Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

jimroth · Mar 20, 2009

Baxreefs said:
So Jim, let me get this straight. You dosing the tank with Potassium and Koral Color and AAs and you're dosing the vodka to yourself?

Is that right?

BTW just cut the P&P millie and move it it'll attach in no time once it's happy and it sounds like it's happy.

... Could be the vodka ???

It's just like cooking, one ml for the tank, 50mls for me, one ml for the tank, 50mls for me.... :-X
I had a small sip of the VSV, Grand Marnier has nothing to worry about!
Bax that blue-tip stag I got from you just took off under then new regimen, after months of going nowhere, it just sprouted four new branches out of the sides, crazy growth!
Elvis the yellow longnose butterfly finally decided that dry food is OK to eat, he had been really fighting to get his share of the frozen food, so now at least he won't starve! The anthias and CBB are still turning up their noses at the stuff.

jimroth · Mar 21, 2009

I moved my Ca reactor to the top of my bench today, it was nice to have it tucked away underneath, but it needs to be watched more closely so it doesn't clog. Already replaced the black effluent tubing with clear, which allows me to see when the flow is slowing down. Plus, changed carbon and GFO and cleaned the skimmer. Salinity has almost slipped to normal, just a tiny bit salty now.
Working in the garage today, I found that a monti cap frag (and a lot of my smaller snails) made the L-O-N-G slide down to the sump in the garage! Time for a rescue mission.
Road trip to OGII today to hand all my money to the affable Brian Griffin, who is not a talking dog.
He has the coral section at OGII looking great, lots of special stuff. I picked up a couple of ORA frags I had been jonesing for, a hunk of the Red Planet, and huge frag of the Tricolor Valida. Plus an insane little frag, bright yellow green with a purple tip.
Pix to follow, I had to photo them before my tank turns 'em brown!

jimroth · Mar 30, 2009

The Red Planet has stayed red and green but the tricolor is turning a revolting shade of brown. Yeccch.
I had a nice, growing, green polyp birdsnest frag fall right onto a hyndophora colony and get mostly digested. You would think I would know better by now. It was kind of a freak accident, a "mousetrap" style chain reaction.
Vodka dosing has caused the few remaining hair algae patches to wither and die, very impressive. Getting a fair amount of cyano though, seems to ebb and flow on a daily basis.
I've upped my potassium and trace elements to a bit above the mfr's recommendation and color has increased. I'm even getting a bit of blue tips on the pinkish "blue" millie. The pink-and-blue millie, a different coral, seems to be able to be pinkish or blueish, depending on mood. I handled a frag and it turned all blue until it recovered. Weird. My table colony is coloring up nicely, getting the bright green back
Took my first frag from the ORA pearlberry and put it on a plug in the raceway. Getting good encrusting from the other tiny frags I've put in there. It's shallow with enormous laminar flow.
I added a second solenoid valve to my homemade kalk reactor. The one valve stuck open (YIKES!!) and put about a quarter cup of kalk into the system all at once. Good thing I was home, it could have been a disaster. PH hit 8.4, water cleared up overnight, nothing seemed to suffer ill effects. I was able to disassemble the solenoid and free it up, but those are gonna have to be checked from now on.

Baxreefs · Apr 4, 2009

I have a good home in mind for that frag'o pearlberry!

I am really liking the responce I am getting from dosing potassium

jimroth · Apr 13, 2009

I went away for six days with no support for the tank except feeding, and everything was OK when I got back!
The Ca reactor got half full of gas, but kept working. The kalk reactor worked fine -- I've discovered it works best if there is no air gap between the top and the solution.

Came back to very dirty glass and even more cyano, possibly due to ladck of vodka dosing whele I was gone. Coral colors slightly worse. Time for a water change.

jimroth · Apr 14, 2009

Couple Fresh Pics

Well, not that fresh, I took these before vacation. Tank is still recovering a bit. The end-to-end pics show the improvement in water clarity I attribute to VSV dosing.

Elvis likes to swim upside down. He's getting bigger and fatter!

Did a really stupid thing this afternoon. I was spraying the inside of the skimmer cup, and for some reason I tried to clean the neck of my skimmer while it was running, knocking several ounces of skimmer-poo into the body where it got churned up and sent back into the tank, a kind of filthy snowstorm. The fish seemed a little unhappy, but none of the corals closed up. Then the skimmer took off and tried to skim out all the waste, dropping the level in the sump and causing the kalk reactor (which I just filled)/ATO combination to dump a lot of kalkwasser into the tank, jacking the pH up to 8.7 briefly, at least in the sump. What a way to run a railroad! Note to self: Don't try to clean the skimmer while it's running.

Baxreefs · Apr 14, 2009

Remember skimmer poo is just excess coral food!

Just toss in a gallon of SW to stop the ATO for a while, it'll balance out the pH soon.

