Hi Dez thanks for the tour of your tank. It's always a pleasure to meet new reefers. I was very impressed with your setup and had a great chat.

Not a problem. I'll make up for the size of your frag when my stuff grows out later. Sorry as I had to frag a frag for you since my system is so new. Always nice meeting new reefers as well.

A little bit of an update today. I removed a couple of large-ish pieces of rock from one side cause I though the corals were too high, this gave me more room for corals surprisingly. I don't have a full tank shot yet as the tank is cloudy now due to an addition to my tank.

I hooked up a calcium reactor that has been sitting in my garage for a while. It's a deltec. I dug up my CO2 bottle and gauges out from storage under the stairs in my basement - and voila, I have a calcium reactor hooked up.

I started at one bubble/sec and effluent at 2 drops per second and will test ph/calcium tomorrow.

Here are pics.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256361150

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256361184

Thanks for looking.

thanks for the frags dez
was cool to see the tank again

Did a little bit of work on the tank today. I received my zeo reactor a few days ago. I traded someone some lights for a reactor so I will venture out and try the zeo system out. Here is the reactor in the sump now.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256530893

I signed up on zeovit.com and asked for a starting dosing regime. It seems simple enough so far. I will go out and spend my hard earned $ tomorrow on the starting bacteria and stuff for the zeo system. I also took out my kalk reactor today based on the recommendation from the zeo people. *keeping fingers crossed that everything will be good*

Here are a couple of pictures taken a few minutes ago on my crappy cell phone camera.

Den side:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256531313

Living room side:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256531093

Clown hosting in the green star polyps:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256531152

Thanks for looking :)

Cool pic's very nice tank!
be cereful withe the zeovit

Thanks for the nice comments Navarchus.

Have you tried zeovit? I know that overdosing can be detrimental. I'm just going by what the zeovit forum recommends (to start it's quite a bit less than what it recommends on the bottle. *Keeping fingers crossed*

Half of me says "why fix what ain't broke".... but as I look at before and after pictures etc of zeovit users, the colours do seem to "pop" more.

I was considering vodka dosing, but I ended up with a free reactor (well, trade for lights I was not using...so I decided to give it a try.

Wish me luck!

Hi
My pleasure

The thing with zeovite method is that you are walking on the edge. By starving the zooxantela you eliminate an energy source from the corals. Instead you have to supply the corals alternative energy and freed them daily. As far you starve the zooxantela the better colors you will get and the edge is getting slender wich means no room for mistakes such as missing a coral feed.

Take in mind that to get good results you must keep your alkalinity around 7-7.5 dKH. By doing so, you will make it more difficult for the coral to precipitate CA, and instead of investing its energy in growing the coral will invest it in protein which enhance the color of the coral.

My alk is about 7 now, but the calcium is a little bit high for the zeo method, it sits at about 480ppm now. I will gradually lower it through the weekly water changes. My thought is "who comes up with this stuff?" That's a such a vast amount of stuff that goes into the tank and who actually took the time to try different stuff out and test it. But hey, if it works, then it works. I'm gonna try to stick with it. I've already drawn up a chart for my dosing so that I don't have to rely on my memory to remember if I dosed that day or not. Are you running zeo? Or have you just done a lot of reading on it?

The nice thing about Zeovit is you can go as far into it as you like. You don't HAVE to go all-out with all the Zooxanthellae killing additives (which is the basic gyst of some of them - zooxanthellae is brown, so take away the brown and what you have left is theoretically just colour - but is the equivalent of an anorexic runway model). But if you just go "basic 4" there are benefits enough - 1) the water clarity (and to me it's amazing how fast this works - the day after I first went Zeo, I was wondering what was wrong with my lights because they seemed way too bright all of a sudden - but it occured to me that it was the water clarity was just THAT much more, that the lights were penetrating way deeper. Literally, the next day). 2) It depletes your tank of NO3 and PO4 like crazy - so you can feed more, which is always a good thing. 3) The sloughed off bacteria, and the coral food additive itself, is a good food source for corals so you get bigger polyp extension, more or less all the time.

So it's almost a slam dunk for a system. I say "almost" though, because, truly, Zeo isn't for everyone and you don't really know what's right for you until you try it. I'm on the fence about going with it in my new tank - I have the equipment ready to go, should I decide to - but two things that don't sit that well with me are, 1) the constant need for replacing the zeolites (it's not like it's a huge cost burden, but still, it's annoying to me), and 2) the inevitable problem of training up your tanksitter for when you're away (vacation or work site trips, whatever the case may be). A lot of Zeo folks, I found, just "let it slide" in these times but that's not always good either - sometimes "things just happen" and then you have to spend all this effort resetting your tank into a happy place when you come back and in the meantime you may be losing corals.

FWIW, I don't run zeo on my cube tank, I run a strong UV instead and it gives me near to the same water clarity that Zeo does, the chaeto fuge does near the same job at scavenging NO3 and PO4, and it's a less maintenance intensive tank as a result. But like I said, each person has their own comfort levels and one methodology isn't really a slam dunk over another - in and of itself anyhow, since a big part of the difference are the users themselves. And there's no rule saying you can't mix and match (ie., I still use Coral Snow and Sponge Power on occasion).

Anyhow sorry for the unsolicited thoughts on the matter - just wanted to talk reefs instead of sitting down and starting the mammoth coding I have ahead of me today. Dez, ultimately I think you will initially like Zeo an awful lot. Have some fun with it, it will be interesting to hear what you think down the road.

cheers

Dez....tank is starting to fill in quite nicely indeed:biggrin:

Thanks for the comments Tony. It is quite encouraging. Looking forward to seeing changes. Although sometimes changes are so hard to see without pictures. Dang, my camera is out of batteries right now and cell phone pictures always suck. I'm glad that you think I'll be pleasantly surprised with the results. My corals were already growing quite quickly, so hopefully the colours start "popping". That is the main reason I went sps dominant tank actually - the colours! Although now zoas are more readily available in fancy colours at a better price than when I first got into the hobby. Anyway, thanks for talking reef with me.

Doug, yes, it's already getting quite full. I know that I'll need to harvest some out later but for now I'm just wanting to see what colours up and what grows well. What an exciting hobby.

A little update. With the zeovit method it requires more frequent SMALLER water changes. I set up my system to do water changes once a month - a 75 gallon water change takes me 15 minutes.

But to do 5 - 10% it didn't work too well, cause my system was designed to drain the entire 75 gallon tank and mix the salt and add the additives in that tank. But if I only drained 1/3 to 1/2 the tank for a 5 - 10% water change, then I wouldn't want to be mixing the salt in that tank cause it would wipe out any beneficial bacteria in there.

My solution was to get a smaller mixing tup and still have everthing hard plumbed to make water changes easy.

Now my small water change process goes like this.

1. Turn pump on from 75 gallon RO tank to pump into cylindrical tank.
2. Add salt/additives into cylindrical tank
3. Let mix.
4. Shut my water change tank off system via valve, then drain however much water I need out of that tank via my "toilet hose"
5. Check salinity of new water and turn a couple of valves to direct water back into system.
6. Turn valve back on to get system running

Fairly simple and still takes about 15 minutes.

(It is a 40 gallon cylindrical tank)
Here are pictures of the new cylindrical tank and plumbing:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256790142
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256792127

Nice set up.

where did you find the tank des
how many $

Nice looking tank for sure.

Zeovit...not to mention you pm'ing every person selling coral within 2 provinces of you. Dez you are living the DREAM =)

Walked into Marine Aquaria and bought it. Ask Josh, he could probably hook you up with one. I have one that is about 75 gallons that is rectangular. I bought it cause I was going to use it as part of my water change system, but didn't want to build a stand for it to elevate it. Let me know if you're interested in that. My friend has it right now cause he used it for a tank move. I can call him for the measurements.

Brett, if you had salty water in your tank you could've gotten Lobsterboy's Humilus....ha ha. Can't wait for that coral, it's coming to me in a few hours. My in-laws were kind enough to pick it up for me and come visit me (Well, I think they're really coming to visit the grandkids....).

You don't know how many times corals/frags came up for sale before my tank was ready and I was kicking myself for not speeding up my build. The world changes once the tank is cycled and ready!!!! :)

Anyway, a little update. I decided to drill my 75 gallon RO reservoir yesterday cause I've lost the siphon a couple of times for my auto top-off for unknown reasons. I will post pictures later when I get off work. Nothing too special.

Oh and another thing - I thought the tank looked brighter after starting zeovit....but maybe I was just brainwashing myself. But my WIFE made the comment last night - "The tank looks quite a bit clearer, Dez". I was like "woo-hooo! it's not just me thinking that zeovit is doing something...."

Told ya! LOL! :p

You have your INLAWS coral running for you? Dude that is so boss LOL!

I'm living thru you. I'm jealous but it's a respectful jealous so party ON!

My INLAWS even fronted the drug....I mean CORAL money. Ha ha. Coral arrived safe and sound!

glad it made it up there alright

Thought I'd post some pictures of some frags, I changed some stuff on the camera and these pictures are taken without a tripod.

This is Snappy's famous Birds of Many Colours:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969625

Have no idea what this is but it's one of my favourite frags. Got it from a local hobbyist. It's doubled in size in 2 months. One of my first frags in there.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969694

The hot pink one is Snappy's rainbow stylo, and the one beside is another stylo from a friend.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969777

Picked this one up yesterday - LOVE IT. Where it's white and broken is where we broke it off. I split the cost of this coral with a friend to save $ and for insurance in case either of us lose it in the future. ID anyone?
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969830

Freebie frag from a bulk buy :). I'm excited to see how this will turn out
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969916

My cap frag garden and the Acro Humilus from Lobsterboy that I received today :). Thanks John:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256969978

Digi combo frag from Snappy - pumpkin and green. The deep purple off to the right is from Snappy as well.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970037

Unknown frag from Marine Aquaria, love the colour and polyp extension.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970101

Another Marine Aquaria frag:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970150

This is the craziest little kenya tree coral frag ever. I had it in my little nano for the last couple of years, and I'm saving this frag for a friend who hasn't picked it up yet. It is just sitting on the sandbed. It's doubled in size and the polyp extension is ridiculous. It never had polyp extension like this in the nano. It doesn't even look like a kenya tree.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970185.

Part of my gorgonian. This picture doesn't show full polyp extension at the time the picture was taken.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970315

I call this my superman milli. Started out as a brown coral that was smooth with zero polyps from the bottom of my friends tank. Now it's red and blue....woo hoo!
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970396

Finally a couple of FTS
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1256970460

Holy crap those frags are off the hook!

I love the red style. When it and the teal one in front of it are big the contrast there is going to look amazing.

And the digi combo...won't they battle each other...being 2 different corals?

You have been busy man! Already looks awesome in there.

Wow indeed, what did you change? The difference is remarkable.

Nice corals! Needless to say, jealous. Will be really keen to see these guys grown in come say six months from now.

Yeah that Stylo is off the wall. I love that teal one too. Digi's typically don't "fight" with each other in my past experience. That's why I've grouped them together. And that frag came like that from Snappy (Stand up guy btw). The green digi was a "bonus" mounted beside the pumpkin.

PS. Did you make that Deadline? I saw you were on Canreef probably more than you were "at work" :)

You know Tony, honestly I don't know. Caley was home at the time I wanted to snap some pictures. I gave her that camera and she changed something to make the camera think that the aquarium lights were the "flash". I told her never to change that setting and just "leave it" for me.

Before I'd try the tripod and the pictures just sucked. Now I can just point and shoot!

The FTS still needs work though. The colours aren't right. Corals are brighter in person.

I know I'll have to do a lot of pruning down the road cause I have a lot of frags in there. I'm interested to see the "final colour" of the corals in my system too. I know corals look different in everybody's tank. I too am looking forward to the "grown in" look, instead of the frag tank look.

Wow! Nice frags and growth. Tank is going to look terrific when some of those babies fill in.

Forgot to include pics of my auto top off upgrade - went from siphon to drilled tank. No more worries of losing siphon :)
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1257012682
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1257012701

Enjoy.

Another couple of corals I like:

Have no idea what this is but I split it with my friend. We flipped for the base I think and he got the base :)
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1257012926

This is Snappy's famous Uber Grabe Milli as Mindy would call it
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1257012965

Ooooo.....I like that deepwater....Suharshanoi perhaps???

Love all your stuff! That freebie frag is really nice, I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks as it grows. Might just have to hit you up for some frags once stuff grows :mrgreen:

Frags are no problem once everything grows. I know that I'll have to do a lot of pruning as my frags are really close together right now. My strategy is to sort of let the really colourful ones grow big and either sell or keep fragging the ones that I don't like so much or the ones that stay brown/tan.... We'll see, it's all a learning process :)

So my wife pretends to be "uninterested" in the hobby but I caught her red-handed staring at the tank after the kids when to bed. I was upstairs doing something and saw her staring so I quickly grabbed the camera without her knowing. She may roll her eyes at this hobby and get annoyed at the things I do for the aquarium, but deep down inside she loves it. Here's proof:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1257279494

Great shot!

Don't loose that photo.... that's leverage in the future! :mrgreen:

Haha, busted.

Guard that pic with your life Dez! That's leverage baby!

DEZ that is worth a new skimmer ande 2 vortechs oh ya