Steve Wright's SPS takeover

It's been a while, glad to see it's still looking great Steve! Too bad your not closer, I'd wouldn't mind trading you something for one of your new frags; that was a great coral, and now it looks like you'll have a few extras ;D Is there a lot of frag trading over there?

 

Thank you Matt
if you where closer, you could have some, no problem

there are a few shops that are obviously taking frags from hobbyists and then retailing them
a couple of them never has more than 1 frag of any type of coral at any given time, and the frags they have are on a variety of plug types, which indicates to me they come from varying sources - probably locals doing part exchanges etc

PS - dropped my Vodka dosing down to 1 mil per day and substituted for the other Mil using 8 mils of Heinz distilled white vinegar
that way I could hook the vinegar up to my dosing pump and drop 2 mils every 4 hours during the day , and the 1 mil of Vodka is dosed using syringe in the am everyday

I figured with such a small amount of vodka being used (2 mils) this could only be broken down into 2 doses on the bubble magus doser, combined with fact it may not accurately deliver 1 mil each dose, thus using 8 mils of vinegar spread into 2 mil doses, should help with both accuracy and consistency for the dosing pumps

tank is certainly doing just as well ( no negatives as yet such as cyno, bacterial strings, peach fuzz etc)

 

Thank you for the update.

 

Cool, I've had good luck with a mix of vodka and vinegar. Right now I'm at about 35ml per day vinegar and 2.5ml per day vodka. Definitely no cyano or algae. Occasionally I get some white fuzz on the rocks, but it seems to go away on it's own if I cut out the vodka for a day or two. I'm mixing the vinegar with kalk though, although even with vinegar and kalk, with approx 1.25 gpd evaporation and 30ml ea. 2-part, I'm now not keeping up with ca and alk anymore :-/ I tried to switch to vinegar in the kalk to avoid buying one of those bubble magnus dosers and I may end up needing one, for more 2-part, anyways. I'm glad your testing it out for me ahead of time though ;D

 

very intersting Matt
35 mils of Vinegar will be very easy to control with the doser as the greater the volume of liquid it needs to dispense the more accurate it is

I have had similar experience with my parameters since improving my lighting, thankfully even though the tank had been set up and running for a full year, I was still testing Ca and Alk on a weekly basis (Mag probably once per month) and my old dosing ratios started to become inadequate , and have had to increase the amounts of both those solutions being introduced during the 24 hour period to compensate
even had to manual dose on the 1st occasion I realised this had happened as testing at the weekend showed my dkh had dropped from my normal 8.3 to 7.7 (Salifert) and my Ca had dropped from 440 to 410 (Salifert) so doser turned up and some Seachem fusion 2 part added over 2 days to bring them back up again
targetting 8.6 now, on Alk just to give me a bit more margin for error on the doser in case I get another growth spurt week.

 

As per usual, your growth and coloration is wonderful. I am going to give the vinegar a try as I have some cyano on the sand. . .no phosphates when tested though, well maybe .5

 

Looks great steve!! Do you happen to run a reactor for the calcium or just dosing to keep up, ive been having troubles keeping up with my calcium/alk/mag its been all over the place and im getting some excellent growth on my corals but im going though a hlf gallon of 2 part a month dosing both alk and calcium along with weekly 20% water changes.. whats the secret im missing?

 

Thank you Nor _ Cal _ Guy
probably better to deal with the Cyno via usual methods 1st IMO , water changes, syphoning, more frequent use and changes of GFO etc, once it has gone completely, then any carbon source should not encourage it.
vinegar according to many people who have used it as a carbon source is less likley to fuel cyno growth than Vodka , but its not 100% garuanteed.

Thanks Shackman23
No Calcium reactor for me, just dosing bulk powder ingredients mixed with RODI similar to you, I use Seachem reef Advantage calcium, and at present Kent DKH coral builder (BRS would not want or be able to process my order)

Steve

 

1st update 2012











and that is all I have to say about that.

 

Just amazing. Can we get a FTS? I just need something to drool over is all.