Neptune Aquatics

Randy’s Innovative Marine 75 Ext

RandyC said:
Didn’t realize this one grew that much in six months. I’m getting old, need pictures to remind me where these things started off.

Candy Corals Blazing Rainbow
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Whoa! Super impressive and great colors.

Curious if your using defusers on your Radions and the AB schedule?
 
Zumareef said:
Whoa! Super impressive and great colors.

Curious if your using defusers on your Radions and the AB schedule?
Click to expand...

Yes to diffusers. Slightly more blue than AB+.

Radion xr30 Pro G4 settings can be seen in post #11 of this thread. I also have 1 orphek or3 blue plus bar running in the back of tank where most of the acros are located.
 
TSA Bill Murray

This thing has got to one of the most hardy, fastest growing acros I’ve ever had in any of my tanks. When I started up the IM75 back in September, I decided to just go with small frags. From October to now, this is what this beast has done. Even before this tank was set up, it survived a bunch of bad stuff I did to it; alk swings, dinos, an unknown aliment i think was bacterial, among of few of the bad things.

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Another growth sequence for y’all. I got this MattV Rainbow Envy at the end of Jan and it was completely green. I’ve been surprised by the growth and the color shift over the last 4.5 months.

Feb 6, 2023
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Moved to a higher PAR spot, Mar 1, 2023
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Mar 20, 2023
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Apr 13, 2023
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May 30, 2023
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Blew up a little while I was traveling abroad for 10 days. Jun 20, 2023
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Here’s one I think every acro collector should get, BC Cricket Spine. It has an awesome deep fuchsia color with yellow polyps.

Dec 16, 2022 - I got this colony from another reefer, so didn’t start off from a small frag
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Jun 22, 2023 - how it looks now under blues
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On a different note, I’m a murderer of speciosa acros - to the point that I’m on hiatus from them. Anyone have any luck keeping them alive more than 6 months?
 
I got a fresh cut of this browned out piece of this BC Lasermelon on Jan 11, 2023. And I accidentally broke it into two pieces during a water change and maintenance session a month later. Ended up recovering nicely, just need to work on getting some more red out of the polyps. Perhaps it needs more light than the current spot.

A little late in posting this, but for those curious minds, here’s an ICP test I did right before I left for 10 days to Asia at the beginning of June.

Jan 11, 2023
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Feb 3, 2023
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Feb 17, 2023
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March 7, 2023
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Mar 22, 2023
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Apr 8, 2023
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May 30, 2023
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Jun 20, 2023
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Jul 1, 2023
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I was in the mood to tinker so I decided to play with a CO2 scrubber and see what effects I could produce on my tank. Not really chasing pH, but wanted to see what all the hoopla was about.

I bought a simple BRS CO2 scrubber and am using soda lime media from BRS as well. Decided to pull humid air from my external fuge instead of from the skimmer so I don’t have to deal with nasty gunk getting into the line from skimmate.

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Nice thing about an external fuge is that it was easy to drain, pull and and modify. Took about 15 minutes to drain it, add a 1/2” bulkhead and have it running again.

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I added a 24V 3/8” solenoid connected to a barbed Y-connector in case pH ever got too high. It opens up the regular air side so that air will pull in from the path of least resistance (i.e., the path without the CO2 scrubber connected), but a 3/8” solenoid restricted air too much and some air was still being pulled through the reactor because of it. Plus, it ran too hot when powered opened, so I went with a stainless steel US Solid 24V 1/2” motorized ball valve that I wired to the 24V output of the EB832. The ball valve is awesome. I’ll have to find other ways to use one. It opens up if pH ever gets above 8.5 and uses a minimal amount of power when open and doesn’t even get warm. It auto-closes when power is cut off.

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So did it help? Yes, but maybe not as much as I was expecting. It keeps pH more consistent and doesn’t get affected if windows are closed and the AC is on or if I have 15 people over, but I didn’t see a huge bump like I expected. Before I was ranging between 7.8-8.2, now it’s around 7.95-8.3 and it’s the same everyday regardless of co2 levels. I suspect the skimmer I’m using is not drawing enough air to get my pH higher, but that’s a change to test another day.
 
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RandyC said:
May 30, 2023
View attachment 48544
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very curios about the dark red algae surround your coral in the picture, do you know what it is? Something very similar has started to grow on some of my rock as well, competing with the pink/purple corallines. Does not appear to be cynao as its hard and encrusting, does not seem to be a problem yet but is giving me pause for concern; perhaps another species of coralline?
 
Zumareef said:
very curios about the dark red algae surround your coral in the picture, do you know what it is? Something very similar has started to grow on some of my rock as well, competing with the pink/purple corallines. Does not appear to be cynao as its hard and encrusting, does not seem to be a problem yet but is giving me pause for concern; perhaps another species of coralline?
Click to expand...

Red coralline. I think there are something like 1600 species of coralline. They come in many different colors and there are branching types as well.

If it doesn’t blow off with a turkey baster and is hard, most likely a type of coralline algae.

I actually like the red over the purple. :)
 
RandyC said:
Red coralline. I think there are something like 1600 species of coralline. They come in many different colors and there are branching types as well.

If it doesn’t blow off with a turkey baster and is hard, most likely a type of coralline algae.

I actually like the red over the purple. :)
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Thanks for the feedback and confirming that, I also tried to to blow it off and scrape it off and that’s when I realized it probably was just another type of coralline.
 
RandyC said:
I was in the mood to tinker so I decided to play with a CO2 scrubber and see what effects I could produce on my tank. Not really chasing pH, but wanted to see what all the hoopla was about.

I bought a simple BRS CO2 scrubber and am using soda lime media from BRS as well. Decided to pull humid air from my external fuge instead of from the skimmer so I don’t have to deal with nasty gunk getting into the line from skimmate.

View attachment 48698

Nice thing about an external fuge is that it was easy to drain, pull and and modify. Took about 15 minutes to drain it, add a 1/2” bulkhead and have it running again.

View attachment 48699View attachment 48700View attachment 48701View attachment 48702View attachment 48703

I added a 24V 3/8” solenoid connected to a barbed Y-connector in case pH ever got too high. It opens up the regular air side so that air will pull in from the path of least resistance (i.e., the path without the CO2 scrubber connected), but a 3/8” solenoid restricted air too much and some air was still being pulled through the reactor because of it. Plus, it ran too hot when powered opened, so I went with a stainless steel US Solid 24V 1/2” motorized ball valve that I wired to the 24V output of the EB832. The ball valve is awesome. I’ll have to find other ways to use one. It opens up if pH ever gets above 8.5 and uses a minimal amount of power when open and doesn’t even get warm. It auto-closes when power is cut off.

View attachment 48704View attachment 48705


So did it help? Yes, but maybe not as much as I was expecting. It keeps pH more consistent and doesn’t get affected if windows are closed and the AC is on or if I have 15 people over, but I didn’t see a huge bump like I expected. Before I was ranging between 7.8-8.2, now it’s around 7.95-8.3 and it’s the same everyday regardless of co2 levels. I suspect the skimmer I’m using is not drawing enough air to get my pH higher, but that’s a change to test another day.
Click to expand...

21 days in with the co2 scrubber. I’ve gone through about 1/3 of the media. Not too shabby.

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