Reef Journal V2 - Now with more water

Thanks,

Tank Specs:
30G shallow
10G sump
SWC160 Skimmer
Jebao circulation
Modded Arctic T247 LED (added warm whites / UV bands / cyan + narrow optics) -run 10h a day
Carbon + GFO in tlf reactor


The light is mounted high up mostly for the look. I think the more parallel light looks more natural and gets to the edges a bit better. To account for the extra height I modified the led optics by replacing the stock 60 degree lenses with 30 degree.

Maintenance:
Skimmer emptied weekly
GFO and carbon are changed every 6 weeks or so
Wc = 5g once a month
Ato is supplemented with kalk

I just started dosing carbon - 5% white vinegar as my nitrates were trending up. I use a jebao doser and am currently dripping 10ml spread across 10 doses. I expect to use 15-20ml as a maintenance dose. I have macro that I would like to keep alive.
 
No macro lens, just a canon + 50mm and a cheap underwater camera.

Another update with some color correction. Looking back on my older pics - I need to get my act together. Coral is not looking very healthy lately.

http://imgur.com/a/Oq9pz

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http://i.imgur.com/KdJnkmf.jpg[/IMG

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/zGPuQqk.jpg

wow awesome. great looking tank.
This tank size is my favorite. My next tank will be this size.
By the way, I think you need to either trim the animals or do something to make room for the animals. They need a little bit of space.

your photography skill is excellent. you and Lovethereef are good at manipulate and enhance the photo very well.
Good to have the skill i guess.
 
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Carbon Dosing
Vinegar dosage upped to 25ml/day (tsv = 40gallons). I expect to ramp up to 30ml/day next week and sustain 30ml dosage until negative results are noted. Since it was inexpensive I purchased 6 vials of biodigest. I will add one vial every couple weeks to combat the potential dominance of a single strain. I'm on the fence as to whether or not adding bacteria will have any noticeable effect in a well established reef. I am dosing a small amount of reef chili daily alongside NLS. My goal is to be able to dose a decent amount of reef chili daily without hair algae.

Flow
I am now running my RW-8 at 18V and ELSE mode - for 6 hours during the middle of the day I run the WP-25 at 12V and W1 mode. I would consider tank flow to be very high right now. The LPS are not digging it, but it's for the greater good.

Light
I was baking the coral and bleached a lot of what is in the tank. I've turned the fixture down to 60(blue uv cyan) 20(full spectrum). So far the new coral has not had a white out event. If the new SPS begins to brown I will increase blue and white no more than 5% per week (in the past I've bumped it by 20% or more...results were not good).

Filtration
Skimmer is cranking, After the epoxy it took a few days to settle out. Now it's back to skimming wet and stinky. I'm shooting for a cup of skimmate every 3 days or so. I am running carbon and pelletized gfo, but have not changed the media in a few weeks and plan on weaning off of GFO entirely once I hit a maintenance dose of vinegar.

My main goal right now is to not touch anything for a couple weeks. This is the hardest part.
 
None of your pictures are showing. Would love to see how the tank looks like.
That's seem to be a lot of nutrient control reagent in a 30gallon tank. You're running GFO and doising 30ml of vinegar a day? What is your fish load and your phosphate and nitrate level?
 
None of your pictures are showing. Would love to see how the tank looks like.
That's seem to be a lot of nutrient control reagent in a 30gallon tank. You're running GFO and doising 30ml of vinegar a day? What is your fish load and your phosphate and nitrate level?

Load = 5 fish / some snails / spot fed corals - I feed about 1/8 TSP of reef chili per day in addition to NLS pellets.

I agree - it's a lot of nutrient reduction. When I moved these rocks to the new tank they began leeching phosphate into the water. All was well at first, but then I ended up with a nasty algae bloom. I am using GFO primarily to reduce phosphate, and use a small amount (2 TBSP). I haven't changed it for 3 weeks and do not plan on adding more GFO once this batch has run its course. With the vinegar, I'm ramping up until I begin to see the macro algae fade, then I'll drop it and also remove some of the macro from the system. Right now the macro (Red / Green) is still growing, so nutrients are definitely not bottomed out.

I have not been taking Nitrate or Phosphate readings, instead I'm hoping to let the tank tell me what's going on through markers like algae growth, skimmer production, and symptoms of vinegar OD.

We'll see how it does ;) - and bummer about the images not showing. They're all hosted on imgur: (http://imgur.com/a/S6fRn + http://imgur.com/a/oKsRq)
 
Seeing the pictures now. Could be my work network vs. my home network.
Come nice macro shots!
Yeah, sometime, good observations on the tank is more reliable than some test kit. Do you still mount your light that high?
 
I do and really like the look of a light very high above a rimless tank. If for some reason the narrow optics still aren't enough I'll go grab an even more narrow set. As it stands 100% blue 50% white for 10h total really bleached everything out. Right now I'm running 60% 20%.
 
Frogspawn has reacted very well to the new light. For the last two months it has not expanded completely. After one day under the new vero it's stretching back out again. I expected the results to be almost completely aesthetic, so this is a pleasant surprise. (crosspost from DIY thread)

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other random tank shots just after the main spotlight turned off:

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Beautiful little midas zoas from a fellow boston reefer

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FTS1

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FTS2 - final rescape for a while... I have to keep my hands out of the tank; if only for my clowns' sake ;)
 
Thanks! One more - Ora green frog skin, also from Dong (Acro Garden)
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I've noticed that my coral are a bit pale. I'm currently running a low nutrient system by dosing 30ml of vinegar daily and skimming heavily. Additionally I am running carbon and gfo. I am concerned that io reef crystals may be problematic as high alk coupled with low po4 has been known to cause issues, but before I go changing salt I'm going to up my feeding to 1 frozen cube daily + a pinch of reef chilli.
 
first, Very nice. Amazing macro shots. Definitely a very talented reefer with a great photography skill set.
Second, I think 30ml of vinegar daily on such a small tank is a lot.
You dont have that many sps in the tank, why bother to dose vinegar. (Vinegar only helps with the nitrate (NO3) and not so much on phosphate PO4). If you are doing both vinegar along with GFO, you are lucky that your sticks are just pale and not bleaching
 
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Thanks, I set the gfo and carbon on a 5 minutes off 30 seconds on timer. (Po 4x4 - clumping not an issue)

Do you know if there's an easy way to tell if i'm dosing too much vinegar? I'm getting great, disgusting skimmate and still have some hair / bubble algae growing.

test your parameters then you will know. if you don't test then why bother to dose. what is it that you are trying to chase that made you dosing vinegar?
If you are using RODI and both of your NO3 and PO4 are good then no need to dose vinegar. Dosing too much vinegar could make corals looking pale.
Hair algae is tough to conquer. I dont think anyone knows the exact solution to rid of hair algae to be honest with you

I won my hair algae battles twice a few years ago and what I did was I shutdown my tanks (twice) and started all over again.
 
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Thanks, I put the carbon+PO4x4 on a 5min off 30sec on timer.

It does seem like a lot of vinegar, but I'm not sure how I can tell if it's too much. I'm getting disgusting skimmate and still have a bit of algae growth. Know of any visual cues?
 
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