Nburg's Red Sea Reefer 450 in DC

[howaboutme]

Looks great! Curious what you keep your main parameters at?

[nburg]

On 1/26/2023 at 8:52 PM, howaboutme said:

Looks great! Curious what you keep your main parameters at?

Alk is around 8ish plus or minus... usually minus

Calcium around 400ish

Mag 1350

nitrate 10ish 

phosphate 0.15ish

pH depends on when my scrubber media is changed - usually peaks between 8.1 and 8.3, dips as low as 7.8

 

I use a trident to monitor but I am getting accelerating growth so always increasing 2 part. 

Edited January 28, 2023 by nburg

[howaboutme]

8 hours ago, nburg said:

Alk is around 8ish plus or minus... usually minus

Calcium around 400ish

Mag 1350

nitrate 10ish 

phosphate 0.15ish

pH depends on when my scrubber media is changed - usually peaks between 8.1 and 8.3, dips as low as 7.8

 

I use a trident to monitor but I am getting accelerating growth so always increasing 2 part. 

 

Thanks! Reason I ask is because a while back you were struggling so I'm curious what the difference is. The one thing that stands out is the NO3 at 10. Are you dosing or is that naturally occurring as a result of your maintenance routine?

Edited January 28, 2023 by howaboutme

[nburg]

4 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

 

Thanks! Reason I ask is because a while back you were struggling so I'm curious what the difference is. The one thing that stands out is the NO3 at 10. Are you dosing or is that naturally occurring as a result of your maintenance routine?

I dose to get it up when it drops, otherwise it would be zero and phos would be high. I don't think prior stuggles had anything to do with parameters. I think it was 100% bacterial issue causing STN. Furan-2 dips stopped STN in some corals and once I got my pH up and lets things settle more, nothing STNed. Mike Paletta and Sanjay talked about mysterious STN that started in one coral and slowly moved to the next, which is what I experienced. I think the hypothesis is the depressed pH allowed infectous bacterial to grow on the tissue, while increased pH may ward off those bateria and promote healthy bacteria to compete for space.

 

All I know is nothing really changed on a large scale except time and pH monitoring and have not really lost anything since. 

[howaboutme]

2 hours ago, nburg said:

I dose to get it up when it drops, otherwise it would be zero and phos would be high. I don't think prior stuggles had anything to do with parameters. I think it was 100% bacterial issue causing STN. Furan-2 dips stopped STN in some corals and once I got my pH up and lets things settle more, nothing STNed. Mike Paletta and Sanjay talked about mysterious STN that started in one coral and slowly moved to the next, which is what I experienced. I think the hypothesis is the depressed pH allowed infectous bacterial to grow on the tissue, while increased pH may ward off those bateria and promote healthy bacteria to compete for space.

 

All I know is nothing really changed on a large scale except time and pH monitoring and have not really lost anything since. 

 

Interesting. Have you done anything to increase you PH or is it as a result of some other adjustments?

[nburg]

40 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

 

Interesting. Have you done anything to increase you PH or is it as a result of some other adjustments?

Added a CO2 scrubber since my apartment is so closed up in the winter. In the summer, it's not as bad, but the winter, the CO2 concentration is well over 1000 in my place. I would love to just run a line to outside, but not possible in the building. 

 

Not sure if that's it, but haven't  had issues since, so I'm not looking to change. 

[howaboutme]

Awesome. Great work!

[nburg]

Made a quick update video - No major changes, other than swapping a Tunze Stream 3 for a pair of Gyre 330s to test it out for the upgrade. It's an eyesore for now, but will be hidden in the upgrade. Everything is growing well.

 

 

[lynn.reef.nerd]

Will miss this one! 

[nburg]

New vid - turns out my DSLR takes good vids. 

 

Everything is growing well! I can't keep up my alk demand. I'm up to about 250 ml of each alk buffer and calcium (BRS) per day where this time last year I think I was at 20-30 ml a day. Very happy with coloration and growth. 

 

Since my new tank should be coming in a month or so, I decided to make backup frags for all my acros that are big enough to take a frag from since frags fare tank moves better than colonies. Since I started worrying about keeping pH up about a year ago, I have only lost 1 acro frag, and that was a small red dragon frag that kept breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. If I had room for a kalk vat, I would try kalk, but I open my window that cracks open a small bit when I can and replace my CO2 scrubber media at least weekly. 

 

Can't wait to get more room in this tank - can't wait for more depth!

[WheresTheReef]

Looking good. Can’t wait to see the new tank!

Edited March 25, 2023 by WheresTheReef

[nburg]

Had to reupload the vid

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by nburg

[nburg]

This will be the last update for this tank. My new IM 170 EXT will be delivered in Tuesday and I’ll move everything over from this tank to the new tank. I’ll start a new build thread just to keep it clean. 
 

It’s bitter sweet in a way - I’m happy to have more room and a more reliable tank, but my acros are growing so fast and are so colorful that I don’t want to mess with them. This is the best looking tank I’ve ever had, mostly because I moved around so much until now so it was rare for me to have something up and running longer than 2 years before packing it up and moving it. I hope everything makes a smooth transition to the new tank but I’m expecting at least a few to pale out, stall or die. If nothing is affected I’ll be surprised . 
 

I’m going to reuse all my water and make new water and match parameters and even NO3 and PO4 so it should just act as a large water change. Should only be a few hours of disruption. I’ll run the lights a little lower intensity and ramp up over a week or two just to keep stress down. 
 

 

Final FTS vid of my Red Sea Reefer 450 - SPS Dominant Reef Aquarium
https://youtu.be/2_BjF8NBrxs

[howaboutme]

Tank looks great! Good luck w/ the upgrade. I assume the new tank is not in the same place as the current?

[nburg]

8 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

Tank looks great! Good luck w/ the upgrade. I assume the new tank is not in the same place as the current?

Correct, it’s going to go next to it. Just paid to have a dedicated 20 amp circuit with 3 outlets out in. Pricey but now I can have my system split between two breakers 

 

New tank is going to the right of the current tank which will open up the space once the old tank is removed.