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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
@jk_s124 @Anthony Scholfield you want some phyto man?
Rob's Really Rad 180 Reef Rally
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jk_s124
Valuable Member
Maybe....
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Juice boxes for your corals! Man, this is the third successful batch in a row. My tank and corals are loving this stuff, it's so easy and aside from the initial setup, ongoing costs are a gallon of saltwater per batch. It's crazy... This is a lot of fun and I'm reading a lot more about how this can benefit combating nutrient control issues and other pest algae. Corals, clams, copepods etc, all readily eat it.
Have to shut down for a few weeks while I travel, but can instantly start back up when I get back with the stores I will have in the fridge. Currently dosing 60ml a day. Will slowly work up from there as I observe how things go. So far so good! Several nuisance algae I had going on have literally disappeared a couple weeks after since I started doing this. Coincidence... Perhaps, but they've been there since day one, and then slowly went away after I got this going. Granted it was probably also a couple other things but it's all part of the equation I think.
Have to shut down for a few weeks while I travel, but can instantly start back up when I get back with the stores I will have in the fridge. Currently dosing 60ml a day. Will slowly work up from there as I observe how things go. So far so good! Several nuisance algae I had going on have literally disappeared a couple weeks after since I started doing this. Coincidence... Perhaps, but they've been there since day one, and then slowly went away after I got this going. Granted it was probably also a couple other things but it's all part of the equation I think.
jk_s124
Valuable Member
Awesome Rob! Are you dosing this all at once or several times throughout the day?Juice boxes for your corals! Man, this is the third successful batch in a row. My tank and corals are loving this stuff, it's so easy and aside from the initial setup, ongoing costs are a gallon of saltwater per batch. It's crazy... This is a lot of fun and I'm reading a lot more about how this can benefit combating nutrient control issues and other pest algae. Corals, clams, copepods etc, all readily eat it.
Have to shut down for a few weeks while I travel, but can instantly start back up when I get back with the stores I will have in the fridge. Currently dosing 60ml a day. Will slowly work up from there as I observe how things go. So far so good! Several nuisance algae I had going on have literally disappeared a couple weeks after since I started doing this. Coincidence... Perhaps, but they've been there since day one, and then slowly went away after I got this going. Granted it was probably also a couple other things but it's all part of the equation I think.
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Minor sump upgrade, added a sicce XS stream to my fuge to help tumble the chaeto and help disperse
Right now I'm just dosing 60ml once per day. Don't want to develop any twice a day routines cuz that would just be a giant PIA lol. It's a good thought tho
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Wish me luck...I leave tomorrow on a work trip and will be gone two weeks. This will be the first extended leave test of my baby and a little nervous lol. The gf had been trained on feeding routines and we've gone over a few things to watch for, most if not all wonky things should show up on my Apex butt you never know.
Changed out the CO2 media, put fresh rolls in the klirs etc. The ATO should take care of itself and over been getting about two weeks out of it before it calls for water. I'll fill it up before I leave just to be on the conservative side. Cross my fingers things have been stable.
Changed out the CO2 media, put fresh rolls in the klirs etc. The ATO should take care of itself and over been getting about two weeks out of it before it calls for water. I'll fill it up before I leave just to be on the conservative side. Cross my fingers things have been stable.
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Tank update... Been steadily adding corals, but mostly varieties on the safe side along the lines of LPS. I put in two acro frags as test pieces from TSA's recent live sale. Nothing fancy, very modestly priced sticks to see how it goes.
Most excited about this trachy I added today. Really caught my eye at the (semi) local fish store. Had fun talking to the new upcoming face to BRS tv, she's pretty cute, super smart and knowledgeable on reefing! Stay tuned on that one. Need to play more with my kessils and come up with a program optimized for photos and video. Getting closer but that will have to wait for another day. When I get back it's PAR mapping time!
Most excited about this trachy I added today. Really caught my eye at the (semi) local fish store. Had fun talking to the new upcoming face to BRS tv, she's pretty cute, super smart and knowledgeable on reefing! Stay tuned on that one. Need to play more with my kessils and come up with a program optimized for photos and video. Getting closer but that will have to wait for another day. When I get back it's PAR mapping time!
SkiCatTX
Sustainable Reefkeeping
Hope all goes well. I thought I’d be getting back to traveling already, but two more trips were cancelled this week for the summer...I hope they roll over our statuses again this year, or I’ll be doing a lot of mileage running this fall...
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
That's where all you automation efforts pay off brotha! I have to admit I'm like a nervous nanny watching my apex remotely wondering what the heck is going on lol. I noticed my pH is up over what I expected by .1 on average since I left. I mean I been working on driving it up but I didn't realize those efforts would continue in my absence lol. Freaking reefing! With the large influx of recent additions I wonder about how uptake may impact this.
Mjl714
Valuable Member
Rob,
Great build thread, read through the entire build. Held my comments until now. Enjoyed many aspects, love the sprinkled in kayaking references and I'm looking forward to the upcoming season in the Northwoods. Anyway on to the build...
First love the fish room, nice and clean, not to mention being right behind the DT, fantastic. I’ve have a sudo fish/workroom in basement also pretty good.
