I have also read that the purples don't do well under leds and that's why I added those T5s and turned down my Sunbrite and I am starting to see more purple coming now and I wanted to be your 600th posts :-)

All the way from Costa Rica Harry? Hope you're having fun.

My purple validas LOVE being under LEDs. Lots of purple with green growth tips. That's with the emitters NOT at full power. Probably a much higher nutrient system than you have, cause I love lots of fish in my tanks.

After seeing Richards tank with the mix of led with a little t5, I added two Fiji purple t5 bulbs to the fixture. They have been on there about 45 days now. I have been running them when only a few rows of my LEDs are on and then off when the fixture really wakes up in the afternoon/evening. I figure if there is some spectrum that I'm missing then this might hit it.

I have a feeling that the aminos from the reefbooster might change things up so I will slowly add this back into the mix.

That should be long enough to see a difference if you were going to. See anything? I notice in your photos it looks like your green Monti Cap used to have a purple rim, but doesn't anymore...? What color is the rim on the green Monti Cap I sent you? The rim is blue in my tank.

The rim is White on the cap you sent me Mindy. I also gave Nick a piece of that green with purple rim....and I saw his yesterday...nice purple rim. Mine, white....:(

I use this stuff and so does Kelly and you have seen my blue ZEOvit Potassium Iodide Fluoride Concentrates it s the reds I am of my forest fire that I am going after now

A quick update on the tank. Things are progressing slowly. My colors are still not where they should be but I'm working on it. Haven't got my full dosing setup done yet but soon.

Had a bout with Red bugs...but treated and got rid of the problem...corals are much happier now.

Here are a few pics.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psdcf8ff3e.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psf0e39fce.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps92166d51.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...pse89f82e5.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psdbaa7e34.jpg

Hey Mark how many fish do you have can't help but notice in the pics few fish so pretty low bioload?

I've got 4 tangs, 12 cardinals, 2 Chromis, 7 wrasses, 1 dottyback and 1 blennie, 1 large sandsifting gobie. I always thought it wasn't too low as the tangs can get pretty sizeable (as can the amount of crap i see them pumping out)...is that particularly low?

Wow you have a beautiful tank set up! I hope to have my tank look half as good as yours. I see you live in Vernon just down the highway from me.

Thank you so much. I'm always happy to have visitors.

Looks good Mark! Colors or not, the setup is stunning! Do you get much algae growth on the glass or rocks? If you aren't getting much algae you could experiment with feeding the fish more to see if you can improve color that way. Your bioload is quite low now but will increase as the fish grow.

Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

I'm always thrilled when you take a peek at my build Mindy. Haven't chatted with you in way too long. My glass does seem to get growth quite quickly but I have little to no algae on the rocks. Nitrate measures zero on my hanna and my PO4 was 0.05 also on the hanna meter.

The view through the end of the tank looks stunning. :)

Tank looks great Mark. As to not clutter your thread, I will post my thoughts on colour in another in the reefing forum, as I dont like some of mine either.

Thanks Doug, you're going to have to find a chance to head down this way one time so I can show you it in person. :)


Thanks so much...down the end is one of my favorite views. Sometimes I get frustrated as I have a sand sifter and he can really just mix it up enough with those four big powerheads at the end to give me a sandstorm.

Do you have a Kien equivalent in your area? I dismantled my reef to catch my sifter and gave it to him.

I see a ton of people complaining about sand sifters but never ever read of anyone housing a sand-dollar... I've had one in my reef for over two years now and he keeps the sandbed spic and span and I never get to see him unless he decides to go offroading and climb the rocks (this happens once a year and doesn't last very long)

Personally I've never seen one offered for sale? They would be an interesting option though.

I can't imagine ripping my reef apart no matter how much the goby bugs me...that is my worst nightmare other than the thing bursting.

your pretty lucky, about 2 years is where starving dollars start to die off, the problem with them is each type has a spicific food requirment and 99.9% of the time a tank doesn't support the right food. this ontop of the huge amount of sand bed you need for them gives them a very pour sucess rate in tanks.

Steve

So it's been way too long since I've updated this thread. The tank is doing well. I had a little bout with Cyano a while back and after trying all the natural methods, decided to treat.
I've reached the stage where I'm getting some battles between corals and so I need to do a little cleanup to deal with it. Dreading that job as it's tough to decide who stays and who goes.
Here are some pics of how it sits now.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps4d8c0a68.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa42aa5ab.jpg



http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps128e78a4.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psc856119d.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps1499becd.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psd1d13dd8.jpg

What did you treat with? What happened to your pod population while this was happening?

I used chemiclean at a slightly weaker dose than suggested. My problem wasn't terrible, just more than I could tolerate. The pod population appears fine...still everywhere.:biggrin:

looking awesome Mark! I need to come over again and get my fix, your whole system keeps me awake at night! Awesome! Let me know when you do some clean up.

Looks good Mark.

Thanks everyone. I love how it's coming together. At first I was nervous about how much water space I left above the rock but now that the coral is growing in...it's taken shape nicely.

Mark the tank is looking great my friend, just watch out for that Doug fella out there he is bad news :lol:

Look at all those corals! Awesome Mark!

It's filling in nicely. Sometimes it's fun to just watch the battles. It the end, it could look very cool and more natural. Plus it's also less work!

:pop2:

haha...less work does sound appealing! I can't believe how quickly I have completely run out of room for more corals. I've been struggling to balance my dosing off since they all started to grow.

Hey Mark are you dosing with 2 part or using a reactor? last time I was their you had something in a box, you hadn't hooked up, and thinking it was a reactor.

Hey Mark, did you get your dosing figured out?

For the most part I have. I figured out that I wasn't dosing enough...Haha.

I have been steadily upping the Alk every week and testing. It just seemed like a lot and so I started questioning myself...but now I realize I need to dose more. :)

Colors in tank are not quite right though...still working on it. I am upping my lighting some since i see frags that I've given out with more color in other people tanks who are blasting lights at full pop. I've been overly careful so I gotta start pushing some more.

Growth for me hasn't been an issue, but there are still too many browns or brown-like corals for my liking.

Hehe, yeah I figured you weren't being aggressive enough with the dosing. It's shocking how much the tank uses up when you're holding the dry powder in your hands!

How is your polyp extension? If PE is a bit lacking, it may be flow that you need. When you say "browns", light isn't the first thing that comes to mind (unless light is severely lacking). How's PO4? Any nuisance algae?

My PE is okay...nothing too spectacular. As for flow, I have a lot. 2 x 6105, 1x6305, 1 x WP60, Return pump, and maxspect gyre. It's like a hot-tub...haha.

My PO4 was last measured at .02 and I have almost no algae...tiny little spots here or there.

I dose Prodibio (just the big 3) and also some honey. I also dose CA and Alk.

I did have the odd cyano issue until I added honey and it all went away.

i need to read the forums a bit more often. you mean to tell me we're dosing honey now into our tanks lol? what is the advantage over VSV?

tank looks like it's growing in nicely well done.

I did some reading about a guy dosing milk and honey...and his results were awesome. I was afraid of the milk side of things but the honey explanation made sense versus VSV...which is more work. I squeeze a dollop of honey in the tank every day if I remember and it's been going well. How's that for scientific?

:jaw: