Long Overdue Update.

So here we are in September of 2012 and I am finally getting around to updating the blog, the question is where to begin . . .  hmmm.  First the Oregon Tort, it's doing o.k. It's growing and the main body is deep navy in color, but the new growth is paler so I'm still a little concerned.  The frags that I put in my basement frag tank are doing even better, but interestingly enough they are under the old school 400 watt Radiums with Super Actinic VHO supplements and sitting only about 6 inches below the surface directly under the Radium.  Talk about blasting a coral!

Next update is the lighting on the main display.  I switched to Sfiligoi fixtures.  I have 2 fixtures each with 8 T5 lamps and 2 150 watt HQI Radiums.  They are connected to a Profilux controller.  I love the fact that I have a true dawn dusk simulation and the color of the light is fantastic.   My corals all look better than ever.  In particular the blue millepora which had been struggling to recover is stunning again, and the thick branch pink birds nest which is hiding in the back of my tank is pinker than I have ever seen,  and fantastically a frag of ORA Red Planet that had turned green and sickly is quickly recovering to it's beautiful reddish coloration.  It's not completely there yet, but it's definitely getting there.

In the category of we never stop learning no matter how old or experienced we think we are, I was talking to Rob at Greenwich Aquaria about how I always  struggle to keep my alkalinity up, and he asked if I had ever tried to up the output on my calcium reactor to match the alkalinity usage in my system.  Truth be told I had never studied the science of my reactor and had always been working under a stable but flawed process that amounted to guessing so I went home and found a webpage made by J. Dieck that allowed me to carefully analyze my reactor output.

Calcium Reactor Setup Help

What I found was that my effluent was around 15 dKh and my flow rate was less than 100 ml/min.  Based on the information on his page I increased the flow rate to a maximum suggested rate of 150 ml/min and then studied my alkalinity over a period of several weeks.  I ended up increasing the bubble count from the CO2 to about 120 bubbles/min which created an effluent alkalinity around 20 dKh and now my tank alkalinity is stable at about 8 to 8.5 dKh.  The savings in B-Ionic cost will be enormous, but the question remains how often will I need to refill the reactor with media and exchange the CO2 tank with a new one.  Regardless, I am certain it will have a net cost well below the B-Ionic cost.  I haven't yet tested the pH so I wonder if it is lower now that I'm adding more effluent.  Standby for more info on that!

Well I think that's a good start for now .  .  .

Thanks everyone for checking in!


Happy Reefin',

Joe

P.S. Watch for some very exciting work to come from my daughter Grace.  She's decided she wants to take charge of my Banggaii breeding project and so we are working on setting up a 93 gallon cube in her bedroom.

Trouble in paradise.

So if you're the type that enjoys "SchadenFreude" then you'll love this . . . my favorite coral of all time, the Oregon Tort, has gotten sick.  Call it "white tip disease" or just slow death it wasn't happy so I took the chance and broke it out of the tank to dip it in Coral Revive and frag it into as many pieces as I could.  Much of the frags are pale and so I think sick, but the piece I put back is still dark navy, but only time will tell if this will work or not.  Hopefully at least a couple of the frags will live.  The silver lining if there is one, is that I have lots more room to add the ORA Pearlberry and Ice Fire Echinata in premium position now.  I'm including a couple crappy photos just so everyone can see what I'm talking about.  Funny thing is all the other corals are looking superb . . . .

Water change day.

Did a sump vacuum, rock rinse, and water change today.  2.5 hours.  Using ESV salt now instead of Coralife, and it mixes much faster and clearer, not that that means anything by itself, but there it is . . .

The Tubbs Blue Zoo rock has fully recovered with all polyps open.  Took about 1 month.  After a month of being closed up I was certain it was a goner, but here again patience and care paid off.  On the flip side, one of my stylo's fell over after I tried to move it into an area of lower light.  I left it at the top of the tank with high flow for about 6 months and it did grow, but it still hasn't gotten that deep pink with hints of purple that it had in Rick Souta's tank in Oregon.  We'll see if the new location is any better.  Possible it's like the purple acropora nana which doesn't really show it's best color until the colony grows fairly large.

