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Dave’s 230 Gallon Reef

tankguy said:
question on your sump light. Is it better to run the kessil you are using instead of just any ordinary light you would use in an garage? The reason I ask is that Ive been running an ordinary light for my sump and cant keep chaeto at all
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Before purchasing a new light, you might want to try dosing a little iron and see if that helps. Iron gets depleted quickly when running a refugium. It could be what is limiting your growth.
 
Zumareef said:
Good choice with the KP live rock, I too added about 30lbs of it to my tank and sometimes I find myself more interested in the life on the LR as opposed to the macro corals!
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I agree. I love all the diversity that comes with the rock. I feel it “helps” with success...not that one can’t be successful without it.
 
JVU said:
Having a powerful spectrum-appropriate grow light is the single most important thing for refugium success in my opinion. I have the Kessil H380, and it works dramatically better than a variety of less expensive lights I’ve tried before.
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I chose to try the newer H160 that is less powerful than the H380 (40 watts vs 90 watts). I hope it will perform well. Time will tell if I need to upgrade it or not. I have not seen much info on the H160 and unfortunately, it wasn’t available when BRS reviewed refugium lights.



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ddrueckh said:
I chose to try the newer H160 that is less powerful than the H380 (40 watts vs 90 watts). I hope it will perform well. Time will tell if I need to upgrade it or not.
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Should be fine, I’m only running an H80 on my chaeto and the result in my 90g is <0.2 ppm nitrate and 0.04 ppm phosphates. I also don’t use any denitrification blocks. If I upgraded to a bigger tank I’d opt for the more controllable H160 too.
 
My protein skimmer and pump arrived earlier this week. I found some time this evening to assemble the skimmer and got it running. The skimmer came very well packaged and the build quality is very nice. I can’t wait to see how it performs over time.

 
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ddrueckh said:
My protein skimmer and pump arrived earlier this week. I found some time this evening to assemble the skimmer and got it running. The skimmer came very well packaged and the build quality is very nice. I can’t wait to see how it performs over time.

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What pump are you using with the lifereef?


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I am using a Fluval SP-4. I use two more of these as my returns. This way I can keep one spare on hand that can replace any of my pumps. They are very quiet for an AC pump. I have not been sold on DC pumps yet. They cost twice as much, have more components that can fail and don’t seem to last as long as AC pumps. To me, these issues are not worth the quietness of a DC pump. I also don’t have a need to change speeds. I just chose an appropriately sized pump to start with and have a ball valve just in case I need to turn them down a little. They all run full throttle. This is much more info than you asked for. I will stop now [emoji3]
 
Those sp4 are cool I picked up one from Amazon but the cord seems so fragile and thin kind of scared me. I tried it on my lifereef and the results isn't that great compare to the dcp10000. But I'm not sure mine ever got that many bubbles like yours. I'll have to talk to Jeff some more on this.


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Just a quick update. I transferred my fish and a couple of corals from my old tank to the new one everything is doing great. My Chaeto is growing nicely under the Kessil. So far, the uglies have not been too bad...knock on wood.


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So far, everything has been very stable. I have been dosing 18ml of ESV 2 part every day with a DOS.
Alk 7.6
Calcium 400
Mag 1320

I added an Orangeshoulder Tang and a Tomini tang about 2 1/2 weeks ago. They are eating and doing well.

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Just a quick video update. Everything is going well. The only issue I have is low nutrients. I am feeding more, shortened my refugium photoperiod, trimmed my chaeto, and turned down the refugium light intensity in hopes of raising nutrients.

 
Looks good!

Is that a Pyramid Butterfly?
Any sign of it picking at softies?
I have been tempted.

I would not change quite so many nutrient things at once though.
 
I have 0 nitrate and phosphate. I didn’t change all these things at the same time. It has been a slow change. I am now seeing a trace of nitrate so it is going in the right direction. I think my SPS were pretty pale so trying to get more color out of them.

I have also been adding more fish. Here is the list so far:
1 Yellow Tang
1 Orangeshoulder Tang
1 Tomini Tang
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Pyramid Butterfly
1 Percula. Clown
2 Firefish
1 cardinal
9 chromis
2 Lyretail Anthias

I am toying with the idea of adding a juvenile Emperor Angel...

So far no problems with either butterfly but should note I only have one soft coral (pipe organ). Other than that I have LPS and SPS.
 
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Feed your fish more
The grazers graze...all day

They should be offered food 5 times a day
They spend a large amount of energy swimming about the tank
Even the “stationary” ones
Feed your fish
 
The orange shoulder and emperor might get along, or might not. Starting young should help.
The emperor should be reef safe for a while, may or may not be long term...
The emperor is a fish I have also been tempted to get, but always chicken out.
 
ashburn2k said:
how long have you had that copperband? and what do you feed it.
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I have had the Copperband for about 2 months. I saw him eat at the LFS. I feed all my fish a mix of:
-Brine Shrimp
-Mysis Shrinp
-Rods Food Original
-Herbivore Frenzy
I feed 3-5 times a day depending on the day.
I also put 1/2 sheet of nori on clips in the tank each day.
 
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