join us doug

Are you upgrading too? :biggrin:

I spy with my little eye...a very pretty clam...I drooled a little...

yeah, 1000gal inwall. haha

Hey fishytime!! I finally read your nem fiasco!! Up to page 21 anyway. Nice clams btw! My nem is still moving around...

Only a little:sad: Thanks Catherine...I guess where I put them was ok after all?

Nems is evil:twised::wink: How are your goodies doing?


I did another bulb swap....after reading recent threads about the the lack of par from actinic bulbs and algae growth from the red color spectrum, I figured I would see if I notice a difference with "pure actinic" and "fiji purps" out of the mix.

So I went from(starting at the front):

Giessmann Pure actinic
Aquascience 15000k
Giessmann Blue+
KZ Fiji Purp
Aquascience 15000k
Giessmann Actinic+

To:


Giessmann Actinic+
Aquascience 15000k
Giessmann Blue+
KZ New Gen
Aquascience 15000k
Giessmann Actinic+

FTS of the difference?

Fts
 

Come on Josh, we all know only you can truly catch the beauty of Doug's tank. It's a good thing you were there to take pictures of his tank before he became a farmer ( of algae! ).

Cheers!

Geoff

Probably tonight....need to clean the glass:redface:
Hey!.....was that some sort of crack about my photog skills? (or lack there of):mrgreen: Always had a green thumb:biggrin:

The past couple weeks I have been off work and spending lots of time in the tank. I spent two afternoons siphoning out algae and after 75 gallons of water I ended up with a small size filter sock near full of dictyota and brown wafer algae. Greg (snappy) was over and suggested a naso tang would eat both kinds of algae. So after some research and much debate (in my head) I added a small (2 1/2") Solomon Islands net caught blond naso. Probably dumb on my part to try and solve the algae problem caused by high nutrients with adding another fish, but the siphoning wasnt doing a dang thing and in my repeated attempts to siphon I have ended up snapping off several frags of sps....I was at the end of my rope of patience. The addition went really well. I was more worried about how a small tang would be received by my regal and yellow tangs than the added bioload. Both tangs hardly even noticed the little newcomer and the naso now has a nice round belly full of dictyota and wafer.

Another benefit of me being home is I have been able to test the tank lots to get a handle on how much Ca and Mg the tank is sucking up. I have been dosing 60ml of two part Ca to keep the levels above 400, 4 caps of T.A. Mg to keep Mg above 1300 and 6 caps of T.A dkh plus to try and raise my dkh above 6...its not working though.

Every day?

Sorry the reason I ask is I'm sort of going through the same motions of trying to get a handle of the rate of consumption of Mg in my tanks. Either Mg is a lot lower than what I think it is going in, or the rate of consumption is a LOT higher than what I thought it was. I went through an entire bottle of TA Mg in one week and only raised Mg about 100ish which when you're starting at 900 and want to end up at 1300-1400 is not quite enough. I ordered new Mg from Chemmaster on the board and am now dosing that directly. Previously I had only used his Mg on water change water but I had run out so I had to buy some more, it came last week so as of now I'm seeing how much of that I can add to the tanks to see how much will raise Mg by how much and all that.

Mmmm blond tang!

So you were home for all that time and you don't have any photos to share? Ahem...Doug, you owe us photos...

I can't be bothered to fiddle around with my Mg. levels. I just have some of that Fauna Marin mag stuff for Ca. reactors. Its kind of like plug and play, but its less bothersom. I'm always around 1250-1350 depending on what is going on in the tank. I do give the two of you kuddos for trying to figure it out.

How are you determining if its because you have low Mg. levels to begin with, or because of consumption?

I have some mag chips that could be run in a reactor but I guess for it to be useful I probably ought to run a reactor. I just figure it's not worth dialing in a reactor on a tank that should be shutdown any day now. Yes, yes I know I'm slow on a tank build. It's been mentioned once or twice. People may think I don't notice but I notice. :lol:

But even still, I'm now starting to wonder if consumption can be significant. I always took the viewpoint that if my water change water was OK then my tank would be OK because I figured consumption was nowhere near that of Ca and Alk. But maybe not.

I guess the short answer is (if you were asking me that is, and sorry Doug for the hijack) I hope to find that out by testing my water change water. If it's high or normal then I know it is an issue of consumption that needs to be addressed with dosing (or a reactor that outputs Mg). Although I suspect a reactor with mag chips only "sort of" deals with replenishing Mg, I'm not sure you can really tune a reactor 2 ways - ie., one vectror to maintain Ca/Alk and another vector to maintain Mg - I would assume all 3 would be output proportional to one another so if Mg depletion isn't directly proportional to Ca and Alk depletion then it stands to reason you'd still have to occasionally do some correctional Mg dosing, or adjustments via water changes (ie., add Mg to makeup water to help elevate after a waterchange or whatever).

