Perry's 90 Gallon SCA Acro Upgrade
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Yep, simple, use rigid airline tubing, set it at an inch above bottom, and pull luquid only. You can always put remainder in new kalk batch, it's what I do anyway. This will be a rather expensive ato, but worth the investment
drawman
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What they do is have a pump in the kalk container to constantly mix an over saturated solution. Questionable how long the pump will last in that container but this really drives the pH up.Yep, simple, use rigid airline tubing, set it at an inch above bottom, and pull luquid only. You can always put remainder in new kalk batch, it's what I do anyway. This will be a rather expensive ato, but worth the investment
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That seems a little too on the edge for me, lol
So, I am certain as I eventually max out on kalkwasser ratio to top off, reverse lit fuge, drawing fresh air through the skimmer, that my ph will ultimately reach the desired goal. I absolutely notice a response in PE from acros when ph is higher and vice versa. I also believe the tank will become more stable for these efforts, just have to move past the newness and funky stage
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Last one today, feeling a little bubbly 
Oh, how about this for an update, @Anirban I may have just aquired a nearly long lost smoothie... ORA Dustins deepwater acro. I have now, in my possession a 1.5" single stalk, green base, purple surahonsi that is a dead ringer. Saw mother colony in person, and growth pattern near identical. 14 years and counting in search of, now, I need to find the German Blue Polyp Acro, lol.
How about a chalice pic to brighten up the mood here
CB Rainbow Showstopper Chalice
@Perry Oh man. Where did you get that? Its one of those elusive one. I thought its gone forever. I still remember RC thread back in 2012 possibly or older when people started to talk about it. Grow it quick I will need a frag soon
.
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Here is momma @Lazydayz for credit on picture and coral. Now, it's under blue led in pic, so showing more defined green at base, but purple branches, and growth pattern, lack of radial coralites, and long branches. If not, it's darn close. Anyway, best id I can see is a. surahonsi, which Dustins appears to be as well. Nick, owner of this beautiful coral is quite generous, and a very luck man@Perry Oh man. Where did you get that? Its one of those elusive one. I thought its gone forever. I still remember RC thread back in 2012 possibly or older when people started to talk about it. Grow it quick I will need a frag soon
Look at that confused branchingHere is momma @Lazydayz for credit on picture and coral. Now, it's under blue led in pic, so showing more defined green at base, but purple branches, and growth pattern, lack of radial coralites, and long branches. If not, it's darn close. Anyway, best id I can see is a. surahonsi, which Dustins appears to be as well. Nick, owner of this beautiful coral is quite generous, and a very luck man
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Yep! That's what got me all jazzed up, lol. Myzislow had the one, so that's the only real findable comparisonHere is momma @Lazydayz for credit on picture and coral. Now, it's under blue led in pic, so showing more defined green at base, but purple branches, and growth pattern, lack of radial coralites, and long branches. If not, it's darn close. Anyway, best id I can see is a. surahonsi, which Dustins appears to be as well. Nick, owner of this beautiful coral is quite generous, and a very luck man
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Hi Freddie,
How are you, thank you for looking over the journal! So quite a bit to unpack here, so forgive my long-winded answer
My system, since settling in, is actually P04 and N03 limited. I have to get to the root cause, and have been dosing both P04 and N03 to yield a test result, Hanna and Salifert kits. Crazy as it seems, a sps reefers paradise, not... I believe my rock and sand have binded these nutrients, specifically P04, and as a result, nasties. All the while test kits showing nutrient poor conditions. Now, one would look to bacteria, and that's something likely amiss. I have discontinued carbon source for now, and am using micro bacter 7. Fortunately, despite ugliness, acros are flourishing, some zoas and cloves not so much.
When I began experiencing the nasties, I went back to 50/50 C+/ B+ t5 bulbs. Yes, the nasties do appreciate full spectrum. However, so do acros, and underneath all of this, PH is not close to where I prefer. I am drawing outside air to skimmer, dripping 600ml of fully saturated kalk, plus 20ml per day ESV 2-part. I recently decided to run fuge in middle sump, reverse photo period. I see a major response in sps for my efforts, but nasties still present. That said, I decided to purchase a uv setup, and soon will run this as a maintenance setup, but not full time.