That first pick of the square and BFs is sweet! ;D

jimroth · Apr 19, 2009

Jimroth's Big Ol' Coral Pix

Here's a few pics to document some of the process I've been making with my coral colors. It's a slow process, but at least it's progress!

Heres my new efflo. All that purple edging happened recently, plus the "fingers" growing out of the edge. Seems happy.

This is the pink "blue millie" which is finally showing some blue! Sorry for the pic, couldn't get a focussed one today:

I've never put up a good pic of my ORA pearlberry I won at MACNA. looking pretty good:

All of these are "underwater" shots taken through a 5G aquarium.

This is the ORA Tricolor Valida I got. It initially turned a rich (yuck) brown color, but the color is recovering since I found a better location. Next to it is the puzzling rose millie, which just doesn't want to grow!

premilove · Apr 20, 2009

wow i just read through your thread, i really enjoyed it! how many gallons would you say the DT is?

ricwilli · Apr 20, 2009

Jim, Bax, are you guys testing for K? I would like to start but I heard it can be fatal if over-dosed.

jimroth · Apr 20, 2009

premilove said:
wow i just read through your thread, i really enjoyed it! how many gallons would you say the DT is?

Thanks! The tank works out to be around 215G, I've got a 40 breeder as a sump on the back end.

ricwilli said:
Jim, Bax, are you guys testing for K? I would like to start but I heard it can be fatal if over-dosed.

That's a heck of a thing, ain't it? I don't. I'm trying to dose conservatively, so I don't have issues, but I know what you mean. When you see the effect potassium has, there's a real temptation to dump in a bunch more. I think there's only a couple of commercially available K test kits, Elos is one. I'm sure Brightwell will be coming out with one as part of their new line of test kits.

Hey-- potassium dosing, carbon dosing, nitrates, sulfur in the reactor, OMIGOD, I'm making gunpowder!

Baxreefs · Apr 20, 2009

At one point I was searching on line for the Elos kit, but did not find it. Apparently I am not being diligent enough in my search. I do want to test though so I have to start looking again. Currently, I am dosing very conservatively.

jimroth · Apr 20, 2009

Baxreefs said:
At one point I was searching on line for the Elos kit, but did not find it. Apparently I am not being diligent enough in my search. I do want to test though so I have to start looking again. Currently, I am dosing very conservatively.

I always thought you must do some testing for your bizness. Do you just do the drilling part?

Baxreefs · Apr 20, 2009

I do have relationships with labs and could have my water tested in a drinking water certified lab ... but it would cost me !

In generally, as the "drillers" we physically collect soil and groundwater samples, then hand them to an engineer, who jars the sample fills out a chain of custody, relinquishes the samples to the laboratory, and takes all the credit for the "sampling". We are the dirty finger nail guys in the process.

I possess all the credentials needed to perform the "sampling" so on occasion we do that as well, but it is limited circumstances. The engineers are my main client base.

jimroth · Apr 20, 2009

Baxreefs said:
I do have relationships with labs and could have my water tested in a drinking water certified lab ... but it would cost me !

In generally, as the "drillers" we physically collect soil and groundwater samples, then hand them to an engineer, who jars the sample fills out a chain of custody, relinquishes the samples to the laboratory, and takes all the credit for the "sampling". We are the dirty finger nail guys in the process.

I possess all the credentials needed to perform the "sampling" so on occasion we do that as well, but it is limited circumstances. The engineers are my main client base.

Seems like a good reason to get a full set of tax-deductible Hach test kits!

Baxreefs · Apr 23, 2009

I have certainly thought about that

jimroth · Apr 27, 2009

Cool Critter!

I was at an LFS and they had this unusual pair -- a pink cucumber with a little crab "friend" (pest, helper, parasite?)
I took some pictures in the bag because I was sure I'd never see it once it crawled into the rocks, but actually it's been out in the open a lot. The crab hangs out underneath, I flipped the cuke for these pictures. I shall call you "Rorschach!"

Check out how the li'l guy hangs on. Looks uncomfortable for the cuke.

Weird looking cuke, too. Looks like, uh, bubblegum.

I hope he doesn't become a meal for somebody!

Baxreefs · Apr 27, 2009

That is a very cool crab!

I hope he's reef safe ...

onefish2fish · Apr 27, 2009

i hope he's cucumber safe

jimroth · May 13, 2009

I Am now dosing the following:

VSV, 2.5ml/day
Kalkwasser, huge amounts
Brightwell Products:
Potassion-P
Koral Kolor
Renew
Microbacter 7
Coral Amino (though this one is so pricey I'll probably stop once it runs out).
My corals, while not "bragging good," have never looked better.

Fun thing: I found a tuff-as-heck green slimer frag way down in the rocks! I don't know how it was surviving, it wasn't getting any light for the last few months, that's for sure. Completely covered its plug but didn't grow a branch. I pulled it out, alive, but solid brown. It will be fun to see it regain it's color.

And a final note -- My Canon EOS is busted, won't turn on. So no more pics until (when/if) it comes back from Canon!