45 gallons Acros tank

[Mr V]

Hey I do have to ask. Do you have any spilling of light from the t5 fixtures? Because if I did the math right, your full light width is about 24", where the tank is only 18" wide.

In this case I think you did the math wrong. [emoji28]
My canopy is 19-20inch (count from the wall) and the fixture fix just right under it. Even the 6 bulks Teklight is only 18 inches width.

 

[Mr V]

In this case I think you did the math wrong. [emoji28]
My canopy is 19-20inch (count from the wall) and the fixture fix just right under it.
But I hang the radions a little higher the the t5s.
Even the 6 bulks Teklight is only 18 inches width.

 

[CoralNerd]

Yes. I totally changed my nutrient export method.

I stopped chasing numbers ( From 0ppm Nitrate&Phosphate not I have 25ppm~50ppm Nitrate. Still ~0ppm Phosphate)

I started by get rid of all of my reactors (gfo, bio pellet). However, I regret getting rid of them too quickly, a lot of my acro rtn when I did that

I changed to a designer sump (Emerald green), changed new skimmer (Nyos 250).
Nutrients exporting relied only on 2 Marine Pure Block (8x4) and Marine Pure sphere, chaeto, skimmer.

I believe that reactors strip nutrient too aggressive and too fast, when bacteria works differently. They rise and decline simultaneously to the tank's nutrient level.

I agree bacteria is great for the reef. GFO does stripp nutrients too fast, and stress the corals out. Your running your tank the right way...skimmer not on 24/7, running the skimmer dry (wet skim would take out too much good bacteria)..growing chaeto. [emoji106]

 

[Mr V]

I clean the Radions first time today. [emoji51]

Well, I have to sayI glad that I did it! [emoji28]

 

[bubbaque]

Is it just dust or does it have some salt spray also?

 

[Mr V]

Some shots today:

Notice how crazy this Acropora open its polyps in the middle of day light! [emoji15]

I move this one around recently trying to find the sweet spot for it. It currently on the position that receive the most light available.
Do tenuis like high light?

First time introduced on this thread: old school Pearberry![emoji39]

Pc Rainbow. I can't get the yellow or blue out of this one. Must be something wrong.

This one growing fast.

I got this acro in a grow out competition with my local reef website (I lose [emoji28]).
Source: Two guys coral.

 

[Mr V]

Is it just dust or does it have some salt spray also?

It is luckily just dust.[emoji28]

 

[revhtree]

Beautiful coral colors!

 

[kevlow]

Stunning. I went back and read the entire thread. Good show, Sir.

I see that you were stating that you had high nitrates. Then you showed low nitrates. Was that a swing or are you now maintaining low nutrients?

I will continue follow and watch your thread.

Thank you,
Kevin

 

[Sahin]

Mr V, this tank is just awesome. Keep up the coral growth and this will be TOTM for sure.

Sorry about the dangerous overflowing incident. Man that would have left me traumatised for a while.

Keep up the excellent updates and especially the detailed information about your system.

 

[Mr V]

Stunning. I went back and read the entire thread. Good show, Sir.


I see that you were stating that you had high nitrates. Then you showed low nitrates. Was that a swing or are you now maintaining low nutrients?
I will continue follow and watch your thread.
Thank you,

Kevin

Hi, thank you for your compliment.

I started keeping acros about 2~3 year ago with a mind set: Acroporas need clean water. To follow that mind set, I was crazy about numbers. There was a time I test for nitrate, phosphate 3~4 times a weeks! GFO, Biopellet reactors really did a good job. I was happy that I could keep the nitrate and phosphate down to undetectable level.

At that time, non of my sps growing. They just sit there, brown, green, minimal polyps extension...no grow archived. I was upset, but I never thought that was because of the nutrient.

And because my tank was not doing good, I changed a lot of other factors:

First thing I think of is Light: Metal Halide, then metal halide with t5s supplement, then change to 6 bulbs t5s fixture, then t5s with leds supplement, change to LED, and change again to LE+T5. (non of the change improve my tank conditions)
Then change in Supplement: I dosed almost of every products that "boost growth", "improve color" on the market like KZ, Red Sea, Acropowers....... (The tank condition still the same).
Besides that, I change in flow, chiller, change from sand bed to bare bottom, change light schedule, man I can't remember all! But I NEVER thought about my filtration. It is good, it is perfect, no change need. That is what I thought at that time! DEAD WRONG.
Every thing had done in a course of 1 year.

Then one day, I read a tank's thread of someone, and he talked about the "heavy import, heavy export method". I again decided to make another change in my tank.

