My minimalistic 180g SPS tank

[codydemmel4]

I'm glad to here things are looking up!

Thanks! Last night I was kind of tired of looking at any coral that was STN or had algae spots so I fragged them all and threw any out that were pretty bad. So all in all, right now I probably have around 20-30 frags left in the tank.

So I am pretty much starting from fresh and going to just let things go by themselves and not make any changes from what I have done in the past 2 weeks.

---Which is keeping alk as stable as possible, testing everyday.
---Dosing flatworm stop everyday (have seen increased PE and color on stable corals, which is about 4 but still promising signs haha)
---Dosing coral booster every other day, good mixed with FWS
---Reduced T5 photo period to 8 hours a day
---Took GFO offline
---Feeding fish at least 3 times a day to try to get some phosphates and nitrates for the corals


We will see how the healthy frags do with this going forward. Time to keep my hands out of the tank and let things go.

 

[Geeray]

Thanks! Last night I was kind of tired of looking at any coral that was STN or had algae spots so I fragged them all and threw any out that were pretty bad. So all in all, right now I probably have around 20-30 frags left in the tank.

So I am pretty much starting from fresh and going to just let things go by themselves and not make any changes from what I have done in the past 2 weeks.

---Which is keeping alk as stable as possible, testing everyday.
---Dosing flatworm stop everyday (have seen increased PE and color on stable corals, which is about 4 but still promising signs haha)
---Dosing coral booster every other day, good mixed with FWS
---Reduced T5 photo period to 8 hours a day
---Took GFO offline
---Feeding fish at least 3 times a day to try to get some phosphates and nitrates for the corals


We will see how the healthy frags do with this going forward. Time to keep my hands out of the tank and let things go.

I have seen others dosing flatworm stop on a continuous basis what is the thinking behind this?

 

[codydemmel4]

I have seen others dosing flatworm stop on a continuous basis what is the thinking behind this?

I first started using because I thought I had flatworms and was hoping this would stop the spread of them along with basting my corals with wrasses. However I shortly realized after the struggles of my sps was due to alk swings (small ones like 8-9 overnight or something like that) and realized that once they swung from 8 to over 10 when I was on vacation. I was being lazy with the reef and wasnt testing alk a lot, maybe once a week. well I learned my lesson there, till I know I have it dialed in for over a week, I will be testing everyday.

There also has been a lot of people who just dose flatworm stop and coral booster as they said it promotes stronger growth and healthier colors. Not sure why they said it but since I have the bottles already and I have enough to last over 3 months still, I will continue to dose them and see if I see anything great compared to how the coral growth was for me before I moved and got lazy with the reef. So I will let the next 3 months decide if I will buy more after that or not.

 

[Hentz]

I just finished my Flatworm Stop. I'll buy some more here soon.
I never had AEFW when using it (aside from my small outbreak a few weeks ago).
The reason I doses it was because I also heard the Acropora produce more slime and it gives them a stronger structure. My corals definitely were a bit more slimey than normal and I also saw quicker growth from them. So I'm sure using it in combination of CB, Acropora would go nuts lol.

 

[codydemmel4]

I just finished my Flatworm Stop. I'll buy some more here soon.
I never had AEFW when using it (aside from my small outbreak a few weeks ago).
The reason I doses it was because I also heard the Acropora produce more slime and it gives them a stronger structure. My corals definitely were a bit more slimey than normal and I also saw quicker growth from them. So I'm sure using it in combination of CB, Acropora would go nuts lol.

Yup exactly, hopefully I will find out in the near future once everything gets growing so I can see how they react. I am going to be picking up some new pieces tomorrow so we will see how they do once in the tank too.

 

[slin1977]

Hope to see you back on track soon mate, hang in there buddy, it's nice to share our enthusiasm with fellow hobbiests even the good and bad times.
Recently I have managed to change twice my system volume of water and slowly cycle through my lighting T5 tube changes all this over a period of three months. I'll be upfront and say I have stopped tinckering with dosing anything and chasing numbers, no feedings other than fish food. My tank is responding favourably as a result.

 

[codydemmel4]

Hope to see you back on track soon mate, hang in there buddy, it's nice to share our enthusiasm with fellow hobbiests even the good and bad times.
Recently I have managed to change twice my system volume of water and slowly cycle through my lighting T5 tube changes all this over a period of three months. I'll be upfront and say I have stopped tinckering with dosing anything and chasing numbers, no feedings other than fish food. My tank is responding favourably as a result.

Thanks mate. it is hard sometimes to just sit there and watch majority of the pieces decline because of one mishap but I am realizing that I have to go back to the basics of how my last tank was before the move when I didn't have time to go over and look at it all the time and all i did was feed the fish and check on it once a day (was in the basement and obviously had a doser and ato) but they corals were the best I have seen and now I am trying too hard to get growth and corals and messing everything up.

Just gotta slow everything down haha. Hard but most important thing.

