PSXerholic's 210 Gallon Reef in "Reefcity Houston" ;-)

[PSXerholic]

Orange Mushrooms

 

[PSXerholic]

Some Zoas...................

 

[PSXerholic]

Montipora Hispida Green

Crazy grower

 

[Paul87]

Love the throwback photos! It ended up being such a nice tank.

 

[PSXerholic]

Love the throwback photos! It ended up being such a nice tank.

Thought so as well.
Also I liked to share, that not every nice tank is done with high end equipment from the start.

My one got through a lot of upgrades.

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

Here an update on the CaRX.

Tank ALK is now stable at 7.8-8.0 throughout the day.
Effluent rate is currently 96ml/min.

ALK rate of 18-20dkH at a reactor PH of 6.55
It seems that this ALK level is the max the reactor does.
With lower effluent rates I always got the same ALK level of 18-20dkH.
This to me seem to be important to understand the efficiency of the CaRX.
If that would drop with increased effluent rate, the CaRX theoretically is at it's limits.

Important is that I also installed a 3rd reactor chamber.
The 2nd chamber and increased effluent rate caused my tank PH to drop to 7.65 in the night.
Today I installed the 3rd chamber and it bump's my effluent ph up further 0,4 on the PH.
So this should do the job this night to avoid dropping the tank Ph below 7.7/7.8
Will see.

I want to avoid bubbling water on the effluent.

 

[PSXerholic]

So after the transition from Dosing to CaRX which took a few days only with an ALK swing, there are no losses and only minor STN on some really sensitive corals appeared.
As predicted by some people, I would experience some total losses........that did not happen fortunately.

I brought ALK back up with the CaRX mostly just dosed ALK manually to avoid dropping ALK below 6, so from 6.5 upwards, the CaRX had to do that slowly since I did not want to stress the corals even more.

Here some sticks I made for equipment trade with local fellow reefer.
DIESEL warned me about the potential growth I may experience changing to CaRX, and he was right again ;-)
For whatever reason, some Staghorn actually exploded and I really need to make some time lapse pictures of some of the corals.

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

One of the most addicting corals.....................that's the one why I ended up with many SPS.

 

[PSXerholic]

Reminded by D2Mini's super silent tank, and honestly on my list for a while, new silent fan's for the light monster.
Looking forward to reduced and low noise on my fixture ;-)

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

Reminded by D2Mini's super silent tank, and honestly on my list for a while, new silent fan's for the light monster.
Looking forward to reduced and low noise on my fixture ;-)

-Andre

New fans installed,
Awesome, I do not hear any noise from the fixture !!!!

Had to check if they were moving this morning

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

Just a picture of the result of No3 @ 0.25ppm

 

[Janci]

Wonderful tank, set up and system, Andre.
Might schedule a Houston holiday because it looks like there is where the magic happens.

 

[PSXerholic]

Wonderful tank, set up and system, Andre.
Might schedule a Houston holiday because it looks like there is where the magic happens.

Hi,
thx a lot, appreciated.
I need to upload some updated pictures of the tank.
It further improved concerning colors and clarity after the recent changes to CaRX.

Well, we do have @Diesel as well as @d2mini in Reefcity Houston, so for crazy hobbyists, not unusual to visit our tanks while close ;-)
Also these two guys do support the Houston reefing community with a lot of help and sharing when they can. I learned some of the most important factors from DIESEL.

-Andre

 

[Janci]

Hi, I was already in contact with @Diesel to get his bulbs suggestions when I changed from LED to T5.
Good to know there is a trio.

 

[PSXerholic]

Hi, I was already in contact with @Diesel to get his bulbs suggestions when I changed from LED to T5.
Good to know there is a trio.

There are some more really nice tanks here ;-)
Anyways, I followed the @Diesel T5 selection as well with great results. Bad thing my fixture has only space for 4x T5 bulbs along with supplemental LED and 4x 250W 20K MH.

-Andre

 

[revhtree]

Beautiful job man!

 

[Janci]

Minoru, loyal frag buyer, lol.
Well, I was afraid about this question being asked so early.

Intention of this thread was to answer all the recurring questions and subjects, my buyers always asking, to help them out.

I will cover the VSV method in a separate post, trying to explain the basic understanding, the relationship to other things, Do's and Dont's as well that it is not that easy as many people describe it. Kind of an easy summary, since there is a lot of opinions out there on this subject.

But.....different kind of bacteria strains require different types of Carbon sources, many more then these 3 in fact, however if you keep doing dosing 1 carbon source only, over the time you run into a (almost)monoculture. So like in nature, a variety of bacteria strains is required for a healthy environment. This is why I'm dosing weekly Biodigest to "re-seed" different bacteria strains. But much more detail will come later, since I'm trying to avoid drifting into the VSV method at this point.

Andre, I have gone again through the thread and am most interested in the nutrient and bacterial control that you manage with VSV-UV.
Can you go a little more in detail for this?
I have been reading up on the glass-box design for VSV and other articles, but still...
Also the use of Probidio Bio Digest: it does (or not) make sense to refill the removed bacteria by new, prefabricated and selected bacteria.
But I would understand better that you want to replace bacteria that was killed and removed by the UV, and not the carbon dosing. Although Bio Digest is part of the VSV method if I understand well.
All is quiet contradictive and therefore the questions.

 

[PSXerholic]

Andre, I have gone again through the thread and am most interested in the nutrient and bacterial control that you manage with VSV-UV.
Can you go a little more in detail for this?
I have been reading up on the glass-box design for VSV and other articles, but still...
Also the use of Probidio Bio Digest: it does (or not) make sense to refill the removed bacteria by new, prefabricated and selected bacteria.
But I would understand better that you want to replace bacteria that was killed and removed by the UV, and not the carbon dosing. Although Bio Digest is part of the VSV method if I understand well.
All is quiet contradictive and therefore the questions.

No problem.
Let me summarize this a bit later today.

Never really put my method and how I applied it in this thread, not yet.

And yes, it sounds partial contradictive. But isn't at the end.

Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

Andre, I have gone again through the thread and am most interested in the nutrient and bacterial control that you manage with VSV-UV.
Can you go a little more in detail for this?
I have been reading up on the glass-box design for VSV and other articles, but still...
Also the use of Probidio Bio Digest: it does (or not) make sense to refill the removed bacteria by new, prefabricated and selected bacteria.
But I would understand better that you want to replace bacteria that was killed and removed by the UV, and not the carbon dosing. Although Bio Digest is part of the VSV method if I understand well.
All is quiet contradictive and therefore the questions.

Still in the works and not forgotten !!!

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

Hi everyone,

I like to share one of my best growing Staghorn Acros (FHC Mega Man) in the below pictures.
Staghorns are good growers in general, and there are Acros that barely grow a 1/4 inch in a month!

First picture shows a time lapse after 48 hours (see the circled areas) , the second is the same piece around 120 days later, just occasional fragged.
I need to say that I only experience this growth when all main parameter are somewhat been kept in check (including Iodine,Strontium and Potassium) as well sufficient food is provided such as Phytoplankton and other sources.
Nitrates and Po4 must be high enough and not zero!!!

If anyone has time lapse pictures to share, please do so here ;-)










-Andre