New hobby I've found, time for a huge thread.

[BrianKC]

Also also...a lot of folks don't even check ph regularly...alk, calc, and magnesium (the big three) are much more indicative of good chemistry...8.5, 450, 1320, respectively, is what you aim for. And, if magnesium is out of whack the other two are hard to control...magnesium is the chemical glue for the other two.

So I'd definitely recommend getting magnesium and phosphate kits. You can take your pick on Mg tests, but I definitely recommend the Hanna phosphorous ultra low range tester...it's pricey but really none of the other kits are very accurate. If you get it, you have to do some maths to convert the P reading to the PO3 reading we use. Take the result it shows and multiply it by 3.066 divided by 1000 to get your phosphate result...e.g., if the result is 30...
30 X 3.066 / 1000 = 0.09ppm.

 

[leviburns89]

Phos and mag are def on the list of stuff to buy b4 corals go in.

And you are probably right about nitrates @ 15. I am super duper colorblind, so all of my readings have to come from the wife, and picture comments on here lol.

 

[leviburns89]

Finally got her all lit up. Looks really good. Dslr photos will start once corals are in.

This is with one 10000k t5ho 54w, and one ati Blue Plus 54w. Both are 48"

Will be retrofitting one more t5ho fixture with true actinic to add as a moonlight, and 165w of leds coming soon.

For those who ask... the peice in the center of the top rim of the tank, is an improvised center bracket. Somehow the original bracket broke, and the tank was bowing like mad. So I welded together a 3/4" bracket to keep it in check. Ahhh the powers of having a tv effects lab at my disposal.

Asterina starfish ducking away from the light

Lemme know what you guys/gals think!

 

[BrianKC]

Looks great!

 

[leviburns89]

here's a better pic of the little guy. He sure is cute when he's stretched out

 

[leviburns89]

Was doing some in-depth staring at my tank this morning, and I've noticed some of the live rock had copepods scurrying all over, and a few tiny snails as well.

But I also noticed, they are sticking to the colonized live rock, and not venturing onto the the original base rock.

Will they migrate once there is sufficient algae growth? I would love to have this amount of life on the remaining 90% of the rock, but they seem to be happy where they are.

Even the small starfish never venture off the rocks they came on.

 

[Jkellerjk01]

How just how did you get live rock free!? I needed so much live rock I made my own, the problem is from start to finish takes 3 months b4 it's good enough to even start to seed and cycle it. I have this in stages and just now doing a seed/cycle on my 1st 45 lbs

 

[leviburns89]

How just how did you get live rock free!? I needed so much live rock I made my own, the problem is from start to finish takes 3 months b4 it's good enough to even start to seed and cycle it. I have this in stages and just now doing a seed/cycle on my 1st 45 lbs

I found a guy on craigslist. The rock still took like 2 months to clean and cure.

They key with my frugality, was being able to buy like 2 tanks for $30, then sell one for $35.

I bought 2 brs reactors for $45 on craigslist, then sold one for $60 on ebay.

I look at Craigslist like 4 times a day, every day, most of the time it's crap, but the few times something good pops up, I'm jump on it before anyone else has a chance.

 

[leviburns89]

Time for a good update!

So the tank has been great, params are in check, and a light algae has formed. There is a little bit of hair algae here and there, but purple coraline is starting to cover the rocks.

Made my first coral purchase!!
Vivid aquariums is such an amazing company.

Here's a pic of the frags in the acclimation tank

And here they are just 1 hour after introduction to the tank

Orange ricordea shroom

Blue Spot Red shroom

Fluorescent Torch

Eagle Eye Zoas

Sunny D Paly (closed)

Alien Brain Maze


They are all apparently loving the tank, when they arrived, they were all closed up, and the guide said they could take up to a week to open, so to be fully open and popping in 1 hour... proof is in the pudding.

Before

After 1 hour

Also, vivid hooked me up, the zoas were suppose to be 10 polyps, I counted 28. The alien brain was supposed to be 1"x1", it's 1x3.5". Pretty much the case with all the corals, got way more than I ordered. Will def be purchasing from them again.

On a side note: BUY CALIBRATION FLUID for your Refractometer, just got mine in and my device was reading .02 off when calibrated with RODI water. Read a huge article on this, and moral of the story is, spend $10 now to save your investment.

Let me know what everyone thinks

 

[BrianKC]

Amazing! It's officially a reef! Looking good!!

 

[leviburns89]

Here's one of the hermits I got cleaning up around a ricordea

 

[leviburns89]

So after finding out that my torch coral was injured via shipping, I ended up losing it to BJD (brown jelly disease).

Luckily the company I bought it from (vivid) is amazing, and refunded my money immediately.

I then took that money, and bought this hammer

And this zoa (unknown)

The zoa is tiny, the polyps are the smallest I have ever seen, but the colors are electric. It was a no name, but like I said, the polyps are smaller than an airsoft BB.

Do polyps grow in size? or just in number?

 

[BrianKC]

Yeah. I've never had great luck with torches. The branching hammers seem to do really well though. Regarding the zoas, I've generally not seen polyps get bigger, just multiply. Though, if you just got them they may not be fully extended yet, so might get a bit bigger in the next couple days. They look nice!

 

[leviburns89]

Here they are in relation to a sunny d paly, and a colony of eagle eye zoas. They are tiny in comparison.

But once they colonize, regardless of size, they will add a huge amount of color.

Now for a 2 week break, then hopefully I can add an acan lord and a blue zoa to the mix, or red, still need some red in the tank

 

[peterdavies]

Looking good, I'm at pretty much the same stage

 

[leviburns89]

Looking good, I'm at pretty much the same stage

Thanks!! I will check your build out!

 

[BrianKC]

New hobby I've found, time for a huge thread.

Here they are in relation to a sunny d paly, and a colony of eagle eye zoas. They are tiny in comparison.

But once they colonize, regardless of size, they will add a huge amount of color.

Now for a 2 week break, then hopefully I can add an acan lord and a blue zoa to the mix, or red, still need some red in the tank

I might stand corrected. I just noticed mine has dropped a couple new polyps and they're much smaller than the others. So maybe yours will grow up. Live and learn.

 

[leviburns89]

They are definitely bigger now that they are fully opened, and quite beautiful. I will make note if they grow.

 

[solidcore]

progress is good, free stuff is always nice!

 

[leviburns89]

Time for a 1 month update on livestock.

Eagle Eye zoas: counted 3 new polyps, 32 polyps total

Unknown yellow zoa: 1 new polyp, 13 total

Sunny D Paly: both polyps finally open

Alien Brain: starting to fully encrust the rock it was shipped on.

Blue Spot Discomosa: migrating off rubble, peice of foot protruding (new frag)

Ricordea Florida: grew a new mouth, fragged into two, now I have 2 ricordea

Torch Euphylia: died, replaced with purple/green hammer; has new head forming.


Everything has been going exceptionally well. My only issue is these GD HYDROID JELLYFISH!!! You can see in the pics below, there are thousands. I clean the glass every day, and all it does is blow them around, and they land on corals and irritate them. They are the bane of my existence right now.

Doing weekly 10% wc, and vacuuming the sand each time.

Going to get a couple new corals for my birthday next week, and will also treat myself to a pair of LEDS. Thus allowing me to run one ati Blue plus t5, and an ati actinic.

The combo of blue plus, and 10k isn't giving me the pop I want in all of my corals. Some of the more florescent ones look great, but the others such as the hammer, and sunny d paly aren't popping at all.

So I will provide growth with the LEDS, and color pop with the t5s.

Ideas? Comments? all welcome