Mark's 150 gallon

[Pife]

By the looks of your pictures is keep don't whatever you're doing.

[nemodan]

Every time I open your thread I see a better and better and better .....tank !!!

Amazing !!!

Cheers
Daniel

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by markalot

FTS

This is an awesome FTS Mark. Well done. Are you happy with growth rates?

[sahin]

Wow. Honestly your tank has come a long way. I'd be so happy to have my tank look as good as yours is looking right now. Keep up the awesome work!

[markalot]

Originally Posted by Pife

By the looks of your pictures is keep don't whatever you're doing.

Thanks Pife.

Originally Posted by nemodan

Every time I open your thread I see a better and better and better .....tank !!!

Amazing !!!

Cheers
Daniel

Thanks for visiting Daniel!

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

This is an awesome FTS Mark. Well done. Are you happy with growth rates?

Yep, can't really complain. I wish the slimer would grow slower and I wish some more difficult acros would grow faster.

Originally Posted by sahin

Wow. Honestly your tank has come a long way. I'd be so happy to have my tank look as good as yours is looking right now. Keep up the awesome work!

Thanks Sahin, it's been a long road.

So corals looked even better yesterday with the pink acro getting a nice pink shine back with purplish growth tips. Is it all MicroE? I think more water changes would have fixed this as well. The difference between 3 days ago and now is pretty remarkable.

Cousin It has regained the nice red but continues to look stressed with very little polyp extension. What in the world is wrong with this coral?

My brown frags from the maricultured piece, both of them, are now such a rich brown they appear to have been dipped in chocolate. I am half tempted to move Cousin It down lower and put one of these right under the light at 500 PAR and see what happens.

The Xenia continues to slowly take over and only the slimer can fend it off. It looks like a war zone where the xenia moved in too close and has been nuked down to a pile of tan goo on the rock. I suspect the blue stag could defend itself as well after seeing a frag in the sandbed kill half of a monti it fell on. I'm always amazed at how defensive healthy acros can be.

I visited the makeup aisle in Walmart and bought a nice pair of large tweezers type things with a flat head that should make pulling the Xenia out a little easier. The ladies where most impressed I chose the Revlon version rather than some generic for a few bucks less. They did seem confused, though, when I explained I thought these would hold up better in salt water.

[w3bbo]

By yourself a set of fishing forceps Mark. Works a treat at pulling Xenia from my tank, especially the harder to reach places.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by w3bbo

By yourself a set of fishing forceps Mark. Works a treat at pulling Xenia from my tank, especially the harder to reach places.

Oh, those do look nice, thanks for the tip Rich!

[markalot]

... and KH dropped all the way to 6.1 after remaining steady for over a week. I'd say what I'm doing is making something happy.

Color is still a little off but growth is showing up everywhere so I think color will follow.

Cousin It has regained color in the center but still 'hairless'. It's also showing some green on the growing edges as growth picks back up.



My test frag is about the same and also showing some green over the edge that had to heal.


The Red Robin has browned, as it will do when any little thing changes, but growth is very fast.


You gotta love a slimer, but the rate of growth can be frustrating.










fts (click for larger)

[markalot]

KH 5.7! Good grief. I'm wrestling with the beast trying to get it slowly back up. I have new growth sprouting up on most of the acros now and ignoring the low KH things look fantastic. So what's in the secret sauce? Is it the MicroE, the AcroPower, the 5 drops od CaNO3 daily, the vinegar? I'll stick with the current dosing and see how it goes.

[reefmutt]

Well,if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be changing much!
Looking fantastic!

[Acronic]

Living on the edge with that alk! Corals looking great though

[markalot]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Well,if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be changing much!
Looking fantastic!

It's just so boring not to change things to see if I can get improvements. This is why I moved to all droppers, it prevents my personality type from screwing things up.

Originally Posted by Acronic

Living on the edge with that alk! Corals looking great though

Thanks!

I wanted to take pictures but the memory card on the camera says corrupted. I was finally able to get the computer to recognize the card so I could reformat and it seems to work but by that time it was too late for pics. Buying a new memory card just in case.

I am now adding 30ml of each two part daily and KH is at 6.5 and still slowly falling. Has the tank been Alk starved, does this explain some of the issues on a few corals? My goal remains 7KH but I rarely achieve that level for long.

Growth on the slimer is now alarming with new buds everywhere (more than last week). Other easier SPS are showing a ton of new growth as well. The brown acros remain brown and reds remain off so I am reducing Nitrate dosing again and seeing if I get any changes. I've also increases PhosphateRx to 4 drops a day with PO4 hovering around .06. As I referenced above, all of these changes are very gradual due to the way I do things but if I move in the wrong direction it might take weeks to notice and move back.

3 drops MicroE
3 drops Kalum (same dose instructions as MicroE)
4 drops PhosphateRx (up from 2)
5 drops vinegar
0 drops CaNO3 (Stopped for now, nitrates at ~5)
5 drops SpongePower
1/4 tsp Reef Roids or Reef Chili or Coral Frenzy
2 squirts (dropper full) of AcroPower.

Alk and Calcium provided via timed topoff with saturated Kalk plus 30ml 2 part daily.

As far as PhosphateRx, it's difficult to tell what the dose needs to be. Overdosing will apparently not starve the tank of PO4 as it can only reduce it so far. 4 may be overdosing a bit, trying to sort this out with PO4 tests.

[Wazzel]

Mark the tank looks great.

[Piper27]

Awesome tank man! Your stuff looks good right now.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by Wazzel

Mark the tank looks great.

Originally Posted by Piper27

Awesome tank man! Your stuff looks good right now.

Thank you both! As always, can I keep it going or not.