Framing tech stand, what do you think nearly a year later? It looks nice, functional and didn’t appear to difficult to design and build.
Tank, really looks like a beauty, and that Modular Marine overflow, sleek, and hidden profile. Like you, I have not met a Canadian I didn’t get along with and I work with several, but how did you choose your tank builder? Boarder and customs sounds like a pain.
Fuge with sand, I started my 75 gal fuge approx 13 gal with Miracle Mud, but eventually and due to the recommendation that the mud be changed periodically I no longer have mud or sand in my fuge. Seems less of a mess.
Kalk are you actually dosing through periodic top offs? Due to changing top off rates (evaporation) throughout the year, over time I struggled to rely solely on kalk. Over the past year, I switched and now dose ca and alk which is rock solid, except that ph dropped. Recently I started to reintroduce kalk into my ato slowly...We’ll see. More of a pain when I’m out of town and others watch my tanks.
Basement temps (I’m down in Illinois) usually very solid, except when furnace fails in the Midwest, glad to hear you averted catastrophe.
Again, thanks for the enjoyable read, great build, I’ll be following.
Great build thread, read through the entire build. Held my comments until now. Enjoyed many aspects, love the sprinkled in kayaking references and I'm looking forward to the upcoming season in the Northwoods. Anyway on to the build...
First love the fish room, nice and clean, not to mention being right behind the DT, fantastic. I’ve have a sudo fish/workroom in basement also pretty good.
Framing tech stand, what do you think nearly a year later? It looks nice, functional and didn’t appear to difficult to design and build.
Tank, really looks like a beauty, and that Modular Marine overflow, sleek, and hidden profile. Like you, I have not met a Canadian I didn’t get along with and I work with several, but how did you choose your tank builder? Boarder and customs sounds like a pain.
Fuge with sand, I started my 75 gal fuge approx 13 gal with Miracle Mud, but eventually and due to the recommendation that the mud be changed periodically I no longer have mud or sand in my fuge. Seems less of a mess.
Kalk are you actually dosing through periodic top offs? Due to changing top off rates (evaporation) throughout the year, over time I struggled to rely solely on kalk. Over the past year, I switched and now dose ca and alk which is rock solid, except that ph dropped. Recently I started to reintroduce kalk into my ato slowly...We’ll see. More of a pain when I’m out of town and others watch my tanks.
Basement temps (I’m down in Illinois) usually very solid, except when furnace fails in the Midwest, glad to hear you averted catastrophe.
Again, thanks for the enjoyable read, great build, I’ll be following.
SkiCatTX
Sustainable Reefkeeping
Yes, this was something that I saw, especially after getting the Trident set up. What often happens is that when you leave:
1. The CO2 levels in your house go down, so the pH goes up in the tank a bit.
2. Then the ALK usage goes up with the increased pH as well as the likely increase of algae on the glass.
3. Your perfectly configured dosing is no longer enough, so your ALK levels fall
4. You come home and your ALK is mysteriously low, so increase dosing...but you're home so all those things above return to normal and within a day or two your ALK levels are crazy high...
Endless circle if you travel a lot...
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
I'm tracking, what you say makes sense. @Mjl714 was asking about my dosing (@Mjl714 I'll respond to you tomorrow on that) and I've learned some interesting things there. Directly related to what you touched on. It's been something I've needed the time to mathematically work out, right now I've just got observation and anectodal theories but I think they'll pan out.
This work trip has been insane and hours have been rough. But life is good. The gf has been doing an awesome job taking care of the tank and everything is doing good. She's even been target feeding the corals! I had dropped a gorgeous Trachyphyllia in just before I took off and it's been doing great (polyp extension has been amazing, photo provided by her).
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
My gf's daughter has been checking the tank out while I've been gone and made this fun little video. Made me laugh.
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
So after over a two week separation from my tank I came back to no losses and a nice outbreak of turf algae lol. Ok, I expected this at some point. My tank has been excessively low nutrient due to an undersized fish population. I've outlined that previously. I'm ok with this, I expected to battle some issues at some point. What reefer doesn't? Now that I'm back home I'm starting to dose nitrates and try and get my system in balance. Talking to a variety of vendors for my best additions fish-wise and we'll see how that goes. Top contenders are a copper banded butterfly and a gem tang. See how that goes. Below is a video today of the tank. Easy to see the turf algae issue I'm struggling with.
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Two opposing MP-60's. I've been playing with position and intensity quite a bit to find a balance between not blowing sand around (carib sea special grade) and not having it to aggressive to my lps in lower areas. Next I'm going to experiment with my upper right 60 and increase flow to my higher rocks where I'm keeping my sps. Trying to go slow with these experiments as changing too many things at once it's a nightmare.
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RobB'z Reef
2500 Club Member
Keep up with manual removal while I slowly start to dose NO3 PO4 and get my nutrients up to where they should be. Then get my bio load up by adding more fish and corals until I can back off on the dosing of nutrients. It'll take a little time but I'm confident that will ultimately resolve the issue. Also my chaeto needs time to get rolling too.
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