Cali Kid Corals

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?
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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
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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
 
MichaelB said:
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
Click to expand...
Just grab a cheap 600watt heater on amazon for like 30 bucks! Will only take about ten minutes to heat 5 gallons and save electricity cost vs hours of soaking!
 
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?
 
So the PNSB that @H2OPlayar mentioned in his thread got me thinking about my AB results. PNSB is apparently a pelagic strain of bacteria - "Rhodopseudomonas palustris." This bacteria is not actually part of the "Rhodobacteraceae" family as the name would suggest (which my tank has plenty of - the orange band), but actually part of the "Nitrobacteraceae" family which shares the same phylum (Pseudomonadota) as the Pelagibacteraceae (pink band) that my tank is "missing." Discussed this briefly with @Darkxerox but curious if anyone else has a take.

I emailed Eli at AB to ask about this, since maybe dosing some PNSB is a way of getting that bacteria into my tank. R. palustris does seem to be a legit strain of pelagic bacteria that exists in high quanties on reefs, among other aquatic and marine environments, so it seems like a worthy experiment. Especially since my tank is missing this sort of bacteria according to my AB result. I hit up @Coral Hub (Nathan) to see if that's what is in his product and will buy locally if possible, otherwise I'll probably try the PNS Pro Bio product.
 
derek_SR said:
So the PNSB that @H2OPlayar mentioned in his thread got me thinking about my AB results. PNSB is apparently a pelagic strain of bacteria - "Rhodopseudomonas palustris." This bacteria is not actually part of the "Rhodobacteraceae" family as the name would suggest (which my tank has plenty of - the orange band), but actually part of the "Nitrobacteraceae" family which shares the same phylum (Pseudomonadota) as the Pelagibacteraceae (pink band) that my tank is "missing." Discussed this briefly with @Darkxerox but curious if anyone else has a take.

I emailed Eli at AB to ask about this, since maybe dosing some PNSB is a way of getting that bacteria into my tank. R. palustris does seem to be a legit strain of pelagic bacteria that exists in high quanties on reefs, among other aquatic and marine environments, so it seems like a worthy experiment. Especially since my tank is missing this sort of bacteria according to my AB result. I hit up @Coral Hub (Nathan) to see if that's what is in his product and will buy locally if possible, otherwise I'll probably try the PNS Pro Bio product.
Click to expand...
I got mine from Nathan shipped out here.
 
H2OPlayar said:
I got mine from Nathan shipped out here.
Click to expand...
I did too. Dosed it into two different tanks. I should have got more with my recent phyto order, but I wanted to go this route vs carbon (vinegar) dosing to help with my elevated nitrates. Which I'm not entirely worried about but still want to get a handle on them.
 
ReyDeFarts said:
I did too. Dosed it into two different tanks. I should have got more with my recent phyto order, but I wanted to go this route vs carbon (vinegar) dosing to help with my elevated nitrates. Which I'm not entirely worried about but still want to get a handle on them.
Click to expand...

Are you dosing daily or did you just dump a bottle in?
 
I used the PNS deep cycle one when cycling my tank. I soaked 2 Genesis blocks for a day and injected the rest in the substrate using an oral syringe.

Below is a clip of my aquabiomics report before I added different types of live rock. 2 weeks before this sample was taken, the only bacterial additions were from the tropic eden live sand, PNS deep cycle, and polyplab Genesis bacteria.
Screenshot_20250607-170358_Chrome.jpg

Note the lack of pelagibacteraceae. And that was after finishing a bottle meant to treat 400 gallons. While, yes, I do run a UV..it was off at that time since there was no livestock.
 
finalphaze987 said:
I used the PNS deep cycle one when cycling my tank. I soaked 2 Genesis blocks for a day and injected the rest in the substrate using an oral syringe.

Below is a clip of my aquabiomics report before I added different types of live rock. 2 weeks before this sample was taken, the only bacterial additions were from the tropic eden live sand, PNS deep cycle, and polyplab Genesis bacteria.
View attachment 70006
Note the lack of pelagibacteraceae. And that was after finishing a bottle meant to treat 400 gallons. While, yes, I do run a UV..it was off at that time since there was no livestock.
Click to expand...

PNS deep cycle is a completely different group of bacteria (according to their product page) - I haven’t looked any of them up yet, but if it’s for cycling it’s likely not intended to be pelagic.

I’ll perform another AB test after dosing the gallon of R. palustris from @Coral Hub (Nathan) and share the results.

Edit - the three bacteria listed in PNS Deep Cycle are:

Prosthecochloris aestuarii - A member of the Chlorobiaceae family, does not appear to be pelagic based on the wiki page.
Rhodovolum sp. - A member of the Rhodobacteraceae family which does show up in your sample (and mine), not sure which species exactly so not much info.
Prosthecochloris sp - A member of the Chromatiaceae family, not much info since again no specific species. But not pelagibacteraceae, though does share the same phylum like R. palustris.
 
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