Hi all, been a while since an update and here is where things are at.
Fish - Added lots of new family members, some from a few member tanks and some from local fish stores. I'm really happy with where the community is at and other than keeping an eye out for a solon wrasse I don't think we will have new fish inhabitants planned for a while now. Lots of movement, lots of fun personalities and a bio-load that I think suits me for a little while longer. Current list is = Powder Blue, Yellow Eye Kole, Long Nose Hawkfish, Midas Blenny, Magnificent Fox Face (newest member), Timor Wrasse, Eibli Angel, 4 Clowns, and a diamond goby.
Coral - Is another story. I've just not found the parameters that are working for me yet. A few pics to compare to earlier in the thread. I guess the biggest sign that something isn't right is that I have not seen any coraline and we've been wet now 6-ish months.
Orange lepto is a success, he seems happy and you can see how much growth he's put on compared to earlier. I have a green lepto that's not quite as good as this guy, but putting on some measurable growth as well. (He's kind of upright because there is a goby who will cover him in sand otherwise).
Polyps are an example of the opposite, they grew off the plug onto the rocks, but the polyps have shrunk in size a lot and it never looks happy, mostly grumpy like this pic.
I also have two montis, two blastos and two birds nest that aren't dying but aren't thriving either. There's also some pavonas kicking round doing not much as well. I haven't added much else because I don't want to risk new purchases until I have my current test crop of corals worked out.
I have a few theories. First params - todays measurements are (after a water change yesterday), N = 2ppm, Phos = 0.08ppm, Alk = 8.7, Ca = 480, Mg, 1560. You may be wondering why that looks so whacky - don't use expired test kits. I started slowly correcting my Alk/Ca/Mg, knowing my kit was expired thinking "its chemicals, does it really expire?". Well, within a week I realized something was not adding up between what I was doing and what I was measuring so I got a new kit. Low and behold Ca and Mg are now high. Alk I'm still fighting to bring upwards, it matches with my pH cause I'm hovering 8.04ish and dropping under 8 overnight. Currently plan is a few water changes to bring down my mistakes and keep on working the alk up slowly. No dosing pumps yet, that'll be an investment after I've worked out the kinks manually.
Next light, I borrowed a MARSH PAR meter and on average my numbers don't look too bad to something a mixed reef-ish (100-150 by the sand, 300-400 at the top of the rocks), but I'm getting a lot of dark and bright patches (like 600+) as I took measurements around the tank. I need to buy some t-track and create a scaffold to lift my lights higher and I can probably raise them another 4-5 inches inside the canopy while still having air flow so I think I'll do that before messing with the %s and programming. I'm also running a 12hr schedule on the lights (2-3hrs ramp up ramp down, but a good 6-8hrs of full intensity). But I still feel like getting them higher is the thing to try first unless folks disagree.
Finally, I'm trying coral feeding for the first time. I had corals in my first tank but never took them seriously, it was just kind of what grew was what grew so I never paid them any special attention. Trying Red Sea red reef energy plus, literally only 20mL or so (enough to spot feed) 2 times a week. I've only started that last week so we'll see what happens.
There could be other things to try, but I'm also very aware that it will take weeks to months sometimes for a change to start showing results or otherwise, so I'm also restraining myself from doing too much till I can see the improvements (or not) of only a few things at a time (ideally it'd be one thing at a time, but I'm not that patient).
Fish - Added lots of new family members, some from a few member tanks and some from local fish stores. I'm really happy with where the community is at and other than keeping an eye out for a solon wrasse I don't think we will have new fish inhabitants planned for a while now. Lots of movement, lots of fun personalities and a bio-load that I think suits me for a little while longer. Current list is = Powder Blue, Yellow Eye Kole, Long Nose Hawkfish, Midas Blenny, Magnificent Fox Face (newest member), Timor Wrasse, Eibli Angel, 4 Clowns, and a diamond goby.
Coral - Is another story. I've just not found the parameters that are working for me yet. A few pics to compare to earlier in the thread. I guess the biggest sign that something isn't right is that I have not seen any coraline and we've been wet now 6-ish months.
Orange lepto is a success, he seems happy and you can see how much growth he's put on compared to earlier. I have a green lepto that's not quite as good as this guy, but putting on some measurable growth as well. (He's kind of upright because there is a goby who will cover him in sand otherwise).
Polyps are an example of the opposite, they grew off the plug onto the rocks, but the polyps have shrunk in size a lot and it never looks happy, mostly grumpy like this pic.
I also have two montis, two blastos and two birds nest that aren't dying but aren't thriving either. There's also some pavonas kicking round doing not much as well. I haven't added much else because I don't want to risk new purchases until I have my current test crop of corals worked out.
I have a few theories. First params - todays measurements are (after a water change yesterday), N = 2ppm, Phos = 0.08ppm, Alk = 8.7, Ca = 480, Mg, 1560. You may be wondering why that looks so whacky - don't use expired test kits. I started slowly correcting my Alk/Ca/Mg, knowing my kit was expired thinking "its chemicals, does it really expire?". Well, within a week I realized something was not adding up between what I was doing and what I was measuring so I got a new kit. Low and behold Ca and Mg are now high. Alk I'm still fighting to bring upwards, it matches with my pH cause I'm hovering 8.04ish and dropping under 8 overnight. Currently plan is a few water changes to bring down my mistakes and keep on working the alk up slowly. No dosing pumps yet, that'll be an investment after I've worked out the kinks manually.
Next light, I borrowed a MARSH PAR meter and on average my numbers don't look too bad to something a mixed reef-ish (100-150 by the sand, 300-400 at the top of the rocks), but I'm getting a lot of dark and bright patches (like 600+) as I took measurements around the tank. I need to buy some t-track and create a scaffold to lift my lights higher and I can probably raise them another 4-5 inches inside the canopy while still having air flow so I think I'll do that before messing with the %s and programming. I'm also running a 12hr schedule on the lights (2-3hrs ramp up ramp down, but a good 6-8hrs of full intensity). But I still feel like getting them higher is the thing to try first unless folks disagree.
Finally, I'm trying coral feeding for the first time. I had corals in my first tank but never took them seriously, it was just kind of what grew was what grew so I never paid them any special attention. Trying Red Sea red reef energy plus, literally only 20mL or so (enough to spot feed) 2 times a week. I've only started that last week so we'll see what happens.
There could be other things to try, but I'm also very aware that it will take weeks to months sometimes for a change to start showing results or otherwise, so I'm also restraining myself from doing too much till I can see the improvements (or not) of only a few things at a time (ideally it'd be one thing at a time, but I'm not that patient).