FarmerTy 215-gal No Water Change SPS Tank

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Reefpuck

Haha. It's funny cuz I've looked at your thread a bunch over the years....but had no idea I'd ever get to see it in person.

We live in the same town!

I should make a point to host once a year though. Its fun having everyone over to chat reefs and it gives me an excuse to order tons of food so I can eat all the leftovers.

[Reefpuck]

Originally Posted by FarmerTy

We live in the same town!

I should make a point to host once a year though. Its fun having everyone over to chat reefs and it gives me an excuse to order tons of food so I can eat all the leftovers.

Yes plz! Plus I think my parameters are finally getting where I want them... so need to do some pickings from your frag tank.

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Reefpuck

Yes plz! Plus I think my parameters are finally getting where I want them... so need to do some pickings from your frag tank.

Let me know when you're ready! That second picture is frags all looking for a new home with steady parameters!

[FarmerTy]

Someone brought this up on another forum and I thought the information may be useful so I copied it here too.

While I always think its better to buy aquaculture frags from established tanks as the colors are already mature and you know what you're going to get, getting some mariculture colonies is a nice way to jump start your tank and have it look mature quicker.

For maris, some have more difficult times transitioning, which is why not everybody buys maris. I've had decent success with them with the following method:

1) Remove plug and put on my own... Plugs are just covered in all types of algae you don't want to go nuts in your tank.

2) Dip them all, not so much looking for AEFW but black bugs and sea spiders will make you shut down your tank, there is no cure for either but total shutdown.

3) Keep your tank alk at a lower value, below 7.5 dKh... Natural reefs have pretty low alk, often 6.5 dKh and below so having yours low too helps the transition IMO.

4) Put them directly in high light > 250 par. None of that start them on the same bed business unless they are deepwater acros.

They will take a long time to settle on final colors. I've had some do it in months, I've had some for 2 years still not color up.

For price value, you can't beat maris. Just don't expect all the colors to be there for awhile and expect a higher mortality rate than just collecting aquaculture frags.

I like to have a mix of maris and named pieces in the tank when first starting so it doesn't look so bare but over time, I usually phase out the maris to make room for my named pieces, unless I find a gem of a mariculture... Then I name it.

All I can say is avoid spathulata and abrotanoides. They will reel you in with their amazing colors straight from the facility but are crazy difficult and often don't make the transition. I've personally avoid millis these days too... Talk about ultimate bait and switch. They have ridiculous colors coming in and all end up turning into pretty boring colors under our lights for the most part. Plus, they have the highest mortality rate in my system... I've probably bought over 30+ maris over the years, with probably a 80% survival rate long-term and the 20% of deaths, about 3/4 of that are millis. They just do great for 2-3 months and then spend the next 3 slowly STNing away. Just my personal experience though, maybe they just don't like my tank. FWIW, my aquacultured millis are growing just fine.

[FarmerTy]

Here's exactly what I'm talking about with the old tank. I circled all the maris. Makes it look fuller when you first start your tank so you aren't staring at a bunch of 1" sticks.

I sold most of them off over the years as my named pieces started growing larger. The gems I kept and named.



As opposed to the new tank where I have a bunch more named pieces and much less maris.

[FarmerTy]

So, a lot has been going on.

1) For the last month, I can't figure why my gonis have been slowly declining but everything else is fine.



2) Summer heat in central Texas is rearing its ugly head. We've already got a couple 90 degree days under our belts already. Three things I wanted to accomplish before the heat hits:

A) Add dual zoning to our 2-story home
B) Shut off fish room entirely from household HVAC and run a portable AC unit to vent humid air and keep the room cool
C) Add a ton of insulation in the attic

All of these things came together this week and I couldn't be happier with the results. My fish room is comfortable temperature and humidity-wise without affecting the house anymore. I stopped having to run a dehumifier in the house now and the main portion of the home is very comfortable and doesn't get too hot anymore or humid.

The portable unit I went with was a 12,000 BTU unit from Avallon. It functions as a portable AC unit but also as a dehumidifier as well... I put it on auto mode and it keeps it within usually a few degrees of 77 and below 60% humidity. Not bad for a portable unit in 200 sq ft of what used to be my garage with T5s over the display and also a frag tank. It even comes with a pump (main reason I bought it) and has a unique feature to deal with high humidity environments... It pumps condensated water out of the unit and mists it outside! Awesome!





3) I decided to do large volume water changes to see if I can dilute whatever is ticking off my gonis. I did a total of 230 gallons of water change on 300 gallons total over 2 weeks. All tests that I can run myself came back fine for parameters prior to the water changes. Before I did the water changes, I sent off a sample to Triton to see how everything looked. The results should be back any day now. I'll post when I have them.