I had some serious cleaning of my smaller tank to do and didn't get to photos until after the t5's shut off so these are LEdelicious as far as colors go. That tank does look bright under the LED's, it's the daylight colors I'm working on.

The slimer was reduced to 3 awkward branches but has recently put on one of those growth spurts that is nothing short of incredible. It's ain't artwork, but it's healthy.





On the right side I'd like to point out another green one, the super easy to grow green digi. Small frag in back, primary piece being overtaken by the cephastrea, and the small 'frag' on the frag rack which is about as big as the parent.


I can grow green SPS like no other.

KH is stuck at 6.1, getting a little frustrated as I feed the addiction. Next stop is 40ml a day, each part dosed at alternate hours 12 times a day. This could get costly.

[markalot]

The Cousing It frag RTN'ed yesterday evening and it appears the colony will soon follow. Something happened months ago and it's dead. RIP.

One of my brown frags will soon be cooking up high to see what happens. Either than or I move a frag of the other milli up there to see how it responds, keeping the parent down low where it's happy but lacks good color.

[sprite]

Sorry about the rtn, but tank is looking great Mark!!

[HuskerBioProf]

Are you still running the ATI T5/nanobox hybrid? I am building a 150 gallon (5'x2'x2') and I have Dave building me a custom hybrid from a 8 bulb 60" ATI unit (will be 6 bulb plus 2 rows of LED). Are you still liking it and would recommend?

Too late for me to change, but I am pretty excited about it so I want a little confirmation of my decision..haha. I have loved running mostly T5s on my 40 breeder. My LEDs will mostly be for morning/evenings and for extra blue pop during the day.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by HuskerBioProf

Are you still running the ATI T5/nanobox hybrid? I am building a 150 gallon (5'x2'x2') and I have Dave building me a custom hybrid from a 8 bulb 60" ATI unit (will be 6 bulb plus 2 rows of LED). Are you still liking it and would recommend?

Too late for me to change, but I am pretty excited about it so I want a little confirmation of my decision..haha. I have loved running mostly T5s on my 40 breeder. My LEDs will mostly be for morning/evenings and for extra blue pop during the day.

Hi Prof,

yes, I like it a LOT. I think you'll be happy with it, just don't underestimate how bright the LED's are, even though they may look dim compared to the T5's.

KH sitting at 6.8 after maybe a day at 7. Cousin It is not dead yet, and perhaps raising the KH is helping. Both It and the blue stag seem to be extremely sensitive to low KH. My new target is 7.2 and to get there I'm now dosing 35ml two part along with the Kalk.


I've been too busy to take many pictures. I shot this looking down the steps. Colors are good, but not great.

[kevlow]

Originally Posted by markalot

Hi Prof,

yes, I like it a LOT. I think you'll be happy with it, just don't underestimate how bright the LED's are, even though they may look dim compared to the T5's.

KH sitting at 6.8 after maybe a day at 7. Cousin It is not dead yet, and perhaps raising the KH is helping. Both It and the blue stag seem to be extremely sensitive to low KH. My new target is 7.2 and to get there I'm now dosing 35ml two part along with the Kalk.


I've been too busy to take many pictures. I shot this looking down the steps. Colors are good, but not great.

That FTS is absolutely brilliant. I love when individual colonies jump out at you from across the room.

Having the back wall blacked out eliminates a lot of eye clutter.

I hope the Cousin It makes it. My own experience seems to point to low alk spikes being more detrimental then high alk spikes.

Congrats! That post looks more like a masterpiece canvas then an actual photo.

[twf0369]

Hi Mark,

First, thank you for all of your detailed reporting and documentation! You have really been through it all my friend. I've been following your thread for quite sometime now and I was wondering why you stopped dosing the Lugols Iodine? I recently had the Trition test done and my iodine was very low. Just wanted to see if you've seen any adverse affects to dosing a drop a day.

Thank you and please continue to keep us posted on your beautiful reef.

Kevin

[markalot]

Originally Posted by twf0369

Hi Mark,

First, thank you for all of your detailed reporting and documentation! You have really been through it all my friend. I've been following your thread for quite sometime now and I was wondering why you stopped dosing the Lugols Iodine? I recently had the Trition test done and my iodine was very low. Just wanted to see if you've seen any adverse affects to dosing a drop a day.

Thank you and please continue to keep us posted on your beautiful reef.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

thanks for the kind words. I've actually started back up with Lugols, 3 drops daily as of last week. So far no change. I've never seen any adverse effect of Lugols other than the fact the Xenia pest love it.

[twf0369]

KH sitting at 6.8 after maybe a day at 7. Cousin It is not dead yet, and perhaps raising the KH is helping. Both It and the blue stag seem to be extremely sensitive to low KH. My new target is 7.2 and to get there I'm now dosing 35ml two part along with the Kalk.


Mark, what were your findings at running KH at 8? That's where I'm currently at and think I need to lower it...

thank you.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by twf0369

KH sitting at 6.8 after maybe a day at 7. Cousin It is not dead yet, and perhaps raising the KH is helping. Both It and the blue stag seem to be extremely sensitive to low KH. My new target is 7.2 and to get there I'm now dosing 35ml two part along with the Kalk.


Mark, what were your findings at running KH at 8? That's where I'm currently at and think I need to lower it...

thank you.

In my experience a spike from 8 to near 9 did a lot of damage so I'm fearful of running near 8. It may not be a rational fear, a lot of folks run at 8 without any issue, but I prefer some breathing room.

I say this and note that I've had some real damage from KH getting too low, but not the kind of damage a KH spike causes.

[reefmutt]

My alk went up to 8-8.3 recently and I immediately saw burnt tips on several corals.
I find it so bizarre how some can keep an alk of 8-9-10 without incident and others suffer such damage at a small hike..