afboundguy's downsizing (or upgrading???) 25 gallon cube build

Clowns are back getting their grove on. They had a little stint of celibacy when my heaters went on the fritz and the tank got a little colder than usual. Had some of those throw it in heaters that automatically goes to 78 even though they never really get to 78. Ended up buying some adjustable ones and turned them up and that got them in the mood again... They're doing it center front of the tank now they have zero shame!!!

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Who needs a skimmer? :cool: I happened to pick up the Red Sea Marine Care test kit (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and alkalinity) as I had been curious what my pH typically runs at and I couldn't pass up the deal I got on the kit. I have noticed my tank was doing quite well and the growth has started to take off and I have been doing a little bit or research that says higher pH leads to better growth. Basically there's carbonate and bi-carbonate molecules in the water and the only difference is bi-carbonate has a hydrogen molecule attached to it's structure. These two molecules constantly change in the tank (dropping and picking up the hydrogen molecule).

Corals need calcium and carbonate (no hydrogen) to make their structures so one would assume they prefer to take in carbonate over bi-carbonate. If they take in bi-carbonate they have to expend energy kicking off the extra hydrogen molecule. Lower pH tanks have more free hydrogen molecules so in theory there's more free hydrogen molecules floating around so there's more bi-carbonate molecules in the tank. Higher pH means less free hydrogen molecules in the water so there's more available carbonate which means less energy expended by the corals so they can grow faster.

Anyways due to the corals growing much faster lately I had been wanting to test my pH to see what my my pH is at now to see if part of the reason for the faster growth could be due to a higher pH. I am only running a HOB refugium (about 3-4 gallons on my 25'ish cube) on a reverse lighting schedule (10pm-10am). Ever since I took the skimmer out when I went with a HOB refugium I was wondering what the pH of the tank would be because it's normally agreed that a skimmer will increase the pH of a tank. Since I don't have a controller I don't have instant trackability of pH to see the swings which is why I wanted to test it. I tested the tank this morning at around 7am with just the refugium lighting on and the pH was 8.2 which I was pleasantly surprised about. I wanted to test the pH during the 30-45 minute overlap when the DT lights are on at the same time but wife was teaching her class on Zoom in the room where the tank lives so I couldn't check.

I tested again at 11:30am when just the DT lights were on and at about 2/3 their scheduled highest setting. I plan to retest after 3pm as that's when the DT lights are set the highest. At 11:30am the pH was 8.1. I rushed the testing due to having limited availability to the tank which could be why it went down.

For the hell of it I also tested the ammonia and nitrites and they were at zero. Alkalinity was at 8 dkh and then 7.8 dkh on the other Red Sea kit that has a much finer testing ability. Calcium was at 380 with Magnesium being at 1320. Calcium has been constantly around 380 for a while (benefits of keeping a list and monthly testing log) while the alkalinity has been closer to 8.5-8.7 dkh so I will be adding a few more milliliters of 2 part daily. Makes sense as faster/better coral growth means the tank will use up more calcium and alkalinity.

My biggest surprise was my nitrates were below 2 ppm and I would have said they were 0 actually. I thought my tank would have much higher nitrates due to having 6 fish in about 28 gallons of volume (probably closer to 25 with rocks and sand) with very heavy feeding. I feed at least a whole cube of food daily as well as baby brine shrimp daily and I'm starting to do daily phyto dosing. All this without having a skimmer on the tank and only doing water changes every 2'ish weeks with NSW and the windows have been closed due to the wife being a baby and doesn't like the cold so I was pleasantly surprised on many levels...
 
Been a bit since I've updated the thread. Things are still going well. Added another fish (small yellow watchman goby) which makes 7 fish in my small tank. Still feeding like a pig and stuff is still growing. The not so little mandarin is finally eating white worms. She frigging loves them I turn off the powerhead when I feed the tank and a bunch fall in the back of the tank and she mows them down before the clowns figure out all the worms are in that spot!!!

Big news is afboundguy's better 1/2 has sort of ok'd me to replace my cube tank. I'm figuring out some things and trying to get a slightly larger footprint (24x24 vs my 20x18) to increase the gallon'age as well as have an overflow drilled into the back so I can do a sump. I was just on Reef Automation's livestream and I won a pick your own prize up to a certain amount and I chose the large Eclipse ghost overflow so I could put that extra money into the purchase of the tank!!!

I'll try and snap some pictures in the next few days...
 
Been a bit since I've updated the thread. Things are still going well. Added another fish (small yellow watchman goby) which makes 7 fish in my small tank. Still feeding like a pig and stuff is still growing. The not so little mandarin is finally eating white worms. She frigging loves them I turn off the powerhead when I feed the tank and a bunch fall in the back of the tank and she mows them down before the clowns figure out all the worms are in that spot!!!

Big news is afboundguy's better 1/2 has sort of ok'd me to replace my cube tank. I'm figuring out some things and trying to get a slightly larger footprint (24x24 vs my 20x18) to increase the gallon'age as well as have an overflow drilled into the back so I can do a sump. I was just on Reef Automation's livestream and I won a pick your own prize up to a certain amount and I chose the large Eclipse ghost overflow so I could put that extra money into the purchase of the tank!!!

I'll try and snap some pictures in the next few days...
Nice!!
 
Congratulations on the double win. They say good things come in threes. You should buy a lottery ticket.
 
Wife was busy tonight so I decided to tackle a problem that has been bugging the hell out of me. The stupid zoas that were taking over some of the rockwork big time. In my laziness and slacking they got out of hand to the point that the they were almost overtaking some of the other SPS frags.... I stupidly forgot to snap a picture by the caps so I just reposted an old picture from about a month ago (last picture)

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It took me almost 2 hours to manually remove all of them and there are still some small pieces left but my hand was getting tired from squeezing the tweezers lol... I'll have to see how it looks in a few days and reassess...

I was all smahhhtttt and used clear eye protection just in case the silly zoas decided to spit at me when I was placing them in the specimen container. I then decided I should probably do a water change and change out the carbon just in case because for starters I needed to do a water change and secondly just incase there was too much zoa poop/slime/toxins in the tank from our battle royal! For the heck of it I also trimmed the chaeto to top it off. The after pics are still a little cloudy from the massive battle but it looks much better!!!

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There were no anemone’s in the most recent shots. ?

There's still two RBTA's but I think they got annoyed at the clowns constantly nipping at my hands and pushing water at my hands and coupled with the PH being off they shrunk back into the rocks...
 
Does this one come with the rubberized/plastic-coated temp probe? I need to get a new one; the one that came with this tank has the metallic probe.

Inkbird sells too many different ones, and the reviews are all over the place.

It has 2 of those probes if its the 306A.
 
The ITC-306A is one of the ones I was looking at, but the first Amazon review made me pause:

"
This unit is well made. The app is easy enough to use.

That being said, it has one giant flaw: Continuous heating mode CANNOT be turned off.

Why this is an issue: If you have a inline heater that already controls the temperature, you're using this as a passive monitor and to track any major temperature changes. This unit is set up to be the active controller, which is great if your heater doesn't already do that. I want to use this as a backup so I have 2 fail safes in my Aquarium, not a active controller.

The issue lies in if your heater accurately controls the temperature, and you never hit the set max temperature set by the Ink Bird. The Ink Bird think that your heater is on continuously, and will set off an alarm after how many hours you set that alarm to (max of 72.) When this happens, it shuts off the heater completely until you address the issue, which is ridiculous.

In other words, the Ink Bird demands to control the temperature which should be an option, not a default.
"

Thoughts?
 
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