Red Sea Coral Programs- informative videos and great stuff/ Please read post before posting

[RavePartyReef]

Here is a pic of the frag of slimer in the back and the mystery acro that is supposed to be green in the front...

 

[mayday610]

Great pic! I love the coloration of everything and they look good and healthy. I'm a lover of the dark substrate though i don't use it myself. It really makes colors pop!

 

[RavePartyReef]

Great pic! I love the coloration of everything and they look good and healthy. I'm a lover of the dark substrate though i don't use it myself. It really makes colors pop!

Thanks mayday, the corals are doing great in my tank, mainly lps with some sps...the sps I got were in a tank with bad LEDs IMo, and they faded out....since I've got them, they grew and colored, so that is why I got into checking the levels of other elements thought to encourage coloration...
I've had white sand my whole life as a reefer, and came across this Hawaiian black sand. It's not really sand, more towards crushed coral size...was told I would see waste more easily, and all the bla bla bla we hear from the same people that hate change in forums. I've had it for a while now and I do not see ever any waste, by the contrary, it is much better than white. The crushed coral size also helps when doing wc, because I can siphon much better and with less of a mess as with sand and the cloudiness. I got it because, as you mentioned, highlights the corals x10. It is not the natural ocean look, but when the actinics only are on, it indeed looks like a rave party..

 

[RavePartyReef]

Here are pics so you can check the black substrate better...

 

[mike007]

Tank is awesome .What lighting are you using now? I just converted to leds myself. Still acclimating.

 

[RavePartyReef]

Tank is awesome .What lighting are you using now? I just converted to leds myself. Still acclimating.

Thanks, am using t5s , my tank is long and narrow so that would be the right choice. Corals are coloring up nice, I just had a rainbow brain bleach out a bit, it was at the bottom and still seemed to be getting too much light...acclimation is key

 

[mayday610]

WoW! Great tank my friend! I would love to have that sitting right next to my bed so i would have sweet dreams at night, lol. I used Black substrate about 8 years ago when my 150 was a fish only. I use a DSB now, and the ease of picking up an additional bag at almost any LFS i happen to be browsing in is nice so i stick with white. I'm starting to get back into creating my reef tank now that my two boys are getting older and more independant giving me more time to do the maintenance and water testing. Plus i'm out of state during the week so i have to be sure things are extremely stable, not being able to monitor the system during the week. The old house i lived in lost power often and i would come home to thousands of dollars worth of livestock lost I still envy a great looking tank. A+ my friend! I love it!!

 

[RavePartyReef]

WoW! Great tank my friend! I would love to have that sitting right next to my bed so i would have sweet dreams at night, lol. I used Black substrate about 8 years ago when my 150 was a fish only. I use a DSB now, and the ease of picking up an additional bag at almost any LFS i happen to be browsing in is nice so i stick with white. I'm starting to get back into creating my reef tank now that my two boys are getting older and more independant giving me more time to do the maintenance and water testing. Plus i'm out of state during the week so i have to be sure things are extremely stable, not being able to monitor the system during the week. The old house i lived in lost power often and i would come home to thousands of dollars worth of livestock lost I still envy a great looking tank. A+ my friend! I love it!!

Thanks mayday, I know what you mean by time for the tank. I enjoy my tank the most on Fridays when I come home from work, pop open a bottle of wine, get some music on, and just stare at it...we all know how it feels. I also build my tank with being away in mind. Just thought in case I traveled my tank could go maintenance free for a few days. The good thing these days is that some controllers are available and can display in your phone all parameters during the day so you can check when away. Losing power is a big issue, during the past hurricane here in NYC I didn't lose power, but know many that left the hobby after losing all livestock due to many days without power...tonight we are all supposed to be hit by a blizzard, so who knows what will happen.
Don't get me wrong, white sand is beautiful, and I really enjoy it. When in time post what's going on with your tank too.

 

[mayday610]

I will def start a little log with some pics as i go! Currently i'm working on building my sand bed back up. I've been adding a bag every two days or so and i have a few more on the way. I didn't realize how depeleted it was until i started adding to it again. I have a good sized yellow stripe maroon clown that i pulled out a few days ago because since he out-grew his anemone and beat it to death, he has been nothing but problems. He constantly fans all the sand out from under my rockwork with his tail and also mouthfuls at a time. It pretty much colapsed the whole thing slowly. Once i began to top off the sand bed, i realized how much of it was actually taken up by buried rockwork. I have a couple more bags on the way that should be here tomorrow. Not sure if it will finish my 6 inches i want, but it will be close. I've been doing 48 hours of lights out while i monitor my water parameters to make sure i didn't throw things off with all the messing around i did in the sand bed pulling rocks back out. Hopeing i didn't super charge the water with nutrients that might have been accumulated within the rocks being burried the way they were. So far everything looks good so tomorrow the lights go back on and fingers crossed i didn't spark an algae bloom.

