A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[markalot]

Good to hear things are going well! The stylo looks happy.

 

[Bello]

Things are looking better Troub :thumbsup:. I like what seems to be an extra spire on the right since the initial design?

The green pocci and the encrusting monti look pretty good. I think I have a similar shroom to the new one, but with green nubbies and a pinkish purplish base.

 

[troubadour11]

Good to hear things are going well! The stylo looks happy.

Thanks! I'm hoping these new piece keep looking good too! It would be awesome if things finally turned a corner and got a bit easier. I think my tank is getting further along in the maturation process finally. It's like a whole new tank right now. Ever since the lighting got altered and started coming up, the cyano vanished and it seems like all the corals are MUCH happier!

Now if I can just make the new awesomeness stick! :fun2:

Things are looking better Troub :thumbsup:. I like what seems to be an extra spire on the right since the initial design?

The green pocci and the encrusting monti look pretty good. I think I have a similar shroom to the new one, but with green nubbies and a pinkish purplish base.

Yay, BELLO! So nice to hear from you again! I hope the battle on your end is slowly being won! Can't wait to see what you come back with. :thumbsup:

You spotted correctly too... there is a new spire on the right hand side. I sculpted about 10 pounds or so of new rock into a spire that fit behind the original right archway and the original center tower. My size estimates were slightly off, so I had to move the center tower forward and rotate it some. But everything fit in without a single worry or bad word :mad2::blown:

Eventually, I plan to epoxy a few large fist size pieces along the tops of the 3 towers. Just to give it that randomness and uneven look. Plus, then we can have some pieces that pop off easily for encrusting stuff like the new monti. But I think the main sculpting is done now. Just the extra little single piece +'s to add in as we see fit.

The green Pocci is my favorite pick up of late I think. I'm hoping I can turn this into a nice colony! They didn't have any for sale at the time other then purple. But they were willing to cut a fresh frag out of their 800 gallon display tank in the store and gave me a good deal on it. Which is good, because DisBeReef wanted the Purple Stylo and Green Pocci. She was not having any of the Purple Pocci.

Our newest mushroom has green nubbies too! It's just tough to get both the green and purple/blue colors to show in one picture. Low-light / blue stuff is a tough picture with just a phone camera and no manual control. I chose to show off the purple/blue color of it more then the green. Just because I could get one or the other to show up well at the time.

And now that we're all caught up there... here is the new stuff!!! :bounce3:

 

[troubadour11]

Trying one of these again... New pointy Seri that is Green-skinned w/ red/brown/dark polyps
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This looks like it should be either a Peach or Sunset Millepora. So far I'm a huge fan of Millepora and would love to see this do well and add a few more. These shots are RIGHT after introducing it to the tank. So it was still a bit slimy and not opened up. So far, it's been opening some during the day. Closing at dusk, then opening back up later at night.
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Aptasia-X bombing run.... there were 3 I could see in the whole tank.
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And one right next to our Raptors Piece Favia and not making it happy. It got zapped!!!
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And finally for biggles, I heard rumors he was thinking of a Blenny addition. Everybody meet Rampage.
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1/2 a week in the tank and there is already noticeable difference in the algae. Also a very noticable difference in the size of Rampages' belly!!! Looks like it might burst!! :blown:

Unfortunately, Rampage appears to have great eye sight and is quite afraid of my camera, or my face. I'm not sure which one yet. :-D So these are the best 2 pictures I have. But soon, I will try to shoot a video of him out exploring and snacking away on my algae for you all soon...

Until next time friendly reefers

 

[Fishy 1]

I love the first pic of the seri troub, great job. I really want a blenny as well so Biggles isn't alone. I passed up a bicolor blenny a couple of weeks ago because the tank wasn't in great shape after the nem got minced. I really like the look of rampage, is he an active, out going fish that is always in view?

 

[troubadour11]

I love the first pic of the seri troub, great job. I really want a blenny as well so Biggles isn't alone. I passed up a bicolor blenny a couple of weeks ago because the tank wasn't in great shape after the nem got minced. I really like the look of rampage, is he an active, out going fish that is always in view?

