A Splash of Color

[biggles]

Originally Posted by FloformAustria

why didn´t he take the black matrix with him?

He did Flo........... it's in the bag of sand..........

[FloformAustria]

Originally Posted by biggles

He did Flo........... it's in the bag of sand..........

the dark side is strong in you master!!

[Wrangy]

Good thing I only used half the bag then Can't wait to sneak out some real goodies next time

[nemodan]

2-3 days without reading this thread and it is amazing all that happened.

Andrew, I am setting up now a DISCUS tank with my wife. Yes, I know, it is freshwater and here we are all salty. LOL.

My point is that I used a reef 50 G tank with a 10 G sump and added 4 L of Matrix in media bags, in the sump, to make is easy for cleaning. Plus I added a media reactor with 2 L of siporax . I hope these Discus get a clean low nutrient water. For what I have been reading these guys look as complicated as Acro concerning water quality.

[markalot]

Just read through 4 pages I missed, great stuff Andrew.

So with the Matrix, mine is in a reactor and in my return chamber. Filthy dirty and full of detritus and no matter what I do I cannot raise nitrates in my tank. I've always had a nitrate issue prior to adding Matrix so I have to believe it's the Matrix doing the magic. I don't want to clean it but I suppose at some point the dirt and crap will outweigh any benefits.

Love the gutter baskets used to hold the rocks.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by FloformAustria

the dark side is strong in you master!!

Thanks Flo

Originally Posted by Wrangy

Good thing I only used half the bag then Can't wait to sneak out some real goodies next time

Thanks for the glue mate, i loooooove BSI super glue gel so it was a good reef trade......

About two hours after Dom left i got pics of his display with the new sand in it lol........ Dom does not muck around when he gets his hands on reef goodies. Looks ten times better already btw buddy

Originally Posted by nemodan

2-3 days without reading this thread and it is amazing all that happened.

Andrew, I am setting up now a DISCUS tank with my wife. Yes, I know, it is freshwater and here we are all salty. LOL.

My point is that I used a reef 50 G tank with a 10 G sump and added 4 L of Matrix in media bags, in the sump, to make is easy for cleaning. Plus I added a media reactor with 2 L of siporax . I hope these Discus get a clean low nutrient water. For what I have been reading these guys look as complicated as Acro concerning water quality.

I tried keeping discus once Daniel......... once......... acros are way easier mate lol........... i wish you the best of luck not killing the fish your wife loves......

Originally Posted by markalot

Just read through 4 pages I missed, great stuff Andrew.

So with the Matrix, mine is in a reactor and in my return chamber. Filthy dirty and full of detritus and no matter what I do I cannot raise nitrates in my tank. I've always had a nitrate issue prior to adding Matrix so I have to believe it's the Matrix doing the magic. I don't want to clean it but I suppose at some point the dirt and crap will outweigh any benefits.

Love the gutter baskets used to hold the rocks.

Hey Mark, matrix/siporax type media is extremely effective at dealing with nitrates - extremely, as in if you have high nitrates and trouble keeping them down stick about 1L media for every 100L of system water in your system and after it seeds with bacteria you will see the nitrates go in about a week. When it kicks in it really kicks in, mine woke up around 10 weeks after adding i think so the sooner you get it in the better.
Dosing bacteria etc might help speed it up but i didn't bother. The main point is, it actually works great and i would highly recommend such media as a bio filtration workhorse that you'll find very easy to use no matter how you run it.

That wasn't directed at you Mark, i went on a ramble mid sentence........

Just give your matrix a good blast once a week with a turkey baster in the return chamber and jiggle the reactor a couple of times a week. Don't mess with what's working mate, leave the matrix alone and if you don't change much else and nitrates start showing up in a month or two you might think the media is too dirty. If that happened i woul remove the overflow media entirely and clean the reactor media every month with a salt water rinse at water change time to keep it operating at a reliable level rather than seesawing the nitrates to zero every time you wash out the filthy media.
Hope you get what i mean mate, if dirty media works then you can run less clean media to accomplish the same thing AND keep stable phos and nitrates - phos rapidly changing is as bad as an alk spike -' trap for young players ' as my father used to say every time i was hurt helping him strip down the lawn mower or other device he decided to overhaul.......
I remember being about 12 and dad had me washing the mower bits in an ice cream container half full with petrol - from the mower prior to stripping.
' Up top for thinking son ' - that's what he said when i asked why i was holding the ice cream container under the mower being turned upside down..... he didn't like to waste much....

At some point after a few hours mom came into the garage and i don't actually remember this but apparently i was off my face so she abused dad and dragged me into the house and put me to bed.

Dad came and saw me when i woke and tussled my hair like iin the movies and said ' you're not supposed to breathe the fumes in you duffer ' and smiled at me. That's as close to an apology as you ever got from dad but i knew he felt bad so he was still awesome in my eyes

I wish he was still here so we could strip down the skimmer and wash it in petrol together - don't take your parents for granted kiddies !

Happened again, went from matix to dad stories lol.



It's this one in case you wondered.......



The other one is a frag from Ken he gave me a few months back - it's a gorgeous piece mate, thanks heaps

[wheelman76]

Great story about your childhood Andrew , I always enjoy your stories. That last pastel looking piece is sure a beauty.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by wheelman76

Great story about your childhood Andrew , I always enjoy your stories. That last pastel looking piece is sure a beauty.

Thanks Jess

Now........

Sunday i removed the live rock from the sump and all the matrix was on the floor of the sump. I placed a 100 micron felt bag under the overflow pipe and have run the filter socks changed daily ever since - they are pretty filthy every day and blocked enough to raise the water level in the 8" sock 3/4" above the sump water level. The glass needed cleaning twice daily up until this point and had been at that level for weeks. Nitrates were at 10.
I was feeding 4 mysis cubes and two feeds of mini pellets along with an envelope sized piece of nori a day, the anti ich over feeding level i had been doing since the fish got sick. All fat and healthy now, BJ looks awesome again and has a fat tummy.

Monday i did the big media clean up which you know about. I meant to say that i also removed the mesh bag of 1.5 cups of carbon and added the two chemipure blue bags Dave gave me. Each one is recommended for 75gal so two were perfect. I had asked Dave for something that would clean up the copper etc a bit and i also wanted some phos absorber. That's why he took the AF phos minus off me and gave me the chemipure.

Tuesday everything looked a bit poopy and glass was the same

Wednesday after Dom visited i cleaned the glass just before lights out after cleaning it at lunch time also. Acros looked a bit brighter.

Today the glass was still clean enough when i turned the radiums off - 9 hours into the acros 11 hour day to take pics through without a problem. It 'just' needed cleaning. If you had a friend visiting you would clean it but if it was just you it was fine. I didn't clean the glass at all today for the first time in 6 months...............

I didn't need to test but i knew it would be of interest - nitrates were between 2-5 on salifert when the radiums went off today.
I removed one of the chemipure bags when i turned the T5's off as to me that is too fast a drop in algae growth in too short a period. I will clean the glass first thing tomorrow and see how it is at lights off before deciding whether to remove the other bag.
The cleaned and much better exposed to water matrix might be more than enough turbo charge in bio filtration for my system. Or it might be the phos absorber in the chemipure. I'll find out soon enough.

I seriously think that running filtered water through a matrix reactor at a slow flow would be the most efficient way to use the stuff - best space tidy and bang for bio buck per liter of media.

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by biggles

Dad came and saw me when i woke and tussled my hair like iin the movies and said ' you're not supposed to breathe the fumes in you duffer ' and smiled at me. That's as close to an apology as you ever got from dad but i knew he felt bad so he was still awesome in my eyes



The other one is a frag from Ken he gave me a few months back - it's a gorgeous piece mate, thanks heaps

The crazy robins egg blue section on this coral looks like pretty serious growth. It's beautiful.
Andrew, any dad that gets high with you in the garage is a good dad as far as I'm concerned!

[glaukos]

Great info there andrew,thanks for sharing
+1 on what matt said and great dad story you shared also.Lost mine too when i was fairly young(7 years old) so i totally get the not take them for granted part

Ken's frag looks great too

[Wrangy]

The tank is definitely looking spectacular matey!! and the sump is sooooo tidy lol hopefully it lasts till the new one is swapped in

Little do the folks of RC know what the Empire has in store for them over the next month or two. Operation Doomsday will destroy any hopes the Rebels have of acro glory!

Was good to catch up though and I'm looking forward to sump day!

[biggles]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

The crazy robins egg blue section on this coral looks like pretty serious growth. It's beautiful.
Andrew, any dad that gets high with you in the garage is a good dad as far as I'm concerned!

Thanks Matt

I have some stunning little pieces all from Ken, John and of course Dom - when you all trade your best pieces among a group of mates who know what they're doing you end up with quite the cool collection of acros.

Originally Posted by glaukos

Great info there andrew,thanks for sharing
+1 on what matt said and great dad story you shared also.Lost mine too when i was fairly young(7 years old) so i totally get the not take them for granted part

Ken's frag looks great too

Sorry to hear that Mike, that sucks mate

This one is just for you buddy. Dad had a petrol driven mower that was second hand from the lawn bowls club - he had a blue couch bowling green lawn that he mowed with a rotary bladed beast driven by an ancient briggs and stratton motor.
When it came time to sharpen the blades he removed the chain guard and disconnected the chain from the motor to the blade drive shaft. He then attached a large electric drill to the shaft using the chuck and had me control the blades motion while he used a paintbrush to swipe graphite paste across the spinning blades. Obviously it was necessary to also remove the blade cover guard in order to carry out this operation so both of us were inches from high speed digit loss........

He made me do this, took about 30 mins of 'slower, slower, that's it, slower, don't let it speed up all the time '

'It' was a vibrating steel death machine and i was scared sh%tless, not that i would let my father see. He let me have a go with the paintbrush and it was like crouching over the spinning tail rotor of a helicopter trying to paint the tips.........
The sharp enough test was newspaper, i would hold a sheet in the blades as he turned them manually and each of the six spiral blades had to neatly cut the paper otherwise it was back to the paste.........

The point of all this is - if you come to Aus and visit me you and i will paint graphite paste on a spinning chainsaw blade together Mike

Originally Posted by Wrangy

The tank is definitely looking spectacular matey!! and the sump is sooooo tidy lol hopefully it lasts till the new one is swapped in

Little do the folks of RC know what the Empire has in store for them over the next month or two. Operation Doomsday will destroy any hopes the Rebels have of acro glory!

Was good to catch up though and I'm looking forward to sump day!

Sump day will be like a military operation Dom, if either you or Kevin stuff up or otherwise annoy me there will be swift consequences !
Having said that i'm sure you won't spill water on my carpet or any other court martial offense - not a drop.........
produced
Cleaned the glass this morning and it didn't need cleaning when the lights went off an hour ago at 6pm. If you looked through a side panel at the end panel inside view i struggled in order to see the very faint signs of algae dusting. This is dramatically different to just before the sump/media overhaul and addition of the chemipure.

Tested nitrates tonight and they were just 1.0 to my eye on salifert - i use salifert for everything except phos. The skimmer has been producing slightly lighter skimmate at the same old setting it always runs at with about 2/3 the daily amount being produced compared to normal. I put a fresh sock in this morning and it's still quite clean tonight and good for another day. The water looks crystal clear.

The acros are looking fine with good PE day and night but today i could see the pigments looking much sharper and cleaner. They are not 'popping' brightly but they have very little pigment masking as you can see. Tells me things are heading the right direction after the major disruption a few days ago and i'm glad i did it now

The pics are porn because it's Friday night boys and girls and i have the whole weekend to potter......

