Full Hedge

Tunze 9004

Under whiter light Im using kessil and this is at 25% colour

A: Red people eaters 5 polyp $25 Mother colony for reference. Considering selling it, make me an offer. B: Multi Zoa $50 C: Xmen zoa $50 Location, 5min walk from potong pasir mrt. PM to deal Thanks

Dont think amino additives would contain much phosphorous, so wouldnt worry about it. Potentially, Could come in impurities or maybe preservatives I actually got a spare bottle of aquaforest amino (50ml). I could give it to you. Perhaps you be interested to try it out and share your observations?

Any observations(colour/growth) on the calcium nitrate dosing? Interesting choice to go with Calcium nitrate. Why not aminos instead?

Awesome tank and awesome growth Do you feed your corals?

About 25 days of growth Before After Before After

Hi, I agree with bsjz that you should put the hob filter back because it seems that the particles bother you. Mech filtration can serve two purpose, nutrient export and removing particulate matter. If removing particlate matter is a goal then you can just replace the filterwool when it gets clogged. If you plan to use it as a nutrient export then you need to change it out every 2-3 days for it to be effective as a nutrient export method. I have particles floating around in my tank too. I call them my marine snow(particulate organic matter). Corals can catch some types of particulate organic matter and it doesnt bother me. Just to clarify, its not at a point where it is reducing my water clarity substantially.

And some sps colour changes Miss the purple. But the green on the staghorn is way nicer now. Mehhh :|

Thinking of selling the red people eater colony and grow a monti cap, or some stubby acro. Zoa garden getting too big, doesnt fit into the scape very well. Thinking of switching out the red ppl eater for a small rock and grow some sps, give the scape more structure. What do you think?

A pic to start the week right

yucks

Yes. Icp testing is a great advancement for us hobbyist. But must be cautious. There are two different icp tests. One is ICP optical emission spectrometry and another is ICP mass spectrometry. From what I know. For optical emission spectrometry some wavelengths are close and may lead to inaccuracies for some elements. In general, trace element dosing has the risk reward ratio skewed towards the negative end. Must be very cautious especially if dosing trace element complex.

If using vortech shld come with it. if not can just buy a block of coarse foam and diy it. Can either cut out the foam according to the pump or take a thin sheet n wrap around. Secure with rubber band. Use coarse foam not those filter wool kind. Filter wool will get clogged fast and decrease the flow. Ugly but just a temporary measure.

Yeah must give plenty of positive reinforcement. Praise them when they eat a prawn or settle in somewhere nice. And also anemone-proof the wavemakers with a foam guard. In case they misbehave ><

With respect to trace element dosing. It pays to consider what randy holmes say. Rather than what companies are trying to sell you... http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

Should intervene. Can try creating a rock ‘prison’ for the anemone. It kept mine in for a few days and then decided to jail break. Ultimately anemone will move where anemone wants to move. And anemones love powerheads. So becareful with that.

Why not 0 or any number arbitrarily close to 0. I think 0.1 is still nutrient enriched. Anyway, To be very honest, I dont think it really matters with hobby level accuracy and sampling frequency. As I have mentioned, considering that feeding is an act of disturbance. It pays more to consider disturbance rate, nitrogen input (severity of disturbance) and not just how much im exporting, but export rate.

Allow me to clarify. First. It pays to quantify what you mean by high nitrates. 0.15ppm nitrates is considered high nitrates in research. If you read what i said in my nuisance algae thread. You will realise that nitrate sampled monthly may be zero consistently. But the value may be Flux drastically if i am sampling it hourly. Why? Because the aquarist feeds his tank. When you feed you are providing an influx of nutrients. Second. If you have read my thread on coral appreciation here You will gain the perspective that a coral is not just coral. Consider the mutualistic relationship between the symbionts. Mutualism can be modelled based on cost benefit analysis. In different environment the cost-benefit trade changes. In oligotrophic environment, the zooxanthellae nitrogen supply is controlled by the coral. Both are limited by nitrogen. HOWEVER, zooxanthellae can uptake nitrogen from the surrounding water. In a reef aquarium where nitrogen is no longer the limiting factor, the zooxanthellae is no longer dependent on the coral host for nitrogen. This changes the mutualistic terms of trade between the coral host and zooxanthellae. It is believed that the zooxanthellae will compete with the coral host for nutrients. So think about it Why is the zooxanthellae providing the coral host with 90-95% of its photosynthetic products? If you follow a cost benefit model for mutualism. It makes sense that the zooxanthellae is getting something (precious nitrogen) in return. Summary, if you read this far. There is NOTHING wrong with ULNS. Want growth, feed corals. Simple. Side note. There is also symbiotic cyanobacteria living with da coral. Cyanobacteria is able to fix nitrogen and provide a nitrogen source to the coral. However, nitrogen fixation is a very energetically expensive process. So without the coral heterotrophic feeding, I believe nitrogen is a limiting factor.

If im using a test kit with an accuracy of 0.125ppm and i read 0. My nitrate is going to be 0.125ppm at most. Granted there may be false positive especially so if it is out of the test kit range. Easy to test for a false positive. Create a diluted control with distilled water. Can refer to my thread for a better perspective

Yes. With 0 nitrates consistently.

How to use aminos properly and maximise nitrogen content of reef roids. 1: Soak reef roids in amino only. Do not mix in with water. Reef roids is freeze dried and will rehydrate with the amino solution. Essentially saturate reef roid with amino. 2: Mix in some water to create a paste and then target feed corals. Higher levels of dissolved nitrogen has been shown to reduce coral growth or at best a slight increase, by CoralZoo project. But heterotrophic feeding of corals has demonstrated increased growth in corals by the university of hawaii using a range of coral food and reefroids tested with 3 sps corals. Dissolved nitrogen and amino is abosrbed at a higher rate by the zooxanthellae (alth they can synthesis their own. Dk why they so greedy #selfinterestinmutualism). Zooxanthellae growth is typically limited by nitrogen so the zooxanthellae is believed to compete for nutrients with the corals. In an oligotrophic, nitrogen limited environment, the coral directly limits the nitrogen provided to the zooxanthellae. By saturating reef roids with amino, reef roids has higher nitrogen content without adding too much amino acid( dissolved nitrogen) into the water column. Also read the photo.

New additions. Darth mauls with different patterns. Thinking of cutting the rock and glueing to frag disk. Allow them to grow properly.

This^ Will lose your mind. If want keep fish quarantine ur fish. When ur in the hobby long enough, its just a matter of time before you run into disease. If you cannot quarantine and the fish die from a preventable disease. The death is on you. You killed your pet out of negligence. A QT system can be as simple as a large pail with a hob filter. Nitrate toxicity is usually only at very high levels and easily managed by water change. Dont need use light so algae should be much of an issue. Just dont forget feed ur fish. Nowadays hardware much better. When i started only got t5 or metal halide. Now got Led controllable via smartphone. Kessil (nuff said). Got hanna checkers. Biopellets is a very convenient and robust nutrient export or can go with gyre-h380 fuge. Got ICP methods for water testing. A tunze 9004 skimmer produces 150L/h air, like a deltec mce300 in a very compact footprint and cheap price (200sgd). Investing in your hardware is a wise decision. I wrote some useful tips for beginners. For reading and understanding more advanced topics. Here is a link on an article about alkalinity. If i could only do one water test it be a simple titration for alk. Its more chim than most articles but tbh the chemistry concepts only High school level. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/5/chemistry Google randy holmes farley(hes on reefcentral). Read what he has to say about reef chemistry. There are also more advanced topics, like calcification mechanism in stony corals or Can read specific studies like Effect of red/blue light on corals.

Each piece of equipment/additive should have a clear purpose. Mechanical filtration can be used as a nutrient export method(like a skimmer removing organics before they break down) or just simply to remove particulate matter from the water. You already have a robust nutrient export method based on carbon dosing via the zeovit system. So mechanical filtration will serve the latter purpose in your system. I dont worry about detritus(im thinking of organic particulate matter) building up in my system. Skimmer and carbon is there to remove the dissolved organic compounds and those that are not removed, when broken down into ammonia and then oxidised to nitrate will be assimilated by the bacteria. You want to worry about detritus if it is accumulating in a low flow area and when disturbed can lead to a sudden large amount of organic material being decomposed. Keeping your sump free of dead zones help. Practically, I use filter wools/socks to remove sediments when I stir up the sand bed.