Serenity Reef

[FloformAustria]

wow crystal clear!!

i think i need to use more siporax in my tank!

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by FloformAustria

wow crystal clear!!

i think i need to use more siporax in my tank!

I'll send you half of mine.
I would like to find out how much I need to dose to maintain a steady 5ppm

[FloformAustria]

Originally Posted by slin1977

I'll send you half of mine.
I would like to find out how much I need to dose to maintain a steady 5ppm

that is a good question...

i am planing on filling my second half of the casacade filter i´ve got running with AF Life Bio Fil...

Cheers

[4age]

are you still running zeolites with the system or have you removed the zeolites and replaced with the siporax?

tank is looking nice

[plyle02]

Nils,
Very cool display, and it looks to be taking off I love how you setup your overflow, the siporax setup is cool indeed, and the ability to rinse and put back is superb. The system is processing nutrients extremely well, this is good, you can load up on fish, inverts, corals, etc and feed like a mad man, and from the look of things, not have any impact on nutrients, this is reef utopia I have always used my overflow in every system as a place to throw dead coral skeletons, rubble, frag plugs, really anything that doesn't make it, I have always had a thought that it helps create more diversity, sort of a cryptic fuge if you will. I keep my siporax in a reactor, and matrix in a basket in the sump. I would love to go sockless, but always worry over clogging, but clearly you have addressed this, as the siporax has no pre filter, thank you for documenting, this makes me want to re-think things....hmmmmmmmm..... Cheers!

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by 4age

are you still running zeolites with the system or have you removed the zeolites and replaced with the siporax?

tank is looking nice

Thanks 4age - Since Siporax was introduced, the zeolites were removed.

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by plyle02

Nils,
Very cool display, and it looks to be taking off I love how you setup your overflow, the siporax setup is cool indeed, and the ability to rinse and put back is superb. The system is processing nutrients extremely well, this is good, you can load up on fish, inverts, corals, etc and feed like a mad man, and from the look of things, not have any impact on nutrients, this is reef utopia I have always used my overflow in every system as a place to throw dead coral skeletons, rubble, frag plugs, really anything that doesn't make it, I have always had a thought that it helps create more diversity, sort of a cryptic fuge if you will. I keep my siporax in a reactor, and matrix in a basket in the sump. I would love to go sockless, but always worry over clogging, but clearly you have addressed this, as the siporax has no pre filter, thank you for documenting, this makes me want to re-think things....hmmmmmmmm..... Cheers!

Thanks for the encouragement Perry, the crazy thing is my acrylic sock holders have been removed and I've left them drowning in the fresh water top up reserve tank located in the sump. I set them up occasionally and use them as a platform on which I place a piece of rectangular polyester acoustic fiber (filter floss) I then stir up the gravel or Siporax to catch whatever debris.
To be honest I last did that when I took those series of photos posted on the previous page.
To summarise mate, I have not run sock or any pre filter since the start of the Siporax 8 months ago.

I can't wait to add more livestock, I would love some cleaner shrimp too.
I am planning to spend some time tinkering with the plumbing in the sump - of course I'll post some pics when that happens.

[slin1977]

26 July - 6 am


1 September 6 am

[FloformAustria]

wow Nils!

nice growth!!

have to take those time lapse pictures again myself!

Cheers

[Wrangy]

Don't miss them too much while you're down here lol hopefully your wife has all the instructions! lol

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by Wrangy

Don't miss them too much while you're down here lol hopefully your wife has all the instructions! lol

hold the flowers and balloons at the airport mate!
I take a large flat white one sugar!!!!
As far as my tank goes , it's the holiday tank remember.... Just add water

See you at the arrivals gate.
National meeting here we go!
Excited!!!

[Wrangy]

I've saved some washing and cleaning for you to do tomorrow morning when you get here hahaha

[Wrangy]

The goody bomb that is about to drop on Serenity is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Just packed Nils up and sent him on his merry way home from a cracking weekend

[slin1977]

Where to begin?
Dom picked me up at the airport on Friday and asked me what I wanted to do for the afternoon before we met up for our little forum national meeting ice breaker event.

Naturally after reading Biggles Thursday post about Dave receiving 130 SPS corals that day, it was on!
Upon arrival at Deer Park I met Dave and made my way over to the Radion lit SPS for sale tank.
Dave walks over and says "we sold seventy pieces last night..."
After being mesmerised for a few minutes over the remaining pieces I knew that the Saturday night final stop of our LFS crawl was going to be a cracker. Dave was putting on a coral fragging demo for twenty of us.

Luckily for me I managed to get first dibs on some captive bred dottybacks and somehow resisted the temptation to look like an excited kid and buy up a stash of glowing SPS that Chris harvested the day before.

Dom and I returned home at 1.30am on Saturday morning from the ice breaker /dinner meeting at Sams house. Here is a screen shot of Sams tank


On Saturday we met up at Frankston to visit Bunarong aquarium and start our LFS crawl and ended up driving a long way stopping at a few LFS and boutique fragging operations before ending up at Daves for the frag demo.

We had fish and chips in the carpark with twenty plus other reefers before settling in at Daves for the fragging.

It was on, a frenzy of purchases was made by the interstate travelers and locals.
I thought I would also share a photo of Daves SPS sale tank taken on Saturday night so here goes, btw it had seen further sales from when Dom and I visited the day before.

[slin1977]

In the above photo you can see the twenty x five frag pack that Dave made for each of us that attended. If you look carefully in the middle there is Biggles glowing 3 inch blue Tennius waiting to be picked up.
If you look just to the right of the frag pack on the raised shelf , second SPS in the $10 brown section you can see my coral I bought just before Dom dropped me off at the airport.
Dave could not give me a name for that SPS so I guess I'll call it "$10 Brown"
Which is quite ironic as Dave did not charge me for it either. Let's call it "$10 Brown freebie"
Thanks Dave!!!

Let's see the rest of my haul ok!



The Deer park frag demo frags



Daves packaging!



My National meeting frags!

[FloformAustria]

uh nice catch Nils!

hope they didn´t go into that microwave

[deaclauderdale]

Originally Posted by FloformAustria

uh nice catch Nils!

hope they didn´t go into that microwave spin:

I was thinking the same thing about the microwave Flo...lol

Reef keeping is life!

[FloformAustria]

Originally Posted by deaclauderdale

I was thinking the same thing about the microwave Flo...lol

Reef keeping is life!

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by FloformAustria

uh nice catch Nils!

hope they didn´t go into that microwave

I think Nils does some of his best work in front of that microwave.
Great write up!
How about a shot of the 10buck brown freebie before it returns to its former glory in your tank. We'll need a before and after eventually.
Next time, I want to go to Deer Park, too!

[slin1977]

Matt, this is a photo of the $10 stuff at Deer Park - enjoy!

[reefmutt]

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!!!
That's like $250 worth of sweet Aussie frags over here...
Ouch.
Enjoy, yourself, Nils!

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!!!
That's like $250 worth of sweet Aussie frags over here...
Ouch.
Enjoy, yourself, Nils!

It's time to show you a four month status update photo.
Whilst this is a young tank still finding its groove I am happy with the progress so far. Of course there are some SPS that are challenging and painfully slow to colour up but that is part of the fun.
Cheers!

[slavetonet]

It's coming along nicely mate.
Get some amino acids and vitamins into your sps and she will fly.

[slin1977]

Originally Posted by slavetonet

It's coming along nicely mate.
Get some amino acids and vitamins into your sps and she will fly.

Thanks! I agree, any brand suggestion or could you send me some of your secret blend to feed these hungry sticks

[HuskerBioProf]

How do you like those gyres at two different heights? I have a similar configuration, but they are blasting right at each other (both in alternating mode). What was your goal with the different heights?