Hey there Fishy1! Thanks for the complements on the Seri in that first pic. I want you all to know, I worked really hard to make the money to spend to buy it looking so nice :facepalm:. Let's hope we can keep it looking so nice! :celeb3:

As for Rampage. We've really only had him/her/it in the tank since last Saturday. So not even a full week yet. When we had it in the 5 gallon buckets, it was hiding pretty much non-stop. (Same with the Royal Gramma we have in there now). Once we moved it to the 10 gallon QT, it would sit and hang out in a corner all the time. With occasional once or twice daily fits of swimming back and forth across the back glass. :headwally:

But once we got it in the DT, Rampage got way more interesting and a name! LOL. They seem a little timid liking to hide in holes and crevices peaking 1/2 their body out. Very much like the pictures with the barnacles. He perches like that a lot so far. They like hanging out perched in their "resting/hiding" position. He tends to pop in and out of the holes moving around the tank right now. Resting and hiding for 5 or 10 minutes, then when he notices the clowns out and around, he swims out and joins in pecking rockwork and the overflow for algae.

He tends to quickly try to hide anytime we approach the tank. But if you approach and sit there for 5 or 10 minutes (or at a small distance on the couch or something) he pops out and starts to graze. When I got home last night (I was the 1st one home) he was out in the middle of the overflow box grazing in the wide open.

So I wouldn't say it's going to ALWAYS be in view. It kind of acts like a dither fish right now. If other fish are out and calm, he comes out to graze and meanders around the tank and rocks. Any hint of something being off and it will dart for a hole or nearest hiding spot. But of course, once the signs seem all clear, he'll come back out to graze until the next time he's spooked.

Right now, I would say we see Rampage about as often as we saw our Orange Firefish. They kind of act the same way. It's just the Firefish hid in a cave and hung out swimming in the open water column. Where the Tailspot hangs out perched in a hole or something and then comes out hovering just above/along the rockwork almost in the open water as it grazes.

Anyway, lunch is over, so I'm going to get back to it. I did capture some video yesterday of Rampage out and around. It should give you a good idea of how he behaves, but it failed to upload this morning. So as soon as I get them loaded up, I'll pop the videos in here so you can see it "in the wild" of my DT ;-) :wildone:

 

[troubadour11]

All right Blenny fans. Here you go...

A quick Tailspot Blenny clip.
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Tailspot Blenny and quick tank/coral pan and scan to show flow on a few pieces...
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I recently found a small weird wormy thing slithering along the rock work... Shot this video of it to show DisBeReef and thought I'd share it here. I guess it's a tiny baby bristle worm, but DBR says I'm wrong. What do you think!? :wildone:
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:wave:

 

[markalot]

That worm might be a concern, depending on what the mouth looks like. Might also be nothing.

What are all the particles floating around, did you just feed?

 

[troubadour11]

That worm might be a concern, depending on what the mouth looks like. Might also be nothing.

What are all the particles floating around, did you just feed?

What is it that you think it could be depending on the mouth (fire worm?) that would be a concern?

I'm not to worried about the worm. I've seen one about this size only recently a few times in different spots around the tank. We used all dry rock and almost entirely dry sand and seeded that with only about 20 lbs of live rock when we started out. So the odds of it being a bad hitch-hicker thingy should be pretty low. But not impossible of course

We also seeded both tanks of the system with bristle worms and spaghetti worms that were a light pinkish red in color when we first started out. So I was thinking this is most likely a baby bristle worm in some form of maturation. But I've only ever seen the adult bristle worms we seeded, so I don't really know. That is just speculation.

And yes. The reason it's so heavily with particles and snowy looking was because DisBeReef had just fed the tank prior to me getting home. I'm guessing she either added some Reef Roids or phyto that day while feeding. Usually it looks snowy like that after dosing phyto to the tank. But it isn't as noticeable from a distance. Just up close on the tank for a few hours.

On another note. Since we started dosing phyto to the system awhile back, we've noticed a large up-tick in the amount of micro animals showing up around the rocks in the tank. So life is there and maturing. It'd be nice to get a stable self-regulating snail population at some point...

 

[markalot]

Nothing like a fire worm, but I don't like fast moving or determined looking worms since these are usually killers rather than scavengers. I wouldn't worry about it, I don't know my worms very well.

Tank looks great, by the way!

 

[troubadour11]

Nothing like a fire worm, but I don't like fast moving or determined looking worms since these are usually killers rather than scavengers. I wouldn't worry about it, I don't know my worms very well.

Tank looks great, by the way!

Thanks! It really does feel like it's turned a corner lately! :bum: You're more experienced on the coral side here. Did the amount of flow on the corals (stylo, pocci, millie) in the video look about right? I've been lately tending to lean towards stronger flow over less flow.

It's getting fun and exciting again as things seem to be improving despite having some GHA and a bit of bubble algae showing up here and there. But as I've mentioned, I'm hoping the Tailspot will help keep that trimmed a bit more for the time. I'm also considering trying some Cheto in the fuge again. Both times I tried it before, it eventually died off.

Plus, one thing on the algae battle side of things. I discovered last night that my DI resin is depleted. It's probably been out for a bit as it went from the same color it's been to a brighter orange/red very recently over the last one or two filter sessions. I have already received 2 filter pack replacements in the mail. So time to do our first RO/DI filter update! :thumbsup:

Upon testing last night to verify what I was seeing. I was getting about 20 tds out of my DI chamber last night. So a good guess that is part of the algae fuel and will try to get it remedied soon. But I'm feeling good about most of the things I'm seeing right now.

:beer:

 

[markalot]

Thanks! It really does feel like it's turned a corner lately! :bum: You're more experienced on the coral side here. Did the amount of flow on the corals (stylo, pocci, millie) in the video look about right? I've been lately tending to lean towards stronger flow over less flow.

Flow on the milli looks weak but nice and random. You want at least 50X turnover if not 70 - 90. <--- so they say anyway

For a 75 gallon that's 3750 gph up to 6750. How much do you have? Return pump does not count.

I'm kind of flow crazy and I try and keep it just below the level that will start blowing sand around.

 

[troubadour11]

Flow on the milli looks weak but nice and random. You want at least 50X turnover if not 70 - 90. <--- so they say anyway

For a 75 gallon that's 3750 gph up to 6750. How much do you have? Return pump does not count.

I'm kind of flow crazy and I try and keep it just below the level that will start blowing sand around.

Sorry it took me a bit to get back to you. It's been a busy week over here.

I've been slowly working on getting the flow sorted out and looking nice for all new corals. I was thinking it was a bit low on the Milli. But it's in a new spot where I haven't had corals placed before. THEY'RE SPREADING!!! :bounce1::crazy1:

It does have a return line that pushes a good constant stream of water over it. Then it gets the additional flow from the powerheads which are not pointed at it causing the bit of low random flow to it. But we've been getting good PE on it during the day and evening hours. Lots of things tend to tuck in when the lights click on/off and then come back out later on.

For flow in the tank (excluding return line) right now we are running (2)Jabeo WP-25's. I have the one WP-25 on the milli end of the tank running in WP1 mode with the speed at it's fastest and a nice timed pulse to create great swooshing flow for LPS (torch, zoas, mushrooms, etc) across the bottom of the tank. It's about 1/2 way down the side panel glass near the front.

Then our other WP-25 is on the opposite end running in Else mode and pushing water directly across the top/center of the tank pointed at the top edge of our rockwork (which is about 2/3's of the way up the tank) and directly towards the milli on the other end.

So I'd guess we're running around the 3,500-4,000 gph with those PH's in that mode. I could probably push it a bit further if I set both PH's to Else mode. But that might take some testing to see how things like it and right now, things are fairly happy. So I'm trying not to dabble to much.

Then of course, whatever the return adds in. But I'm heavily considering upping our return pump to a more powerful/efficient pump and splitting off the return to make 3 spouts instead of 1-split headed return. Since setting up the system, I've split off the line once to run through the UV unit. So I think upping the pump power will help after slightly cutting the flow to split it to the UV. And adding the 3rd return spout will allow me to target some more direct flow towards the milli and that back corner. Because the bottom back corner behind the milli is a definitely low flow / dead spot compared to everywhere else.

So that is that for our flow right now. It's been a fine tuning / learning game since it's still my 1st system and corals. Plus going for the full mixed reef, I was worried initially about to much flow for the LPS style stuff. Most of those seem fairly ok with a little more turbulent water then most :reading: lead me to believe. So I could still up things a bit.

Thinking either a WP-10 pointed towards the milli and that corner could be a good help. But I was hoping maybe the better return pump and spout might be a better solution to keep clutter off our glass and front of the tank.

:beer:

 

[troubadour11]

PICTURE TIME!!!