 

[codydemmel4]

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Here are the good frags with good PE but I still have one new one that turned bad and has me worried a little bit. Alk is at 8.5, but I am going to lower it and keep it between 7.5-8

 

[codydemmel4]

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Then here is the bad one. Not sure what's going on

 

[codydemmel4]

hoping the right direction

hoping the right direction

So I am hoping that my tank is starting to go in the right direction, by the look of the corals it sure looks like it and the fact I see new coralline growth everyday I think is a good sign too, I had it before but it was kind of just there now I noticed it growing all over the tank everyday.

<a href="http://s1381.photobucket.com/user/codydemmel4/media/new%20180/FBA687AA-496A-4F81-A5DA-2F9DA1744F78_zpsu5dazpfp.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah230/codydemmel4/new%20180/FBA687AA-496A-4F81-A5DA-2F9DA1744F78_zpsu5dazpfp.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo FBA687AA-496A-4F81-A5DA-2F9DA1744F78_zpsu5dazpfp.jpg"/></a>

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[LimeTwist]

Nice colection you got there

 

[codydemmel4]

Nice colection you got there

Thanks a lot, right now just really trying to keep things as stable as possible and not lose anymore frags. if these new ones die after looking this good with no swings, then I know somehow it is something else going on. Not sure what it possibly would be but we will find out soon

 

[HuskerBioProf]

How are all of those lyretail working for you? I would like to have a big group of anthias in my upcoming 150. I'm trying to decide on which species and how many. I like the hardiness of the lyretail, and the purple color of the certain males, but I have heard they can be aggressive, hard to keep in groups, and don't shoal as well as the dispar.

My current thought was maybe ~8 dispar plus a bartlett's. Those would be the only fish I plan on adding to my current 40 breeder stocking.

 

[codydemmel4]

How are all of those lyretail working for you? I would like to have a big group of anthias in my upcoming 150. I'm trying to decide on which species and how many. I like the hardiness of the lyretail, and the purple color of the certain males, but I have heard they can be aggressive, hard to keep in groups, and don't shoal as well as the dispar.

My current thought was maybe ~8 dispar plus a bartlett's. Those would be the only fish I plan on adding to my current 40 breeder stocking.

They are working great and always swim together, sometimes they will chase eachother to the other side of the tank but thats it and the next minute they will be swimming next to eachother. I am actually thinking about adding a couple more.

 

[HuskerBioProf]

Interesting. I might consider them, instead. Did you buy them all as females or did you have a male? I may have missed it. Do you just order a bunch from something like live aquaria? I'd like to get one of the purple fiji males and a bunch of females (6-8).

 

[codydemmel4]

Interesting. I might consider them, instead. Did you buy them all as females or did you have a male? I may have missed it. Do you just order a bunch from something like live aquaria? I'd like to get one of the purple fiji males and a bunch of females (6-8).

I ordered 4 females and a male from live aquaria. Make sure to get the male larger then the females and you will be fine.

 

[codydemmel4]

Just got my ULR hanna checker, instead of my low range as that always tested 0.

Well I just tested my ULR twice, got 1 and 2 so I definitely need to feed more or add more fish or both.

I find it very hard that my system is keeping it that low, but clearly it is. All I am doing right now is the skimmer and cheato, I took the gfo offline about 2 weeks ago. Right now I feed the tank at least 5 times a day with 4 times being flake foods and one time at night it being frozen mysis. Should I be feeding even more?

My livestock:
1 blue powder tang
1 purple tang
1 yellow tang
1 blue eye kole tang
4 female lyretails
1 male lyretail
1 blue chromis
1 leopard wrasse
1 hovens wrasse
1 yellow coris wrasse
1 green wrasse
2 clownfish
1 diamond spotted goby



I wouldnt even know what type of fish to add at this point but to maybe add more female lyretails or some more blue chromis?

 

[Pife]

Get 3 or 4 more leopard wrasses.

 

[happyhourhero]

I see a spot for a hawkfish

 

[HuskerBioProf]

Just got my ULR hanna checker, instead of my low range as that always tested 0.

Well I just tested my ULR twice, got 1 and 2 so I definitely need to feed more or add more fish or both.

I find it very hard that my system is keeping it that low, but clearly it is. All I am doing right now is the skimmer and cheato, I took the gfo offline about 2 weeks ago. Right now I feed the tank at least 5 times a day with 4 times being flake foods and one time at night it being frozen mysis. Should I be feeding even more?

My livestock:
1 blue powder tang
1 purple tang
1 yellow tang
1 blue eye kole tang
4 female lyretails
1 male lyretail
1 blue chromis
1 leopard wrasse
1 hovens wrasse
1 yellow coris wrasse
1 green wrasse
2 clownfish
1 diamond spotted goby



I wouldnt even know what type of fish to add at this point but to maybe add more female lyretails or some more blue chromis?

Have you seen any benefit to keeping low phosphate? Will all those tangs, you certainly can't grow any algae. My SPS colors and growth really perked up as soon as I got rid of the GFO and stopped checking my phosphate. I imagine I am around 0.2-0.5ppm, but I haven't checked in months.