KJoFan's SCA 150g Build

[ReefSlice]

It's carbon dosing, I never had a problem either but dosed nopox on my new tank and it caused my nutrients to bottom out, not a speck of algae for months, not even on the glass! And I'm dosing a very tiny amount. Just something to keep your eye on, adjust your dosage and watch levels daily. It's amazing how much food your tank can proceed with carbon dosing.

 

[KJoFan]

Just checked PO4. I got 1 ppb. So essentially 0.

I’m going to set up my auto feeder to feed some pellets 3x per day and see what happens. That should help?

 

[ReefSlice]

You can try, but it could increase nitrate more than po4. This is why I went with dosing po4 using neophos and then keep it balanced using feeding frozen food twice a day.

 

[KJoFan]

You can try, but it could increase nitrate more than po4. This is why I went with dosing po4 using neophos and then keep it balanced using feeding frozen food twice a day.

Well, that's what I'm worried about. I don't necessarily want to pump a ton of food in there for that very reason. Maybe I should consider just dosing something like NeoPhos instead? I mean..I still should set up my autofeeder so they're fed at least a couple times per day vs a couple times per week. lol I don't think that will be super impactful to the nitrates as long as there's still some method of control.

 

[ReefSlice]

Well, that's what I'm worried about. I don't necessarily want to pump a ton of food in there for that very reason. Maybe I should consider just dosing something like NeoPhos instead? I mean..I still should set up my autofeeder so they're fed at least a couple times per day vs a couple times per week. lol I don't think that will be super impactful to the nitrates as long as there's still some method of control.

Sounds good, that's what I did, the second feeding daily doesn't increase my nitrates and my fish and corals are much happier and I didn't have to dump a ton of food in at first.

 

[KJoFan]

Noticing growth out of my Forest Fire digi. Not exactly the most difficult sps to keep but any growth is a start to greater things.

When I received it on February 23rd:

Tonight, April 30th:

 

[KJoFan]

Made a couple upgrades to the RO/DI this morning.

Well one isn’t an upgrade so much as a repair. Our 12 year old booster pump finally gave up the ghost a little while back. I purchased a replacement and installed it today. Unfortunately it’s still a no go. So I will replace the power supply as well and hopefully that does the trick.

Second thing is a potential upgrade.

Since my water is essentially well water I thought I’d give the single bed resin thing a try.

Granted my booster pump isn’t working so max psi is barely 40 right now. But I’m a bit confused at my tds meter results.

My original tds meter measures water out of the RO unit itself and measured 2 after letting it run and flush a bit.

But the triple tds meter that came with the new DI setup supposedly measures the water at the same point and it reads 6 vs the 2 my old one reads. Then after the cation and anion stages it’s reading 8 and after mixed bed 2. This was after letting it run for quite awhile.

So for now I’ve shut it down as I’d rather not fill my reservoir with 2 tds water. Anyone have any ideas? Is it just the low psi or something else?

@Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[Brew12]

I would suspect it is the low rejection rate from the RO unit due to low pressure.

I'm not 100% sure on why it is going up after the individual ion exchange beds. I believe that it is possible to be a valid reason since each of the single beds can remove the ions in an unbalanced manner causing TDS to read higher. There will be less "stuff" in the water but the stuff that is remaining can be slightly more conductive.

 

[KJoFan]

I would suspect it is the low rejection rate from the RO unit due to low pressure.

I'm not 100% sure on why it is going up after the individual ion exchange beds. I believe that it is possible to be a valid reason since each of the single beds can remove the ions in an unbalanced manner causing TDS to read higher. There will be less "stuff" in the water but the stuff that is remaining can be slightly more conductive.

I think you're probably right. From what I've read from others trying the single bed resins, it's not unusual to get higher readings between stages, but I should be achieving 0 by the end. My new booster power supply should be delivered today, so hopefully that will kick off the booster and we'll be on our way. If I'm still reading anything but 0 after the mixed bed then there's another issue.

