Ken's 215G Build

kenchilada · Wednesday at 11:39 AM

Been busy.

About 20 frags in quarantine will be ready 6/21.

Added a Hydros X10. Having trouble getting it to be as accurate as my Alkatronic, so the jury is out on that. I think it problematic that the iV and X10 can be a variable distance apart, unlike Alkatronic where the reagent head and tubing length is fixed compared to the mixing container and probe.

My Mastertronic started giving me major issues with accuracy, just totally wild readings all over. I've spent hours and hours troubleshooting, even on video calls with their support guy, and still haven't figured it out. These testers are just a hobby in themselves. So far the Alkatronic is the only one worth the effort to me.

I just ordered $300 worth of 80W T5 bulbs. CoralVue has Geisseman on closeout for $13 a bulb so I figured I'd stock on on actinic blue/purple.

I have a batch of lyretail anthias coming. All my fish got big and I need to fill in with small fish. I actually don't like buying small fish because they tend to randomly disappear over the years.

Been getting water chemistry dialed in. I had a bad batch of Instant Ocean (several buckets of it) and my magnesium was 1200. I threw away the last of that.

Phosphate is down to 0.04 PPM finally (from 15-20 PPM). I tried many methods but what really worked was removing half the rock at a time into a stock tank outside and blasting it with lanthanum chloride. Then I used a couple hundred $$$ of Rowaphos to get under 0.2 PPM. I feel like most of the advice I read on lanthanum chloride did not apply to my tank and it went very differently than expected.

pH is stuck around 7.8 so my next project is getting that up. I will build some sort of DIY CO2 scrubber, because I think it is a silly thing to spend money on considering it is literally a container that air passes through.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 11:42 AM

Saw this today and thought of R2R

Be careful whose advice you take...

Mschmidt · Wednesday at 12:22 PM

kenchilada said:
Saw this today and thought of R2R

Be careful whose advice you take...

me here and at work.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 1:35 PM

Mschmidt said:
me here and at work.

Humbling isn't it? I'm slightly better about it now that I'm getting older.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 1:38 PM

I've tried every controller and Hydros is by far the best!

Support is working with me on the iV alkalinity result - they have been very responsive and helpful.

Mschmidt · Wednesday at 1:47 PM

kenchilada said:
Humbling isn't it? I'm slightly better about it now that I'm getting older.

I usually need the reminder that I'm dumber than I think I am when I think I know things, and smarter than I think I am when I think I'm ignorant. Unless I actually do know nothing...

kenchilada · Wednesday at 2:37 PM

I added an ORP probe on 5/25 and waiting on it to settle down.

Surprised ORP has reached 475. Maybe it will drop once it is broken in but I don't remember it working that way.

Orange line is my pH. The pH dip last week was due to bad probe calibration. I still need to get my pH up. I have a family of 7 in the house plus two dogs so the CO2 is high.

Northern Flicker · Wednesday at 2:43 PM

kenchilada said:
Saw this today and thought of R2R

Be careful whose advice you take...

The added complication with reef tanks is we see so many outliers, so it's hard to really say who is even right or wrong.

15 years ago it was all about having a lot of live rock and having low nutrients. Big skimmers were key.
Now....well, most tanks don't even approach 1lb/gallon, and many including me don't run skimmers. We actually dose nutrients.

Some like SunnyX have beautiful tanks and swear by bacterial supplementation. My local mentor grows SPS faster than anyone I know and doesn't dose anything other than straight AFR.

SPS turning brown? I've seen reputable people list high nutrients, low nutrients, high pH, low pH, too much light, too little light, chemical warfare, etc.

I see it mentioned all of the time that nitrates are kind of useless to coral, and it's best to add fish or dose ammonia - but I started dosing nitrates anyway, and I'm seeing things colour back up.

It's hard to even know where we all fall on the Dunning-Kruger graph...I tend to try to follow those who have long term success, like farmers or established members, but even then they change their minds all the time.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 3:16 PM

Northern Flicker said:
The added complication with reef tanks is we see so many outliers, so it's hard to really say who is even right or wrong.

15 years ago it was all about having a lot of live rock and having low nutrients. Big skimmers were key.
Now....well, most tanks don't even approach 1lb/gallon, and many including me don't run skimmers. We actually dose nutrients.

Some like SunnyX have beautiful tanks and swear by bacterial supplementation. My local mentor grows SPS faster than anyone I know and doesn't dose anything other than straight AFR.

SPS turning brown? I've seen reputable people list high nutrients, low nutrients, high pH, low pH, too much light, too little light, chemical warfare, etc.

I see it mentioned all of the time that nitrates are kind of useless to coral, and it's best to add fish or dose ammonia - but I started dosing nitrates anyway, and I'm seeing things colour back up.

It's hard to even know where we all fall on the Dunning-Kruger graph...I tend to try to follow those who have long term success, like farmers or established members, but even then they change their minds all the time.

Very true. There are definitely multiple ways to skin the cat. I still do a lot of things like I did 20-30 years ago because they work even if they are not cool now. I run T5 bulbs and would run MH if not for the heat. I like ozone more than carbon. I won't run a tank without live rock.

The best thing you can do if you're going to use the internet for reef advice is only follow people who post lots of pictures of their tank and share their methods openly. I can count those people on my fingers... like Randy, jda, Coral Euphoria, orion, etc. Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum... people with tens of thousands of posts here that I don't trust at all and post bad advice regularly, which is kinda funny but newbies get burned hard all the time. Facebook groups are the absolute worst though.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 3:19 PM

What's also funny is in 30 years, I have NEVER kept a clam, and I have not kept an anemone since 1997! So I never dare speak about them. Hmm... maybe I will try something new soon... I will have to learn how to quarantine a clam.

Northern Flicker · Wednesday at 3:32 PM

kenchilada said:
Very true. There are definitely multiple ways to skin the cat. I still do a lot of things like I did 20-30 years ago because they work even if they are not cool now. I run T5 bulbs and would run MH if not for the heat. I like ozone more than carbon. I won't run a tank without live rock.

The best thing you can do if you're going to use the internet for reef advice is only follow people who post lots of pictures of their tank and share their methods openly. I can count those people on my fingers... like Randy, jda, Coral Euphoria, orion, etc. Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum... people with tens of thousands of posts here that I don't trust at all and post bad advice regularly, which is kinda funny but newbies get burned hard all the time. Facebook groups are the absolute worst though.

It was much simpler (mentally) 15 years ago when we all just read books by Sprung, Fenner and the occasional TFH article. Less bombardment ofadvice and "FOMO"! Feels more stressful these days for some reason. Maybe it's because our failures are all so public

kenchilada · Wednesday at 9:35 PM

Northern Flicker said:
It was much simpler (mentally) 15 years ago when we all just read books by Sprung, Fenner and the occasional TFH article. Less bombardment ofadvice and "FOMO"! Feels more stressful these days for some reason. Maybe it's because our failures are all so public

Oh yes the FOMO… so bad!

I still have those books. I think the one really big advancement is we have much better flow pump options now. Other than that I could go back to 90s tech.

kenchilada · Wednesday at 10:09 PM

Back in business. Got Hydros iV alkalinity fixed. When I was calibrating the doser heads I was moving the tubes too far away from where the iV sits and this seemed to affect it.

I was going to sell my alkatronic but I may just run them both.