Off to work tomorrow and this time I have to leave early so got to get everything done tonight.  Not gonna get to the skimmer this week, but it really doesn't look that bad so I think I'm o.k. waiting 'til next Tuesday.  Really want to get a web cam for my tank.  I'm hoping once I have Verizon FIOS installed I can try their home monitoring system!


That's it for today,

Joe

The list gets longer . . .

Since being home Sunday my days have been filled so the list of work is starting to pile up.  Hopefully, I can get it done next week:

water change
Iwaki pump clean
vacuum sump
rinse sump LR
adjust Ranco controller temp
catch Banggai babies in sump
cut frags

Interesting note:  I changed to 250 watt Radiums from 400 watt Radiums and then I brought the interval for the Radiums down from 10 hours to 8 hours and my corals never looked better.  Just today  I am adjusting the interval down to 7 hours, and we'll see how it goes.

Also, a picture of the new Scoly as well as two corals I thought I had lost.  The acan I got way back in 2007 when I changed from the 280 to the 240 and the Tubs I have been trying to grow for years.  Both corals seemed to have virtually disappeared and the Tubs were shut tight for the longest time, but now everybody seems to be recovering.  Sometimes it's just a mystery . . .

Hi ho Hi ho, It's off to work i go. . .

Once again the slight nervous trepidation as I prepare to leave my baby alone for 3 days.  Heading off to Rome, but I'll be back late Sunday night.  Cleaned the glass and the skimmer, dosed 1L of B-Ionic, and topped off the RO bucket before leaving.  Also got a new coral, but I'm worried about a tiny amount of damage on the rim.  It's a Scoly, and I'm a wee bit ashamed to say what I paid for it, but hey it's beautiful!  Can't seem to get the photo from email right now so I'll have to wait until I get back home Sunday or Monday.

Cheers All!

Joe

Testing and dosing day.

Started the morning by dosing 1L B-Ionic because I knew it had been a while since my last dose and figured the tank would need it.  Now this afternoon I just finished testing all the parameters:

Ca            450 ppt
Mg        1450 ppm
Alk           8.0 dKH
pH            8.3
I             above NSW
NO3       0.25 ppm
PO4        0.00 ppm

That says to me that the PO4x4 stuff works incredibly well.  I still can't believe that a mere 250 ml treats a 700 gallon system with no trouble.



Also did some aquascape rearranging today.  I was on ORA's webste reading up on my Ponape comments and noticed they recommended lower light for more green tinging of color and darker purple so I broke up the piece I had been growing and put frags at a couple different levels in the tank.  That also made the high light, high flow spot that it had been inhabiting available for a new frag.  It's a piece of $500 Efflo that is not looking to $500ish right now but I have high hopes!

Check out my new Facebook page!

I recently thought that to connect to more people, I should set up a Facebook page so if you have a chance, please go on and check it out, like it, and tell your friends about it!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Coral-Gardener/260898250643419

Photos of the Day.

Playin' around with the camera again after cleaning out the water change bin.  The Agway container always gets a red slime in it.  Not sure if it's the container, the salt, or the RO water or something altogether different.  Anywats it doesn't seem to have any bad effects, but I keep cleaning it with clorox anyways.  What's an extra hour of work . . . .

Tunze cleaning.

About 45 minutes of work this morning cleaning 2 of the Tunzes from my main tank.  It's truly amazing how much loss in flow there is as they get dirty.   Forgot to mention the added saga yesterday as the skimmer wasn't working when I went to check on it before cleaning it.  Seems a piece of salt creep broke free from the outside of the venturi air intake and blocked the airflow so no bubbles.  Don't know how long it was like that, but it seemed to me that the water had gotten slightly greenish with excess algae.  Now 24 hours later everything is crystal clear again.  Such a delicate balance we keep.

Today's photo is a picture of my Tunze cleaning kit :)

Project corals.

I think I promised photos of corals that I'm hoping will become good candidates for farming.  The Gemmifera I bought way back in 2007, and it went brown for the longest time, but with my recent change to an ULNS (Ultra-low Nutrient System), it's been getting back the spectacular yellow with blue highlights it had when I first got it.  It's also a fast grower so it coulb be ideal.  The Tenuis is old school, but I love it when it's doing well, and the yellow with blue polyp is awesome, and not something I've ssen in anyone elses tank, though I'm sure it's out there somewhere . . .

