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Unread 11/24/2014, 09:05 PM   #26
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by .Chris. View Post
I delivered this tank and it was a B*TCH to put in.

But I think it'll be worth it, in the end, because in my two years of working with Matt, there's at least one thing he knows and it's SPS. I just can't wait to see it stocked up.
Yep... The old back wasn't too happy getting it down the stairs..
You know, there was a time when I thought I knew sps.. Back when I did nothing but slap a system together and get lucky..
Not sure what I know anymore.. That's what this build thread will be about..


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/24/2014, 09:09 PM   #27
Jettareefer
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Your old reef has become my new favorite!! look forward to seeing this current build come together it's going to be awesome I'm tagging along btw.


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Unread 11/24/2014, 09:55 PM   #28
reefmutt
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Originally Posted by Jettareefer View Post
Your old reef has become my new favorite!! look forward to seeing this current build come together it's going to be awesome I'm tagging along btw.
thanks, Jetta.. was my favourite, too!


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/24/2014, 10:00 PM   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reefmutt View Post
Yep... The old back wasn't too happy getting it down the stairs..
You know, there was a time when I thought I knew sps.. Back when I did nothing but slap a system together and get lucky..
Not sure what I know anymore.. That's what this build thread will be about..
Well, I don't know squat, I'm flying blind with my tank and going to let it take me on a ride.

Maybe I'll learn something from this thread.


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Unread 11/24/2014, 11:21 PM   #30
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by .Chris. View Post
Well, I don't know squat, I'm flying blind with my tank and going to let it take me on a ride.

Maybe I'll learn something from this thread.
i hope so..you and me, both....


so, this current system was only a slight departure from how i had been setting up reef tanks forever.. in keeping with the modern era of reefing and wanting to save money and heat issues i went with led lighting. ghl mitras- amazing lights period.
i kind of consider around 2010 to be the beginning of the modern era of reef keeping.. fully controllable systems, bacterial driven, led lit, bare bottom, minimalist scapes, information everywhere, numbers, numbers numbers..
from about the early 90s, when i started keeping a reef up until the around 2010, i like to call the industrial age of reefing.. mh and vho were just coming onto the scene as well as the concept of plenums and then dsbs for controlling nitrate.. before that, it was really the dark ages..
when i first read about plenums and denitrification in those old bibles; Advanced Aquarist and Reef Keeping magazines, (print editions.. gasp..) it was a game changer.. i watched my hair algae just disappear from my tank.. it was amazing..
when i finally set up that 300, i had a good plan for success.. (having set up two or three other pretty successful reefs in the 90s and 00s) huge tank, huge lighting, remote dsb, huge fuge, huge skimmer, huge flow and huge fish population for feeding the corals... simple enough.. it worked quite well and i spent waaaaay to many hours peering over the top of my tank studying every subtle nuance in colour from every one of my precious corals.
so, when i set up my current system, i went with dsb in baskets for easy partial exchange to keep the sand bed renewed but also mature at all times. i had a cheato fuge, very good skimmer- rlss bd10i, closed loops and tunze streams and my leds.
the tank did very nicely at first, but i had a couple of small issues. i had slow growth and i found that although many of my corals were colouring up well, some just didn't look the way i expected them to look.. was this lighting related or water chemistry related?
I pulled out my brand new po4 test kit (amongst all the others) and found that my p was around .1-.15 and n was 0.. i wasn't entirely unhappy with my corals, but knowing my p made me unhappy with my numbers.
having been out of the hobby for a couple of years and having not ever tested in my old tank, i suddenly had information to act upon which i never had in the past...
i tried to figure out where it was coming from.. my old live rock, reactor media, ro unit..too much food..
around this time i discovered a fantastically informative thread in the advanced forum called "dosing nitrate to reduce phosphate" i think i have learned more in that thread than in most of my high school years.. it was realy informative but it sent me on a course of tinkering with my system.. i tried adding nitrate by removing my fuge and then my sand beds, i began using tons of rowaphos, played with vinegar and biopellets, but never really kept to one method..
then i got into trace elements for better colour and amino acids and kz products and i completely lost track of all the changes i was making in my tank.. i added some t5 tubes back on the tank, watched p go up and down, n go up and down i watched some corals do ok and others rtn here and there, but nothing crazy.. somewhere around here, i discover another amazingly interesting and informative thread by Thales called "Guess the Phosphate Level" which in some ways is the antithesis of 'Dosing Nitrate to reduce phosphate" but in other ways they go had in hand...
then i decided to change all of my rock in the tank in hopes of removing the source of p and i also realized that i had added to much magnesium to my reactor media and had a magnesium level of about 1700-1800.. so i replaced the reactor media with a different type and replaced all of my rock just in time for a buddy to ask me if i wanted to go in on a big shipment of acropora since i had a fairly new and empty frag system waiting to be filled up....so what do i do?? its like in the horror movie where the sexy young girls decide that it makes more sense to go into the dark basement instead of out the front door to sunshine and freedom..
now i have a fragile and unstable system full of fresh acros and i am adding a slurry of products that are supposed to make my corals perfect.. well as they started to get rtn and stn, i pulled only a few out to give to my buddy but ultimately, they almost all died over a 3 week period.. i knew what i had done but it was too late to bring them back, they were in shock..i was in shock..
about a week after mostly everything was dead, i noticed the drip, drip,drip...
i almost put a hammer through the tank...
at this point, i took a serious step back.. dragged my butt to get the leaking tank back to Miracles and totally ignored my frag system all summer. when i finally got word that my tank was on its way back, i began to pay attention to my system again..
i added some all in one biopellets to the system, let them get going for a couple of weeks, then i began adding a mixture of vinegar and calcium nitrate that i had from my last failed dabble in n additions.. this time i had practically nothing in the system except some fish and a few corals. i got my n up to 2 ppm by adding cano3 along with the biopellets running and over the course of 3 weeks i watched my chronically high p drop down to .03 where it sits now.
the system is currently stable at those numbers. I've added a few sps frags and they are doing great as are the sorry bunch of corals that survived the epic fail..

