Greybeard's Wide, Shallow Peninsula

[Greybeard]

Not in my experience.

What part of England? My father lived in Watlington for about a decade, ending in the mid 90's. Worked for TWA at the time. I used to go visit him pretty regularly.

Dad used to have a big 4th of July celebration every year, with fireworks! Coolers full of Budweiser beer, red, white, and blue decor... Invited all his British friends over Good sports, one and all.

Good day to remember that on... April 19th

 

[najer]

Not in my experience.

What part of England? My father lived in Watlington for about a decade, ending in the mid 90's. Worked for TWA at the time. I used to go visit him pretty regularly.

Dad used to have a big 4th of July celebration every year, with fireworks! Coolers full of Budweiser beer, red, white, and blue decor... Invited all his British friends over Good sports, one and all.

Good day to remember that on... April 19th

Bristol, South West, nice memory.

 

[Greybeard]

Road trip to TL Reefs today. Sorry, no pics... Not a huge place, but the selection was really pretty good, on corals, anyway. He has a few fish, but it's not really a 'fish' store. Has a very nice 300DD display tank, and two coral troughs, the larger I think I heard him say was 1200 gallons. All T5 lighting on the corals, which is great for me... Lots of SPS, some real nice looking stuff. His frags seem quite a bit larger than what I've seen some other folks ship as a frag.

I picked up a long tentacled plate, a gorgeous green wall hammer, a 4" crocea clam, several acan and blasto frags.

Also carries LRS foods.

Cash talks Made us good deals all around. Nice guy, easy to talk to. I'm happy with the trip.

I'll post some pics of the new additions, once I get 'em acclimated and opened up.

 

[Greybeard]

A few pics... These are cell phone photos, and I'm no photographer. Colors look washed out in the photos, they look great in person. Wall hammer is about 6" wide

Crocea, about 4", Seems healthy, very light reactive.

Torch, tips are actually a very pretty orange...

And yes, the colors on this Acan are also washed out. It's a real beauty!

 

[Greybeard]

Just realized I'd never posted this...

Video to show off my daughter's artwork. Taken shortly after pouring 2 gallons of bar top epoxy. It's cured, though it still looks wet. Still looks just like this today.

 

[FredsNJReef]

wow that looks awesome! Great art work and nice set up!

 

[najer]

I watched the stand come together from the start, glad you are keeping us updated!

 

[apex_everything]

Beautiful! Finally found your build! I absolutely love the book shelf and how the tank sits in the room. Beautiful home. Can I get a picture of the closet and how you set up your sump? How big is the space?

 

[siggy]

The blue really sets it off, gives it a different dimension. Nice corals and I definitely see the difference between my hammers I have one of each the branching likes high nutreince and will take salinity swings ,the wall is sensitive to everything including flow.

 

[Greybeard]

Beautiful! Finally found your build! I absolutely love the book shelf and how the tank sits in the room. Beautiful home. Can I get a picture of the closet and how you set up your sump? How big is the space?

Thanks The other side of the wall is not nearly as impressive. Functional, but not impressive.

The closet is long and narrow, 8' x 2.5'. Not ideal, but workable. I've got a mixing station, sump, dosing system, ATO system, reactors, a dehumidifier, and most of the necessary maintenance equipment stored there... It's pretty crowded Still, it's far better than having to work from my knees! Doors are of the double sliding mirrored variety. One day soon, I may replace them with a pair of louvered doors. Give me a little more ventilation, and better access.

Sump is a converted 55g tank, just over half of it is chaeto refugeum, skimmer compartment, return pump. Nothing complicated.

 

[mta_morrow]

Beautiful tank and great setup !

Following along for the ride!

 

[apex_everything]

Thanks The other side of the wall is not nearly as impressive. Functional, but not impressive.

The closet is long and narrow, 8' x 2.5'. Not ideal, but workable. I've got a mixing station, sump, dosing system, ATO system, reactors, a dehumidifier, and most of the necessary maintenance equipment stored there... It's pretty crowded Still, it's far better than having to work from my knees! Doors are of the double sliding mirrored variety. One day soon, I may replace them with a pair of louvered doors. Give me a little more ventilation, and better access.

Sump is a converted 55g tank, just over half of it is chaeto refugeum, skimmer compartment, return pump. Nothing complicated.

Awesome! Looks like its user friendly.

 

[Tahoe61]

I have come back to look at the artwork done by your daughter twice now. It's so awesome.

 

[Greybeard]

Hm... Haven't done any updates in a while.

I'm still having little luck with SPS, but LPS, Softies, especially Zoanthids, are growing nicely. I'm not unhappy with that.

Got a shipment in this week from IPSF, several varieties of macro algae, spaghetti worms, isopods and copepods, live sand activator, some snails capable of in tank reproduction... It's not the kind of thing you want to grab the camera for, but a little added bio-diversity, as I near the 1 year mark with this system, seemed appropriate. IPSF, while not inexpensive, met my expectations, as they always have in the past. Fast shipping, good packaging, well labeled, sample sizes larger than advertised. Good stuff. IPSF is my favorite (remaining) vendor for this sort of thing.

I used to buy from Inland Aquatics and GARF, as well. Inland is either closed, or closing... and have been scaling back for years. It's a real shame, that was a very cool place back in the day. GARF is still going, but since Leroy passed, it's never really been quite what it once was. I've heard rumors from time to time that they're going to up their game, but I haven't really seen it yet. If Sally Jo happens to read this, I'd LOVE to be able to recommend GARF again. Here's hoping.

I've settled on a dosing method that is working well for me. ESV B-Ionic 2pt, supplementing Kalkwasser dosing via dosing pump. ATO is straight RO/DI water. I'm doing bi-weekly 10% water changes, running GFO and GAC when I start to see more film algae starting to grow. Feeding Rod's and LRS frozen foods... probably more than I should. Nitrates stable at 2-3, depending on how recently I've done a water change. Phosphates rise and fall, but as long as they stay under 1, no reason to panic. Haven't sent off a water sample for ICP testing since mid winter... things are stable enough, I'm not willing to spend the time and effort to do so.

Oh, and thanks much to those commenting on my daughter's artwork. Here's her latest... not tank related, but I suppose it could be pet related... it's a table top to put over her dog crate. She cut the boards, glued up the top, and did the design entirely with plain old wood stain

 

[najer]

I hope people have read the whole thing, I was hooked at what she did with the "top" it is "placed" on, I love you not chasing numbers, I do a lot of reading, ULNS sucks in my opinion, rip out all the natural nutrients and then try and replace them as you imagine how it should be!

 

[HolisticBear]

ULNS sucks in my opinion, rip out all the natural nutrients and then try and replace them as you imagine how it should be!

To be fair, if their goal is that very unique pastel (unnatural) look, then that's likely the only way. You starve, borderline posion, and dose for that look. But it's alot of work if that isn't your end goal.

 

[Greybeard]

I hope people have read the whole thing, I was hooked at what she did with the "top" it is "placed" on,

Yeah, she does good work.

I love you not chasing numbers, I do a lot of reading, ULNS sucks in my opinion, rip out all the natural nutrients and then try and replace them as you imagine how it should be!

The thing to remember about ULNS reefkeeping is this... a few years ago, it was virtually impossible. The addition of GFO, carbon dosing, and to some extent, zeolite reactors allow ULNS to exist. Before those additions, the closest we could get would be a temporary nutrient sink, like a DSB, to control nutrients. Turf algae scrubbers work pretty well, but the're still pretty rare. For the most part, we all struggled with nutrient export. Constantly. With the most effective method being regular water changes, which really isn't very effective. Technologies evolve... that's a good thing. ULNS reefing, IMHO, was an over-reaction to our long running struggle trying to keep corals in high nutrient conditions, combined with a mis-understanding of the true water conditions on a reef. It's a net positive, even if you never implement an ULNS tank, the tools, techniques, and technologies that allow ULNS reefing give us choices that we never had before.

 

[najer]

Yeah, she does good work.



The thing to remember about ULNS reefkeeping is this... a few years ago, it was virtually impossible. The addition of GFO, carbon dosing, and to some extent, zeolite reactors allow ULNS to exist. Before those additions, the closest we could get would be a temporary nutrient sink, like a DSB, to control nutrients. Turf algae scrubbers work pretty well, but the're still pretty rare. For the most part, we all struggled with nutrient export. Constantly. With the most effective method being regular water changes, which really isn't very effective. Technologies evolve... that's a good thing. ULNS reefing, IMHO, was an over-reaction to our long running struggle trying to keep corals in high nutrient conditions, combined with a mis-understanding of the true water conditions on a reef. It's a net positive, even if you never implement an ULNS tank, the tools, techniques, and technologies that allow ULNS reefing give us choices that we never had before.

I fully accept this but why manipulate the environment to suite the corals rather than making the corals "naturally" happy and healthy, I know my tank grows more slowly than a lot of people could manage, my corals are generally fine, I way prefer a happy tank rather than a "forced" tank!

 

[Greybeard]

I fully accept this but why manipulate the environment to suite the corals rather than making the corals "naturally" happy and healthy, I know my tank grows more slowly than a lot of people could manage, my corals are generally fine, I way prefer a happy tank rather than a "forced" tank!

Stable, natural reef conditions just don't exist in a little glass box. We have to manipulate, or at least regulate, the environment in our tanks, or we'd never be able to keep corals alive. ULNS was intended as an improvement on the very high nutrient tanks of the past. IMHO, it overshot that goal, but provided tools and techniques that we can use in our never ending goal of replicating nature.

Slow and steady is my mantra... nothing good in reefkeeping happens fast.

 

[pelphrey]

supplementing Kalkwasser dosing via dosing pump.

I've actually just started to research this. I am not at the point of dosing kalk just yet but I feel I'd rather dose VS run through my ATO. Awesome art work also!