I started with live rock out of the ocean that I quarantine/cooked for 2 months then placed it in my display and added corals and fish the same week. constantly testing and adding slowly. ammonia, nitrite, nitrate never spiked and only showed trace amounts of each. So I guess I waited 2 months lol
I added a bit colour blenny and 2 small zoa rocks after 2 weeks, then a week later 2 platinum clowns, more zoa's and 2 euphyllia... I'm currently at 5 weeks and everything looks great despite some very high nitrate figures.. I took the quick approach on the basis of Jake Adams from reef builders studio.. out all the reef TH-camrs I watch, he seems to be the most knowledgeable and experienced.
Personally, I believe corals are the new (ethical) damsels-that is to say, an organism you can throw in the tank more or less immediately to jumpstart the cycling process. Obviously, don’t put your $100 frags in to start with 😅
Jake Adams uses corals to mature the tank from day one. I feel like a tank with dry rock needs more time as it would interact chemically with the water for a while but live rock can be Insta tank.
I think your aquascape is quite unique. It's a "reef diorama", but instead of going the freshwater way of recreating trees, rivers, etc, it's a sunken ship. It always makes me smile when I first see it in your videos.
Thank you Alfredo, your reef is very special and I think it most accurately represents what I see out there in the ocean. There is also a lot of fear in your reef which is very cool!
Bro, your tank is so stunning. ever time i look at it i just see more and different corals. Congrats on the sponsorship. Love to hear your thoughts an auto alk tester/doser. Something I've been looking at too.
Great video. The growth is great. I really wish you had footage of the setup process for this tank. For the anemones I would say that you can keep them but limit the numbers. If you keep 2 on the island they should be good. The more you have on the island the more they will battle for space. Eventually someone will get voted off the island and will walk. Good luck. Keep up the good work.
Hey @Mikeymikemike I was wondering if you could do an lps focused video as I started my first ever euphyllia focused tank at the start of the year! Would love to know your recommended levels what you would recommend dosing and feeding etc hoping to get a beautiful hammer garden abit like yours 🙂
Can do, but my personal short answer is 10+ppm N and 0.6+ppm PO4 using both inorganic and organic sources combined. Try to keep par below 200umol and flow medium to gentle and you will have success. Over time they will need trace elements to bring out their best. Hope this helps
Great video! I was hoping to see more before and after shots of the individual corals though. Curious to see what colony sizes you started with and what type of growth rate we might expect when everything is running as well as your system. Really appreciate this channel and your insight as both a reefer and planted aquascaper!
I love this tank, very interesting info on the original aquascape. I have the Reef Moonshiner's WaterboxLX320 Project tank still in the garage, slowly prepping it up for the Dining Room, I may need to put more thought into the aquascape ;-)
@chrisinscore6036 It had a lot integrated into the canister filter filtration, despite it being a stunning system, it wasn't the easiest system to maintain without consistent checking, couldn't even afford to neglect. Life gets in the way, priorities change briefly, but that's enough time for something to go downhill and cause a chain reaction.
Can you please do a review of the mastertronic??? There's really been no reviews in the last two years and they needed a lot software bug fixes as well as basic features to add. Can you give us an update?
Another awesome video mate! I am currently researching marine aquariums as i would love to set one up and came across your amazing canister filter marine aquarium. Would you be able to show how you pack your canister filter from start to finish including all the types of media. would be very helpful for me and im sure many others wanting to set up a canister filter marine aquarium. Thanks Heaps, keep up the awesome work :)
That’s ok, it is a tool so I think there are many other companies doing something similar in Europe. For now, maybe try adding potassium to little higher 500ppm, boron 11ppm and bromine 76ppm . As a start, you may see some difference. Go slow and easy and make sure you have a reliable way of measuring like icp and dosing calculators for your various products as the concentrations and dosing rates differ between companies and some don’t even tell you how much increases by what amount. Failing that, ask the team at moonshine to ship international or wait for a distributor one day :)
@@Mikeymikemike Interesting you mentioned about elevated levels of Potassium, Boron and Bromine. What have you noticed since increasing Boron to 11ppm and Bromine to 76ppm? I know Potassium is quite important and I keep it above 400 and I can test using Salifert test kit. The other 2 needs ICP tests.
You can get them direct but it may be costly, in Australia we have a some local companies doing similar products, like coral essentials, quantum and reef revolution, there are also trace mixes as well if you don't mind a more broad spectrum mix, the difference with those is you cannot control your levels for specific traces.
Always fast. The long approach with weeks of waiting and fish first is 80's. After two days I put in corals and lots of them. No losses. No ugly stages. Because the corals bring in the bacterias and they use Phosphate as food. There is a very good German article about that. It is called the myths of starting a reef tank and explains exactly why waiting is the wrong approach.
They are glass shrimp from our local rivers and rocky pools. they are normally used as feeder shrimp here but i use them to eat up any dropped pellets or excess food
Hey Mike I have nothing against Aqua Forest (great brand) but I would love to see Aussie TH-camrs push Aussie brands like Coral Essentials, Quantum reef etc as they are considerably cheaper than overseas brands and and top quality. For example a $50 1L bottle of Quantum Bio-enhance aminos is equivalent to $550 worth of 1L Red Sea AB+ and to be honest I never saw improvement in my corals until I switched to the Quantum.
I have use both coral essentials and quantum for my aminos they are both excellent products. Personally I have found I get less glass dust algae using AF but nevertheless both brands from Australia are good, I just don’t have them on my shelf at the moment :)
@@Mikeymikemike speaking of glass dust, I started adding 1ml of vodka every morning and afternoon to my XXL750 and my diatoms disappeared.. go figure. I didn’t add vodka for this reason at all but I can’t figure out what else could have done it. I don’t use RO just carbon blocks to filter my tap water so I still must get silicates in my water.
I love your chromis school! Do you ever notice them killing each other off? I have heard many people strongly advising against using chromis as a schooling fish in a reef tank.
If you get more than 20 they spread out aggression but you also notice they actually behave more naturally if you provide them lots of sps spots to call their own territory. I imagine those who advised against it did not have enough of a school or did not have enough sps to mimic their natural behaviour. I do find it difficult to ensure the smaller ones get a chance to eat sometimes since the bigger ones can be bullies when it comes to feeding so a large broadcast of food is often needed. So if you have large sps colonies for each one and maybe a potential foster home if they start fighting one then it will be ok. I’ll update on their behaviour in the future
I would like to ask you how much Phosphate you are dosing every day to your Reeftank in ml and if your dosing is automated how many dosing points are you using during your lighting period? Thx in advance
I dose manually using my own mix. It’s about 3-4 mls to add 0.03ppm po4 to 200L you can dose which ever brand you like. Sometimes I miss the dose because I fed liquid food but I found organic forms don’t raise the numbers for long.
@@saltysleeves2029 it fluctuates from 0.03- 0.05 to 0.00-0.02 daily I try to bring it down to 0 at night. I am careful with such low numbers as a week of no dosing will cause problems for some corals including bleaching or tissue recession.
I was in the market for an Alk testing unit and was looking for one that was safe to return test fluid back to the display so I reached out to focustronic to ask questions. Later they offered to send out this unit for long term testing. I'd say it was mutual.
You really said if it's worthwhile to set up a tank with corals instantly and if owning an alkatronic is worth it.... you sure you've done this 8 years?
Sponsored videos are totally 👎👎. There’s absolutely no way you can’t be delivering unbiased information if they gave you free stuff to use. I don’t know why the companies don’t get it. Thanks for being honest though Mike, I guess transparency is the most important.
I understand the community has a bit of a cautionary eye towards sponsor videos. I understand the sentiment. I’ll do my best to deliver what I think is objective. I guess my main view is that I would never take on anything that I personally wouldn’t buy myself. Thank you for your thoughts :) if there’s a specific thing you want to ask then I will do my best to investigate it. The conversation is open to all
Hahaha I hope you don’t think so. No company can pay for my words or thoughts. I’ll still deliver my unbiased response to their products. Hope that satisfies your question :)
@mikeymikemike th-cam.com/video/9Q_sh42NNd8/w-d-xo.html One of several videos on the testing for vibrios. Eco balance may provide some benefits battling vibrio imbalance.
How long did you wait before adding corals? Is 2 months too quick or too slow?
I started with live rock out of the ocean that I quarantine/cooked for 2 months then placed it in my display and added corals and fish the same week. constantly testing and adding slowly. ammonia, nitrite, nitrate never spiked and only showed trace amounts of each. So I guess I waited 2 months lol
I added a bit colour blenny and 2 small zoa rocks after 2 weeks, then a week later 2 platinum clowns, more zoa's and 2 euphyllia... I'm currently at 5 weeks and everything looks great despite some very high nitrate figures.. I took the quick approach on the basis of Jake Adams from reef builders studio.. out all the reef TH-camrs I watch, he seems to be the most knowledgeable and experienced.
Personally, I believe corals are the new (ethical) damsels-that is to say, an organism you can throw in the tank more or less immediately to jumpstart the cycling process. Obviously, don’t put your $100 frags in to start with 😅
Soft corals yes.
Jake Adams uses corals to mature the tank from day one. I feel like a tank with dry rock needs more time as it would interact chemically with the water for a while but live rock can be Insta tank.
I think your aquascape is quite unique.
It's a "reef diorama", but instead of going the freshwater way of recreating trees, rivers, etc, it's a sunken ship. It always makes me smile when I first see it in your videos.
Thank you Alfredo, your reef is very special and I think it most accurately represents what I see out there in the ocean. There is also a lot of fear in your reef which is very cool!
@@Mikeymikemike I never thought about that... damn, I'll never look at my tank the same way again. I just hope the fish don't feel the same way too :)
Bro, your tank is so stunning. ever time i look at it i just see more and different corals.
Congrats on the sponsorship. Love to hear your thoughts an auto alk tester/doser. Something I've been looking at too.
I have same canister filter on a 230L tank with a Tunze 9004 skimmer .
Would love to see how you configure your canister and it's contents.
Sure can do! But to make it easy, all the baskets are filled with matrix/siporax except the last one with zeolite and carbon/gfo in abag.
Great video. The growth is great. I really wish you had footage of the setup process for this tank. For the anemones I would say that you can keep them but limit the numbers. If you keep 2 on the island they should be good. The more you have on the island the more they will battle for space. Eventually someone will get voted off the island and will walk. Good luck. Keep up the good work.
You are right, they never moved before the split. But I will use these guys as an excuse to set up a new tank.
Hey @Mikeymikemike I was wondering if you could do an lps focused video as I started my first ever euphyllia focused tank at the start of the year! Would love to know your recommended levels what you would recommend dosing and feeding etc hoping to get a beautiful hammer garden abit like yours 🙂
Can do, but my personal short answer is 10+ppm N and 0.6+ppm PO4 using both inorganic and organic sources combined. Try to keep par below 200umol and flow medium to gentle and you will have success. Over time they will need trace elements to bring out their best. Hope this helps
Fantastic looking tank thanks for the video and tips 👍
I love how to learn to make those aquascape rock
Great video! I was hoping to see more before and after shots of the individual corals though. Curious to see what colony sizes you started with and what type of growth rate we might expect when everything is running as well as your system. Really appreciate this channel and your insight as both a reefer and planted aquascaper!
Hey Mikey. Great work on 3k. That was so fast. 👍 Tank is looking great.
Love it. Thanks for all of the valuable information. I copied your filtration method btw 👌🏽🙏🏾
I love this tank, very interesting info on the original aquascape. I have the Reef Moonshiner's WaterboxLX320 Project tank still in the garage, slowly prepping it up for the Dining Room, I may need to put more thought into the aquascape ;-)
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I'd love to see the state of this tank now after one year!
The system no longer exists, pretty sure it crashed.
@@theexiled4434 Interesting, do you know why it failed? too much too fast?
@chrisinscore6036 It had a lot integrated into the canister filter filtration, despite it being a stunning system, it wasn't the easiest system to maintain without consistent checking, couldn't even afford to neglect. Life gets in the way, priorities change briefly, but that's enough time for something to go downhill and cause a chain reaction.
Can you please do a review of the mastertronic??? There's really been no reviews in the last two years and they needed a lot software bug fixes as well as basic features to add. Can you give us an update?
Hey mike great tank and scape what kind of rock did u use for this scape?
Another awesome video mate! I am currently researching marine aquariums as i would love to set one up and came across your amazing canister filter marine aquarium. Would you be able to show how you pack your canister filter from start to finish including all the types of media. would be very helpful for me and im sure many others wanting to set up a canister filter marine aquarium. Thanks Heaps, keep up the awesome work :)
Thank you and since you are not the first to ask this I will do this next time I clean out my filter :)
Hey just checking in to see if you still own the reef tank. If yes, how is the tank going ?
Awesome video, glad to hear you’ll be starting to do tic tok videos too 😁🙌👏👏👏😜
Hi..Great reef,can you tell me the water volume in your tank.ty
What kind of background are you using looks very unique
triton have two product that should help against rnt stn, it is worth a try
I would LOVE to be a Moonshiner as well - but the bottles can’t seem to be bought in Europe yet…
That’s ok, it is a tool so I think there are many other companies doing something similar in Europe. For now, maybe try adding potassium to little higher 500ppm, boron 11ppm and bromine 76ppm . As a start, you may see some difference. Go slow and easy and make sure you have a reliable way of measuring like icp and dosing calculators for your various products as the concentrations and dosing rates differ between companies and some don’t even tell you how much increases by what amount. Failing that, ask the team at moonshine to ship international or wait for a distributor one day :)
@@Mikeymikemike Interesting you mentioned about elevated levels of Potassium, Boron and Bromine. What have you noticed since increasing Boron to 11ppm and Bromine to 76ppm? I know Potassium is quite important and I keep it above 400 and I can test using Salifert test kit. The other 2 needs ICP tests.
Am I missing something or is there only 1 power head in there! How did you get that kind of flow?
nice reef i have a question what is the brand you use to raise no3
Where do you get moonshiner products from in Perth?
You can get them direct but it may be costly, in Australia we have a some local companies doing similar products, like coral essentials, quantum and reef revolution, there are also trace mixes as well if you don't mind a more broad spectrum mix, the difference with those is you cannot control your levels for specific traces.
Always fast. The long approach with weeks of waiting and fish first is 80's. After two days I put in corals and lots of them. No losses. No ugly stages. Because the corals bring in the bacterias and they use Phosphate as food. There is a very good German article about that. It is called the myths of starting a reef tank and explains exactly why waiting is the wrong approach.
Mikey do a tank update!
I miss your content bro
What kind of light do you run and what size is your aquarium?
what kind of shrimps do you have in your tank?
They are glass shrimp from our local rivers and rocky pools. they are normally used as feeder shrimp here but i use them to eat up any dropped pellets or excess food
Hey Mike I have nothing against Aqua Forest (great brand) but I would love to see Aussie TH-camrs push Aussie brands like Coral Essentials, Quantum reef etc as they are considerably cheaper than overseas brands and and top quality. For example a $50 1L bottle of Quantum Bio-enhance aminos is equivalent to $550 worth of 1L Red Sea AB+ and to be honest I never saw improvement in my corals until I switched to the Quantum.
