beatle

Macro algae does grow, though I did go through a couple swings where a lot of it was smothered by hair algae. I am not against getting a few more fish. They are more fun than dosing.

Didn't want to call you out by name initially, but your tanks are definitely some of the most successful dosed tanks I've seen, Aaron!

It's a "300 liter" system, but really the tank is about a 65 with a 15 gallon sump. Here's a rough list: 2x ocellaris clowns 2x banggai cardinals 2x mandarins 1x royal gramma 1x midas blenny 1x purple firefish 1x yellow watchman goby 1x yellow clown goby 1x pistol shrimp 1x porcelain crab 1x cleaner shrimp 1x peppermint shrimp 2x rbta I've got a mix of SPS/LPS/softy, including a pretty large blue ridge coral. Frogskin, monti cap, branching monti, dragon fruit monti, xenia, gsp, gorgonian, galaxea, sinularia, clove polyps, hammer, torch, mushrooms, zoas, palys, acans. It sounds like a lot, but it's mostly a bunch of small frags that I've mostly been waiting to grow out to no avail. Nothing is really that big, and I have a fair amount of room to grow out. I've lost a few frags recently, including a very nice toadstool and an ice tort. Most frags tend to fade a few days after I introduce them into my tank.

Following on from my last post about Alk and ULN, I've got my Alk under control, but my nutrients are lower than ever. PO4 has always measured 0.0, and NO3 is now down to 1.3. I've increased my frozen fish feedings (still just once a day) but portion sizes are a bit bigger, I have been feeding corals 3-4 times a week, changing my filter socks only once a week, and my refugium now only runs for 7 hours a day instead of 12. I could start scheduling my skimmer to only run part of the day, take out my filter socks completely, or just start throwing in Costco sized pieces of fish, but I think I'd rather dose what I feel like I'm missing - nitrate and phosphate. I've met a couple people who do, but for some reason this seems unpopular. Is it? I'm considering buying some Trisodium Phosphate on Amazon for Phosphate, and using some Brightwell NeoNitro I got from a fellow reefer for nitrate. Is 16:1 nitrate:phosphate a good ratio?

Sounds like even 10 is "high" alk. Seems like running the higher nutrients necessary to also run high alk seem to be risky since algae can also bloom under higher nutrients. I did see a bump in phosphates by feeding coral twice a week so that'll be my plan for now. Hopefully any increase in algae is controlled by the snails I added back in December.

I have what I think is a ULNS with my nitrate at 1.82 and phosphate currently at 0.0, each measured on a Hanna low range checkers. My Alk is 10.1 but has been as high as 10.7. I'd been raising it from 7 over the course of a few weeks in hopes of getting better growth, however my SPS are starting to burn and fade. My salinity has also crept up to 1.027 recently (usually 1.026) and I am also currently acclimating from 50-150 PAR to 150-250 over the course of a month (currently 10 days in). So I have a lot of variables changing at once since they are all out of whack. Anyway, I think nutrients are a problem that I do not yet have a solution for. I've read that a ULNS shouldn't have high alk, but what's considered high for ULNS? I've read anything between 7 and 12 is acceptable. I'm a little higher than halfway, but given my current state of affairs, I think I need to change things up. To add nutrients, I am planning to feed a bit heavier - currently only feeding corals once a week (up to twice) and will give the fish a little more LRS each day. In the meantime I'm curious to know what a good alk value is for my current nutrient levels.

I didn't think high alk was a problem unless you were also going through the early stages of a tank with ammonia present (kills fish), or if you have an ultra low nutrient system (burns tips). Either way, 11.7 is not very high. I've seen that 12 dKH is usually a suggested upper limit, but I've also seen some people run even higher than that. Bottom line, I wouldn't worry about your alk right now and let it come down naturally if you'd like to run it lower. Not sure about lowering alk, but BRS recommends only raising alk by 1.4 dkh or less in a day. More importantly, I would check on your dosing setup. I also rely on dosing pumps for water changes and additives, but they are really the only things that have screwed up my tank when there's a fault. And faults are not always as obvious as a pump or line leaking. But because I know how lazy I am, they are a necessary evil. Checking on them is less work than actually doing work.

I was able to borrow the club's PAR meter this weekend (thanks again Craig!) and I found out that PAR values for my tank were suuuper low. Most were in the range of 50-125. I have an AP9X over my 3 foot tank, tilted slightly to reduce glare into my eyes when sitting close to the tank. I recently raised it to 17" over the water to get better distribution after watching the recent BRS video: I knew this would reduce PAR output, but I never really knew how much I was getting. I ran the lights at a max of 45% based on what I've seen others do, partially out of paranoia from "cooking" my corals, but I really wanted some real data with the lights. Anyway, as I mentioned, my PAR was very low which probably explains the almost non-existent growth I've experienced. At 100% I recorded PAR values of 100-250 which I think will be great for my mixed reef. That all said, I am currently using the Kessil acclimation function of the light to ramp up to 100% over a 30 day period, starting at 45%. While it doesn't seem like a long time, is this too aggressive? Could I be more aggressive in ramping?

Nice, mandarins are my favorite. If you haven't already, see about establishing a refugium in your sump as a "kitchen" for copepods to grow. You may want to pick up some pods and/or some chaeto to seed it. Mandarins rarely eat prepared food and generally just eat pods, but they will slowly starve after they plow through all the pods in your DT.

Yellow clown gobies are smalll and some of my favorite fish though I've not had much luck finding one lately.

I battled hair algae for a couple months before picking up a more robust CUC. BRK's recommendation of Mexican turbo snails was right on. I do AWCs of about 1.5% a day. A refugium on a reverse light cycle also helps. How old is your tank?