4) Moved my RO/DI from the floor (yes, its been there since I moved last year) and finally got a chance to hang it up. Sad part, realized that I had left the flush valve open for only God knows how long. So basically with the way I plumbed my RO/DI, that allowed it to basically bypass the dual membranes entirely! I was feeding my tank 84 TDS water for probably a month at LEAST! Now I know why my gonis are ticked! To top it off, I just did 230 gallons of water change with that 84 TDS water and probably made it much worse! Ahhh! Most SPS are fine except I lost my SC Orange Passion frag and a random tenuis.



5) Now doing another 250-300 gallons of water change with the now fixed 0 TDS water to dilute what I can of the high TDS water that got into my system the last month or so and also from my 230 gallon water change. Oiy!

That's all the updates I got... Oh wait... The fun part, more frags!

Got a sweet pack from Peng. If you guys didn't see my ravings about Boomcorals about their giant frags compared to most vendors, Peng, a hobbyist, sent me even bigger frags, which I didn't think was possible! Just gorgeous stuff, well packed, and giant... Even tossed in some freebies!



Alright, I'm exhausted! Thanks for following along everyone!

[Jndragon79]

Damn that sucks man about the tds. Those things always worry me and sadly I rarely touch my flush valve for fear of getting distracted and doing just that. I'm sure after the big 0 tds water changes, you'll be back in shape. I heard good things about boom from clay-boa, and was going to check him out. I'll have to check his frag sizes some day.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Jndragon79

Damn that sucks man about the tds. Those things always worry me and sadly I rarely touch my flush valve for fear of getting distracted and doing just that. I'm sure after the big 0 tds water changes, you'll be back in shape. I heard good things about boom from clay-boa, and was going to check him out. I'll have to check his frag sizes some day.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

I'm about to remove my flush valve. Heard it really doesn't do as much as people think.

I'll let you know in 2 weeks how the 0 TDS changes work out!

Boomcorals is awesome. Nice aquacultered stuff at good prices and the frags are a great size!

His frags on the left of the pictures, other frags I received that week on the right. No contest!

[FarmerTy]

Quick video of my Aussie gold torch.

[Video]http://youtu.be/7w6SruZxQ44[/video]

[FarmerTy]

I find myself too often staring at my Colorado Sunburst... I'm being pulled more to the dark side. Acros are my first love... Look away from the anemone and stare at an acro colony! Be strong man!

[Piper27]

Pull your auto flush valve kit??? Those things make an ro system run flawlessly. I would not mess with it, just get it working right again. I never have to mess with mine. The same thing happens to me when I move my ro filters though I went for a lonnnnnggggg time with high TDs. Do you run carbon? If not it would probably help. Also what's that element that gonis need? Manganese or something? I know they turn around quick if the element was depleted and is added again

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Piper27

Pull your auto flush valve kit??? Those things make an ro system run flawlessly. I would not mess with it, just get it working right again. I never have to mess with mine. The same thing happens to me when I move my ro filters though I went for a lonnnnnggggg time with high TDs. Do you run carbon? If not it would probably help. Also what's that element that gonis need? Manganese or something? I know they turn around quick if the element was depleted and is added again

Ahhh, thanks for the reminder! I was going to scour old goni articles because I remember reading about a specific element they needed for survival. What's interesting is they thrived in my last tank with no water changes so one could almost assume that the element needed was not as important as thought because surely it would have depleted in 3 years with no water changes. And during that time, they went from 1" frags to giant 3-6" colonies. Either way, its worth a shot to resupply MN and see its effects. Thanks for the point in the right direction!

I do run new activated carbon every month.

Yeah, I plan to pull the autoflush valve kit. I trust AZdesertrat implicitly with RO/DI knowledge and he mentioned its not needed. I still use my DI bypass valve (different from autoflush) to dump the initial high TDS water post filters and membrane and pre-DI to maximize the life of my DI resin. I usually only have to run that for 30 secs before it drops from 110 TDS to 9-12 TDS before I push it through the DI stage for the final cleansing.

I currently run an 8-stage RO/DI filter setup with 1 micron sediment, 1 BRS chlorplus carbon block, 2 catalytic carbon blocks I refill myself, two 75 gpd spectrapure high rejection membranes, and dual DI stage with a mixed bed resin (though I'll experimenting with which resin my system uses up more quickly, cation or anion, and will eventually change to a single bed resin as the first stage and the 2nd as a mixed bed resin).

[FarmerTy]

So, I'm running my own lighting experiment with my anemones. I moved 3 CC infernos, 3 Colorado Sunbursts, and one Reefwise Lemondrop to the main display under T5s and actinic bars. They were all under modified Ocean Revive LEDs before. Here they are in the nem box in my display tank under T5s.


I want to see if the other CSBs will turn into yellow tip gold like the one in my display tank and curious what the infernos and Lemondrop will do under those lights as well.


The one in my display that's showing those gorgeous colors took almost 4 months to hit that peak of hotness while adjusting to the T5 bulbs. I'm curious how long these will take to do that as well.


Fun part of the experiment is I'll sell them all off once I get those amazing colors in them. Sorry, no dibs as I already have some people in mind I'll be selling them too. Just some friends I've made in the hobby and on this forum that I would like to share them with.

