jonmedina
Supporting Member
Sweet! I'll keep you posted once he gets out of QT
Jon's S500 Build (The big move)
- Thread starter jonmedina
- Start date
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
My 26-gallon had both at 0 for the last three Triton ICP despite dosing both separately. I have read that others have experienced similar values for these two. There is an interview with reef bum and Claude Schumacher/Fauna Marin CEO who explains that this is due to an imbalance in other traces but do not remember the details exactly, maybe just advertising their ICP.
I wouldn't worry about it. For some of the really low concentration metals, it's really hard to measure them because they get washed out by the noise from higher concentration metals. The limit of detection for Mn is also super low and not much under the natural levels in seawater. Mn and Fe will also get consumed by macro algae (mine are usually low from chaetomorpha).
Some people dose both as part of supplements like Chaetogro etc. Others dose a bit of iodine for coral color. Many dose nothing and still have tanks that look great. Focus more on if your animals look healthy.
Sanjay also did a look into different companies as did Fritz in the end of the article and the company you used had quite a bit of variability: https://reefbuilders.com/2023/07/12/the-reef-builders-big-icp-test-review-by-sanjay-joshi/
Some people dose both as part of supplements like Chaetogro etc. Others dose a bit of iodine for coral color. Many dose nothing and still have tanks that look great. Focus more on if your animals look healthy.
Sanjay also did a look into different companies as did Fritz in the end of the article and the company you used had quite a bit of variability: https://reefbuilders.com/2023/07/12/the-reef-builders-big-icp-test-review-by-sanjay-joshi/
I really don't like icp-analysis. If you're going to run an icp test go with triton
jonmedina
Supporting Member
January update:
So back in September, I picked up this really cool Candy Cane pistol shrimp and orange spotted goby pair. QT'd them and introduced them to the tank in October sometime. pistol shrimp immediately made a home in my rockwork. The goby swam around a bit the first day, and perched around on the rocks, but the second day he started acting really erratically, swimming up the glass from bottom to top of the tank, and at one point seeming to almost get sucked into the overflow (he was real small). I figured if he wasn't better the third day, I was going to try and catch him and drop him in my acclimation box. Third day comes around and he's GONE. Nowhere to be found. I knew the pistol shrimp was there and fine because he always has a nice clean little hole under my rockwork, but that was the last I saw of Gobi-Wan Kenobi.
UNTIL YESTERDAY. I swing by the tank before bed like I always do, and there he is, chilling in front of the pistol shrimp hole. He's huge and healthy looking, but man he hid for close to 4 months. Pretty crazy. Not sure if he's going to start coming out more, or if anyone has tips for encouraging him to be social, but I'm real happy he's still around, he's such a cool fish.
Outside of that tank is doing fine. Having some weird diatom issues that I can't quite get to the bottom of. Maybe phosphates are too low. Doing weekly 10-15% water changes, nutrients are all stable, can't quite figure out what's up, but at this point it's nothing too crazy. Picked up an awesome splatter hammer at the last meetup at High Tide. Shout out to the guy who brought it, I can't for the life of me remember his name/username but he looks a bit like Ike Barinholtz the actor.
pH: 8.2
PO4: 0.03
NO3: 3.1
Alk: 10.1dkh
Ca: 391
Mg: 1520
Dosing/treatment:
All-for-reef - 30mL daily
Nopox - 12mL daily
RS AB+ 25ml once/week if I remember
Activated carbon
So back in September, I picked up this really cool Candy Cane pistol shrimp and orange spotted goby pair. QT'd them and introduced them to the tank in October sometime. pistol shrimp immediately made a home in my rockwork. The goby swam around a bit the first day, and perched around on the rocks, but the second day he started acting really erratically, swimming up the glass from bottom to top of the tank, and at one point seeming to almost get sucked into the overflow (he was real small). I figured if he wasn't better the third day, I was going to try and catch him and drop him in my acclimation box. Third day comes around and he's GONE. Nowhere to be found. I knew the pistol shrimp was there and fine because he always has a nice clean little hole under my rockwork, but that was the last I saw of Gobi-Wan Kenobi.
UNTIL YESTERDAY. I swing by the tank before bed like I always do, and there he is, chilling in front of the pistol shrimp hole. He's huge and healthy looking, but man he hid for close to 4 months. Pretty crazy. Not sure if he's going to start coming out more, or if anyone has tips for encouraging him to be social, but I'm real happy he's still around, he's such a cool fish.
Outside of that tank is doing fine. Having some weird diatom issues that I can't quite get to the bottom of. Maybe phosphates are too low. Doing weekly 10-15% water changes, nutrients are all stable, can't quite figure out what's up, but at this point it's nothing too crazy. Picked up an awesome splatter hammer at the last meetup at High Tide. Shout out to the guy who brought it, I can't for the life of me remember his name/username but he looks a bit like Ike Barinholtz the actor.
pH: 8.2
PO4: 0.03
NO3: 3.1
Alk: 10.1dkh
Ca: 391
Mg: 1520
Dosing/treatment:
All-for-reef - 30mL daily
Nopox - 12mL daily
RS AB+ 25ml once/week if I remember
Activated carbon
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Coral reefer
Past President
I’d check nitrate if you’re gonna be adding nopox. To each their own, but phosphate is right on the edge of too low there. Might want to back off by 1-2 ml and see what happens.
As for diatoms, I think they like silica/silicates. Could be getting in from source water. DI could need changing.
As for diatoms, I think they like silica/silicates. Could be getting in from source water. DI could need changing.
jonmedina
Supporting Member
Small update here. Things are going extraordinarily well overall. It was becoming more and more apparent that the limiting factor in the tank was my lights. I had a set of Kessil AP9X that were great color-wise but were not putting down the power I needed evenly. One side was not as bright as the others, and running them at 100% capacity, I was only getting like 40 par at the bottom of the tank and 300ish at the top. So I sprung for the Reefi Unos and man what an incredible difference they've made. Not only are they crazy powerful, I'm already seeing differences in all my corals, They're lighting up like never before. Huge shout out to Daniel @ReeFi for helping me size and plan for what I needed.
Also added some Anthias with the help of Kenny @ High Tide. He convinced me to go that route and I can't thank him enough.
I've got pile o' mushrooms at the front of the tank I need to get rid of, and some palys I can't seem to get to stop spreading. but other than that, fish are happy, corals are happy, I'm happy.
Planning on starting another tank soon - if anyone's got an extra 40-50Gal tank in exceptional shape, I'm interested!
Also added some Anthias with the help of Kenny @ High Tide. He convinced me to go that route and I can't thank him enough.
I've got pile o' mushrooms at the front of the tank I need to get rid of, and some palys I can't seem to get to stop spreading. but other than that, fish are happy, corals are happy, I'm happy.
Planning on starting another tank soon - if anyone's got an extra 40-50Gal tank in exceptional shape, I'm interested!
jonmedina
Supporting Member
Yes! They're awesome, I've had them about three weeks now and have done a full acclimation with them.
I have the new 110 degree reeflectors in, a bit closer to the water (per recommendation). The tank is real deep, so I needed the balance of not scorching the top corals but still getting light down at the sandbed. It's a great balance right now. Using the SPS setting, the torches on the right are getting around 370 par, the orange montipora in the middle is getting around 470-500, and the sandbed is still getting around 120.
EDIT note - my alk consumption is through the roof with the new lights. I'm testing twice per day and having to rethink my kalk scheme. Going to have to also supplement with alk. Using a dosing pump to pump kalk all night long instead of using an ATO, but the consumption is outpacing my evaporation.
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