65 DSA SPS Dominant Mixed Reef

[aggie13reef]

Christmas reef goodies! That sounds great to me.

For dosing, if you have something to control them(on/off power) it's hard to beat the BRS dozers at 79 dollars.

I think that is what I plan on getting, the only problem is I have nowhere to house the reservoirs of 2 part. I have no room in my stand. It bugs me because I have my ATO reservoir on the outside of the stand in the living room. Looks unclean. One day I would love to do a bigger stand like some I have seen on here with an extended cabinet area to the left or right of the tank so things can be housed underneath.

 

[aggie13reef]

Small update:

I performed my weekly 5 gal water change today. I manually removed more of the GHA. Luckily it is mostly GHA and nor bryopsis. I am hoping before the new year I will see a significant decline as I am doing everything short of shortening the light cycle to drop nutrients. I am hoping my kole tang will be able to help speed the process up. As for the corals everything looks great, blue stag continues to encrust the putty used to mount it. I really want to re-locate my torch in the tank but cannot find a good place for it where it wont reach other corals. My stylo and monti cap will probably touch before the new year so I will have to frag one of them. Thinking the monti cap will be easier and possibly stick a piece of it in the 8 gal.
On another note my female clown bit me (like she does every time I pull algae) and broke the skin on my hand today! I had no clue that little thing was capable of that :lolspin:.

I will try and get some pictures up in a couple weeks when the tank is more algae free!

 

[markalot]

Glad to hear things going well. I want to see that blue stag.

 

[aggie13reef]

Glad to hear things going well. I want to see that blue stag.

Nothing close to yours man. But it actually looks promising from the top. I'll try to get a pic up soon.

 

[aggie13reef]

Update:

Well my wife got me and RW-8 for Christmas! I got it all hooked up and set up in the tank. This thing has some power compared to my previous powerhead. I have it on the lowest wave setting and visually more flow than before. Everything has nice PE so I am assuming everything is liking the flow. There is nothing wrong with running it on wave setting full time is there? My first time to have a fancy powerhead :rollface:!

 

[Scorpius]

Update:

Well my wife got me and RW-8 for Christmas! I got it all hooked up and set up in the tank. This thing has some power compared to my previous powerhead. I have it on the lowest wave setting and visually more flow than before. Everything has nice PE so I am assuming everything is liking the flow. There is nothing wrong with running it on wave setting full time is there? My first time to have a fancy powerhead :rollface:!

I run my Vortechs all the time. I never use night mode.

 

[mhucasey]

Update:

Well my wife got me and RW-8 for Christmas! I got it all hooked up and set up in the tank. This thing has some power compared to my previous powerhead. I have it on the lowest wave setting and visually more flow than before. Everything has nice PE so I am assuming everything is liking the flow. There is nothing wrong with running it on wave setting full time is there? My first time to have a fancy powerhead :rollface:!

Congrats! Yes run that baby all the time, just make sure no corals are directly blasted- their polyps should blow like a field of grass hit by a breeze - gentle motion but moving the polyps.

 

[aggie13reef]

Finally got around to taking some pictures during tonights water change. I manually removed some more GHA and attached the blue stag to the rock work. The Picture of the blue stag is top down while the frag was still on the sand bed (it was hard to photograph accurately). My red planet has grown quite a bit and is very difficult to photograph from the top so you can see it in the side shot of the tank in the very front.

 

[markalot]

Nice Nick, looking really good!

 

[mhucasey]

Looks really good Nick! I can never get enough of the blue corals!

 

[saf1]

Update:

Well my wife got me and RW-8 for Christmas! I got it all hooked up and set up in the tank. This thing has some power compared to my previous powerhead. I have it on the lowest wave setting and visually more flow than before. Everything has nice PE so I am assuming everything is liking the flow. There is nothing wrong with running it on wave setting full time is there? My first time to have a fancy powerhead :rollface:!

Quick note on the RW's. I have a pair of 4's on my 40 breeder. I really like them but day to day keep an eye on the flow. They have a pretty noticeable fall off as algae builds up or as they get dirty so to speak. I clean mine bi weekly now.

I run mine via a reef angel controller and mine do go to a reef crest night mode. Nice tank also

 

[aggie13reef]

Nice Nick, looking really good!

Thank you sir! Just have to get rid of a little more GHA. And I am kind of growing tired of the zoa rock...