This is the back right corner island, it only has three acros on it but they all contrast extremely well with each other.



Do you see what i mean by 'clean' pigments. I can't show you the detail i want to that you can see just with your eyes as i'd need a dslr and macro lens for that but you would see a lowering in the zoa numbers on the skin tissue if i had a before and after macro.

The 'pop' comes when the now more exposed to light pigments go into overdrive to protect themselves and you see the shimmering bright colors we all like to see. I've never had an echi turn the colors this little guy did, it was just the same old reddy brown skin with blue tips wild stuff you always see at any Aus LFS regularly.

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by biggles

The 'pop' comes when the now more exposed to light pigments go into overdrive to protect themselves and you see the shimmering bright colors we all like to see. I've never had an echi turn the colors this little guy did, it was just the same old reddy brown skin with blue tips wild stuff you always see at any Aus LFS regularly.

I would dangle many parts of my anatomy over a spinning blade to keep these shades of blue..
I can't keep these shades in my tank.
Very jelly!

[biggles]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

I would dangle many parts of my anatomy over a spinning blade to keep these shades of blue..
I can't keep these shades in my tank.
Very jelly!

And i can't get anything to grow like all your beautiful pieces Matt...... the joys of reefing buddy

[glaukos]

Thanks for sharing that bud
Wish one day we can do that amongst other things while i stay over there...some scuba,snorkelling,stealing frags from dave or you and finding out how fast i could reach the airport with all those goodies in my bags

Great pics!!
I know the answer is probably in one of the previous pages but where are your no3 and po4 at,atm?

[MichaelW]

Andrew, I guess maybe I get some similar results in my tank. My no3 reads around 1 sometimes less, my po4 (elos high res) 0.02... But daily glass wiping is needed. No algea anywhere else... But at the moment horrible brown sand (not cyano just brown sand). Trying to lessen nutrients to see if I can get to 3 days without glass wiping. I set up a reactor with AF zeomix, carbon , phos minus. However to make room for the reactor I had to remove my homemade basket of matrix. Of course the basket wouldn't fit anywhere else so for now it's just loose on the floor of my return section of sump.

[bibarassa]

Originally Posted by biggles

I had asked Dave for something that would clean up the copper etc

Andrew, have you never checked your RO water with triton test?

[biggles]

Originally Posted by glaukos

Thanks for sharing that bud
Wish one day we can do that amongst other things while i stay over there...some scuba,snorkelling,stealing frags from dave or you and finding out how fast i could reach the airport with all those goodies in my bags

Great pics!!
I know the answer is probably in one of the previous pages but where are your no3 and po4 at,atm?

We'll go around to Dom's place and i'll hold him down while you help yourself to all his nice acros Mike

Nitrates are hanging around 1-2 atm and phos reads 0.02 with the glass staying clean enough to get away with skipping every second day - so 1.5 days clean compared to about 4-5 hours about ten days ago.
Very pleased with the progress of my water clean up so far mate.

Originally Posted by MichaelW

Andrew, I guess maybe I get some similar results in my tank. My no3 reads around 1 sometimes less, my po4 (elos high res) 0.02... But daily glass wiping is needed. No algea anywhere else... But at the moment horrible brown sand (not cyano just brown sand). Trying to lessen nutrients to see if I can get to 3 days without glass wiping. I set up a reactor with AF zeomix, carbon , phos minus. However to make room for the reactor I had to remove my homemade basket of matrix. Of course the basket wouldn't fit anywhere else so for now it's just loose on the floor of my return section of sump.

Hey Mike, i'm betting your nitrates are being processed well biologically but the phos isn't mate - pretty much what i think has been going on in my system even though the phos reads low. The glass doesn't lie imo so today i grabbed some phos minus like you and will use it in a mesh bag if and when i think i need to.
Atm things are going ok in regards to lessening the glass cleaning so i won't be using the phos minus just yet and not at all down the track, fingers crossed the new big sump will help make the filtration much more efficient.

