Reef Casa Studio 12 Rescape!

[Reefing_Toronto]

This week is my my last look at some of the corals in my Studio 12 and how they have done over the last year

First off is my open brain coral. I’ve had this coral for about 3 years now and I think it has been in at least 3 tanks. It’s always been a bit of a slow grower but it’s definitely done really well. I think like a lot of my LPS corals it likes the higher nutrient levels in this tank. It’s always nice and inflated and the while it has never been the most exciting colours it is as bright as it has ever been.

The Raptors Peace favia has grown a little bit slower than a similarly sized piece in my other tank. I think it is because it is directly under the light and is probably getting a bit too much PAR but I dont really have anywhere else to put it. The colours are good so I am content to just let it grow slowly.

I’ve been really happy with how my Gorilla
Polyps have done. They have grown nicely into the rockwork and look really natural. My scans are doing pretty good as well but I’m starting to worry that they are going to get shaded by the hammers soon.

And now a moment of silence for all the blastos that have died in this tank. When I first started my plan was to have a blasto and rock flower anemone tank and I have lost 3 blastos and 2 RFAs. For some reason the blastos all melted and the RFAs didn’t do well either. It just goes to show that even the best plans don’t always work when you are dealing with living things I guess.

All in all I would say that 90% of the coral types that I have put in this tank have thrived and about 10 percent have struggled.

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

I took some whole tank photos this week because it is quite possible that this will be my last weekly update of the Studio 12 mixed reef at its best. I've really enjoyed this tank and had a lot of success (as well as some issues) but I think it might be time to try something different.

This is the first time that I have ever actually "finished" a tank and I'm definitely having mixed feelings about going through with an overhaul. However, some of the corals are getting too big and are shading each other and I don't think it will be very long before some of them (especially the hammers and torches) get too big for the tank.

All in all I have been super impressed with the Reef Casa tank and the Halo light and it's the first time I have ever had success with torch corals, which was a major win for me. The colours really popped and it looked great as a mixed reef.

I've never had success keeping acropora in any of my tanks (I think it was from not having enough flow because I was also trying to keep lower flow corals such as hammers) It seems to be a fairly common opinion that is it much easier to keep acropora in an SPS dominant tank rather than a mixed reef so that is what I am going to try in the Reef Casa Studio 12. The plan is for a total rescape but first I am going to sell or trade in most of the corals in the tank. I am going to keep the hellfire torch, orangle plate coral and yellow and blue octospawn and put them in my other tank.

I'm going to keep this thread going and document the shutting down and rebooting process and then hopefully sometime during the fall I can start to try and create an acropora tank.

Thank you to everyone for all of their feedback and support with this tank and I'm looking forward to trying something new!

 

[Reefing102]

Looks fantastic. Can’t wait to see the reboot

 

[JohnL]

hopefully sometime during the fall I can start to try and create an acropora tank.

Awesome

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

Well there is no turning back now!

Today I took most of the corals off the rockwork and put them on new frag plugs to take to my LFS tomorrow to trade. It was bittersweet starting to take the tank down but I am really excited to try something new!

I have to say that taking corals in and out of my tank is one of my least favourite things to do. I am always worried that I will break something... although I guess since I am starting the process of taking this tank down I was a little bit less nervous than usual.

I kept my hellfire torch and the blue and gold octospawn and put them in my other tank and I will ultimately hold on to the orange plate coral and the raptors peace favia and put them in the revamped acropora dominated Studio 12.

In terms of where I am going from here this is my rough plan

1) Trade in most of the corals to my LFS

2) Find somewhere that sells the liferock nano arches for my new aquascape. I know that they can be shipped but I would much rather buy them locally so they don't get broken in transit.

3) Post the rockwork with the encrusting corals and mushrooms etc. that I can't remove on Kijiji and see if I can get a few dollars for them. I don't want to throw out living things so I may eventually just give them away but there are some things that I just can't remove. I assume someone will take them.

