sweeet ghl mitras, i would love to see it. from what ive been reading they are the ****
seems as though everyone is selling their radions and aqua illuminations to get these. Hmmmm glad i waited to go LED. new builds are fun hey? and jon i too still have some sweet zoa frags for sale and quite a bit of sps frags that are ready to go too, to help u fill up ur tank. :biggrin:

I think i will still take you up on a zoa frag . thanks . And I would like to check out your setup as well . everytime i meet a new reefers tank i always learn a bit more . everyone does things a little different ..

So I am due for a little update ..

Ok so , I got my second Vertex Libra .. This one is top notch out of the box . so all is well.
So I gathered up the apex , the libra and quickly realized that i had literaly nor where to put this stuff . lol ..
OFF to the garage to build a mini cabinet to hold the equipment . I wanted something that looked like it kind of was ment to be there . And i wanted it to hold all aquarium electronics . To save them from moisture etc

Took 5 hrs from wood to stained .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000045.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000046.jpg

Then i rushed to drag it into the house too show off to the wife .. Well it let vapours into the air for 3 days lol not cool .

but i got started the next day on wiring everything up .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000048.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000055.jpg

then once everthing was in place .. my struggle began with the APEX networking into my house.
I stayed up till 4 in the morning trying to get the wireless game adapter too even hook up to my router. I gave up ..
Next day went back to future shop .. Bought a netgear wireless adapter and bam .. was hooked up in minutes. I spent the rest of the morning tinkering with the apex online .. I love it so far .. Was so happy i went and picked up and additional ep8 power bar.. For expandability etc.. so far so good.

Then my Mitras came in ... ran to Blueworld at 5 pm to get them.. Got home and had them hung in a matter of 20 minutes ..
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000065.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000064.jpg

But my hapiness was quickly met by more software frustrations.. the Mitras will NOT connect via usb to a windows 8 pc .. I tried every darn trick on the net to no avail.
So the next day i sourced a differnt laptop and quickly got into tinkering with the lights .. so far i have no idea what im doing lol .. But i uploaded a light program from Rice Reef .. THANKS buddy for emailing that to me soo quick!

I then moved on to complete wire organization.. i spend hours trying to zip tie and route wires in a clutter free manor , I cleaned up everything under the sump .. I also installed some under counter mount LED lights to the cabinet and sump area so i could see something for once.
Got tired of holding the blackberry in one hand over the water to see lol..
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000074.jpg

well I have a whole wack of coral in the tank now .. So figured i should do my first water tests for the big 3..

ALK 7.5
Mg 1050
Ca 350
salinity 1.025

Guess i have work to do !
Will get on a few water changes here to try and raise that .. then decide what and how to dose ! and quick im guessing ..

All the corals are doing great .. Thanks RICE ...

off to bed ..

Looks slick, good job! Is that HLG driver for the Mitras?

yes that is the power bar thing that came with the mitras . Do you recognize it for other things ?

well . My wife was tired of seeing wet dish towels all over the place , So i mounted to handles on my stand for hanging them .. Her idea but i like it .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000093.jpg

So did another 10 gallon water change this morning . Then two hours later did a
check of the water parameters .

temp 78.5
ph 7.85
alk 6.5
Ca 350
Mg 1150
Salinity 1.024

So got the doser set up .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000092.jpg

Decided with some guidance to use Randy's Receipe 1. think that in the long run this could save alot of money !.
After about 1 hr of having programming troubles/ finger troubles with the libra i think its finally set up .
Set to dose 24 times in 24 hrs .
for a total of
120 ml of CA
72 Alk
240 Mg

will do this for a few days to play catch up then likely adjust from there .
If anyone has any pointers on this , Would be greatly appreciated . as this was the area I was the most affraid of ..

Sure would be nice if I could find ANYTHING on the net in regards to actually programming and using all the features of the Vertex Libra . All i can seem to find is vertex's own video .. which is not helpfull.

Does have some neet things though .. Tells you when the next dose will be . tells you how much it has dossed etc . kinda neat .