From only 3 fishes: Yellow tang + 2 clownfish. (1/2 cube of brine shrimp per day. no coral feeding ever) I went to 10 fishes (feed 1 cube+ pellet. I noticed some very small positive responses in some of the sps (gettting darker). My filtration still did a very good job: Keep NO3/PO4 at undetectable level (I was still very happy with my filtration system).

I began to realize how effective nutrients on acropora. To boost the positive effects, I started dosing nitrate. BOOMs, first time since I kept acropora, I saw their polyps and other colors rather than brown and pale/whitish green. However, one disadvantage of dosing nitrate was it was not stable. The NO3 went high after dose, but return to 0 ppm after 12-24 hours.
At this time, I decide to get rid of the Biopellet reactor and GFO reactor. It was a right move, but definitely not a smart one. Too fast, my acros drop like flies! After a week, there were only 2 kind of acro in my tank: the DEAD ones and the HAPPY ones!

This picture was taken on 02/08/2015. Notice there was no coraline algae or other kind of algae even the tank had been running almost one year.

One year later, this is after I took off the reactors (stop dosing nitrate, keep feed the fishes at normal, no corals feeding). The picture is not good (I still didn't know how to use a dslr camera at this time), but I can swear that this Shade of Fall literally look rainbow.

Date: 03/06/2016 (13 months later)

Same thing happen on my Strawberry shortcake:
03/05/2015

03/26/2016 : you can see how patient I have got for this guys. Sitting in the middle of my tank for ONE YEAR with no growth and he still not in the trash can yet.

then here it is 07/11/2016 less than 4 months later:

and the Shade of Fall : 08/05/2016

Let go back to when the reactors gone. After the rtn stop, and the survivals became "rainbow". At this time, whenever I test for Nitrate and Phosphate, they were extremely high. (Notice the macro algae in the shade of fall picture_all kind of micro, macro algae appeared that that time). I didn't under stand how sps could survive with that high nutrients. (25-50ppm Nitrate, 0.07-0.1 Phosphate). So I decide to stop test for them at all.

So if you ask me if high or low nutrients is good for acro. Honestly, I don't know man. There is not such thing as "high" or "low". My test numbers say it "Low", but how can I say I have low nutrients level when a thick algae film on the glass appear almost everyday, look at all the turf algae I have (previous post), and I even have bubble algae that bigger than a turbo snail!

Heavy import/Heavy export with Bacteria and Macro algae based is a method that work for me.

p/s: pls forgive for my English. It's not my mother language.

 

[CoralNerd]

Awesome write up!

 

[bowen1022]

Wonderful info there. I'm currently running the Aquaforest method and I just can seem to get my acros to take off. I have "low" nutrients and algae so I've been a bit confused. I started nitrate dosing so hopefully it will help a bit and I guess if I have algae so be it

 

[najer]

Great write up, I had my tank tested fully in September for it's first birthday, it had never been tested for nitrates (50) or phosphates (0.03), I mainly wanted to make sure the kh, Calcium ans Mag. were similar to my test results.
I also stopped doing water changes in April last year.
People need a good sized refugium and to worry about chasing numbers so much in my opinion!

 

[mi-reef]

Such a beautiful tank. I especially like your simple methodology of not dosing a bunch of this and that. Definitely a testiment to your knowledge which we appreciate you openly sharing.

 

[Mr V]

I wake up today in a very good mood!
Turn out this acro I have is "WWC *****" acro

Even nicer, the seller offer a Pink Floyd for free to correct his mistake!
[emoji320] [emoji320] [emoji320]

I receive the Pink Floyd today. I was expecting an 1/2" frag, but not, it is like 2" frag.[emoji33][emoji33][emoji33]
Huge shout out to "Brian Dunleavy". (He doesn't have account here, but will be soon).

Here it is: (Still using Marinepure sphere as a frag's mount)

I hope I get the right one this time. Can someone tell me if it is a real Pink Floyd?




P/s: I woke up this morning and the skimmer overflowed. Dump back 1/2 cup of thick, dry skim-mate into the sump.
Lesson: Careful with "Red Coraline - Aquastik Epoxy". It will make your skimmer go crazy!

 

[Mr V]

 

[Mr V]

Group shot:

It's time to trim this colony down. But I don't know how to keep this beautiful shape after trim. Should I cut it totally down and let it grow again or just trimming the outside?
Can anyone with experience let me know?
Thank!

 

[Mr V]

Time to frag this guy down. Who want?

[emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

 

[Bronc]

Time to frag this guy down. Who want?

[emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

I'll pass on that one, but gladly take the acro frags!