Nice! This is the first tank that I've had with no stomatellas at all. I need to swap a local reefer for some. Ceriths are another favorite of mine. I have a ton of chitons and limpets too, I'll take them all.
If you were close, you would get as many as you wanted
Agreed diversity of life welcome here.
Don't be surprised if you get a little "noise" in your biome over the next week or so. Maybe a touch of cyano or something. I don't recall where you keep nutrients, but if you keep them lowish, test a little more often than usual for the next couple weeks. Not trying to worry you, it has just been my experience when swapping out old media with new.Yesterday was my second phase at tank cleanup. I decided to pull my sand from sump yesterday, and went ahead and rinsed it with water change tank water, thereby saving all micro life. I added it to the DT to seed all new sand....clever huh
I am going to grow my mangroves in the spare tank, and run chaeto instead. I am trying to keep sump free of detritus without filter socks, kind of s pain, but possible. Next, I will up my CUC, and add more fish, probably a cbb, and some gobies.
I have a mp40 on the way, hopefully it with mp10 will be sufficient for flow. I hope so, I really like the low profile. I didn't really plan on sps, so some of the changes being made are a little late, but necessary to move forward. I have not seen any signs of issues with diatoms yet, so pretty sure the rinsing of new sand with rodi, and old sand with tank water has transitioned smoothly.
Acros are waking up
Looking forward to seeing the new look! I really think you will see the benefits of your efforts to keep a clean sand before too long. I think it helps keep the tank nice and healthy. It also makes for great pictures!Well all,
I finally got the gumption to pull my crushed coral bed today
Is 0 PO4 your normal measure of residual? You must have a lot of throughput if so I suppose.Hey Scott,
I will most certainly be in major observation mode, kinda my normal thing. I am keeping a close eye on alk as the crushed coral won't be my natural buffer anymore. I am also testing no3 and po4 as well. I honestly have not been testing, but no3 was 25ppm, now 10-15, changed out 20 gallons between Sunday and Monday. My goal is to reduce no3 to 5ish. Phosphate is another story, on Hannah low res, it's 0.00. Yeah, I know, lol, that's where bacteria and C-source come into play. Corals look great, completely unaffected by the changes, based on visual cues. I am sure more to come
Looking forward to seeing the new look! I really think you will see the benefits of your efforts to keep a clean sand before too long. I think it helps keep the tank nice and healthy. It also makes for great pictures!
Looks to me that you are well on your way!Hi Brandon,
I still have a long road to travel with this tank, but here is a quick shot today
I'm all in with dosing some PO4 to get a residual. Your regular feedings are keeping you out of trouble there, but Hanna ULR readings consistently zero is a tightrope not worth walking IMO.Hey all,
Since I started having success, I have, due to gut instincts, adopted to carbon source dosing. I truly believe that this was exactly what I needed to get over the hump, due to dead crappy rock, and overall immaturity of the system. Recently, I decided to make some changes that were made, not with the intent of keeping acros, as a result of nearly giving up on the hobby in general. Simply put, a 3-4" bed of crushed coral was intended for a mangrove lagoon, and at no point did I want to play with sps.
Fast forward to today. I continue on my journey of keeping sps, mainly acros, but keeping an ideal system to watch them color and grow is my plight. Changes to support long term success is important, and getting a natural system is key. I now believe that the final change to reach my original goal is ready, and proper. So here we go...
Today, I am discontinuing the use of regular carbon and bacteria dosing! My system is mature, and I believe it is time to let mother nature work with as little interference as possible. Nutrients are out of whack, no ill effects, but I think I can do better. I will allow my reverse lit, bb fuge, and protein skimmer do the work. I will start dosing flourish daily until I reach nutrient balance. Not looking for Redfield ratio holy grail numbers, just more balanced. Let's face it, carbon dosing or not, 0.00 po4 again yesterday and 20ppm n03 is eventually going to haunt me. I believe that my see saw numbers are a result of carbon bacteria dosing, and running a fuge. It's like they are working against one another.
Hopefully my system will not get cranky, but it's time to apply today's concepts with yesterday's knowledge, and use them together. Also, my hopes are to not dose flourish long term either, more of a way to restore balance.
Thanks for putting up with the long-winded update.
Cheers
)
I'm all in with dosing some PO4 to get a residual. Your regular feedings are keeping you out of trouble there, but Hanna ULR readings consistently zero is a tightrope not worth walking IMO.
You might be surprised how much of that bottle you will be using to keep a reading when starting from zero. The phosphate will bind to your rock and sand pretty quick. Don't be afraid to double up the dose over time. You may find that dosing PO4 will LOWER your NO3. I know for certain that the opposite is true (dosing NO3 lowers PO4). The bacteria, limited in one nutrient, cannot consume as much of the other.
As to removing carbon dosing, whadya think about holding off on pulling that lever until you see what the PO4 dosing does? You already implemented 2 pretty significant changes back to back (sand, PO4). There are complicated interactions taking place here. I would advise linear changes, and not too many changes in parallel. (Not that I always take my own advice
So tomorrow morning, am going to just repeat same dose, test again half hour later, and see if any carried over, for example, a hypothetical test at 0.06 would give me some good info. More to come
I am surprised that your rock and sand is not binding more PO4, but all good. Will be interesting to see if or how much NO3 falls. I've read that it does. I know that adding nitrate to a NO3 limited tank will lower PO4 but never seen the opposite with my own eyes.
I would keep on testing every couple of days. @ScottB is right it's astonishing once you hit that rock (other substrate, bacteria, or whatever is at play) breaking point how quickly PO4 can rise.
Running mp10 80% reefcrest and mp40 reefcrest at 60%. Both on continuous flow at 100% is a sandstorm, but good for nutrient export for 10 minutes a couple times per day. Hopefully I will get some pics up on Sunday or Monday to show progress 
Totally fair to expect a little noise and it may take some time to settle. With your new finer sand and bigger pump, are you able to keep the sand bed in place?Hey Tim, thanks for the reply
I must admit, things looked a bit messy today in the tank, glass algae very much present, and rocks are dusted with bacteria and all but a couple acros look great, there's always a few stubborn ones, but certainly no tissue necrosis or anything like that.
Good news that the mp40 showed up today, it and the mp10 seem more than sufficient, and the I love that I could replace 2 power heads with it
The sand only moves during constant mode at 100%, but I even cranked up the mp40 to 80%, and no issues in reefcrest mode. The pumps synced, but not too upset over that, really nice during feed mode as one pump triggers the other to feed mode, kinda slick I suppose The acros seem to love the flow pattern already. I also finally put up my custom screen top today, so time to add some fish!!! 
