300 gallon "Outside Corner" Reef

[Gregcoyote]

Great! They are slow learners.

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, I think that shyness of the sailfin is contagious in tandem with a lot of stuff it likes to eat already in the tank. It’s picking all over the rock. No clue what it is, but can only last so long.

 

[Gregcoyote]

I wish my Sailfin was a bit shyer. He’s a bit of a pill.

 

[Sniperhank]

I’d trade you, but a 20 year old fish doesn’t deserve this tanks not pristine shape. Lol.

 

[Gregcoyote]

I wouldn’t claim mine is pristine, but thanks for the compliment.
I feed my fish, twice daily and trickle feed pellets four times a day. That promotes longevity. I heard once “you don’t feed the fish in accordance to how much filtration you have, you have enough filtration to feed the fish normally.” I truly agree with this. Fish are constant feeders. They don’t just hang around. To reduce feeding to a few times a week to prevent organic buildup may be a necessity for some, I don’t suspect their fish agree with this policy. Get a bigger filter. Feed the fish.

 

[Dary421]

Can’t argue with the success you’ve had

 

[Andy Sager]

I wouldn’t claim mine is pristine, but thanks for the compliment.
I feed my fish, twice daily and trickle feed pellets four times a day. That promotes longevity. I heard once “you don’t feed the fish in accordance to how much filtration you have, you have enough filtration to feed the fish normally.” I truly agree with this. Fish are constant feeders. They don’t just hang around. To reduce feeding to a few times a week to prevent organic buildup may be a necessity for some, I don’t suspect their fish agree with this policy. Get a bigger filter. Feed the fish.

Amen to that. I totally agree.

 

[Dary421]

Greg .... how’s your powder blue tang doing ?

 

[Gregcoyote]

Kind of aggressive, but has grown 50% in size. Eats like a pig.

 

[Dary421]

My new pbt just found the nori clip and has been picking at it like a fat lady with a box of chocolates ,... I bought a pack of the purple nori sheets which I’m mixing in with the green nori too ,.... so far it’s all good but my fingers are crossed

 

[Gregcoyote]

300 gallon "Outside Corner" Reef

I just buy large bulk packages of nori at Amazon. I would go broke if I bought the little packages sold by the fish stores! Just remember it’s all about reducing stress.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Big change coming. I bought 2 of the big Gyres and the controller (LX2800) rated for 1000 gals. I’m ditching the Magnum 7 and 8 fans. I’ve just heard too much good about the Gyres and I want more circulation.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Here is a brief report on my use of Lanthium Chloride.

My new age son uses it with great success. My ATS keeps nutrients low, but as you know P4 can still build up. I use Rowaphose to some good effect, but getting down and staying down at <0.05 ppm isn’t easy. Especially as I feed twice daily and the reef itself is 26 years old.
But Lanthium can kill your fish.
The precipitate it creates in contact with seawater as it binds P4 makes a white powder. That powder must not enter the reef. There are various formulations made to minimize this issue, but to be very safe you do the following;

Inject the Lanthium solution into your skimmer.

Or inject the Lanthium solution into a 5 micron filter sock.

I use the injection port on my Vertex skimmer.

Never reduce P4 more than 0.02ppm at a time. This keeps you from ever shocking the corals.

For 400 gallons of water I mix just 20 drops of Lanthium in 1000ml of RO water. I place that in a IV bag (feeder bag) and drip it into the skimmer over several hours. This way it all reacts very slowly in contact with lots of water. It works great and it’s super cheap. In a week I went from .12ppm to .04ppm. Now the GFO doesn’t have to work as hard to keep it low. I do this about once a week.

 

[Gregcoyote]

And I feed as much as the fish want.

 

[Dary421]

Wow !!! That’ll be an exciting change for you and your system ,.. it’ll be interesting to see how ( if any ) they’ll effect the corals due to certain circulation patterns that have already been established by your old setup

 

[Gregcoyote]

My son got me started doing this. My ATS removes the nitrates, but leaves some P4 behind. I use $$$ Rowaphos but it still can climb to 0.2ppm. I must say I wish I had taken the leap years ago. This can be a safe way to directly reduce phosphates in a inexpensive and very effective way.

 

[Sniperhank]

It’ll be interesting to see how the gyres work for you Greg. People seem to either love them or hate them. The one downfall I remember reading was how much it vibrated and made noise when run at full blast. This was when gyres first came out, but I really held onto it.

 

[Gregcoyote]

That’s why I bought the biggest ones, that way they will never run faster than about 50%. The Magnum pumps are about $100 a piece and last about 2 years on average. So I was also looking for something more serviceable.

 

[Sniperhank]

Only lasting 2 years is ridiculous.

 

[Gregcoyote]

That’s average. My reef is a very difficult environment. I’ve probably had 30 of them over 20 years. Use to use powerheads. They just get really beat up. There are 5 of them in the display tank and three more in the frag system. The Gyres will replace the 5 in the display.