A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[troubadour11]

Oh yeah biggles, I've got more for you. I think I mentioned we have been bit by the sneaky bug. These next couple will be for you...

And don't worry. I don't think the clowns could guilt us into overfeeding. I think we're already handling that just fine on our own. :facepalm: I'll try to remember to grab a FTS today at mid-day when the lights are brightest. But you'll see I'm smack in the middle of the GHA showing up in my young system. :eek1: I'm hoping the cheato in the Fuge will start taking off soon and help out with that. I haven't been running any carbon of GFO lately. I'm not sure if it's needed for this issue. Last time I did that, it solved the cyano problem but also killed off my cheato. I'm guessing the main reason there's so much GHA is that we're overfeeding for 2 fish, 2 shrimp, and about 9 corals.

But I'm glad we went with the clowns now. The frogspawn and duncan seem to both be doing well. So in another 3-5 weeks, they'll be nicely settled in and ready for a couple juvenile clowns to poke around. I can't wait to hit the DT with these two! :bounce2:

On the testing side, I hear you on trying a different brand. It just seems like such a waste with the kit only being about 1/4 used. I think the Mg test is reading fairly accurate and reliable. I've gotten results between 1150 and 1400 since I've started. Those seem to make sense and levels correlate to water changes and such. So sometime, we will be trying Salifert for Ca/Alk. I've given some thought to just going with Hanna checkers for them just for speed and ease of use. I'll need to :reading: a little more and try to :angryfire: myself more using up this Red Sea kit. LOL Unfortunately I can't go out and buy all new tests and whatever else I want, AND keep stocking the tank with corals :hmm5: So I'm definitely "in" on a new test system... after I get a few more corals first :bounce1:

I've got to enjoy these lights and starting to really stock the system for a bit. It's been a lot of work up to now. Time for a bit of fun before more work. So far everything seems to be happy enough by observation. So I'm going to start dripping a 50% saturation of kalk through the ATO soon. I got the 20 lbs pickling lime delivered. I just need to stop my pumps, take some water out of the sump and drill in my float valve at the level I want to maintain. That's why I spent the time re-designing the plumbing and getting those wires cleaned up a bit. Time to add in the float valve that's been on my shelf for a few months now.

And I like your style and advice so far, so please keep it coming. I'm right in line with the recommendation to take it slow and be smart and trust your observations as much as the test results. I find it hard to believe a frogspawn, duncan, trumpet, mulitple ricordea, monti-cap, birdsnest, and zoas would all be doing ok with lots of PE if I was getting horrible test results.

I haven't decided if the dosing caused a precipitation event. I've never seen it and have only read about it. I need to try and find some pictures of it or something. The only other thing it could be is the fuge. The day before is when I redid the plumbing because of the pump failure. With the return down at the far end, we added a Cobalt MJ-600 in there as a power head pointed up current constantly. I will admit that the once smooth DSB now has ripples and waves in the surface of the sand. So it could be possible that the counter currents stirred up tons of sand in the fuge. But I'm not sure yet... so I haven't dosed any more since then for the time. Theoretically, my levels should have been up to mid-8's and 410ish. So I'll just work on a starting the drip of kalk to steady any fluctuation of the levels and then focus on testing and perfecting those numbers afterwards. :thumbsup:

:smokin: Ok, have I tortured you enough? LOL I'm going to go make a cup of morning coffee, put on some tunes, and then I'll share our sneakiness. . .

Man your battle stations :strooper:

 

[troubadour11]

What to start with... :uzi:

Well, when we were at our old Freshwater LFS checking out the clownfish. They happened to have recently fragged a bunch of pieces in their SPS show tank Since our monti-cap seems happy. And the birdsnest doesn't have as big of white tips on the ends of the branches now, but it has lots of PE. Can you have to much PE, like if they're constantly out? I also think the birdsnest is maybe starting to color up some under the LEDs. It has a flouro green color spreading along the top of each branch starting out towards the tips and moving in towards the core. So since those seem to be doing well, along with the clown pair we grabbed 2 more SPS pieces that had more of a color pop to them. That way we can have a piece or two of coral on each piece of rockwork now. I'm pushing the limits of going into double digit healthy corals :celeb3:

- The first of our new SPS purchase. Any help on id or thoughts/info for it would be much appreciated. I would describe it as a smooth skin kind of flouro-sky blue in the base/core of the branches, with dark purple tips. I don't know if "smooth skin" is correct. It just seems smoother then all the others. LOL Here it is during the inspection/dip process out of water.

I couldn't get the glue to pop off the frag plug for either of these new pieces. I need to get a dremmel now.

