The Coral Cube Redux (now with PICTURES!)

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by ChizerBunoi

Thanks Steve. I'm glad you posted the FTS for all of us. I am very impressed with the colors you are getting compared to me, but I don't have a sand bed. I assume that I'm not giving my bacteria a chance to colonize.

What salt mix do you use? Can you share your params? I am very impressed with the deep purple/blues.

Also, are you wet skimming or dry skimming?

It should still work with just LR but, yes, the sand does help. Vodka dosing does not make for bright colors, it only helps. During the summer I stopped dosing just because I was too busy to deal with the tank and my nitrates were like 10-15 ppm and I actually had some of the best colors then (except for the purples... They looked more brown). Light, I believe is one of the biggest factors in coral colour. I run a 250W halide with 4x24W T5s, which is actually a stupid amount of light considering that many similar sized SPS tanks run 4-6 T5s. What is your set-up?

I switch my salt fairly regularly but recently I've sticking with good old Instant Ocean (switch back and forth between reefers best and the regular stuff). My parameters... errr... I don't actually measure anymore. I can just look at the tank and know what params are high/low based on what is happening in the tank. The last time I measured a couple weeks back (and they're fairly stable, so I'm probably not too far off these numbers now) the params were:

Amm: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
NO3: <2 ppm
PO4: forgot to check but no algae. It's typically around 0.02 ppm. I actually don't go for zero. I find SPS get really unhappy at zero.

Calc: ~430 ppm
Alk: 7-8 dKH
pH: 8.2
Temp: 79F (went to 86F in the summer before I had my chiller set up)

As for skimming.... I don't really subscribe to any particular school of thought on this but I guess I am more on the side of wet skimming. I've found that with my skimmer, if I skim dry, I get tons of skimmate building up in the neck (reducing performance) rather than making it into the cup. By keeping it more wet I avoid that and don't have to clean the skimmer as often.

As you can see, a lot of what I do is very subjective. I have a "feel" for the tank and I constantly experiment; I just make little tweaks as needed. I swear by metal halide (though I am setting up a LED cube experimental tank for my office) and I think highlight is one of the keys to my success.