The heater failure build

[attiland]

Looking good! Hammer seems happy Careful of overdoing the algae reactor. It can pull quite a bit of nutrients out and your nitrates are getting on the low end. Do you feed frozen food? I have heard that frozen is more nitrate than phosphate vs dry pellets and flakes. Not sure how true that is.

Yeah nitrates are low. I have dialled the timer back about yet an another hour. I have started 24/7 now it is on for 15 hours a day only. I still harvest every other week a full amount like a picture in one of my previous posts. I may end up dosing nitrates regularly bit I am hoping some new fish will also help set the balance. The thing I love about this reactor is I can fine tune it by light and flow too. I definitely can grow chaeto

I feed frozen only I heard pallets are higher in phosphates too. I have at one point feed reef roids and the phosphates started to skyrocket as results of it so wouldn’t be surprised if this is true.

Recent changes like dosing and the algae reactor made the a few visible changes in the tank and I am not referring to the parameters. Corals especially the hammer looks happier and growing faster and the water seems to be more clean. Latter might be just my imagination.

 

[attiland]

Today finally had a little time to put the doser in place. I had to do a little shelf for to keep the air pump away from everything. I used a fruit box for this important job .

I also got some new corals. Nothing really special just some green mushrooms and an Orange Short Tentacle Plate Coral but I love both. I couldn’t make a good picture with my phone so I will post later better ones but for now you will have to imagine that that brown thing is orange.

 

[attiland]

 

[attiland]

I realised no full shot has been posted quite a while. So here it goes.

as you can see coralline has taken over a lot and not much is left uncovered.

 

[attiland]

Just a little bit of before and after hammer
Before

After

Took almost a year

 

[attiland]

There was no update for a while so here it goes.
In August I have got 2 new SPS corals. I just couldn’t resist one of them as was only £10 for the 2. I have put them higher in the rock works as kind of a test corals.
I can already see some growth so I am happy with them. I think one of them would be happy with less light too as the more shady part shows growing.

when they arrived

today about 3 weeks later

last week the epic failure of equipment happened. Nothing epic about the failure of the heater but since this is the heater failure build it somewhat funny. Good job I have a heater I use nowadays only when mixing salt I could put in production while the replacement arrives.

 

[attiland]

The new heater is in place.

I have had to correct the calcium levels last night as it has dropped 40ppm in the last 2 months. I have managed the dosing adjustment to stabilise it so it was time to go back to the 400ppm mark again.

as all the times Duncan noted the change with retracing. But this time at least was easier to understand what it is trying to say.

 

[attiland]

I finally managed to say hello in R2R. Let’s see how many of yo actually read these hello posts
SPS is officially growing

and some new pics of some of the other corals

 

[attiland]

2 new addition to the tank today. A yellow wrasse and a torch corals. Pic will come later as the yellow wrasse is hiding and expected to do so for the rest of the day and the torch is not open just yet.
I have not been lucky with the yellow wrasse before 2 has jumped out before my mesh top was on.

 

[attiland]

The yellow wrasse was out for just a little time and went hiding again.

here is the torch opening nicely

 

[attiland]

The torch I getting bigger every day. So happy with it

My wife has to start to pray I won’t be torch addict

 

[boomeraudio]

Measuring silicates is hard and tests are unreliable so I decided not to order yet another test kit but calculate the dosage by simply doing the mats. 2ppm was the target to achieve diatoms to bloom. So I have just dumped it in in 2 days. Diatom meant to kill my large cell Amphidinium.
Within 3 days I had the diatoms bloom and within a week I couldn’t found dinos.

Thanks for the details on how you beat the dino's...battling myself and making progress. Started dosing silicates.

I'm trying to figure out the safest way to dose this assuming the silicate levels were 0 prior to dosing. Like you mentioned, testing isn't necessarily accurate, so trying to get to 2ppm is my goal as well. With a 20 gallon tank, 100 drops would increase the silicates level to 1ppm. (.01ppm increase per drop per 20Gal. .01x100=1ppm).

Just curious how much you dosed! Thanks again for the detailed explanation on your battle with the dinos.

 

[attiland]

Thanks for the details on how you beat the dino's...battling myself and making progress. Started dosing silicates.

I'm trying to figure out the safest way to dose this assuming the silicate levels were 0 prior to dosing. Like you mentioned, testing isn't necessarily accurate, so trying to get to 2ppm is my goal as well. With a 20 gallon tank, 100 drops would increase the silicates level to 1ppm. (.01ppm increase per drop per 20Gal. .01x100=1ppm).

Just curious how much you dosed! Thanks again for the detailed explanation on your battle with the dinos.

I don’t remember the number of drops but your calculations are correct and the instructions on mine say the same.
just take the rocks in consideration when you calculate your water volume.

 

[attiland]

I have just bought a new algae scraper from Tunze- boy I didn’t know how bad I had before

some before and after pictures of my corals is due too

 

[attiland]

My five year old son has taken some pictures I wanted to share with you

 

[attiland]

The tank getting ready for la-la so am I but wanted to let you know it is all going well.

 

[attiland]

Family sleeping so the water test done.
Not as bad as expected
No3 4-5ppm - steady
Po4 0.08ppm - (drop from 0.1)
Mg. 1300ppm - (need topping up)
Ca 465ppm - (steady but higher then my target)
Alk 7.8 (lower than usual for the 2nd time - adjusted dosing)
PH 8.2 (steady - never changes - not sure why i am testing )

 

[attiland]

Little maintenance day today. I have cleaned the wave makers. The flow difference so big the torch went to sleep early. I need to move it anyway it has attacked the mushrooms already and I want it more in the focus anyway.

also added extra 5% to the peak lighting and extended the peak with an hour. I am hoping I can get one of my sps grow faster and not sure if the polyp extension is good enough on this one. so basically messaging with the lights a bit to see if it is welcomed by the corals.

 

[attiland]

I have turned 5 yesterday (last digit of my age ) and guess what. Got some cash from my in-laws ‘cause they weren’t sure what to give. LFS here I come

 

[attiland]

I had to change the plans about the corals as one of my wave makers have stopped and couldn’t get it going anymore so I have ordered a Jebao MLW Smart Wave Maker with LCD Display Controller.
I just hope I can hook it up on Wednesday and the existing ones will join as slave. Unfortunately there is little to no documentation on their website about compatibility.