Got my first fishes too .!!! very happy about that . Thanks Wayne !!
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000097.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000087.jpg

Beautiful Sail fin tang about 4 inches .. I love it !
A couple of 1.5inch long clowns that always hang out together
and a 4 inch long Lawnmower blenny .. Named JABA ... lol

I would like to hear thoughts on when and how i should run Carbon (GAC) in my tank . thoughts on using a media reactor or just media bag it ..

thanks

vertex has not yet released their stoichiometry software yet. i think they are waiting to release their own set of bulk additives and recipe to take some of the guess work out of dosing.


to hammer down how much of each additive to dose (using Ca as an example)
1)test your Ca level
2) add 20ml of Ca additive
3)wait 2 hours and measure how much that raised your Ca.
4)then you can choose to either dose enough Ca to bump your tank up to the appropriate level or just let it be.
5) the next day measure your ca again around the same time to see how much Ca your tank uses in a 24hr period. Dose accordingly.

usually takes about a week to get the doser dialled in properly.

build is looking awesome so far! going to be a stunner for sure

Jon,
Tank looks great and glad to see the fish are doing well! The sailfin looks even better in your tank! Sigh, gonna miss him but I know that his new parent will be treating him well!

The two clowns are a couple so don't be surprise if you find eggs on the rocks soon!

Looks like Jaba is liking his new home too! :biggrin:

About that doser, you would have figured after spending that much money they could have at least provided instructions. Vertex can spend the money on a fancy box but could not afford few cents more in printing a page of instructions? :lol: :twised: That is why I used GHL! ( lol just teasing ya)

Wow looking really good man well done

well . time for another update i suppose .

Things of been going along really well . I have been doing weekly 10-15g water changes . I test all my parameters once a week.Things have been stable .

I did decide to run Biopellets .So I picked up a Vertex RX-U reactor and a compact 3000. I slowly over a few weeks added in the pellets . Not sure if they work lol But my nitrates are still below 1 on the elos test kit .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000243.jpg

A few weeks later i picked up the new Omega 150 skimmer . So far i really like this unit . Seems to pull in the gunk very consistently. This has been my first vertex product to work perfect out of the box :biggrin:

I got a new fish from Dan before he left town .. It is doing great
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000225.jpg.

The rock is slowly becoming covered in coraline . I have not had any sort of an algae outbreak. not sure if it is due to the microbacter 7 i have been using or if I got lucky with my MARCO rock.
The coral is really starting to take off now . Most are encrusted right to the rock
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000242.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000237.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000231.jpg

I had a blast at the Victoria frag swap. Got to meet alot of local reefers . I bought a few coral and was given tons! Much appreciated everyone . thanks
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000244.jpg

So as of last night I have discovered that I have an outbreak of ZOA eating nudibranch. Most of my zoos have grown onto my main rock work so removing to dip is not an option.
So I am manually removing the nudi's with the turkey baster . since last night i have removed 21 little buggers . And today i have added a Yellow Corriss wrasse. So i am hoping that will help combat them .

Im sure i can get a handle on them . I am not to worried about it . I dont want to rip the tank apart or anything.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000254.jpg

I also added a tunze 6095 to the tank . Linked it to the APEX and got a simple little wave going in the tank. I like it . In a cube tank that is only 36" long it tuff to do anything with the flow . No matter what i do it pushes the sand around and creates bare spots on the tank bottom . i have learned to live with my Half bare bottom , half sand bottom tank lol .

The stepper doser has been working as it should . Currently dossing under 50mls of each alk,mg,ca. I had to increase it a little after the frag swap , but not much.

will add more soon .

Pulled out 2 more little nudi's today !! any chance I can just manually control these little buggers for ever ?

On a positive note My clowns spawned today . This is a first time in my tank. Wayne had told me they lay eggs all the time in his tank . But , shows they are happy in mine too. they have only been in the tank just over 2 months

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000261.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000271.jpg

Also looks like my yellow corris wrasse that i just added has eaten all the feathers on my wifes favorite tank inhabitant .. the feather duster..
O well . so much for reef safe ehh lol :neutral:

Dude nice build, You're stumbling into this like a PRO!

At first when I was reading your build and seen you bought a dosing pump I couldn't help but think another poor soul that spent a bunch of money on something he didn't need on the advice of a LFS. Judging by the one or 2 SPS frags you had in the beginning. WELL I was wrong... The end FTS shot awesome - 3 thumbs up!!

Have you dialed in dosing your system yet?

Your yellow coris should eat those buggers

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for the compliments Hazratty.
I knew when i bought that fancy doser that it was over the top but wanted it anyway lol ..
Currently dosing randy's recipe . at 42ml alk , 42 ca , 36 MG
I have been stable at that amount now for around 3 weeks.
Some corals are taking off fast now in the last couple of weeks . others still seem to be slowly encrusting there base still.

Ya Hopefully that wrasse will help . If not guess i will add more wrasse's then ..

things are looking great your sps looks happy. my melanarus took care of my monti-eating nudis. prob do the same for those ones if your yellow needs some help eating them.

i can see why you didn't want to suspend your lighting from the ceiling!

A wrasse is good but wont eradicate them and do not rally find the eggs, hate to say it but if your finding adults you have babies too. Its a lot of work bur if you want to be rid of them you'll meed to remove them. I have a 3wk schedule that will eliminate them for you completely.

Good luck

Do you have lids or a screen on the tank? Might be a good idea if you're planning on more wrasses. They're nutorious jumpers.

No kidding eh. think its 22 feet or so .


And yes
the very next day i built a lid ..
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000272.jpg

found bug netting at buckerfeilds.

Look at those Sps growing into colonies in the corner of the picture. I think Wayne needs to come by and take some more shots for you and post them since he is the official photographer for British Columbia region Canreef members.:mrgreen:

My buddy Wayne came buy last week and took some sweet pics with his telescope!
Thanks Wayne !! your the best

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3597.jpg
Thanks for this one Jon !!

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3572.jpg

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3525.jpg

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3522.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3518.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3471.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3460.jpg

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3457.jpg

There that should do it

Hahahahahaha, see told you!

you posted just seconds too soon rich :biggrin:

That Green hammer is doing really well by the way Thanks again

No problem buddy. U should've came over with Wayne, we had a whole bunch of people came by and geeked out on fish stuff. It was really fun. Thinking about a frag swap for lower mainland soon.. Maybe. If I do I would expect you guys to show for support!:wink:

these look nice in my build thread .. so I felt like adding more :mrgreen:

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3444.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3443.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3442.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3425.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...8-N98A3427.jpg

there all done

Ya i would definitely be in for another trip over to your place . keep me in the loop

thanks

see these guys all the time in my yard .. no fish related but thought somebody might think there cool . because i sure do
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000289.jpg

guess they are European wall lizard. I must have 50 of them in my yard alone .
story is that they were released from a small zoo or something and grew wildly .

keeps the bugs down in my yard anyway

Don't they like salt water?

Lol they like to nip. Definitely not reef safe

wow that is pretty crazy. wonder what sort of effects they've had since spreading. i'm jealous you live in a place where they'll survive lol.

nice tank and great shots of the corals!

SPS is looking sweet mango way to go how are you finding the dosing part. is it easy to do? what is the hardest part about dosing? is it the Testing more to find the sweet spot.

Thanks for the props . The dosing is going really well. I test alk , Mg , Ca once a week one day before a 10-15 gallon water change . I am still useing Randy's Recipe . I have only made very small adjustments to my dosing amounts. I try not to over react . As long as the parameter tests relatively close to my goal i make no adjustment . If it starts to trend downwards over 3 water tests i bump up my dosing amount by an extra 5mls a day and look for a slight rise on the next test.
I keep a log of all my tests . I also record on that sheet when i make an adjustment and by how much .

So far the only thing that seems odd when following Randy's recipe is i seem to use way more Mg then what randy said i would . Currently i am dosing almost equal parts of all 3. Could be that i am having a boom of coraline growing (since my tank is new there is lots of room for it to grow)
i heard coraline sucks up the Mg i think ?

I think the hardest part is not stressing over the numbers . lol. I keep the Mg at 1350 and higher. I wont make any adjustments to mg unless it hits 1300.

Ca i keep at 400 to 450 ish .
Alk set to 7.5 currently .
Salinity set to 1.026 ish .

If all numbers are low out of the blue i double check my salinity first . make sure its real close . Then the next i would adjust would be to bring up the Mg a very little and then test the following week.

I am still really new at this , and so far my parameters have been really stable , I did notice an increase in demand after adding a dozen frags from the last swap.


thanks ! I cannot take credit for the shots . Good ole Rice Reef reef is the island photographer and hes getting good !

I have no idea . when i first saw one i was blown away lol . apparently they are only found on this part of Victoria . My dog like to chase them around . never catches them though so they are safe . I have been thinking of making an out door terrarium that they can live in if they like ..

We want an update...

Yes please! Pictures pictures pictures!

You guys are right.
I will put one together soon.

Thanks for the poke

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread ...

What salt do you use ?

I find with my IO I don't need to dose Mag, but that'll change soon as I'm going to use 2-part very soon, instead of Seachem powders, which have trace amounts of Mag and others

I use IO.
I started with 50 lbs of dry rock so maybe I am still playing catchup .

OK finally an update .
I have had really good growth over the last few months . But I have not had really good colors. Actually really poor color.
I have noticed that I really only get polyp extension on a few of my corals as well.