Mike's LED reef is what a real LED success story looks like btw. Knowing nothing about LED's i would copy Mike's lighting exactly if i was to lose my marbles and go LED....

Mike's LED SPS journal - pearlberry heaven.....

Originally Posted by bibarassa

Andrew, have you never checked your RO water with triton test?

No mate, it's $50- for a Triton test..... the TDS says zero so it's cool i'm sure.


Went to Deer Park today............ needed magnesium for my basic dosing. $3330- later i left with my AF magnesium.

Andddddddddd i didn't spend it on acros ! (i did buy one little $30- spath)

I bought four 3/4" peppermint shrimp as i have 3 or 4 aiptasia i can see and when i got home i poured them into the fish net over the sink. I placed the net in the display and swooshed it backwards to eject the shrimp and the #$@#%#$ cardinals ate two within a second ! I didn't see what happened to the other two because i was madly chasing the fish away with the net.........

I sent Dave a text telling him what happened and you know what he replied with ?

You need to stick to acros

Oh do i now Dave ! (i think he's right actually and the smiley didn't help btw Dave.)

Just before lights out tonight i decided to turkey baste the pumps clean and out from behind the gyre shot a peppermint shrimp - YAY !
Bj swallowed that one whole and went looking for more behind the pump.........

Those $#%$#@ shrimp were $15- a throw ! $60- to feed the $%$#@ fish Dave...........


In the interests of full disclosure i should point out the following:

Using the same net i use to feed the fish mysis shrimp and krill with was not the wisest decision i made and in hindsight may have contributed a tiny bit to the shrimp slaughter.
I clean the pumps as BJ rips off nori which he leaves and it gets stuck under the gyre sometimes blocking the grills. He waits now for me to turkey baste anything as he associates it with goodies appearing from nowhere - the pep shrimp being blown out was like going to the macca's drive through and being handed a T-bone steak dinner out the window.....

Imagine if you were the last pep shrimp having watched all that happen........ i bet he's not going to be helping with the aiptasia problem now Dave...... he's probably got shrimp ptsd.
But hey, thanks for the shrimp Dave........

[biggles]

The acrylic work for the sump is still holding things up so Dave and i decided i will pick it up Thursday regardless as it's only the sock plates, frag racks and matrix baskets from memory. I can run a sock under the pipe as i do now temporarily, the racks are nothing and i spied sheets of BLACK DIFFUSER at Dave's - i've never seen black eggcrate for sale at a LFS so i had to buy a sheet just because it looks cool. I can use some of it and gutter guard mesh to make temp media holders if i need to so i'm going to get the display totally clear of everything on the sand and finally get a good look at just the acro reef scape and white sand within a week or so

I need to make the sliding light hanging mount for the T5's which i have the stuff for but other than that everything is ready for operation sump upgrade next Monday. I have a week off starting next Monday so i'll have lots and lots of time to play with my new sump, frag tank and clean at last display

Monday morning Dom - can you get me a large macca's latte with an extra shot and two sugars on the way please since you rocked up here last time with one for yourself and nothing for me. We will be needing our energy levels raised mate so i better see a latte with my name on it in your hand when you lob for work !

[biggles]

Since the acros are looking fine but still doing bugger all growing and since i can't watch paint dry and since all my mates using AF stuff are getting very good growth i bought the following AF stuff today to make up my own comp 123 - thanks to Perry's journal.

Perry's AF Info Bank of Acro Yumminess

Originally Posted by plyle02

Yes, this is the same product and is intended to be dosed equally in 3 mixes.
You will need AF Calcium, AF Magnesium, AF KH Buffer, AF Reef Mineral Salt, and AF Component Strong(4 small bottles in each pack, each 50ml, which is Component A Strong, B, Strong, C Strong, and K Strong) Here is the breakdown:

Bottle 1:
AF Calcium~ 50 grams per 1 liter
AF Magnesium~ 10 grams per 1 liter
Component A Strong~ 5ml per 1 liter
Component B Strong~ 5ml per 1 liter

