homer1475's 80 gallon build

[Pellikan]

I dose my planted tank with KNO3 plus some other stuff. Didn't think it'd do any good on the reef. Guess I'm wrong, wouldn't be the first time. I'll have to remember about the Spectracide when it's time to get more. Certainly cheaper than where I've been getting it.

I measure it out dry by weight and use pill holders marked M, T, W and etc. Each day I just dump the contents dry into the tank. Hasn't hurt any fish as far as I can tell. Could be dumped into the sump without adverse effects I bet.

I'm going out of town a few days so I happened to be refilling my containers when you posted this. Pic below.

I finally feel like I have some knowledge to contribute to your thread! I hope it helps.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[homer1475]

Funny you posted those as that's what some are using. or some other stuff planted tank guys use that sort of green looking, but is potassium nitrate. if I had a link readily available I would post it.

I've had FW tanks my entire life, but never went into the high end planted route. My current FW tank is only 20G with 2 angels, a bubbler, and a HOB filter.

I keep my FW tank super KISS. Don't think I've ever done a WC on it, and I add RO/DI as topoff. I've had these angels current for about 6 years. Been doing RO/DI topoffs since I started a reef tank 4 years ago.


I used this CALC to figure out my mixture and dosing amount for exactly 2ppm. You have probably seen it.

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

Worked perfectly. I figured out I needed 34grams of stump remover added to 485ML of water, and 15ml added tot he tank for a perfect 2ppm.

Dosed last night, came out to 2ppm. Checked today and back to 0 with no drop in PO4. From what I've read this is normal as your filling up the things that were nitrate depleted before(bacteria). Just dosed again and will check level in an hour or so.

Anecdotally, things do look happier today and my 2 euphyllia are as big as I have ever seen them in my tank. That hammer I bought down at your guys place Soul, shrunk up to half it size, but today is just as full if not fuller then when we saw it in the shop.


Feels really odd to be adding something most people are trying to get rid of.

[Pellikan]

Yup, that's the calculator I used, I think. I haven't done calculations for a couple years so I'm not sure. I figured out how much the dose was in the dry granules on a daily basis and that's what I add.

I have a 35G planted tank I've been running for the last 25 years through various incarnations. It's only the last 2-3 years I've added co2 and daily dosing. It was a lot easier going high tech than I thought it would be. Or, the pain of the transformation has been dulled over the last couple years.

I've got pretty much 0 nitrates in my reef now. Maybe i should add a little and see what happens. I look forward to reading about your experience with it.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[homer1475]

Pics since nitrate dosing.

Only downside I've noticed is this stylo seems to not open it's polyps as much, and perhaps a bit of bleaching? Only on the side thats next to the slimer. Do SPS sting each other like LPS? I'm assuming they do, so I might just try moving it to the next hole for now.




SSC has recovered and is starting to color up again.


Shitty pic of the scoly, but I have never seen it open this much.


And the acan that has really shifted color since I started. It was a nice deep red with a slight hint of orange. Now its all kinds of crazy rainbow colors, reds, white stripes, green, yellow, orange. It's turning into quite a nice acan.


And the obligatory FTS.


Overall things are looking better, and coloring up quite nicely. i'm glad I started trying this out. Nothing crazy, just keeping a small amount of nitrate in the water column(<1ppm NYOS kit starts at 1 and it's not quite 1 but certainly not 0).

Went for a drive last night to a different LFS my wife heard about on the radio. Decent place, but more or less a puppy mill with some "other" stuff. I'm really looking for a green mandy, but none to be had. I did find a tiny little starry blenny that did come home with me.

So fish number 1 currently going through TTM.

[ReefWreak]

Tank is looking good. I'm glad you're seeing positive results with the nitrate dosing.

My only thing is I see that light green fuzz on the eggcrate... Need a few more clean up crew?

[homer1475]

Eggcrate?

If you mean the frag rack, its man made rock. The only algae in the tank is on that rack. I'm thinking it might be leaching a bit of phosphate, and with it so close to the light, the ATS doesn't out compete it.

[ReefWreak]

Yea, sorry, being white from the side it looked like eggcrate. I didn't look close enough.

The manmade stuff tends to need some curing time before going into a tank unfortunately. It's still nice texture and tool though.

Love the tank even though it looks a little lonely fishless. You'll get there though.

[homer1475]

Well I think I'm going to stop nitrate dosing for a bit.

While my LPS and acans look super, sps and both plating monti's have some brown film algae growing on them. The red plating monti is starting to bleach a bit also. I guess they liked the all 0 readings. I can now see the trouble with keeping a mixed reef.


PO4 remains in check at .031, and I'm only leaving trace amounts of nitrates(NYOS kit starts at 1 and jumps to 3. I'm somewhere in the middle). My ATS still grows about a half cup of slimy green algae weekly, and I'm keeping up on WC's. I'm guessing the extra NO3 is contributing to the excess film algae buildup.

I wish I could get a true picture of the acan I got at soul's LFS. It has turned into a nice ultra(from my readings ultra refers to more then 4 colors?)acan with the nitrate dosing. Curious to see what happens to it's color when I stop.

I do have 1 fish going through TTm right now. A tiny 1" starry blenny. Will be nice to restock the tank and have some movement in there. I decided to wait until the fallow period ended(may 1) before buying any fish. Just something odd going on in the QT I setup, so I didn't want to use it anymore. Being my LFS is a 2 hour drive, I just haven't had time to go buy any either. lol

[homer1475]

Did a bit of maintenance yesterday and while blowing off my rocks, both my plating monti's have lost 90% of their flesh! While they still have polyps present, they have certainly lost all their flesh. I'm going to assume it's from the nitrates, but not sure as everything else checks out perfect.

Alk 8.3
Cal 420
Mag 1350
No3 between 1 and 3ppm
PO4 .031

All have been rock steady with the exception of nitrates for the last 6months.

Pretty sure SSC has died, and the purple stylo has lost about 80% of its polyps. I have since moved it to the sandbed as I'm not sure if it's too much light or too high flow. Since moving it to the sandbed with both ess light and almost no flow, it's polyps are out more. Do SPS sting each other like LPS? I wonder if the green slimer was causing it to STN? I've never seen sweepers, but the slime from the slimer definitely settles on it sometimes.

[soulpatch]

Yes sps attack one another and slimmer is a strong one.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[homer1475]

Went for a ride to the LFS yesterday for my b-day. CLOSED for good!!!!! No word of anything, no letting customers know, no explanation, nothing. So I decided to grab my wifes phone and look on facebook(I'm not on facebook but she is). One post from 3 days ago saying they were closing for good with no explanation, and if anyone wanted anything, they would be selling whats left in the store including equipment on sunday.

This really sucks as now the only LFS in the area I don't particularly care for as they are more of a boutique LFS, catering to the more wealthy side of the hobby. You know the kind of place where a 10$ frag is 50$. I have shopped there before, but the guys aren't super friendly, and most of their stuff is uber expensive. Plus they will not frag anything for you, hold anything for you, order anything for anyone, or have a stocked freezer. I honestly haven't figured out why everyone in the area swears by this "reef shop", but they do. Maybe because it' the only reef shop thats been in business for more then a couple years? But even this place was a partnership that went south and now the partners run 2 different stores on opposite side of the city. One a true LFS with FW and SW, the other this boutique LFS.

My old LFS was a 3 way partnership, with 1 guy basically running the store(the guy I dealt with who actually knew his sh*t), one guy doing maintenance, and a third guy who basically had the money. Apparently from what the other LFS told me is chris(the guy I knew and ran the store) was fed up with doing all the work while the other 2 just sat around and collected a paycheck. I guess they got in a heated argument one day and chris proceeded to tell them if it wasn't for him the other 2 wouldn't have a business. Thats when John(the maintenance guy) told chris the store would run fine without him. Well chris decided to pack up his stuff and leave. 2 weeks after chris left, the store closed.

I have his personal number, think I'm going to give him a call today and see whats up with him. I can't imagine he will get out of the LFS business all together. They had a pretty thriving store.

Anywho, since they were closed for good and the other 2 stores in the area are closed on Monday and Tuesday, I decided to take a drive to Rochester(4 hour drive one way lol). I don't know why but any LFS in NY is typically closed on Monday? Shipment day, recovery day from the weekend?

Anyways, found this super LFS. Probably one of the best LFS's I have ever seen! I was very impressed with their fish tanks, and assortment of fish. Their coral(frag) tanks were all super impressive, everything looked very healthy. They had one low boy frag tank that was nothing but scoly's. Literally like a hundred scoly's(later the guy told me he loves scoly's)! Huge Acro colonys that were like 50$. Not super colorful but large in size, like the size of a soda can. Any dry good you could ever want(everything from 6 different salt brands, a complete RO/DI setup with the separate replacement filters right there also, every salifert kit, every red sea kit, every hanna meter and reagent, any plumbing part, nearly any medication I could think of, even a couple complete red sea reefer tanks and other tanks. They literally had anything you could want or need for a reef tank. Everything was very comparable to online prices, sometimes even cheaper. I've been wanting to order a red sea nitrate pro kit(42.00$ @ BRS), just waiting till I need some other stuff also. They had the kit with an expiration date of 08/2019 for $36.00!!!