4) Start to plan the rockwork, flow upgrades etc for the new tank.

I am planning on keeping the Halo light since one of my purposes with this is to see if it is able to grow acropora. Having said that I have never had success with them in any of my tanks so if it doesn't work I don't think the light will be the issue!

Looking forward to the changes and seeing how this all works out!

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

The Hellfire torch in its new home !

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

I made Fragbox TV!

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

On Monday I went to Fragbox (which I’m very grateful if my LFS) to trade in most of the corals out of the Studio 12… and I even made it on Fragbox TV!

I decided to upgrade the pump to the Sicce 1.0 and added a dual nozzle random flow generator as well. I’m really hopeful that this will give me enough flow for the Acropora tank without having to clutter it up with a power head. Unfortunately they didn’t have the Carib Sea Liferock nano arches that I wanted but I was able to get them shipped and they arrived intact (which I was a bit concerned about). In hindsight I didn’t need the pack of 4 and currently have 2 posted for sale on Kijiji.

I was planning on making a complicated negative space aquascape but I think I will chicken out and just put two arches together. I’ve tried all the combinations and I think this one is the best. I am trying to have as little rock touching the sand bed as possible to help with flow. I am trying to resist the urge to fill the tank with rock since the corals will (hopefully) fill it in.

The next step is to give the rock a good rinse and take the old rock work out of the tank. There hasn’t been much interest in purchasing the anacropora or encrusting corals so I think I will save one of each of the anacropora to start the new tank off with and try to save a piece of each of the encrusting corals for my larger tank. I have also bought a new proper stand because my garage sale stand isn’t as sturdy as I would like and I am having visions of the stand collapsing and dumping salt water all over the electrics. Hopefully most of that will happen on Monday.

I am going to keep the sand bed so hopefully it won’t take too long before it is ready for corals. I figure by keeping a small piece of each of the anacropora I will have a good idea of when it’s ready for the acros.

I think I have a plan and fingers crossed it all goes smoothly !

 

[JohnL]

I think I have a plan and fingers crossed it all goes smoothly !

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

This was a big week for both my tanks! Tuesday was the big switchover day. Since I also bought a proper stand for the Studio 12 tank I had to take all of the equipment out of the old stand. I figured while I had everything disassembled I would also clean my gear in my big tank and also clean the sump. Needless to say that took the better part of the day. I think I did a better job of wiring this time, it's not great but atleast all of the powerbars etc. are off the ground. SInce I have 2 tanks hooked up to my Apex there are a lot of wires!

In terms of the tank I took out 90% of the water so I was able to take off the stand without risking breaking it. I decided to keep all of the live sand and just add new rocks and water. Once I put the new tank back up on the stand I added the rockwork and refilled it. Since the rockwork was pretty stable I decided to just use coral glue to attach the two pieces rather than go through the hassle of mixing mortar.. it seems to be holding up. I am going to keep 3 pieces of anacropora from version 1 of the tank as well as the orange plate coral and the Raptors Peace favia but other than that it will be all new corals.

Since I will be growing acros in this tank (hopefully!) I have changed the spectrum to be quite a bit whiter, since I find that hard corals look better under whiter lights. Right now I am at 80% navy blue/violet, 40% white and 25% light blue. I think I will probably end up running the navy blues at 100% eventually but I will ramp them up slowly.

In terms of corals I ordered a handful from Fragbox that I will be picking up next week... I hope the tank's biome wasn't disrupted too badly and they do well but there was a sale on SPS corals so I couldn't resist!

 

[Reefing_Toronto]

Sorry for the radio silence. Life got very busy!

I’ve moved over to Instagram. Check me out @beachesreefer

Cheers!

 

[griss]

Sorry for the radio silence. Life got very busy!

I’ve moved over to Instagram. Check me out @beachesreefer

Cheers!

Bummer, I don’t do social media. I’ll miss your updates.