d2mini's "Mixed Reefalicious" Cade 600 Build

[Snoopy 67]

A new tank is one reason I have resisted sticks. Had some real nice ones @ last night's meeting, for good prices too. I've lost 3 fish out of 4 & there is 1 or more crabs that came on the live rock. It or they are small & stay hidden under the rockwork making tunnels. Scurry really quick when I shine a light on them @ night.
Anyway I'll stop @ a store later today for a look after lunch out. Patience,Patience, Patience.
My nitrates & phosphates are really too low too.

 

[d2mini]

A new tank is one reason I have resisted sticks. Had some real nice ones @ last night's meeting, for good prices too. I've lost 3 fish out of 4 & there is 1 or more crabs that came on the live rock. It or they are small & stay hidden under the rockwork making tunnels. Scurry really quick when I shine a light on them @ night.
Anyway I'll stop @ a store later today for a look after lunch out. Patience,Patience, Patience.
My nitrates & phosphates are really too low too.

Any idea why you’re losing the sticks?

So I think I've got another theory!!!

I'm battling high calcium and kinda high alk, still haven't had to dose. Calcium is off the charts. I started the tank with Red Sea Pro salt which has elevated levels and today I got fed up and went and bought the regular version of Red Sea. So I get home and mixing up a batch and grab my refractometer, calibrated it with my Pinpoint solution (35ppt) and the newly mixed saltwater seems way off. I start testing my tank, RO water, etc... I think my calibration solution that I've been using all this time is bad! I calibrated with RO, which I normally wouldn't trust to be all that accurate but the instructions included with my Red Sea refractometer say to use RO/DI so that's what I did, and if that is anywhere close to accurate, my tank is over 40ppt!

So now I'm mixing up more saltwater and getting ready to do some water changes with the new salt. And just in case I have new calibration fluid coming tomorrow morning. Dangit!

 

[d2mini]

New calibration fluid arrived.
High salinity confirmed.
Working on bringing it down my slowly replacing tank water with RO/DI water.
Down to around 38-39 ppt.

 

[Janci]

Dang
We have all this high-end equipment to measure our parameters and salinity is simply still one of the most common errors we encounter.

 

[d2mini]

Dang
We have all this high-end equipment to measure our parameters and salinity is simply still one of the most common errors we encounter.

Right, because all that equipment is only as good as the idiot who sets it up!

 

[d2mini]

Went to the LFS to get a new bucket of salt this weekend. Ended up with the regular blue bucket of Red Sea.
Salinity is now down to 1.026. Just by doing small water changes with RO/DI.
Of course, while I was there I couldn't help myself and picked up a cheap bubblegum digi and firefish, and a green torch.

 

[ScottD]

Tank is looking good, glad you caught your salinity mishap sooner than later before you had more losses.

 

[Cthulukelele]

Went to the LFS to get a new bucket of salt this weekend. Ended up with the regular blue bucket of Red Sea.
Salinity is now down to 1.026. Just by doing small water changes with RO/DI.
Of course, while I was there I couldn't help myself and picked up a cheap bubblegum digi and firefish, and a green torch.

Your photography skills are fantastic. Helps to have such beautiful coral to photograph as well lol

 

[d2mini]

 

[d2mini]

Here's a couple more views.
I need more coral.

 

[KStatefan]

Do use a special light scene when you take pictures?

 

[d2mini]

Do use a special light scene when you take pictures?

On these FTS I did not. But I do on the closeup shots, like the ones a few posts above... so minimal tweaking needed. WB is almost spot on with my Nikon set to 10,000k wb. I set it up as a maintenance mode.

 

[KStatefan]

Thanks

I will try that one and see how it compares to the light scenarios I have been using. Mines seems to come out to yellow.

I also do not have a high quality camera just my iphone and a Cannon M50

 

[d2mini]

Thanks

I will try that one and see how it compares to the light scenarios I have been using. Mines seems to come out to yellow.

I also do not have a high quality camera just my iphone and a Cannon M50

Its more about WB settings than anything else. Unfortunately we can't change that on the iPhone. I'm not familiar with that Canon.
But this should be a good starting point. The trick is to have enough light, but not a lot of blue.
And one trick that sometimes helps on the iPhone is using portrait mode. I don't know why, but it changes the white balance.

 

[d2mini]

Just placed an order from @Top_Lids
Can't wait to get that bad boy and get rid of the standard screen top.

 

[Top_Lids]

Just placed an order from @Top_Lids

Can't wait to get that bad boy and get rid of the standard screen top. 

We're super stoked to see how everything looks on top! Attached a pic of the Green UV Spline we're installing on yours

@d2mini Yessir we're stoked to see how it looks on top

Attached is a pic of the Green UV Spline we're installing on yours. This is on a Waterbox Cube, so on your bigger CADE we're hoping it looks even more stunning

 

[d2mini]

Time to start The Shine!
My order of ReefMoonshiners arrived.

 

[d2mini]

Here's the results from the Reef Moonshiners dosing calculator after inputting the results from my ATI ICP test.
Tells you exactly what to do and what to buy.

 

[d2mini]

Here's some crazy...
I had gorgonians more times than I can count and they do ok for a while but eventually die.
These guys are actually GROWING!

This one is small but has probably tripled in size since I got the Tampa Bay Saltwater rock it came in on.

This one has been repairing itself and growing further. Had a lot of bare stick when it arrived. The middle branch is completely healed.

And this baby one I didn't even know I had until now.

@LiverockRocks

 

[danieyella]

You'll love what reef moonshiners does for your gorgs. I run softy/lps and tried rm because I hate water changes, I was impressed with how the gorgs really take to it