Yes Oxy, thanks a lot for the info. I'm sorry to hear the coral beauty.. I've never cared for a fish with HLLE, but from all accounts I've heard, it's difficult to get them to recover. I'm not running carbon for this tank. I just don't think I'll need it, especially since the only reason I'd run GAC is to absorb coral warfare toxins. I plan on sticking mostly to zoas/rics and SPS in this tank, so I don't think there will be much coral warfare.
At any rate, time for a weekly update and FTS:
I was going to give an update yesterday (Sunday) after my water change, but I miscalculated and dosed double the magnesium that I was supposed to into my new saltwater (grr). So I had to filter more RO/DI water, double the volume, remix, re-test, and re-dose. Long story short, here we are today. Annoying, but at least I caught my mistake early and didn't put the water into the tank.
All inhabitants are doing just fine. The fish are behaving normally and are eating as if they are trying to satire how much real pigs eat. The two corals, the Ricordea fl. and the green birdsnest, are also doing exceptionally well.
I'm seeing great progress with the organic carbon dosing. I'm up to 1.5ml vodka per day, a level to which I ramped up over the last 3 weeks. During my daily rock basting routine, algae is letting go of the rocks in tufts. The skimmer is still pulling watery skimmate the color of green tea, but the foam in the collection cup is seriously dense and takes forever to collapse (which I hear is good when carbon dosing). I'll continue to ramp up next week if needed, but with the rate the algae is falling off my rocks, I may be able to hold steady at 1.5ml/day.
Moving on to new eqiupment. I got some waterpoof magnets and eggcrate from BRS to make a DIY frag rack (visible in the FTS, the ricordea is in the rack now). I got tired of my snails bulldozing the corals into the rocks while I let them acclimate to the light on the bottom. My greatest fear was they would push the birdsnest into the ricordea, or vice versa, which would undoubtedly kill the birdsnest. I think the ricordea is happy where it is. It expands pretty far. I'm not sure if it's reaching for light or if it's just expanding because it's happy. I figure it'll brown out if it needs more light, so I'll move it if that happens. My plan for now though is to find a decent size rock, drill a hole, and let the ricordea settle in and start covering it (hopefully!). The birdsnest has been looking great, always having fantastic polyp extension. The polyps still appear to be a vibrant green color, but the flesh of the coral appears to be darkening up nicely. If you Google for pictures of green birdsnest, you'll notice the flesh on the skeleton typically looks to be what I call a healthy brownish color with vibrant green polyps. My birds nest appears to be moving this direction. I hope I can move it up a few inches without it losing color. Once I secure the ricordea to a rock, I'll transfer the birdsnest to the frag rack and start moving it up.
I also replaced my Koralia 425 with a Vortech MP10wES. It was new in box, never touched the water, and I got a great deal from a user on another forum ($165 shipped). The reason I made the jump to this pump is because at times it appeared my ricordea was not happy with the amount of flow it was getting. The only way I could get it to look somewhat happy was to shield it with a rock. Thanks to the adjustable nature of the Vortechs, I was able to find flow that makes the polyps sway on the birdsnest, but allows the ricordea to remain happy. More importantly, I have random flow and can adjust as needed later.
I've had my existing corals for about 2 weeks, but already I'm wanting more. I'm taking it slow, resolved to waiting at least 3 weeks before I get my next batch, but I've decided what I'd like to get at least. I'm planning on getting a pink stylophora, maybe a green or purple monti cap, and perhaps another frag of birdsnest (pink or purple polyped). Pacific East Aquaculture has dirt cheap SPS frags and $20 shipping for me, so it's a great buy.
As far as side projects, I received the time-delay relay this week, so I'm going to be experimenting with my DIY dosing pump a bit more. I've also started working on a battery backup project that will function like a UPS (uninterruptable power supply). In the event the power goes out, the batteries will kick in, and they'll shut off when power comes back on. The beauty of this design is I'm using my own batteries, inverter, and power supply, so I can scale up the system to any size or specification. More to come on both those endeavors next week.