I did transfer my existing canister of mixed bed from my previous dual stage setup as this canister appeared like it had not been used up at all. So, if nothing else I will swap out the existing mixed bed for fresh. So, definitely a couple tweaks I can make that will hopefully solve it.

The low psi was barely trickling any water into the triple stage DI canisters so I can't imagine they were working very well at all.

 

[KJoFan]

Issue resolved. Got the booster pump going last night which got the psi up to 80+ and changed the mixed bed DI just to be safe, which resulted in 0 tds final product.

 

[KJoFan]

Switched lighting on the tank this weekend. I opted for the GHL Mitras LX7206 fixtures for a couple reasons. One being that I already have the Profilux 4, so integration would be easy. Second, they seem to be highly regarded among available fixtures and I know firsthand that GHL gear is well built and high quality. So, with the thought of sps dominant as the tank matures and moves forward I settled on 4 fixtures for my 5x2x2 tank. This way there should be no question about adequate coverage.

 

[KJoFan]

 

[KJoFan]

 

[KJoFan]

This beauty graduated from QT today to the main tank (hence the egg crate in the FTS).

She's only a couple inches long but doing well. This was my first ever successful attempt at a full QT period. I wasn't much for QTing fish in the past due to lack of success and impatience, but when all my fish were wiped out in my last tank in a matter of a couple weeks, I resolved to QT the fish this time. So, after observation, 2 rounds of prazi and 30 days of copper, she has graduated with flying colors.

The only other inhabitants are my clown pair that are known to be an unwelcoming duo, so I've divided the tank for now. Thus far I think both parties are unaware of the other...

I'll be on a trip next week, but once I get back I'll be deciding on the next fish inhabitants. It takes flipping forever to stock a tank when you QT.

 

[KJoFan]

Took some par readings with an Apogee MQ-200: (sandbed readings in red..seem high)

 

[KJoFan]

Also, ordered a Hoeven's wrasse and 7x Ignitus Anthias from LA this past week. One anthia came in DOA and the wrasse was dead within a couple hours. I don't like ordering fish. The remaining six Ignitus are doing well so far though.

I tested nitrates this evening and still sitting on zero. Sigh. Many of my sps are bleaching even though I have them as low as I possibly can in the tank. I don't know how to increase nitrates aside from dosing them. Might cut down fuge lighting from 8 hours to something less, see if that helps first.

 

[KJoFan]

Some not so great cell shots. Things are slowly coloring back up. Some better than others. Patience Daniel son.

PC Rainbow looking pretty good:

This was just brown when I got it quite awhile ago and is just now starting to show something other than brown. I can’t quite tell yet what it will turn into.

FTS still doesn’t have much going for it.

 

[KJoFan]

Not much to report on this. I got 6 Ignitus Anthias through 3 months of QT successfully and added them to the tank a couple weeks ago. Two have shown up dead, two haven't shown up at all and two are out and about. I don't really know what I could have done differently to be more successful, as it seems they were just too scared/insecure to come out and likely just starved out. I added them all as a group thinking there would be safety in numbers but apparently not. I guess that might open up a couple slots for some different anthias down the road.

I've got a Pintail wrasse working it's way through QT and a Potter's Angel that will be graduating to the main tank very soon. The Potter's showed signs of velvet early on and has made it through 30 days of copper, now I'm just observing to make sure all is well.

Otherwise the tank seems to be settling in, though I'm fighting some cyano and green slime algae on the sand currently. I suspect it's due to my 0 PO4 which I've been working to bring up a bit, so we'll see. If I can't get around it, I'll probably deploy some red slime remover to whip it.

 

[KJoFan]

PC rainbow still coming along nicely. I need to get some top down shots of a few that are looking nice.

I think over time with replacements and losing color on pieces I’ve ended up with 3 different BC Shades of Fall pieces in the tank as well as 2 different frags of Garf Bonsai.

I might have to remove some of those into my growout tank once it’s going to open up more room in he display.

I picked up this nice mini colony of BC Hyperberry from a local this weekend for the basement bargain price of $60.

 

[KJoFan]

Poor photo of a nice coral. BC Fleshdunce