Cook's 40 Gallon Breeder Frag Tank
- Thread starter Cook
- Start date
Looks like a lab. So clean.
That's because I setup my Coral QT as needed and pull the water to fill it and biological media out of my frag tank. It's dirty now, but also almost time to take it down again until the next time.
It seems that things always get worse before they get better. I finished off most of the rest of my SPS with what I think was an unintended Alkalinity increase, I was taking it slow and still somehow went from 7.2 to 8.5 dkH. I think I double added the alkalinity one morning, but I'm really not sure. That's the part of this hobby that is brutal. Nothing to show for the money but some white coral skeletons. If there is a silver lining, it seems that my Walt Disney acros don't really care, both colonies are still fine.
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Here is a note of caution as well. Consider whether it is really worth it to save the money when buying used high dollar pieces of reef equipment. It's taken a week to get my calcium reactor going and it's been a battle. There are so many places for leaks to occur and I've replaced 3 John guest adapters so far, the old ones were all leaking around the tubing. I think I have finally gotten these leaks taken care of. The pH probe holder is also cracked at the seal, but so far it's not leaking. I have a replacement on order. With all the on and off of the lids, I learned that I needed to add a check value to the input because when the pump is turned off the reactor input siphons back into the sump, in retrospect that should have been obvious. I don't have the CO2 on at the moment, so no worries about further Alkalinity increases.
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Some hard lessons but thanks for sharing. I'm heavily considering a frag tank when things are growing. It'd be nice just to have some duplicates if things go sideways in the DT. I get the need for dosing and reactors when keeping a lot of sps happy but it sure seems like that is the weak point in so many tanks.
I didn’t start out to go this way either, but the used prices were cheap when I bought these. The perceived complexity of it was what kept me from doing anything with it previously. It’s not that bad once it’s set up. I tend to be a collector and this particular hobby is an easy way to find yourself on an episode of Hoarders if you are not careful.
This was an all day project, but now leak free at least. Kalk reactor is separate and is using a BRS doser. Everything is handled through a Profilux Mini WI-FI.
This was an all day project, but now leak free at least. Kalk reactor is separate and is using a BRS doser. Everything is handled through a Profilux Mini WI-FI.
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Tell me about it. I've been back in it for just a few months and have 2 spare pendants, 1 spare ballast, and 2 spare big mogul MH reflectors. Wife is thoroughly impressed.
I altered my tank layout and finally got both MP10’s back online to increase flow. My clowns are unhappy because they were hosting the GHA that was taking over the top rack and now they have to swim again.
That looks like T5 hybrid lights. What are those in the center?
Yes it is an aquatic life Hybrid T5 with two Blue Plus, a Coral Plus, and an Actinic bulb. I use that combination on both my tanks so I can switch corals between them without potential acclimation issues. The LED is a GHL Mitras LX 7206. I have it adjusted to the Coral AB+ spectrum to match a Radion.
So, GHA seems to be what I am best at growing lately. The alkalinity is at least consistent now with the calcium reactor tuned in.
Today's parameters are:
Salinity 1.025
Alkalinity - 8.3
Phosphate - 0.16 (Time to change the Rowaphos and possibly the reactor pump).
Nitrate - 0
Calcium - 432
Magnesium - 1425
I just moved to the Nyos test for nitrate and it is easier to read than the Salifert. I will dose nitrate (target ~2ppm for now) to see if I can get the nitrate off the bottom.
Today's parameters are:
Salinity 1.025
Alkalinity - 8.3
Phosphate - 0.16 (Time to change the Rowaphos and possibly the reactor pump).
Nitrate - 0
Calcium - 432
Magnesium - 1425
I just moved to the Nyos test for nitrate and it is easier to read than the Salifert. I will dose nitrate (target ~2ppm for now) to see if I can get the nitrate off the bottom.
In my opinion if you got GHA growing then you should not be dosing nitrates, they are bottomed out by the algae growth. You effectively are turning your DT into a fuge with good lighting if GHA is taking off and you are dosing nitrates.
If you are running a refugium increase that lighting and hit the DT hard with turbos and manual removal that *should* knock back GHA.
If you want a couple turbos I've got a couple that are gonna be hungry soon here. They helped wrap up a pretty gnarly hair algae bloom of some sort post cycle, need to thin the herd now.
@90gDreams, thanks for the feedback. Let me know when you want to move the turbo's, I don't have a lot of snails in this tank at the moment. The issue I have right now is that I have a couple of tester SPS frags in this tank that are going pale. Lighting hasn't changed and alkalinity is stable. When I lost my SPS in this tank before I believe it really was the combination of alkalinity swings and low nutrients that did them in. I'll update my other tank thread for what's going on with it and we can continue this discussion.
Anytime you want to swing up to Cumming on a weekend they are yours, just let me know.
What happened?
These are from before when I thought I had pests but instead had alkalinity swings plus low nutrients. Just cleaning up my garage to make room for reefing stuff that needs to live somewhere other than my game room. Also, the total damage from all my ignorance is closer to $1200. Don’t cry too much for the home wrecker, I only paid $20 for that one. Anyone want to sell me another one for $20? 
