Zigginit's grow out contest frag

[zigginit]

Zigginit's Grow Out Contest Frag

picked up my 1 inch frag of Strawberry Shortcake today from AIM. i will be growing this baby out for the SCR Grow Out Contest. It is a nice sold frag with a little side numb i want to grow out more.

Here is the tank i will be growing it in. 36"x20"x20" = 55 gallons + 30 gallon sump filled half way.

with PAR Reading taken a few weeks ago.

here is a little info on the system:

T5 lights:
-6 36" T5 bulbs
-4 Run off ICECAP 660 ballast (2pm-7pm)
-2 Run off Workhorse 5 ballast (12pm-10pm)

Bulbs:
FRONT
ATI Purple + (workhorse 5 ballast)
ATI Aqua Blue Special (12k) (VHO ICECAP 660 ballast)
ATI Blue + (VHO ICECAP 660 ballast)
UVL 75/25 (14k) (VHO ICECAP 660 ballast)
ATI Blue + (VHO ICECAP 660 ballast)
UVL Super Actinic (420nm) (workhorse 5 ballast)
BACK

Water Chem:
-Results to come, please stand by

Equipment
-30G sump split in half, one side equipment the other refugium with deep sand, rubble rock, Chaeto algae.
-Red Sea Berlin Turbo Skimmer (pulling dark brown stuff.. )
-Rio 2500 return pump split with a SCWD into 2 hyperflow nozzles
-2 K1 power heads (i want to upgrade soon)

well thats all i have time for right now, water test to take place soon.

 

[EyeReef]

perfect, exactly what we all wanted to see and read.
Hopefully all the other contestants follow your format.

 

[jaypainter24]

nice tank Chris. Thanks for stopping in today and good luck.

 

[zigginit]

thanks, im always looking for a way to show off my simple tank i worked so long and hard on. this tank was in parts in my garage for about 7 months! just got it done about a month ago! all my corals were moved out of the BC29 and love the new room. now i want more flow

 

[zigginit]

oh, one very cool thing about this set up is about 85% of the rock in there is hand made DIY rock! i used white portland cement and crushed oyster shells and let it cure in high flow tank for about 3 months before using.

 

[zigginit]

got water tested to day and had some suprising results considering i just did a 20g water change yesterday.

ph 8.4
SG 1.022
ammoina 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0
DKH 7
CA 220!!!! what the hell??
Mag 1100
temp 78-80

i dont know how my Ca can be so low, i have been adding Kalk and did a 20g water change but it stays low. i even been adding mag! i dont know what im doing wrong here. im going to get some 2 part from BRS i think now because this is crazyness. it could be a bad test kit because it is old. ill see if i can find a new test kit or find a buddy with one to check if it is mine thats bad.

 

[zigginit]

hum... i tested my ph again and i think it may be higher then i thought. its kinda hard to tell because the colors look alike to me and my test kit is kinda old. i need to figure this out. it could be as high as 8.8! maybe because i added a crap load of kalk in the last few weeks trying to bring up the CA. but funny thing is i did a 20g water change just a few days ago. most of the coral all look happy more or less. i get a lot more PE at night but i think thats noraml for feeding and not really due to ph drop at night. i think im going to be doing a lot more water changes soon. and compare my test kit with another.

 

[IEreefmaster]

hum... i tested my ph again and i think it may be higher then i thought. its kinda hard to tell because the colors look alike to me and my test kit is kinda old. i need to figure this out. it could be as high as 8.8! maybe because i added a crap load of kalk in the last few weeks trying to bring up the CA. but funny thing is i did a 20g water change just a few days ago. most of the coral all look happy more or less. i get a lot more PE at night but i think thats noraml for feeding and not really due to ph drop at night. i think im going to be doing a lot more water changes soon. and compare my test kit with another.

Dude try and just do a 20g water change every week for a month. See how your corals and aquarium responds.

 

[goody]

I haven't been on here lately, but did this contest already start? Any chance of getting in?

 

[zigginit]

i just got my water tested with my buddies ph probe and it has a ph of 8.27, and my ca was 240. i got my 2 part today and i am currently raising the ca to 400 over the next few days. also i raised my DKH from 7 to 8

 

[zigginit]

corals all look super happy tonight, so im happy i may be on the right track now

 

[5ft24]

i just got my water tested with my buddies ph probe and it has a ph of 8.27, and my ca was 240. i got my 2 part today and i am currently raising the ca to 400 over the next few days. also i raised my DKH from 7 to 8

Wow... that means mag is only around 720...

 

[zigginit]

Wow... that means mag is only around 720...

last i checked my mag was 1100 and i have been adding since then. that was a week ago. Mag should be around 3 times the CA. should does not mean it is though. i think i caused all kinds of funky problem when i went crazy with the Kalcwasher. but its getting worked out now thank god

 

[IEreefmaster]

Wow... that means mag is only around 720...

Isn't mag supposed to be around 1300! That's a little low!

 

[zigginit]

i just tested again after my first day of 2 part:

CA~280 (up from 240)
ALK~8 (up from 7)
PH~8.4~8.6 (cant see the dam color thing well.)

i did notice something note worthy whle dosing last night. i added the 250ml of CA to try and bring the CA up about 50ppm per day. i waited about 30 mins then added about 50ml of the ALK slowly. i saw if i went to fast it started to precipitate the CA out of the water in the area of the ALK being added.

from my basic understanding of chemistry the mag was too low and was not blocking the bi-carb from joining with the CA thus the precipitation issue. also CA and ALK have to be in balance or the same thing will happen. in this case i had more ALK in my tank then CA and it help cause the precipitation issue due to inbalance. so for tonight im going to only add CA since it is low and my ALK is in a good range. i will test Mag again right now and make sure its coming up from last weeks test.

once i get CA levels up i will not need to be adding so much each day which will also help prevent precipitation. the less freshly added chemicals the less chance of them binding up before they distribute evenly into the system.