New 100gal Reef setup

[Jerm77]

day 69 cont...

day 69 cont...

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14164337#post14164337 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Smitty750
GOOD JOB BRO! Looks great very inspiring for a person who's been on the fence about starting the Reef Tank again

Thanks. I know what you mean by sitting on the fence. I couldn't pull the trigger on getting the sand and rock for almost a year. Hope you get yours started soon!




So, I went the the LFS and got an army of peppermint shrimp(4). I'll the shrimp maybe a week to see if the like to eat the Aiptasia. I grabbed some Aiptasia-X for backup.

I also wanted to share something else. My tank gets about 20-30 minuntes of sunlight through my front window everyday. so I decided to take out my D40x to try and get some nice shots. here are a few. but, I wish I knew how to take pictures - im sure they would have turned out better. I took the pictures in RAW format and did no editing. I converted them to JPG and resized them.

Note: I also removed about 35lbs of live rock and gave it to a friend starting a reef tank. I'll purchace about 50lbs more at a later date.


clowns

Bullet (dragon) Goby

close shot

wide shot

pipe organ

 

[buccard]

Those photos look good, I want to learn more about photography as well, but those pics are good.

good luck with the aptasia.

 

[Jerm77]

day 72

day 72

still vodka dosing at 1.0ml per day

I have added back the filtersock that I had removed almost a month ago. I am using a smaller sock and it fits in my bubble tower. there is a small problem after a cuple of days, the water tends to bubble out and spill out of my sump when the filter sock gets clogged. I will remedy this by extending the height of the sump walls so i can reduce or eliminate any splash out.


after the army of peppermints were added, within 2 days, all of the Aiptasia i could see were gone. although I didnt see the peppermints eat them - even the big (quarter size) Aiptasia were gone. I didn't need to use the Aiptasia-X.

I changed out my GFO yesterday and moved the the pickup and return to the last chamber in the sump. apparently the GFO can damage my skimmer if any were to get into the pump.


peppermint shrimp

My snails have seemed to have some sort of growth spurt.

update on the Hidden Cup coral HH

 

[buccard]

Great news on the aptasia, watch those stinkin shrimp though, they wouldnt leave my duncan alone and they would steal from the corals when I tried to spot feed.

looking good.

 

[Jerm77]

day 76

day 76

I have upped the vodka dose to 1.5ml.

I had a nitrate spike. This may or maynot be due to the removal of cured live rock and addition of new semi cured live rock. or could be the possibility of the addition of the new fish.

nitrates on my digital meter read 10ppm. I calibrated the meter prior to the reading. I plan to do some water changes over the next coupl of days, hopefully the frags wont suffer.

Added a bunch of life over the last couple of days.

4 sps frags (mostly unknown to me - will try and get names later on)
1 LPS ricordia
2 clams (sp unknown to me)
1 powder brown tang.

note: I did not QT the tang. I do not have one set up. unfortunately. but the tang looks very healthy and eats very well. it takes every food i've offered him. red seaweed, mysis, pellets, flake, and brine. and continually grazes the rocks. he has once nipped at one of the clams after i first put him him, left no damage and hasn't done it again. only the goby has been territorial and tried to nip.

with the addition of the new corals - I'm leaning toward changing my bulbs to a 14k or 20k. I'm not really sure yet. I dont really want the tank to be too blue. but I really dont like the yellowish brown appearance I see now.

Goby VS. Tang

Goby nips at the Powder Brown Tang

Powder Brown Tang

 

[Jerm77]

day 76 cont... new corals

day 76 cont... new corals

 

[buccard]

Looks very nice, that tang is beautiful.

 

[Jerm77]

Day 97

Day 97

hello all! sorry for the lack of updates.

I've added a few things since my last post. but, my pictures lack the quality I want. was going to wait till I bought a macro lens, but that may be a while.

to recap:

I thought I was having a nitrate spike. but, this is untrue. I am having problems with my nitrate meter. the salifert tests show 0.

I also have a small problem with my auto top off. my fill line made its way out of the sump and i spilled about 5 gallons on my floor. I have since secured the fill line so that it wont do that again. this caused a small problem with my SG. its somewhere around 1.022 currently. I am slowly raising it up. some of the sps look a little brownish - but otherwise look ok.


I went away for the weekend recently and I did the "3 days no lights" for a second time. I don't have before and after photos, but again, I really happy with the results. this time I had sps corals. everything survived.

I added 6 more sps frags from atlantis aquarium. which brings my total to 10. I'll try and get some pictures up. the ones I have taken are pretty poor.

I also added a green mandarin. great looking fish. I have plenty of pods in my tank - he seems happy so far. but he doesn't seem to like the halides and usually sticks to the shadows. cool fish, but hard to get a look at. especially since i have so many caves and hiding spots.

I'll add a FTS when the halides come on later.

again, sorry for the poor photos, I promise to get better

 

[buccard]

Looking good, I brought my SG up by topping off with salt water for a while...brought it up nice and slowly. Are the pictures showing a true color representation? It seems like your growing green coralline algae...only thing green I am growing is hair algae...looking good,its always nice to see pics even if you arent happy with the quality.

 

[Jerm77]

yes the tank is very green. the live rock I had bought, did have some green coralline on it. maybe it survived. or maybe its just a green algae. I am kind of glad the purple / pink coralline hasn't spread yet. that stuff is a pain to get off the acrylic.

 

[Jerm77]

Day 102

Day 102

I got some more frags a couple of days ago. I also primised a full tank shot.

calcium 380
alk 8.3

dosing bi-ionic 2 part. goal for calcium is 430-440. alk is good I think.

I have to mention I did stop vodka dosing about 3 weeks ago. I thought there was some kind of sludge growing everywhere. I did notice that some of my corals were getting a little more brown over the last week maybe it was the lower salinity. but I don't believe it got any lower than 1.023. but i decided to start dosing lightly again at .5ml. I have been dosing over the last couple of days. I think they are coloring up, but again it could be the salinity. i'm slowly raising that to 1.026 again.

I started to notice some bumps on my powder brown tang. I think they are white spots. I hope he hasn't picked up ich. he has also been swimming around erratically, darting back and forth. looks like he keeps eating something in the water or maybe he is agitated. although I have been feeding more phyto lately. I'll keep an eye on him - I'm really not sure if I should QT him. I havn't added any fish since my mandarin, they are supposed to be ich resistant because of their slime coat. so i'm not really sure how ich got in the tank - maybe from the frags? I'll post in the fish forum. maybe they can tell me.

some frag shots

 

[Jerm77]

Day 102 Cont..

Day 102 Cont..

more frag shots

 

[Jerm77]

day 102 cont...

day 102 cont...

some older corals revisited

 

[buccard]

Looks like everything is coming along nicely, I see your calcium is low too. I have some Dowflake coming soon to boost my calcium-mine is right at 350=From what I understand 2 part is good for maintaining calcium but not for bringing it up significantly.

Here is a thread I posted in the chemistry forum recently=It has some cool links for calculating how much of what to add for boosting calcium and magnesium.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1562918

 

[Jerm77]

looks like an interesting read. thanks! hopefully I can stop the guessing with the 2 part.

 

[Jerm77]

Day 126

Day 126

Sorry for the lack of updates, but not much new going on.

the tank in getting less and less green. I've been seeing some of the purple coralline taking hold on the pumps and egg crate. Had some brown short turf algae take over, but the snails and hermits are munching away at it. It might have something to do with alk / cal. I ran out of Bi-Ionic, and I haven't been testing. I ordered the 2 part kit from Bulk Reef Supply and for now I'll plan to manually dose until I figure out how I am going to automate it. I may end up going with a aquarium controller and a dosing pump. I'm not really sure If I'll install my calcium reactor.

PH has been sitting at 7.9 - 8.0 day and night, pretty stable.

I have been on and off dosing Vodka @ .5ml per day - when I see some slime on the rocks, I lay off for a day or so. I haven't tested for nitrate of phosphate in a while.

*NOTE* I have done about 30 gallons total in water changes since the tank has been started. I continue to top off with RO/DI water. last week I picked up a Diatom filter and ran it for about 4 hours. I sucked up most of the detritus in my sump. after running the filter the water was pretty much crystal clear. Diatom filters are sweet! I saw that Paul B. had one, so I had to grab one.

*UPDATE*
The Powder Brown had gone through his 4th cycle of ICH. I have not been treating him, only feeding with a vitamin soak. None of the other fish have shown any signs as of yet. for the most part he looks healthy, although every once in a while I'll see him scratch his side on the substrate. he really hasn't had a severe break out as of yet - at most like 10-15 white spots every week and a half.

I have added a few more coral frags. All my frags that I have added are doing well and growing. except for one, It had some RTN and lost alot of tissue. I think the coral was a deep water coral and when I put it toward the top of the tank - I think there was too much light. we'll see how it does over time. I'll post some new frag shots later.

here is a FTS for now.

 

[Jerm77]

day 127

day 127

here are some of the new frags.

 

[awesomefam]

looks good, I enjoy watching the tank "grow"

 

[Jerm77]

day 130

day 130

I picked up a couple softies. got a hammer coral and a frogspawn.

thought I had a little problem with my peppermint shrimps eating my hammer. I watched in pain as I saw the peppermint just tearing out tenticles and pieces were flying all over the place.

haven't dosed vodka in a couple of days.

 

[buccard]

I saw my pepperment doing the samething to my duncan...

Tank is looking good-any reason you stopped dosing vodka?

We gottoa get this thread to page 6-it takes forever to load this page Love the pics!