cpeguero

Lots of options out there. BRS did a series a couple of years ago on led lights. I think they may have been keeping up with updates to it, but not sure. Lots of great info there. Depending on what your goals are, it is definitely possible to run a reef tank with black box led’s (viparspectra, etc). I used black boxes on my reef for several years. I’ve upgraded since then, but still have one on my coral QT. You can also go off of BRS’s info and pick up some good lights used. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My schedule is tight, but if I’m free when it comes in, be happy to help. I even have some dollies I can bring (used them for my tank when it was delivered) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you do an AWC, you just need 2x 1/4” holes. ALOT lower chance of spilling water. Just saying…. Try that argument. Alternatively, you could run 1/4” lines behind crown molding or some other decorative cover Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I understand this thread is your DT, however in an earlier post on this thread, you mention you plan to use live rock in your QT, thus my recommendation to not do so. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For your QT, I’d recommend no rock. When you dose meds, some will/may seep into the rock and leach out later. Some meds interact with each other negatively and could kill your fish. Plus some meds drop dissolved oxygen levels, and you don’t want that happening unexpectedly. For fish QT, I just use polyfilter when not using meds. I personally do modified TTM, so I don’t really have to worry about waste buildup, and my observation tank gets automatic water changes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 76 days is 72 days to ensure no ich free swimmers are getting released + 4 days to make sure any free swimmer released on day 72 is dead (they can survive for 3 days). If you’re going for the shorter duration, you need to be above 80.6 degrees at all times. The fishless QT is a 40 breeder with an mp10, hob filter with sponge (sometimes I toss polyfilter in), heater, and a chiller (needed that to get it down to 76 during the summer). I have a black box led and an ai prime for light (because I QT corals too) and an auto feeder that feeds once per day, just a little. I’m currently quarantining some cleaner shrimp, so they need the food more. My AWC “waste” from the display goes into this tank, so it gets 2 gallon water changes daily. I have it rigged so the overflow of water from the AWC goes straight down the drain. Also helps keep parameters stable. The tank has a couple of frag racks and some random rocks in it too. Non-coral invert qt you can get away with a simple setup. If you’re QT-ing coral, you need to watch the parameters carefully (or change water a lot more). I also dose kalk. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Glad you’re already following humblefish’s approach. I personally do modified TTM but instead of copper, but do have copper power on hand just in case. TSM aquatics does quarantined fish as well, and I’ve had good luck with them as well as Reef Escape. All my inverts go through 76 day fishless QT. I tried the higher temp shorter QT, but I think it was contributing to coral losses, so put the temp back down. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

just ordered some potassium phosphate. Need to stop the coral loss.... Only problem with upping the food dose is that my fish are already fat..... guess that means I need more fish

Thanks for the responses. I was hoping to avoid dosing potassium phosphate, but might just have to do that. I started dosing potassium nitrate specifically to get phosphate down, but it’s working too well, lol. I use a plank auto feeder and already increased feeding 25%. Will try feeding some frozen more regularly and see if that helps. Otherwise, I may just have to dose and be done with it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So I recently dealt with my high phosphate issue, only to go in the opposite direction….. My phosphates are now undetectable, after starting to dose potassium nitrate. Now, nitrate is staying around 2-3 ppm. I’m still working through a few ideas on getting phosphate up, but wanted to get inputs from the community on how you all do it. I currently have my skimmer set to run for just a half hour during the day. Just cut the photo period on my fuge down to 4 hours at night. I run fleece rollers and dose kalk at night. Also dose Microbactr 7 once per week pH runs 8.3-8.6; Alk 9-ish Aside from further adjusting fuge photo period, other thoughts on getting phosphates up? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ve used Reefbreeders Exo ATO for years. I always try to have some sort of redundancy when I can. Stuff fails after a while, though I haven’t had the Exo Ato fail yet. Now I have my Profilux run ATO, though I haven’t put in the backup for that yet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Happy to share my mistakes. Especially if it can help someone else avoid them. IIRC the only loss I had from tsm was a carpenters flasher wrasse. I did not realize at the time that they could be very sensitive to water quality issues. I was dealing with (and am still getting under control) algae issues, primarily due to high phosphate. I lost a total of 2 carpenters, one from tsm and one from Reef Escape. Both just sort of disappeared on me. Looking back, it appears I just ordered the one carpenters wrasse and a hippo tang (who is doing great) from TSM. The rest have been from Reef Escape and WAMAS. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ve placed a couple of orders with TSM. The fish have been healthy, and I can trace the few losses I had to my own errors. I’ve also used Reef Escape and been very happy with what I’ve gotten from them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awesome! I do love the external overflow. Enjoy! How soon will they deliver? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Definitely contact LFS. When I got my tank (84x39x24 CDA), I did it separately. Movers wouldnt touch it due to weight. LFS I contacted wasn’t willing to help - partly because I didn’t order through them. They told me the cost to me would have been too much. To be fair, getting it in wasn’t going to be that easy, though it was in the ground floor. So I can’t blame them for not taking a risk when they didn’t make money on the sale. I ended up doing it with friends and renting equipment. It all went well, but each situation is different. Freight delivery put it in my garage for me. The rest was a bit of an adventure (I think I have a video on my build thread). I have no idea what it will actually cost for LFS to do it, but for that size and weight, if you get the right equipment, it might not be too bad. 500 lbs between 4-6 people is doable. Or, get a lift table that will hold the weight. And rent the club’s suction cups. Depends on what you’re comfortable with doing and how much effort you want to put into it. See how much the cost is for the LFS (reach out to several) and decide if it’s worth it to you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quick update today (going to try to be better.... we'll see how that goes.......) Sorted out my DI consumption. Needed to replace RO membranes. Not sure when I previously replaced them, so going to try to keep track. Recent ICP test (thanks WAMAS for the freebie at fragfest!) showed things all going in the right direction. Major items all in line. A few trace elements a bit low. Grabbed the Royal Exclusiv GHL interface for one of my closed loops. Now I can play some with flow on that side! Still been struggling with some algae and keeping SPS alive in both QT and main display. Sorted out part of the coral QT issue (had enough load that needed kalk dosing, alk went down to 5 dKH!) and set up a chiller to keep the temp at 77. The other piece (I think) is my low nutrients. Nitrate has been undetectable since I set up the system, but phosphates have been somewhat on the high side. Used GFO to knock them down some, but I hate having to change it, deal with clogged reactor, etc. Recently saw discussion in another thread about dosing nitrate, so I just started doing that over the weekend. I'm dosing a nearly saturated potassium nitrate solution. Still have to dial it in, but my nitrates this morning were 2.9 ppm and phosphorous dropped from 64 ppb to 13 ppb over 2 days! Thanks to @ReefdUp for info on this! Now I need to either further modify my Jebao doser to run another channel controlled by the Profilux or spend a lot more money on another 4-head GHL doser...... choices. Plus, now that it looks like I care about nitrate, the ion director is looking even better (except for the mixed reviews I've seen and the supply chain issues that mean they won't be accepting more orders for a while)........