well.. it felt good to get that out.. not sure how good it felt to read it all..
so, now the question is where do i go from here..
i think the days of blissful ignorance are over.... its like the philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest, without anybody there to hear it, does it really make a sound?
i wonder if my old 300 gallon tank had .15ppm po4 all that time but the system was big and stable, so the corals did fine..or did better than fine, did great..
ok i'll stop there with that question and go to bed.

more to come!


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 06:07 AM   #31
M007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reefmutt View Post
i hope so..you and me, both....


so, this current system was only a slight departure from how i had been setting up reef tanks forever.. in keeping with the modern era of reefing and wanting to save money and heat issues i went with led lighting. ghl mitras- amazing lights period.
i kind of consider around 2010 to be the beginning of the modern era of reef keeping.. fully controllable systems, bacterial driven, led lit, bare bottom, minimalist scapes, information everywhere, numbers, numbers numbers..
from about the early 90s, when i started keeping a reef up until the around 2010, i like to call the industrial age of reefing.. mh and vho were just coming onto the scene as well as the concept of plenums and then dsbs for controlling nitrate.. before that, it was really the dark ages..
when i first read about plenums and denitrification in those old bibles; Advanced Aquarist and Reef Keeping magazines, (print editions.. gasp..) it was a game changer.. i watched my hair algae just disappear from my tank.. it was amazing..
when i finally set up that 300, i had a good plan for success.. (having set up two or three other pretty successful reefs in the 90s and 00s) huge tank, huge lighting, remote dsb, huge fuge, huge skimmer, huge flow and huge fish population for feeding the corals... simple enough.. it worked quite well and i spent waaaaay to many hours peering over the top of my tank studying every subtle nuance in colour from every one of my precious corals.
so, when i set up my current system, i went with dsb in baskets for easy partial exchange to keep the sand bed renewed but also mature at all times. i had a cheato fuge, very good skimmer- rlss bd10i, closed loops and tunze streams and my leds.
the tank did very nicely at first, but i had a couple of small issues. i had slow growth and i found that although many of my corals were colouring up well, some just didn't look the way i expected them to look.. was this lighting related or water chemistry related?
I pulled out my brand new po4 test kit (amongst all the others) and found that my p was around .1-.15 and n was 0.. i wasn't entirely unhappy with my corals, but knowing my p made me unhappy with my numbers.
having been out of the hobby for a couple of years and having not ever tested in my old tank, i suddenly had information to act upon which i never had in the past...
i tried to figure out where it was coming from.. my old live rock, reactor media, ro unit..too much food..
around this time i discovered a fantastically informative thread in the advanced forum called "dosing nitrate to reduce phosphate" i think i have learned more in that thread than in most of my high school years.. it was realy informative but it sent me on a course of tinkering with my system.. i tried adding nitrate by removing my fuge and then my sand beds, i began using tons of rowaphos, played with vinegar and biopellets, but never really kept to one method..
then i got into trace elements for better colour and amino acids and kz products and i completely lost track of all the changes i was making in my tank.. i added some t5 tubes back on the tank, watched p go up and down, n go up and down i watched some corals do ok and others rtn here and there, but nothing crazy.. somewhere around here, i discover another amazingly interesting and informative thread by Thales called "Guess the Phosphate Level" which in some ways is the antithesis of 'Dosing Nitrate to reduce phosphate" but in other ways they go had in hand...
then i decided to change all of my rock in the tank in hopes of removing the source of p and i also realized that i had added to much magnesium to my reactor media and had a magnesium level of about 1700-1800.. so i replaced the reactor media with a different type and replaced all of my rock just in time for a buddy to ask me if i wanted to go in on a big shipment of acropora since i had a fairly new and empty frag system waiting to be filled up....so what do i do?? its like in the horror movie where the sexy young girls decide that it makes more sense to go into the dark basement instead of out the front door to sunshine and freedom..
now i have a fragile and unstable system full of fresh acros and i am adding a slurry of products that are supposed to make my corals perfect.. well as they started to get rtn and stn, i pulled only a few out to give to my buddy but ultimately, they almost all died over a 3 week period.. i knew what i had done but it was too late to bring them back, they were in shock..i was in shock..
about a week after mostly everything was dead, i noticed the drip, drip,drip...
i almost put a hammer through the tank...
at this point, i took a serious step back.. dragged my butt to get the leaking tank back to Miracles and totally ignored my frag system all summer. when i finally got word that my tank was on its way back, i began to pay attention to my system again..
i added some all in one biopellets to the system, let them get going for a couple of weeks, then i began adding a mixture of vinegar and calcium nitrate that i had from my last failed dabble in n additions.. this time i had practically nothing in the system except some fish and a few corals. i got my n up to 2 ppm by adding cano3 along with the biopellets running and over the course of 3 weeks i watched my chronically high p drop down to .03 where it sits now.
the system is currently stable at those numbers. I've added a few sps frags and they are doing great as are the sorry bunch of corals that survived the epic fail..

well.. it felt good to get that out.. not sure how good it felt to read it all..
so, now the question is where do i go from here..
i think the days of blissful ignorance are over.... its like the philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest, without anybody there to hear it, does it really make a sound?
i wonder if my old 300 gallon tank had .15ppm po4 all that time but the system was big and stable, so the corals did fine..or did better than fine, did great..
ok i'll stop there with that question and go to bed.

more to come!
Glad I'm not the only one who's gone down this road of doom Many $$ spent and lessons learned. I too read the Thales thread and would not recommend anyone follow his lead. The big crash is coming, just a matter of time.


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Current Tank Info: 250G SPS Mixed Reef. ATLAS 84x28x24. SuperMarin 250. Cebu Sun 3 x 250WMH Radiums 4 x 80W T5. Profilux 3 w/GHL dosing CA-ALK-MG. Moved by Tunze and Vertex. Reef Octopus 5K return.
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Unread 11/25/2014, 07:46 AM   #32
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Really pleased to see you getting the reef back up and running Matt, your last display was just beautiful mate
Doing what you already knows brings success isn't such a bad way to go at the end of the day Matt, over thinking and over reacting to things has brought all of us undone at one time or another in this hobby.
No one has better colored acros now than were around ten years ago yet overall equipment costs are through the roof in comparison. Spend your money on frags you can keep colorful rather than equipment that exists due to speculation and theories, oh and this hobby's thirst for gadgets and all manner of potions lol. seriously, no other hobby spends so much time and money trying to attain levels that have never been proven to benefit the actual hobby.

I shall be following your journal like flies on a moose Matt


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Unread 11/25/2014, 10:15 AM   #33
tripdad
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Wow, that old tank is just gorgeous! Once again proof that there is something special in that Canadian water supply, LOL. Best of luck moving forward and I will follow along with everyone else, should be very enlightening looking at those past results.


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Unread 11/25/2014, 10:19 AM   #34
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Following.

I don't have the experience but I'm at the point of PO4 paranoia, dropping it with vinegar, playing with Kalk, doing too many things at once to sanely track, STN and RTN on some acros.

Glad to hear you are going at this again and I'll be looking forward to the progress.

As far as Thales thread goes, he is not wanting anyone to follow him, he just wants to know why it works. IMO.


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Unread 11/25/2014, 11:21 AM   #35
cugly
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Wow that was a lot of things going on a lot of us have been down that road for sure..my tank as of now I tried to make it as simple as much as possible so I can keep track of what is going on without chasing some problems I probably caused my self..your old tank was beautiful man you got a lot to live up too..keep the update coming its gonna be great for sure..


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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:09 PM   #36
trueblackpercula
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Hey reefmutt here is a project that may help..

Michael


Attached Files
File Type: zip SUPERFRAGTRUEBLACKPERCULA-November25th834pm55%.zip (2.5 KB, 79 views)
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:25 PM   #37
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M007 View Post
Glad I'm not the only one who's gone down this road of doom Many $$ spent and lessons learned. I too read the Thales thread and would not recommend anyone follow his lead. The big crash is coming, just a matter of time.
man, I don't even want to contemplate the money...

i'm not so sure the crash is coming.. that tank has achieved a certain ecological balance..
balance, I think is really the key to reef health and longevity.. there are so many different balances that need to be achieved, it seems.. nutrient balance, chemistry balance, bacterial balance and with the balance there needs to be stability, but I guess those go hand in hand. Each helps achieve the other but if one goes off, it can derail the other...


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:32 PM   #38
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by biggles View Post
Really pleased to see you getting the reef back up and running Matt, your last display was just beautiful mate
Doing what you already knows brings success isn't such a bad way to go at the end of the day Matt, over thinking and over reacting to things has brought all of us undone at one time or another in this hobby.
No one has better colored acros now than were around ten years ago yet overall equipment costs are through the roof in comparison. Spend your money on frags you can keep colorful rather than equipment that exists due to speculation and theories, oh and this hobby's thirst for gadgets and all manner of potions lol. seriously, no other hobby spends so much time and money trying to attain levels that have never been proven to benefit the actual hobby.

I shall be following your journal like flies on a moose Matt
flies on a moose.. eyes on an acro.. lol thanks biggles. You are so right about the amount of potions and gadgets.. but hey if one can employ those potions and gadgets and make them work for them, more power to them... but as you point out, they are clearly not always a necessity..
these days, it is hard not to over think and overanalyze, however... there's a test for everything.. and when things are gong bad, they are useful to a degree..
the potions can be useful, sometimes as well, i think..


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:36 PM   #39
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tripdad View Post
Wow, that old tank is just gorgeous! Once again proof that there is something special in that Canadian water supply, LOL. Best of luck moving forward and I will follow along with everyone else, should be very enlightening looking at those past results.
i think its all the beer we drink... once metabolized by the kidney, it becomes very concentrated with amino acids and has a perfect red field ratio!
thanks for the compliment! i hope (plan) to hear it about my current set up in the future.


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Matt.

Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:45 PM   #40
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markalot View Post
Following.

I don't have the experience but I'm at the point of PO4 paranoia, dropping it with vinegar, playing with Kalk, doing too many things at once to sanely track, STN and RTN on some acros.

Glad to hear you are going at this again and I'll be looking forward to the progress.

As far as Thales thread goes, he is not wanting anyone to follow him, he just wants to know why it works. IMO.
100% agreed about Thales... just makes you think..

don't get caught up in the madness.. it drives you crazy when corals start to die and it is then when you make desperation moves, but really, by the time a coral is rtning, the damage is more often than not already done, I'm my experience..
what is your p? i had mine over .2 for quite some time, near the beginning, before i really started doing crazy things and the corals were fine.. it was me that was not fine.. now is the time to stop everything and concentrate on only one course of action..
knowing your p is a good thing but knowing it compared to n i think is even more important. this allows you to use one against the other when employing a carbon source.. i very much like the vinegar/kalk combo.. can be very effective at lowering p, providing you have a little n in your system
feel free to throw up your numbers if you want any help..


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:51 PM   #41
reefmutt
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Originally Posted by cugly View Post
Wow that was a lot of things going on a lot of us have been down that road for sure..my tank as of now I tried to make it as simple as much as possible so I can keep track of what is going on without chasing some problems I probably caused my self..your old tank was beautiful man you got a lot to live up too..keep the update coming its gonna be great for sure..
ha! yes indeed.. a lot to live up to..
yup, doing things slow and one at a time is really important to be able to track the consequences of your actions not to mention that most sudden shifts in a reef are what corals react to the worst..
simple, small changes are the best way to achieve or keep the balance, it seems to me..


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 08:59 PM   #42
reefmutt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trueblackpercula View Post
Hey reefmutt here is a project that may help..

Michael
thanks, Mike.. i do almost everything on a mac so getting that to my mitres is beyond my extremely limited computer skills.. i guess thats not really true.. i could log into reef central from the cheap, crappy laptop i bought only for programming the mitras, but it would take forever because it is such a slow and lousy laptop.. and really, i think i have a pretty good program, myself.. like i have said, the mitras are amazing leds and are fully capable of keeping any and all corals alive, well and coloured up... however, they do not colour up ALL acros equally, in my opinion.. and that opinion is based on the many, many hours I've spent staring, studying.. maybe drooling a little, without noticing, into my tank as i looked from the top down..
many acros get fantastic coloration, but some do not..
ill post a few of the nice looking corals from my old tank which were under mitras when i log on from my phone.. these will be corals that are all dead now, because of my negligence..


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Current Tank Info: 53x32.5x26 190g dt 60g of sumps 3 tank-100 gal frag system 6xAI prime 8xt5. 4x maxspect gyre. Skimz Dual internal sicce pump skimmer Deltec PF601s ca rx+Kalk stirrer
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Unread 11/25/2014, 09:13 PM   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reefmutt View Post
don't get caught up in the madness.. it drives you crazy when corals start to die and it is then when you make desperation moves, but really, by the time a coral is rtning, the damage is more often than not already done, I'm my experience..
what is your p? i had mine over .2 for quite some time, near the beginning, before i really started doing crazy things and the corals were fine.. it was me that was not fine.. now is the time to stop everything and concentrate on only one course of action..
knowing your p is a good thing but knowing it compared to n i think is even more important. this allows you to use one against the other when employing a carbon source.. i very much like the vinegar/kalk combo.. can be very effective at lowering p, providing you have a little n in your system
feel free to throw up your numbers if you want any help..
I'm still climbing up the learning curve but I had awesome coloration on a coral that is thought to be sensitive to high P that went from this:



to this



over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. Once I finally tested P and N I was at .2 P and 10 N. I still have no idea if that was the problem or if it was something else. So far I've only lost 2 small frags and any STN appears to have stopped, but I'm not confident it's over. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.

I definitely agree that once damage is evident it's already happened. Zombie acros.

Sorry for junking up your thread with pics but thanks for asking.


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Unread 11/25/2014, 09:21 PM   #44
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So, after my tank leaked and i was only running my side system, i really neglected the whole thing.. i fed the fish once a day.. mostly and did nothing else.. the system did ok.
when i finally got around to paying attention to it and did some tests, i had an n of 0 and p of about 1.5..
from day one, i assumed that my excessively high p, in relation to my n (which was usually 0) was because of the old live rock i had used.. i still think this..... AND I'm using that same rock again! why? because i think i have the tools to better control p, now..
when i decided to pay attention to my system again, i went back to my favourite thread, "dosing nitrate to reduce phosphate" in the advanced forum.
i started running about 500 ml of all in one biopellets for a couple of weeks to really get n down to zero but needed a bit more so i added another 250-300 ml of the aio pellets once n was below 1ppm, i began adding a small amount of vinegar and calcium nitrate and began testing n and p weekly.. once i got the n to come up to around 1-3 ppm- i didn't want it any higher- i started to see my p begin to fall. in the middle of that i raised the vinegar a bit, saw my n drop below 1ppm and saw my p jump right back up. once i corrected my cano3 addition to get a stable n of around 2ppm, my p has come down to .03 and stays very steady there.
that thread is a great and sometimes longwinded read but well worth it.. most of my grappling with n and p is documented there..
so, i have achieved a balance in my side system, now.. obviously, when the display comes on line with a hundred pounds of that same old rock, i will have to wrestle with nutrient levels again but i am reasonably confident that i will be able to achieve a balance in the display, before i let it run on the whole system.. so that is my first goal.. to get the display water as close as possible to my side system water before i mix for two together..


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Unread 11/25/2014, 09:39 PM   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markalot View Post
I'm still climbing up the learning curve but I had awesome coloration on a coral that is thought to be sensitive to high P that went from this:



to this



over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. Once I finally tested P and N I was at .2 P and 10 N. I still have no idea if that was the problem or if it was something else. So far I've only lost 2 small frags and any STN appears to have stopped, but I'm not confident it's over. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.

I definitely agree that once damage is evident it's already happened. Zombie acros.