I'm guessing you've picked out some fish by now, but we've got similar tanks. I'd recommend getting a new goby if your watchman hasn't turned up. I have a shrimp/watchman pair, but I started with a hi-fin goby that perished after 3-4 weeks. My pistol shrimp is much, much happier with his watchman buddy. They bonded in less than an hour, and they've been hanging out for a couple months now. Firefish are also good, mostly docile. Just pick one type. I have not had luck this time around when mixing them. A blenny (I love my midas blenny) would be a good addition as well. They are a bit expensive, though still under $100. I have always had ocellaris clowns in my tanks. I personally dream of a pair of maroon clowns, but they are just too aggressive for a community tank of otherwise peaceful fish.

I actually ended up snagging a couple of used Current powerheads on CL for the price of one new one. At the time I just couldn't justify the big investment in flow, at least not at this stage of the tank with very few SPS. Note that on my tank, I measured the side and rear glass at 10mm and the front glass at 12mm. Mine must be a G1.

I had Tunze pumps in my 120 back in 2012. It's true, you couldn't bust 'em. The ones I had were used and appeared to have led a hard life, but they were still kicking after I gave them a good cleaning. I'm actually considering a Tunze wavebox since I like standing waves and was able to get one pretty easily just using the two Current pumps, but I hear they're also kind of noisy. Would a single MP40 be able to get me a standing wave?

I don't mind paying for good stuff. I remember the MP40s from over a decade ago. None of them seemed silent to me though. I could hear them spin up and down from a couple feet away. The lack of cords in the tank seems nice if I could mount them exclusively to the back wall, or if I could run just a single pump on one side. Otherwise the external cords seem more like a distraction, especially from where I normally sit and check out the tank.

I bought a used RSRXL300 about 3 months ago. It came with several pieces of Current equipment, including a DC return pump and a couple of the 1050gph powerheads. After adjusting to a few app quirks, they've been pretty good so far - silent with decent flow for a minimal tank. But one just died this weekend. The tank is new so I still have almost no coraline algae causing problems, and it did not respond to a cleaning or power supply swap. I'm guessing it's just a failure. Judging from the reviews, this does not surprise me since many say the pumps only last a year at best. Anyway, I am looking for a replacement. A new Current pump is a little over $80 - pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things, and it'd let me keep the convenient feeding mode that turns down the return and cuts the powerheads off with a single button. I am also considering others though, including gyre pumps. A gyre would be nice if I could get away with just one on the end. Was starting to lean towards the Red Sea ReefWave 25 or 45. I have a bunch of starter corals that are doing fine so far - hammer, torch, zoas, palys, toadstool, acans, galaxea, gsp, mushrooms, and a plating montipora.

What are your current settings? Agree that a PAR meter is best (one day I'll give that a shot as well) but getting in the ballpark is a good idea. I have an AP9X as well and my peak is only 38% with the light about 12 inches off the water and a 12 hour photoperiod. My peak uses 15% violet which I hear also raises the PAR a fair amount. I tried running in the low 40s and even up to 50%, but I have a toadstool frag that doesn't like much more than that.

I actually stumbled onto your tank via YouTube and saw that you don't have the standard black background found on the Reefer series. It looks great! Did you remove the background yourself? If so, do you think it could be done while only 5 1/2 inches from the wall?

I just picked up a 4 pack of Versa pumps, though I'll have to look into the Reef Pi as well...

That's good feedback about the DOS. I'd thought of them as a more reliable option, but maybe not. I wonder if the type of salt being used will affect clogging just as it affects precipitate in mixing containers. Some are better than others in this regard. Leaning towards a system like the EcoTech that lets me manage the system and push water up from the basement vs. running the pumps in my cramped stand and listening to them whenever they kick on, even if they are quiet.

Back when I had my 120, I had a Litermeter III set up to do automatic water changes. It was great until it wasn't. I had my drain pump fail which caused salinity to slowly rise. I honestly was not paying much attention to the tank parameters until it was too late and I lost some coral (no fish). Despite my issues before, the convenience was unmatched and I'd like to give it a go again. This was 8-9 years ago and I see peristaltic pumps are a lot more commonplace. There are standalone systems that do this like the Litermeter, or the Dos that is integrated into an Apex. I need to pump water up about 10 feet and horizontally about 25 feet if that matters, though it seems most peristaltic pumps should not have a problem with that. I'd just want to make sure they are designed for moving higher volumes of water per day (lets say 2+ gallons).

Nova Tropicals is in Dale City. Nice shop and staff. They started just before COVID with a lot of corals, some fish. I think it's the cleanest fish shop I've ever been to.

Kinda depends on what the rest of your stocklist is going to be. Adding your most aggressive fish last can help to mitigate this to an extent, though the lavender tang does not appear to be a big jerk. I'd lean towards the butterfly, though beware corals and clams.

Another thing I've learned that has changed in the past 10 years has been a trend towards rimless, open top tanks. They look great, but my new tank will be going in my office, and most of my viewing will be while I'm sitting. I've read about light spill with both LED and T5, and I'd like to avoid being blinded every time I look over at the tank from a seated position. If I go rimless, I'd plan to build some kind of floating canopy, perhaps like this: I think there would still be the chance of glare with this setup depending on the height of the lights (I'm thinking putting the LEDs 8-10 inches above the surface). Has anyone else here conquered this? Anyone have an open top setup nearby?

I had not heard of the firefish incompatibility. I think I may have had 3 firefish in my 120 (red, purple, helfrichi). I never noticed any aggression, but I'll have to read up on it. I am also leaning towards a 4 foot tank now - likely a Red Sea Reefer 350 or a Waterbox 100.4.