- In the Revive dip jar.

- And here it is in the tank at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon. So this is under about 75% power on my LEDs, white/color 10% higher then Blue/UV. I currently have it on the top right of my display. The parent colony was in the top 1/3rd of the tank, dead center, getting a constant flow from their returns. They run MH & Flouro bulbs over their display. Here it is!

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- I didn't adjust any color on any of these either. But I think the color kind of shows through. Enough you can get the idea.

This piece is my biggest concern right now. The colors are awesome with the sky blue base and purple tips. But I have yet to really see much PE from it in a week now. Should I move it around and try different light/flow? It's basically at the same height as the Birdsnest in the display. So I doubt it's getting to much light. Especially since I'm running a straight parabola from 10%-100%-10%. So it gets dimmed levels for all but about 4 hours a day.

Or should I just leave it be? Being in the upper 3rd of the tank, will it survive on the light without much PE for the time until it settles in? I'd just like to figure out and judge if it's happy and doing ok. I have seen the very tips of polyps peaking out of the ends, but nothing that I would really call extended when I compare it to other SPS corals I've seen extended.

One more piece up next :beer:

 

[troubadour11]

And here's our last of the additions.

- Out of the water getting inspected (failed to remove the plug) and dipped in Revive bath. - ORA Red Planet tabling acro Again, from a huge football size parent colony in the upper 3rd under MH/Flouro combo getting med-high flow in their tank.

This picture out of the water is the only time I've EVER seen this thing with it's polyps fully retracted. It even have partial PE sitting in the bag during transit and acclimation!

- Here are both of the pieces in the dip. They are in a 4 cup measuring cup to give you an idea of scale. The Red Planet is about 1.25 inches with branches of small spikes and the Blue/Purple is about 3/4-1 inch with a 3 branches of dense clusters.

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- In the tank after rinsing off and ready to settle in.

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-25 minutes later... "Oh, we're back in water. It's ok everyone, you can come back out now!"

- And one full hour after traveling 35 minutes home, acclimating, dipping, failing to get pried off a frag plug and then thrown into a new home. It seems happy...

And it's been like that ever since. LOL Right now it's about 1/2 way down in the tank on the top/center of my arch. The same level as the monti-cap, just on opposite ends. So about 2 inches below the birdsnest and Blue/Purple piece. Also, it's about 1 inch above or close to the same level as the duncan and trumpet coral that are doing well.

Any thoughts, comments, or tips on this piece are of course more then welcome. But so far, I haven't felt much concern for this one. It seems perfectly happy to me so far. So I think things are going well with it. Or they at least appear to be after the first week.

:celeb3:

 

[troubadour11]

And here is some video fun if you're interested. Maybe this can capture things better then the pictures.

- General coral update on the previous pieces.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/crhxnH2ZdVY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[troubadour11]

Here's a better video that shows everything at mid-day today.

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/T6AIWDYIJ6s?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[mrpergo]

HOLY GHA...........lol
I love the new additions, nice colors
My YWG does the same as yours, just sits out in front of his home and watches the world go by.

 

[Bello]

Excellent stuff, Troub!!! :thumbsup:

The videos are very cool, taken on the iPhone?

It seems that the cyano has let up a lot. Has this happened naturally or are you siphoning regularly? If the GHA is bothering you, a small yellow tang is a nice option. Then you can join the "Cool Kids Club" (biggles & me) .

The corals seem to be doing well, and are fairly well placed IMO. I don't see a need to really move any, at this time. As biggles says, check for PE on the blue/purple one at night time, with a torch.

So you finally got some nice Acros, eh Troub??? You lucky bastard! They look stunning and you're lucky enough to get frags of those :furious:. However, I wouldn't buy any more acro frags until this alk, cal issue is sorted. So as biggles just said, get the Saliferts!!! I had the old BASIC Red Sea Alk kit (this is about 5 years ago). Could've been an expired kit, dunno. I do know that it was AWFUL!! So, Salifert please. I've used them as well and they're good. I think the Hanna's would be more work that Salifert for alk, since you have clean the glass tubes well. If you feel super lazy like me, get the ELOS.

Things are coming along very well Troub, unfortunately I'm not a big fan of clownfish, though yours look very healthy. I had one in my tank for 4 years, and gave him away when the bastard started nipping on the webbing between my fingers. Sneaky bastard, that one

 

[troubadour11]

HOLY GHA...........lol
I love the new additions, nice colors
My YWG does the same as yours, just sits out in front of his home and watches the world go by.

Here's hoping I can keep the colors in them :thumbsup:

I'm loving the YWG addition. If only it would find the pistol shrimp. I went to bed one night and it was hanging out on the edge of the pistols den. But in the morning the YWG was back to it's normal perch.... and I haven't seen the pistol since :sad2: Although my wife says she's only 50% sure it's gone. Because she swears she heard a snapping noise that could have been the shrimp...

But it's great how it's out all the time! They YWG is usually out more then our Orange Firefish. The YWG isn't scared of the dark. LOL

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Glad you enjoyed the videos Bello. :bounce3: I have an HTC Evo 4G phone that I took them on. So not an iPhone, but yes just a phone camera. I've got a point and shoot that I can fine tune a little. But it's so much easier to shoot them on the phone, and just load it straight to the net to share. And in this day/age, my phone can take as good of shots as my 7 year old point-and-shoot. There's just fewer user controls, so I can't always get the exposure right. I REALLY want at least an entry level DSLR. But those aren't cheap. If I had no tank, I might be able to buy one. LOL But I be I'll get one eventually. . .

The cyano had let up completely for the most part. It had gone away with only a small quarter-sized patch that would pop up on the sand bed each day and go away each night. I did it the "natural" route. We siphoned it once and got a good amount out when we added some GFO and Carbon for a month or so. It all went away and my cheato died off. I removed the GFO and things were good for about a month. Now after the plumbing and lighting changes the GHA has really taken off and there is some cyano starting to creep and spread back along the sand bed. I've added a new batch of cheato into the fuge. I'm hoping that starts to help some.

There's a lot of GHA right now. But it's not over-bearing. And there isn't anything else growing there right now. But I definitely would prefer it not get worse. So I'm hoping to start removing it slowly. The fuge cheato out-competing it and then eventually adding in something to remove it. I just added a few more trochus snails which made a dent. But they're not covering certain areas. I don't have good luck with LFS snails. I added that bunch we ordered when we seeded the system and they are all doing great. So I may need to place another CUC order soon to help.

I think we are planning some type of tang that will fit in a 90 at some point. But I think it should be one of the last fish we stock because it will be one of the largest and most aggressive, correct? That was my thinking, but I've never kept any of these fish yet, so I'm just basing it off what I've read and my experience stocking freshwater fish.

And yes, we went big with these last two pieces And your recommendation is spot on with my plan :thumbsup: I wasn't planning anymore SPS purchases for awhile. I want to get my kalk drip running and some test results that make more sense. But here was my dilema :sad2:

We had some good LPS. Everything was doing great. We added the new lights, monti-cap and birdsnest. Both seem to be doing good, despite the test results. The birdsnest didn't have much color pop to it though, and it's going to take a long time to color up I bet. Especially with us trying to level out our elements. So we needed something with some good color already in it to help judge the quality of the system :lol: Oh, and also, now we have a piece of coral on each tower of rock :dance: It doesn't look quite SO empty now ;-) So these 2 pieces are my high end test kit. LOL If they're holding their color and doing well. I'm doing something right and can keep working towards leveling things off perfectly with new kits, dosing, kalk, etc.

So that's all the coral I'm really planning for now. I'm going to do the QT session on these clown fish and get them up in the display so we can move forward on the fish stock. And in the meantime maybe look into some more CUC. Work on the ATO-kalk and testing stuff all while I watch and see what happens in the DT. :bounce3:

 

[markalot]

Catching up on this thread, looking good!

Sorry about your pistol shrimp.

That birsdnest will color up quicker than you think IMO, and then start growing fast!

 

[troubadour11]

All-righty-then!!!!

It's been awhile. So here's some catching up to do before we get to a couple cool things. I mean it's all cool for the most part, but some is WAY better then other

First off... I got a new phone because my old one was dead when I woke up one morning recently. So I'm still learning and figuring out how to get decent shots with the new camera. But here are a couple that turned out pretty well on my first try. Just to get us started off with something more fun and interesting then mundane.
- Frogspawn Update

- Yellow Watchman Goby

- Then a nice close up of the Frogspawn that I grabbed.

- Here's a small build update. I finally got my ATO barrel plumbed into the float valve!

- I drilled through the first acrylic divider in my sump at the level I've been keeping the water at. Then it was an easy bend of the semi-rigid RO tubing to get it connected to the valve.

- And here is a top-down of the float valve hooked up.

So I plumbed this valve into the drain chamber of the sump. This way there is lots of flow to mix the Kalk with since the DT drains here and the UV sterilizer dumps it's water back into this chamber as well. I filled up my ATO barrel with RO/DI and added 3/4 tsp (x15 for an estimated 15 gallons of water in barrel) to start.

Apparently I either forgot, or deleted, the shot I had of the 3/4 inch ball valve I inserted before the UV sterilizer. My return line now goes...

Return Pump > "T" fitting > Path1: 90 fitting > ball valve > 90 fitting > DT bulkhead
> Path2: ball valve > UV > dumps to drain chamber

I have the UV ball valve dialed back about 1/2 to 3/4's and the DT valve fully open now. That should slow the UV flow down to around 250 gph and the rest running to circulate with the DT.

- And since I had to order the 3/4 inch barbed ball valve to slow down the UV flow, I added a few extras to the cart...

+ 1,000,000,000 to Reef Roids so far as well. Thanks for all the recomendations! I'm going to be happy I tried it. So far our mushrooms, zoas, frogspawn, ora red planet, monti-cap, duncan, and others have all shown awesome feeding responses to Reef Roids! I can only hope it's helping to boost my micro-life and pod population throughout the system as well. :thumbsup:

I then proceeded to test everything because I have to resolve this issue...

PH = 8.2
SG = 1.025
Temp = 78.6

Mg (red sea) = 1160
- I never really suspected this part of the kit. It's been giving me readings between 1100 and 1400 from the start.

Alk (salifert) = 6.4
Alk (red sea) = 6.4

Ca (salifert) = 430
Ca (red sea) = 330

... needless to say, the Red Sea Calcium test is now in the trash. I will not be using it anymore, that's for sure. I tested it after the Salifert test and continued WAY beyond what I thought was the end point and the color never changed any further.

So now that I got that issue resolved, I feel MUCH better about where we are at. Lots of GHA, a little cyano right now. But other then that, the levels are looking good at least. And now we have the kalk dripping, so that will up the PH slightly and might help with the GHA. I also dosed 35 mL of Magnesium since I was below 1200. The recommended amount was 90 mL for our system size. So I did 35 mL the first day. I waited 2 days and dosed another 30 mL last night. I'll test Mg to see where it's at now. But once I bump Mg up from mid 1100's to 1200-1400, I should be sitting pretty and just need to figure out the right amount of pickling lime to add into the ATO to balance the demand.

OH, and Markalot... GOOD NEWS!!! The Pistol showed back up after about 4-5 weeks of being M.I.A. So it's still alive and kicking in the tank. After my wife thought she heard it once, I kept a look out for tell-tale signs of a den and saw a hint of one very slowly growing over a few weeks. Then last saturday the little bugger popped out of the new den when we fed!

And I'm really hoping that Birdsnest gets some color quick! That would be awesome!!! It's already showing some new white growth on the tips it looks like. So I think it's already starting to grow, I'm just waiting on some color to fill in now. Looking good so far though and hopefully I'll bring my first poopy colored coral back to colorful life soon!

Now that I've got all that jibber-jabber out of the way. Time for some fun stuff to look at for everyone :crazy1:

 

[troubadour11]

And here we go! :-D

- FTS update. Oi, the GHA.... We're now running about a 1/4 cup GFO in a nylon mesh filter sock. I've been turkey baster blasting the rockwork a few times a week trying to blast algae loose. Then I grab what big stuff I can fishing with a net for a bit before getting bored of that and letting the rest flow down the overflow to the filter sock.

The Cheato in the fuge still hasn't taken off yet. It's still alive, but doesn't seem to be gaining much mass to the ball yet. Despite the fact there's GHA all over the DT and not the fuge. LOL But I think we're headed in the right direction at least... I think...

- The Candycane Trumpet is still alive and kicking. Not looking it's happiest in this shot. But I think there might be a new head growing. I've never seen an LPS sprout a new head before, so I'm not sure. But there is what looks like a new head possibly growing on the Trumpet and Frogspawn. I'll try to get a shot of this "growth" next chance I get for all of your opinions. And you can see the Duncan sulking do to currently a little lower flow then I think it would prefer in the background of this shot.

- Birdsnest update:

It has a lot more of a greenish irridescent hugh to it from the top view. So I'm still thinking it will be a flouro green piece in the long run. But the color spread has slowed down and hasn't changed much of late. That could make some sense with the recent slip up on SG. When I fell asleep (being sick) and almost overflowed my sump with fresh RO/DI water on accident. Dropped the SG down to 1.023/24 for about 4-5 days before I could get it righted.

During the slip up, the birdsnest lost the white tips you see in the above picture. Not fell off "lost." But the white went away and the tip just stayed the same fleshy color as the rest of the coral. Then the last week or so after righting the SG, it's grown those white tips back out on each branch. I saw a short decrease in PE, but it seems to be doing just fine right now. I didn't re-position or lower it at all. In fact, we just raised it up about 1 or 2 inches to what we believe will be its "final" spot.

- Sulky Duncan close up. This thing is doing just fine... just not as puffy lately because the flow keeps shifting slightly where I re-positioned this dude. It still puffs up occasionally really big and definitely eats up some food when I target feed.

- And because it was a cool photo...

- Here's the sad shot of the Red Planet that DID NOT like the SG fluctuation!!! I'm worried about this piece, I'd hate to loose it. So far it seems like I caught it quickly enough and any negative issues have stopped and it's basically been the same for about a week or so now since the last water change.

- The purple with blue highlights acro...

- It's lost a bit of it's sky blue sheen that it had to it and is more purple now. But it's not gone... it faded during the SG slip up. So here's hoping it comes back. I've still never really seen any PE on this piece and am slightly concerned and observing.

So that's all the old updates and catching up on previous pieces. Now that the Ca, Alk, and Mg are all figured out... time to push forward with a few more fish and corals soon!!!

Or maybe I already did. . . :smokin:

 

[troubadour11]

Now for the really fun stuff. I grabbed a couple videos of things that I'll try to get up soon. But for now, these should hold you over until then...

- We added a handful of new Trochus snails to the DT... hopefully they will one day start to make a dent in the GHA along with the GFO and Cheato.

Ok, you got me. That one wasn't so fun. But this one is! :lol2:

- New Ricordea Mushroom rock. It has 2 good sized polyps for sure. One of them might be split or splitting to form a 3rd right now as well. This shot isn't as good since it's one of the 1st with my new camera. I got better a little later on. Here it is right after acclimation.

- And here are a couple later shots playing with the camera settings some. The shrooms are an awesome blend of Grayish/Purple base color with almost rings of neon blue, green, and orange.

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And for this next addition I managed to stick my hands in there and move a rock around so it could remain front and center. I moved the small cantaloupe sized rock with the Zoas on it from the back, behind the archway. Up to the front, left/center. This was a good call. It added lots more depth to the rock work out front and gives me space to build a new "thin/tall" tower for behind the archway.

- New Australian Gold Torch Coral. Just after dipping and acclimation... it was not happy and all puckered up! Also, before I figured out some camera settings on these first couple.

- An hour or so after acclimation...

- And about 3 or 4 hours after dipping and acclimation it's starting to open back up.

... and this thing has been out and extended ever since! It's going to get paired with the green Frogspawn on top the Zoa rock I moved up front. That way it will be easy to remove the whole rock and frag these 2 pieces. Plus, it moved the Frogspawn and Torch forward away from the back rockwork = more room for other corals behind them and out of reach of getting stung (hopefully).

********** photo break **************

 

[troubadour11]

... and now these pictures are 3-5 days after I added it and got better control of my camera to capture the color better...

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- And finally... here you can see the placement of the rock I moved up front better. The Frogspawn is still in it's same spot as before. I plan to glue that up by the torch on top this boulder eventually.

....


So there you go. Lots of little updates and tweaking on the water parameter side and dabbling with flow and filtration some. With a couple small, but REALLY cool and SO colorful flubber updates!! :bum: Now that I know our levels are where they should be, it's time to spread some coral love around these rocks. :bounce1:

 

[lluv24]

Looking really good

 

[markalot]

You need some hermits.

In my experience Thin Striped Hermits are the very best, hands down. They will devout the hair algae, go through as many shells as you can throw in, and come back for more. They will kill turbo snails, but if you can't control the hair algae these guys will.

I got two by accident from Reef Cleaners and now both are pretty large and still living in my 40. I only keep Trochus snails now, which can defend themselves against hermits. My Thin Stripes have both taken a liking to different shell types so I have to buy shells on Ebay to keep them happy.

The second best hermit, and even better than Thin Stripes if you have snails, is the Scarlet Hermit. These guys have kept my newer 20 gallon clean of all algae and I've never seen them attack a snail or, for that matter, change shells.

Believe it or not I've built ladders and other contraptions so the hermits can get up to hard to reach hair algae.

Here's the pair attacking my cleaner magnet after it got covered in algae.

 

[Bello]

Geez Troub, you really know how to bomb us with stuff :lol:

Glad to see the NEW additions, the yuma's especially look pretty cool. I like the gold torch as well, been eyeing one for a while but the prices here are a bit insane.

Good move on the return plumbing split. Clears up the tank a bit without too many pumps. I have mine plumbed similarly.

I find it a bit strange that Chaeto isn't growing. There's obviously nutrients in the tank that's allowing GHA to grow. Perhaps you could increase the light intensity on it or extend it's photoperiod. Eg. Mine runs for 14 hrs, while DT lights are on for 12.

Glad to see you with the Saliferts :thumbsup:, think you'll find it much easier to dial the alk and cal in now. About the Red planet, if it isn't losing any further tissue, I'd expect it to recover. You could frag off the dead tips if you want.

I'd expect the loss in sps colors to be the result of the SG slip up, as you said. So hopefully, keeping things stable should result in improvement. I'm counting on that as well, since some of my corals have yet to recover from the dips and some alk fluctuations.

Keep the good stuff coming Troub :thumbsup:

 

[troubadour11]

Looking really good

Thanks for stopping by and the compliment! Much appreciated Hopefully it keeps improving and looking better and better! :thumbsup:

You need some hermits.

In my experience Thin Striped Hermits are the very best, hands down. They will devout the hair algae, go through as many shells as you can throw in, and come back for more. They will kill turbo snails, but if you can't control the hair algae these guys will.

I got two by accident from Reef Cleaners and now both are pretty large and still living in my 40. I only keep Trochus snails now, which can defend themselves against hermits. My Thin Stripes have both taken a liking to different shell types so I have to buy shells on Ebay to keep them happy.

The second best hermit, and even better than Thin Stripes if you have snails, is the Scarlet Hermit. These guys have kept my newer 20 gallon clean of all algae and I've never seen them attack a snail or, for that matter, change shells.

Believe it or not I've built ladders and other contraptions so the hermits can get up to hard to reach hair algae.

Thanks for the good info and the awesome pictures. I love it! Do you just have your Frogspawn base just shoved into the sand? Or is it on a rock/plug mostly buried under the sand with a little bit of the stem extended above? I thought having them right at the sand line would irritate them and they didn't like it because they're "typically" rock dwelling corals?

We've gone back and forth on adding hermits and/or emerald crabs. Well, all crabs in general. My wife would love it if we added a green emerald crab. I like them, but don't want to be wasting money on snails being killed for shells and the typical other worries and excuses I read about with hermits and emeralds.

Having no experience, I was skipping getting crabs all together (hehehehe :lolspin and was expecting to work with snails and some type of algae eating fish (maybe a Kole Tang and/or a Coral Beauty or other pygmy Angelfish). But if I can't control the GHA until I'm ready for the larger fish... I may have to break down and figure out something to add to help with the issue.

Geez Troub, you really know how to bomb us with stuff :lol:

Glad to see the NEW additions, the yuma's especially look pretty cool. I like the gold torch as well, been eyeing one for a while but the prices here are a bit insane.

Good move on the return plumbing split. Clears up the tank a bit without too many pumps. I have mine plumbed similarly.

I find it a bit strange that Chaeto isn't growing. There's obviously nutrients in the tank that's allowing GHA to grow. Perhaps you could increase the light intensity on it or extend it's photoperiod. Eg. Mine runs for 14 hrs, while DT lights are on for 12.

Glad to see you with the Saliferts :thumbsup:, think you'll find it much easier to dial the alk and cal in now. About the Red planet, if it isn't losing any further tissue, I'd expect it to recover. You could frag off the dead tips if you want.

I'd expect the loss in sps colors to be the result of the SG slip up, as you said. So hopefully, keeping things stable should result in improvement. I'm counting on that as well, since some of my corals have yet to recover from the dips and some alk fluctuations.

Keep the good stuff coming Troub :thumbsup:

Yeah, it was a bit of a photo bomb. But I hadn't been up to much except running the QT regiment on the 2 clowns and watching/waiting after my screw up. And BTW... we're at 1.0215 as of this morning and rising. So we should be ready to move those to clowns up to the DT this weekend!!! :fish1:

We were super excited about the 2 newest additions!!! We've been planning gluing down the Frogspawn for awhile before adding the 2 clowns. We had also been eyeing the Aussie Gold Torches they had gotten. There were 3 of them for a couple months. Then they sold of the larger and WAY more $$$$ ones. And this little dude (or dudette) has been chilling happy and healthy at the store for awhile now. It was a sign that we should buy it and have a happy, healthy, and colorful new spot for our clowns to hopefully settle into this next week! And we definitely have nothing that color in the tank right now.

Then I stumbled across the new Rics and just couldn't pass it up! The colors are so AWESOME on them!!! We are looking to add another Ric or two down on that front little mini-shroom-rock island. We've got Purple w/ Green. Which is getting a MUCH darker and richer purple base now that we've been feeding Reef Roids. There is 1 biggy and 3 babys of that color. Now we added this new Ric-rock. Awesome contrasting colors, and we scored with 2 polyps on it. I think the guy thought it was only 1 and sold it to use for $5 bucks less then the single polyp ones they had in back. He tried to tell me the ones in back were "healthier and better specimens." I went and had a look and called B.S. and brought him back to the front and asked for a price on the piece we got. So now we're on the hunt for another different color pattern or two to finish filling that little island with Rics. :thumbsup:

The cheato in the fuge has been troubling for me. As you pointed out, there's plenty of nutrients in my water column. I've tried extending the photo period on the fuge, but then cyano starts growing on the cheato. Right now I turn the fuge lights on when I get home about 8:00 p.m. Then turn them off when I head out about 7:25 a.m. Maybe I should extend the times out slightly longer. I think I'm also (when I get the time) going to adjust my DT LEDs photo-period. I think I'm going to run the Blue/UV about the same length of time as now, but shorten the White/Color by one or 2 hours on each end for a bit. I'm wondering if the White/Color being on for so long and powering up to 100% is just to much fuel for algae and more then enough for corals.

I learned our LFS will "lend" me their PAR meter IF I let them run my Credit Card for the full amount and keep it with a hold on the charge. Then when I return it unbroken, they'll delete the charge. So I can "rent" it for free from them. So the next time I have a break in work, I'm planning on signing up for that and getting a good PAR map of my tank drawn out. That will help bunches I'm sure!

I'm liking and trusting the readings from the Salifert test. Makes me pretty confident I blasted my tank with a Calcium storm not to long ago when I dosed and the test was reading 100 points below my actual levels.

And I'm holding my breath and praying this Red Planet hangs in there. Any spread of the dead tips has pretty much stopped. I haven't been able to really notice it spreading over the last few days. So I'm hoping I dodged the bullet on that one. If I leave the tips... will the coral eventually recover and "move back in" to the dead spots? Grow over it? Or do you have to frag the dead tips for it to recover and continue to grow?

Anyway. Lunch is over and I've got to get back to it. If I get through this SG slip up and the SPS recovers, I'm ready and confident to start stocking up with more cool pieces! :bum:

 

[markalot]

Thanks for the good info and the awesome pictures. I love it! Do you just have your Frogspawn base just shoved into the sand? Or is it on a rock/plug mostly buried under the sand with a little bit of the stem extended above? I thought having them right at the sand line would irritate them and they didn't like it because they're "typically" rock dwelling corals?

We've gone back and forth on adding hermits and/or emerald crabs. Well, all crabs in general. My wife would love it if we added a green emerald crab. I like them, but don't want to be wasting money on snails being killed for shells and the typical other worries and excuses I read about with hermits and emeralds.

Having no experience, I was skipping getting crabs all together (hehehehe :lolspin and was expecting to work with snails and some type of algae eating fish (maybe a Kole Tang and/or a Coral Beauty or other pygmy Angelfish). But if I can't control the GHA until I'm ready for the larger fish... I may have to break down and figure out something to add to help with the issue.

It's in another tank now. It was glued sideways to the rock behind it (dead head glued to the rock). It was never happy in my 40 gallon tank, too much flow and light.

Anything just stuck in the sand will be moved by Herman or Eddie (my thin stripes) I have a single LPS left in my 40, a big frag plug of neon green trumpets. I had the disk buried in the sand and somehow, while on vacation, it was moved up onto a rock below a birdsnest coral. They like to lift things up and flip around looking for algae, but this was the first time something was moved rather than just flipped upside down.

 

[Bello]

The Aussie torch is certainly a score Troub :thumbsup:. The clowns find their way into the DT yet? The YWG is in all over your pics, lively chap .

I believe some run their fuges for upto 17 hours. You could try it out and siphon any cyano that appears. Reducing the whites in the DT should be ok, corals will be fine. That could also mean that you may see more cyano and GHA in the fuge, which would easy to siphon out I assume?

You're a lucky guy if your LFS rents out their PAR meter :furious:. I just shelled out 350 for it, grrrr. It's been rather useful so far, LED's are very good at deceiving our eyes.

Theoretically, if the coral is healthy, the RP should regrow over the dead areas. But I usually clip off the dead tips. Don't like to see algae growing on any SPS tips. The coral does look healthy enough from the pics, and should recover IMO

 

[troubadour11]

Anything just stuck in the sand will be moved by Herman or Eddie (my thin stripes) I have a single LPS left in my 40, a big frag plug of neon green trumpets. I had the disk buried in the sand and somehow, while on vacation, it was moved up onto a rock below a birdsnest coral. They like to lift things up and flip around looking for algae, but this was the first time something was moved rather than just flipped upside down.

And that's just another reason I haven't added any hermits yet. I'd love to get a better handle on the GHA faster then I am. But I'm not sure I want them reconstructing anything I put in the tank that isn't bolted down. But they definitely sound like a lively critter to add in that might be fun to watch. I'll have to think on it some more and give my wife a chance to convince me to add any type of crabs.

I've been pushing to wait and only add the little acro crabs that live in the Acorapora branches eventually to "satisfy" her crab craving. :smokin:

The Aussie torch is certainly a score Troub :thumbsup:. The clowns find their way into the DT yet? The YWG is in all over your pics, lively chap .

I believe some run their fuges for upto 17 hours. You could try it out and siphon any cyano that appears. Reducing the whites in the DT should be ok, corals will be fine. That could also mean that you may see more cyano and GHA in the fuge, which would easy to siphon out I assume?

You're a lucky guy if your LFS rents out their PAR meter :furious:. I just shelled out 350 for it, grrrr. It's been rather useful so far, LED's are very good at deceiving our eyes.

Theoretically, if the coral is healthy, the RP should regrow over the dead areas. But I usually clip off the dead tips. Don't like to see algae growing on any SPS tips. The coral does look healthy enough from the pics, and should recover IMO

- We are LOVING the Aussie Gold Torch!!!! By far one of the best additions to the tank, so far. Absolutely nothing like it in terms of color. It seems to be doing great and loving the system so far. We got it and the green Frogspawn glued down atop the zoa rock we moved up to the front.... I need some practice getting my pieces glued the direction I want. I always manage to get it CLOSE, but off by just enough to annoy me. LOL :headwally:

We wanted to get those 2 pieces glued down before adding the 2 clowns in. And since those 2 were ready on Saturday morning... I got home Saturday night from work and glued stuff down and transferred the Clowns up to the DT!!!! In the process, I also glued down the Birdsnest up at the top/back of that center tower it's been on. The current kept tipping after a week or so of sitting in place. So it was time to anchor down that sucker since it seems perfectly happy up there.

I'm trying out upping the photo period in the fuge some. I won't be as upset if there's some GHA and/or cyano in the fuge if the DT is clean I can scrub, syphon, or whatever out of the fuge. The 75 fuge tank is in the closet anyway, so appearance isn't really an issue. I haven't got around to adjusting the photo period of the DT lights. I was hoping to get to that last weekend but ended up having to work. But hopefully when those 2 things get adjusted, maybe I'll see a reduction in DT-gha. The algae and cyano has gotten slightlty better in the DT since adding in a few more Trocus (they're trimming it loose to be collected by the mesh filter sock). I also refreshed my 4 oz of GFO that is in the filter sock along with hung a cup of carbon in a mesh bag. I'm sure it will be slow battle to even out the algae and such. But as usual... as long as it's moving slowly in the right direction, I'm happy enough.

And I was super excited to learn I can borrow the PAR meter from my local store if I request it and don't break it. "You break it, you buy it." I can't wait to test it out... but I NEED to get some programming done on my LEDs before that. I need to make a function in the menu where I can manually set each channel. I want to map the tank with both W/C on lowest, 35%, 70%, and 100%... then do the same with only the B/UV... and then a 3rd pass with the two channels combined.

I'd LOVE to know my current levels though since I'm worried about a couple corals. For now, I lowered the Red Planet to just off the sand bed and moved the Purple/sky blue piece down to about 1/2 way down the tank. I may still try going lower for the time with the Purple/blue piece. I've never seen much PE from it still and it seems like it's slightly shrunk a tad since I got it....

I check my levels again on Sunday.
Ca=400
Alk=7.2 (If my memory is right. It was 7.2 or 7.4). I need to keep an eye on this since I started dripping Kalk.
Mg = 1260

So I think we're finally starting to look pretty good there! :bounce1:

I also found my pistol shrimp hanging out in the GFO in the bottom of my fllter sock!!! :angryfire: I don't know why my pistol shrimps swim up and into the overflow so much! :headwally: Luckily I saw it when emptying the sock and quickly scooped it up and dropped it back into the DT. When I did, it promptly took up residence beneath the Zoa rock we moved up front! So currently the Pistol is living below the torch and frogspawn inside that rock front and center. Here's hoping it stays there and doesn't go exploring the pipeworks again! :beer: