Finally getting around to an update and some photos. Things have been progressing pretty well with the tank. In terms of livestock, the fish are all healthy and doing well, very glad I decided to run a QT setup this time, takes so much of the worry out of it. Unfortunately, at the moment, only one of the flashers remains in the display tank. The yellowfin continually picked on the McCoskers to the point that, finally, I jumped out of the tank. We found him on the carpeting one time and got him back in the DT only to have him jump again later that night. No idea how he pulled it off as I've got a mesh top with only a very small area at the back exposed, but he had it dialed in. After that I wasn't taking any chances and put the McCoskers in the QT where he's doing fine. I think I'll probably end up finding him a new home, don't want to risk putting him back in the DT.
I got a shipment from IPSF in early Feb consisting of Wonder Mud, Liquid N-Reducer, Coralline Algae Booster, Copepods and some snails and micro-hermits. I used IPSF on my last tank way back in 2000 and really looked forward to getting some of Gerald's stuff in this tank. Got some good stuff in the Wonder Mud including some of their mama mia worms and baby bristle worms. It's been fun seeing the sand bed and rocks start to come to life, I've already got lots of pods around.
In mid-February, I broke my promise to go super-slow when I started following an
@jfox live sale and couldn't help myself
. Picked up a number of pieces including a hotshot chalice, birdsnest, a couple monti caps, superman monti and scroll coral. So far, everything's doing well, already showing some growth and apparently happy. I have to say that I was amazed by how healthy all of Jason's pieces were when they arrived, I was really extremely pleased with the shipment and am looking forward to purchasing more from him in the coming months.
Been messing around with my DSLR trying to get some decent pics. I've finally gotten the white balance figured and have been able to take some better shots. So, some pics...
JF Neon Hammer
JF Green Goddess Birdsnest
JF Cold Fusion Cap
JF Superman Monti
JF Flying Saucer Scroll
Yellowfin Flasher Wrasse
Full Tank Shot
I'm doing weekly 5g water changes using RSCP salt, with my makeup water on the salty side as I work my tank salinity up to 1.026. I started dosing NO3 PO4X about 3 weeks ago and am down to a .5ml/day dose. I'm also dosing Reef Energy A&B at 2ml of each component every other day. I need to get my nitrates back up a little bit as I just came down to 0 using a 1ml daily dose of the NOPOX. Current parameters are:
N03- 0
PO4- .02
Salinity- 1.025
Calcium- 475
Ph- Current range from 7.86-8.14
Alk- 11 dkh
I'm dosing kalk through the Tunze 1074/Osmolator combo, adding 3tbs of BRS Kalk every 5 days- which corresponds to when I have to refill my 5g ATO container. I had a bit of a hiccup with the Osmolator a week or so ago, it wasn't responding right away when the water level got below the eye and then dosing too much top off to make up for it. As a result, I had a couple of crazy PH swings and things were a bit erratic.
I figured out that I had the sensor eye too close to my ATO hose and guess I was getting deposits on the eye. I've moved it to the opposite end of my sump and now I'm seeing very smooth, stable PH progressions. I'm planning on buying a second power bar for my Apex that I can run in the fish room to control the Osmolator and, when I get it, another dosing pump. In the meantime, I now know to add cleaning the eye to my monthly maintenance items as well. Still dialing in exactly how much kalk to add and when but for the moment 3tbs every 5 days seems to be doing the trick.
About 2 weeks into my cycle I had a diatom bloom and have seen no algae or diatoms since then. Since I used BRS reef saver, I've been itching to see some life develop on the rocks. In the last week, I've started seeing tiny feather duster tubes in a bunch of places, but yet to develop coralline growth (which is interesting as my QT, which is only 2 weeks ahead has a bunch).
I'm still getting the Ethereal dialed in. At first I was running it at 100% with one of the stock lighting programs and, though I don't have a PAR meter, I think I was blasting way too much light. My monti caps and birdsnest lost some color and even my hammer that's down on the sand bed looked a little bleached out. My current program runs the lights between 60% and 70% at peak intensity and the corals seem to like it, with colors improving daily.
I'm running a Gyre 150 pump and have recently moved it from a vertical setup in the back corner of my tank (where it was basically hidden, which I liked) to a horizontal setup on the right-side glass. Though this doesn't look as slick, I'm getting much better flow and not blowing sand out of the corners. I'm still messing around with programs on the controller, but overall like the pump a lot. I'm hoping Maxspect puts out a combined app for the Ethereal and Gyre that lets you control everything from your phone- I read that this is coming, but haven't seen anything yet.
