reef & potito
11/25/2004, 05:35 AM
Dear Mucho Reef,
Your tank is spectacular. I read the article featuring your tank several times and added it to my list of favorites to return to again and again always thinking wow !
My goal is to maintain a tank of soft corals such as mushrooms, zoanthids, a few other softies.
I was hoping you could share some more of your wisdom and experience.
Here's my tank setup:
1. 60 gal. aga
2. 25 gal. sump
3. Euro-reef 6-2+ protein skimmer
4. 2 rio power heads at each end. since difficult to adjust direction, they point straight ahead slightly towards middle.
5. I run 2 carbon bags in sump on ea. side of return pump.
6. filter sock at the source where water enters sump.
7. jbj 4x65 watts power compacts. 2 white 10,000k, 2 actinic 7300k sitting on their plastics legs.
I have just ordered:
3 maxijet 1200 power heads, natural wave timer to alternate flow patterns, kent marine aquadose 2.5 gal. for kalkwasser,
two little fishies kalkwasser, titanium ground probe, esv spray dried phytoplankton.
Since my system size is similar to yours, albeit 10 gals. less, and my intention is to maintain soft corals including zoanthids, ricoriads, a toadstool leather, and a few other softies, your tank would an excellent role model for me as well as many others.
These are my questions:
1. Do soft corals prefer water with higher nutrient levels? I suppose this is the case since you do not believe in over-skimming a tank full of softies.
2. my intent is to maintain mainly a softies tank, however, I really like to have one montipora. Is this possible or are they in conflict w/regard to water parameters?
3. how do you prune and transfer zoanthids by glueing to another rock in another part of tank?
As you can see by my recent orders, I am fixing my flow problem and modeling it after yours. Also, I am going to dose kalkwasser nightly to replace evaporation and help w/ alkanity, Ph, phosphate transfer facilitation, add ground probe.
since i am new to reefkeeping, I mistakenly did not test my ph and alkanity regularly. Then I recently checked, and alkalinity was very low at 80ppm and ph was ~7.6. I have raised over a few days the alkanity to 120 ppm, still a bit low, by using kent marine pro-buffer. My ph is now at 8.2 during the day. have not tested at night. I will dose kalkwasser to fix my alkanity, ph stability.
I never fed my tank as I mistakenly thought softies got all their energy from light, however I want them to thrive and grow so I would like to feed them as inspired by your beautiful reef tank.
4. how can you tell if your zoanthid has a bacterial infection?
5. what brand of dipping medication do you use?
6. I currently have a long stem type of zoanthid colony that hasn't open for a couple of weeks, a few very small polyps are however. what should i do if anything?
7. do your nitrates climb significantly at the end of your one week cycle when your protein skimmer is shut off?
8. lets say my nitrate levels have reached 15 ppm on the fifth day of the protein skimmer being shut off, should i turn it back on?
I know these are a lot of questions but I get the feeling you're someone who loves sharing your experience, hopefully your can help someone like me who has fallen in love with reef tanks but has so much to learn.
thanks in advance,
Inspired by your beautiful work of art
:)
Your tank is spectacular. I read the article featuring your tank several times and added it to my list of favorites to return to again and again always thinking wow !
My goal is to maintain a tank of soft corals such as mushrooms, zoanthids, a few other softies.
I was hoping you could share some more of your wisdom and experience.
Here's my tank setup:
1. 60 gal. aga
2. 25 gal. sump
3. Euro-reef 6-2+ protein skimmer
4. 2 rio power heads at each end. since difficult to adjust direction, they point straight ahead slightly towards middle.
5. I run 2 carbon bags in sump on ea. side of return pump.
6. filter sock at the source where water enters sump.
7. jbj 4x65 watts power compacts. 2 white 10,000k, 2 actinic 7300k sitting on their plastics legs.
I have just ordered:
3 maxijet 1200 power heads, natural wave timer to alternate flow patterns, kent marine aquadose 2.5 gal. for kalkwasser,
two little fishies kalkwasser, titanium ground probe, esv spray dried phytoplankton.
Since my system size is similar to yours, albeit 10 gals. less, and my intention is to maintain soft corals including zoanthids, ricoriads, a toadstool leather, and a few other softies, your tank would an excellent role model for me as well as many others.
These are my questions:
1. Do soft corals prefer water with higher nutrient levels? I suppose this is the case since you do not believe in over-skimming a tank full of softies.
2. my intent is to maintain mainly a softies tank, however, I really like to have one montipora. Is this possible or are they in conflict w/regard to water parameters?
3. how do you prune and transfer zoanthids by glueing to another rock in another part of tank?
As you can see by my recent orders, I am fixing my flow problem and modeling it after yours. Also, I am going to dose kalkwasser nightly to replace evaporation and help w/ alkanity, Ph, phosphate transfer facilitation, add ground probe.
since i am new to reefkeeping, I mistakenly did not test my ph and alkanity regularly. Then I recently checked, and alkalinity was very low at 80ppm and ph was ~7.6. I have raised over a few days the alkanity to 120 ppm, still a bit low, by using kent marine pro-buffer. My ph is now at 8.2 during the day. have not tested at night. I will dose kalkwasser to fix my alkanity, ph stability.
I never fed my tank as I mistakenly thought softies got all their energy from light, however I want them to thrive and grow so I would like to feed them as inspired by your beautiful reef tank.
4. how can you tell if your zoanthid has a bacterial infection?
5. what brand of dipping medication do you use?
6. I currently have a long stem type of zoanthid colony that hasn't open for a couple of weeks, a few very small polyps are however. what should i do if anything?
7. do your nitrates climb significantly at the end of your one week cycle when your protein skimmer is shut off?
8. lets say my nitrate levels have reached 15 ppm on the fifth day of the protein skimmer being shut off, should i turn it back on?
I know these are a lot of questions but I get the feeling you're someone who loves sharing your experience, hopefully your can help someone like me who has fallen in love with reef tanks but has so much to learn.
thanks in advance,
Inspired by your beautiful work of art
:)