Lance's 225 gal tank

[Snappy]

Originally Posted by marie

There must of been some bad things floating in the powell river air.
I've never had my cali tort turn green but I did have a green acro turn purple when it bleached once. It regained its bright green colour again after a few months.

Do you guys not use R/O water?
Lance my Cali Tort is blue/purple but usually has some parts of it that turn green which I quite like as it adds a whole new dimension of colour to the colony, that said it has never turned all green and remains mostly blue/purple and it's just some of the branches in the lower light regions that get the green hues. Sorry to hear you're having problems. Any pictures so we can see what you mean?

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Snappy

Do you guys not use R/O water?
Lance my Cali Tort is blue/purple but usually has some parts of it that turn green which I quite like as it adds a whole new dimension of colour to the colony, that said it has never turned all green and remains mostly blue/purple and it's just some of the branches in the lower light regions that get the green hues. Sorry to hear you're having problems. Any pictures so we can see what you mean?

Yup, I use R/O water. (TDS of 1). Can't get any pics up for a few days as the wife lent our camera to our daughter. Strange things happening in the tanks: Some corals are doing great. Bird's Nests, Staghorns, 2 Milli's, Digi's, Stylo's, Hydnophoras and Pocillopora are growing well, with good colour. All LPS and softies are doing well. It's just a problem with a few Acros. Water parameters are fine; pH; 8.1, S.G: 1.025, Ca: 420, alk: 8 dKH, Mg a little high at 1450 due to inaccurate readings from an old test kit, which has been replaced. NO3 at 5, and PO4 is undetectable. (all on Salifert and/or Elos kits). Haven't changed any lighting or flow, or dosing any different. The strange thing is that I have had some bleaching in both tanks which leads me to believe that it may be the recent heat wave or bad salt. Don't know what else it could possibly be?

[Lance]

I've also noticed that the film algae on the glass seems to need cleaning more often; can warmer tank temps cause this?

[christyf5]

I've noticed this too, so not sure about the warmer temps. My tank is actually a bit cooler than normal usually 79, now 77 and I'm finding I need to clean the glass every 2nd day.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by christyf5

I've noticed this too, so not sure about the warmer temps. My tank is actually a bit cooler than normal usually 79, now 77 and I'm finding I need to clean the glass every 2nd day.

Hmmm, strange. In the last month I've also been getting some of that short, brown, sorta fuzzy, real-hard-to-remove algae growing over the corraline on the back wall. Horrid stuff!

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Lance

Hmmm, strange. In the last month I've also been getting some of that short, brown, sorta fuzzy, real-hard-to-remove algae growing over the corraline on the back wall. Horrid stuff!

Yeah I have that too. Sadly, its not growing over my coralline as I don't have any On the flip side, my tank is rather ghetto right now as we have it in the basement awaiting the big tank build and its out from the wall a bit so I can scrape the entire back glass with my mag float/easy blade. So I can get rid of it rather easily with a scrape and a water change. Yay ghetto reef!

[Lance]

Changing my plans for this tank yet again........... (SPS Boycott)

It was originally going to be a Fowler with large cool fish: Tangs, Trigger, Tuskfish, Angels, Wrasses etc. Shortly after setting it up I moved a few soft corals over from the 90g reef. Then Marie gave me a large Pipe Organ Coral, and several large softies as well as some mushrooms. Then a little later I thought a few nice LPS would be ok, which of course led to SPS frags and colonies. All of a sudden it became a full-blown mixed reef!
However, as the fishes grow larger and the bio load increases, it's becoming more and more of a struggle to keep nitrates down. I've got 3 reactors running in the sump. One for GFO, one for nitrate sponge, and one for carbon. I also use T.A. Nitrate Destroyer and perform 10% bi-weekly water changes. With this regimen I can keep NO3 at about 5ppm.
I refuse to underfeed my fish; If I can't keep them fit and healthy I'd rather not keep them at all. The livestock in the tank now consists of: 5" Harlequin Tuskfish, 5.5" SF Tang, 6" Kole Tang, 6" Foxface, 5" Bannerfish, 5" Lunare Wrasse, 2.5" CBB, 2x 2" Fire Clowns, 4" LM Blenny, 3" Lamarck Angel, 2.5" Falco Hawkfish, 11x Chromis, many large snails and hermits and shrimp in the sump. My wife has been pining for a Blue-Chin Trigger, which I have my doubts about. The fish are all getting along well, and I'm a little leery about throwing a Trigger into the mix.
All the soft corals and LPS are thriving, but a few of the SPS are not doing so well. I lost one colony and two frags to bleaching, and two other colonies are losing colour. The faster-growing SPS (Stags, Bird's Nest, Montis, Hydno- phora) are growing well and showing good colour, as are the Milli's, Stylo's, and Pocci's. The tabling varieties are not doing as well.
IMO it's only going to get more difficult to keep SPS healthy in this tank as the fish grow, ............. so no more SPS additions for this tank. Those SPS that are doing well will stay and those that are not will go either to the 90g reef, or to fellow reefers. The 90g has few fish in it and corals grow well there. However it's mostly full, so I guess I'll have to stay away from the frag sales, and the LFS for awhile.