Kessil

Derek's 225g - Magnifica / SPS Reef

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Noticed my big dragon soul torch suddenly has a couple very unhappy heads. Is this brown jelly disease? Something else? Seems to be already very rapidly from head to head.

Going to try and pull it for a KFC dip unless there’s a better suggestion.
Hard to tell in the pic, but are the tentacles doing a “Curley Q” thing? It looks like they could be. Any other Euphylia look like this in the tank? If so it looks
Like you have an undesirable bacteria in the water column. UV will help this!
Chemiclean as well but that’s another ballgame.
 
I think you said radions have a glare that bothers you? Like light spill above the tank? Does it bother you even with diffusers on them?

Yeah - the diffusers help but still bug me. I have little kids running around the tank too and want to minimize zapping any eyes, the tank is right in the entry way of the house and dining area as well.
 
Hard to tell in the pic, but are the tentacles doing a “Curley Q” thing? It looks like they could be. Any other Euphylia look like this in the tank? If so it looks
Like you have an undesirable bacteria in the water column. UV will help this!
Chemiclean as well but that’s another ballgame.

No other euphylia was affected, although I don't have a lot. That funky blue one that Ruby picked out from you a couple visits ago, and then two hammers. She loves her shell btw! :D

Chopping it up seemed to do the trick, and I have a couple really healthy frags now.
 
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Tank is doing really well, just sharing some pics.

No3 is around 60, po4 staying around .15 with lanthanum. Alk is down to 6.5 - slowly catching up to additional consumption with the new lights (ESV 2part).
Skimming fairly dry, still slow-dosing Isol8 trace.
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Not a big fan of blues generally, but the tank goes through a deep blue phase very early in the morning and right before bed:
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Tank is doing really well, just sharing some pics.

No3 is around 60, po4 staying around .15 with lanthanum. Alk is down to 6.5 - slowly catching up to additional consumption with the new lights (ESV 2part).
Skimming fairly dry, still slow-dosing Isol8 trace.
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Not a big fan of blues generally, but the tank goes through a deep blue phase very early in the morning and right before bed:
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Everything is looking great, Derek. Well done!

With your Alk at 6.5, what is your PH? Reason I am asking is that I am trying to follow Fauna Marin’s (and Captiv8) parameter recommendations, and Fauna Marin considers 7.3 the ideal Alk value, vs. me trying to stay between 8 and 8.5. However, my PH is already never going higher than 8.2 (if CO2 is at 500-550), and adding less Kalkwasser will further lower this I assume.
 
Everything is looking great, Derek. Well done!

With your Alk at 6.5, what is your PH? Reason I am asking is that I am trying to follow Fauna Marin’s (and Captiv8) parameter recommendations, and Fauna Marin considers 7.3 the ideal Alk value, vs. me trying to stay between 8 and 8.5. However, my PH is already never going higher than 8.2 (if CO2 is at 500-550), and adding less Kalkwasser will further lower this I assume.

My PH is pretty much always 8.0 - 8.3. I don't think the difference in Alk at these levels has that dramatic of an effect, I think I linked the table somewhere, maybe in Rey's thread. I try not to worry about PH anymore for the reasons I posted in that thread. My Alk actually swings around quite a lot between 6.5 and 8.5 and I can't say I've ever noticed any difference between the levels or any impact from the swings!

You can turn the LED display off on the lights in the settings too if you want to. I like having them off because if it turns on I know there was a brief power outage!

Awesome idea! The LEDs are still novel for me though, I think they are cool. :p I am sure I will turn them off eventually.
 
My PH is pretty much always 8.0 - 8.3. I don't think the difference in Alk at these levels has that dramatic of an effect, I think I linked the table somewhere, maybe in Rey's thread. I try not to worry about PH anymore for the reasons I posted in that thread. My Alk actually swings around quite a lot between 6.5 and 8.5 and I can't say I've ever noticed any difference between the levels or any impact from the swings!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/co2sys-marine-tank-table-for-ph-dkh-co2.786401/ <- @Alexander1312 here's the table. Looks like the difference between PH at ~500 CO2 is about .1 between 6.5 alk and 8.5alk. I guess that's slightly more significant than I thought, but still not huge.

I should clarify my alk swing comment - it only swings UP to 8.5 or so when I do water changes, because my salt mixes higher. Then gradually falls down to 6.5-7.0 before doing another WC. Typically..
 
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Swapped my XF350 pumps yesterday and found both impellers showing signs of rust/cracking.

So that's 4/4 that have failed in 6-8 months of use. They're all out of warranty now unfortunately, purchased a little over a year ago. I guess that's the downside of purchasing spares (I only use 2 at a time and swap them every couple of months).

@JVU did I see that you also use these pumps? Have you not had any impeller failures?
 
Finally decided to turn my fuge into a frag holding area and hung a Reefi Uno 2.0 down there, and made a little frag rack out of egg crate:

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Had a good visit with Erin yesterday and picked up some cool frags. I have decided to name his huge freshwater puffer “Bread,” after one of his favorite bands - popular in 1974 which also happens to be the year he graduated! @Kensington Reefer


Nothing new to report upstairs - tank is doing well and alk consumption has nearly doubled since installing the new lights:

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Finally decided to turn my fuge into a frag holding area and hung a Reefi Uno 2.0 down there, and made a little frag rack out of egg crate:

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Also picked up some cool stuff from Erin yesterday, some mini carpet anemone, the Hawaiian anemone, cool zoa, some blue ochtodes macro algae, and some trumpet thing I forgot the name of. Here’s the algae and nems:
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Also I have decided to name his huge freshwater puffer “Bread,” after one of Erin’s favorite bands - popular in 1974 which also happens to be the year he graduated! @Kensington Reefer

Nothing new to report upstairs - tank is doing well and alk consumption has nearly doubled since installing the new lights:

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If you have enough frags down there, you could run that frag rack light opposite your display lights and potentially offset some of the pH dip at night from the display tank.
 
Running the 120 reeflectors since it's down low?
Actually using the 90s because I’m trying to minimize algae growth around the sides - but I might try the 120s if I can’t get the right spread. It is kind of hot-spotty right now.
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Hard to see in the pic but I’m writing the par readings along the sump bracing. Varies between about 250 in the middle to 50 at the edges.
 
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