Sps 911

[road_runner]

Some are 10 months and some are 2 months
And the others are in between

Aha..slow growth no? Great colors though, absolutely great colors.

 

[road_runner]

I don’t think I do. Just some green hair algae, but it doesn’t bother me. Tank started as a 24 gallon jbj biocube in 2001, upgraded in 2009 to, wait for it...

Ok will hold your beer

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

A 29 gallon oceanic biocube.
Then I upgraded to my huge 50 gallon sca cube in 2017 when I caught the sps bug and successfully committed coralicide on every acro I bought from aug 2017 to July 2018 chasing “ideal/recommended” nutrient levels with gfo, nopox, lanthium chloride, bio pellets, zeovit. You name it, I tried it and it failed every time.
That’s not true actually, they were all successful at stripping the water and producing perfect parameters, but I had a tank full of dead sps. So I went back to what I did 10 years ago. Nothing except bi weekly water changes and the big 3.

 

[road_runner]

….

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Aha..slow growth no? Great colors though, absolutely great colors.

Aha..slow growth no? Great colors though, absolutely great colors.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/some-crazy-6-week-growth.598383/page-3

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Understand your sentiment and agree with some of it. Not all thu.
I am running zeovit for 4 years now. It does work and work beautifully. Grow coral fast too.
As your system prove, it's all about the system context and details. there is no one fit all... I do agree with you however that what zeovit and nopox do is basically stripping water from nutrients withen ask you to add it again ha ha.
Am dying to see your whole system though..great job again

 

[road_runner]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/some-crazy-6-week-growth.598383/page-3

Very nice thank you for the thread will have fun reading it tonight.
What's your light setting. I also run 52 HD+T5. Jumped off the kessils when after 3 years use and went back to AI.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Very nice thank you for the thread will have fun reading it tonight.
What's your light setting. I also run 52 HD+T5. Jumped off the kessils when after 3 years use and went back to AI.

2 hydra 52 HD’s mounted 16” above the water
500 par at the top 300 on the sand

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

2 hydra 52 HD’s mounted 16” above the water
500 par at the top 300 on the sand

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Looks good. Have you experienced any equipment failures, yet? Coral fighting? Looks like your systems in a balance, currently. What happens when your a/c fails or power outage? Or, when consumption overtakes your dosing and water change method? Your doing well for not monitoring. Is death your indicator?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Looks good. Have you experienced any equipment failures, yet? Coral fighting? Looks like your systems in a balance, currently. What happens when your a/c fails or power outage? Or, when consumption overtakes your dosing and water change method? Your doing well for not monitoring. Is death your indicator?

I never said I wasn’t monitoring. I just don’t have a $1200 monitoring system. I test alk and temp everyday and just recently replaced my 2 year old heater because it will fail eventually, even though I’ve never had a heater failure in 20 years of reefing. I also have a generator that I would easily hook the entire tank up to like I did when we didn’t have power for 13 days after hurricane ike. The point of the initial joke was focused on not chasing low nutrients and it snowballed from there. I hope you got a chuckle out of it.

I also have a chiller on it if the ac goes out. As far as coral fighting goes, every single sps is mounted to an individual rock that can easily be relocated.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

I never said I wasn’t monitoring. I just don’t have a $1200 monitoring system. I test alk and temp everyday and just recently replaced my 2 year old heater because it will fail eventually, even though I’ve never had a heater failure in 20 years of reefing. I also have a generator that I would easily hook the entire tank up to like I did when we didn’t have power for 13 days after hurricane ike. The point of the initial joke was focused on not chasing low nutrients and it snowballed from there. I hope you got a chuckle out of it.

I got a mild chuckle. You obviously have some level of husbandry, that would be helpful to share. Many don’t. Failures arise and most aren’t prepared. You are doing well. My sps dominant 300 is full to the gills and yes, I Triton, apex monitor, generator, auto water changes, manually test, and redundant systems. I’ve had Ac failure, outages, spillage, pump breaches, etc. All caught quickly. Been in hobby over 15 years. You do have some nice looking sps.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I got a mild chuckle. You obviously have some level of husbandry, that would be helpful to share. Many don’t. Failures arise and most aren’t prepared. You are doing well. My sps dominant 300 is full to the gills and yes, I Triton, apex monitor, generator, auto water changes, manually test, and redundant systems. I’ve had Ac failure, outages, spillage, pump breaches, etc. All caught quickly. Been in hobby over 15 years. You do have some nice looking sps.

Thank you sir. I’d love to see that system btw. You’re right I should expand on my actual husbandry practices. I never meant to make it sound like I just mixed Morton’s table salt and tap water and threw sps in my tank. I have 4 dosers, an ato, I grow chaeto in my sump, a uv sterilizer, and a 4 stage ro/di with a tds meter. I monitor alk and temp daily, cal, no3, and po4 once a week and change 9 gallons of water every Sunday. I truly don’t and never have tested for pH or ORP, which I learned what it meant last night. And I dose a lot of vodka, but not in my tank.

 

[road_runner]

Thank you sir. I’d love to see that system btw. You’re right I should expand on my actual husbandry practices. I never meant to make it sound like I just mixed Morton’s table salt and tap water and through sps in my tank. I have 4 dosers, an ato, I grow chaeto in my sump, a uv sterilizer, and a 4 stage ro/di with a tds meter. I monitor alk and temp daily, cal, no3, and po4 once a week. I truly don’t and never have tested for pH or ORP, which I learned what it meant last night. And I dose a lot of vodka, but not in my tank.

That's exactly what scares me with posts like this. While major kudos to you, we do not want to give the impression that all you need to creat a system like this is tank, put water in it, do not test and go.
People who do not know the context can get the wrong idea.
The efforts in to making such system while vary but usually have the same goals that has to be met one way or another...
Good husbandry
Good balanced chemistry
Right inhabitants selection
The right spectrum, flow, return rate...etc
Diffrent reefers have diffrent style in keeping these elements in check.

Some automate and depend on testing and controlling parameters. Some depend on regular water change and aggressive husbandry. Depend on the goal you want to schove you should follow the method that meets your life style meet your goal(growth, coloration, mixed vs one spices coral..etc) and your inhabitants needs.
Just the fact you yest alk daily show how important you have to work on some of the elements to keep in check.

When I first read your post it came across like you rarly test, feed alot, amd things go well by itself
Now we getting in to the weeds of things and I am sure the more we peel the onion the more it shows that you do put alot of efforts in this system to look like this.
Maybe you do not depend on equipment but you still need to test daily as an example..
Another example, you are ok with high nutrients and do not check po4, but at the same time you do not mind the diatom and brown algae on your sand.. you do not have a conteoller but you have top of the line light for best spectrum....etc
All about tradeoffs.
That's why I started asking you questions to bring what it take out to the reader.

Again major kudos, that's one way out of many to run successful reef.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Thank you sir. I’d love to see that system btw. You’re right I should expand on my actual husbandry practices. I never meant to make it sound like I just mixed Morton’s table salt and tap water and through sps in my tank. I have 4 dosers, an ato, I grow chaeto in my sump, a uv sterilizer, and a 4 stage ro/di with a tds meter. I monitor alk and temp daily, cal, no3, and po4 once a week and change 9 gallons of water every Sunday. I truly don’t and never have tested for pH or ORP, which I learned what it meant last night. And I dose a lot of vodka, but not in my tank.

I post a blog on Facebook. It’s a public page called Advanced Aquatic Solutions. I vacation and go on trips. Failures usually wait for that opportunistic moment. I have an apex and cameras to spot defects. I can control my calcium reactor very well by adjusting chamber ph and controlling effluent rate. I can determine whether my dosing is good by looking at the tank ph curve. To me, it’s a marathon and not a sprint for success in this hobby.

 

[road_runner]

I post a blog on Facebook. It’s a public page called Advanced Aquatic Solutions. I vacation and go on trips. Failures usually wait for that opportunistic moment. I have an apex and cameras to spot defects. I can control my calcium reactor very well by adjusting chamber ph and controlling effluent rate. I can determine whether my dosing is good by looking at the tank ph curve. To me, it’s a marathon and not a sprint for success in this hobby.

Could not agree more.
I doubt the op have never dealt with events where he lose coral and fish...I highly doubt anyone who been in the hobby more than 4 years and have not run through such events...
OP mentioned he test alk daily, I wonder what he does when he have to travel? Hopefully he will enlighten us more and more.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

That's exactly what scares me with posts like this. While major kudos to you, we do not want to give the impression that all you need to creat a system like this is tank, put water in it, do not test and go.
People who do not know the context can get the wrong idea.
The efforts in to making such system while vary but usually the same.
Good husbandry
Good balanced chemistry
Right inhabitants selection
The right spectrum, flow, return rate...etc
Diffrent reefers have diffrent style in keeping these elements in check.

Some automate and depend on testing and controlling parameters. Some depend on regular water change and aggressive husbandry. Depend on the goal you want to schove you should follow the method that meets your life style meet your goal(growth, coloration, mixed vs one spices coral..etc) and your inhabitants needs.
Just the fact you yest alk daily show how important you have to work on some of the elements to keep in check.

When I first read your post it came across like you rarly test, feed alot, amd things go well by itself
Now we getting in to the weeds of things and I am sure the more we peel the onion the more it shows that you do put alot of efforts in this system to look like this.
Maybe you do not depend on equipment but you still need to test daily as an example..
Another example, you are ok with high nutrients and do not check po4, but at the same time you do not mind the diatom and brown algae on your sand...etc
All about tradeoffs.
That's why I started asking you questions to bring what it take out to the reader.

Again major kudos, that's one way out of many to run successful reef.

I apologize as my humor is obviously isn’t for everybody. I assumed the absurdity of “help!!! my corals are too colorful, growing too fast, and the polyp things are sticking out too far” would let everyone know I was joking. I’m very serious about my tank. We were just having fun.

 

[road_runner]

I apologize as my humor is obviously isn’t for everybody. I assumed the absurdity of “help!!! my corals are too colorful, growing too fast, and the polyp things are sticking out too far” would let everyone know I was joking. I’m very serious about my tank. We were just having fun.

No no please no need for apologies. I enjoyed our chat and learning from you.
My earlier post is directed at new commers to the hobby. So when they read your post they get the humor and have fun learning and enjoying your gorgeous system.
Such system is motivation for others to reach what you reached.
Please do share with us, we all learn from each others.

 

[SeaDweller]

Thank you sir. I’d love to see that system btw. You’re right I should expand on my actual husbandry practices. I never meant to make it sound like I just mixed Morton’s table salt and tap water and through sps in my tank. I have 4 dosers, an ato, I grow chaeto in my sump, a uv sterilizer, and a 4 stage ro/di with a tds meter. I monitor alk and temp daily, cal, no3, and po4 once a week and change 9 gallons of water every Sunday. I truly don’t and never have tested for pH or ORP, which I learned what it meant last night. And I dose a lot of vodka, but not in my tank.

You and I differ in some aspects, but align with others: KISS method, not running apex (anymore), not worrying too much about certain numbers, and realistically the simpler the system, it seems to work so much better. However, you are doing more WC than me. Keep it up brotha.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Could not agree more.
I doubt the op have never dealt with events where he lose coral and fish...I highly doubt anyone who been in the hobby more than 4 years and have not run through such events...
OP mentioned he test alk daily, I wonder what he does when he have to travel? Hopefully he will enlighten us more and more.

I’ve been in the hobby for 20 years but haven’t taken it this level before, but in my defense, I never suggested or joked about not testing, or over feeding, or monitoring. My initial post was meant to contradict the acro know it alls that blame sps struggles on elevated no3/po4 levels. I never claimed I don’t test. I just don’t test and freak out and start changing my methodology.