My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[DiscusHeckel]

My latest tool arrived a few minutes ago from Germany:

It was about time because I was fed up with dosing limewater manually everyday. I will now need to purchase a suitable peristaltic pump for dosing limewater.

By the way, my sand sifting star fish got a little disorientated last night:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I would like to introduce you my best CUC crew, the one and only aiptasia:

No uneaten food by fish can possibly find its way to the bottom of my weir or sump. I keep a file fish, which we call Mr E.T., in my main display. Thanks to him, there is hardly any unsightly aiptasia that can be seen.

 

[Jjv123]

beautiful tank.

 

[whiteshark]

Love the aiptasia scrubber. Awesome.

 

[Chevre]

Wow nice tank! Love the aptasia refugium, given how well the thrive, they must be eating up some kind of nutrients. Way to think outside the box

 

[sahin]

Very nice Bulent. Jealous of your SPS colours. :beer:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Thank you all.

I like the expression "aiptasia scrubber" :thumbsup:. I will be using it from now on.

Aiptasia are opportunistic animals. They almost eat any food introduced to a tank. ZEO people claim that aiptasia even consume KZ sponge power and thrive on it though this has not been my experience so far. I used to breed bangaii cardinal fishes.

On one occasion, half of my baby cardinals disappeared in one night. What I did not know at the time was that there was a tiny aiptasia in my fry tank. It must have been the culprit.

Anyway, here are a few more "macro" shots, which I took with my cheap digital camera. Despite fairly low nutrient readings, polyp expansion on most of my acroporas are very pleasing indeed:

Acropora aspera:

Acropora yongeii:

Acropora nasuta:

 

[sahin]

Hello Bulent. How are the coral colours since removing the algae bed and upgrading the skimmer? Any improvement?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hi Sahin,

To be honest, I am not missing my chaeto. I am glad that I got rid of it. I have gained some real estate in my sump, which I am utilising for my Giant feather duster worms (Sabelllastarte magnifica). As per my previous post, chaeto's absence continues not to have any impact on the coloration of my corals thanks to Tropic Marin NP bacto balance, which seems to be keeping the nutrient levels in perfect check and balance. I am no longer using any GFO.

Since my last update I have increased the dosing slightly (1.8 ml per day). I have noticed a very slight paleness on my Acropora gomezi and Orange Montipora digitata once I exceeded 1.2 ml per day even though my other corals look good. According to Herr Balling, this is one of the signs of overdosing. I will reduce the dosing from tomorrow. Furthermore, I started to use Tropic Marin Pro A- elements today to accompany NP bacto balance. I will report its impact on coral coloration.

Moreover, I am getting slightly concerned with the increase in the number of blue bottles in my inventory. I have been using the following blue bottles for just over two months: KZ Sponge power (2/3 drops per day) and KZ Pohl's Xtra (0.5 ml per day), KZ A-balance (2.5 ml every 10 days- I have stopped using this after starting to use Tropic Marin Pro A-elements), KZ coral snow and KZ ZEObak (once every week). I am becoming slowly "Zeovitised".

I went to Cockfields last Saturday. I could not afford to buy the acroporas I fancied, but bought three Giant feather duster worms instead.

I then drove to Abyss and bought a male Genicanthus Lamarck . What time were you at Cockfields last Saturday? It would have been nice to meet up. I was there between 11.30 and 13.30, and attended TMC's seminar. I had left before Martin Lakin's (Acropora) seminar began.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

My Nilsen reactor has been operational for more than a month. I use 150 grams of calcium hydroxide, which lasts over three weeks. The last time I replaced the kalk slurry, the conductivity of the kalkwasser was still 8.4 mS. I dose about 3360 ml of limewater everyday, which corresponds to about 85% of my tank's daily evaporation.

I initially used a normal aquarium pump. Unfortunately, this did not produce consistent results. I had to purchase a separate feed peristaltic pump. I get 4 ml per minute effluent. I run the pump for 14 hours on and off.

I decided to make some effort two nights ago to clean the back glass of my tank for a change. I also tried to remove as much brown star polyps, which invaded my live rocks, as possible. I am overall pleased with the result. While doing my cleaning, I also cut quite a lot of frags to raise some capital for future spending. I sold them all within one day. :celeb1:

Moreover, I purchased three more frags from my favourite reef shop in the north of England. They are all from wild colonies. With this purchase, I believe that I can no longer accommodate any more frags. There is no more real estate left. I even glued two frags on top of my encrusting Montipora monaseriata. I am hoping that they will defend themselves against this invasive and fast growing montipora.

Finally, here are the latest photos:

 

[cFloor]

Everything is looking really good! I love the genicanthus angels and large colonies. Beautiful!

 

[cugly]

Great way to handle aptasia's u can't eliminate them, use them lol. Wonderful looking tank obviously whatever you're doing its working.

 

[Oldude]

very nice

 

[sahin]

Very nice Bulent. :thumbsup:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Everything is looking really good! I love the genicanthus angels and large colonies. Beautiful!

Thanks. I have three Genicanthus angels: G. melanospilos (female), G. bellus (female), G. lamarck (female turning male according to my lfs). I am also going to get a small G. wanatabei (a male if I can).

very nice

Very nice Bulent. :thumbsup:

Thank you.

Great way to handle aptasia's u can't eliminate them, use them lol. Wonderful looking tank obviously whatever you're doing its working.

Thanks. This is the first time someone has agreed with me on this. Shortly after I set up this tank, it was like this:

Every single rock and most of the gravel bed was covered by aiptasia, which spread from a single one. With a bit of determination, however, they are confined to my weir and sump. There is a cease-fire between us. We are holding our battle positions, which I am happy with.

 

[sahin]

Bulent, last month you ordered Pohls Xtra. How do you rate this product so far?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Bulent, last month you ordered Pohls Xtra. How do you rate this product so far?

I have approached to reefers on Zeovit.com to find out what this product contains. This has turned out to be a futile attempt. Sadly, noone knows the answer though a guy on here (@Allmost) is adamant that it does contain some amino acids among "other things".

I started to use it on 6th May with a daily dose of 0.5 ml (i.e. 0.2 ml per 100 l). I then increased the daily dose to 0.75 ml (i.e. 0.3 ml per 100 l). The following day I decided to stop using it. There are two reasons for it: First, I noticed a very slight increase in cyano density as well as frequency of its reappearance after syphoning. Second, Herr Hans-Werner Balling says that because I use Tropic Marin NP bacto balance, I should not really be dosing any additional nitrogen source. Doing so alters delicate nitrate-phosphate balance, which this products tries to achieve at very low levels.

During the course of using this product, I did not notice any difference in the coloration of my corals nor did I notice any difference in polyp extension. However, I do not think I used the product long enough to arrive at a firm conclusion.

Cheers

Bulent

PS. FWIW, the reason why I started with a daily dose of 0.2 ml per 100 l is that one of the prominent zeoheads advised people that this amount works for him best. I just took his word for it.

 

[this is me]

Very nice tank!! Love all the large colony of staghorn corals. The aptasia scrubber is impressive as well.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Very nice tank!! Love all the large colony of staghorn corals. The aptasia scrubber is impressive as well.

Thank you.

Some branches of my staghorns are getting more and more difficult to frag due to the thickness of their branches.

I struggled to frag one of the branches of my Acropora copiosa last weekend. I did not want to give up because the buyer was paying good money for it. When I eventually cut it, its diameter was 19 mm. I am glad that I did not cause major disturbance to adjacent corals and branches during the struggle.

As for aiptasia, they are getting a bit of a nuisance. They started to cover an anti syphon hole on the plumbing inside my weir. When I switch off my return pump, almost 90% of my weir's volume is drained into sump as opposed to only 30% because there is no anti syphon break. As a result, some of the sponges growing in the weir get exposed to air. Fortunately, there is enough capacity in my sump to accommodate excess water from the weir.

 

[sahin]

Bulent, any chance of posting me a decent size frag of this stag:

I will post a nice sized frag of my Red Planet back to you.

Or if you are coming down to London any time soon, let me know. I like the fact that it grows so thick branched.