FYI: Long, potentially rambling, and boring update coming about dosers, flow, test kits, feeding, etc. I do have some info to share about the refugium and Chaetomax lights below. Feel free to skip down to that if the rest gets a bit dull for you.
So having added the dosers, I've gotten into the habit of testing a lot. Testing alkalinity daily and peppering other tests in throughout the week with usually a full-ish panel of tests on the weekend. My three SPS frags are doing ok. Polyp extension on all is dramatically reduced, except for the millepora which still shows good, if not ideal polyp extension. One frag with the least polyp extension is starting to brown a bit, but it is also the one that is encrusting the fastest, so maybe it is just going through the young frag stages. Lighting and flow are still a bit of an experiment. I really want to get a Seneye for the PAR meter, but that will need to wait, at least for a little bit.
My gyre is connected up to the Apex to control the variable speed, and I wondered maybe if I could be blasting the aquarium with too much flow, and I also figured that reducing flow would be a fairly easy way to rule that out. I think if high flow is a problem for polyp extension that reducing flow might show a difference fairly quickly. My sand had really been blasting out of the left side, and there is an obvious gyre moving in the tank, with periods of increasing intensity, periods of decreasing intensity, and periods of pulsing intensity. Maybe the acros need more flow and not less. I just don't know, but figured reducing flow could be rule out too much flow being a potential cause relatively quickly.
I'm fine tuning my 2 part dosing to try to establish rock steady alk levels. I use a Hanna Checker (dKH) and just opened my second bottle of reagent. On my first test with the new reagent, my dKH was almost 1 dKH higher, but that was also coincidentally immediately following a day that I had doubled the daily dose of two part because my daily dKH testing had been slowly creeping down while I was slowly increasing the dose trying to find the sweet spot. It seemed like my small increases in the dose rate just weren't making a difference, so I went from about 5-10 ml per day when I increased it. The day I upped the dose I didn't realize it was my last millimeter of reagent, so unfortunately my big dosage increase (percentage wise) completely coincided with the need to open new reagent the next day, which means I don't know if I went from 7.5 to 8.5 dKH due to the dosage increase or because of the new reagent, probably a bit of both. I should estimate the impact the increased dose would have on dKH using a calculator to help determine likelihood if it being cause by the increased dose or likely to be related to the reagents, but I just haven't done that yet. My old reagent had been chunky, I had been storing the reagent bottle on its side in the case, and hadn't been rinsing the syringe. I'm a bit shocked that chunks in the reagent is supposedly ok, and that it shouldn't be stored on its side as the case is designed that way. Good news is I'm babying the new bottle of reagent by storing it up right and cleaning the syringe with RO water after each use, and I'm curious to see how this bottle holds up compared to the previous. No chunks in it so far!
I'm also watching my nitrates and phosphates closely. I'm using the Hanna ULR Phorphorus checker, and Red Sea Nitrate Pro kit. Nitrates have never been detectable. Phosphates have fluctuated between 0.0 to 0.04 ppm. I'm dosing 3 ml of each Reef Energy A & B every day, each day I feed 1/3 cube of two different frozen foods for a total of about 2/3 cube, alternating between hikari mysis, brine, spirulina bine, krill, and blood worms. My fish load consists of a longnose hawk, two percula clowns, a six line, and a lawnmower blenny. The lawnmower blenny isn't eatting well. I had some very short but thick stalked brown hair algae stuff for a bit when I got him. Unfortunately he didn't touch it, but a turbo and astrea destroyed it. There is virtually no algae in the tank now (turbo even ate one small patch of bubble algae) aside from light brown glass algae that I clean 1-2 times a week. I've been putting in some nori for him rubber banded to a piece of rubble, and he nibbles it, but not aggressively and not as much as I would like him to. Not sure if he's going to make it... I've also been feeding reef roids occasionally, but only a couple times a week due to what it involves. I like to mix it up very thick in a dental irrigation syringe and target feed some paste like drops onto the favia and acans which love it. The I shower the acros and blast the small remnants into the tank broadcast style. I could probably do this more often.
I seem to be feeding this aquarium a lot given its size. I'm considering getting an auto feeder to give the fish some pellets while I'm at work during the week. I also want to get them trained to recognize and eat the food from an auto feeder to help facilitate my vacationing. Changing out my mechanical filter pads is so easy now with the filter socks gone, and I'm really good about changing the floss. My chaeto filled refugium is doing as great, if not better than I had ever hoped, and the little skimmer is doing good too. It does send some microbubbles to the tank though, and I've wondered if those could impact acro happiness. So as far as nutrients go, I seem to be fairly firmly stuck in the ULNS area with lots of nutrients going in and lots of nutrients going out. Due to undetectable nitrates and consistently low to undetectable phosphates, I'm still trying to find that sweet spot like I am with the two part dosing. My nutrient export might actually be overkill.
I'm using three IM Chaetomax lights (yeah...what?!?!), and I've never had chaeto growth like this before, so I think they work! The chaeto fuge fills two out of five chambers in the back of my lagoon, approximately a third of the total back area space. The bottom of both chambers have an inch or two of Seachem pond matrix (or maybe it is just Seachem matrix...I forgot which I bought) as well. The chaeto is growing quickly and completely fills the chambers and forms into healthy and fairly dense bricks. I'm alternating the pruning by only pruning one chamber at a time. I pruned the first chamber where water flows in from the tank today, which is the smaller of the two refugium chambers. Take a look at this chaeto!
Chaeto removed for pruning:
Cut in half lengthwise and then cut one half again. I used the piece by the scissors to reseed. It's probably about 2/5ths the mass.
One of two big chunks I discarded.
I'm a bit amazed that this export is coming from one of two small chambers. I might need to reduce my nutrient export game or continue to increase my import game...
I hope this was somehow interesting or even helpful for some of you. I'm really hoping to find a great balance with this nano and see these corals take off. Time will tell. Thanks for stopping by!