[FarmerTy]

They are out of their element since I pulled them straight from LED and took their pictures under T5s above.

Here is what the CSBs under LED looked like before I tossed it into the box under T5s.

[Pife]

I seen you on Facebook running this experiment. I'm interested in the results.

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Pife

I seen you on Facebook running this experiment. I'm interested in the results.

It will be interesting for sure. I'll try to take weekly pictures when possible.

[FarmerTy]

More CSB!
https://youtu.be/OMGJMg4-9KI

[Piper27]

Originally Posted by FarmerTy

Ahhh, thanks for the reminder! I was going to scour old goni articles because I remember reading about a specific element they needed for survival. What's interesting is they thrived in my last tank with no water changes so one could almost assume that the element needed was not as important as thought because surely it would have depleted in 3 years with no water changes. And during that time, they went from 1" frags to giant 3-6" colonies. Either way, its worth a shot to resupply MN and see its effects. Thanks for the point in the right direction!

I do run new activated carbon every month.

Yeah, I plan to pull the autoflush valve kit. I trust AZdesertrat implicitly with RO/DI knowledge and he mentioned its not needed. I still use my DI bypass valve (different from autoflush) to dump the initial high TDS water post filters and membrane and pre-DI to maximize the life of my DI resin. I usually only have to run that for 30 secs before it drops from 110 TDS to 9-12 TDS before I push it through the DI stage for the final cleansing.

I currently run an 8-stage RO/DI filter setup with 1 micron sediment, 1 BRS chlorplus carbon block, 2 catalytic carbon blocks I refill myself, two 75 gpd spectrapure high rejection membranes, and dual DI stage with a mixed bed resin (though I'll experimenting with which resin my system uses up more quickly, cation or anion, and will eventually change to a single bed resin as the first stage and the 2nd as a mixed bed resin).

I see, yea I always forget to flush the ro membrane manually. The autoflush does waste a lot of water though but my neighborhood is a set average price

And the whole goni and no waterchange thing is a cool topic, but just read up on it again I could be wrong on the element people say it needs. I have seen them do well in my tanks back in the day when I ran tap water so, really who knows what's best really? Every tanks different in it's own way. My guess is if your feeding quality frozen or fresh food the gonis will do better than the tanks that feed pellets or have small fish loads, then they may need to use the element to help the coral forward.

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Piper27

I see, yea I always forget to flush the ro membrane manually. The autoflush does waste a lot of water though but my neighborhood is a set average price

And the whole goni and no waterchange thing is a cool topic, but just read up on it again I could be wrong on the element people say it needs. I have seen them do well in my tanks back in the day when I ran tap water so, really who knows what's best really? Every tanks different in it's own way. My guess is if your feeding quality frozen or fresh food the gonis will do better than the tanks that feed pellets or have small fish loads, then they may need to use the element to help the coral forward.

Haha, if only your neighbors knew the percentage of water use you contribute to for the neighborhood. I wish I lived where you are!

Yeah, the demise of the gonis at least for me was oddly coincidental with dumping 84 TDS water in my tank for probably months. Luckily 2 of that gonis seem to be skirti2ng signs of a recovery. I'm hoping the other two follow suit!

I agree with higher fish populations and feeding the tank more overall with keeping healthy gonis.

[FarmerTy]

Some updates. Its been a bit busy to post until now but I took pictures up to this point at least to document now.

1) Anemone lighting experiment still under way. Been almost a week... Not too much change yet under the T5s from LEDS since but I wanted to document adding the separating barriers. All anemones moved to the right of the box like they were running away from the red-phased CSB. I added the dividers to separate out CSBs, Infernos, and Reefwise Lemondrop.



2) Replaced my DIY Magnet cleaner frag rack in the display with a nice clean looking acrylic one. Its longer and doesn't jut out as much so I was able to hide it behind the rockwork.



3) Took a FTS. I know, scary! Nobody does FTSs anymore!


Still need to move a bunch of frags/mini colonies to the display to fill out the aquascape but just need to set aside a good weekend to be inspired to do it.

4) Frag tank looked nice the other day.


5) Colorado Sunburst under actinics


6) Ausie Gold torch under actinics

[Pife]

Sweet Jesus. In interested in your power head placement. How long have you had then up there?

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[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by Pife

Sweet Jesus. In interested in your power head placement. How long have you had then up there?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Since I started up this tank I believe. Only way I can still get a good across the tank flow without blasting my corals on the rocks in front of the powerhead.

As the colonies grow larger though, I may have to look into getting a gyre pump on either side of the tank to get my circular gyre flow I like during some parts of the day. The rest of the time I prefer random chaotic flow.

[ABzReef]

Wow do you sell frags?

[FarmerTy]

Originally Posted by ABzReef

Wow do you sell frags?

I do.

[FarmerTy]

My Colorado Sunburst hanging with its tenants.