Looks really good Nick! I can never get enough of the blue corals!

Thank you very much. Neither can I, I managed to kill the last blue acro frag I had. I can't wait for this stag to grow out to see how blue it will end up.

Quick note on the RW's. I have a pair of 4's on my 40 breeder. I really like them but day to day keep an eye on the flow. They have a pretty noticeable fall off as algae builds up or as they get dirty so to speak. I clean mine bi weekly now.

I run mine via a reef angel controller and mine do go to a reef crest night mode. Nice tank also

Thank you for advice and the kind words. I will have to keep an eye on it for sure, I have mine on the lowest speed setting as any higher was pounding my corals.

 

[aggie13reef]

Update:

This past weekend I added a lawnmower blenny to the tank. A few weeks back my exquisite wrasse vanished and I never saw him again. Still not sure what happened to him. I also figured the blenny could help in the algae battle. The LFS owner was trying to sell me on a starry blenny vs. the lawnmower based on looks, but I kind of like the lawnmower, they are unique looking! Heres a picture of him in the forest of GHA :facepalm::lolspin:

Heres a current FTS as well.

 

[mhucasey]

Update:

This past weekend I added a lawnmower blenny to the tank. A few weeks back my exquisite wrasse vanished and I never saw him again. Still not sure what happened to him. I also figured the blenny could help in the algae battle. The LFS owner was trying to sell me on a starry blenny vs. the lawnmower based on looks, but I kind of like the lawnmower, they are unique looking! Heres a picture of him in the forest of GHA :facepalm::lolspin:

Heres a current FTS as well.

They are very cool, like little trolls

 

[ZeeSparrow]

Bummer about the wrasse! That's the showpiece I hope to eventually add to my tank, though I have a couple more additions to put in before that.

I told my son my lawnmower blenny has great character. He said that sounds just like a blind date... ugly! :fun2: I still think he's great.

 

[aggie13reef]

Bummer about the wrasse! That's the showpiece I hope to eventually add to my tank, though I have a couple more additions to put in before that.



I told my son my lawnmower blenny has great character. He said that sounds just like a blind date... ugly! :fun2: I still think he's great.

They do make great showpieces Zee, they are probably my favorite family of fishes. So much diversity. I saw a pair Hawaiian flame wrasses at my LFS a few weeks back, and they were the most beautiful wrasses I have seen. They were just a little out of my price range...

 

[aggie13reef]

Tonight I just spent over an hour pulling algae and slightly re-arranging the corals in the tank. The only big change I made was moving the rock with the torch attached to it to the back of the tank on my chalk rock, and moving the purple and green acro up front to give it hopefully better light and flow. I pulled 2 decent sized bowls worth of GHA. I hate this stuff and am at a loss in eradicating it. I don't mind a small amount on the rocks as I realize algae is natural, but I can't stand it choking out corals. I have cut feedings and amounts, skimmed heavier, and weekly water changes of 5 gal. I can't figure out why I can't get it under control. I only have 6 fish and I watch 2 of them feed on the GHA. When I pulled the algae I could see clouds of what I am assuming was detritus that had settled in the algae. Maybe someone can throw out some more suggestions I'm willing to try anything.

Also this Saturday I will be taking in my zoa rock to trade in to the LFS, it's taking up too much of my precious room!

Here's a new FTS

 

[markalot]

Looks good Nick! Good idea getting rid of a non SPS rock.

 

[aggie13reef]

Looks good Nick! Good idea getting rid of a non SPS rock.

Thank you sir. Yep got rid of it today! Didn't get much trade in value but did get a small discount on a SPS frag which is always nice. The LFS owner has had the colony in his tank for quite some time, its a beautiful large stag colony, he called it "purple stag" and said it was ORA. I got about a 2 inch piece. Its glued onto a piece of rubble and sitting on the sand bed for now.

 

[aggie13reef]

I have a question for anyone willing to give some input.

I have a monti on one of the center rocks in my scape and I want to move it. Its one of the green base with brownish polyps that I am pretty sure has vertical branches when larger. Now that I picked up this new stag frag I want to move the monti to the right side of my scape, move my purple and green mini colony where the monti currently sits and move the Stag to where the purple and green currently sits...

The only problem is the monti has slightly encrusted over the frag plug to the rock. Any advice on how to move it? My wife picked it out months ago so I do need to salvage it :spin3: