My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[Big E]

That looks great!

I've had good luck with feeding the evansi fresh scallops and shrimp. Freeze and chop up.....they'll gobble down larger pieces too.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by Big E

That looks great!

I've had good luck with feeding the evansi fresh scallops and shrimp. Freeze and chop up.....they'll gobble down larger pieces too.

Thanks for the tip Ed. I will go to my local fish market and get some scallops and shrimp next week.

Happy new year.

[kevlow]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

Here is a short video I recorded earlier this afternoon with my iPhone in which you can clearly see evansi going for copepods. My aim is for them to show the same eagerness for other frozen food.

Wow. It is always a pleasure to view your thread. I am always amazed at the volume of life, and the large corals that you maintain in a 65G tank.

[reefmutt]

Very nice Bulent.
Love those latest shots with all the fish and coral.
Looking great!
Have you increased bactobalance in anticipation of a nutrient rise or will you wait to see what happens?

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by kevlow

Wow. It is always a pleasure to view your thread. I am always amazed at the volume of life, and the large corals that you maintain in a 65G tank.

Many thanks for your feedback. I am glad you liked this short video.

It is not easy to maintain large colonies in such a small tank. I have to do deforestation at least once a year in a big way. I have almost come to the end of the fragging process in the current cycle and have sold all the surplus frags. Phew. I thought I would never do it this time round as I left the frag sales too close to Christmas. As for the fish stock, as their population increases it puts more strain on my well-established nutrient balancing strategies. I am realising more and more that I need a bigger tank. I will be putting aside a proportion of the proceeds from future frag sales to save towards a new tank and equipment.

Happy new year

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Very nice Bulent.
Love those latest shots with all the fish and coral.
Looking great!
Have you increased bactobalance in anticipation of a nutrient rise or will you wait to see what happens?

Thank you Matt.

No I have not. I predicted a spike in nutrients, especially in phosphates due to heavier than usual feeding. Today's test results confirmed my prediction. Surprisingly, NO3 remained more or less the same. It was between 5-10 ppm there days after I bought the new fish. It is 5 ppm today. However, phosphates climbed up from 0.14 mg/L to 0.25 mg/L. This is a big jump. Although coral growth continues in good speed, I can see zooxanthellae density on certain corals increasing.

I am considering a number of options to deal with phosphates. NP-Bacto-Balance is not going to help reduce phosphates when they are this high. It is most effective when phosphates are below 0.1 mg/L and are on a downward trend. The options I am considering are as follows:

1) Stop NP-Bacto-Balance and switch to Elimi-NP, which is essentially polyalcohols (According to Hans Werner-Balling, Elimi-NP is much more effective in reducing phosphates than Bacto-Balance);

2) Reduce NP-Bacto-Balance and add Elimi-NP to the mix. Both Bacto-Balance and Elimi-NP are perfectly miscible;

3) Continue to use NP-Bacto-Balance and supplement it with aluminium-based phosphate remover, such as Fauna Marin Ultra-Phos;

4) Do nothing for the time being and reduce feeding to normal levels as soon as evansi start to take what every other fish take.

By the way, I have restarted to dose TM Reef Actif after a two-month break. I am doing 1/2 of the recommended dose for the volume of my tank once a week. By boosting the coral growth, I am anticipating that proportionally more phosphates will be removed from the water column as they are integrated into the corals' skeleton.

I think I will delay option (3) until it becomes absolutely necessary to choose it.

Happy new year.

[Superpuma]

Hi Bulent, Mike from UR.

I know how you feel ref phosphate numbers going up, l use Nopox, great for No3 but not so hot on Po4. I've tried phos medias passively, that method has little effect, l always find myself filling a reactor with phosguard or something to get the Po4 in check.

I see KZ have a new product, Coral Snow Plus, standard Coral Snow with a liquid phos media, 1ml to 100 liters once or twice a week is meant to keep Po4 in check. I shall order some, if it clarifies the water and looks after Po4 it's gotta be worth a go.

Happy New Year

Mike

[DiscusHeckel]

Hi Mike,

I believe that my recent high phosphate readings are not going to be a permanent issue. I do not feel comfortable with any liquid phosphates adsorbers like lanthanum chloride. That said, I would be very interested in the results of your experiment with the new Coral snow. Please keep me posted.

