120 gallon journal - picture Feb 27

kwirky · #1 01-09-2007, 07:17 AM

I'm completely sick of dosing kalk. I don't have the means to hook my RO system to the tank, so a kalk mixer is out of the question

i've ordered some calcium chloride, and i'm going to try two part dosing. my calcium's slowly worked it's way down to 320ppm, even though i'm dosing 6 tps of kalk every night like clockwork. it's getting expensive, too, buying kalk from the LFS.

the two part system will give me more control to balance out my kH and calcium, and if it works, i'll look into some dosing pumps to do it for me.

I'll have about 9 lbs of calcium chloride in about a week, ordered from littlesilvermax, and we'll see how it all goes

I'm gonna have fun baking baking soda (sorry, geeky word pun there lol)

littlesilvermax · #2 01-09-2007, 02:56 PM

Just joining this thread right now.

What salt do you use?

How do you keep up your magnesium?

I use to go through additives like crazy trying to get my calcium above 350 with no luck, cept I had precipitation all over my pumps, and they needed to be cleaned every 4 months or so. And that was when I had no corals!

Now I have no trouble keeping my calcium at 420 or so and I have huge SPS! All because my magnesium is in check.

Just a thought.

kwirky · #3 01-09-2007, 04:22 PM

i use oceanpure salt. it has crazy high magnesium. when i mix to 1.025, it's mg is around 1500 ppm. It's calcium and carbonate hardness are imballanced when it's freshly mixed though. high kH, but low carbonate. I think that's why dosing kalk is a pain with it because i'm starting with imballanced water.

littlesilvermax · #4 01-09-2007, 08:39 PM

So you got lots of magnesium and high alk, then you need to just dose calcium, sounds like you have things under control, hope it all works well for you.

kwirky · #5 01-20-2007, 08:23 PM

Razz begun parting out his livestock for his 180 gallon setup. He told me his toadstool was 10". I figured he meant the head was 10", but when I showed up and the STALK was 10"... wow...

I also got a finger leather from him that's a fair size. Thanks again, Razz for selling me the corals

I'm trying to figure out what to add next for fish. Something that'll get along well with the cinamon clowns and the royal gramma I have already. I want to take into account their full size growth, down the road too. I have about 100lbs of liverock and a good euroreef skimmer at the moment, and nitrates are almost undetectable. I think it's time for another fish or two, just don't know exactly what to get. Oh, and it's an open top. The last fish I got was a bicolour blenny that went carpet surfing

here's a picture of the tank. My last picture was back in NOVEMBER so it's a lot nicer now

kwirky · #6 01-20-2007, 09:15 PM

actually I took more pictures, I just couldn't resist it

. They're all shot with my digital rebel, with various lenses and extention tubes (I can't afford macro lenses, so I use tubes).

this xenia started as a frag of about 5 polyps
I moved it yesterday to a position so it'll completely cover my "centerpiece" rock, and hopefully go inside it's cave. we'll see in a couple months.

aesthetic close up

this is the finger leather I got from Razz.

kwirky · #7 03-11-2007, 06:49 AM

got my rocks how I want them. still fighting aiptasia. down to two little polyps (used to be 8). I've been using joe's juice as I haven't been able to get pepermint shrimp yet.

I'm going to try to deal with the cyano that's on the one end of the tank. Nitrates are below 0.2ppm, using rowaphos in a reactor, so I don't think it's nutrients. I think it's my photoperiod. It's currently 13 hours of 10k, and 11 hours actinic. I switched it to 12 hours actinic and 8 hours 10k. I think this might return some of the colour I've lost in the corals, too. We'll see how it goes. I'm also due to replace 5 of my 8 bulbs in april (9 month point).

kwirky · #8 03-27-2007, 07:08 PM

I bought some new coral the other day. A large (about 8") nicely coloured zoo rock, a small acan piece, and a 2.5' tall branching montipora. I really like the colour of the monitpora, so I'm now planning to get more SPS.

I finished putting my nano gyre together, and now I'm waiting for the money people owe me to come in. I'll be getting liverock first, then I'll have time to decide on the lighting while the rock's cycling. I won't tap it into the sump of the 120g till the rock's cycled.

Income tax return is coming in soon. Plan on either getting a PM calcium reactor, or a dual channel litermeter III, depending on which I can get my hands on first. I'm so impatient when it comes to buying equipment

.

I'll post more pics when I feel like it.

Skimmerking · #9 03-27-2007, 09:57 PM

Whats this when you fell like it , you have some nerve Sean. well I can't speak.. mister spilly talker.......

kwirky · #10 03-30-2007, 02:16 AM

I think I have a microbubble problem. I'm going to have to find time to remove the sump, and silicone in baffles. Right now it's baffle-less.

The water looks like it has particles in it. When the pumps are turned off and the water column's observed right away, I notice tons of little bubbles floating to the surface. Algae only really grows on plastic stuff, but where it's growing, there's large bubbles stuck to it.

I wish there were glass places closer to my house. I either have to take the bus and transfer 3 times, or take a bus and a train, then walk about 20 minutes further.

I think I screwed up making my last batch of 2 part, too. I didn't use the same bottles as last time for the alk/calc parts. I mixed the two up, and didn't rinse them well before hand. My alk's dropped 1 dkh in the past week, and I think it's the 2 part. Either that or I didn't bake the b.soda enough this time. baked it at 400F for an hour spread out about 1/4" thick on a baking pan.

I just love the gyre nano

. I'm debating whether to use the 150W light I have now, or upgrade it to a 250W halide or a T5 setup.