Bottle 2:
AF KH Buffer~ 80 grams per 1 liter
Component C Strong~ 5ml per 1 liter

Bottle 3:
AF Reef Mineral Salt~ 25 grams per 1 liter
Component K Strong~ 5ml per 1 liter

* I use the the premix bottles as to re-use the product, they are all 5 liter bottles, so I multiply values times 5

The box pack of component strong is small at 4 x 50ml bottles of each - enough to make up two batches of the 5L comp 123 sets when added to the alk etc. At $40- it's still way cheaper than the $90- ready to go triple 5L set that will last me less than a month, and that's with slow growth !
If you add the other stuff to make it up it's still less than half the cost - prob about 40% of the ready to go alternative.

I bought the large individual 150ml bottles of ABC so enough in each for 6 comp 123 batches and the 5kg KH Buffer & 4KG calcium. There's over 12 batches in the alk buffer bucket so i have lots. I got the 750g magnesium as you only use 1/5th the amount compared to the calcium when making the comp 1.

The 800g reef mineral salt is enough for over 6 batches so that size matches the 150ml ABC bottles for use.
I grabbed a 50ml bottle of the Kallium - potassium concentrate but that only lasts 2 batches and was $40- so i'll be using the bulk potassium chloride i always use instead after that's gone.

I grabbed a 1000ml container of phosphate minus to have on hand in case i need it, Dave wasn't impressed and rolled his eyes when i held it up lol. He gave me a poly filter pack about 14"x14" which he said i can use to check for copper etc so i'll cut a piece of that off and stick it in the sump baffles - i can do that can't i - i will read the pack if i have to but i'd rather not.

I got a bucket of reef salt instead of the sea salt this time but i have about 600L of the other two salt mixes to use up first - this is why you should read what the bucket has in it and not guess
I need 200L for the sump swap, it's an extra 160-170L volume and i'll trash the last of the water in the old sump.
The system volume will go from 600L - 750L or 160gal - 200gal.

So that's it really, i made up the comp 123 containers and will start using the AF for my daily dosing from tomorrow onward. I will be doing 10% water changes weekly as well and feed the fish. I won't be using any other stuff for now.

[bibarassa]

Andrew, if you want I can send you by e-mail my RO water analysis (I sent the sample to Fauna Marin instead of Triton)........you'll be surprised to see what I've found...

[biggles]

Originally Posted by bibarassa

Andrew, if you want I can send you by e-mail my RO water analysis (I sent the sample to Fauna Marin instead of Triton)........you'll be surprised to see what I've found...

I doubt i'll be surprised at what is in your RO water matey, you paddle boats up the streets and do who knows what in your water whereas my water is aussie water and it doesn't get any better than that.

What sort of things turned up on the analysis ?

Btw, you do know your city is sinking into the sea right. I saw a special on it where they showed underneath the water....... what a joke, looks like something a bunch of kindergarten kids knocked up out of play-doh.

If you and all the other Italian reefers got together and had a working bee one weekend i reckon you could sort those foundations out with a couple of hundred thousand tubes of putty - you should get off your bums and fix it.

[bibarassa]

Originally Posted by biggles

The box pack of component strong is small at 4 x 50ml bottles of each

I bought the large individual 150ml bottles of ABC so enough in each for 6 comp 123 batches

Andrew are you sure that the individual 150 ml bottle is strong?

[bibarassa]

Andrew, if you like to walk with acqua alta (we say acqua alta when we are underneath the water)? or if you like to take a trip in gondola....... you have to come to Venice....best town in the world.....
In my RO water I've found aluminum 84,4, copper 3,69 zinc > 24...etc etc

[biggles]

Originally Posted by bibarassa

Andrew are you sure that the individual 150 ml bottle is strong?

No i'm not but it was Dave's bloody idea so we are blaming him for this one. At worst it's the same stuff just weaker.......... better find out so Dave doesn't give it out to anyone else if it's wrong.