Spent quite a few hours there yesterday shooting the sh*t with the owner, he even knew about my old LFS that closed and was telling me some of the story(Chris helped him setup his store many years ago). At first I kind of got the wrong impression(2 gay dudes(I only say that because quite a few LFS's I have been to recently have run/ by a couple gay dudes) they looked it lol. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, just an observation), but after talking to them for a bit they were both married with kids and they were partners in the store. One guy did the maintenance end, and the other did the store front end. They had been in business since 94. I just so wish it wasn't a 4 hour drive!!

Anyways, seeing as it was my birthday and I'm fishless, I picked up a yellow coris wrasse, and a green warpaint goby. Dumped directly into my tank, these guys QT all fish on arrival for 6 to 8 weeks in hypo. And yes I actually saw the huge rows of tanks out in the back they use for QT when they were giving me the tour. And a nice chunk of sunset monti. I almost picked up a nice colony of acro, but the warpaint goby likes to eat , abd lay eggs in acro's, and my confidence in SPS is not so great yet. No sense in buying a colony to only kill it.

[homer1475]

WOW didn't realize I had typed a wall of text until it posted....Sorry. lol

[cincyjim]

Happy birthday!!! I'm glad you were able to find a place open and all. Very nice fish selection and I hope they work out for you!

[homer1475]

Thank you!

Starry blenny and warpaint goby I've had before. Coris wrasse is all new to me.

[homer1475]

Just figured out my problems! NYOS test kit!

Just tested with the red sea pro and it was well over 4ppm(super dark pink). NYOS was saying 1ppm, maybe a bit less. It's not quite light brown like the 1ppm color says. I kept testing and adding daily, every day NYOS said 1ppm or nothing. So I kept adding 2ppm to my tank. Noticed the montis loosing flesh, tested and it was at 0.

I haven't dosed nitrates since saturday(2ppm was added), curious to see what the high range kit tells me.

[homer1475]

12ppm!!!!

[soulpatch]

Geez. Water change time

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[ReefWreak]

Ugh. I wrote out a whole post today, but it didn't end up saving. Happy birthday was the short version of it. lol.

Every time someone goes off of the cheap-o API nitrate tests, they find out that their fancy expensive tests didn't work I have to test my nitrates, my SPS look good, but the rocks are starting to get green and ugly

[homer1475]

OH a WC was the first thing I did. Down to roughly 8 now. I'll do another on saturday after the water mixes up.

Loving the coris wrasse! He/she swims the entire water column, and has certainly put a hurting on the pod population. It's only been in the tank since monday, but I don't see a single pod on the glass or overflow like I used to. Still see a ton of them running on the rocks along with a ton of mysis shrimp. No idea where they came from, but they are everywhere.

I even saw it take down a bristle worm 3 times her size last night right before the lights went out.

Now that it's finally nice outside, I need to get to work on the rock structure I have in my minds eye. First thing is acid washing the old pukani. I can now do it outside in the back yard and not have it freeze. Although the last few days have been in the upper 30's in the AM. lol welcome to upstate NY.

[cincyjim]

That sounds like a neat fish to have. I used to have a fair number of bristle worms until I put a Leopard Wrasse in the tank. I haven't seen one in a long long time.

[homer1475]

My leopard would never touch a bristle.

Funny how the same fish act differently in different tanks.

A negrosensis is next on my list, then perhaps a possum wrasse.

[cincyjim]

I have a Pink Streaked Wrasse. It is an awesome little fish (to me anyways). She moves in and out of the SPS branches and swims and hides in the Leathers, rocks, and so on. Just a neat fish to look at with those big pink eyes. Doesn't bother anything or anyone... just a nice calm fish swimming about the tank. Probably took about 2-3 months for it to get comfortable enough to swim about the tank though. I thought about a Possum Wrasse but ended up getting the Pink Streaked Wrasse.

[itsdarrow]

Tank looks like its finally coming along!

Also something to keep in mind with testing phosphate on tanks with a large amount algae, you can test for low to zero phosphate on tanks because all the algae is sucking it up. It could be coming from a few places. Lets say your old rock was leeching phosphates, the amount of algae u had, along with the GFO and Refugium would suck that up and grow and you wouldn't know.

[homer1475]

Third 10G WC has gotten me down to just under 4ppm...



Things are starting to look a bit better as my monit's have started to grow some flesh back. They look weird with a white skeleton showing and little pink polyps out.



Unfortuantly I did loose the SSC and deep water acro I got from soul. The green slimer has some bleaching going on as well as the purple stylo.



Never seen an SPS bleach, but do they typically till have polyps out and a white skeleton? That purple stylo still has plenty of purple polyps, just its base skeleton is white, not a nice deep purple like it was.

[soulpatch]

If they still have polyps and such then still kicking. Generally even when white they can still be alive so I let them in tank a bit longer though in another location. Sometimes you can save em

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk