Turtle's Fairy Tale

[SashimiTurtle]

Hey Turtle,
Saw you picked up corals from a store in Clayton (pretty sure I know which one ) how are they doing for you? We picked up two maricultured colonies from Bill a while back and they are still going strong.

Do you ever make it up to Raleigh for Reefsmart / Reef farmers Market?

Reef Keepers! Sadly, most didn't make it after my tank cracked and I had to make do with all of my corals in a 40 breeder. I lost the blue tip stag, the purple acro and almost lost my large green polyp monti cap. My friend has frags of all in her tank so hopefully they will grow out and I can get a piece later. The monti cap I ended up fraging as much healthy tissue as I could, and it is recovering. I even had a piece that was nice enough to glue to my rocks.

I have not made it to Reefsmart yet. I need to go next year. I'm going to plan out all the local expos next year and try to attend as many as I can. I think we still have the CMAC show in September, I need to look up the date for that.

 

[Peter K]

Reef Keepers! Sadly, most didn't make it after my tank cracked and I had to make do with all of my corals in a 40 breeder. I lost the blue tip stag, the purple acro and almost lost my large green polyp monti cap. My friend has frags of all in her tank so hopefully they will grow out and I can get a piece later. The monti cap I ended up fraging as much healthy tissue as I could, and it is recovering. I even had a piece that was nice enough to glue to my rocks.

I have not made it to Reefsmart yet. I need to go next year. I'm going to plan out all the local expos next year and try to attend as many as I can. I think we still have the CMAC show in September, I need to look up the date for that.

Man that is awful, big kudos to you for not throwing in the towel. I was going through your initial list of corals from Bill and I don't think we have any of the same ones to give you. We have a blue stag with green tips (just the opposite of yours). If you are looking for anything that you lost in particular let us know.

There seems to be a big reef community up here in Raleigh (I've only been in the area for about 1.5 years, but I've been thoroughly surprised by the interest in reefing up here), Reefsmart last year was great there were a ton of vendors and hobbyist sellers (my girlfriend and I were one ). I know there is another event happening in December in Raleigh, not totally sure what date yet.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Tested Alk again this morning. 6.4dKH. I've dosed 2ml on Friday and on Saturday. Just dosed 2 more ml. That's all I'm going to do until tonight so I can test at the same time. I think it was around 8pm when I tested the first time.

Replaced one of my SW4 with with the quiet PP8 yesterday. Wild Irish Rose acro was looking like it needed a bit more flow, after replacing the power head the polyp extension seemed to increase. It's starting to get more red color to it, wish I could capture it on camera but the phone seems to filter it out.

Lights come on in an hour. Hopefully my new leopard wrasse comes out to play... and the tomini doesn't harass her. The other fish are already awake and swimming around in ambient room light.

 

[Fudsey]

It was home depot that I got those hangers from but it was last year and I can't find them on their site now...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

No leopard wrasse yet... she may hide for a few days. Here's a picture of the Wild Irish Rose with red color!!! and a Bubblegum Digi we picked up yesterday.

 

[Fudsey]

Turtle, you got the RS cover for your tank, correct?

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Tested nutrients for the first time since... ever, because we have a green film algae that can completely cover the glass in hours. I have to scrape the tank a few times a day to keep it clean. Well, NO3 is 0.5ppm on the Red Sea pro test and PO4 is between 0.08 and 0.16ppm on the Red Sea pro and 0.00ppm on the Hanna low range phosphate. BRS did the video where they compared the ULR phosphorus and the LR Phosphate, and the one I have is pretty much useless below 0.2ppm...

So, uh... where is this film algae coming from? Tank uglies still? Chaeto is running 12 hours reverse cycle and I feed the equivalent of 1 cube of LRS and 5ml each of the Red Sea reef energy daily.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Turtle, you got the RS cover for your tank, correct?

That is correct. I have the Red Sea DIY screen kit. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend it.

 

[Fudsey]

I ordered one on Friday and it will be here Wed. And you answered my question

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I ordered one on Friday and it will be here Wed. And you answered my question

Yep, It fits great, easy to cut with a hacksaw and if you keep the screen tight and follow one of the lines on the screen when you're putting it in, it'll stay nice a square to the frame. It even has easy break off corners for wires, all though I cut them with the disk on the dremel for nice clean edges. The left side has a 1K Gyre, PP8 and a ground probe wire and there is just enough room.

The part I love the best is it sits completely flush with the top of the glass.

 

[SPR1968]

Yep, It fits great, easy to cut with a hacksaw and if you keep the screen tight and follow one of the lines on the screen when you're putting it in, it'll stay nice a square to the frame. It even has easy break off corners for wires, all though I cut them with the disk on the dremel for nice clean edges. The left side has a 1K Gyre, PP8 and a ground probe wire and there is just enough room.

The part I love the best is it sits completely flush with the top of the glass.

I’ve got one to and they are very good, just be ‘patient’ when building it and make sure the mesh is tight

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Alright guys, update time. Over the weekend I've been slowly dosing up my alkalinity into a "normal range." I started out dosing 2ml of that Red Sea powder which initially moved my alk in the right dirrection, but didn't do anything after that. Yesterday I dosed a total of 16ml of alk solution and raised my alk from 6.6 to 6.8 over night. I dosed another 10ml earlier today and will dose again before I leave for work.

The glass has been, well impossible to see thru most of the time. This is just a few hours of build up. I have to scrape this several times a day.

The cloudy water has cleared, until I scrape the film algae off the glass and then it gets a very slight green tint for a little while. Nutrients today(took time with test) are 1ppm NO3 and 0.04ppm PO4. I'm not sure what to do with this film algae other than keep cleaning it.

 

[Brew12]

Alright guys, update time. Over the weekend I've been slowly dosing up my alkalinity into a "normal range." I started out dosing 2ml of that Red Sea powder which initially moved my alk in the right dirrection, but didn't do anything after that. Yesterday I dosed a total of 16ml of alk solution and raised my alk from 6.6 to 6.8 over night. I dosed another 10ml earlier today and will dose again before I leave for work.

The glass has been, well impossible to see thru most of the time. This is just a few hours of build up. I have to scrape this several times a day.

The cloudy water has cleared, until I scrape the film algae off the glass and then it gets a very slight green tint for a little while. Nutrients today(took time with test) are 1ppm NO3 and 0.04ppm PO4. I'm not sure what to do with this film algae other than keep cleaning it.

Looks like your nutrients are high, since I see what looks like GHA growing on that rock in the back. I would start with running a little GFO in a reactor.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Looks like your nutrients are high, since I see what looks like GHA growing on that rock in the back. I would start with running a little GFO in a reactor.

Yep, that is hair algae although it is contained to just two rocks. The two rocks that were in the tank with the fish after the great memorial day crack, are the ones growing the algae. The rest are clean. I think those two sucked up a bunch of phosphate and are now slowly leaching it back out. They very well may be the cause of my phosphate problem without having a nitrate problem. The sand and the rest of the rocks are completely clean now that the diatoms are gone, I'm just stuck scraping the glass forever.

So, gfo or lanthinum chloride... well I have gfo on hand, no way to run it at the moment tho. I'd have to set up additional plumbing and I wanted to do that after I get ATO reservoir and dosing containers. Lanthinum chloride would require ordering, but is a liquid and works by precipitating phosphates so the skimmer can pull them out....

Decisions...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Pictures of rocks for refrence.

All clean...

Dirty two...

 

[Spanky05]

Love this setup!

I see 2 powerheads and a gyre.
Which do you have? Would you do anything different for flow if you were starting over?

 

[Brew12]

Pictures of rocks for refrence.

All clean...

Dirty two...

Ah, its not as bad as I thought.

Do you run filter socks? You can put some GFO in those and just dump it from the old sock to the new ones when you change it out. I used to do that (in a little mesh bag) before I had my reactor.

 

[mta_morrow]

That is correct. I have the Red Sea DIY screen kit. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend it.

Love mine as well! And a great price!

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Love this setup!

I see 2 powerheads and a gyre.
Which do you have? Would you do anything different for flow if you were starting over?

Right now my flow is taken care of an Icecap 1K gyre, a Jebao PP8 and SW4. I will eventually replace all of them with different pumps eventually. I need lots more flow for the amount of SPS I plan on keeping. I know I would like a XF250 for the gyre, the two on the back wall I haven't exactly decided on yet.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Ah, its not as bad as I thought.

Do you run filter socks? You can put some GFO in those and just dump it from the old sock to the new ones when you change it out. I used to do that (in a little mesh bag) before I had my reactor.

I need to find my mesh bag... I could throw some in the return, or put my filter sock back in.