Talking with Brad and Wayne it seems unanimous that i needed to reduce my feeding to try and color up my sps . Which besides green are all roughly shades of browny red.

So I cut way back on my feeding. Well when i did this I quickly noticed that my flame angel likes picking at almost all of my coral LOL. never spotted it before , but now that he is hungry it was obvious.

Also talking with Wayne I have come to the conclusion that my lighting program on the mitras was way off for optimum color .

So now week 2 after my recent changes I have noticed a slight improvement in color i think.. Some of my browny corals are showing signs of green i think lol. And the new growth tips are a light shade of the right color they are supposed to be .

I have also increased my weekly water changes from 10 gallons up to 20 gallons each week.
I no longer run GFO for the last month . As the biopellets seem to be holding there own on the phosphate front.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000447.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000444.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000445.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000446.jpg

So I went on the mission to catch the flame angel .. Probably the most shy fish in my tank FYI .
1. Tried just netting him.. .. lol not a chance . cant even look at the net and he would bolt to the back corner.
2.tried the home made trap useing a coke bottle .. Caught my sailfin tang ....
3. Got a really big clear poly back , built a structure out of rodi tubing and sewed fishing line around the edge to form a pull string to sinch the bag up .. Again caught the sailfin Tang.....lol
4.tried moving what rock i could. This damn fish would hide in the most difficult place . i could not even see him..
5. Tried turning the lights on full boar in the middle of the night.. Nope .. didnt work.
6 . Borrowed an official trap from Brad. Day one every fish in the tank was in it but the flame.
day 2 again every fish . multiples at a time even.
later in day 2 , i put in a new era algae grazer on the suction cup.. this peaked his interest at least . all the fish were in and out but him.. Then after around 1.5 hrs . he went in and i was ready ..
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000430.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...G_00000434.jpg

It felt so damn good to finally catch him.. I will be trading him in for a wrasse of some sort tomorrow i hope ..

Noticed as of late (with my reduced feeding ) that my skimmer is pulling in less. infact I have turned it more towards wet as i was no longer pulling anything .. So

I will give it another few weeks and see if my colors continue to improve .
And hopefully i will start to have more PE with the angel gone .
wish me luck

Good luck with the dosing, and great catch
I'll bet if you weren't after him, he would have been in every trap you tried

Jon, congrats in catching the lil' bugger! After all the headaches and stress I think you should kick back with a nice cold brewsky!

Hope you can trade it in and get a nice fairy wrasse for your tank.

Hey John, great update and i love the pictures. One thing I want to mention about the paleness of your sps is it might not just be you over feeding. I have always believe in feeding, because of my laziness I do it mostly through broadcast and with the amount of fish that I have they also get an alternative "feeding", plus i dose coral aminos when I see some of the more sensitive species becoming "unhappy". if I were you I probably start by checking the 3 parameters and make sure they are in check then move on to phosphate and nitrate. If everything checks out good then I would inspect them for pests, a quick dip or flash light at night will reveal some telltale signs of either red bug or aefw bite marks. Let's just say you are pest free, the third step will be feeding your corals and or dose some sps amino acid to see how they react. Most of the time some amino acid once a week will do wonders for those sticks. Anyways kee up the good work and I'll see you at the frag swap.

Rich

thanks guys

Rich
Do you have a specific amino acid supplement you would reccomend . I have never really done any reading on the matter.

.
current stock
sailfin
yellow tang
2 clowns
yellow corris wrasse
lawnmower blenny
shrimp

Is there any wrasse that would NOT be reccomended for my tank

thanks

I recently started to dose amino acid from salifert because I had some left, you get good polyp response from the sps and the feeder tends to stay out longer. I was speaking to Wheelman Jess and he dosed his tank with the zeovit Lps amino and his Zoas and palys were healthy and big, also all his Lps were super puffed up. I took the plunge and got some zeo Lps amino, I notice all the corals in my tank react well to it when dosed and when I feed the tank I turn off the return pump, dose the zeo then feed the fish and corals at the same time. I usually leave the tank for 3 hrs with the powerheads circulating the food. I do this 2 x weekly and the rest of the week just feed normally. I don't know if there is a real difference for Lps amino versus regular amino but the sps seem to like it too. The reason why I keep the return off is so there is time for the Lps amino to interact with the corals rather than just going into the filter sock and maybe being skimmed out. I also use brightwells reef snow and phyto gold, phytoplankton and another one at the same time as the amino.

I strongly suggest trying the zeo Lps amino if you're going to get amino. Btw I only use this zeo product for now and no others because of costs, but may try a few others later on once I burn through my 10 bottles of brightwells....