Bakbay's 450g - Final Upgrade?

[bakbay]

“Winter” is here and the fish room is 70F. I’ve installed 2 titanium heaters, connected to Inkbirds. Interesting is that the temp sensors are off by a degree yet only a few inches from each other. Perhaps I need to calibrate?

 

[bakbay]

Well this sucks. I have everything solved and automated so outside of getting more fish and corals, I’m bored again! Should I do another upgrade? lol

 

[bakbay]

My alk was at 10.5dKH and now settling down to 9.7’ish. That was me messing with kalk in the ATO so hope to get down to 8’ish. Unfortunately, many of my SPS frags died, even the indestructible Green Slimer! Torches & hammers are doing ok — not dead but not splitting heads either. Weird is that zoas don’t even open up.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

How's the fish going?

 

[bakbay]

They have been unhappy since Day 1 though, at least all the fresh-cut frags. Some encrusted frags are doing ok. I do have coralline algae growth but it's clear that the tank is not yet ready for SPS.

 

[bakbay]

How's the fish going?

Aw man — I lost your 2 wrasses due to copper QT!

All the other fish are fine in the frag tank with no QT. I’m debating should I just do observation vs copper QT going forward.

 

[bakbay]

Lighting - currently I have 12 Orphek OR3 (Blue+, Sky Blue, Reef Day) and 2 UV/Violet (Actinic) in the back. I need more pop during the evening hours.

Schedule: using Sun/Moon sync from 6am-5pm on the 12 OR3s and then the 2 OR3 Uv/Violet kicks in at night from 5pm to 9pm.

So — planning to get 2 more OR4 UV/Violet in front of the tank. Yes, I’m a sucker for actinic lighting, similar to the Radion G6 Blues.

What do you guys think?

 

[lubeck]

The g6 blue make the corals pop! It’s hard to tell with the pics though

 

[bakbay]

The g6 blue make the corals pop! It’s hard to tell with the pics though

You ain’t going to tell and neither can I. My 150g SPS tank is fitted with G6 Blues and the color is much more blue at night. During the daytime though - I prefer a blanket of Orphek!

It’s gonna be painful since I’m out of room to squeeze another row in — hand to relocate the rest to the back, all 14 of them!!! See pic

Perhaps I should get 4 Kessils in front and get the shimmer effect, too?

 

[bakbay]

2 Orphek UV/Violet: $400
4 Kessils 360Xe: $1700
hmmm… the Orphek sounds very appealing but I do need some work to relocate some other bars.

 

[bakbay]

@vetteguy53081 I believe you got Orpheks on your big tank? If so, how many UV/Violet bars did you use?

 

[bakbay]

I had a perfectly healthy torch that was splitting heads and I woke up this morning and discovered its flesh started to melt and died. No changes to the environment. All other corals are doing fine.

It’s always the corals / fish you like the most that withered away.

Any clues?

 

[fishguy242]

I had a perfectly healthy torch that was splitting heads and I woke up this morning and discovered its flesh started to melt and died. No changes to the environment. All other corals are doing fine.

It’s always the corals / fish you like the most that withered away.

Any clues?

@MERKEY ?

 

[MERKEY]

I had a perfectly healthy torch that was splitting heads and I woke up this morning and discovered its flesh started to melt and died. No changes to the environment. All other corals are doing fine.

It’s always the corals / fish you like the most that withered away.

Any clues?

I would guess it's from the alk swing you had a week ago or 2.

Torches take some time to react to changes.

 

[bakbay]

I would guess it's from the alk swing you had a week ago or 2.

Torches take some time to react to changes.

Thanks — that’s interesting. SPS doesn’t do well with alk swings but surprised to hear about torches as well.

 

[Jimbo327]

Dip for the torch as soon as you see it starting to melt or brown jelly. Cipro works very well. Leave it in the dip for 24 hours. I place the dip container with the torch in my sump so it can keep temperature. Use a turkey baster to suck off any brown jelly.

You are not kidding, I lost a bunch of SPS frags lately. It's tough when losing robust SPS that had already encrusted and seemly doing fine...then you wake up and it's bleached white. At least you can chalk it up to alk spike, sometimes I don't even know what went wrong.

 

[bakbay]

Dip for the torch as soon as you see it starting to melt or brown jelly. Cipro works very well. Leave it in the dip for 24 hours. I place the dip container with the torch in my sump so it can keep temperature. Use a turkey baster to suck off any brown jelly.

You are not kidding, I lost a bunch of SPS frags lately. It's tough when losing robust SPS that had already encrusted and seemly doing fine...then you wake up and it's bleached white. At least you can chalk it up to alk spike, sometimes I don't even know what went wrong.

Torches — I’ve been dipping in Revive but will try Cipro next. I got a bottle of it so all good. Will try that method next time. Hammers are way more resilient than torches!

SPS: I actually had an alk spike on my 150gal SPS tank from 9ish to 5.22 and back to 9. I lost one frag that was not encrusted. Everything else was fine. The new 450gal didn’t do so well. It’s technically only 4 mos old vs 4 years old (150gal).

 

[bakbay]

Before the Tang Police comes after me, I’m planning to rehome some big tangs from the 150g to 450g when things stabilize. Trying to restock on angels first.

 

[Jimbo327]

I've tried other dips as well, and it didn't do much. All I can say is the cipro works really really well with torches and BJD. Leave the torch in the dip for 12-24 hours, no light. My torch went from a goner to fully inflated and happy. I was really surprised at how well it worked.