got ethical husbandry?

Derek's 225g - Magnifica / SPS Reef

MichaelB said:
How much water can u make/store a day.

To be able to do multiple 60gal water changes on 1 weekend Wow.

I have 2 55gal barrels but couldn't currently even mix one of those barrels to get get 50gallon of salt mixed.

Beyond mixing salt in the tank themselves. (Still need to get the mixing barrel set up with pumps or whatever crap is needed to mix and move water from one barrel to other. , I only have the one to hold the rodi water currently in use. I use a bucket to scoop water from that barrel to 5 gallon buckets and hand mix my salts. Don't have a way to mix salt in the other barrel I have yet beyond maybe a 2×4)

I can't currently fathom being able to change so much water multiple times on one weekend. Even if my other barrel was set up to mix salt water.

Takes me a few hours to even heat up 5gallon buckets of saltwater. Couldn't imagine how long to heat up 60 gallons in a emergency, right now it probably take me 24hrs unless I heated water on the stove or propane burner.

All that to say your setup has to be crazy efficent to go between auto water changes, to being able to do massive water changes.

Definitely something I would like to work out a plan to get to the capacity like you. Especially with my 210gallon in the works.
Click to expand...

It's really pretty simple, you should be able to do it with your 2x 55g barrels. Mine are 65g but that's all I have. I stick a cheap jebao in the bottom of one to handle the actual mixing. And like Randy and Mike said above, I don't bother heating it unless it's like a cold winter morning.

Here's my mixing station:

1748894464643.png


Pump RODI from the right barrel to the left barrel, turn on the jebao, dump a bag of salt in the top, wait 5 minutes and check salinity, adjust, pump the water into the DT using the long hose you see. About as easy as it gets!
 
derek_SR said:
It's really pretty simple, you should be able to do it with your 2x 55g barrels. Mine are 65g but that's all I have. I stick a cheap jebao in the bottom of one to handle the actual mixing. And like Randy and Mike said above, I don't bother heating it unless it's like a cold winter morning.

Here's my mixing station:

View attachment 69892

Pump RODI from the right barrel to the left barrel, turn on the jebao, dump a bag of salt in the top, wait 5 minutes and check salinity, adjust, pump the water into the DT using the long hose you see. About as easy as it gets!
Click to expand...
Mine looks the same minus the fancy pvc pipes. One suggestion is mark from the top of your RODI container to where 40 gallons of water is. Pump out 40 gallons of water and dump a whole back of IO or RC into the salt mixing tank. You won't even have to check salinity.
 
What brand of salt you using now? Curious how clean the inside of the mixing station stays and if you need to get out any precipitate.

I bet you've reached the level of coral mass to where your food input and water changes are eating up the phosphate now to where you may need to start adding it in the future.

No powdered or liquid foods?
 
Darkxerox said:
What brand of salt you using now? Curious how clean the inside of the mixing station stays and if you need to get out any precipitate.

I bet you've reached the level of coral mass to where your food input and water changes are eating up the phosphate now to where you may need to start adding it in the future.

No powdered or liquid foods?
Click to expand...

I have several brands stockpiled in the garage, last couple boxes have been IO and a box of RC also. I do get some of the brown gunk in my mixing container but have yet to clean it in 2+ years.

No powdered or liquid foods. Just the pellets, freeze dried mysis, nori, and frozen seafood slurry.
 
Coral reefer said:
Low temp can change salinity readings so beware of that too
Click to expand...
Is that dependant on what you're using for the reading? I know TM hydrometer says 77°. Conductivity meters (some of them) have temp compensation I thought?

How do you account for the low temp mixing/using to know you're accurate?
 
ReyDeFarts said:
Is that dependant on what you're using for the reading? I know TM hydrometer says 77°. Conductivity meters (some of them) have temp compensation I thought?

How do you account for the low temp mixing/using to know you're accurate?
Click to expand...
reefapp.net

Salinity calculator

A unit converter for calculating salinity in marine aquariums. The calculator supports conductivity (mS/cm), salinity (PSU og ppt), density (g/cm³) og specific gravity.
reefapp.net reefapp.net

 
I finally sent in an Aquabiomics test. I didn't really expect to get any ACTIONABLE insights but I was super curious, and I will send another in a couple of months.

My "diversity" score was very high (94th percentile) which I guess is generally a good thing:

1748964981924.png



However the "Balance" score was low, which is a little more nebulous but it's their way of measuring the similarity in composition between my tank and other tanks. Meaning that while my tank is very diverse, it's also very different:

1748965969894.png



The primary "difference" seems to be a lack of pelagibacteraceae, which is seen a lot on reefs in the ocean and is often associated with mature, healthy reef tanks (apparently):

1748966027297.png


Other than cyano that comes and goes, my tank is generally very healthy and growing well. So not really worried about this, although it's interesting. Their suggestion to improve my population of this bacteria is to "stop running UV" but I haven't run UV in over a year.

I have done a ton of water changes as noted earlier, so perhaps this is a reason. Or, more likely, there's some other bacterial processes and shenanigans going on and so who knows!

What would be far more useful with these results is if you could signal basic husbandry associated with your sample - carbon dosing, water change frequency, type of food, filtration, etc etc. Then they could start associating results with certain husbandry profiles and provide more actionable recommendations.

Some of the other results they give you, my nitrifying community is strong:

1748966398531.png


Above average cyano, as expected (specifically one type):
1748966440587.png


Some fish pathogens, although only slightly above typical:
1748966499796.png


No known coral pathogens:

1748966520685.png
 
derek_SR said:
I finally sent in an Aquabiomics test. I didn't really expect to get any ACTIONABLE insights but I was super curious, and I will send another in a couple of months.

My "diversity" score was very high (94th percentile) which I guess is generally a good thing:

View attachment 69916


However the "Balance" score was low, which is a little more nebulous but it's their way of measuring the similarity in composition between my tank and other tanks. Meaning that while my tank is very diverse, it's also very different:

View attachment 69918


The primary "difference" seems to be a lack of pelagibacteraceae, which is seen a lot on reefs in the ocean and is often associated with mature, healthy reef tanks (apparently):

View attachment 69919

Other than cyano that comes and goes, my tank is generally very healthy and growing well. So not really worried about this, although it's interesting. Their suggestion to improve my population of this bacteria is to "stop running UV" but I haven't run UV in over a year.

I have done a ton of water changes as noted earlier, so perhaps this is a reason. Or, more likely, there's some other bacterial processes and shenanigans going on and so who knows!

What would be far more useful with these results is if you could signal basic husbandry associated with your sample - carbon dosing, water change frequency, type of food, filtration, etc etc. Then they could start associating results with certain husbandry profiles and provide more actionable recommendations.

Some of the other results they give you, my nitrifying community is strong:

View attachment 69920

Above average cyano, as expected (specifically one type):
View attachment 69921

Some fish pathogens, although only slightly above typical:
View attachment 69922

No known coral pathogens:

View attachment 69923
Click to expand...
Did you get both the microbiome and the tank DNA test?
 
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