Peter's Garage Tank

[daddio]

Your corals look pretty healthy to me, growing and encrusting fast right? The bonsai you gave me was meaty and had a lot of nice pods living in the plug. I didn’t see any parasites that could irritate the coral and cause the polyps to close. Maybe you just have the high growth regime with high alk and nutrients where you would expect extra zooxanthellae (some extra brown color). I think I have the ULNS regime with good color and PE but growth is slowish, I feed reef roids and Acropower and feed the fish a lot just to make sure they get some fuel. I wonder if PE is better in ULNS systems because corals are hungry and feel the need to catch their food to grow? If corals are getting enough fuel from nitrate in the water they’re probably safer keeping their polyps closed where fish can’t nip at them?

I’m keeping an eye on your bonsai’s to see if they “turn into” Garfs in my tank they look pretty similar to my Garf and I might put them next to each other to see if they fuse...

Hey Liz,
The frags look great!! Better than they do in my tank. The are originally from @Kmooresf and he uses it as his avatar:

In my reef, they are more brown than purple. Overall I think my reef is doing good for its first year. I have killed very few corals and they are all growing and encrusting. Like most reefers, I am just trying to bring it up a notch. I think that my water is dirty and after watching a BRS video that he says to fill a white 5gallon bucket and then look at the difference in color, I am sure my water would benefit from some carbon.

I didnt realize just how yellow my water is. So goal is to remove more crud and add some trace via dosing with Zeovit.
Cheers! Mark

 

[Gablami]

Hey mark, just a tip with KZ (I was full KZ for about 8 months when I started), most KZ products are meant for ULNS. If you have detectable nutrients that are the trend these days, the additives will have less impact.

The exception may be their coral systems additives which I never used. Those were not meant to be dosed with full zeovit reactor and carbon dosing etc. So hopefully that’s what you were thinking before you spend a bunch of money on the other blue bottles (which I still have a drawer full).


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[daddio]

Hey mark, just a tip with KZ (I was full KZ for about 8 months when I started), most KZ products are meant for ULNS. If you have detectable nutrients that are the trend these days, the additives will have less impact.

The exception may be their coral systems additives which I never used. Those were not meant to be dosed with full zeovit reactor and carbon dosing etc. So hopefully that’s what you were thinking before you spend a bunch of money on the other blue bottles (which I still have a drawer full).


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Thanks for the heads up! I am going to dose the Flatworm Stop and Coral Booster. Those little blue bottles could put a guy in the poor house quick!! and No, I dont have aefw

 

[daddio]

Finally got around to testing all of my parameters:
- Salinity 1.026
- Nitrate <5
- Mag. over 1500 - will stop my weekly dosing of 6ml til it comes down
- PH 8.3
- Alk 8-9 dkh (a drop of 1.5 dkh) - I really want this closer to 10/11 so increased Kalk 1tsp per 5gallons R/O. Total Kalk per gallon of R/O is 1.2 tsp.
- Phosphate is lower than the last test - perhaps @ 1ppm (or less) - I need a better tester, the API tests are crud. The LFS said it is 0, but I dont see that.
- Calcium - 480
Everything is chugging right along. I am pulling more vinegar out of the dosing. I have gone from 60ml per gallon of R/O down to 42ml. If nitrate and phosphate levels dont increase, I will bring down the vinegar even more.
Cheers! Mark

 

[daddio]

I am going to start dosing the Zeovit today so I thought I would post some "before" pics.
Red Dragon

Shawn Bennett Yellow Tort

Tri-Color Tort

Aussie Gold Acro

Miyagi Tort

Tyree Ponape Birdsnest

Paletta Pink Tip

Bubblegum Digi

Garf Bonsai

 

[Chromis]

So for the wanting better colors concern, do you have a trace test kit, like Red Sea colors? Or do you add anything from time to time? I would guess your iron is low because your greens aren’t showing well, your reds look ok though (potassium might be ok).

I dose the Red Sea colors and do water changes in case I’m over or under dosing.

 

[daddio]

I only dose Kalk., vinegar, strontium, magnesium, iodide Along with 5 gallons a week of water change. My chaeto looks very green. I do believe the coral booster that I’m going to start dosing today will have all of the trace elements

 

[Flagg37]

I am going to start dosing the Zeovit today so I thought I would post some "before" pics.
Red Dragon
View attachment 9657
Shawn Bennett Yellow Tort
View attachment 9658
Tri-Color Tort
View attachment 9659
Aussie Gold Acro
View attachment 9660
Miyagi Tort
View attachment 9661
Tyree Ponape Birdsnest
View attachment 9662
Paletta Pink Tip
View attachment 9663
Bubblegum Digi
View attachment 9664
Garf Bonsai

View attachment 9665

Most of those look pretty decent. Eh, a little brown but still healthy. Except for that paletta pink tip. That one looks like it’s struggling.

 

[daddio]

It is probably 'cause of the iphone pic. The encrusting on the bottom right of it is a different coral

 

[xcaret]

Going fancy with the Zeo thingies!
Man if I wasn’t broke, I think I would be a Zeovit reefer for life.

 

[daddio]

Going fancy with the Zeo thingies!
Man if I wasn’t broke, I think I would be a Zeovit reefer for life.

If you ran a nano, it would not be that costly. I am just trying a couple of products that seem to match my needs. While people claim to have great results, I am a bit leery. Is it because of the Zeovit or because of better husbandry? Take the Flatworm Stop for instance. A lot of the people that use it also use a baster to spray/clean their corals. So is it really the FWS or the baster that is causing better looking corals?

 

[daddio]

I started dosing 2 days ago and got the carbon reactor started yesterday. Filter sox are done with their first 3 days and they were nasty. It has been about 2 weeks since I started cutting back on overfeeding and lowering my vinegar dosage and today I noticed that the glass is a lot cleaner. I used to have to clean it every other day and it looks good and I have not cleaned it in 4 days.
The other thing that we worked on was the return on the newest display. When we first set it up I used a 5 foot length of rubber garden hose (yup, real back rubber) as a return line. I can only imagine what it has leached into the reef. Swapped it out with some clear tubing.
Not sure when (or if) I will see any change from the dosing. I am an instant gratification type person and the waiting and watching is really forcing me to learn some patience.
Cheers! Mark

 

[daddio]

Water clarity is much improved in 5 days. As I understand this will give me better par on the sand bed.
Before & after:

 

[daddio]

Today's observation. The green sinulara has full polyp extension and is really "puffy" and the monti spongode has a lot more polyps extended than normal. On a not so happy note I had to throw out what was left of the Purple Bonsai colony. There was some type of polyps growing from the base like a carpet and was killing it so got rid of it before those things made it to the rest of the reef.
Cheers! Mark

 

[daddio]

Today's observation: The cloves look like balloons

 

[Chromis]

Today's observation. The green sinulara has full polyp extension and is really "puffy" and the monti spongode has a lot more polyps extended than normal. On a not so happy note I had to throw out what was left of the Purple Bonsai colony. There was some type of polyps growing from the base like a carpet and was killing it so got rid of it before those things made it to the rest of the reef.
Cheers! Mark

Let me know how I can get some of the purple bonsai back to you!

 

[daddio]

Let me know how I can get some of the purple bonsai back to you!

Thanks for the offer but I am good! I have several frags still. Check around the base of the ones I gave you for tiny black/dark purple polyps. (if so refrag them by cutting into the live tissue) @Kmooresf told me that the colony didn't look real good when he gave it to @fishdoctor and said that it was mushrooms stinging it. When I first got it, it didnt look good at all. It has been alive and growing on the tips and the cut frags look good. But about 3 weeks ago the health of the colony went into a downward spiral. I looked really close at the colony and there were thousands of very tiny polyp looking things growing on the skeleton. I cut the tips that I could get off cleanly and had to get the rest out of my reef.
Cheers

 

[Chromis]

Thanks for the offer but I am good! I have several frags still. Check around the base of the ones I gave you for tiny black/dark purple polyps. (if so refrag them by cutting into the live tissue) @Kmooresf told me that the colony didn't look real good when he gave it to @fishdoctor and said that it was mushrooms stinging it. When I first got it, it didnt look good at all. It has been alive and growing on the tips and the cut frags look good. But about 3 weeks ago the health of the colony went into a downward spiral. I looked really close at the colony and there were thousands of very tiny polyp looking things growing on the skeleton. I cut the tips that I could get off cleanly and had to get the rest out of my reef.
Cheers

I cut one cleanly into a new plug, and superglued the bases up around both. A trick I learned to “seal off” any eggs at the base that aren’t removed by dip. So I’m not too worried. They look pretty good. Definitely not Garfs, the polyps are different and look really cool especially at night, like little stars, vs Garf polyps are uniform in size and look the same day or night.

 

[daddio]

Looks great! Sounds like you have it under control. I need to coax my polyps into coming out.
Cheers!

 

[daddio]

About 2 weeks since I made changes to the lighting, feeding, lowered vinegar dose, added filter sox and carbon, and started dosing some Zeovit. The water is cleaner thanks to the carbon reactor and I do see more polyps out. Other than that, no real noticeable difference. Measured the phosphate again today and it is hovering at .4 (nitrates are at 5) This really explains why I dont have a lot of coral growth, or coraline growth, and no calcium build up on my heater. The phosphate is inhibiting the calcification in my reefs. I will start using GFO today in the carbon reactor. I have been changing the carbon in the reactor every fourth day when the flow gets to a tiny trickle. I will begin with 1 tablespoon of GFO into the reactor and it will get changed out on the same schedule as the carbon. I will continue to test and adjust as needed.
Cheers! Mark