I will say that I'm surprised how much Mg it takes to raise the levels. Makes me wonder if there is indeed Mg consumption going on .. but I dunno ??

So at least in my case it's a case of the salt to blame for the depressed Mg. I tested the Mg out of a new batch (RBS of all things) and came up with 825. I'm sort of stunned, all this time I've been doing water changes like crazy and I've been bringing my Mg down because of it. Whoops.

That dosing regiment is indeed everyday. I have not yet tested my make up water to see if that is the culprit. After Tony's posts I am pretty sure it will test out low as I too am using KZRB salt. I had decided about a week ago that I would switch to the Deltec salt after reading some of the reviews and tests done on it. Most people seem to be pretty happy with it, with the only complaint being that it mixes up slightly dirty. I plan on mixing the H2Ocean with the KZ to slowly phase it in, but will test the first batch before I mix in the KZ and post my results. Im a little nervous about switching salts as aside from the algae trouble the tank seems to be doing well. I cant resist the lure of a shiny new salt that is being billed as "bang on" as far as Ca and Mg levels. I also like idea that it is a natural salt as opposed to a synthetic.

No new pics for you Catherine:sad:. The idea was, to get the tank cleaned up and presentable and take a round of pics, but one of my ballasts in my tek light pooped out last week so the tank is running on half wattage right now. This might actually be a good thing considering the algae. Really not impressed with my tek lights. This is the second ballast that has crapped out on me in less than a year. I think I saw that Kevin is looking into trying to get on board with ATI. If that pans out I will be ordering a power module for the tank, if not....Im gonna order a geissmann. The whole light thing has thrown my plans to upgrade the skimmer (bubbleking probably) on the back burner.

Another thing that I am not to happy with is timers for the lights. Cant anyone make a timer that lasts more than a couple months? Ive tried the coralife ones, Ive tried the no name ones(similar to the coralife), Ive tried the cheap rotary dial ones....they are all pieces of crap. If I added up all the coin Ive spent on timers, I would probably find that I could have bought a controller instead, which I am considering now. Im on the fence about which one though. After reading about Catherines (and others) troubles with the RKE, I think I have ruled that one out. So that leaves aquacontroller and the profilux. Anyone wanna chine in with experiences?

Hey Doug.. I used the digital coralife timer like this one...

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=WM-ESUPCD

It has not failed on me (used for about 6 months). I still have it and am not using it if you need one we can swap for something :biggrin::biggrin:

Cheers
Lawrence

My intermatics have not failed me yet. Just make sure you get the ones that can handle the voltage as there are several that can't. I read something on it, may have been on RC. I'm sorry I don't remember where I found that article.

I've recently switched over to H2Ocean and am stoked about it. All of a sudden I'm noticing good growth in between each water change, and I'm not having to dose as much Ca or Mag.

Oh no I'm not falling for that again. As soon as I buy a bucket they will suddenly all lose their Mg and it'll still be my fault for not stating the proper incantation before opening the lid or something. Randi I didn't realize you were part of the world conspiracy. Next you're going to tell me you have peppermints eat all the hundreds of aiptasia in your tank overnight, or emerald crabs clean up valonia .. or .. or .. oh never mind. I'm going to go put on my tinfoil hat now so you can't hear my thoughts anymore!

did you try the vodka with the Dinos? Seriously, mine were GONE in a matter of 2 days.
I've never tried pepermint shrimp, as I don't have aiptasia in my tanks (Mwahahahahaha)

But I'll let you know if I ever need to

It's an interesting thought but I have some doubts vodka will do anything as I'm already dosing TA NO3 Destroyer and I'm sure that stuff has vodka in it (smells like vodka anyhow??). It's a zoanthid tank with no seriously light dependent things in it so I'm just shutting the lights off for a week and see what happens. Sorry here I go hijacking poor Doug's thread again. Just so it's not a complete hijack: I'm not sure what brand of timer I use, but it's just some standard thing from Rona/HD/whatever with an electronic timer and 3-prong plug. I've got some that are 4 years old by now and still working .. Maybe it's Intermatic? I'm not sure offhand. I'll check out what it is and post back because I totally have no hesitations with them. Not bad for $20 or so. Also, I tried the dual-plug Hamilton timer, it generally is OK except 1) the plugs are not independent, it's just a convenience factor that you can plug 2 items into it without a plug extender, and 2) the clock does drift, after a few months I notice it's a good few minutes off the rest of the house. I'd guess around 15 minutes every 6 months or so.

Of course if you REALLY want a Profilux or something, don't let me stop you. :lol:

For the record my RKE is back up at 100%. It was those damned capsense buttons that screwed everything up. My Kevin couldn't even get near the unit without it freaking out. Digital Aquatics sent me a new head unit with actual push buttons and the problem is completely resolved. I'm really quite pleased with my RKE now, great value for my money and the product is evolving in a direction that really interests me and has a lot of potential to mesh well with all my future plans.

