kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

The Red Planet (although more of a pinkish planet really).



Bonsai!



Pink Stylophora



A very minty unknown acropora. I shall call it, The "Minty Smoothie"



Acropora Austera.



Superman Samarensis



There was a discussion recently about how to control the spread and manage the warfare of encrusting montiporas. Well, here's my solution.



Eventually they just encrust and run over the strip of epoxy but then I can easily peel it off and sell it as a frag and lay down a new strip of epoxy.

[JDigital]

Your Bonsai is BONKERS! Amazing piece. Smart idea with the epoxy. It's no wonder you've been looking all over for it.

[Snufflupagus]

I'm still blown away by your tank, setup, coral, etc. I'm still hoping one day I can have half the tank you do. Are there any tricks to get the full color out of your corals? I fine that mine do well, just can seem to get their true natural colors. It's like one day I'll get a glimpse of the true color and the next day they hide.
Love seeing your tank pictures.

[Proteus]

Some amazing pics

[kien]

Thanks for the comps everyone!

Originally Posted by Snufflupagus

I'm still blown away by your tank, setup, coral, etc. I'm still hoping one day I can have half the tank you do. Are there any tricks to get the full color out of your corals? I fine that mine do well, just can seem to get their true natural colors. It's like one day I'll get a glimpse of the true color and the next day they hide.
Love seeing your tank pictures.

I don't have any tricks. I do more or less the same things that everyone else does. Water changes, dose alk&calc, bioPellets, GFO, Carbon, and prayers. That's about it. Aside from recently adding the prayer reactor my methods have remained unchanged for 4 years. These methods have worked well for me. I've had issues over the years but the issues were usually related to a failure to implement and maintain my methods. Ie, bioPellet reactor failure allowing my nitrates to climb too high. GFO reactor failure allowing my PO4 to get too high. Lack of time to do water changes, or temperature spikes due to our AC failing for an entire summer. So long as I stick with my (fairly simple) methods, I find that things work out well.

[Reef Pilot]

Do you ever have to add Mg?

[kien]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Do you ever have to add Mg?

Actually, I never have. I bought a 3 pump doser specifically for dosing mag as well, and i even bought a box of mag in bulk like 4 year ago (which I just threw out a few weeks ago because it was a solid mass), but when I first set up the tank I noticed that the mag wasn't really dropping. I was doing weekly or bi-weekly water changes which seemed to keep my mag high enough. I think in 4 years I've tested mag twice. The lowest I've ever seen my mag was 1250 I think it was. When I read up on mag I learned that it mostly affects how Calcium and Alk react and that a difficulty in maintaining those two levels can be a sign of low magnesium. So, instead of worrying about magnesium directly I just focussed on Calc and Alk and so long as I could maintain those levels I was confident that my mag was OK. Sure enough, my calc and alk have been easy to maintain and I've had good coral and coraline algae growth. I don't even think about mag much anymore.

Another reason why I don't pay too much attention to mag is because I really hate testing for it. After the second time I tested for Mag I decided that I didn't want to do that again, ever

[reefermadness]

Originally Posted by kien

Thanks for the comps everyone!



I don't have any tricks. I do more or less the same things that everyone else does. Water changes, dose alk&calc, bioPellets, GFO, Carbon, and prayers. That's about it. Aside from recently adding the prayer reactor my methods have remained unchanged for 4 years. These methods have worked well for me. I've had issues over the years but the issues were usually related to a failure to implement and maintain my methods. Ie, bioPellet reactor failure allowing my nitrates to climb too high. GFO reactor failure allowing my PO4 to get too high. Lack of time to do water changes, or temperature spikes due to our AC failing for an entire summer. So long as I stick with my (fairly simple) methods, I find that things work out well.

.. you speak the truth like a prophet. Your prayers are obviously working.

[Reef Pilot]

And what salt do you use?

[lastlight]

think he alternates with DD h2Ocean and reef crystals. I never had to dose mag with reef crystals but do with DD. I'm guessing the use of reef crystals even half the time is what keeps his levels ok.