Reefer 250 build

[tenurepro]

Updates on leopard wrasse sex change
Oct 10

Oct 24


Nov 3




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[solitude127]

How's the skimmer doing? Still on a stand?

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by solitude127

How's the skimmer doing? Still on a stand?

I had to raise it a bit more using egg crate. Started overflowing a month ago for no obvious reason. It's not at about 5.5" below water.


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[solitude127]

great build. thank you for the info.

[tenurepro]

Thanks man!


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[tenurepro]

4.5 month update; a month and a half ago, I started noticing some color loss on several sps. High lights, high alk and ultra low nutrients were the most likely culprits. So I cut the radions from 85% to 55%, and switched out the 80deg lenses to 120 wide angles lenses; cut alk from 11 to 8.5 dkh, added several fish + cuc and started feeding corals. I also STOPPED water changes to build up nutrients. Today my parameters are: alk 8.9 ca 435, mg 1360, nitrates 1 ppm, phosphates 0 (Hanna phosphorus ULR). Ph 8.2, 78f, 35 Sal. Fish are fat, Noticing improvement in color in the few frags that were growing pale but overall color is not great. I decided to get a par meter to help me tune my Radion xr15s gen3 pros. Went for the Seneye reef monitor based on BRS's review.

I did this map of par on my corals; radions were at 55% 18.5k (Ecotech's sps a/b+ program).

Ecotech's coral lab experiment, suggests to have sps between 300 to 200 par. My values were all lower than that. I was worried that the Seneye was underestimating par, but this par simulator for the radions suggested otherwise http://www.aquaticlog.com/radion
Briefly, you setup your program and light specs and the algorithm with let you visualize par at different depths and horizontal distances from the center of the Radion. The Seneye was actually bang on given the position of the corals relative to the light. I think the combination of the Seneye and the light simulator will be very helpful in figuring out how to tune the lights to get my sps in the 200 to 300 par range. For example; looking over the top left sps shelf; I can get these frags to 200-300 par if I up the intensity from 55% to about 80%. (Over a few month of course)

I had fun going from frag to frag and simulating how changes in light intensity would influence par. I quickly realized that I made some aquascaping / coral placement errors. The radions, even with the wide angle lenses, have hotspots right under the lights. I had placed a few acropora's on a 12" deep shelf that is now getting about 110 par. Most of my other acros are 6 to 8 inches deep. Using the simulator, I couldn't find a sweet spot intensity that would get the bottom right shelf to 200-300 par without potentially scorching the frags on the top shelf. My mistake was I should've designed my sps shelves to be mostly at the same depth to avoid overexposing or under exposing shallower or deeper frags.

So now I have a dilemma... do I raise up the bottom right shelf by 3 to 5 inches? (Easiest), lower all the top shelfs l by 3 to 5" (lots of work but possible) or simply keep it where it is. The deep sticks are still growing and they will get more light/ par as they grow up?...

What do you folks think?



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[rvlcf]

Given the progress you have made, I would hold tight on moving things around. I do think the high alk, along with the ULNS probably contributed to the fading of the sps. My tank is running very similarly to yours except my alk is 6.75-7.0 dkh. Maybe try running the alk at 7 for a while and see how the tank does. Are you adding any amino acids to the tank? If not I would grab a bottle and start dosing that.
I get the desire to have things just right, but your tank is coming along nicely, getting good growth and doing well. I would try to lower alk and add aminos for a month or 2 then go from there. You could always move the rocks if that isn't helping.
Just my 2 cents.

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by rvlcf

Given the progress you have made, I would hold tight on moving things around. I do think the high alk, along with the ULNS probably contributed to the fading of the sps. My tank is running very similarly to yours except my alk is 6.75-7.0 dkh. Maybe try running the alk at 7 for a while and see how the tank does. Are you adding any amino acids to the tank? If not I would grab a bottle and start dosing that.
I get the desire to have things just right, but your tank is coming along nicely, getting good growth and doing well. I would try to lower alk and add aminos for a month or 2 then go from there. You could always move the rocks if that isn't helping.
Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the input; I do add acro power twice a week along with reefroids. Perhaps I will just very gradually up the lights (5% per month) and evaluate


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[y4ngel]

will be picking up a 250 this xmas, followed.

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by y4ngel

will be picking up a 250 this xmas, followed.

Congrats!


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[tenurepro]

Did a minor change in aquascape; move the top left tonga shelf rock with the acropora tenuis, blueberry wine acro and the Ora red planet; I rotates a bit and moved it back a bit. The corals on a he rock where not looking too good and we're getting blasted from the mp10 on the left side of the tank.

Lights: increasing the intensity of radions from 55% to 60% over 3 weeks. Nice and easy!

Chemistry; alk 8.9, ca 430, mg 1390. Dosing alk and ca. Phosphates are 0.009 ppm, nitrates finally climbing; 2.5 to 5 ppm. Wondering if I should keep it there or raise it a bit. I haven't done a water change in over a month; maybe should start now to keep nitrates from building?

Seneye + ph; using Seneye to keep track of ph. The slide was reading .1 higher than actual value measured with a fancy lab grade ph meter. After correcting for this, my ph ranges from 8.06 to 8.16 during the day. Pretty decent. Considering adding a bit of kale on my ato to raise it up a bit to average 8.2.

Corals - noticing color improvements in the purple bonsai and the tyree pink lemonade frags that faded a couple of month ago. Bonsai is now a light to medium purple (from white), and the tyree is now a light mint green with pale pink (from mostly white). So o think the reduction in alk, extreme light intensity and increase in nutrients is helping.


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[tenurepro]

Fts

Slightly modified scape

And here is the recovering tyree pink lemonade, and bonsai valida... both of these we almost white a couple of month ago. The acro on the far right is something called 'shocksholic'...



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[tenurepro]

5 month update video!
https://youtu.be/dLh99XTExJA


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[tenurepro]

Do you have a Hanna phosphorous ULR checker but find getting the reagent powder into the vial frustrating? Check out this video for a little tip!
https://youtu.be/Rkhf691VAlA


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[pelphrey]

Originally Posted by tenurepro

Do you have a Hanna phosphorous ULR checker but find getting the reagent powder into the vial frustrating? Check out this video for a little tip!
https://youtu.be/Rkhf691VAlA


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This is a great tip! I shared it on YouTube, thanks!

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by pelphrey

This is a great tip! I shared it on YouTube, thanks!

Thanks man!


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[pelphrey]

Also subscribed, check me out if you get a chance! Keep the videos coming!

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by pelphrey

Also subscribed, check me out if you get a chance! Keep the videos coming!

Thanks man!


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[tenurepro]

So radions xr15's are now at max intensity of 60% (sps ab+) and everything is coloring up nicely. Will go for another 5% increase over 3 weeks.
Fts

Overhead

Tort

RR orange passion



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[tenurepro]

A fishy update.
So I always wanted to have a leap of leopard wrasses as a chance to hopefully see some natural intraspecific behavior. Maybe even the development of a harem. I currently have a large male bluestar (Aka peacock) wrasse and a female ornate leopard wrasse. I learned that a local store was getting a shipment of ornates. The catch is that male leopards don't play nice, especially in small systems. The peacock was already lunging a bit at the ornate and was frankly outgrowing my tank.

So I decided to sell my bluestar wrasse to make way for a couple more ornates... it was a difficult decision because the bluestar male was gorgeous. but the new owner has a 150 gallon so I think he is going to like the bigger setup .

Today I picked up two smaller ornates. I acclimated them and into the display they went

Both dove into the sand within 15 min.
Hoping they come out in a few days to feed. I think that having the established ornate wrasse around will help get them used to eating prepared foods... wrasse see - wrasse do!
Then I hope that one of them will turn into a male so I can see the harem in action. But most importantly, I hope they don't introduce a horrible disease to the system. I don't have s QT tank that would be sufficient for leopards so it's a plug into the display and prey scenario. Wish me luck!


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[tenurepro]

An experiment on tank PH.
My tank's ph typically ranges between 8 (morning) and 8.1 (evening). Not bad. One of the main reasons for lower than desired ph is co2 buildup in the home. I can take some tank water and aerate it outside the house and it quickly rises in ph. But if I tank tank water and aerate inside the house, the ph stays the same -> classic test for lower ph because of ambient co2.
I wanted to get ph hovering around 8.2. Can't leave windows open because it gets pretty cold here in Toronto in the winter. Also don't want to drill a hole in the wall to feed my skimmer fresh air. So I decided to start dosing kalkwaser in my ato, which increases ph by removing dissolved co2 in the water. My tunze ato has a 5 gallon reservoir, which is consumed in about 4 to 5 days. I started with 1 heaping teaspoon of kalkwaser (seachem) in my ato container. That upped the ph a bit but didn't get me to the sweet spot. So the next ato refill, I added the heaping teaspoon. Now the ph is bang on; averaging 8.2 - see top panel in the fig. Below

But, rookie mistakes where made. So I've been dosing Redsea's two part to maintain alk and ca at 8.5 and 430 respectively. I didn't really tune them down when I stared kalkwaser dosing, which of course also increase alk and ca. So by the second ato-kalkwaser container, my alk shot in quickly to 9.9 and my ca to 440. I immediately stopped 2 part dosing to let alk and ca recover a bit. They are coming down and thankfully the spike didn't kill any corals. At this point, I am not sure how much alk and ca will come down; tank doesn't consume much yet; the amount of mall needed to maintain ph at 8.2 may give an equilibrium value of alk and ca that is higher than 8.5 and 430 respectively. We'll see

I'm the end, not sure if this is worth the trouble for a slight increase in ph. But I'll try it for a month or so and re-evaluate

On fig - ph measured by Seneye, which was 'trimmed' using a lab grade ph meter. Alk measured using salifert kit, ca measured using redsea foundation pro kits. graph made in r:ggplot2


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[tenurepro]

Oh forgot to mention, picked this fromia starfish along with the leopards on Friday. Love the dash of vibrant red it adds to the reef

[tenurepro]

Macros from the reef
Fromia starfish

Blue green chromis

Blue Cali tort

The monster lurking in the shadows (fancy brittle star)



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[tanksfishtank]

Great looking setup!

[tenurepro]

Originally Posted by tanksfishtank

Great looking setup!

Thanks!


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