Cali Kid Corals

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

Chromis said:
Full tank shot. Went with two Maxspect Gyres, and they’re quieter than my old MP10. The return pump (Skimz quiet DC pump) is quiet except for a very high-pitched hum. Has anyone else heard a high pitch noise coming from their return pump and does it go away?
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Did you seal the wood on your light hood? If not you’ll want to do that sooner than later.
 
Agree it's not best to have it come on for short bursts once in awhile. You will go thru di resin much faster. It is better to have a low level sensor turn it on and a high level turn it off so it runs a couple hours all at once at least.
 
Chromis said:
Three coats of matte spray varnish - sanded after the first and second sprays. Do you think that will work?
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That should be good. In the picture it looked like it was still unfinished.

Coral reefer said:
Agree it's not best to have it come on for short bursts once in awhile. You will go thru di resin much faster. It is better to have a low level sensor turn it on and a high level turn it off so it runs a couple hours all at once at least.
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I think she’s only running ro, no di, so no resin to exhaust but the high tds every time it turns on will go directly into the tank if it’s not flushed first.
 
I’m using the Tunze RO water controller to fill my RODI reservoir automatically in batches and am happy with it. You can do the same thing with Neptune sensors.
 
Coral reefer said:
Agree it's not best to have it come on for short bursts once in awhile. You will go thru di resin much faster. It is better to have a low level sensor turn it on and a high level turn it off so it runs a couple hours all at once at least.
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I think we’re sort of accomplishing having the RO run in “batches” by hooking it to a sprinkler timer on the input side to run 2 consecutive hours per day (max). So far looks like the TDS of the 24GPD RO-only top up is ~4. Maybe it will make sense to set the sprinkler timer to run larger batches every other day. I’ll keep an eye on the TDS.
 
I use a Spectrapure RO/DI system with autoflush. The other unit that I’ve used with autoflush is the RO Buddie.


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Three weeks in, here is what the water chemistry has been doing:

Nitrate and phosphate are at the same levels as in my old 40g (looks like 0 nitrate and .03ppm phosphate), so chaeto seems to be doing what it does.
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I didn’t dose alk until it started to drop after about one week. The corals were probably too shocked or the coralline algae just wasn’t present enough in the new tank to use alk.

I didn’t dose calcium until it dropped below 400ppm after two weeks.

Now at three weeks, my old dosing rate of alk isn’t enough (alk dropped about 0.5dkh) and I’m having to increase alk again. To me this means the sps have recovered and are now growing faster than ever - I expect them to grow faster in the new tank since the water stability should be better with twice the water volume. Also, I improved the flow a lot in the new tank.

The Kessils are at about the old levels, 32%, but I have two T5s on 3 hours a day. I will probably increase the T5s to 5 hrs then start ramping the Kessils up a little.

I added one of those nori feeders and after just lurking around it with suspicion the first few days, my tang gave in and picked it clean in two days. It was really intended to feed the pygmy angel to help with her aggression.
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Looks great!

Btw, I just bought a new refill for the Red Sea phosphate test and it is much improved. Before I couldn’t really tell the difference between low range colors. On this new one, it’s much easier.
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New is above.


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Gablami said:
Looks great!

Btw, I just bought a new refill for the Red Sea phosphate test and it is much improved. Before I couldn’t really tell the difference between low range colors. On this new one, it’s much easier.
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New is above.


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Thanks for the tip!
 
Did my first big-tank water change last weekend, 35 gallons of Fritz saltwater! I was surprised how much detritus managed to accumulate in a very thin layer of coarse substrate (basically Ca reactor media) in the display tank. It really made me think about going bare-bottom. Once the corals grow out I’m not going to be able to siphon most of the bottom of the tank.

I’m still increasing the alk dosage every week.

Here are some photos - the coralline is coming in and starting to outcompete the nasty brown algae that spread from the maleficent acro frag plug. I thought it was fitting that a scourge of algae came from maleficent. It never spread in my old tank, but found a way with the new rocks. If I didn’t have some of my old rocks in the tank (which still did not pick up the algae in the new tank) I’m pretty sure my tank would have succumbed. Goes to show you should always remove frag plugs!

Maleficent with dirty frag plug that I stupidly put in my tank:
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Some Cornbred corals (@tankguy’s Purple fusion and golden jawbreaker acro):
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Pikachu looking better now that it has a home besides a corner frag rack:
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O.P.:
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Chalices (ok now check back in 6 months to see any growth!)
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W.D.:
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Little baby HWs (showing PE tho!):
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