Sorry for junking up your thread with pics but thanks for asking.
i really don't mind.. i have learned so much from reef central over the almost 10 years i have been a member and i really intend this thread to have as much helpful info as possible in it..
with those n and p numbers, it is a very common outcome to see vividly coloured corals (super nice frag by the way!) turn brown... i think most would agree with that...
so how did your alk jump? I'm sure that a quick stress like that could also cause a coral to brown out...
If i were in your shoes i'd buy a huge skimmer for at least$700 and start adding trace elements........KIDDING!
actually, i would do something close to what i just detailed in my last post..
but first stabalize your alk and calcium.
and if you are already using vinegar and kalkwasser, these are two pretty good methods of pulling down nutrients and adding alk/calc at the same time, but you really should be adding small amounts often..
in your case, i think i would really NOT concentrate on the n and p right now, but make sure you can deliver steady water chemistry for a while. once that is worked out, you can start addressing the n and p..
running gfo, out of the blue can cause a bit of stress to acros, if it dramatically shifts the p level, so go slow with that stuff as well..
if i remember correctly, gfo can also play with alkalinity (lower it) if a lot is used..


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Unread 11/25/2014, 09:58 PM   #46
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Here's a bunch of nice frags I killed..








Ouch.....



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Unread 11/25/2014, 10:01 PM   #47
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Tomorrow, I will detail my ssystem, as it was and how it will change for the new set up..
Markalot, feel free to ask any more questions..
And anybody who wants to chime in on a course of action for him.. The more the merrier!


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Unread 11/25/2014, 10:41 PM   #48
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reefmutt View Post
And anybody who wants to chime in on a course of action for him.. The more the merrier!
Matt, thank you for taking time to share your experience with everyone. I'm sure a lot of the hobbyists including myself will benefit from this thread.

Quote:
Originally Posted by markalot View Post
over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.
Alk - If you are using a calcium reactor, the following will increase your Alk: Please check your:
1. "Dripper" - if your drip rate is too slow from the start, over time it will calcified and reduce the "output" drastically.
2. CO2 Regulator - Some of these are not very precise which could inject more CO2 than what you have desire.

GFO - I concur with Matt's assessment. Sudden usage will have effect on your parameters/SPS. First initial usage should be half the recommended dosage.

Hope this helps.


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Last edited by stonecold; 11/25/2014 at 10:48 PM.
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Unread 11/25/2014, 10:47 PM   #49
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Thanks Matt.

I'm glad i was forced to look at the timing again. I switched from LED to T5 but after the browning happened, so I can hopefully discount that change.

I have a timed topoff system since my evaporation is fairly constant. I was using saturated Kalk (no vinegar) and 90ml two part a day.

I started adding 45ml per gallon of vinegar to gallon of Kalk topoff water and that's when the troubles began. My Alk had been a constant 8 - 8.5 for two months and then over a week the Alk rose from 8.5 to 10.0 before I turned off the doser. It continued to rise, slowly, to 10.5 and I diluted the topoff to start a very slow fall back to 8.0 over 2 weeks.

I measured my topoff amount for the first time and calculated just a bit over a gallon a day topoff, which means I was dosing 45ml of vinegar a day.

I have this FTS, links to the fullsize pic, that shows that coral still having good color even after the rise to 10.5. According to what I wrote on another forum my dosers were turned off and Alk was dropping from 10.5 to 9.8 over 4 days.



4 days later my KH hit 8.6 and I commented that I was losing .25 KH a day and the coral above had browned out completely.

2 days after this I measured P and N for the first time and got the high readings. Over the next week every SPS lost color, some more than others. One acro had significant tip dieback, others had some basal STN, some more significant STN. Too many changes to really say what happened, which is why I'm lost at the moment. Do I go back to what I was doing before, ignoring P and N and figuring it was elevated all along? Do I get P under control, stabilize Alk, and wait it out?


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Last edited by markalot; 11/25/2014 at 11:40 PM.
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Unread 11/26/2014, 05:50 AM   #50
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Nick! Thanks for the help!
Sounds like the vinegar in the kalk caused the alk spike. I've heard many people say alk spikes have caused browning, burnt tips and stn... And it seems to me like your n and p were probably at those levels for a long time if you've never tested before..
I would go back to how you had it before the vinegar.... For starters..
Let alk get back to where your tank remembers it.
Go easy on the gfo as well.
Once those parameters are stable, then you can debate wether to tackle n and p..
That's how I am leaning on your situation...


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