/hijack

Before we got the RKE we were using these digital timers we got from Rona in the car plug in timer section. Paid a few dollars more for them, but they've never crapped out, and they've been good to us. Had some of them for well over 4 years now. Let me know if you want a photo of one of them.

Salt is one of those things that always makes me cringe. Normally I'm all about trying new things just for the sake of trying them. However salt, is one of those huge no-nos because its not done me well in the past. I'm so hesitant about changing salt, but I'm really curious as to how it might work out for you.

I just finished switching my tank over from Aquamedic salt to H2Ocean, and bought my first full size bucket of H2Ocean yesterday... Tank seemed to respond well as I am seeing noticeable growth every week. :biggrin: Colors haven't been affected either IMO.

:lol: You slay me Tony.

Well hopefully the H2Ocean is what its cracked up to be. Ive switched salts a couple times now and have seen no ill effects. Mind you I started mixing the two salts together when there was a half a bucket of the first salt left.

Heres some shots of the frags I got from Ottawa Inverts.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2937.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2942.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2938.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2943.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2941.jpg

A random splattering of stuff I thought looked ok.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2949.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2955.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2961.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2963.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2964.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2965.jpg

Love the pics! Some pretty sweet corals in there. What's the purple paly?zoa? called? Really like that one. The green polyps on that frag look amazing!

I believe they are called purple halo palys...I think I miss qouted them as purple passion in another thread:redface: Will have to correct that.:mrgreen:

More pics:biggrin:

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2966.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2967.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2969.jpg


And for you Catherine:wink:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2971.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2973.jpg

Those clams are PSYCHODELIC!!!:mrgreen:

Wowee look at those gorgeous clams!!

Great Pictures Doug!
Keep them coming..

Thank a bunch guys.:biggrin:

First off I have to say how happy I am with the little naso...he/she is sooooooooo fat with algae and the tank is visibly cleaner. I never would have thought a fish that size would have such an impact. On the flip side I think he may be a stinker once he grows up some. He already doesnt show any fear of the two much lager tangs and even has a bit of "tude" about them.


Ok, so here is the reason for me switching salts. The tests from this morning were
sg .024
dkh 9 elos
Mg 1320 Sali
Ca 380 Sali
and I dosed
3 caps of Tailored aquatics dkh
3 caps of Tailored aquatics Mg
and 100ml of kent 2 part
Just to keep things where they are...I have dosed that amount everyday for four days:neutral: Something had to give. So the first and least expensive thing to change I figure is the salt. The slick new packaging is what sold me on the deltec salt...cool looking black bucket....oh ya and there was something else about the levels being good or something. So.....I tested it.

sg .024
dkh 5 not so impressed with that:sad:
Mg 1440
Ca 480
So I will be doing the first change on the tank tomorrow...I thought I could ease off on the testing but will now have to tweak things a little Im sure to get things figured out.....Im also sure an expensive calcium spewing gadget is in the near future. I love this hobby.:mrgreen:

Damn... dkh 5!?!... I need to make a batch and do some testing.... :neutral:

:lol: I am soooooo done with any of these so-called "premium salts".

Well, the way I see things is I will hopefully need to dose less Ca and Mg by running this salt and it is less expensive than KZRB....a win-win for me, methinks. Of course I will make up those costs in test kits:mrgreen:

I picked up a couple more frags...these ones are from the "mac acro sps daddy" hiseff, Greg.:biggrin:

*holds frags up in display fashion with cheese eating grin on face*:becky:
a .convexa
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2976.jpg

rainbow stylophora
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP2978.jpg

Nice tank Doug, although I have not seen a recent picture of it. All those beautiful frags must look great in there. And the Clams --> WOW!

Give us a tank shot when you get a min.

Trying the Stylo again! Nice..

Is it really cheaper in the long run though? If there's one lesson I can impart onto anyone from my mistakes, it would be "don't slough off on testing." If a number is important to you, you need to track it. I feel so completely burned on KZRB now, I felt "Well, I don't need to test because I paid more!" .. Yes it is my mistake and I accept responsibility for it .. the point is .. if I have to test anyhow and dose to adjust Ca/Alk/Mg anyhow ..then I might as well take the salt that costs half because the additives I use are paid for by the difference. For real. And they last me way longer than a bucket of salt. I guess there must be different break-even points depending on total volumes, bioloads, water change volumes and frequencies, targetted levels and consumption rates, and the additives one uses. (Wow, that's a lot of variables. Can we work in moon phases into the list too? :neutral: ).

I dunno, but it just seems to me that everytime I've listened to the hype about a salt, I've been disappointed. A salt is a salt? Can it really be a tipping point (barring "bad" salts or batches or whatever)..