Ever seen a nassarius steal mysis from a blasto?
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YOINK!!!
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Our new green zoas opening up after acclimation and placement!
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New green Blastos feeling out the new surroundings...
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^^^ These were a pretty cool pickup! They're the regular green centered Blastos, but the outer edge of each polyp has a nice flouro yellow color tint to them! It looks great under our LED set up!!!

And finally, here's our newest piece of SPS
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[troubadour11]

And a little update on the other pieces that we got recently. They're still alive and actually, some of them look better then when we first brought them home in my opinion!

Peach or Sunset Milli
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Green Pocci
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Purple Stylo with our Sun Polyps that are still alive. We haven't lost any more polyps on the Sun Coral since we started focusing a bit more on it. Seems to be doing better... if only I could get it to start growing again!
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And a couple up-close on the Torch after we moved it to it's new, and hopefully final, resting place
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:wave: :smokin:

 

[Fishy 1]

Very nice troub:beer:. I like the Milli, stylo and pocci. So how many SPS do you have now?

 

[troubadour11]

Very nice troub:beer:. I like the Milli, stylo and pocci. So how many SPS do you have now?

HA! You're pretty much looking at it! LOL There are just a pair of Monti's that weren't in the latest updates... Now that things seem to be living and doing well, I wanted to try adding a piece of everything kind of. See what does best and what we like the most since we've never kept any of them before. Now that we have a few of everything and the tank has a bit more life to it, I think we're planning to keep things stable for a bit and observe what we have. Then if it's still firing along in a few weeks, I might add a new piece or two slowly as we go :smokin:

The total SPS list is:
1 - Milli (Peach/Sunset)
1 - Stylo (Purple)
1 - Pocci (Green)
1 - Seri (Green skin / dark polyp)
1 - Newest unknown Acro (blue/purple skin stag or beginning to branch)

1 - Pink Monti-cap (still hanging on and trying to recover, lots of algae on die-off areas but nice dark pink tissue with PE on the healthy spots)

1 - Mystic Sunset (reverse superman) encrusting Monti. Started to bleach, freaked me out and we lowered it to the bottom of the tank. 2-3 days later, almost ALL the dark healthy color is back and not much bleached anymore!!! YAY. Finally something that made sense. It did what everyone describes. Started to bleach over 2 or 3 days... I lowered it once sure it was in fact bleaching... 2 or 3 days later, the color is mostly back!!! This makes me feel like our parameters are finally in line and things are making sense a bit more

Total SPS colonies = 7

Total LPS:
1 - Raptors Peace Favia
1 - Pink Tipped Torch
1 - Duncan
3 - Blasto's (2 red/green variations/types and 1 green)
3 - Zoas - Eagle Eye, Radioactive Green, and another color variation.

8 - Mushrooms (2 purple/yellow Rics, 2 yellow/flouro ?Discosoma?, 1 red jawbreaker ?Discosoma?, 1 purple/orange/green Ric, 2 purple/gray/green ?Rics?)

1 or 2 - pieces of trumpet. 1 probably dead green. And my 1st coral ever a candycane piece that has been chopped down to just a couple heads that almost disappeared. Now any die off seems to have stalled and it's pin-head sized polyps that survived are slowly trying to grow and recover. And it may have a new head starting to grow off the skeleton right now. I need to watch/wait and see what happens here. It would be a matter of pride to bring our 1st coral purchase back to life and keep it going in our tank for as long as possible


Total LPS colonies = 19ish

TOTAL CORALS/COLONIES = 25/26 :eek2: :inlove:

Total fishies = 2 clowns, 1 Tailspot Blenny, 1 Yellow Watchman Goby
Total shrimpies = 1 Fire shrimp, 1 Tiger Pistol shrimp

 

[markalot]

Sounds to me like things are getting on track!

As far as flow goes, the sump flow does not count for anything and should be tuned to provide the proper flow for the filtration used. Too fast or too slow will effect the efficiency of the skimmer, for example, so keep that in mind.

I was running an MP10 and WP25 in my 40 breeder and I did not think it was enough. I think a minimum amount of flow for SPS in a 90 gallon would be 3 WP25's. Proper flow is one of those things that involves a lot of guesswork and frankly some corals can deal with less and some can't, it's a crapshoot. I had an acro in my old tank that refused to do anything until I blasted it with flow and then it slowly started showing polyps and growing.

Just another think you have to file away in the brain as you get used to making SPS happy. :idea:

Take Phosphate, for example. My corals were screaming at me that something was wrong but I ignored it. My seri that grows at a rapid pace and always shows white tips stopped showing those tips and I did nothing.

