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

Red Sea NOPOX.

So here's a topic which has inspired me to return to my blog:  Carbon Dosing.  I have been using Red Sea NOPOX and it lowered my nitrates to an undetectable level.  Unfortunately, it did nothing for my phosphates even though it claims it is a complete system that can control both.  I used PO4x4 to bring my phosphates down as well and now I plan to run a multi-month study to turn the NOPOX off and on several times and see how it affects the nitrate and phosphate levels.  The question right now is whether or not NOPOX alone can keep nitrate and phosphate levels balanced now that I have brought them both down to low levels.

This is a major shift in philosophy for me.  I have long believed in "KISS" and a reliance on the Berlin System without modification, but this summer and fall I ran into trouble with cyano and was searching for a solution.  By focusing on reducing nitrate and phosphate to levels found in nature I have successfully eradicated the cyano, but I was only able to do so by starting a carbon dosing regimen and adding a small reactor with PO4x4.  This opens up a whole new area that I have not explored:  ULNS or Ultra Low Nutrient Systems.  It's not new to the hobby, but it's new to me so stand by for lots more data ; )


Joe


Be sure to check out my latest video taken with my iPhone.  Personally I can't believe the quality I can get from a simple tool like the iPhone (or perhaps not so simple!)

It's been a long summer.

First I want to say thanks to all the folks that have been emailing!  I'm not a tech professional, and with 3 growing kids I have limited time to keep up, but I promise to try and do a better job adding and responding to everyone that has shown interest as well as figuring out how to add an RSS link.

  Thanks all!
 The summer is always a challenge as I go away for 5 weeks to Maine and finding folks that can care for my tank as I would is virtually impossible.  So as I returned home this past week I find I have an outbreak of hair algae and red slime that has developed.  Hopefully a few weeks of diligent husbandry will let me take care of it.  In addition my H. Mag. anemone decided to lean over and touch my Strawberry Shortcake SPS which was the growing pride and joy that sat front and center in my tank, but I had to move it to the back to rescue it in the middle of the summer and as a result it browned out again (for a second time).  We'll see if I can bring it back. 

 Anyways, thanks again folks for all the interest!  I promise to have some updated photos soon.

Joe the Coral Gardener

Where to begin . . .

There's so much to share I honestly don't know where to begin.  I've made a ton of changes, trimmed back hugely, removed two entire colonies, and most importantly for this post, struggled with excessive calcium carbonate buildup.  Suffice to say I'm trying to figure out why I put a newly cleaned pump into service in November and it seized up in April.  At the moment I'm trying to figure out if pH swings due to dosing B-Ionic are the cause.  My methodology is simply to stop dosing for a while and up the calcium reactor to see if that stops the buildup then assuming that doesn't stop the buildup I'll shut off the calcium reactor and see if the removal of CO2 makes the difference then if that doesn't work I'll try something else.  Fact: I'm growing Calciium Carbonate too fast.  Answer I have no idea . . . . 


Corals:  Strange lessons . . . I gave Jason back a large colony of Tyree Purple Monster and oddly enough he's getting the same white band problem he had before starting at the base and progressing very slowly.  Pathogen in his tank?  Excessive flow?  No idea but interesting . . .  Along the same lines we both have been struggling to get Ice Fire Echinata to grow.  I bought two frags from Vivid Aq. in CA and they died.  Bought a colony from Jason.   It died.  Jason had several in the store and one colored up dramatically in his SPS sale tank while the one in his display wiped.  Then he moved the one in his SPS sale tank to his display and it started to slowly wipe at the base.  So assuming the worst I convinced him to give the piece to me and I broke it into several pieces, dipped it in Revive, and have put the pieces in various places in my system.  So far all the pieces are surviving, but we'll see.

My big "Bugga a Boo" right now is pH.  It's driving me mad that I can't control the pH, but the nightly increase in CO2 is overwhelming.  I'd really like to know how much night algae growth in a refugium on a reverse cycle I would need to completely overcome the cycle,  working . . . . standby . . . someday we'll know.