teamschreiba

Yeah photography with LED lighting is definitely tricky. I used to have MH+VHO and it was basically point and shoot. LED requires a lot more post-processing for me. You’ve definitely mastered it though!

Great looking corals and photography! The colors on your acros are amazing!

Water change day! Tank looks nice and clean especially with the bottom glass cleaned up. Unfortunately the purple torch was lost this week to brown jelly. Luckily it didn't spread to anything else. The rock on the right hand side is officially zoas/palys only now which I did add a couple more recently.

Thanks! Yeah I did actually. I find now that I just change out the filter floss on top. I also found some cuttable carbon pad that I put under the filter floss and change out every 2-3 weeks. This way there’s really no need to ever breakdown the XP Aqua Sumpless ATO. If you’re buying with the intention of taking it apart often, I might consider something else. Haha yeah definitely will this time...

Been a while.... Stick around for quite a long post but a good update on how the tank has been. After the problems I mentioned in the last couple posts, I added BM Neophos and Neonitro to keep the levels high enough so everything wouldn’t die off. I did this for a while until I had detectable PO4 consistently. This did help but unfortunately then led to GHA... That ran its course for a couple months and eventually my minimal clean up crew did it’s job and cleared that up as well. I’ve also dialed the XR15 way back and now run roughly 20% on the white spectrum colors and 100% on the blues. Somewhere in there, the purple dottyback got really beat up too, I don’t know if it was the large hermit or the clowns, but he didn’t look good and eventually passed. That was pretty tough especially with all the other problems going on. I don’t plan on replacing him though and think I’ll just stick with the two clowns. So for about the last two months I haven’t had any problems and have kept the parameters stable, which is paying off! I know the FTS doesn’t look like much, but I can say that the monti’s, pocillopora, and anacropora are really taking off and their color is great. Zoas have done well all throughout although certain ones are picky and either haven’t grown or have been on the edge of melting for a while. For some reason the purple torch and green hammer aren’t doing well, but the other torch and the SPS I mentioned are. Challenges of a mixed reef I guess... Bottom line is that starting with all dry rock is tough as I feel like all the BRS videos mention. I’m almost a year in and feel like just now things are really starting to take off. In prior tanks I kept transferring over my original live rock from my very first tank from 2010 so I think that always made things a lot easier. Didn’t have that this time so patience pays off I guess... I may start adding some new corals again over the next few months since things have finally settled down. Let me know what you think!

Getting there! Kicked the dinos for sure but now I have GHA everywhere. I really should have waited out the uglies before buying so much coral... I think I’ve turned the corner on stability though because the orange monti cap and the anacropora have really started to take off.

Thanks guys! The fixture is at about 10-12” off the water right now. I think the fixture would be much more even spread for a cube and I do get a good amount of light spillage out the back since the tank is relatively narrow. Also, tank went through a minor case of Dino’s in which I tried treating at one point with TM Plus-NP. I underestimated the carbon dosing effect of that product and unfortunately crashed N&P as well as my pH levels. This led to the loss of many of the acros although a couple hung on. Things are starting to look better but it was quite a setback. On the positive side, the dinos are gone and the water has cleared up considerably after my last water change. I also think my dry rock reached a PO4 saturation point as I no longer need to dose to keep PO4 levels detectable. Hopefully turning a corner with this tank!

New FTS!

Installed & calibrated the pH probe today. Looks to be running about 8.0-8.1 by 5pm. Curious to see what the overnight drop is... Also took an old nimble nano mag cleaner and attached a bit of shelf rock to it. I hope to eventually put SPS frags on them that turn into mini colonies. Should help to fill out the look and clear the frag rack out of the tank for awhile! I'm buying some more magnets to hopefully add some more of these DIY shelves. The back glass does have a nice PAR hot spot for SPS and will be right in the flow of the MP10. Starting to see some GHA growth so I switched from reef roids to Red Sea Reef Energy AB+. I was worried the GHA would catch the reef roids and only make the problem worse. I need to add something though to keep the phosphates off 0.00. Here's a shot of easily the brightest coral in the tank. When only the blues are on I swear it reflects the orange color on the rock.

Yeah... Maybe one day I’ll switch over. Like to see if I can pull it off with no sump/skimmer though. And I certainly have! Probably moving way too fast with the SPS purchases but the coralline algae growth has been great and I think the big hermit is really keeping all the algae at bay.

Hah I wish! That would require a new stand and I know the overflow noise would be too much for my wife given this tank is about 2 feet away from our couch...

Blahhh so I don't think the Sumpless ATO box is going to work out long term. I took it apart to change out the carbon over the weekend and did not get it back together perfectly and in the right spot. This means that the surface skimming basically becomes ineffective and no one likes looking at an oil sheen on top of the tank. It's also not easy to take apart and get to the carbon meaning I won't as good about changing out whatever media is in there. I'm thinking about going with the JBJ internal bio filter since it should be able to accommodate my minimal filtration and also hide the heater/probes which are currently exposed (hidden in the pictures by the ATO box). I was considering going with a Tunze comline filter but they are large and I don't think I could keep my existing ATO. Thoughts? New picture to hopefully track growth of the pocillopora and green tenius too ?

