My Big Beautiful Budget Breeder Build

Retro Reefer · Jan 6, 2019

najer said:
Thank you, your tank is beautiful, I want whatever is front left by the way, it is where you are at now, I love watching different tanks run in different ways evolve, I do still change things, just not very often!

I’ll trade you everything in the left front of my tank for everything in the left front of yours

Retro Reefer · Jan 6, 2019

Nice PE on my new Cyphastrea today.. he must be happy

Retro Reefer · Jan 6, 2019

I’m digging the colors of this one

Real puffy today!

NewbyREEF · Jan 6, 2019

Retro Reefer said:
May have to expedite the set up process my better half is not at all happy about the pile of goodness sitting on our dining room floor.. lol

Nice post, hope you New Year is going well, and in Home theater talk it's : SAPQ ( Spouse Approval Quotient) I know this well

Retro Reefer · Jan 6, 2019

NewbyREEF said:
Nice post, hope you New Year is going well, and in Home theater talk it's : SAPQ ( Spouse Approval Quotient) I know this well

Thanks for stopping by my build thread.. you know the old saying, if mama’s not happy no body’s happy

Happy new year!

Retro Reefer · Jan 8, 2019

Caught a couple left over deals from AquaSD’s weekend live sale

Retro Reefer · Jan 8, 2019

against my own advice I’m trying a test acro

Tank is pretty stable and I have coralline growth so I’m giving it a go..

fabutahoun · Jan 8, 2019

looking nice, keep us updated on how it goes

najer · Jan 8, 2019

Retro Reefer said:
against my own advice I’m trying a test acro Tank is pretty stable and I have coralline growth so I’m giving it a go..

I so hope that is the frag you actually get, base flesh looks super healthy!

Retro Reefer · Jan 9, 2019

Spent the day taking Par measurements thanks to @JDowns for being so kind and lending me his Apogee meter! interestingly I wasn’t to far off my estimations, I’m working on recording numbers and I’ll share them shortly.

RichtheReefer21 · Jan 9, 2019

Been gone a while but glad to see things are up and up.. I'll be awaiting your par map!

Retro Reefer · Jan 10, 2019

My Par results with lighting 11” and 8” above water, these are peak readings at midday with 4 t5’s and coral box LED running at approximately 35%.. (numbered boxes represent points of readings) yellow = top of tank, white = middle of tank, orange = bottom of tank

Note *Par readings where taken with pumps running and are a averages
*The 160 reading front center bottom I attribute to light striking tank from nearby window .

TEST @ 8” above water

Diamond1 · Jan 10, 2019

Retro Reefer said:
My Par results with lighting 11” above water, this is peak readings at midday with 4 t5’s and coral box LED running at approximately 40%.. (numbered boxes represent points of readings) yellow = top of tank, white = middle of tank, orange = bottom of tank

Interesting. With your light set up I would have expected a bit more par from the top 1/2 of the tank.

Retro Reefer · Jan 10, 2019

Diamond1 said:
Interesting. With your light set up I would have expected a bit more par from the top 1/2 of the tank.

They actually came in just about what I anticipated, I was thinking around 100 on bottom, 150 mid tank and 200 on surface.. I should have noted readings taken with pumps running and are averages. The 200 par in the middle of tank is right under My LED running around 40%. I had plan on this being mostly a LPS tank with some Zoa’s, a single leather and a couple SPS. I’m going to add another LED at some point and lower the fixture to try to get closer to 200 mid tank.

Retro Reefer · Jan 13, 2019

Eye opening specific gravity readings.. just received my new Hanna salinity tester and after calibration and taking a few measurements Im shocked at the results, I have a old hydrometer and a refractometer that I have been using for years which seemed accurate enough and for the most part they read practically identical however according to the Hanna my tanks are running 2 ppt low with readings around 32.9 ppt not the 35 ppt my other testers had indicated. My first thought was the Hanna had to be wrong but after referring to IO’s weight to volume ratios and carefully weighing salt and measuring out water to produce a 1.022 sg @ 77 deg calibration solution I’m now realizing my other testers are wrong and I have been running my tanks about 2 ppt lower than I thought

no wonder I had been struggling to get Mg and calcium up! The Hanna is super easy to use and should simplify keeping my parameters in line.