Organic carbon dosing methods have an inherent issue with phosphates in that once nitrates are lowered to a certain level, heterotrophic bacteria struggle to consume nitrogen and phosphorus, thus leading to rises in phosphates. Bacto-Balance counters this problem because it has added phosphates in both organic and inorganic forms as well as inorganic nitrates. In my case, although phosphates are rising, nitrates remain fairly stable and are therefore not driven to really low levels. I really should increase Bacto-Balance dose, but my M. setosa reacts to a high dose, once it reaches to 2 ml per day.

I have already actioned Option (2) I stated in my previous post. Instead of dosing 1.7 ml of Bacto-Balance, I have started to dose 1.2 ml of Bacto-Balance and 0.5 ml of Elimi-NP. Furthermore, I have reduced feeding to normal levels. In addition, I have re-started TM Reef Actif. As the corals start to grow faster, more phosphates will be taken out of the water column. I am also thinking about increasing the adsorption efficiency of dissolved organics by fluidising GAC instead of using it passively. If I go down this route, then I will use smaller amount of carbon and replace it more frequently. As Reef Actif will be transforming inorganic nutrients to their organic state, it makes sense to me to remove as much organics as possible and as quickly as possible. This should then go some way to address the current phosphate issue.

Happy new year to you and family Mike.

Bülent

[illumnae]

Hi Bulent, I had the same issue of stable nitrates and rising phosphates and opted for option (3). Jusg a small amount of Fauna Marin Ultraphos and it has worked in keeping phosphate stable. I use just 10ml of ultraphos weekly in my 180 gallon in addition to 2ml daily of bacto balance

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by illumnae

Hi Bulent, I had the same issue of stable nitrates and rising phosphates and opted for option (3). Jusg a small amount of Fauna Marin Ultraphos and it has worked in keeping phosphate stable. I use just 10ml of ultraphos weekly in my 180 gallon in addition to 2ml daily of bacto balance

This is really useful information. Thanks. Do you fluidise the media?

[Superpuma]

Bulent. Should my " localish " webshop get back to me in time to despatch the Coral Snow Plus with my original order l shall let you know how it goes.
Having no experience with liquid phos absorbers l'm not up to speed with lanthanum chloride. Are there issues with the stuff?

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by Superpuma

Bulent. Should my " localish " webshop get back to me in time to despatch the Coral Snow Plus with my original order l shall let you know how it goes.
Having no experience with liquid phos absorbers l'm not up to speed with lanthanum chloride. Are there issues with the stuff?

I only used it for a very short period in the past and got worried about its effect on the gills of my fish after reading some reports. You also need to use 100 micron filter socks to collect any bound organics to lanthanum chloride. That said, there are many people who seem happy with its application and results.

[illumnae]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

This is really useful information. Thanks. Do you fluidise the media?

Not at the moment. My system runs with 2 filter socks changed out weekly so i just put 5ml of ultraphos in each sock during the weekly change. This way I know that 100% of the water flowing through the system passes through the media. I do the same with GAC (using Fauna Marin Ultra Carb)

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

I only used it for a very short period in the past and got worried about its effect on the gills of my fish after reading some reports. You also need to use 100 micron filter socks to collect any bound organics to lanthanum chloride. That said, there are many people who seem happy with its application and results.

LCl is supposed to affect Zebrasoma tangs in particular. When I used to dose it previously I dosed it into the overflow box. My hope was that the precipitate would settle at the bottom of the overflow box and not make it back into the display. None of my fish were affected, including a gem tang, black tang and black x scopas hybrid tang.

I've read that the precipitate requires 10 micron socks not 100 micron. Lots of filter floss apparently also works as the precipitate is apparently sticky and sticks to the floss. Dosing into the skimmer is also supposed to work, but would defeat the purpose of dosing the Coral Snow - it's meant for pure LCl dosing only

[Superpuma]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

I only used it for a very short period in the past and got worried about its effect on the gills of my fish after reading some reports. You also need to use 100 micron filter socks to collect any bound organics to lanthanum chloride. That said, there are many people who seem happy with its application and results.

Ok, shall keep that in mind. Thanks

[mhucasey]

Happy New Year to you and yours, Bulent!

[DiscusHeckel]

Thank you Sir.

Happy new year to you and family too.

[DiscusHeckel]

First few pictures of 2018.

PO4 is at a record high, 0.25 mg/L, whereas NO3 is steady, 5 ppm (as of 30th December 2017).

(Acropora hyacinthus) P1110155

(Acropora yongei) P1110160

(Acropora millepora) P1110171

(Acropora gomezi) P1110175

(Acropora millepora) P1110168

(Ophiocoma sp.) IMG_3806

[DiscusHeckel]

I have just tested NO3 and PO4.

NO3: ~5 ppm (just under)- remained the same since the last test
PO4: > 0.18 mg/L (just over) down from just over 0.25 mg/L

Option (2) seems to have started to produce some results within just seven days. It is pleasing that NO3 remains steady while PO4 is dropping.

I dosed TM Reef Actif second time yesterday (1/2 of recommended dose). Coral growth has started to gather pace again albeit slowly. Alkalinity and calcium consumptions are going up steadily.

If this combined strategy produces a downward trend in PO4, I will remove FM Ultra Phos from my shopping cart.

[reefmutt]

Corals look fantastic..
maybe eliminating the ultra phos from the cart could be done regardless..

[Crypsis]

Beautiful reef! Your Acropora are looking fantastic! It took several days and plenty of procrastination on all my projects but I just read through the whole thread and found it quite informative with plenty of stunning coral pictures. I was wondering what you think of the blue light filter you were planning on using for your iPhone? Did it work out and are you still using it?

I’ll be following along and looking forward to seeing what you choose for your tank upgrade.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Corals look fantastic..
maybe eliminating the ultra phos from the cart could be done regardless..

Thanks Matt. I have bought Seachem PhosGuard instead, but have not used it yet. If I decide to use it, I will mix a small amount with Rox 0.8.

Originally Posted by Crypsis

Beautiful reef! Your Acropora are looking fantastic! It took several days and plenty of procrastination on all my projects but I just read through the whole thread and found it quite informative with plenty of stunning coral pictures. I was wondering what you think of the blue light filter you were planning on using for your iPhone? Did it work out and are you still using it?

I’ll be following along and looking forward to seeing what you choose for your tank upgrade.

Thank you for your compliment and reading my posts, Merlin. I appreciate it.

The filter is OK if I take a picture of a blue coral like A. gomezi, but it changes the colour rendition of all other colours. For this reason, I am not using it anymore nor am I using my iPhone unless I must. I prefer my son's GoPro for video recording.

[DiscusHeckel]

I went to my lfs this afternoon to buy an Acro frag. It is nothing very fancy. I was told that it may be an A. tortuosa. I think it may be an A. austera (so-called mirage tort?). What do you think?

A. tortuosa/austera(P1110194)

A. tortuosa/Austera(P1110185)

A. tortuosa/austera(P1110179)

A. tortuosa/austera(P1110177)

A. tortuosa (the mother colony)

A.tortuosa 2(the mother colony)

[DiscusHeckel]

I tested NO3 and PO4 this morning.

NO3: ~5 ppm (just under)- remained the same since the last test a week ago.
PO4: > 0.14 mg/L (just over) down from just over 0.18 mg/L since the last test a week ago.

Option (2) continues to produce good results. It seems that PO4 is now on a downward trend.

I dosed TM Reef Actif third time yesterday (1/2 of recommended dose). Acropora sarmentosa has started to extend its polyps.

Finally, I bought my 21st fish. It is P. tuka. Among a large group of tucks, it was the only one that was eating brine shrimp very eagerly. I did not hesitate to purchase it.

[Ucantwin]

What do you think the cause was for it to start extending its polyps?

[watchguy123]

You have beautiful colors on your acros. I am impressed by your scientific name identification. I can name some but I’m easily mystified. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing for your photography. Are you using a dslr and what kind of processing are you doing. The pictures are wonderful.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by Ucantwin

What do you think the cause was for it to start extending its polyps?

People have contrasting opinions on this. Some think that that lack of nutrients cause it and others argue the opposite. In my opinion, availability of bio-available nutrients are the trigger for this.

Originally Posted by watchguy123

You have beautiful colors on your acros. I am impressed by your scientific name identification. I can name some but I’m easily mystified. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing for your photography. Are you using a dslr and what kind of processing are you doing. The pictures are wonderful.

Thank you for your compliment. Identification of corals is very challenging and unless you check their skeleton very closely, it is a guessing game. That said, it is better than calling corals with silly man-made names, such as pink lemonade or What Disney. I have placed a mari-cultured 'pink lemonade' sub-colony from Bali recently, but it will feature as Acropora tenuis in my tank thread.

I use a small digital camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ3). Its highest resolution is 2 megapixels. I use the macro setting on it form top-down photography. I have a coral viewer, which I use to take top-down pictures. Occasionally, I use my iPhone if I have to zoom into coral tissues. However, iPhone distorts blue, pink and purple colours.

I hope this helps.