FarmerTy

Upgrading I have room now finally! I think that's an understatement KimP!

I should stand on the curb with this sign..."Will sell houses for GFO".

I got a spot in my fish room for it. :-p

Wow, just tested my PO4 in the new tank again and it only dropped another 0.03 ppm. I say that with extreme prejudice as the unit itself has +/- 0.04 margin of error so I could have just got the same number as before. That's crazy because it decreased by half the 12 hrs before. I guess I am not factoring in that it halved the number of phosphate within 280 gals of water and proportionately, that's a lot more than my 150 gals of volume before... so the same amount of GFO doesn't go as far in the new tank. I just exhausted 1/2 lb of GFO in 5 days between the two tanks. Yikes!

Looking good James. Looks like this new tank is the best thing for you. It gave you a chance to restart and do things the way you want instead of being stuck with what you had.

Oh sorry, only looked at the bottom right frag.

Looks like pink zippers to me.

I would imagine most of your carbonate uptake is during the day when the lights are on and not so much at night. I could see potential rises and falls with an only daytime running schedule but I think its impact would be minimal unless you are already maxed out on your CaRX with your current livestock. Either way, just a thought. Calibration of the probes is probably like you said, a good check before you start changing things.

Never even heard of black bugs but I would imagine interceptor would probably take care of it like CaptJab mentioned. If you are able, maybe take all the SPS out and dip them all in Bayer and put them in a QT tank for a month or so and hopefully the black bugs will die off in the main tank. Perhaps continue to dip the sps weekly from that point while in QT. Sorry about the loss bud. You know where to get more SPS when you are ready. :-)

Is your 8.2 to 7.53 pH drop occurring with your skimmer on 24/7? I thought I remember you saying you stopped running the skimmer entirely. Also, what's your calcium reactor effluent pH? Have you tried opening up your windows for a day and airing the house out? If you notice a significant rise in pH (roughly 0.2 or greater) than normal limits, than your ambient CO2 levels in the house are to blame for some of the low pH. I would suggest using Ol' Aggies soda lime to remove CO2 from the air going into your skimmer to counteract that. Perhaps just run your CaRX during the day and shut it off at night?

Almost looks like the interior is dead but the edges look good so that's a positive sign.

They crawl into all sorts of things so I wouldn't even worry about it.

They had a bunch of cool stuff stocked already. I kept eyeing their LPS selection... definitely tempting. I walked out with a giant filefish for a great price! Thanks Niko's Reef!

Ceastman, yes, they are copepods. Little white dots on your glass and swimming around in the water. That is definitely a good sign that your tank is headed in the right direction. Planeden, dang you and that oompa loompa song. There's only one oompa loompa now so cleaning isn't as exciting as the movie yet.

Glad you got that bean animal setup figured out! Looking good Offshore. I'm jealous of the 10' long tank!

Oh, and interesting anecdote to share with my fellow reefers. My RO/DI system was starting to produce water with higher and higher TDS. I figured it been about 4 years since the system has been running and all I have been replacing is prefilters and DI up to this point, which is the normal maintenance routine. Membranes I hear typically have a life of 3-5 years so I decided to go ahead and replace it. Once i replaced everything, I was anticipating the excitement of reading 0.0 ppm TDS again from my effluent water. To my surprise, it read 0.30 ppm. After numerous tests to figure out what I did wrong, it took a non-reefer but expert filtration buddy of mine to point out that my DI resin block was actually carbon. Whoops. Guess I had ordered the wrong DI cartridge! Luckily he had some mixed bed DI resin and took care of me.

Couple of quick updates. Did another round of testing on the new tank. Wasn't worried about alk, Ca, or Mg this time around since not much in the tank to uptake those elements, just the basics. NH3/NH4 - 0.0 ppm NO2 - 0.0 ppm NO3 - 5 ppm PO4 - 2.4 ppm With the elevated PO4, I took a swing at it by swapping my GFO reactor to the new tank to reduce the levels. In 12hrs, it had reduced by 50% to roughly 1.2ppm. I anticipate by tonight it will <.08 ppm which I am fine with. I am not worried about the high rate of reduction in levels because again, there are just a few hardy test corals in the new tank. Once the PO4 reduces to below 0.08 ppm, all tested parameters will be very close in concentrations to each other in both the tanks. I will take this opportunity to slowly start doing my tank water transfusions between the two tanks to homogenize the water. That way transport between the two tanks will be less of a shock to my fish and corals. I got a piece of my live rock cleaning crew to clear out any unwanted hitchhikers from the live rock I will be transporting over. Thanks Niko's Reef!!! This guy keeps getting cooler the more I watch him. He better be careful or he may find himself part of my livestock addition pretty soon if he keeps this up. Still need to add some peppermint shrimps and emerald crabs but this is a good start.

Sorry about the loss Jeremy. Its one of my favorite SPS. For what its worth, I typically notice STN around 0.2 ppm PO4 for SPS but different ones are more sensitive than others. I am guessing you run some type of PO4 export system like water changes, refugium, skimmer, or GFO. I wonder if PO4 crept up on you, especially after shutting down the skimmer as your system will have to adjust to the change? For the pH issue, a reverse photoperiod helps out some but its effectiveness is tied to the size of your refugium. The larger, the more effective. Another option is to dose kalk at night. Lastly, you can have your skimmer run at night only to offset some of the pH drop due to buildup of CO2. The skimmer will aerate your water and off gas the CO2 helping to keep your pH from dropping.

Your colonies are looking fantastic! Great prices!

That system sounds like a good way for you to direct the pellets to the sandbed. In all honesty, its a toss up whether it will eat it or not but its worth a try. I think their typical diet is detritus and bacteria that have grown along the surface and within the pore spaces of the sandbed media. I dont think it would hurt to feed it pellets to supplement its nutrition for now until your sandbed gets established.

I would assume that you had a bad reading with your Hanna Calcium checker in the beginning as I heard they are not the most accurate or reliable. Going off that original bad reading on calcium, you fine tuned your CaRX off that number. The CaRX kept the same ratio of Alk and Ca up to this point and its just now that you are noticing that your Ca is low once you had used the Red Sea kit to double check it. I wouldn't worry about anything and just slowly use some 2-part Ca additive to get your level up to what you want it. Leave the CaRX tuned the way it is and it will maintain your new Ca level.

Offroaddodge, any potential reason the pearlberry was declining? Any recent changes to your system or maintenance routine?

I see your problem. You should be using hoses, not arrows, to move your water. Tank is looking good Ty! I'm hoping to see my 210 off the floor soon. But the arrows had water marks on them? It doesn't work like that?

Cleanup crew is a fun first addition to the tank after it sitting empty so long while cycling. It's nice to see live things crawling around in there. I'd aim for supplementary feeding for the tiger tail if possible. They usually need some stuff to build up in the sand before they can sustain themselves. I've read about 3-6 months before introducing. Afterwards, they will grow like crazy. I've had mine split up to 5 times already in my tank in the last 2 years. Maybe try some of those pellets in front of where they are eating.

Looking good Brian. I'm digging the aquascaping and the montis on the back glass.