using the Apex Dos. Have been running Triton since day 1. So far so good. Refuge needs to be cleared every month else the chaeto starts to turn white.

One of the issues faced is the grow lights has been causing alot of algae growth on my reactors and skimmer in the next chamber. So a month ago I just added in a board to stop that nonsense growing on the equipment. Need to clear the refuge again soon.

[DrunkG0D]

Spent last week or so collecting a few more pieces from fellow reefers. Think I'm pretty much done with the bottom of the tank. Need to reposition some of the corals but generally it is starting to look full. Now to hunt down all the sps.

Had some minor issues the past week dkh swinging then refusing to come up no matter how much I increased the dosage. So after I lost 1 frag, which broke my heart, I decided to do a quick 10% wc on Thursday night. Things looked alot better on Friday so I skipped the second 10% wc I was planning and decided to set the wc to 5L daily over the course of 24 hours. Will see how this works out for the tank. If the corals respond positively I will probably continue to do this perpetually. Seeing as I only need to top up my wc station every 12 to 15 days with a daily 5L wc.

With the lift in indo coral export ban fingers crossed the prices will come down somewhat and will get some nice pieces this year.

[Darren Sim]

Found it! Very detailed tank trend! 

[DrunkG0D]

Recently see some tip burns. Tried a few things but maybe just tried too many things... For some reason, as of right now I am still uncertain of the actual cause, tips of the sps started to bleach and algae started growing on it. The usual suspects:

1) Parameters off?

2) Too close to light?

3) Flow too high?

4) Insufficient nutrients (Nitrate and Phosphate)?

This is the piece in question. Apologies for the poor photo, the damn Anthias just wouldn't stay away.

But this was just the beginning. So to answer my own questions. I did a battery of tests over the next few days and the results were as follows on 12th Jan @ 23:22hrs

Alk - 6.5

Calc - 410

Mag - 1280

Phos - 0.04 (Started feeding alot more about 2 days before, it normally is at 0 to 0.01)

Nitrate - 5 (Started dosing SEACHEM Flourish Nitrate night before as it was at 0)

Salinity - 1.026

I figured if I have another colony that was higher than this one, directly in the path of my flow then it should not be the lights or the flow. So my best guess is that it is due to the previously consistently extremely low to undetectable nitrate and phosphate. So on the 12th of Jan at the time I figured maybe I should try acropower. Apparently it works for people who keep ULNS systems, though I wouldn't classify my system as ULNS. I feed twice a day via auto feeder, 1 cube of frozen mysis in the evening, Easybooster in the morning and evening, 1/4 tsp of reef roids broadcast over the tank in the evening.

On a side note, I typically keep my Alk at 7 but I have learnt something valuable. If you note my Alk on the 12th is at 6.5, the reason for the drop is due to changing out my GFO. I did not know that GFO strips alk from the system as well. Typically I'd only fill half my reactor with GFO but that day for some reason I decided to fill the reactor full. So immediately the alk dropped to 6.2 and I had to dose additional alk and brought it back up to 6.5, since then I have slowly increased my alk to where it is today at 7.2. So the tip issues I'm seeing could also be because of that alk swing that day. But the other sps didn't show such issues.

Back to Acropower, on 16th Jan I got my hands on acropower, based on the instructions and the size of my tank it seems like I should be adding about 40ml of acropower weekly or even daily. So I went with the weekly option and spread it over a course of week, 5ml's a day adding up to 35ml over 7 days. Fairly safe I thought. First day 16th Jan added 5ml acropower, 2nd day 17th Jan added 5ml acropower. A few hours later I realized something seemed to be wrong with the tank. One of my monti had started fading to grey and only a handful of polyps could be seen. I have the same monti at 2 different places in my tank and both reacted the same way. Could it be the acropower? Not sure... Decided to try dose an additional 5ml the following day 18th Jan and monitor further. On the 19th the monti seriously looked like crap. Completely grey and almost no polyps could be seen. Panic mode started to set in. Plan of attack. Stop dosing. WC first.

Spent the next 36 hours doing WC, in total changed up about 20 to 25% water. Thankfully by the night of the 20th Jan after the water change was completed the monti looked alot happier. By the morning of the 21st all the polyps came back, the body still greyish but the colors are starting to darken and come back slowly.

Sent out an ICP test after the WC, realized I made a mistake because I should have sent it out BEFORE the WC. Oh well... Panic brain problems...

Last night I decided to just dose 1ml of acropower only. Observe the corals and see how they react. If no negatives I will probably proceed to dose 1ml per day and monitor accordingly. I have observed some good whenever I dose the acropower, the PE on the sps seriously extends. Hoping that it will work out well as I have seen many videos of amazing growth of sps when using acropower.

Wishing all of you a Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year!

[Ashtrax]

Can

On 1/11/2020 at 2:24 PM, DrunkG0D said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

May i know where you get the green tip hammer with yellow base?

[DrunkG0D]

16 hours ago, Ashtrax said:

Can

May i know where you get the green tip hammer with yellow base?

I believe I got it from Seasonal

[snickerdoodle]

I ordered a ton of stuff and got my forwarder to send it back from the US for me. Overall everything came in about 20% cheaper.

how sia? hahaha 20% cheaper good deal!

--
Regards,
Snickerdoodle

[snickerdoodle]

I ordered a ton of stuff and got my forwarder to send it back from the US for me. Overall everything came in about 20% cheaper.

is it possible to dm me as well? thank you so much!

--
Regards,
Snickerdoodle

[DrunkG0D]

1 hour ago, snickerdoodle said:

is it possible to dm me as well? thank you so much!

--
Regards,
Snickerdoodle
 

It's been awhile since then. Now mostly buy locally.

[DrunkG0D]

Took some shots today. Quite happy with how things are turning out since last week. Been dosing 1ml of AcroPower daily and just did a small WC. So far the acropower does seem like it is providing some benefit to the corals but more time will be required to understand the true effect. Will probably increase dose to 1.5ml daily tomorrow and add an extra 0.5ml every week up to my 5ml daily target.