Killing Frags
- Thread starter Chuck Spyropulos
- Start date
chew*
Murphy's Law
The last shot is about 6 months ago it's has considerably more now.
Equipment
JBJ 12G nano modded to accomodate a tunze skimmer
MJ 900 return
mini J 404 for fuge
2 koralia nano's
2 8w t-5 fuge
1 70w mh retrod into a PFO pendant
Live stock
Roughly 30 SPS mostly LE's or "catchy names"
Roughly 10 LPS mostly soo's zoas and a duncan
2 banghai cardinals
12Lbs LR
CC including 12-15 nasarius
I run about a 2" sandbed in fuge and tank, chaeto only in fuge which requires trimming every 2 weeks.
Tunze skimmer is set to skim wet cleaned every other day or it shuts down ( skimmer specific problem )
I drip kalk at the overflow near skimmer 24/7 to help precipitate phosphates which is the main source for calcium and alkalinity and use 2 part to correct levels ( this may or may not be as simple on a larger volume of water ) roughly 2gals a week at 2 tsp per G mix.
I use carbon pad ( from some HOB brand filter ) before the return and to compensate for possible removed trace elements I add kent essentials and coral vite to WC water.
Feed the fish flake once a week, for the most part the fuge provides a constant food source.
I feed the tank once every 2 weeks which i vary sometimes rotifeast sometimes reef chili sometimes coral frenzy sometimes mysis goo/cyclopeeze mix.
waterchanges are weekly and vary some weeks 2 1/2 gal and fuge trim weeks are 5gal ( more due to the fact that thats how much drains out while trying to suck out detritus )while siphoning out detritus while trying not to suck up sand.
I am now monitoring phosphates and without the use of a reactor have got them down to .03 since changing my fuge trimming to every 2 weeks versus once a month.
I rarely have to dose 2 part unless I get lazy and let the kalk run completely empty.
Most importantly I keep my hands out of the tank and anything that needs to be done I use aquarium tongs.
I also have auto topoff however with the constant kalk drip it hasn't been necessary.
Last bit of buisness that I need to install is a dual stage heater chiller controller which should be done soon to keep the temps a tad more stable, atm it's not a problem but the heats coming and the more consistant the temps the better.
That all said i've lost a total of one frag and that was around the 3 month mark when they were leftovers from my tank breakdown of my 65g display, I chalk it up to the fact that for one it was one of my more sensitive pieces and 2 that at 3 months my frag tank was in its infancy and far from what i would call stable. Fwiw the frag was going through a very slow stn and took a total of 2 months to die ( it was about 1 1/2" )
I did this tank for a # of reasons 1 being necessity at the time for my banghais, one being so that I never had to treat a display again for unwanted pests, 1 being a challenge and a crash course if you will in reefkeeping, bottom line if you can keep a small volume tank stable and thriving then a larger volume tank should be a cakewalk...........
Equipment
JBJ 12G nano modded to accomodate a tunze skimmer
MJ 900 return
mini J 404 for fuge
2 koralia nano's
2 8w t-5 fuge
1 70w mh retrod into a PFO pendant
Live stock
Roughly 30 SPS mostly LE's or "catchy names"
Roughly 10 LPS mostly soo's zoas and a duncan
2 banghai cardinals
12Lbs LR
CC including 12-15 nasarius
I run about a 2" sandbed in fuge and tank, chaeto only in fuge which requires trimming every 2 weeks.
Tunze skimmer is set to skim wet cleaned every other day or it shuts down ( skimmer specific problem )
I drip kalk at the overflow near skimmer 24/7 to help precipitate phosphates which is the main source for calcium and alkalinity and use 2 part to correct levels ( this may or may not be as simple on a larger volume of water ) roughly 2gals a week at 2 tsp per G mix.
I use carbon pad ( from some HOB brand filter ) before the return and to compensate for possible removed trace elements I add kent essentials and coral vite to WC water.
Feed the fish flake once a week, for the most part the fuge provides a constant food source.
I feed the tank once every 2 weeks which i vary sometimes rotifeast sometimes reef chili sometimes coral frenzy sometimes mysis goo/cyclopeeze mix.
waterchanges are weekly and vary some weeks 2 1/2 gal and fuge trim weeks are 5gal ( more due to the fact that thats how much drains out while trying to suck out detritus )while siphoning out detritus while trying not to suck up sand.
I am now monitoring phosphates and without the use of a reactor have got them down to .03 since changing my fuge trimming to every 2 weeks versus once a month.
I rarely have to dose 2 part unless I get lazy and let the kalk run completely empty.
Most importantly I keep my hands out of the tank and anything that needs to be done I use aquarium tongs.
I also have auto topoff however with the constant kalk drip it hasn't been necessary.
Last bit of buisness that I need to install is a dual stage heater chiller controller which should be done soon to keep the temps a tad more stable, atm it's not a problem but the heats coming and the more consistant the temps the better.
That all said i've lost a total of one frag and that was around the 3 month mark when they were leftovers from my tank breakdown of my 65g display, I chalk it up to the fact that for one it was one of my more sensitive pieces and 2 that at 3 months my frag tank was in its infancy and far from what i would call stable. Fwiw the frag was going through a very slow stn and took a total of 2 months to die ( it was about 1 1/2" )
I did this tank for a # of reasons 1 being necessity at the time for my banghais, one being so that I never had to treat a display again for unwanted pests, 1 being a challenge and a crash course if you will in reefkeeping, bottom line if you can keep a small volume tank stable and thriving then a larger volume tank should be a cakewalk...........
Last edited:
chew*
Murphy's Law
Here's a shot from about 3 months ago "more recent" mind you its a horrible shot and only 10k
Forgot to add 1 thing, Alkalinity..........
I've found that alk is more important than anything else and extremely important when running a "clean" system, In my personal experience I have found that when running a "clean system" maintaing your alk around 7.9 - 8.0 provides the best results, for no apparent reasons the corals do not appear happy at 9 and in the 10-12 range tips start to burn which leads to RTN. This could be due to my relatively small system however I noticed the same "phenomenon" in my 65g display when I started to run the tank "cleaner" and with relatively high light.
Forgot to add 1 thing, Alkalinity..........
I've found that alk is more important than anything else and extremely important when running a "clean" system, In my personal experience I have found that when running a "clean system" maintaing your alk around 7.9 - 8.0 provides the best results, for no apparent reasons the corals do not appear happy at 9 and in the 10-12 range tips start to burn which leads to RTN. This could be due to my relatively small system however I noticed the same "phenomenon" in my 65g display when I started to run the tank "cleaner" and with relatively high light.
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