My 65 Gallon build

[sde1500]

Thanks, yea the misconceptions about the overflow bothered me, but I didn't want to bother with it. Why try discussing it with experts that read something online about it, but never actually have seen one? My pump will 100% run dry before the tank overflows. And I'll be adding a float switch when I add an ATO. I've started and stopped the pump dozens and dozens of times with literally zero concern the siphon won't restart.

 

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Look who made it through QT and has graduated to the display tank.

 

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Both shrimp hanging out for a rare photo op. Interesting, I never saw my peppermint shrimp out since I added it. Then added the blood shrimp, now it comes out regularly. Might be nothing more than coincidence but cool to see.

 

[sde1500]

Looks like some Tea Cup macro hitch hiked in on a snail that has since died. Got these guys sprouting up off its shell. Pretty neat.

 

[sde1500]

Random update since I haven't in a while. Nothing too much to report. Lost a Bangaii cardinal a week or two ago. Not sure why, but it was rather large so may have just been old. All other fish are looking good.

Been battling some algae, a lot of algae actually. Did a big clean out the other day to remove a lot of it. I'm considering adding a Mexican turbo or two and an urchin to munch the rocks. Coral all doing ok. Had some zoas in one colony melt from one area as it expanded in another so not too worried about it. Same thing with the GSP. Growing well in all directions but part on the original plug died off. Weird. Biggest surprise was I had gone almost a month with no water change, but the parameters were all still looking very good. I guess with only 5 fish and a handful of corals it's not taxing the system much. Looking to add more corals on October and some fish around then too.

Bought an ATO, still need to hook it up. Also bought a flipper cleaner and dang, why did I not buy one sooner. Makes cleaning the glass so much easier, I actually do it frequently now haha. That's all for now. Hopefully some more interesting updates in a month or so.

 

[sde1500]

My 65 Gallon build

Still got algae. Lots of it. So spent almost three hours today cleaning the tank. Hopefully I didn't go over board. Rocks are all just stacked, not attached. So figured I'd clean the rocks and epoxy them in place so they are stable for coral attachment.

Pulled the rocks one by one, put some H2O2 on them and scrubbed the algae away, avoiding contact with any corals. Let the rock sit a bit and then rinsed, put epoxy on and out the rocks back in.
Pulled off tons of algae and hopefully more will die off. Removed my filter sock I had in there which was long overdue. Not sure I'm a fan of socks, thinking I'm going to put something else in the sock section. We'll see.

Also ordered some grow light strips. I run gfo in a TLF reactor right now and I'm not a fan. When they come in I'm planning to attach a few to the outside of the reactor and run chaeto in it. Can't hurt to try.

There is a frag swap in CT, Fragtoberfest!, coming up in a couple weeks and I want the tank ready for a bunch more corals, but if the tank isn't ready idk how much I'll add. Well, that's all for now, corals mostly look real annoyed so I hope I didn't go too far overboard.

 

[jewlz]

Nice build. I have a setup around the same age as yours and It took me around the same amount of time to build up a bit of an algae problem. Hope the chaeto helps, I'm trying a diy algae scrubber atm.

 

[sde1500]

Nice build. I have a setup around the same age as yours and It took me around the same amount of time to build up a bit of an algae problem. Hope the chaeto helps, I'm trying a diy algae scrubber atm.

Thanks! Yea a scrubber may be the next thing I try, but with limited space I figured I'd start with the reactor I already have running.

Also considering pulling the filter sock and using that section for some Matrix or Siporax.

 

[sde1500]

Well for now tank is looking much better, not algae free, but a lot less of it for sure. Lost my blood shrimp which was unfortunate, I like those shrimp. Pretty lame though, pistol shrimp was hiding under a rock I took out, it fell off the rock into one of the tubs I was cleaning rock in, swam around a little bit in mostly peroxide, was picked up in my hands and put back in the tank and it is still alive. Compared to that, the blood shrimp is a wimp for dying, of what IDK really. Still waiting on the lights to start the reactor up.

 

[sde1500]

Just some quick cell phone pics. Went to CTARS' Fragtoberfest last weekend and picked up a bunch of nice corals, and a clam! They've been acclimating on the sand bed since and I attached them all today. Did a big 20 gallon water change first. Most are already out and happy in their new homes.

Ring of fires

Sunny D's

Gobstoppers

Red dragon acro

And my clam

Not pictured is my leptoseris as it isn't happy and my branching monti, can't get a good pic of it.

Still have a lot of algae, and some weird stuff I can't ID but my lights should be here soon to start the chaeto reactor. Also finally installed the Tunze nano ATO I've had for a few months. Already loving it.

 

[sde1500]

Quick update. Tinkering around with the tank today. Last water change was two weeks ago. Tested the water today and all looks pretty good. Kh: 7.7, Ca: 445, Mg: 1335, NO3: 2? Maybe idk it's hard to read the salifert test haha, and PO4 undetected. But I am getting a bunch of algae still. Pulled out the biggest chunks to add to my latest project. Got a 5 foot strip of white LEDs in today and turned the TLF phosban reactor into an algae reactor. Growing green hair algae for now but I may look to swap that for Chaeto which would probably grow and do better. Any thoughts?

Some pics of it:

 

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Algae in the reactor growing well. Added a purple urchin to the tank today to eat back the algae in the tank now.

 

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Urchin off to a great start clearing the algae.

And figured out last night why my clam wasn't looking so great. Seems I have pyramid snails. So now it is in QT as I will be manually cleaning it for a while. Yay.... I was considering adding a Melanurus wrasse to the tank, might go get one today and add it to the QT.

 

[heathlindner25]

Damn pyramid snails

 

[sde1500]

Clam didn't make it. I think that is due to both the pyramid snails and my mishandling of it when moving it to the QT. I kept it under water but didn't hold the rock rubble it was attached to as I cleaned it of snails and the rocks fell off. I think that hurt the foot and with the clam already weak that was that. I feel terrible, should have done better, but live and learn I guess. Going a few months without a clam for now but absolutely will be trying again in the future.

 

[sde1500]

So doing a little testing of a product. I'm not one to add all sorts of random stuff to the tank, but the algae and what not is a little out of control. So trying Vibrant aquarium cleaner from Underwater Creations. I've read a lot of good things so I'm giving it a shot. Doing an aggressive two dose weekly.
Before:

 

[sde1500]

Second dose in today. Some areas are already improved. GHA seems to be receding in places.

 

[sturner91]

The vibrant is working for you? It wouldn't work at all for me. Not sure why. I was treating my 72 bow as a 100g and was dosing as such. I did dosing weekly tho rather than twice a week. I've moved on to vodka dosing now to try and combat my cyano and gha

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[sde1500]

The vibrant is working for you? It wouldn't work at all for me. Not sure why. I was treating my 72 bow as a 100g and was dosing as such. I did dosing weekly tho rather than twice a week. I've moved on to vodka dosing now to try and combat my cyano and gha

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Quick comparison shot. I have done nothing but dosed twice so too early to say success but the thick wavy algae on the left side of this rock is way receded.

 

[sturner91]

Nice. Glad it's working for ya. Wish it worked for me, but already in the vodka dosing and designing a recirculating biopellet reactor for myself. I think tomorrow I'm going to bomb my tank with chemiclean also. We'll see how that goes.

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