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Journal 300

seedoubleyou said:
How is this planted mate? In sand or just roots in water?
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Hey @seedoubleyou , it is just clipped to the inside of the weir box for now:

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The base is in one of those hydroponic pots for the roots to grab onto with another clip and suction cup to the side.

Been kicking around the idea of creating a macroalgae lagoon tank, but managed to resist the temptation so far… was planning to have the red mangrove as a focal point.
 
There are some fantastic tanks online utilising mature mangroves as the sole focal point of the aquarium.
I’ve always wanted to try one but you hear the horror stories of roots smashing glass.
They’re great natural filters for reef aquariums.
 
seedoubleyou said:
I’ve always wanted to try one but you hear the horror stories of roots smashing glass.
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Yeah heard that too. Not to be out there but… Using the power of just two eyeballs 👀 monitor it and just trim the roots 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Just shy of 11 months:

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Some things getting towards being colony size:

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As predicted, windows open has stabilised pH and seeing some decent growth.
 
seedoubleyou said:
Looking good. Are you running a refugium on this?
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Apologies @seedoubleyou didn't see the notification 😔

No refugium…. Feed this system very heavily by anyone’s standards so it wouldn’t be the appropriate tool. Using a filter roller, skimmer, UV and two reactors. Gone back to 1/3 water changes weekly as well.
 
Geoffrey Rea said:
Apologies @seedoubleyou didn't see the notification 😔

No refugium…. Feed this system very heavily by anyone’s standards so it wouldn’t be the appropriate tool. Using a filter roller, skimmer, UV and two reactors. Gone back to 1/3 water changes weekly as well.
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No apologies needed mate. The forums been pretty busy the past few days and it can’t be easy juggling two journals of your own.

I was going to suggest a reverse cycle on a refugium (light on at night) to help balance PH.
It’s something I will look at with my reef tank, however I’ll run an algae reactor as I don’t have a sump.
 
seedoubleyou said:
I was going to suggest a reverse cycle on a refugium (light on at night) to help balance PH.
It’s something I will look at with my reef tank, however I’ll run an algae reactor as I don’t have a sump.
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Aspiring to collect enough knowledge to run a counterbalancing system. Reef above, plants below.

The whole thing would have to be designed at inception though and as much as it is tempting, swapping out the current sump for an all out refugium wouldn’t work on this setup.

Plant and coral in balance is perhaps the most graceful arrangement you can have. It could also be two displays bunk bed style. pH being balanced through lighting input would be a nice byproduct.
 
Geoffrey Rea said:
It could also be two displays bunk bed style.
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That really would be something and I’ve seen one or two before where they essentially have a coral display above and a macro algae tank below filtering the above.
You get great filtration and two displays, both of which can house completely different livestock, the aforementioned housed seahorse in below display if memory serves.
 
Turns out the reef was one year old on August 17th, making the last update post sort of the anniversary…. Oh well 🤷🏻‍♂️

In other news, upgrade:

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Focusing on monitoring, some automation and redundancy.

The Apex A3 Pro already comes with pH/ORP/temp probes so have a start on gathering continued data 24/7. It’s available on the phone anywhere, anytime, which makes it a sort of sub-hobby to view the tank from a measuring perspective.

Next round will be continuous automatic testing of Ca/Mg/Alk along with secondary testing with calibrated Hanna checkers and tertiary Salifert testing:

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Considering a fourth layer of monthly ICP testing, but it’s debatable as to its function for the aims in the next year… it’s too infrequent and not to mention, pricey, for what is effectively a measurement of week old samples by the time the lab process it. Either way, aim is to gather as much data over the next twelve months by any means possible.

At the forefront is being cognizant that all testing is prone to error. The maintenance routine and adjustments to dosing are guided, as they have been in the first year, by what can be seen happening in the system, what you can smell and what you can touch. The testing just helps reassure the intuitions you have on what to execute. May sound a bit weird to some but a healthy reef tank smells great.

Much like the planted side, personally not much interested in what is in the water. Very interested in nutrient direction and destination. The testing is just the vehicle for getting to the desired wisdom.

Will be interesting to see if the juice is worth the squeeze with this time investment, but who knows. Could be all for nothing. However, have always enjoyed putting a finger on the pulse of a tank/system, so at least it’s guaranteed to give a little joy.
 
I think it's interesting but I wouldn't have a clue what the outcome of tests mean, unless it was ammonia to high or nitrates but I havnt testes my nano since the nitrogen cycle 🙄.

I know in my nano with weekly water changes it is less important , especially when you have a large tank with a lot of money of corals so you want to look after and know what's going on. Be interesting to see what each test means and does.

I don't think I will ever have time and knowledge to be able to run a large reef, I suppose same goes with fresh water, some people delve massively into the science however for me once I had the right equipment and enough basic knowledge it ran smoothly and I really enjoyed it, it great to want to know the ins and outs and the people who do are invaluable, and I know what you are like @Geoffrey Rea 😁 keep it up

Thanks dean
 
Removed a few colonies for improved light and flow. Let the rest battle it out for the new real estate. Moved the odd frag into more appropriate locations whilst at it so we’ll see how they go:

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Also trying to be good and leaving some diatoms on the sand to boost the copepod population up. Just the odd dusting here and there but so very tempting to just blast them away. Must resist though for the greater good.

Stuff is just trucking along, few shots whilst the pumps were off today:

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Hello again, it’s been a couple of months so lots to share, long post warning ⚠️ Part 1 of 2…

The tank has made quite a few demands in this time due to its age so required a fair few adjustments.

First was nitrate and phosphate control beyond water changes, numbers were climbing despite 1/3 weekly water changes. A lot of the rock is over two years old now and it’s porosity replaced by crud. Utilised NO3 : PO4 - X (carbon dosing) to draw out reserves in the system, kept this up for about three weeks.

It worked, got numbers that would make almost all reefkeepers happy… but with the power of two eyeballs it was plain to see that this wasn’t providing the diversity we desire; opaque bacterial film on the glass rather than algal film to scrape off, lifeless clean sand, absence of copepods. Back to the drawing board… Carbon dosing be gone!! 🪄 ❌

Not a worthless exercise however. With the refresh/depletion of the nutrient stores in the hardscape we’re back to predictable weekly numbers when testing for now. Hardscape almost like new. Next system change…

Increased flow… sort of. Used to have the same flow 24 hours per day.

Now, 12 hours of firm wave flow during lighting period, 12 hours of consistent reduced flow at night. Corals happier exhibiting feeding responses at night, fish happier resting in calm water, more crud making it into the sump everyday; equity. Can now mainly concentrate on sump cleaning during water changes. Bang for your buck has just gone up.

Redesigned the sump to meet the new needs. UV out, reactors for activated carbon and phosphate removal out, refugium in:

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Filter roller and skimmer in the first chamber with some water bypassing the filter roller:

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Pint of pods in and abundance of them back in the display - winner.

Next… Apex monitoring of pH and ORP:

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In a nutshell, pH range was 💩 😮 💩

At night plummeting to 7.5 and at highest 7.9 with the windows all open, 7.7 being the high with a sealed building. Not trusting the one calibrated probe, used two other pH testing methods and yep, pH pretty shocking for a reef tank. Daft thing is looking at the tank and coral growth, you would never suspect it was oscillating in such a low range.

Good news is uptake of Ca and dKH for skeletal growth is high… valid reason for dosing Kalkwasser (lime water) which gives a pH boost by utilising co2 to release alkality.

Kalkwasser now being dosed day and night every two hours:

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Refugium light running at night now as well and pH range is 7.8 low and 8.1 high. Suspect as the chaetomorpha mass increases we can shift this range up a couple of points to 8.0 and 8.3. Give it some time…
 
Treat us with a FTS?

Great update, I’m carbon dosing and striving for a bacteria driven tank, but you’re right, it’s almost lifeless in there. My tank is immaculate which is great, but not seeing much micro life.

Looking forward to P2.
 
Part 2 of 2…

So a lot of ball ache just to get back to where the tank was 6 months ago. The ‘problems’ being solved are difficult to understand, what exactly happens if it’s left to escalate? Does your head fall off and your bum explode?

The tank at the height of its ‘problems’:

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The abstraction of monitoring numbers that are bothersome according to regurgitated advice, whilst viewing conflicting visually appealing results is confusing. Just leaves sniffing water and putting your hands in the tank to poke the bear… water smells like a healthy acro tank if you’ve ever been weird enough to sniff one. Snapping off branches takes an adults full strength using bone cutters, the corals aren’t suffering osteoporosis 🤷🏻‍♂️

Turns out 535 million years of existence and corals are quite the adaptable customer being a self acclimating animal. Hasten to add that our tanks are nothing like the sea, nor are most things we do as hobbyists as drastic as a mass extinction event, or several.

Into our second year now (one year, three months) and learning to relax a little, play a little, stretch the rules a little. Tank has held its own up to now:

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Have been very patient with the acro frags dead centre along with the yellow ‘kung pao’ montipora frag on the tip on the right hand side. Painfully slow progress to get them to pool out:

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The only thing to provide that they need to get cracking is more even lighting.

So let there be light:

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The two Kessil 500X’s have been running at 100% for quite a while. There’s shadowing from some of the colonies so employing three fill lights to even the playing field:

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It’s fair to say that all the corals are now receiving more PAR than is considered usual for their range. They have had time to adapt to these lighting levels over the last year, the fill light is covering the harder to reach areas now. Flow is aggressive during the day. Nutrient input is an ever increasing target.

There’s plenty of room left for growth, and expecting this second year will be a year of respectable colonies coming into fruition:

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Other fun things…

The clowns are breeding on the regular:

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Now the Harlequin shrimp has been removed we have a Fromia indica starfish:

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