Kessil

Michael's 300 In Vegas

H2OPlayar said:
There is a baby strapped to me now for a lot of the time I do reef work!
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GRATS!!
 
derek_SR said:
The people demand an update. How is your daughter?
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9 months old, 24 lbs, 29", so eating is not a problem. Like my tank, I feed her often, with lots of different foods and let her eat what she can. She is crawling and pulling to stand, so I think I will just keep a baby gate on my office to keep her out at all times and away from the tanks.

Kensington Reefer said:
I imagine the youngster’s face smashed against the glass and having water dripping on its head!
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I keep her dry from the reef (euro brace), but she loves looking at the tanks.

Got some cool fish lately, and added a few chunks of montipora to get the consumption of minerals going. I can post pics and video when I get back from the bay.

Interesting chemistry thing. I put some ARF in early on (likely too much) and I believe the super high phosphate prevented the calcium and alkalinity from continuing to metabolize, so as soon as I brought the phosphate down, my calcium shot up to 600+. It is possible there is a testing error with the trident because I haven't calibrated it yet and my alkalinity is in the right range. I know I need to use my hanna to check if the trident number is real. In the meantime, montipora is robust and will soak up minerals so I am starting with those now. Had my big carpet be happy for 2-3 months, but then it walked into a powerhead and is no more. The skimmer was putting in overtime then, and continues to do good work with the number of fish I have now. Phosphates are back to a reasonable range but I used up almost a whole bottle of lanthanum chloride in the skimmer over 2 weeks. I might use my last dosing head to dose a diluted lanthanum chloride solution. I know Mr Ross used to do that, and a few other members might as well. If not, then it will dose amino acids. @derek_SR , you still dosing LC in your skimmer?
 
H2OPlayar said:
9 months old, 24 lbs, 29", so eating is not a problem. Like my tank, I feed her often, with lots of different foods and let her eat what she can. She is crawling and pulling to stand, so I think I will just keep a baby gate on my office to keep her out at all times and away from the tanks.


I keep her dry from the reef (euro brace), but she loves looking at the tanks.

Got some cool fish lately, and added a few chunks of montipora to get the consumption of minerals going. I can post pics and video when I get back from the bay.

Interesting chemistry thing. I put some ARF in early on (likely too much) and I believe the super high phosphate prevented the calcium and alkalinity from continuing to metabolize, so as soon as I brought the phosphate down, my calcium shot up to 600+. It is possible there is a testing error with the trident because I haven't calibrated it yet and my alkalinity is in the right range. I know I need to use my hanna to check if the trident number is real. In the meantime, montipora is robust and will soak up minerals so I am starting with those now. Had my big carpet be happy for 2-3 months, but then it walked into a powerhead and is no more. The skimmer was putting in overtime then, and continues to do good work with the number of fish I have now. Phosphates are back to a reasonable range but I used up almost a whole bottle of lanthanum chloride in the skimmer over 2 weeks. I might use my last dosing head to dose a diluted lanthanum chloride solution. I know Mr Ross used to do that, and a few other members might as well. If not, then it will dose amino acids. @derek_SR , you still dosing LC in your skimmer?
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Yep, still dosing lanthanum into the skimmer. Once I got over the initial "hump" (whether that was rocks leaching phosphate or whatever) I am now able to maintain po4 in a pretty flat range by dosing very, very small quantities of a heavily diluted solution. I adjust the amount slightly every few months based on the po4 result. You probably know what you're doing, but I wrote a brief thread on the subject if you missed it a few months back.
 
Nitrates are down to 20 with 10mL of vodka dosing daily.

Phosphates back to .91, but I added some more dry crushed coral to my sump to get massive biological filtration going. So I dumped in the rest of my bottle of LC to my skimmer.

Used not expired reagents with the Hanna and got way closer to the Trident numbers, so I can trust the calibration again.

Note that expired reagents changed my reading from 500 down to 375!!!
 
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If you look closely, you see green hair algae everywhere. Luckily, my lfs sells margarita snails for $.50 each, as well as other good cuc deals. Also have a large shipment of frags from aqua SD coming in tomorrow to occupy some of the real estate in the tank. A few of the frags I have have made it and are staying alive, so there is about 20ish mL of alk consumed per day right now, and I am only dosing 5 mL a day of CA to keep the lines moving, but my CA is still over 500. Looking forward to some encrusting and stony corals taking hold. Most of the fish are doing great, with the tangs, rabbitfish, and parrotfish muching on algae with the cuc. Since I don't have big nutrient export from coral, I am wet skimming almost all the time, which is almost like an AWC system, but with way more work. At least the tank is next to the front door, so my 5 gallon buckets of skimmate pour nicely down the gutter to the storm drain. And I have almost the perfect length and diameter silicone hose to syphon the water from my skimmer cup into my buckets.
 
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