This has to be the comeback of the year! Nice job, it looks great
Thanks i really was angry about 9 months ago when i saw someone elses tank, and it was the best looking reef i had seen. That inspired me to figure out WTF was going on with mine, and i think it was a majority of flow, ph, and unstable perimeters.
it was a slow process but when the GYRE was added i noticed that is what really made the biggest difference. The next big change to help was the extra water storage in the 60 gal Rubbermaid trashcan i use as a fuge. Not sure if the biopellets are actually doing much, but my nitrates are pretty stable at 3-7ppm hard to tell with the testing kit (lets get some electronic ones already). I did just recently have a GHA outbreak that i have been combating and lowering my PO4 has really helped in watching it fry. I also added 2 more smaller gyres i got for a good deal, and i feel that is really assisting in getting proper polyp extention on a few corals that never wanted to come out and play.
Things i know i still need to improve on, dialing in my Alk consumption rate (i just had a very large spike up to 13dkh, yes 13dkh). It was there for nearly 10 days and nothing showed stressed or but then i noticed some rtn on an acro. I cut dosing to 1ml per hr and that has finally dropped my alk with a water change back to 9.5 being stable currently. I dose randys method of soda ash that i make myself. I need to invest in an better fuge light, i just ordered a 6500K bulb to see if that works, and if not i will buy one of those horticulture grow lights that they sell in denver (lol).
Things i want to try or experiment with, dosing my diy amminos (thread to come later) amminos got me in trouble one other time when i was not testing everything as often as I do now. I'd like to make a better top off process, currently i have a bucket attached to an float switch, this works fine if i fill the bucket, but is not great when I travel (we own a travel agency
www.susansgetaways.com) so traveling is important to us and getting someone to watch my tank for me is difficult to do, and trusting that person is another thing.
Wants and needs - more fish, i think i have about 12 fish currently, im really good at killing anthias (6 down) and for some reason all 3 of my scissor tail gobys went and hid for a long while, then died, one niger trigger jumped out of the tank (loved that fish) , and a fox face just ended up dying on me (no idea) I really dont have the room to QT a large amount of fish, so getting healthy or locally bread fish is important to me.
Things i need to do sooner than later, take care of some Yellow palys that stung the crap out of the pink lemonade acro i have, frag some purple stylo (its so big x2), identify and or name some aquacultured species i have acquired from fiji, thin some other SPS that have taken off or are growing in the wrong direction, and figure out how to stop an encrusting chili pepper monty Its out of control!