Tank Journal Archive

[thepubenator]

Vid dont work, got any more pics?

 

[vpreef]

Vid dont work, got any more pics?

Just checked the vid and working ok.

have to take some more shots this week :)

 

[Sidd]

Tanks looking beautiful mate. Thanks for sharing the video.

 

[vpreef]

Bit of an update.

I dumped the reef roids and 100% reef safe amino acids and have been running a couple of Zeovit products for the past few months with good results.

I have noticed some intense coloring coming out of my Monti's, and my Strawberry shortcake is showing some nice green on the stems for the first time in 6months.

I have started on Pohl's extra and K Balance as of tonight to see what else, if any changes are noticed.

Now dosing all up the following Zeovit products.
Coral Vitalizer - 6 drops daily
Coral Snow - 5ml per week
Biomate - 5ml, twice a week
Amino Acids - 6 drops daily
K-Balance - 4 Drops daily
Pohls Extra - 4 Drops daily.

Also not running Rowaphos and biopellets anymore, they have been off the system for some time now. Phosphates hover around 0.06 - 0.09 and nitrates are under check.

Heres a bunch of photo's taken tonight.

FTS

DSC00450 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

Radom Coral Pics

DSC00487 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00485 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00481 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00480 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00476 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00475 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00472 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00469 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00466 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00458 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00473 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00455 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

Few Fish Pics

DSC00516 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00492 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00491 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

DSC00501 (2) by vpreef, on Flickr

 

[Sidd]

Wonderful :)

 

[firebird]

Beautiful

 

['vspec']

Wow, all that colour ~ I have a woody!

 

[thepubenator]

tank looks awesome mate.

Your zeo dosing looks to be counter productive atm.

Biomate reduces P04 while AA and xtra incease it.

I would change your dosing to this for 1 month

CV - 6 drops 2-3 times weekly
AA - 6 drops 2-3 times weekly (alternate days to CV)
put 1 L of tank water in a bucket add 5ml of snow and 12 drops of bio mate leave for 30 mins then dose in display (this increases potency of both) 1-2 times/week. If you do WC on weekends i would do this wednesadays
K bal 5ml 1-2 times weekly.

Do not add the xtra yet.

Try this for a month and you will see some improvements in colours. If you can get it buy B-Balance, i would use that before using xtra.

 

[vpreef]

tank looks awesome mate.

Your zeo dosing looks to be counter productive atm.

Biomate reduces P04 while AA and xtra incease it.

I would change your dosing to this for 1 month

CV - 6 drops 2-3 times weekly
AA - 6 drops 2-3 times weekly (alternate days to CV)
put 1 L of tank water in a bucket add 5ml of snow and 12 drops of bio mate leave for 30 mins then dose in display (this increases potency of both) 1-2 times/week. If you do WC on weekends i would do this wednesadays
K bal 5ml 1-2 times weekly.

Do not add the xtra yet.

Try this for a month and you will see some improvements in colours. If you can get it buy B-Balance, i would use that before using xtra.

Thanks Ryan, will give this a go.

Only concern is 12 drops of biomate, would this be over dosing as the recommended is 1 drop per 25 gallons?

Also why not add the Extra?

 

[thepubenator]

dont go by what is on the bottle... i know its stupid but....

BM has be shown very effective when double dosed initally, even more so when in conjunction with coral snow or zeo zym.

The reason i suggest not using xtra is that your P04 is 0.06-0.09. Xtra is made to make colours darker for systems running P04 0.03 or less. If you use it it may brown your corals.
I would use B bal before using xtra, but wait for a month on current schedule before trying anything else. BTW zeo supps are gentle and it will take 2-4 weeks till you notice a difference.

 

[vpreef]

Ryan,

Thanks for the info mate, will get some B-balance soon too.

Do you suggest to run Rowaphos again and get my phosphates back to 0 and dose the xtra? I honestly think that the acros have better color with a little phosphates. The only draw back i have seen is my PE is not as extreme as it was running the pellets/rowa.

I was considering dosing Vodka as an alternative also, you ever tried that?

 

[thepubenator]

I would run rowaphos, with addition to a few zeo supps you can achieve amazing results. this is what my brother does on his tank and as you can see his colours are spectacular.
http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=148&t=234768

I have Vodka SUgar Vinegar dosed, which also works quite well. However as with any carbon dosing system your system is much more sensitive to param (mainly alk) swimgs and a small change can crash your tank.

 

[parrdog]

Love ya tank mate, it's sick :).

 

[TJReid]

I'v just started with reef roids how'd u find the product.. im hoping it's worth its money... also started to add iodine trying to figure out what it is with my tank i'm not quite doing right and why everything isnt flurishing like yours.. whats your secrect's what are you dosing, water changes etc ?

cheers trent

 

[vpreef]

I'v just started with reef roids how'd u find the product.. im hoping it's worth its money... also started to add iodine trying to figure out what it is with my tank i'm not quite doing right and why everything isnt flurishing like yours.. whats your secrect's what are you dosing, water changes etc ?

cheers trent

Hey Trent,

Reef Roids are great, however i stopped using it about 2 months ago.

Currently just dosing the following Zeovit products.
Coral Vitalizer
Coral Snow
Biomate
Amino Acids
K-Balance
Pohls Extra

I also add strontium twice a week and red sea Iodine 3 times a week. (Will be changing to Zeovite Iodine once it runs out)
My water changes are 5% every fortnight using Tropic Marin Bio Actif salt.
I feed Ocean nutrition Green Flake in the morning, Pellets around midday and a mixture of frozen Marine mix, Cyclops and Rotifers in the evening. Running rowaphos to keep the phosphates in check.

Hope this helps :D

 

[TJReid]

I've just started to add iodine(aquavitro vibrance) and trying out reef roids... how often did you feed with the roids and did u use marine snow with it ? I'm thinking of using both. Currently dosing alk (kent coral builder) and calc (Reef advantage calcium which contains strontium + magnesium)...

Also only just got a ato to help keep the salinity swings steady and stable, running maxspect 160w led's but cant figure out where I'm going wrong..

Doing fortnightly 15% water changes but my nitrates are usually around 10 - 20's and aren't feeding heavy nor have many fish ? :( looking to get dosing pumps soon to keep things even more stable just dunno how I'm going wrong..

Also flows 50% on reef crest with a mp40w.. maybe you can give me the answer I'm looking for your reef is so amazing and colored up !

 

[TJReid]

Another thing is my zoa's barely seem to extend compared to looking at your photo's so jealous...

 

[vpreef]

I've just started to add iodine(aquavitro vibrance) and trying out reef roids... how often did you feed with the roids and did u use marine snow with it ? I'm thinking of using both. Currently dosing alk (kent coral builder) and calc (Reef advantage calcium which contains strontium + magnesium)...

Also only just got a ato to help keep the salinity swings steady and stable, running maxspect 160w led's but cant figure out where I'm going wrong..

Doing fortnightly 15% water changes but my nitrates are usually around 10 - 20's and aren't feeding heavy nor have many fish ? :( looking to get dosing pumps soon to keep things even more stable just dunno how I'm going wrong..

Also flows 50% on reef crest with a mp40w.. maybe you can give me the answer I'm looking for your reef is so amazing and colored up !

I fed the Reef roids mixed with 100% reef safe amino acids twice a week in the past. Also remember to switch of your skimmer for a while (left mine off overnight).

I did run Biopellets on this setup from day 1 for about 6 months and removed them as my system was starting to suffer due to very low nutrients. (Lost 2 acros and a toxic stem torch :mad:) I believe that this kept alot of nitrate/phosphates out of my live rock hence the reason my system is pretty low on nitrates/phosphates without running the bio pellets.

I think you should work on getting your nitrates lower to around 0 to .5, and what are your phosphate levels like? Keep them under 0.06 if you can too. Also what salt are you using?

Dosing pumps will help you alot, best thing is to keep everything stable.

 

[TJReid]

yeah lookin to go down the stable path.... atm phos is showing 0.10 and going down steady added fresh bunch of rowa phos as for salt i'm using local nsw... but tempted to get a ro unit and start to mix up salt is it some times more beneficial then nsw ? I'd figure they could add in extras to the salt mixture ? less hassle too of going down to get it and i guess i'd be doing more regular water changes..

yeah i'm thinking lower nitrate and phos and try keep the system steady as from here on.. high alk with 450 calc and ro toped up through the ato unit... tempted to get into zeovit and vodka dosing too... :/

 

[vpreef]

Cool, sounds good.

I got a bottle of vodka ready to go on my tank :)

I would not run your Alk too high if your going to go with Zeovit and Vodka. Around 8 dkh is where you want to be at :cool:.

My calcium hovers around 390, ALK around 8.2 and Magnesium at 1380. This works well for me.