75 Gal w 30 Gal Sump Reef(I told you guys Im back)

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by Luffy

Want to cut me a single head of this? Haha

Following along. Great looking tank, can't wait to see how this will turn out.

Let me grow it out for a few months first haha. It's got about 8 new heads starting to grow out. I'm excited to see its growth over the next while!

And thank you It's going to take awhile to stock it but I'm going to turn this tank into a garden of LPS and softies and Zoos and Palys

[bauder1986]

Alright. So it was time to start my dosing regiment. Now after going over how I did things with past tanks I determined that that process cost to much. I dosed a lot of different things to avoid products like Coral Snow and Reef Roids. I didn't want to have 6 or 7 bottles of product lying around and I didn't want to incur another $100 a month in maintenance. So after poking around for a bit and talking to the LFS guys here in Red Deer I decided to go with the ATI 2 Part Complete Dosing System.

This stuff is kinda impressive. Majorly covers the main Calcium/Magnesium/Alk/Potassium requirements but also claims to cover another 21 elements on top of that. So after some reading and research I determined that I am going to try this route.




So I am currently dosing at 3.5mL non diluted of each bottle each day starting today. According to the instructions, I am to monitor my Alk and Calcium everyday at the same time to determine if I need to raise or lower my dosing. So at day one my Alk is at 11.5 dKh and Calcium is at 500ppm. Dosed 3.5 ml of each part. So tomorrow we shall check again to see what I need to modify. Very interesting stuff.

If this product works out then it will drastically reduce my requirements for supplements and water changes. Plus at the max recommended dose for my tank at full stock it would take 4.5 months for me to drain these bottles. But I'm no where near that. Currently it will take me a year and half to drain them. Damn, that's cost effective at $90 for both of the bottles.

I do not believe that these will be the ultimate cure all for every requirement for the coral. Will still need to direct feed coral their favorites like mysis/phyto. And I might have to add specific trace elements to help certain corals along. But at least I will not need all the bottles I had in the past.


In the meantime, enjoy a pic of me playing with my camera and Xmas tree lighting.

[bauder1986]

Well update time for everyone. Tank is running smooth. Smoother than any tanks Ive had in the past. Parameters are all at near 0. Skimmer is running smoothly. Carbon and GFO reactors are doing their thing.

Added a frag or two of zoos and a nice frag of aussie green branching Duncans.

Also picked up a 4 point auto doser. Using that to Auto dose the ATI complete 2 stage and also for my water top ups. These dosers really make life nice and easy and lazy. Just need to figure out how to auto spot feed my coral at night...

Next thing to work on is add a Sand Dollar to keep the substrate in good order and a nice 6 line or 8 line wrasse to add more life to the tank. And then build a refuge in a reactor container.

[bauder1986]

Well Couple of months in and I have to say that the tank is running fine as feck. Honestly its abit disconcerting how well this tank cycled and stabilized compared to previous systems of mine.

So like I said, I picked up an auto doser. Pump one and two on it are running 95ml per day of the 4:1 RO/ATI Essentials mix Part 1 and Part 2. That stuff is honestly the shit. Its a full water change in a bottle. I have only done one water change and it was a small 5% one to stabilize my salinity that slowly dropped due to minor salt creep and dumping the skimmer over a few months. Pump 3 is just for topping up my water. Honestly, Im that lazy. And since Im home everyday I can decide to keep the hose in the RO water for the tank or just pull it out before the next programmed dose time of RO water. Once I get more funds Ill change that into an actual ATO. But for now Im okay with this.


Sump Needs cleaning....Thats for another day.




Also added some more livestock

Yellow Tang. Healthy and Hungry lil Bastard. And pretty curious too.


A Neon Dottyback. I really enjoy watching this guy. He is a hell of a swimmer.


A sand sifting star fish. Curious little creature these are. But it does the job keeping the substrate from turning in a rock of its own.


A small Lobo Brain. Loves its nightly feeding of cyclopods. I hope its colors improve with time.


Neon Green Aussie Branching Duncans. God damn these things grow fast!


A Blue Gonipora. Just starting to reach out.


A Green Gonipora. Happy as can be.


Pretty certain this is some kind of Rhodactus Mushroom. Big Guy once it stretches out. Bright too.


Chaos Palys!!!!!! So So So Bright! And they grow soo fast!


Mystery Palys. The skirts on these were brown when I got them. But are now starting to turn a nice Red.


And then there's everything else in the tank thats from before. All doing good.









And last but not least. FTS

[bauder1986]

I don't know of anybody else uses the ATI Reef essentials 2-part kit. But if you do I recommend you watch your salinity on a weekly to bi-weekly basis depending on the size of your system. I guess one of those parts has sodium in it which does actually increase your salinity.

I just had to spend some time dropping my salinity from 1.028 down to more acceptable parameters.

[bauder1986]

Got bored, here's me progress(or there lack of) with getting the right camera shot.

[bauder1986]

Well, since this is basically just me rambling off, then I shall continue!

Went shopping


Chucky's Bride (At least I think they are)


Incinerators


Blue Constellations


Pink Hippos


Purple Tip Octospawn


Planet Earth Gladis


Green Flowerpot(****ed off from just being moved)


Red Flowerpot (****ed off from being moved)


Nuclear Green Paly


Candy Apple Red


Rainbow Cloves


Tank Shots

[titus]

Hello

Lots of goodies. I see lots of opportunities for POTM.

Titus

[Dash]

I’m impressed with your photo of rainbow cloves. I can never capture the colour of mine on camera - they always look blah