equipment/maintenance update:
light is a sunpod 70 watt 14k de stock bulb- i'm very happy with it 8)
(photoperiod is anywhere from 8-12 hrs/day, depending on when i wake up and go to work, and how long a work day i have
)
fluval 404 canister w/filter floss changed weekly-with both the output and inlet just above tank bottom, in each rear corner (sweeps dirt/etc off from the bottom of the tank behid the stack)
3 korallia powerheads, a #2, and two of the smallest ones (the #2 visible in the photos will eventually be hidden with the upcoming re-scapes)-the two smaller ones are placed on the right and left thirds of the tank, between the bottom and middle thirds, and shoot water from between the various holes/crevices in the stack
a maxijet 800 with a 90° elbow facing down for circulating the water behind the rock face
skimmed w/a seaclone 150 (it's NOT a very good skimmer-i built one out of a maxijet 800 and a 1liter schweppes tonic water bottle that outperformed it
-but that had to be internal, was ugly and a space hog
for the sake of aesthetics, i changed out to the seaclone-(plus i got it cheap
)-but it handles the 20 or so gallons of water volume i have ok
heater is a visitherm 150 watt submersible
tank is dosed with lanthanum chloride (for PO4 control), and B-Ionic for alk/Ca dosed presently at the rate of 1ml/2gallons (tank sucks it up right quick).pH is now hovering around 8.0 (started out at around 7.8) and slowly rising weekly a few small patches of cyano and nuisance algaes are disappearing
alot of the phosphates came from some of the various coral frags that either got 'lost' in the tank from falling through cracks/crevices in the stack, to tissue deterioration due to being too far gone to save by the system's present age/condition after taking them home
i dose the lanthanum by 'algae eye',(about 2-3 mls/day, spread out) and only check the pH and sg (1.024-25)
the monti digi and encrusting monti are slowly coloring up, and last nite i added two 1" tall seriatpora frags i found on the bottom of one of the coral troughs at work that were barely alive , during a major /breakdown'/cleaning of the trough-they look like they might make it
a water change is done weekly-10 gallons, depending on how much time/gumption i have on my day(s) off (a minimum of two 5 gallon changes a week, if i can't do a 10 for whatever reason)
fish are fed hikari pellets- one of their newer formulations, samples obtained from our sales rep as an 'experimental formulation' i have no idea exactly what they are (haven't been released labelled for sale to general public) but the fish love 'em and seem to do very well on those, with an occasional feeding of 'dainichi' pellets
on the last aquascape, i actually counted all of the zoa frags before re-placing each in it's final spot (whatever hadn't yet attached to rocks) there are a tad over 64 individual zoa frags (i add more weekly with each shipment we get in
) heh