Hopefully, this will kill the root cause/imbalance that looms. I don't want to freak out, or over react, so I decided to stop dosing anything but micro bacter 7, minerals, and natural foods. I believe my skimmer is a bit oversized, so perhaps later, I run it on an opposite schedule, that or create an air manifold and possibly drawing fresh air through an air pump, using air stone in sump...hmmm, lol
Again I don't want to freak out, so I turkey baste, toothbrush pumps and overflow, and still blast my acros with light, they are growing and coloring at a great pace. When I receive uv sterilizer, I will plan a 48 hour blackout, go live with uv, then introduce blue spectrum only, then over a couple days, ramp to full settings. Immediately after blackout, a 20% water change. My doser will be disabled, any corrections hand dosed with tight testing and monitoring.
As bad as it seems, which is really not that bad, I am pleased with my acros, it's just hard to relax and enjoy, when seeing some funk. There's been a lot going on, my indecisiveness with husbandry, and as a result, looming funk. So, post all of this, I will be using a fuge, and fish food, skimming, passive gac only. Again, I believe that PH is really the main objective here, and that I will chase. Skimming may become optional or not needed at all. Time will tell...
Cheers my friend!
Yep,
Family is doing well, Perry
Thanks so much. Never pushed those old Hamitons and figured a reef would need to be dialed in to push one of those t5's. Do they push a bright yellow spectrum?
As for as looks and par go, that 14K KZ genii has been my favorite full daylight bulb. Just something magical about its spectrum without a washout look compared to an ATI AB Special.
Got lucky this weekend, the outside temp cooled down. Think our windows were open for about 12 - 14 hours over the past two days.
So, grateful for how you run your thread. It's has a lot of water chemistry conversations with some input from other well-versed members. Kinda has that same feeling when you ran the AF forum on Reef Central.
Hope you guys have a nice week.
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Hey Freddie,
Thank you so much for the kind words man! I enjoy all reef discussions, and will always be willing to think outside the box, use different methods, and push the envelope
I am really enjoying the new tank, and hope to have another fully grown sps dominant tank. This one ultimately will work on KISS philosophy, already had a mature zeovit tank, and Aquaforest tank, while I believe that they are great systems, I am going for more simplicity and as natural as possible. The original plan was another AF tank, but given my inherently low nutrients, simply not needed. This will continue to be a heavy in vs. out system, in terms of nutrients. I prefer to focus on PH with this system, hence the addition of a fuge, kalkwasser, and drawing fresh air. The skimmer run super dry, as to keep collection low, as to allow for some nutrients. Thanks again for the kind words and following along!Cheers
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Update:
It appears that my UV sterilzer is set to arrive Weds. So, I am going to put it online, and see what happens
I guess the plan is to run until nasties subside, then an additional week for insurance. I will likely not run full time, and use as a maintenance tool every 3 months or so, or as needed. More to come.
It appears that my UV sterilzer is set to arrive Weds. So, I am going to put it online, and see what happens
I guess the plan is to run until nasties subside, then an additional week for insurance. I will likely not run full time, and use as a maintenance tool every 3 months or so, or as needed. More to come.
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Also,
After some deeper thinking, I have really come to the conclusion that testing nutrients, in a system that has any kind of funky algae/bacterial issues, is really meaningless. If I didn't have algae, then I may be inclined to concern myself, and validate with testing. But, we know there's nutrients, the test is a water sample.
Many years ago, before Hanna instruments became affordable, I simply used glass algae as an indicator. Daily green haze requiring swiping, meant to put a gfo reactor online, or change media if already running continuously. I always tried for every other day swiping, and usually saw good signs of growth and color. That said, if glass is forming green haze, even a couple of days after swiping tells me more than a test kit. Why? Because zooxanthellae is an algae, and if glass is able to form algae, most certainly the corals have more than an ample supply... Thoughts???
Cheers
After some deeper thinking, I have really come to the conclusion that testing nutrients, in a system that has any kind of funky algae/bacterial issues, is really meaningless. If I didn't have algae, then I may be inclined to concern myself, and validate with testing. But, we know there's nutrients, the test is a water sample.
