Introduce your tank

Dorado

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Placentia, Ca
#1
It's depressing seeing every third thread lately being about scammers and what not, so I thought I'd try to lighten things up. One of my favorite things about reefing is seeing and talking about other people's tanks. There are a few people on this site that have build threads, but it seems like the vast majority don't. I was thinking it would be cool if anyone that wanted to, would introduce themselves and a little about their tank (of course including a few pictures). This would allow people to put a "tank to the name" and create a little achieve of sorts for the members on this site. In addition to letting people see that you're a real person with a tank and not some lousy scammer. It doesn't matter how big or small the tank is, if it's a frag tank or maybe not even built yet. Let's see or hear about it! I'll start off with my tank and just add your profile after that.



Dorado
Name: Brian
Location: Placentia (north Orange County)
Date of setup: April 2021
Tank: 36"x36"x27" cube made by Crystal Dynamics, roughly 140G water volume
Sump: Trigger 34 sapphire
Return Pump: Neptune cor20
Controller: Neptune apex w/ (2) 832 energy bars
Lights: (12)-24w T5, (3)-24" orphek blue LED bars, (1) A80 Kessil LED
Water movement: (2) Tunze 6055, (1)Tunze 6095, (1) Ecotech MP40, (1) Icecap 4K gyre
Filtration: Reef Octopus 200sss Regal, filter socks, refugium with chaeto, carbon reactor every once in awhile
Dosing: Kalkwasser via Avast Marine K2 Kalk stirrer and Neptune Dos, Geo CR618 Calcium reactor w/ secondary chamber via Kamoer FX-STP dosing pump
Other additives: Phyto every few days, Microbacter once a week, acropower once a week
Food: Rod's food(original and plankton), PE mysis, PE calanus and LRS fish frenzy
Fish List: (1) powder blue tang, (1) yellow tang, (1) royal gramma, (7) lyretail anthias, (2) clownfish, (2) springeri damselfish
Coral: The top half of my reef is all acropora, while the bottom half is mostly LPS (acans, blastos, favia, euphyllia) with a few zoas and ricordia
Inverts: (1) skunk cleaner, (1) fire shrimp, (1) sea cucumber, (1) Derasa clam, (1) maxima clam, (6) conches, and a few snails and hermits that survived the purge

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Gedxin

Pandemic Reefer
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#4
Thanks for sharing! I realize I don't have a build thread for my Peninsula tank here....which is the one I spend so much time on.

Specs:
Tank Brand: Red Sea Reefer Peninsula 500
Size: 49.2” x 23 .6” x 23.6”
Started: May 2022
Volume: 105g display, 27g sump (132g total)
Lights: 3x Radion G6 Blues, 4x T5s (2x Blue/2x Actinic), 1x Prime 16HD, 1x 30W blue LED
Pump: Siccee SDC 7.0
Filter Roller: ClariSea SK-5000 Gen 2
Refugium: AI Prime Refugium w/ Chaeto
Powerheads: 2x Ecotech MP40s
Canopy: White PVC
Controller: Reef Pi combo by Robo-Tank.ca, automated with Home Assistant
Heater: 300w Finnex fail safety with Inkbird temp controller
Battery backup: 1100VA UPS w/ deep cycle on stand by
Rock: 30lbs KP Aquatics Premium Aquacultured Live Rock (best decision to spend the cash here imo)

Been in the hobby since 2021 with my office cube tank. Been a hell of a journey.

My peninsula tank is my attempt at keeping a mixed reef with an acropora dominate top layer. Plenty to talk about with this tank, but most is documented over at R2R and it's sometimes hard to find the motivation to double dip. Right now it's dealing with acro eating red bugs - things are going decently well outside of that problem. Aiptasia is about the only other 'issue' at the moment thankfully.

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drexel

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Nov 1, 2016
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SFV
#5
Yeah, it does seem like one big market place sometimes with stupid scammers mixed in. I’ll play.
I think I may have a build thread for my nano system here, but I get busy with work and forget.
Anyway, my name is John and I’m in the valley. I have two systems currently, a nano system that consists of two tanks tied together and a “main” display that’s 36x36x16 on a custom metal stand. The nano system is LPS dominant (it will be) with a small clam lagoon for a couple croceas and the main display is acropora and clams. The nano system I started last year and the main display I originally started in late 2017, but rebooted last year.
I really enjoy meeting new reefers and will talk about reefs until you kick me out. I’ve been keeping glass boxes filled with water since I was a kid in the 70’s and started my first marine tank in the early 80’s, so I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve only kept nano tanks my entire life until I started the 90g, but I cared for many large systems throughout my life for other people and I also worked on a coral farm in the 90’s when you could count the number of farms on one hand. I love to trade and bank corals with like minded hobbyists and I enjoy helping when I can.
Here are a few crappy pics.










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Quotes

New member
Joined
Jun 3, 2021
Messages
30
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#7
Thanks for sharing! I realize I don't have a build thread for my Peninsula tank here....which is the one I spend so much time on.

Specs:
Tank Brand: Red Sea Reefer Peninsula 500
Size: 49.2” x 23 .6” x 23.6”
Started: May 2022
Volume: 105g display, 27g sump (132g total)
Lights: 3x Radion G6 Blues, 4x T5s (2x Blue/2x Actinic), 1x Prime 16HD, 1x 30W blue LED
Pump: Siccee SDC 7.0
Filter Roller: ClariSea SK-5000 Gen 2
Refugium: AI Prime Refugium w/ Chaeto
Powerheads: 2x Ecotech MP40s
Canopy: White PVC
Controller: Reef Pi combo by Robo-Tank.ca, automated with Home Assistant
Heater: 300w Finnex fail safety with Inkbird temp controller
Battery backup: 1100VA UPS w/ deep cycle on stand by
Rock: 30lbs KP Aquatics Premium Aquacultured Live Rock (best decision to spend the cash here imo)

Been in the hobby since 2021 with my office cube tank. Been a hell of a journey.

My peninsula tank is my attempt at keeping a mixed reef with an acropora dominate top layer. Plenty to talk about with this tank, but most is documented over at R2R and it's sometimes hard to find the motivation to double dip. Right now it's dealing with acro eating red bugs - things are going decently well outside of that problem. Aiptasia is about the only other 'issue' at the moment thankfully.

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I have a IM 100 peninsula.. do you find that 2 mp40's provide enough flow? I'm still trying to find a good flow.
 

Gedxin

Pandemic Reefer
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#8
I have a IM 100 peninsula.. do you find that 2 mp40's provide enough flow? I'm still trying to find a good flow.
I'm by no means an expert, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. For a younger tank without significant colonies impeding flow, I think just two pumps on a wall is sufficient. I have an extra two ready to add (also as backup) should the day come where I need more flow, but at my growth rate that's gonna be at least a year away. Also maybe obvious but your rockwork matters and the flow pattern is affected by it.
 

Dipan00

187g Peninsula Mixed Reef
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Dec 31, 2012
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Location
Torrance
My Tank Build
#9
Great thread. I have build if anyone wants a deep dive into my peninsula. But here are the basics.

187g Peninsula 60x30x24
Lighting is reefbreeders
Dosing ati pro essentials 2 part
Random occasional water changes with Instant Ocean
Tank and a few of my favorites in my system


Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk
 

wsoldier

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Nov 8, 2018
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Location
Burbank
#10
Mix of old and recent photos.

wsoldier
Name: John
Location: Burbank
Date of setup: Sept 2018
Tank: (single system) Reefer 350 / 73G + Custom 15G Advanced Acrylic frag tank
Return Pump: Neptune cor15
Controller: Neptune apex
Lights: 2 x Hydra 26s, OG red sea mounts
Water movement: 1 x Reefwave 45
Filtration: Aquamaxx Q2 skimmer, mesh filter sock, fuge (3x macro algae)
Dosing: Jebao 3.4 Wifi doser, BRS 2-part
Other additives: Recently started RE AB+ for nitrates, weekly Strontium, monthly iodide
Food: TDO Pellets, Hikari herbivore+large mix, Hikari mysis
Fish List: yellow tang, royal gramma, (2) clownfish, sixline wrasse, tomini tang, carpenter flasher wrasse, psuedochromis, marine beta, mandarin goby,
Coral: Mixed reef; acros on top, several hammers, torches, zoas, shrooms, gonis/alveopora, sherman nem
Inverts: 2 scarlet hermits, handful of trochus snails
 

Attachments

Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
273
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191
Points
8
Location
Hesperia
My Tank Build
#11
Instagram: Officereef760
I upgraded from a 20-gallon office tank almost a year ago. The tank has been up and running for almost a year now, and I'm thrilled with how it's progressing. Its an Aqua Japan (36"x24"x16") 60-gallon reef tank with an external overflow.

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I decided to go with an Advanced Acrylic Hybrid PVC sump, fuge, and frag tank..
One of my goals for the tank was to try to hide the plumbing and wiring. I didn't want my reef tank to look cluttered or unsightly. While it's not perfect and took some time I'm happy with it.
IMG_20230316_103913_274.jpg


Equipment
Clarisea SK-5000
Royal Exclusive BK 160 Mini
AquaUV 25-watt (285 GPH flow rate)
Helio Temperature Controller with BRS heaters
GHL SA2.1 4 head doser
Simply fan for cooling
2 Ecotech MP40
varios 2 return
cor 20 return

Lighting
Main display
3 Reefi Uno 2 pro
2 Quanta Meso blue light bars.
Frag tank
12" AI Blade Grow
12" AI Blade Glow
Refugium
AI Fuge Light

FTS

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JojosReef

New member
Joined
Nov 3, 2021
Messages
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409
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Location
Irvine
My Tank Build
#12
Tanks are looking great! I'll throw down.

Start Date: Mar 18th, 2023 (upgrading/merging two nanos)
  • Tank: Innovative Marine Nuvo 40L AIO, 35.4" x 19.7" (15.3" display) x 13"
  • Stand: Innovative Marine black APS stand
  • Light: 2x Noopsyche K7 Mini, AI Prime 16HD as third/backup
  • Pump: 2x MightyJet 538gph DC return pumps
  • Powerhead: Maxspect Jump 2K gyre pump
  • ATO: IM TI Hydrofill + 5g carboy
  • Skimmer: NuvoSkim mid-size skimmer
  • Filtration: IM Custom Caddy w/floss + carbon + phosguard as needed; Intank floss holder
  • Heater/fans: IM Helio 200W titanium heater/controller as primary with Finnex 300W titanium element + USB fans connected via Inkbird as failsafe
  • Rocks: 40lb old school rock from Fiji and Marshall Island seeded with rocks from Tampa Bay Saltwater transferred from 10g nano
  • Sand: Aragonite special grade + seeded with Tampa Bay Saltwater sand from my 10g + seeded with Fiji Mud
  • Automation: Reef Factory dosing pump for All-For-Reef; Mini fridge + Reef Factory dosing pumps for Reef Nutrition liquid food; eventually Reef Factory KH Keeper for automated testing/dosing; will eventually move toward a full Reef Factory ecosystem assuming the good reviews keep up--I like the modular, controller-on-phone nature of the ecosystem with all the standalone devices
  • RODI system: RODI buddy
  • Salt: Fritz blue box
Here's the design:
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Stocking:



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Just kidding. Stocking plan is still a work in progress. Currently:

Fish:
Tailspot Blenny
Exquisite Firefish
2x occelaris clowns (currently in Evo)
...
Current wishlist in order of likelihood for addition of 3-4 more fish:
Yasha shrimp goby
2 Banggai Cardinals
Midas blenny
Ruby Longfin Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus rubeus)
Blue star leopard wrasse (Macropharyngodon bipartitus)
Flameback angel
Sunburst anthias
Horn shark

Crabs/False Crabs:
Spotted anemone crab
Green porcelain crab
Blue porcelain crab (currently in Evo)
Emerald crabs

Shrimp:
2x sexy shrimp
Randall's pistol shrimp (currently in Evo)
Skunk cleaner shrimp (currently in Evo)

Nems:
Black Widow BTA
Rainbow BTA (currently in a cup in my Evo)
Acid wash green BTA (wishlist)
7x RFAs, likely more

Coral (almost all of these are already in tanks):
Zoas
Hammer
Octospawn
Torch
Gorgonians
Branching GSP
Candy Cane
Duncan
Monti setosa
Monti cap orange
Mint potato chip pavona
Green branching psammacora
Birdsnests
Peach monti digitata
Milka stylophora
Xmas favia
Scoly
Trachy
Rhodactis mushrooms
Ricordea FL mushroom
Alveopora
Blasto wells
Blasto merl
Acans
...
Wishlist:
Cynaria
bubble oral
fox coral

Macros (most already have):
Gracilaria hayi
Codium
Botrycladia
Dragon's breath (wishlist)
Gracilaria
Halymeda monile/incrassata
Caulerpa
Cryptonemia crenulata

Sponges/tunicates:
Hitchhikers from TBS rocks
Ball sponges (wishlist)
Finger sponges (wishlist)

Clams (will get once I add a Kessil A180we with 30degree reflector):
Derasa or squamosa
Crocea or Maxima or Noae

CUC (already have):
Tuxedo urchin
2x Turbos
Lots of different types of ceriths and LOADs of dwarf ceriths
Different types of nerites, but lots of virgin nerites because they look nice
Dwarf and regular Trochus
Astraeas
2x conches
2x money cowries
Worms, lots of worms, but no bristleworms so far, just peanut worms, spaghetti worms and such.

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Attachments

JojosReef

New member
Joined
Nov 3, 2021
Messages
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Likes
409
Points
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Location
Irvine
My Tank Build
#15
Yeah, it does seem like one big market place sometimes with stupid scammers mixed in. I’ll play.
I think I may have a build thread for my nano system here, but I get busy with work and forget.
Anyway, my name is John and I’m in the valley. I have two systems currently, a nano system that consists of two tanks tied together and a “main” display that’s 36x36x16 on a custom metal stand. The nano system is LPS dominant (it will be) with a small clam lagoon for a couple croceas and the main display is acropora and clams. The nano system I started last year and the main display I originally started in late 2017, but rebooted last year.
I really enjoy meeting new reefers and will talk about reefs until you kick me out. I’ve been keeping glass boxes filled with water since I was a kid in the 70’s and started my first marine tank in the early 80’s, so I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve only kept nano tanks my entire life until I started the 90g, but I cared for many large systems throughout my life for other people and I also worked on a coral farm in the 90’s when you could count the number of farms on one hand. I love to trade and bank corals with like minded hobbyists and I enjoy helping when I can.
Here are a few crappy pics.










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That pink clam (noae?) is amazing!
 

JojosReef

New member
Joined
Nov 3, 2021
Messages
621
Likes
409
Points
0
Location
Irvine
My Tank Build
#16
Instagram: Officereef760
I upgraded from a 20-gallon office tank almost a year ago. The tank has been up and running for almost a year now, and I'm thrilled with how it's progressing. Its an Aqua Japan (36"x24"x16") 60-gallon reef tank with an external overflow.

View attachment 107987 View attachment 107995

I decided to go with an Advanced Acrylic Hybrid PVC sump, fuge, and frag tank..
One of my goals for the tank was to try to hide the plumbing and wiring. I didn't want my reef tank to look cluttered or unsightly. While it's not perfect and took some time I'm happy with it.
View attachment 107994

Equipment
Clarisea SK-5000
Royal Exclusive BK 160 Mini
AquaUV 25-watt (285 GPH flow rate)
Helio Temperature Controller with BRS heaters
GHL SA2.1 4 head doser
Simply fan for cooling
2 Ecotech MP40
varios 2 return
cor 20 return

Lighting
Main display
3 Reefi Uno 2 pro
2 Quanta Meso blue light bars.
Frag tank
12" AI Blade Grow
12" AI Blade Glow
Refugium
AI Fuge Light

FTS

View attachment 108001
This is next level reefing. I (and most, I think) work to hide the mess. You've made the mess a showpiece!
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2018
Messages
749
Likes
389
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Location
VICTORVILLE CA
#17
Name: Douglas
Location: Victorville
Date of setup: April 5th 2023
Tank: 72x30x24 roughly 225G water volume
Sump: made by me
Return Pump: Jaboa DCT 12,000
Controller: Neptune apex w/ (1) 832 energy bars
Lights: (4)- Ai Hydra 64 HD
Water movement: (2) Neptune wav, (2) Jaboa pp-20, (2) Sow-50 (2) CP 55 GYRE
Filtration: NYOS 300
Dosing: AQUA EXCEL Cr60 calcium reactor not yet hooked up.
STOCKING 2 CLOWN AND A BASKETBALL SIZE FF DEGITATA.
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Joined
Jul 30, 2018
Messages
749
Likes
389
Points
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Location
VICTORVILLE CA
#18
Great thread. I have build if anyone wants a deep dive into my peninsula. But here are the basics.

187g Peninsula 60x30x24
Lighting is reefbreeders
Dosing ati pro essentials 2 part
Random occasional water changes with Instant Ocean
Tank and a few of my favorites in my system


Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk

I wanna be your friend looking at those beautiful sps
 

JohnBRZ

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Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
197
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114
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Location
Fountain Valley
#19
Here’s my little piece of the ocean. My Goal is simplicity with minimal maintenance.
Name: John
Location: Fountain Valley
Date of setup: Oct 23, 2021
Equipment:
  1. 14 AIO Innovative Marine on my desk
  2. NF-1 Skimmer in the middle chamber with air connected to the outside to draw in fresh air. Turn out it’s unnecessary to have a skimmer in this size tank. I plan to remove soon and just put some rock back there for extra bio filter and maybe some carbon
  3. Kessil A80 tuna blue light on from 11 am to 9 pm @60%. I like the more white look so mostly white when I’m home and max blue when I’m not home.
  4. Just installed a CheatoMax LED on the left chamber to help lower nutrient
  5. Helio PTC smart heater
  6. JBJ ATO sensor from my 60 gallon 16 years ago. Hope this thing don’t malfunction
Livestock
  1. a year old cleaner shrimp
  2. pair of orange clownfish
  3. Single white clownfish. Trying to re-home
  4. Mandarin dragonet from Biota
  5. CUC (1 hermit crab, 1 tiger conch snail, 3 cerith snail, 6 astrea snail, 6 nerite snail)
  6. Undemanding corals (mushrooms, koji pink nepthea, neon green toadstool, bam bam zoa, toxic green paly, xenia, GSP). Plan to remove the zoa and paly soon.
  7. Macro algae
Maintenance included daily feeding, weekly glass cleaning and dose chaetogro, refill ATO reservoir every 3 weeks and add some All for reef, 3 gallon water change once every 4 to 6 months to vacuum out detritus when I feel like it or if corals look unhappy.
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Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
1,063
Likes
1,202
Points
18
Location
Redlands
#20
I have a build thread on here that I update pretty regularly, but here goes:

name: Matt
location: Redlands
tank was setup June 2020

Tank: Innovative Marine 100 gallon EXT
Lighting: 3x Ecotech Marine Radion Gen5 XR15 Pros and 2x Quanta Reef Crest bars
Skimmer: Tunze 9410 DC
Flow: 2x tunze 6095s, 2x AI Nero 5
Return: Simplicity 2100 DC
phosphate and nitrate: Lanthanum chloride and vodka dosing

Livestock list is a mile long. Suffice to say I have a lot of fish and a lot of coral, mostly sps, mostly acros.

I think my plan for the tank can be summarized with: Austin Lefevre's MACNA talk keeping benthic feeders with corals. This gave me hope to keep some angels in a reef tank. Then I stumbled across Matt Wandell's article on reefs.com about reef safe butterflyfish. And lastly I later stumbled upon Tea Yi-Kai's ancient thread on reefcentral about butterflyfish in reefs. All of this caused me to venture down the path of keeping butterflies and angels and corals, or at least try it out. I figured keeping the acros with them would maybe be difficult and frustrating if the fish just killed them, so I figured my backup plan would be to go all in on montis, birdsnest, stylos, etc figuring those would be more doable. Turns out, acros do just fine with them, just no daytime polyp extension.

I do pretty regular videos so my dumbass can see the progress. I'm the kind of person that will totally forget what a dog or cat looked like 2 years ago as a kitten, so I figured I'd try to document the first year or two of my tank so I could go back and see the changes and growth.

I see some people saying what their regular maintenance is so I'll add that. For me, I swap out the 3 filter socks whenever they overflow and irritate me as my sump is loud without them, generally every 4-6 days. Clean skimmer once a week or so. Regular 20-25% water changes, every other week give or take. When I do a water change, I go pretty hard in the paint. I whip out the magnum polishing filter and get that thing going, I turkey baste the entire tank multiple times, stir up the sand, etc. It's a lot, but I feel like afterward the tank just looks so freaking dapper so I keep doing it. I also clean the glass frequently, like within a day or two of it getting dirty I try to force myself to clean it. One, I've noticed if I don't I start feeling like the tank looks like shit, which isn't fun. Then I clean the glass and turns out, oh hey the tank actually looks fine. So yeah, just trying to do stuff to keep the motivation. Taking regular pictures and videos seems to help too, kinda makes me accountable in a way.

I feed the fish a variety of foods. I have probably bought every pellet out there, and I do frozen too. I figure there's a variety of fish so they preferably get a variety of foods. Hopefully it checks a lot of boxes. I don't really feed much else with any regularity. I have a non-photosynthetic sun coral that I used to feed, but I had trouble keeping nitrate and phosphate under control and that seemed like an easy one to stop. Now that my nutrients are back under control I've started to do sporadic feeding again. I feed it at night with flow fully on as I figure that's when the acro polyps are out too, so they can get in on the fun. I usually do up a mix of PE calanus, calaneez, reef roids, brightwell coral aminos, and whatever else I have hanging around like currently I have some Pac Pods from reef nutrition. I don't think it's really making a huge deal, but it feels productive.

I dose ESV 2 part, nothing too exciting. If I'm low on alk, I manually pour in kalkwasser until I get to where I want to be while also increasing dosage of 2 part. I've been trying to get into the 9s lately and have struggled to get there, so I figure that just means alk consumption is going up which is good. I don't test calcium or magnesium outside of ICP tests. I do test nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, and sometimes potassium. I use instant ocean salt, the purple bucket, although I did buy a reef crystals bucket recently just to give it a whirl. I don't think salt matters much tbh. I used to be a lot more lax with nutrients and have had them as high as po4 0.9 and no3 like 70 or something, acros didn't die, but growth seemed poor. I now aim to keep po4 around .1 ideally and nitrate anywhere from 5-30. I did bottom out my po4 recently due to a faulty hanna checker and tbh that did more clear damage than the 0.9 / 70 did. So I try to not fly too close to the sun of 0.


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