Spartanman22's Fluval M90

We’re off! Ditching the Chicago weather and heading to Orlando! I’ve got a day planned exclusively for TSA and WWC .

Leaving the tank is always such a nerve-wrecking thing, especially when you’re battling low nutrients and pale SPS. Hopefully everything does well enough for the next week. Things have been growing well and encrusting well, the coloration has just been underwhelming.


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If you don’t use the optional float valve, which only works with particular kinds of pumps, it only takes up a very small amount of space for the pressure tube that triggers the sensor.
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Happy Thanksgiving all! Just got back home and the tank pulled through with no losses! Cyano perked up, but all fish and coral look happy as can be. Had some headaches with the ATO over the vacation, which led to my buying the avast Marine ATO.

I managed to visit both TSA and WWC, and exercised extreme willpower; didn’t buy anything! It was very hard to turn down the super male pintail wrasse, at WWC, for $90, but I did. TSA was a cool shop but didn’t blow my mind. WWC was stunning. Their display tanks were out of this world.

The downside to WWC was that anything worth getting was $150 minimum, and those were mostly the no-name farm pieces. All their signature pieces were $300 minimum and up to $1000 for tiny frags. I just can’t justify those prices. Not when you can get them during live sales or other reefers for fractions of that. But I was most surprised by WWC’s fish selection. Their tanks were super clean, fish were very healthy looking, and a huge selection.

Another hidden gem was I saw a Reefer 250 at TSA marked for sale for $350 ?. It was either used or display, and not sure if it was just the tank or everything (was on a stand and sump was in the stand). If it wasn’t already sold I would have been tempted to buy it.


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Spartanman22 said:
Happy Thanksgiving all! Just got back home and the tank pulled through with no losses! Cyano perked up, but all fish and coral look happy as can be. Had some headaches with the ATO over the vacation, which led to my buying the avast Marine ATO.

I managed to visit both TSA and WWC, and exercised extreme willpower; didn’t buy anything! It was very hard to turn down the super male pintail wrasse, at WWC, for $90, but I did. TSA was a cool shop but didn’t blow my mind. WWC was stunning. Their display tanks were out of this world.

The downside to WWC was that anything worth getting was $150 minimum, and those were mostly the no-name farm pieces. All their signature pieces were $300 minimum and up to $1000 for tiny frags. I just can’t justify those prices. Not when you can get them during live sales or other reefers for fractions of that. But I was most surprised by WWC’s fish selection. Their tanks were super clean, fish were very healthy looking, and a huge selection.

Another hidden gem was I saw a Reefer 250 at TSA marked for sale for $350 . It was either used or display, and not sure if it was just the tank or everything (was on a stand and sump was in the stand). If it wasn’t already sold I would have been tempted to buy it.


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I felt the same way when I visited those places. You should have checked out Living Reef Orlando. That was the best store I've ever been to

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GugsJr said:
I felt the same way when I visited those places. You should have checked out Living Reef Orlando. That was the best store I've ever been to

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I would have liked to but just didn’t have the time. My wife really does not enjoy the hobby so she was getting antsy after just two stores.


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Two days into sodium nitrate dosing and have been able to maintain a concentration of 2.0-2.5 ppm. Pretty happy so far. I have noticed that consumption of alk, calcium, and magnesium has dropped. Not sure if this is a temporary response due to detectable levels of nitrate or if my growth will be slower now permanently. In two days I’ve already noticed a difference in my WWC Hippie Juice. It was a very pale red and green. In two days the intensity of the red has increased dramatically.

Picked up a CO2 scrubber during the Black Friday sales as well. My pH has never been above 7.9. So hoping this will help improve SPS growth.


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CO2 scrubber mounted, just need an adapter for the tubing. Cabinet is starting to fill up.

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Also got my avast ATO in today

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Spartanman22 said:
CO2 scrubber mounted, just need an adapter for the tubing. Cabinet is starting to fill up.

4ea55d7a552979f2115f7e2b19f54b8c.jpg

Also got my avast ATO in today
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JFYI, if you don't want to "use up" the plugged Apex connection, it's easy to wire it via the Apex breakout box.
 
xmoji said:
Beautiful tank man and great collection of sps.
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Thank you I really appreciate it! I’ve been bugging my wife for an upgrade because AIO’s just annoy me, and because I like to fiddle. But in reality this tank has been doing so well there’s no reason to change things up. Took me some level headed thinking to take a step back and just enjoy what I’ve got going at the moment.


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Tonight I got the CO2 scrubber hooked up. Hopefully it’ll help with my low pH. I have never chased pH, but I follow bubba’s thread on R2R, and he mentioned adding the CO2 scrubber. According to him, get his pH from 7.6-7.8 closer to 8.0-8.2 made a huge difference in growth.

Also in the last week of nitrate dosing my tank has really started to look great. Alkalinity has stabilized around 8.3 with nitrates at 2.0-2.5. SPS coloration is gradually deepening. I’m seeing richer and deeper purples, reds, and greens. Encrusting has picked up in the past week. Most notably on small frags. I can also tell the difference in the gradual decline in cyano. My sand bed would be covered in it after a couple of days. It’s now been two days of not stirring the sand bed and it’s bright white!

I’m still registering zero on phosphates and have been very slowly, and very cautiously, adding small amounts of Seachem Flourish to try and get phosphates to about 0.02-0.03. Chaeto is growing in the refuge so there’s phosphates there; I’d just like a little bit more to really bring out the true potential in these SPS.

The last hurdle is to just find myself some emeralds that’ll attack bubble algae!




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I'm definitely interested to watch your coloration change as you add nitrates. As much of a pain as bubble algae is, at least it covers the rocks and keeps other more obnoxious/damaging forms of algae from growing!
 
Funlad3 said:
I'm definitely interested to watch your coloration change as you add nitrates. As much of a pain as bubble algae is, at least it covers the rocks and keeps other more obnoxious/damaging forms of algae from growing!
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I’m pretty excited to see the colors coming back. The real test will be my Vivids Rainbow Delight which has been a pale brown turd for over a year. It’s slowly darkening up and getting some purple.

If bubble algae is the worst thing I have to deal with I can live with that. There’s so many worse pests in this hobby!


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