Well when everyone tells you to rent a PAR meter to check your numbers, I now understand the truth in that and would highly recommend to anyone looking to keep SPS... I did a BRS PAR meter rental recently to be 100% confident of my numbers. I was running 50-60% on my Radion XR15 G5 blue which turned out to only be about 100 PAR at the top of that top rock which currently has the SPS frags. This would have been no where near enough for acros but did seem pretty bright to my eyes. Also, the places where you get high PAR is not intuitive (i.e. middle/center). For 100% on this fixture, the back glass about half way up is hitting 370 PAR even though the top of the SPS rock is 225. I assume this is from the reflection of the glass. Looks like I might be trying some magnetic mounts on the back glass if I can get some frags to take off. Needless to say, I have now switched to acclimation mode and will be working my way up to 100%.

It's so hard to capture the color of the orchid dottyback in pictures. At least I got the hiding/posing personality ?

Yeah they’re doing great, thanks again! Thanks! It’s worked out great so far. Very sturdy but easy to drill through when needed.

New FTS! I have a problem with the coral purchases as you can tell...

Also got the macro lens out today, it's been awhile... I love these blue rhinos from @epleeds , they even have a pink skirt which is hard to capture in pictures. You can really see how the coralline is taking off too. Getting some green coralline as well.

This was a couple weeks ago but it gives you an idea of the theme I'm going for.

Things are all going well. I’m not doing the best in exercising patience which I know is detrimental in this hobby... The GHL power bar, battery backup, and some Tropic Marin all for reef are on order. Only other planned equipment purchase is an Ecotech Versa. Unfortunately they’re out of stock everywhere... I know it is early for that but I want to have all hardware on hand before I mount everything in the stand to have a logical and clean layout. On the livestock side, I added an ORA Orchid Dottyback to the tank and he seems to be doing great. I figured this would get me in a better routine than trying to dose N&P. I also figured that the bioload from one dottback in a 17g is not too much. Added a Red Sea screen top as well since I needed a notch area for where the Sumpless ATO box is. I also added a small CUC from reefcleaners which crushed the small amount of diatoms I had. I’m keeping up with the water changes to keep the parameters stable early on. Apparently this is paying off as I noticed I have coralline algae spots all over the rocks. They’re about the size of a pinhead but they are everywhere like the chickenpox. I added the ARC Reef Purple Helix coralline algae about three and half weeks ago so I’ll attribute the great growth to that!

Well everything is setup and cycle is complete! Added some zoas this week and they’re looking okay. I think the dips stressed them but I’m sure they’ll come around. I’ve been playing around with the settings on the xr15 but trying to keep the light very low with minimal white light to try and avoid algae. The new mobius compatibility with the mp10qd is also a lot of fun. Trying to dial in what the zoas like... The only things I’m tracking hardware wise that are left: 1. Power bar for the GHL mini. The temperature seems to fluctuate from 78.8 to 80.1 with the heater’s internal control. That’s a bit more fluctuation than I’d like. 2. Battery backup for the mp10. I’ve never had one before but it absolutely makes sense. 3. Dosing pump. This is more long term but I like how the new ecotech doser looks and it seems like the kinks have been worked out. I’ll only need one since I intend on trying the TM all for reef once I’m at the point I need it. I’ll try and get a FTS up soon!

Ahh I know it’s the right thing to do but so tough to not get a least one or two corals... I know the biodiversity can only help but I had some not so great hitchhikers the first time I tried that. I’m also not looking to add anymore rock to the aquascape. I do have some copepods coming in this week though which should at least help some.

First light-less/angled FTS! Please excuse the purple epoxy... So I ended up going with the GHL mini wifi. I saw on an R2R thread that they're working on adding text/email notifications so hopefully that'll be coming soon. It was also nice that I could just buy the base unit which includes a temperature probe and I can pickup the powerbar at a later date. Don't really have space for or need the pH probe anyway. I'm hoping the temp probe will fit right in the middle of the XP Aqua "overflow" box. Also, going to setup a black iron pipe mounted to the stand to both hang my xr15 G5 blue from as well as hide some additional wires/tubing inside. I won't be able to hide all the wires inside (that would have required like 2" tubing) but I can fit about half. The rest I'll try and discreetly ziptie on the back side of the pipe. Fingers crossed it ends up looking nice! Still showing nitrites although I'm not as worried about it now. Really just waiting out the 30 days at this point based on some of R2R brandon429 threads I've read (extremely informative). Added a hermit crab last weekend since the ammonia was 0 so I at least have something to look at. I'm considering attempting to go fish-less until coralline algae nearly covers the rocks. The hope would be that this makes algae control significantly easier. I'd still try to add at least some zoas during this time and keep the lighting relatively low to discourage algae growth but bright enough to grow coralline and keep the zoas happy. Thoughts? GHL mini comes today, xr15 g5 Sunday, and some pods on Tuesday so this is a big week!

So I'm debating on controllers... I want to be able to monitor the tank via wifi when I'm out of town or at work. This is primarily for temperature monitoring but unfortunately there aren't a ton of great simple choices given the inkbird reviews are not the best. The seneye seemed like a good choices but the wifi functionality also did not get the greatest reviews. This has led me to the GHL ProfiLux Mini Wifi ($370) and the ApexEL ($500). The automatic notification feature of the ApexEL has me leaning that way but that is also a lot of money for just temperature monitoring. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Yeah I think I'm going to wait until the cycle is over and I do my first large water change. If it is still cloudy after that, I'll start troubleshooting.

I picked up some ammonia chloride to be sure my cycle is started. I'm now down to almost zero ammonia so just waiting for nitrites to drop before adding fish.