Sounds like a good plan. I would put an Ammonia Alert in there, just to be on the safe side. Also, if you have any number of corals in there, plan to at least monitor alkalinity to make sure things don't go too far out of whack on you. I'd imagine the move will impact their growth and/or uptake of resources. If you need to dose, make sure you're testing frequently - I learned the hard way to ALWAYS test for what you're dosing.

Also, if you need more rock or sand, I have lots to get rid of…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Everyone has already provided great advice. Just adding my 2 cents: If you can set up a temporary system (few days to a week or more) for your livestock, it will significantly reduce your stress level. I’ve moved tanks probably over a dozen times, and tear down and set up in same day is the biggest stressor. This also means you won’t be rushing when problems come up. You can take time to make sure you address them the “right” way, not the way-that-gets-your-livestock-back-in-the-tank-quickly-and-not-dead. When you do upgrade, take the opportunity to fix/upgrade/change things you don’t like or want to improve. You’re already thinking ahead, so that’s the best time to plan for those things. Make sure you keep lists/write down what you want to do and come back to it later. I spent over a year planning my upgrade….. can’t count how many times I changed things after revisiting or discussing with others. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the info. I'll probably go with potassium nitrate for now. Just got ICP results which slow slightly low potassium, so can't hurt to add it. Don't want to drive my salinity too high with dosing, especially until I figure out how much I really need to dose.

What sort of product do you buy? From the calculator you linked to, you can get the nitrate from a couple different sources - Potassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate. Have you tried both? I would imagine the ammonium nitrate adds in ammonium, which gets processed by the bacteria (and therefore gets you more nitrate). Would the Potassium that is added from Potassium nitrate be an issue at all? Looking to try this out (since I'm running out of things to fiddle with and need to get acros to be able to thrive in my tank).

I go by what Humblefish does. Main link to how-to's https://humble.fish/community/index.php?information/#quarantine_resources Link to Tank Transfer Method (TTM): https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/tank-transfer-method-all-versions.6800/ I do the Hybrid TTM for all my fish that don't come from a known pre-quarantined source. It's pretty easy and straightforward. I just use 5-gallon buckets and airstones (throw the airstones out after single use). I also put together a spreadsheet to help with the dosing, figuring out timing, etc. Have attached it here. Hybrid TTM Worksheet (1).xlsx

Agreed..... Tank has been up for 2 years, so seems really strange (especially given that I have it full of fish). Maybe just didn't capture any in the sample..... Since it's all being processed, I'm not concerned, just an odd result.

Really interesting discussion! I personally dose Microbactr 7 weekly (per instructions). Got my aquabiom results recently. It’s quite well balanced, but they said they didn’t find any nitrite processing bacteria in the sample, which was weird. My nitrates have always been undetectable, but phosphate levels have been high… haven’t checked them recently. Maybe I’ll look into dosing nitrates… algae is better than it was, but still more than it should be…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ll take the plank. Will pm Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk