Basically starting over on my 120 gallon

pdiehm · Apr 16, 2017

The last of my SPS frags have all lost their flesh, no more corals are in the tank, and as of last night, my paramters were:

8.7 alk
8.33 pH
420 Calcium
1350 Magnesium
1.026 Salinity
0.25-0.50 nitrates
0.00 PO4

My reefbreeders photon 48 continues to be a big PITA as I absolutely cannot get this thing dialed in, and has been that way since I got the light almost 2 years ago. Since I have no corals, and just my anemone, I have lowered the settings to 50% blue, 5% white as I figure out whether I want to go Fish Only or have a mixed Softie/LPS tank. Maybe one day when I'm wealthy and have money coming out of my ****, I will get a T5 fixture, which takes all the guess work out of light spectrum, intensity etc. It's On/Off. I am toying with putting a 60" Retrofit system (front and back of my canopy) but wouldn't you know it, the way I built my canopy, I can't figure out how to mount it and keep it secure. As it is, only one side would have the mounting screws.

I think I cleared up my dinoflagellates problem with Dino-X.

BioCube29:

I am starting 2 part dosing on my BioCube which has a ****ton of coraline algae, a torch, brain, some candy canes, zoa's, a Favia that is coming back to life and FGSP. My levels drop a lot over a week. I just did a 15 gallon water change last night on the cube, and my readings were 8.6/430. So will test nightly for a week, come up with my numbers, and figure it out.

Once I get the grasp of 2 part dosing, maybe I'll do that for the 120 downstairs which is now bare except for an anemone and a pair of clowns. Im thinking that I'll add the following fish:

a Goby with a shrimp
Midas Blenny
Kole Tang
Yellow Tang
Maybe the Chocolate Tang (undecided)
Maybe a couple different flasher wrasse, we'll see. If they can adapt to once a day feeding and be good, then yes. If not, then no.
A 6-8 group of Bangai/Pajama Cardinals

For corals, I am thinking:

Some Zoa's, some Torches and Frogspawn, Brains, Favia, Acan's, and a Maze Brain. I'm all for other suggestions.

Another thing that I really struggle with is coral placement, I honestly have no clue where to place corals.

As I continue to dial in the Photon 48, for general idea, what's the PAR I want on the sandbed? In theory, if I have the sandbed right number wise, the rest should fall into place right?

pdiehm · Apr 16, 2017

Took some par readings at 65B/25W

nervousmonkey · Apr 16, 2017

Those are pretty good PAR readings. @saltyfilmfolks ???

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 16, 2017

Those Par numbers are excellent. 100-200 on the sand is good. I really wouldn't say its light. I would be concerned about zero Po4..

not to doubt you but a lot of folks grow with that light, so Id look elsewhere for the problem.

Is that a picture of a two year old Reef?

pdiehm · Apr 16, 2017

That's a picture of my 2 year old tank that hasn't been able to keep anything alive except the anemone, and 2 clowns.

That said, I do not think I have the capacity to keep SPS. No real mentors around here to help out locally and help out with placement and such.

It's all ok. Will work on keeping the softies and lps and get them to grow before I even entertain the idea of sps corals.

As mentioned before an tinkering with 2 part and if I can figure that out will employ that on the 120

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 16, 2017

pdiehm said:
That's a picture of my 2 year old tank that hasn't been able to keep anything alive except the anemone, and 2 clowns.

That said, I do not think I have the capacity to keep SPS. No real mentors around here to help out locally and help out with placement and such.

It's all ok. Will work on keeping the softies and lps and get them to grow before I even entertain the idea of sps corals.

As mentioned before an tinkering with 2 part and if I can figure that out will employ that on the 120

Ive heard there's some good mentors on Reef2reef.

That tank should be a lot farther along. That's just me eyeballing it. If that's a 2 year old reef. It's running on tap water and The chloramines are killing it.

Im growing acros and stonys in a sumpless 30 and have been all year. Skimmerless mostly. Only water changes.

pdiehm · Apr 16, 2017

The biocube has been getting priority in set up since where it is located. This is in the man cave.

No tap water! All rodi.

Just haven't been able to grow much of anything. 2 bouts of Dino's and until today, really didn't have a good starting point for the light intensity.

No coralline algae in the tank, and until last night never had an NO3 reading of over 0.00 but since the cube is doing nicely, want to get this thing set up properly.