I'd like to get rid of the clown but my oldest son is attached to him. I'd much rather find a nice large anemone for him and settle him down, but so far i haven't found one big enough that can handle it anymore. Not a whole lot of Good LFS up in northern new york and i'm timid to buy one off line. Size DOES matter in this situation and i want to know i'm getting the right size for him. One thing is for sure,, hes not happy in my side tank ATM!

 

[RavePartyReef]

Cool, I love maroons...they are my favorite. The issue is they are aggressive as you stated. I had it as my only fish on a 60 gal sps cube a few years ago, and it would burry some expensive corals all the time...I've never had luck with anemones, so I didn't get it to host any. I have now just a green chromosome and a platinum clown. The tank bred clowns are the way to go if you are going to invest on corals...I remember my water was always cloudy because the maroon would be constantly digging and messing parameters.... If it wasn't for that, I would still have it....I guess it up to your son is to decide what you do with it! Look forward to pics, seems you are doing it all well there.

 

[mayday610]

I wish i still had all the pics of my tank build and setup! They were on my last computer that kicked the bucket I even had all the pics of my tanks over the years... all gone! And wouldn't you know it, i never backed any of them up,, i always just transfered them when i got a new computer. Lesson learned. Thank goodness my ex wife is so good about picture taking and picture saving otherwise all my boys' baby pictures would be gone as well! Sometimes we just take things in life for granted. I'll take a few pics tomorrow of the tank when the lights are on so you can get an idea of what i'm working with.

 

[mayday610]

Here are a few pics of my tank as it is right now. Iphone didn't do too bad of a job.

I got my new test kits in today as well. Tested them out and compared them to the ones i currently have. Numbers all matched up so i'm very satisfied with them! The only thing that was off was my magnesium. I tested a couple times with the red sea test kit and got the same results but different with my others. I'm getting a mag result of 1520. Looks like i have some water changing to do to get this back down. I was supplimenting because my old kit was reading low. Due to test numbers i was getting with my old test kits i'm thinking they are just bad or contaminated. Time will tell how it all works out. I also Bought salifert ph test kit. Don't know how i pulled that one off, wasn't paying attention i guess, lol. I checked it out anyway, and i'm def not impressed! Such a gap in colored result chart. Goes from like, 7.8 to 8.1 to 8.4 not to exact... I'd rather fight with a API test kit! Glad i have my pinpoint. That hasn't failed me yet I also just got the lasted on my new lights. I have 2 36" 6x39 watts units that should be arriving next friday.

 

[.AcroKiller.]

Here are a few pics of my tank as it is right now. Iphone didn't do too bad of a job.






I got my new test kits in today as well. Tested them out and compared them to the ones i currently have. Numbers all matched up so i'm very satisfied with them! The only thing that was off was my magnesium. I tested a couple times with the red sea test kit and got the same results but different with my others. I'm getting a mag result of 1520. Looks like i have some water changing to do to get this back down. I was supplimenting because my old kit was reading low. Due to test numbers i was getting with my old test kits i'm thinking they are just bad or contaminated. Time will tell how it all works out. I also Bought salifert ph test kit. Don't know how i pulled that one off, wasn't paying attention i guess, lol. I checked it out anyway, and i'm def not impressed! Such a gap in colored result chart. Goes from like, 7.8 to 8.1 to 8.4 not to exact... I'd rather fight with a API test kit! Glad i have my pinpoint. That hasn't failed me yet I also just got the lasted on my new lights. I have 2 36" 6x39 watts units that should be arriving next friday.

The red sea mag kit test high do a search

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Reef2Reef Aquarium Forum mobile app

 

[mayday610]

Thanks iiluisii. I'll look into it. Any info you've found on their other tests? I just tested my make up water to see what that looks like and i was a bit surprised. Ca was over 500, 12 dkh, and yes the mag was around 1700

 

[.AcroKiller.]

The calcium, alk, nitrate and phosphates kit are great. I curently use the calcium and alk

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[.AcroKiller.]

Also go to youtube and search the videos on how to use the test kits cause I was doing it wrong until I saw the directions videos

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[mayday610]

I looked into them well before i ordered them. I just never checked into any individual reviews. Oh well, lesson learned. Just have to keep looking for a mag test that i like and gives accurate results.

 

[RavePartyReef]

Nice tank mayday! How many gals? Talking about test kits, I tested Mag also and it came up on the 1500's. I've tested before with other kits and it always comes back high... Maybe the Red Sea also come back higher than normal. I tested for K today and it came normal, 400's. iron had come back as 0 so I dosed a bit and I clearly could see it went to .015. I'm not dosing it, but wanted to test for it. As usual, changing 10% water every week and add some bit of viramins

 

[mayday610]

Thanks RavePartyReef! Its a 150g. I have a 55g sump and another 30 gallon next to the 150, that i didn't show a pic of, that i use as a refugium/trouble maker tank. Its all piped into the same system.
You can see that i still have to build up my sandbed in the middle there and the left side of the tank. Everything on the right is all back on top and set. Just have to tackle the job of pulling all that rockwork on the left back out and replace all the sand. Darn maroon clown!! Hes lucky hes loved or i would have went spear fishing in the comforts of my own home !