And then my prettiest acro browned out over 2 days. PO4 = 2.5! :uhoh3: I now have it down to .07 and the bird is showing white tips all over. I'm a poor coral listener.

 

[biggles]

Wow Troub, your reef is looking like you know what you're doing mate takes a while to get a handle on this whole salt water reefing thing doesn't it mate. You don't see it because it happens gradually but i want you to know that your reef is looking a million times better than just a couple of months back. The corals you're keeping are looking great, lots of very nice stuff you're keeping now buddy :thumbsup:

If you want to help the pink monti recover quicker give it a turkey baster blast every morning before you leave for work and again before lights out. Algae gathers a lot of detritus and makes it's own bloody soil bed if left alone and this smothers the polyps at the edges and makes it harder for the coral to recover and reclaim skeleton. The monti will recover much much quicker if you take the time to do this simple chore, acros and other SPS all benefit from a helping hand when fighting back algae so do the same to any SPS dead areas that algae has a foothold on and you'll see much faster recovery times.
Rampage is a legend lol, are tailspot blennies known to do anything bad - bare in mind it doesn't matter how rare an event may be, if i try it we all know the rare bad thing will bloody happen..........

I really like your latest acro, that thing is going to look very colorful if you treat it nice :dance: That new seri looks super cool and all dangerously sharp which is what i like lol.

Lastly, that nassarius snail needs whacking when he tries that stunt Troub, get some JG 1/4" airline about 2ft long. Makes the perfect snail tipper over (mine get stuck upside down in weird places) and is an excellent non lethal behavior modifier on all manner of things - trust me Troub, either you or the missus needs to step up and start whacking a few reef inhabitants before things get out of control. :deadhorse:

 

[troubadour11]

As far as flow goes, the sump flow does not count for anything and should be tuned to provide the proper flow for the filtration used. Too fast or too slow will effect the efficiency of the skimmer, for example, so keep that in mind.

I was running an MP10 and WP25 in my 40 breeder and I did not think it was enough. I think a minimum amount of flow for SPS in a 90 gallon would be 3 WP25's. Proper flow is one of those things that involves a lot of guesswork and frankly some corals can deal with less and some can't, it's a crapshoot. I had an acro in my old tank that refused to do anything until I blasted it with flow and then it slowly started showing polyps and growing.

Thanks for all the good info! :thumbsup: I understand what you're saying about not counting the return pump and filtering efficiency and such. I actually planned the flow rate on our return pump I am currently running to maximize the efficiency of our skimmer and close to maximizing the UV filter.

But then I :reading: an interesting article that discussed plumbing UV filters up stream from the skimmer and not on the return line to the DT. The thinking being because you're "killing" things with the UV filter and then pumping the waste back into your clean DT. So why not split it off and let the skimmer pull a 2nd pass on the water that runs through the UV filter. Plus, then I could dial in the UV line with a valve to target it's maximum efficiency for flow rate.

So once I split that off from the single return line, I actually lowered the amount of water getting sent back to the DT through the return with this pump. Because now about 300-400 gph goes through the UV filter and back into the sump. So theoretically, I'm only pumping about 1/2 of what I once was back up to the DT. I think I'd like to get back to my original 500-700 gph through the return line up to the DT with the additional 300-400 gph getting split off through the UV and dumped for a 2nd skimmer pass. That was my thought process there. I'm not sure if that all made sense to you or not. Upgrade the pump to at least get back to the flow I initially had and planned for on the return line.

I guess we'll call it "restoring" my flow rate on the return line after I modified my plumbing some. Once I get that done, I will definitely consider adding another WP-10 or 25 if it's need. I'm also guessing it will be needed at some point as the corals grow and fill in some of the negative space. I hope at least :dance:

Wow Troub, your reef is looking like you know what you're doing mate takes a while to get a handle on this whole salt water reefing thing doesn't it mate. You don't see it because it happens gradually but i want you to know that your reef is looking a million times better than just a couple of months back. The corals you're keeping are looking great, lots of very nice stuff you're keeping now buddy .thumbsup.

If you want to help the pink monti recover quicker give it a turkey baster blast every morning before you leave for work and again before lights out. Algae gathers a lot of detritus and makes it's own bloody soil bed if left alone and this smothers the polyps at the edges and makes it harder for the coral to recover and reclaim skeleton. The monti will recover much much quicker if you take the time to do this simple chore, acros and other SPS all benefit from a helping hand when fighting back algae so do the same to any SPS dead areas that algae has a foothold on and you'll see much faster recovery times.
Rampage is a legend lol, are tailspot blennies known to do anything bad - bare in mind it doesn't matter how rare an event may be, if i try it we all know the rare bad thing will bloody happen..........

I really like your latest acro, that thing is going to look very colorful if you treat it nice .dance. That new seri looks super cool and all dangerously sharp which is what i like lol.

Lastly, that nassarius snail needs whacking when he tries that stunt Troub, get some JG 1/4" airline about 2ft long. Makes the perfect snail tipper over (mine get stuck upside down in weird places) and is an excellent non lethal behavior modifier on all manner of things - trust me Troub, either you or the missus needs to step up and start whacking a few reef inhabitants before things get out of control. :deadhorse:

Hey biggles! Great to hear from you again. Especially now that you have such nice things to say about how our reef is looking :thumbsup: :dance: You're to kind sir, thank you.

It does seem like quite the turn around over this last month or so. It's renewed our vigor for spending $$$$ and trying to stock up on corals. LOL Now that we have a splendid assortment of a few differing SPS, I plan to make sure things are still humming along nicely for a week or two before going hog wild! I've got a probable OT weekend (time and a half on Saturday, and double time on Sunday) coming up soon. So the week after that might be a nice trip to the LFS to stock up for war and blow my OT money :blown: Hahaha. I bet it won't be hard to convince DisBeReef of that one!

And you're dead on. The changes are so excruciatingly so. But ever since we started altering our LED output (up to more proper PAR levels) this whole thing seems to have gotten so much easier and a big turn on how the system is looking.

And thanks for the super awesome tip on the Pink Monti! I've been trying / wanting to re-hab that piece this whole time. It seems like it hasn't gotten any better except for the areas that had healthy skin. I was wondering if I should be scrubbing the skeleton areas with algae with a toothbrush or something. But that worried me that I might damage the healthy stuff.?.?.

I'll definitely give blasting it with the turkey baster a few times a day a try though. I'd love to get that piece and our original Trumpet back to health!

As for Rampage and the Tailspot. 1.) Rampage the game is awesome. 2.) Rampage the fish is even AWESOMER!!! He's so awesome, he gets his own word

I did bunches of reading on Blennies when I was considering adding one. The Tailspot was my definite final choice because I found accounts of other rock dwelling algae eating blennies enjoying certain types of corals at times. But I never really came across any stories of a Terror of a Tailspot. So we opted for one to help keep nuisance algae under control for now. And let me tell you, we love the little bugger!!! A definite win! And in almost a month now, I've never witnessed it even go close to any corals (SPS especially). The closest it got to a coral was almost swimming through the tentacles of the torch once or twice when chasing a floating piece of algae he had ripped off and let float. A peaceful algae muncher so far. I'd guess if you're low on naturally occurring algae, supplementing with some nori sheets would be good. We have plenty of algae right now to keep him busy. But it ate the nori while in QT. All-in-all I would say you should be very safe with a Tailspot Blenny for an SPS tank. I haven't seen anything that would cause me concern with ours so far. :love2:

I hope we can keep that Acro you like happy. The newest blue/purple addition one. I know nothing about on the flow and light side of things. It was somewhat pale when we got it and it looks pale under our day lights. But if you shadow it, it's got a great blue/purple/teal color to it. It looks like the skin will be that with really light blue polyps. But I haven't seen much PE on it this week. Every morning there are 4 or 5 polyps barely extended. MUCH smaller then our other SPS polyps. But that just could be how these polyps are to begin with. I'm hoping that if I can keep the other SPS looking good, then this one might fall in line. I'd love to see it grow out a few more branches. It's got a cool start to a branching form for it.

And we've got to have a Seri in there looking all devilish, pointy, and dangerous. It's a must for the contrast of the branches and shapes. And who doesn't like things that look dangerous! Right!?

As for snail patrol. That was an interesting event to watch unfold. I let it go to see what happened since it was my first time witnessing such a feet. But if this continues in the future, I may have to take up your policing policies on our reef

Thanks again for the kind word and helpful tips! Check back soon after my OT weekend and shopping trip :-D