Evan's 120

October 2017


Edited by evan127 - October 29 2017 at 12:43pm

Things are going pretty well so far. I have a bit of a bacteria bloom right now.

This is my view from my spot on the couch.

Awesome update!

Cool! The chromis look nice in there with all the space.

I thought I would make a small update.

Lighting: I have decided that I need to reduce my photoperiod a bit. Lights are on from 12:00 to 19:00, full spectrum on from 13:00 to 18:00. I was seeing some corals brown and some bleach a tad. I think it was just too much light for too long, even with my high nutrients.

Nutrients: Things are tough when you don't have a ton of fish in your system. :closedeyes: With such a low bioload, I am pouring in gallons of potassium nitrate. No, not really gallons, but upwards of 25ml per day erherm... Phosphorus is literally not showing up on each test result. I guess it might be time to look into phosphate dosing.

Flow: To be honest, either its user error or I made a bad choice based on technical information, I don't care for the Gyre by itself. Thus why I am looking to trade it away. For whatever reason, in my system, the flow is just not great. I have tried positioning it high, low, to the left a bit, angle the cages up, down, left, right, tilted opposite, everything. I can not get a gyre to circulate in my tank well. Even with my shallow aquascape.

Filtration: I am trying to keep a dirty tank. Its more difficult than I thought. I have always had issues with keeping my inevitable ULNS in the past. One of my new years goals regarding reef keeping was to keep a nutrient rich system. Besides dumping in buckets of potassium nitrate every day and feeding fish 3 to 4 times a day and corals once a day, I am struggling to keep nutrients high. Which brings me to my next point.

Fish: What anthias should I add? I am thinking of adding 2 groups of anthias. One group of 2 females, one male of lyretail. The second group would be maybe 4 female and 1 male of bartlett's. I have thought about adding 8 to 9 more blue green chromis. But that seems kind of boring.

I'm leaning towards just they lyretails right now. Why do you think the bartletts have a bad reputation?

Bartletts can be little jerks.

kevin.st wrote: Bartletts can be little jerks.

Little jerks. I don't want jerks in my reef!

Thanks for the response. I need to make another batch of potassium nitrate and this time I will make it more potent so I'm not putting in a ton of fresh water each dose. Instead of 2 cups or RODI water per tablespoon of potassium nitrate, I might halve the RODI. As far as potassium, that's something I am also trying to dose. But even with the amount of KNO3 I am dosing, K hasn't increased noticeably whatsoever.

That is an excellent point about KNO3 driving down PO4. I've supplemented my fish foods to compensate for that already. I've been adding lots of pellet food (which none of my fish like). So there is a nutrient rich breakdown there. I also feed phytoplankton, Pohls Coral Vitalizer, Reef Chili, and soon Acropower at night when the lights are off. I alternate each night with a different food for the corals.

Someone asked me privately what I use to test my water chemistry. I have used the Red Sea Pro kits for many years. Its very cost effective and each refill of the reagents are spot on, batch to batch. I use the Red Sea kit for alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, nitrate, potassium, iron, and iodine. I rarely test for iron or iodine. For phosphate I use a Hanna checker, which I have been happy with.

I am using good ole Spectracide. I called the company 3 times and talked to 3 different people who all said it was 100% pure potassium nitrate. I was super nervous starting to dose dissolved tree stump remover in September.