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Dangerdave’s reef

deepblue68

deepblue68

POTM Winner
DangerDave said:
The small colonies in middle are bonsai birdsnest. It was a big colony in the display, broke up trying to get it out. They’re not too big, depending on which one (I have more than you see here) they are 3-5” across.
Click to expand...
Dave
Are the bonsai actually ponape birdsnest or something totally different?
 
DangerDave

DangerDave

NJRC Member
deepblue68 said:
Dave
Are the bonsai actually ponape birdsnest or something totally different?
Click to expand...

They look different, dark skin with pale green bushy polyps that are blue more towards the inside. When they get bigger they tend to table and with the bushiness they look like bonsai tree. I’ll try to find a better pic.
 
DangerDave

DangerDave

NJRC Member
Kind of a long story to describe a dumb move I made with my reef if you’re interested....So I haven’t tested my nitrates since the last time my reefbot went down. I was consistently dosing the same numbers, didn’t think much of it. It’s been some time since my reefbot went down. I would use my wife’s kitchen scale to weigh out the sodium nitrate, mix with 1500ml of RO and commence dosing. My wife didn’t want me using her scale for “chemicals”. I measured the weight I would use out to cups, and stopped using her scale.

A club member was over for some trading, and we talked about our reefs. I complained a bit about new frags melting, and a particular monti that started peeling some flesh away in one spot, but was encrusting great. We talked about nutrients, but I didn’t have a nitrate number. Lol I always have numbers.

He went home with his corals and tested my water with his test. Then he diluted it to try and get a reading. I think he diluted again, can’t remember. I used an api to test, too high. Diluted to 10-1, read about 80. Damn that’s 800.

I’ve changed about 400 gallons over the last week. I’m still reading well over the api max. I’ll be happy when I’m under 200. The monti stopped peeling. I’m hoping the swing down isn’t too hard on the system. My alk usage has dropped, no biggie I’ve seen this happen every time I have any swing. Calcium reactors off. Water changes and 4 gallons of kalk are keeping it level. I’m going to leave the water changes at 20 gallons a day and see how it progresses.

So the cyano issue in the DT wasn’t hanging about just because of my rocks like I thought (I’m doing good with the phosphates wars - woohoo LC!). I’m still getting some, but it’s not that’s bad now with the sand mostly out and the nitrates coming down. After my numbers are in order I’ll reset my thoughts on cyano.

Ironically most corals in my system still look great, are opening and looking good even though I made such a bone headed, easily avoided mistake.

I think I’ll try to get that reefbot working again.
 
CosmicMan

CosmicMan

DangerDave said:
Kind of a long story to describe a dumb move I made with my reef if you’re interested....So I haven’t tested my nitrates since the last time my reefbot went down. I was consistently dosing the same numbers, didn’t think much of it. It’s been some time since my reefbot went down. I would use my wife’s kitchen scale to weigh out the sodium nitrate, mix with 1500ml of RO and commence dosing. My wife didn’t want me using her scale for “chemicals”. I measured the weight I would use out to cups, and stopped using her scale.

A club member was over for some trading, and we talked about our reefs. I complained a bit about new frags melting, and a particular monti that started peeling some flesh away in one spot, but was encrusting great. We talked about nutrients, but I didn’t have a nitrate number. Lol I always have numbers.

He went home with his corals and tested my water with his test. Then he diluted it to try and get a reading. I think he diluted again, can’t remember. I used an api to test, too high. Diluted to 10-1, read about 80. Damn that’s 800.

I’ve changed about 400 gallons over the last week. I’m still reading well over the api max. I’ll be happy when I’m under 200. The monti stopped peeling. I’m hoping the swing down isn’t too hard on the system. My alk usage has dropped, no biggie I’ve seen this happen every time I have any swing. Calcium reactors off. Water changes and 4 gallons of kalk are keeping it level. I’m going to leave the water changes at 20 gallons a day and see how it progresses.

