Serv's 130. Pics page 12!

Haha, yeah. Believe it or not this is the "high alk, high nutrient" setting and there is more brown this way. I can't wait to see full color mode.

 

You and me both, buddy!

 

Completely awesome update. I can not wait to hear more.

You have some great fish and corals. I have been thinking about just 1 gorgonian, they seem to do ok with sps.

 

Wow serv, super impressive. I'm anxious to see how the red sea works for you. I'm a big fan of there regular salt. Even though your going for growth your color is really popping. Looks great my friend

 

So far so good. It has fairly specific instructions that, for the most part, seem to actually do what they set out to do. The tank is looking great in person too.

I like the gorgs. They add the movement of softies to an sps tank without having to deal with the softies overrunning everything.

 

This tank has been a lot of fun. It's not really going away. All the livestock is moving into the new tank including the corals. Other than the glass and stand, everything will remain the same. I did want to start a new thread for the new build however and its reasonable to wrap this up.

Everything is back on track now, but the last two or three months have been a struggle. Zeovit was great. Things had gotten a little out of whack (ultimately I discovered I had just ignored my nitrates for too long) and instead of tracking the problem down, I made a dramatic change.

Switching to the Red Sea system was, ultimately, a mistake. The system is just fine. A friend is starting up a tank using it and so far I would recommend it to any new user who is inclined to want to try it. I just didn't need to make a big change. The result was things getting progressively worse for me. I almost lost about 6 colonies. By some miracle, I got things turned around just days before all 6 would have been gone. They all have large battle scars now, but everything is recovering and growing again.

Here is what I've learned in the last 2ish years.

1. ZeoVit good. Its pricey and has a lot of moving parts but there is no denying it works.

2. Carbon dosing okay. If I were to carbon dose, my preference would be Zeo. Every carbon dosing technique other than Zeo, and to a lesser degree Zeo, is susceptible to one weakness. These systems seem to live in unstable equilibrium. When they're working correctly, things go great. There seems to be a high likelihood of something coming out of balance though.

3. Berlin type method works just fine. I finally got things under control by stripping my tank down to a bare bottom Berlin system with no bells, whistles, or additives. I do water changes frequently and watch my nutrients. Everything is looking great again.

4. My next tank will use an algae scrubber. As well as basic Berlin is working, I'm adding a scrubber and letting it all grow happily. The little bit of extra nutrient export should be just enough to make it all work.

5. Nothing works in a 2 month old tank. Sometimes they work for a while, but new tanks aren't stable. Everything you learn about making a tank work in the first year is colored by this fact. After a year or so everything works and you get the idea whatever you did that month was the secret. Its not. Your tank just matured.

6. Live rock, skimmer, water changes, some exportable algae. Test regularly but not too often. The stuff that has been stable every test for two years is the most important stuff to test for. If you don't, you'll never consider it when things go wrong. Feed consistently, your tank is like your stomach - too much find about with it and it gets unstable.

Sea in the new thread soon!