Kodski's 80gal office lagoon

[Kodski]

Who wants an update?!?

Too bad, you’re getting one anyways so deal with it.

Unfortunately the copperband passed away due to not eating. I decided to try a leathered filed fish for my aptasia problem but had no luck with him and eventually he decided to jump out of the tank somehow. I resorted to peppermint shrimp but they quickly disappeared, for some reason. My alk did spike to 13dkh so maybe that’s the reason. I got my alk back down to 10.5-11 dKH that I typically keep. Last week I decided to try some bergia nudis as a last resort. I got 7 of them and haven’t seen them since I added them. Not sure if it’s my mind making things up but I do think aptasia are slowly disappearing. So fingers crossed they are working, but time will tell.

Corals are doing great! There are a few new additions since last update. I’ve since added a small colony of forest fire digi, a nice WWC yellow tips stag, a purple stylo, a no name pink montipora, a green indo torch, and what I think is a NY nicks torch.

I’m seeing lots of growth on my hammers and the one existing torch. The sps are starting to settle in nicely and I’m seeing noticeable growth over the last week and a half. Colors are really starting to get vibrant. My red Goni is even recovering. Half of it was bleached almost white from getting buried in my last tank while away about 6 months ago. In the last two weeks I noticed it start to gain back some color finally and now you can hardly see a color difference.

A few other updates. I got my 75 gallon tank in the basement plumbed into the system finally. This is going to be a display for my eyes only, and of course reef2reef. Basically the idea is the office tank is for guests and my wife to enjoy and this tank will be just things I enjoy, which is sps. I just hung the 4ft 6-bulb ati light and added rock in the last last week. Yesterday I added a baby chocolate tang, two red fire fish, and I transferred the sailfin from the 80 gallon to that tank as well. This past Thursday I picked up and added some sps frags to test out since I’m seeing growth in the main display. So far Everything seems to be doing great, I did have one frag bleach out but it did that while being transported. I did get two freebies as well so I can’t complain. Especially since I only paid $144 for everything.

Here are the frag pics from the vendor. They are all no name, which is fine for me. I’m not a name guy, I like what I like and that’s reason enough for me to buy it.

 

[Kodski]

Yesterday I finally added something to the tank that I've wanted for a long time. I struggle with consistent feedings for some reason. Some days I feed several times while other times I forget and don't feed the tank at all. The other week BRS had the Eheim auto feeders on their "gem" sale for a great price. I think they typically are like $43 and I picked them up for $26. I bought two, one for the 80 gallon display and the other for the 75 gallon display. They were easy to program and get setup, so far I'm very happy with them.

In the end I'm hopping this will help me dial in my nutrients but also create a better living environment for the fish. I will still supplement feeding with frozen foods but at least on the days I run out of time or don't think of it, the fish will still be fat and happy.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Yesterday I finally added something to the tank that I've wanted for a long time. I struggle with consistent feedings for some reason. Some days I feed several times while other times I forget and don't feed the tank at all. The other week BRS had the Eheim auto feeders on their "gem" sale for a great price. I think they typically are like $43 and I picked them up for $26. I bought two, one for the 80 gallon display and the other for the 75 gallon display. They were easy to program and get setup, so far I'm very happy with them.

In the end I'm hopping this will help me dial in my nutrients but also create a better living environment for the fish. I will still supplement feeding with frozen foods but at least on the days I run out of time or don't think of it, the fish will still be fat and happy.

auto feeders are great! start out slow I went to auto feeders about a year ago and started with 2 feedings a day which quickly became a problem in a few weeks I didn't realize how much uneaten food was hanging around and going down the overflow.

now I have them feed once a day and a very small amount, I still feed by hand but at first I was trying to let the auto feeder do all the work which I have found in my situation is not the best for my system.

I also had one fall in the water when I was working on the tank, food was destroyed but didnt cuse any issues to the water the unit and food was toast. I use the hydros which are similar to the eheim.

they definitely have a place, hopefully it works good for you!!! the tank is looking awesome!!!! I love the no name frag pics!!!

 

[Kodski]

auto feeders are great! start out slow I went to auto feeders about a year ago and started with 2 feedings a day which quickly became a problem in a few weeks I didn't realize how much uneaten food was hanging around and going down the overflow.

now I have them feed once a day and a very small amount, I still feed by hand but at first I was trying to let the auto feeder do all the work which I have found in my situation is not the best for my system.

I also had one fall in the water when I was working on the tank, food was destroyed but didnt cuse any issues to the water the unit and food was toast. I use the hydros which are similar to the eheim.

they definitely have a place, hopefully it works good for you!!! the tank is looking awesome!!!! I love the no name frag pics!!!

I appreciate the words of warning! I was also concerned about over doing it with the food. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on my nutrient levels over the new few weeks for sure.

So far I do have mine set to 4 times a day to feed on the 80 gallon. Two of those times are two rotations while the other two are single rotations. But now you have me questioning if that’s truly too much.

I will say, I did test the amount it would feed over a paper plate to dial it in to make sure it was an appropriate amount of food. Each rotation is about a pinch of food for my fingers. With the fish that are in the tank it’s all gone within 2 minutes as I’ve been watching. Also an advantage of being a bare bottom tank is that the food doesn’t tend to get lost too bad. The fish hunt it down and eat it up pretty easily.

Another thing I’ve been worried about, is over the last month my phosphates have halved. So I am approaching some dangerous territory with the rate of decline in phosphate. So I was thinking that maybe a little extra food isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I do tend to test my phosphates along with my alk weekly. I’ll be testing today actually, so I’ll be able to see how the extra food is affecting nutrients and dial back the food if I need to.

 

[Kodski]

Happy Sunday everyone!

 

[Kodski]

One thing I always want to improve on is the consistency of my parameter testing. At the moment it’s probably what could help me with the tank the most. It’s my goal moving forward to test the parameters I find most important at least once a week. I personally don’t think testing nitrates and magnesium is necessary more than once a month, or at least if everything is looking good. I do think you should test all parameters at least once a month though. I’ve seen magnesium issues take out tons of coral at a local fish store, which makes me think just keeping an eye on it is a good idea.

At this point things in the tank haven’t been consuming enough for me to be too concerned about my testing. Tonight’s test shows the tank is headed in the right direction with nutrients but also that a larger amount of Alkalinity and calcium are now being used. For this reason, I think it will now be necessary for me to test phosphate, alk, and calcium on a weekly basis.

I’m going to use 2-part to get my alk and calcium back to where it needs to be and then increase how much kalkwasser I’m putting in my ato. I’ll try to balance it where my kalkwasser keeps my alk within 1/2 a DKH and then dose a little 2-part once a week. I’ll adjust from there then.


As you can see my phosphates are for sure dropping from where they were a few months ago. To achieve this I’m simply making an effort to not over feed the tank but also change out my filter floss more frequently. Prior I was changing it out once a week when it was clogging, but now I try to change it every two days but it typically ends up being 3 which is the longest I want to go. My skimmer is for sure oversized but does a great job pulling a nice dark skim out of the tank. I usually empty it once a week and clean the neck once a month.

I started dosing TM NP-Bacto Balance a week ago along with my auto feeders. I’m attempting to drop Phosphate and feed the corals along the way.

I also have cheato growing in my refugium. It did stall out with growth and started to die back in May but after a few doses of Brightwell’s Cheato grow it took off again. I haven’t cut it back in a While but that’s on this week’s chore list for sure.

 

[Kodski]

Also, peep that PH. I’ve never seen my PH below 8.3 and I don’t do anything to help increase it. I’m sure it could do some with the Kalkwasser, but even before I started with that I was always at 8.3. Wish I knew what my secret was.