So the cyano issue in the DT wasn’t hanging about just because of my rocks like I thought (I’m doing good with the phosphates wars - woohoo LC!). I’m still getting some, but it’s not that’s bad now with the sand mostly out and the nitrates coming down. After my numbers are in order I’ll reset my thoughts on cyano.

Ironically most corals in my system still look great, are opening and looking good even though I made such a bone headed, easily avoided mistake.

I think I’ll try to get that reefbot working again.
Click to expand...
I’m checking my water tomorrow after reading this haha
 
Hockeynut

Hockeynut

NJRC Member
DangerDave said:
Kind of a long story to describe a dumb move I made with my reef if you’re interested....So I haven’t tested my nitrates since the last time my reefbot went down. I was consistently dosing the same numbers, didn’t think much of it. It’s been some time since my reefbot went down. I would use my wife’s kitchen scale to weigh out the sodium nitrate, mix with 1500ml of RO and commence dosing. My wife didn’t want me using her scale for “chemicals”. I measured the weight I would use out to cups, and stopped using her scale.

A club member was over for some trading, and we talked about our reefs. I complained a bit about new frags melting, and a particular monti that started peeling some flesh away in one spot, but was encrusting great. We talked about nutrients, but I didn’t have a nitrate number. Lol I always have numbers.

He went home with his corals and tested my water with his test. Then he diluted it to try and get a reading. I think he diluted again, can’t remember. I used an api to test, too high. Diluted to 10-1, read about 80. Damn that’s 800.

I’ve changed about 400 gallons over the last week. I’m still reading well over the api max. I’ll be happy when I’m under 200. The monti stopped peeling. I’m hoping the swing down isn’t too hard on the system. My alk usage has dropped, no biggie I’ve seen this happen every time I have any swing. Calcium reactors off. Water changes and 4 gallons of kalk are keeping it level. I’m going to leave the water changes at 20 gallons a day and see how it progresses.

So the cyano issue in the DT wasn’t hanging about just because of my rocks like I thought (I’m doing good with the phosphates wars - woohoo LC!). I’m still getting some, but it’s not that’s bad now with the sand mostly out and the nitrates coming down. After my numbers are in order I’ll reset my thoughts on cyano.

Ironically most corals in my system still look great, are opening and looking good even though I made such a bone headed, easily avoided mistake.

I think I’ll try to get that reefbot working again.
Click to expand...
Holy blank Dave hope all turns out ok.
 
DangerDave

DangerDave

NJRC Member
So I did about 450 or 500ish gallons of water changes so far. 50 gallons a day (my entire salt water container) in bulk changes a day, along with 25 gallons a day through awc. Things were not looking happy in there. I’ve stopped the bulk changes and lowered the awc changes to 10 gallons a day. Started using selcon again in the fish food. It worked really well. Everything looks happy again. I’m testing about 400 for nitrates. I’m going to let this ride with just awc for now.

It amazes me that the quick swing to “better” water was seems to be harder on the corals than the overdose of nitrates. There may be more to it than just that, but I have yet to figure it out...

Dave
 
Roca

Roca

Glad to know a massive overdose of nitrate won't necessarily kill everything haha.

Glad to read things are ok though. When you say the swing back to better is harder on the corals, is that any particular corals?
 
DangerDave

DangerDave

NJRC Member
@diana a that sucks, feel bad for that poor guy. It’s always those little errors that get us. Thankfully I was using sodium nitrate and not ammonium nitrate. My nitrates were 8x what he had. I’m now down to 4x where he was at his highest. Ammonia definitely killed those fish. I got there slowly over a month, not in one big event. Maybe that made it worse for him?

@Roca everything cared a little. I turned off my calcium reactor because of the stalled demand for alk and calc. A couple sps showed stress (green stag bleaching from center, two others browning out. as of today lost a couple new to me frags), LPS started opening a little less, euphyllia started fading colors. What amazes me is how fast euphyllia colored up with the feeding.

I think it was the down swing from water changes but I can’t really know. Either way most everything is happy or getting happier, so I’m gonna go slow from here. :)
 
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