My 50 gallon slice of the ocean

LEOreefer · May 3, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Looking really good! Methinks they like it.

What is this in the 6th picture?

That is my Halloween sea urchin. He is a type of tuxedo urchin and lives with my regular tuxedo that’s about half his size. He looked really sick when I got him from a LFS near me. He had almost no spines and wasn’t moving much at all. They were selling him for $7.99 so I bought him home hoping to save him. Now he cruises my tank all day and night and he’s fast. Between my 2 urchins and my fox face and yellow tang , they really keep the algae at bay. I’m a heavy feeder so it works well for me. There’s always stuff for them to Eaton between feeding times

LEOreefer · May 3, 2018

And I should mention that every single coral you see in that tank I bought from @usernam invalid. The one white spot you see on my Stylo is because it fell last night and was being stung by my Christmas favia

NY_Caveman · May 3, 2018

Curryb15 said:
That is my Halloween sea urchin. He is a type of tuxedo urchin and lives with my regular tuxedo that’s about half his size. He looked really sick when I got him from a LFS near me. He had almost no spines and wasn’t moving much at all. They were selling him for $7.99 so I bought him home hoping to save him. Now he cruises my tank all day and night and he’s fast. Between my 2 urchins and my fox face and yellow tang , they really keep the algae at bay. I’m a heavy feeder so it works well for me. There’s always stuff for them to Eaton between feeding times

Nice save of a beautiful animal! I figured it was an urchin, but I had not seen that one before. Thanks for the full story.

Manny'sReef · May 8, 2018

Curryb15 said:
I also starting to dive into the apex programming. I have been reading a ton over the last few weeks and feel like I have a pretty good idea on what's going on. Shout out to @msab for being such a huge help with programming and I still have a ton of questions I'm sure. Today I hooked a low level optical sensor into my ATO and a high water level sensor into my sump. Here's some pics as well has my bear final control board

Can you send me a link to where you bought your cabinet to hold your Apex and a pic of the wiring behind it? Great thread! I have a 60 gal and I'm looking for ideas for some upgrades I'm doing.

LEOreefer · May 8, 2018

Trying my hand at some nps

LEOreefer · May 8, 2018

Manny'sReef said:
Can you send me a link to where you bought your cabinet to hold your Apex and a pic of the wiring behind it? Great thread! I have a 60 gal and I'm looking for ideas for some upgrades I'm doing.

Sure thing. The wiring is a total disaster behind the panel just a FYI

LEOreefer · May 8, 2018

Today’s coral spotlight Stylophora:

LEOreefer · May 9, 2018

Update on my reef!

Today was water change day and decided to make a few changes. I took my UV off line as it was blocking my ability to pull the netting out of my ATS. I decide not to bring it back on line because I discovered the pump was clogged and there was no water flowing through the UV.

I harvested my first batch of alage from the scrubber. This is both sides. The growth was thick and very green. I’ve been battling a little bit of cyano so that was also growing on there. It took about 3-4 weeks for the scrubber to produce that. I haven’t measured nutrients but my alage die off in the DT has been extremely noticeable. So far I am very happy with this scrubber and now the only to forms of filtration I am running is the skimmer and scrubber.

Speaking of skimmer...... part of my nutrient problem was the fact I didn’t clean my skimmer for about 4-5 months. It was caked with junk to the point the cone was almost closed off! I cleaned it and sure enough it started pulling stuff from my water again!

The other change I made was to my mp10s. I wasn’t happy with the flow I was getting and felt it was helping my cyano. So I did some research and came up with an alternating flow pattern I’ll attach some pictures of my current apex programming.

And finally a FTS enjoy !

usernam invalid · May 9, 2018

Looking great bud. Nice to see the scrubber working so well. Display is filling in nicely [emoji6]

LEOreefer · May 11, 2018

Today’s coral spotlight : montipora digita

Barrett · May 16, 2018

Haven’t stopped by here for awhile, I have not been recieving notices. Everything is looking good.

LEOreefer · May 17, 2018

Barrett said:
Haven’t stopped by here for awhile, I have not been recieving notices. Everything is looking good.

Thank you ! Everything certainly is progressing. I’m on pause with new corals trying to save up for rap and the wife just got a new job so cash is a little short for the next few weeks. I saw your nano thread and I’m very jelly of that setup!

LEOreefer · May 26, 2018

Happy Memorial Day ! Here’s the tank on the first unofficial day of summer

Barrett · May 26, 2018

Everything is looking good

usernam invalid · May 26, 2018

Looking good brother enjoy the holiday

LEOreefer · May 28, 2018

Slow motion Memorial Day

LEOreefer · Jun 3, 2018

Have not updated in a while,

Funny thing about this hobby is every time you think your done "tinkering" you come up with something else you would like to see done with your system. As you all know I took my carbon/gfo reactor off line and replaced it with a ATS. The scrubber is working beautifully and its keeping phos around .08 and nitrate 10ppm. Because the the extreme lack of space I have to work with I do not run filter socks as changing them is a project and a half. This leads me to my first part of today's update, I feel as though I always have a slight cloudiness to the water. Its nothing major and my wife thinks Im crazy but the water is deff not as clear as it was when I had carbon running through a reactor. Now you may say easy just put your carbon reactor back online, but its not that easy as I am totally out of room under my stand. Ive always wanted to try ozone but Im not sure how that would work given Im running a co2 scrubber off my skimmer. So this is something I have to think about, how can I get a carbon reactor back on my system without removing anything that I have on there now.
Normally I text every few weeks. I was testing once a week and never say any change in my alk intake. So I started test about once a month just to make sure that nothing was out of wack. That method was working out for me until recently. I came home from work one day and my corals looked "off". The first thing I did was test salinity but that was at 1.026. I then went on to test ALK and bingo I had a ALK reading of 6.3 via my Hanna alk checker. Over the next few days I raised my alk to 8.5. Now you would think I would have learned my lesson, but nope I waited another week to test and when I tested again the alk was at 6.7. It then occurred to me that since my CO2 scrubber was brought on line I have been maintaining a PH of 8.3-8.5 and this must be the reason why my alk consumption has increased. So I started testing every other day due to my work schedule, I started with a PH of 8.2 a 4 days ago. When I tested 2 days later the ALK was at 7.0. I cut that in half and figured I am seeing a approximate drop of .5-.6 DKH per day. Unfortunately I am working doubles the next few days so I dont anticipate my next alk check until Monday evening. With this new trend in alk uptake and my hectic work schedule this has me thinking about a dosing solution along with possibly alk monitoring! Ive started doing research into what alk monitors are out there. Originally I was just going to purchase the trident when it comes out but I really like what Im reading about the alkatronic. This purchase will be made down the line as my wife just changed jobs so cash is a little short right now, but I fee this is a necessary purchase as 5-6 days go by and Im not able to touch the tank due to my work schedule.
There has been no livestock changes. I recently started adding selcon into the frozen LRS I feed every other day. I was battling cyano for a while, 2 doses of red slime remover and every other day feeding schedule seems to have overcome the cyano.

RAP is coming up! This is my first one and am pumped to see what its like. I don'd plan on spending a ton of money but Im excited for the experience

LEOreefer · Jun 4, 2018

Got some icp test results back this morning

LEOreefer · Jun 5, 2018

Ive tested alk for the last 3-4 days now and I’ve concluded that I’m definitely seeing .8-1 dkh drop per day. I check after lights go down in the evening so it’s a full 24 hour cycle. I do not have a doser but now think it might be time to make a decision on one. I’m still researching alk monitors but I’m leaning towards Alkatronic. I like the fact it monitors and doses. I was going to hold out for the trident but that will just monitor my levels and not dose. The Alkatronic purchase wouldn’t be until July as you can’t seem to get your hands on them right now and I have to save up the money. Anyone have any suggestions on dosers?