I have use both coral essentials and quantum for my aminos they are both excellent products. Personally I have found I get less glass dust algae using AF but nevertheless both brands from Australia are good, I just don’t have them on my shelf at the moment :)
@@Mikeymikemike speaking of glass dust, I started adding 1ml of vodka every morning and afternoon to my XXL750 and my diatoms disappeared.. go figure. I didn’t add vodka for this reason at all but I can’t figure out what else could have done it. I don’t use RO just carbon blocks to filter my tap water so I still must get silicates in my water.
I love your chromis school! Do you ever notice them killing each other off? I have heard many people strongly advising against using chromis as a schooling fish in a reef tank.
If you get more than 20 they spread out aggression but you also notice they actually behave more naturally if you provide them lots of sps spots to call their own territory. I imagine those who advised against it did not have enough of a school or did not have enough sps to mimic their natural behaviour. I do find it difficult to ensure the smaller ones get a chance to eat sometimes since the bigger ones can be bullies when it comes to feeding so a large broadcast of food is often needed. So if you have large sps colonies for each one and maybe a potential foster home if they start fighting one then it will be ok. I’ll update on their behaviour in the future
@@Mikeymikemike awesome thank you for the informative reply
I feel that the orange filter is a little too strong? Nevertheless, awesome tank!
I think so too! I think my white balance was a little off on this one and it exaggerated the filter or the filter exaggerated the white balance.
I would like to ask you how much Phosphate you are dosing every day to your Reeftank in ml and if your dosing is automated how many dosing points are you using during your lighting period? Thx in advance
I dose manually using my own mix. It’s about 3-4 mls to add 0.03ppm po4 to 200L you can dose which ever brand you like. Sometimes I miss the dose because I fed liquid food but I found organic forms don’t raise the numbers for long.
@@Mikeymikemike thx for your answer
@@Mikeymikemike and where is Po4 sitting at?
@@saltysleeves2029 it fluctuates from 0.03- 0.05 to 0.00-0.02 daily I try to bring it down to 0 at night. I am careful with such low numbers as a week of no dosing will cause problems for some corals including bleaching or tissue recession.
Hello Mike.
What are your average water parameters and temperature?
7.5-8 dkh - 480 Ca, 1500 Mg, 530 K, 12 B, 78 Br, 25*C
more to come on the trace side of things. I will release my ICP results in the future.
I believe Dr Tim’s is meant to outcompete vibrio..
Your tank dimensions? And what lighting do you use?
120x45x45cm radion g5 blue
And what type or rock you are using? AF Rocks?
@@winzikh real reef rock tm :)
Thank you for choosing Alkatronic among all the competitors. 🙏
Didn’t the company choose him?
I was in the market for an Alk testing unit and was looking for one that was safe to return test fluid back to the display so I reached out to focustronic to ask questions. Later they offered to send out this unit for long term testing. I'd say it was mutual.
Update?
You really said if it's worthwhile to set up a tank with corals instantly and if owning an alkatronic is worth it.... you sure you've done this 8 years?
Too bad that you stop posting video on TH-cam
Sponsored videos are totally 👎👎. There’s absolutely no way you can’t be delivering unbiased information if they gave you free stuff to use. I don’t know why the companies don’t get it. Thanks for being honest though Mike, I guess transparency is the most important.
I understand the community has a bit of a cautionary eye towards sponsor videos. I understand the sentiment. I’ll do my best to deliver what I think is objective. I guess my main view is that I would never take on anything that I personally wouldn’t buy myself. Thank you for your thoughts :) if there’s a specific thing you want to ask then I will do my best to investigate it. The conversation is open to all
Damn you a sellout now?
Hahaha I hope you don’t think so. No company can pay for my words or thoughts. I’ll still deliver my unbiased response to their products. Hope that satisfies your question :)
@mikeymikemike th-cam.com/video/9Q_sh42NNd8/w-d-xo.html One of several videos on the testing for vibrios. Eco balance may provide some benefits battling vibrio imbalance.