90gal Sps And Zoa Garden (pic Heavy)

[scubasteve]

well can officially say i cured that tang still no relapse only problem is he eats so dang much have had to do a few little water changes extra for a bit till everything settles back in. had a little bit of a gha outbreak but nothing majoris going away now... maybe time for another urchin

 

[saltyair]

UrchinsE="scubasteve, post: 171904, member: 517"]well can officially say i cured that tang still no relapse only problem is he eats so dang much have had to do a few little water changes extra for a bit till everything settles back in. had a little bit of a gha outbreak but nothing majoris going away now... maybe time for another urchin[/QUOTE]

Tuxedo Urchins love almost all types of algae, I have 5 in my 180. They keep the corilline algae in check too.

following this thread - nice to see the progress. What lights do you use? How long are they on? Do you dose? Are you running bio-pellets?
sorry for all the questions

 

[scubasteve]

surprisingly is pretty well all done by me i dose 3 times a week by hand since i cant afford the doser i want yet so try to spread it out to stay the same. i have never used ro on this tank but treat water with a double dose of prime and seems to be working and use all seachem aqua vitro products (calcification,ions, eight-four, fuel,and vibrance and use instant ocean reef salt.

i use a reef octopuss skimmer and have a make shift algae skrubber in sump also have calurpa grape and chaeto algae in fuge with mangroves.

have been using ai sol blues running at 8am white20% blue45%royal blue45% with 60 min ramp then at 1030am w60%b90%rb90% with 150 min ramp then 7pm back to sunrise setting then 8pm night setting with 90min ramp. I had the rb a lil higher but green digi started to lose colour so turned down a bit.

Only thing in my media reactor is carbon i tried phosban and other products with not a whole lot of luck just alot of money for very little found my algae scrubber and fuge do most the work for me along with the prob 100 snails and 6 shrimp making sure nothing is uneaten.

I have a rock boring urchin all black with red highlights kinda looks like darth maul never had enough algae to get another but since adding the large tang ineed a couple and some more mithrax crabs.

On the up side got a mh t5 combination coming for my massive frag tank so will finally have that running soon hopefully then wont have to sell things just to buy new stuff

 

[scubasteve]

And another bright colourful stick to add to the collection thanks canada corals for the new peice (acropora aspera)

 

[scubasteve]

figure i would start posting my test results on here as it gives me a long term reference that i always seem to lose at home so test showed as follows
ammonia-0 ppm
Nitrite-0 ppm
Nitrate-between 0 and 5 ppm
Phosphate-0.11 ppm
ph-8.6
Alk-10 dKH or 179ppm
Cal-480ppm
Magnesium-1380ppm
Salinity-1.026 or 35 ppt

Trying to get phosphates to zero but algae scrubber isnt that dense yet nitrate i dont want at zero but keep below 5 ppm unfortunately my test doesnt give an in between

 

[scubasteve]

time for some fts and updates since have moved everything around and added some newbies.... almost all sps and zoo's now.

from left to right

fts

zoa garden i assembled is starting to fill in slowly

And my colony of tri colour valida. Thanks kevin colour is coming back with a vengeance polyps are starting to show green again as well

 

[jeffopentax]

Zoa garden will be awesome when it completely fills in. Already looks good!

 

[scubasteve]

thanks i never had a clue how many i actually had till i put them all together then was like holy crap lol

 

[saltyair]

Very cool - you must have great municipal water source. I use to do the same but found that at certain times of the year the tds would go through the roof causing blooms.

 

[scubasteve]

Very cool - you must have great municipal water source. I use to do the same but found that at certain times of the year the tds would go through the roof causing blooms.

well we are cambridge and do have a brand new top of the line water treatment facility but tds readings are high i just use a double dose of prime and let my skimmer take it out.... gotta love molecular binding....only time i get a bloom is when i add a new fish but a water change takes care of it for me cant get phos to zero but is normally between 0.11 and 0.05 if i didnt double the prime im sure id have a mess by now i also only do water changes once every 3 weeks so im not adding as frequent and allowing my fuge and algae scrubber to starve it out.... before algae scrubber was a little work after has been a breeze i recommend them to everyone all natural is the best after all

 

[saltyair]

Your p04 is in a good range imo

 

[scubasteve]

ya im not worried unless it hits 0.3 or higher cuz i notice acros will start to lose colour under 0.3 they stay nice and bright and man do i love my new hanna checker it works like a charm and super sensitive

 

[scubasteve]

so absolutely everyone it seems thinks they have to have a rodi unit to have a successful reef tank. let me tell you it has been almost a year and a half with my 125 gal i am now almost exclusively sps and zoa's all have bright deep colour and nice lineage as many know that have seen it in person. first off i filled my tank with the gardening hose lol pics are way back somewhere of it ever since then i have not added a drop of ro water and only been using good ol cambridge tap water. From previouse experience i know the next couple months followed by a couple in spring are the worst for water quality from the tap so tomorrow after work im going to take a tap water reading to show what it is registering as and remember all i do is use a double dose of prime to treat the water before adding to system.

These chemicals work by using most commonly sulphur sulphate to do what is called molecular binding.... were not making a new atom we are combining 2 smaller molecules to form a larger molecule which makes it very easy for either our bio filter to break down or our skimmer to remove it.

I am truly tired off all the arguements from people on here about how i go about things in "MY" tank so figure i would do this to educate others about how it works and open options for others to try.

After all there is no sure fire way to reefing and right or wrong is measured by success or failure

 

[sunnykita]

can't argue with what's working for you Steve ! great job !

 

[TORX]

Agreed. I believe the argument isn't that you can't, but if something is going wrong with your tank, most do not know what is in their tap water and is normally the source of the issue. I have seen may successful tanks run off tap water only, hell, even off straight well water even.

 

[EricTMah]

You bring up great points steve.

It's not that you can't run a reef off of tap water it's just another thing that can be eliminated from the long list of things that can cause issues in a reef tank.

I've also seen many tanks run off straight tap water with no issues.

Everyone has their own way of doing things and there's definitely no right or wrong way of doing it.

It's great that you're having great success with your tank on tap. But from my experience. Especially with hobbyists that are new to the hobby. There's already so many things that can go wrong and can become a bit overwhelming for the new hobbyist to trace an issue. Using RODI just helps reduce some of the inherent issues that naturally come with keeping sensitive animals as we do.

Great point though!

Sent from my Z30 using Tapatalk 2

 

[scubasteve]

yes agreed its easier for begginners to pinpoint problems i just hate seeing post after post saying you need ro for a successful reef or if you use tap you will be covered in algae.....

i dont like the idea of removing trace elements from tap water as i already pay enough for aqua vitro lol and besides imo by teaching people to jump straight to ro water they are missing one of the most critical things to becomming a successful reefer and that is how to maintain nutrient control..... i firmly blame this on my 65 gal having multiple crashes which almpst made me give up like many others, rodi broke got bigger tank perfected my ways of tank management now lifes gravy low levels with wc every three weeks

 

[saltyair]

Steve I totally hear what you're saying - and I don't disagree. I started out my 75 with tap water and used it for a year and a half.

This is were ro does help: spring/fall large amounts of tds that will upset the balance. High fluctuations in CL. Living in the limestone city I would prefer to use city water since cal/mag and alk are available in my water.
I also find that using binders can disrupt skimmers and other equipment.

Starting out at 0 is better than starting out with the unknown.

 

[scubasteve]

thats why i test my tap water once a month and yes some binding agents cause skimmer issues but most that do say to turn skimmer off for a couple hours till it dilutes.... this is why i like prime so much my skimmer doesnt react to it after all you do check your ro water every now and then to make sure filters dont need changing do you not? the best thing for reef controle is to test , calculate, dose then re test after a short period of time. if everyone spent the $200 on test equipment that they need even with ro they would be golden most problems arise from improper testing or not testing at all or leaving out key tests

 

[jeffopentax]

All this talk about tap water quality changing during certain times of year has got me wondering. Perhaps that's why my tanks seem to do fine for the first few months, then seem to gradually start to go down hill for no obvious reason, then start to come back again. Coincidentally, i started my 1st and 2nd tank almost exactly a year apart. Hmmm...