Eric's Reef
- Thread starter EricTheRed
- Start date
MMreef
Active member
Some pic's of my new tasty sticks. Being lazy, these are the wyswyg pics from the purchase, but they all look the same except the Wicked Sunset Milli, which looks better in person!
Mardi Gras
Strawberry Dreams
Wicked Sunset Milli
Myagi Tort
Blue Envy Tort
And my favorite...Gender Predictor
Bubbalicious
Wow, those some great frags!
KeishaKornbread
Banned
Those are some gorgeous sticks! Can I have them? 
The reefer
Active member
Nice pick up. Those frags look awesome.
EricTheRed
No, I'm not a communist..
Thanks, not a frag pack, just won them all at auction 
EricTheRed
No, I'm not a communist..
It has been a very long time since I've made any updates to this thread so I figured now is as good a time as any with so many things going on with my tank.
I just setup my new Giesemann Spectra light. It holds 4 T5's plus 2 SINGLE ended MH bulbs. (I traded away the G2 Radions in an even swap.) Right now the tank is still acclimating to the light and still in the midst of a crash that has wiped out most of my sps. I've ordered new T5 bulbs, a Coral Plus bulb with 3 Blue +'s. The MH bulbs are Radiums and I'm also going to reinstall my 48" Reefbrite XHO LED strip (all RB) for some extra zing.
Now all I'll need is for the aftershocks of this crash to go away. I thought the root of the crash was an overdose of potassium which was the result of an inaccurate test kit. I recently sent a water sample to Aquarium Water Testing and all param's are in check. Now that I know for certain that the potassium is in line I’m not so sure that was my problem in the first place. It has been back to normal for a while and I there are still burnt tips and slow necrosis on several of the sps. After ruling out everything I can possibly think of, I’m now leaning towards heavy metal toxicity. The symptoms are similar to what has been going on and I learned that heavy metals can accumulate over the years in the sandbed. Is it coincidence that my diamond goby was added to the tank around the time the crash began? He has been turning over sand and burrowing under rocks to get to sand that hasn’t been touched in years… who knows, but this crash has been going on slowly for 2 months and the tank param’s are as stable as they’ve ever been. No swings of any kind. I’ll be running a Poly-Filter in hopes that any heavy metals will be removed. If the corals turn around, then I’ll finally know what was causing the problems and I will toss the goby on a cracker and eat it.
I've taken this “opportunity” to make a few changes with the way I run the tank. I'm trying to get away from chemical filtration and want a more natural process. I stopped carbon dosing, running GAC, and added an external refugium with expectations to take the GFO offline soon. So far the nitrates are holding steady at 2 (which is not an issue to me especially since I recently stopped carbon dosing) but the phosphates are higher than I'd like, stuck at 0.08 (Hanna). The fuge has only been going for week so I'll give it some time. In hindsight, it might not be big enough so I might need to go bigger or leave the GFO running.
On top of the new lights and these other changes I'm expecting a prolonged path to stabilizing what's left of the acro population, but from where I'm sitting it can't get much worse. However, I must say that the few sticks not affected are quickly improving in color under the Radiums vs. the Radions.
There are still a couple pieces that are "on the fence", so I’m still not optimistic that the carnage is over. I'll snap a few shots of the survivors and maybe do a little re-scaping of the rock before the hunt for new sticks begins.
I just setup my new Giesemann Spectra light. It holds 4 T5's plus 2 SINGLE ended MH bulbs. (I traded away the G2 Radions in an even swap.) Right now the tank is still acclimating to the light and still in the midst of a crash that has wiped out most of my sps. I've ordered new T5 bulbs, a Coral Plus bulb with 3 Blue +'s. The MH bulbs are Radiums and I'm also going to reinstall my 48" Reefbrite XHO LED strip (all RB) for some extra zing.
Now all I'll need is for the aftershocks of this crash to go away. I thought the root of the crash was an overdose of potassium which was the result of an inaccurate test kit. I recently sent a water sample to Aquarium Water Testing and all param's are in check. Now that I know for certain that the potassium is in line I’m not so sure that was my problem in the first place. It has been back to normal for a while and I there are still burnt tips and slow necrosis on several of the sps. After ruling out everything I can possibly think of, I’m now leaning towards heavy metal toxicity. The symptoms are similar to what has been going on and I learned that heavy metals can accumulate over the years in the sandbed. Is it coincidence that my diamond goby was added to the tank around the time the crash began? He has been turning over sand and burrowing under rocks to get to sand that hasn’t been touched in years… who knows, but this crash has been going on slowly for 2 months and the tank param’s are as stable as they’ve ever been. No swings of any kind. I’ll be running a Poly-Filter in hopes that any heavy metals will be removed. If the corals turn around, then I’ll finally know what was causing the problems and I will toss the goby on a cracker and eat it.
I've taken this “opportunity” to make a few changes with the way I run the tank. I'm trying to get away from chemical filtration and want a more natural process. I stopped carbon dosing, running GAC, and added an external refugium with expectations to take the GFO offline soon. So far the nitrates are holding steady at 2 (which is not an issue to me especially since I recently stopped carbon dosing) but the phosphates are higher than I'd like, stuck at 0.08 (Hanna). The fuge has only been going for week so I'll give it some time. In hindsight, it might not be big enough so I might need to go bigger or leave the GFO running.
On top of the new lights and these other changes I'm expecting a prolonged path to stabilizing what's left of the acro population, but from where I'm sitting it can't get much worse. However, I must say that the few sticks not affected are quickly improving in color under the Radiums vs. the Radions.
There are still a couple pieces that are "on the fence", so I’m still not optimistic that the carnage is over. I'll snap a few shots of the survivors and maybe do a little re-scaping of the rock before the hunt for new sticks begins.
Last edited:
jrpark22000
Premium member
alive or dead?
Good luck with finding the root cause and hopefully not eating your goby.
EricTheRed
No, I'm not a communist..
So everything is dead except a few LPS, some random softies and the blue carpet cloves. I managed to save a few acro frags and get them into a few other reefer's tanks in hopes they rebound for when I rebuild the tank. I'll be replacing all sand and cooking all rock in bleach followed by muriatic acid. Then I'll bomb the tank to kill the blue cloves. I'll be re-scaping with a more minimal look to allow for more flow. I'm actually a little excited about starting over.
I've already ripped out 90% of the dead colonies and figured I'd do the rest when i cook the rock. Here's a recent photo...
I've already ripped out 90% of the dead colonies and figured I'd do the rest when i cook the rock. Here's a recent photo...
EricTheRed
No, I'm not a communist..
Thanks, all. If I can cook the rock this weekend then I expect to have the new rock scape up by next weekend.