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upster

Update - my new 58g, 5 weeks old

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by
upster
, 06-08-2010 at 11:57 PM (43904 Views)
Here we go, time for a 5 week update on my new setup. I transferred my old setup to this tank in early May. The set up blog is here. Everything is starting to settle in. The corals are looking much happier and the sps are continuing to colour up. At this point, as was with my 40g, I am having decent luck keeping healthy SPS frags coloured up, it's just that the brown frags I purchased are taking a bit of time. But with 5 weeks under the new set up, corals I thought were down and out are turning around!

Here's a synopsis of the new developments:

DIY Two-part - Now that my sps colonies are getting bigger, I decided to take a closer look at my alk and calcium situation. I have always topped off with Kalk, but my Alk began slipping below 7. After, initial adjustments to bring alk and calc up to target (9dkh and 460ppm) last week I settled on a 45 ml daily dose using the Randy Holmes-Farley two-part recipe.

Dosing unit - Four weeks of daily dosing was starting to drive me nuts! I picked up a Bubble Magus BMT-01 three pump dosing unit. I am using two rubbermaid 2 ltr juice containers for resevoirs which should give me about a month and a half of hassle free dosing.

Salt - The lion's share of water for this tank has been made using Seachem Reef Salt. This salt gave me very high calcium reading (550 - 600!) when I was performing balanced adjustments to target alk. I brought calc down by just adding alk for about a week. Moving forward I think I will change to trusty old IO salt. There shouldn't be a reason for me to use anything else if I am actively maintaining alk and calc.

Hair algae - For about three weeks after set up I had a large hair algae break out. Only in the fuge though. It's good to know the fuge is performing it's magic. The rest of the tank is problem free except for isolated spots of Gelidium algae. But that's been an ongoing nusiance.

Live rock - I added a bunch of live rock from a local reefer who was tearing his tank down. I would estimate that I added about 30 lbs which should bring my total up near 75 lbs. If anyone can shoot me a best guess based on the pictures I would appreciate it.

Livestock - The only new addition is a four inch Fungia. I always wanted one of these and I found a really neat specimen this last weekend.

Now for the pics!!

I still think fungia is too close to fungus...


The Coral Beauty and the Flame Hawkfish



The extra depth of this new tank has helped me to darken up the trachy



I anchored the new dosing pump using two dollar L brackets from the hardware store and decided on modest containers.



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Updated 06-09-2010 at 12:31 AM by melev

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Comments

  1. Mits's Avatar
    Looking good! I use Seachem Reef salt and I just tested my calcium to discover a reading of 500 with low alk. I'm thinking of switching too.
  2. melev's Avatar
    I like reading about your updates. It sounds like you've got a good plan formulated for future success.

    There are a number of reefers that score their LFS for brown acros, knowing they will turn into beauties with a little time and TLC. The trick is having an eye for what can be something amazing even though it doesn't look like much now. I can spot those from time to time, much to the LFS owner's surprise.
  3. upster's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by melev
    I like reading about your updates. It sounds like you've got a good plan formulated for future success.

    There are a number of reefers that score their LFS for brown acros, knowing they will turn into beauties with a little time and TLC. The trick is having an eye for what can be something amazing even though it doesn't look like much now. I can spot those from time to time, much to the LFS owner's surprise.
    Agreed, I picked up the the superman monti in the third pic for $10. It is spreading like crazy with a good shade of red and blue. I found that the center portion has really gotten clogged with tightly packed polyps that are actually changing green. I've come across this in a few other posts.

    I still haven't taken the plunge on a high quality Acro colony yet. My mother beat a frugal streak in me! I have yet to stifle all the colour out a healthy frag.

    Do some corals just stay brown? Sometimes I get frustrated that I can hold colours, but I can't dramatically improve them.
  4. melev's Avatar
    I'd have to same the majority of the corals we have access to should not be brown. Sure there are some tan corals out there, but with good water quality, good lighting, and a little luck, every coral should have some nice color to them. Try looking at those same corals from above and let me know what you see.
  5. Hat39406's Avatar
    Upster your setup is still so clean! I'm glad to hear that you had great luck in the algae department, I may have to start fraggin mine, lol. Glad ya having great luck with your Monti's too. Your tank is beautiful. I'm going to do me a sump like that real soon, can't wait, it's up next on the wish list.