Many years ago, before Hanna instruments became affordable, I simply used glass algae as an indicator. Daily green haze requiring swiping, meant to put a gfo reactor online, or change media if already running continuously. I always tried for every other day swiping, and usually saw good signs of growth and color. That said, if glass is forming green haze, even a couple of days after swiping tells me more than a test kit. Why? Because zooxanthellae is an algae, and if glass is able to form algae, most certainly the corals have more than an ample supply... Thoughts???
Cheers
Agreed that when the biome is in flux it becomes harder to get meaning from nutrient testing. GHA can really throw things off. So yeah, when everything is nominal and there isn't material GHA in play, just looking at the film algae is totally sufficient. However I take no chances if/when dinoflagellates are involved. Dose & test & repeat. Otherwise, maybe once a week.
The other thing you have going for you is heavy in/out. Frequent feedings along with a lot of peeing/pooping fish means you can almost ignore nutrient testing as the system is constantly being fed -- even if residual measurements are hard to detect.
While we are also on the subject of Kalkwasser I learned something new yesterday in that Kalkwasser survey/post. Maybe you saw it? Kalk binds PO4. Over the past 6 weeks or so (once I replaced a dead APEX DOS) I've been ramping up kalk dosing each night. Now up to 2,400ml. Over that same period my PO4 has fell from .15 to .05. No GFO nor lanthanum has been near that system. I typically do need to dose some LCl every month or so just to keep things around .10. But maybe now I won't need to anymore. I will need to test a little more until I get a feel for how much gets bound up and how quickly.
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Interesting data my friend, and I am guessing a good thing to naturally bind P04, as opposed to using LC.
So, UV sterilizer online, and got a smoking deal on it through MD, as they are slashing prices. It is the Aqua UV 15 watt with wiper, which I won't use, but at $172 with rewards used, had to do it!
Normally around $400
So, I will be very interested to see how it attacks all this funk, lol
If your "funk" is ostreopsis dinoflagellates you will likely be pleased. If it is chrysophyte stuff or amphidinium then less so. Still, a UV has a place for pest control.Interesting data my friend, and I am guessing a good thing to naturally bind P04, as opposed to using LC.
So, UV sterilizer online, and got a smoking deal on it through MD, as they are slashing prices. It is the Aqua UV 15 watt with wiper, which I won't use, but at $172 with rewards used, had to do it!
Normally around $400
So, I will be very interested to see how it attacks all this funk, lol
Got a microscope for ID on the gunk?
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Yep,
I always re-charge gfo when seeing some slight green haze, then it fades away within a day.
Got the Aqua UV 25 watt last October, it has been a winner.
Nitrates hit close to 40ppm last year:
Ran about 10 liters of Siporax, and dosed the reef with MB-7 for the first week for seeding the Siporax. The Siporax started to bring down nitrates real fast after about six weeks. Over the long haul, it started a continuous diatom out break. The diatoms were still going strong way after changing out all filtration components on my RO/DI unit, wanted to rule that factor out. Was also going through a ton of gfo. Pulled the Siporax media and all the diatoms faded away, while gfo started lasting longer like it used to. I guess this batch Siporax kept leaching silicates. Then after a while nitrates got pretty high again. Put back in 2 liters of Siporax, looked good at first, but over time the same thing happened. So yanked out the remaining Siporax last weekend for various reasons. Lol, all the time that was put into making custom-sized egg crate boxes for the pond-sized Siporax. Every reef is different, it had to be pulled out for diatoms over here.
Trying to get away from gfo and other media. Got the Pax Bellum ARID N18 coming in today via FedEX (lol, no room for a fuge). Need to let this reef stable out for a while longer, then we'll kick in that reactor.
Have not pushed algae for filtration since the 1980's.
Lol, we grew gha back then in a saltwater tank in the Nashville area. But, learned how to drill a tank, with the algae growing in a lower tank from some California friends. Guess that was the beginning of sumps.
Any tips with the algae reactor from anyone on this thread would be appreciated.
I might have to poke RHF on that question then. In the same period my nitrates have remained elevated, but I am due for a WC.