Work, work, work.

Spent from 8 to 11 AM this morning doing tank chores.  Cleaned frag tank, cleaned skimmer, dosed 1 L B-Ionic, cleaned display tank, cleaned 2 tunzes for basement system with Muriatic acid, setup a new Tunze multicontroller in the basement so as to create back and forth flow, cleaned PO4x4 reactor and restarted PO4x4 on the system.  Haven't actually tested the water yet to confirm that it needed it, but I have a sneaking suspicion.

Tomorrow I need to clean the upstairs Tunzes.  I also have made a big change in the flow upstairs.  I was using 4 Tunzes simultaneously (2 x 6105s and 2 x 6055s), but they were all set to their lowest power.  Now I put them on max power and run one pair at a time so I can go back to creating an alternating flow pattern.  I had been noticing some anomalous growth formation with my monti's and after talking to Jason I decided it was because I had too much flow in one direction.  We'll see . . .

Going to work.

I always have some slight trepidation as I go to work since I'm gone from the house for 3 or 4 days.  Today is no different.  Cleaned the glass, siphoned the sand bed, added 1L of B-Ionic, and adjusted the RO top off drip (winter dry air) before heading out.  We'll see how it looks on Monday night when I get home : )

Joe

The Banggai Gardener

Never meant to be a fish breeder, but heck if my Banggai Cardinals don't keep producing viable offspring.  Sold 5 last month and I'm taking another 3 month old to Greenwich Aquaria today plus I've got 6 in the sump that are only a couple weeks old and by that I mean living out of the parents mouth.  Don't know how long they hang out in the parent mouth.  Guess I should figure that out and maybe pay a little more attention.

Did some reaquascaping the other day as my anemone moved a couple inches to one side and was encroaching on my latest favorite, my tenuis.  Also took some updated shots of "project" corals.  My Gemmifera is of particular interest as it's getting some amazing coloration and is a relatively fast grower.  After reading the article in CORAL magazine about Dustin Dorton and ORA, I'd love to be able to give him a viable mother colony to create a new commercially grown coral!  Wouldn't that be AWESOME?!?

Today's Maintenance.

8:45 AM.  The whole family is still asleep, but I've been up since 5:33 (trouble with getting older - you can't sleep in)  So far I calibrated a new pH probe and tested my tank water at about 7:30 AM - pH 8.3 then cleaned the basement frag tank and the skimmer.  I also retested the alkalinity since yesterdays reading was so low, and I added 1 L of B-Ionic as a result.  Today's reading was 8.5 dKH

Cleaning the frag tank is a big chore because I'm still getting a large amount of cyanobacteria in that tank.  Not sure why, but it seems to collect some type of spiky detritus.  I have no idea what the stuff is, but the tank has a bare bottom with 2 tunzes blowing on it continuously and it still builds up a layer of hair algae with red slime on the outside.  Fortunately I keep the tank almost empty so it's relatively easy to clean.  At the moment it's slightly more difficult than normal because I am keeping my buddies corals and fish in there until he gets his new tank up an running. 

On another side note if anyone is looking for me on RC, I am no longer there as I have become disenchanted with what I believe to be their heavy hand of censorship.  I was involved in a discussion regarding Red Sea's new product NO3:PO4x, but Randy Holmes-Farley, an Harvard and Stanford educated chemist highly regarded in many fields, felt that the discussion had become too tilted towards "how to use" the product versus a discussion worthy of "his" chemistry forum, and so the moderators decided to shut down the thread.  This was not the first time I have witnessed what I considered excessive interference with RC discussions so as a result I have said "Good-bye" to RC.


Joe

Daily Maintenance.

Yesterday's Chores:

clean glass upstairs
dose 1L B-Ionic
test water parameters

Test Results

• I+              normal
• NO3         0.25 ppm
• PO4          0.04 ppm
• Alk           6.0 dKH
• salinity     35 ppt