120L (30G?) Shallow Reef

[ENDUexe]

These clowns are fighting properly. It may be time to put one in a cage for a day or two. (Excuse the loud pump noise, that’s a cheap China mall pump that’s actively mixing new salt )

It doesn’t seem to be constant but it’s definitely more of an issue when feeding.

We also have some positive news though. I got a skimmer and added a few critters to the tank. 3x dwarf red leg hermits, 3x turbos and 3x nassarius snails.

They’re pretty similar in size. They’re trying to figure out who is dominant and will turn into a female.

I thought that was the case. Just didn’t expect them to be full on throwing down.

 

[Nixperience]

I thought that was the case. Just didn’t expect them to be full on throwing down.

Might take longer since they’re similar size. The one that submits will start twitching.

 

[ENDUexe]

It is with heavy hearts that we announce our first fallen operative.
On this day, Red Leg 003 was killed in action following an unexpected escalation of friendly fire with Red Leg 001. What initially appeared to be minor inter species bickering rapidly devolved into a high stakes shelljacking incident, ultimately resulting in the tragic loss of 003.

With the conclusion of the formalities, how on earth to I prevent my hermits from killing one another? They were all very similar in size and I’ve been feeding fairly heavily to avoid exactly this.
Is it time to go walk a beach and try find a few spare shells?

 

[Nixperience]

It is with heavy hearts that we announce our first fallen operative.
On this day, Red Leg 003 was killed in action following an unexpected escalation of friendly fire with Red Leg 001. What initially appeared to be minor inter species bickering rapidly devolved into a high stakes shelljacking incident, ultimately resulting in the tragic loss of 003.

With the conclusion of the formalities, how on earth to I prevent my hermits from killing one another? They were all very similar in size and I’ve been feeding fairly heavily to avoid exactly this.
Is it time to go walk a beach and try find a few spare shells?

Yes you need spare shells of varied sizes. They will hijack your snails as well.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

It is with heavy hearts that we announce our first fallen operative.
On this day, Red Leg 003 was killed in action following an unexpected escalation of friendly fire with Red Leg 001. What initially appeared to be minor inter species bickering rapidly devolved into a high stakes shelljacking incident, ultimately resulting in the tragic loss of 003.

With the conclusion of the formalities, how on earth to I prevent my hermits from killing one another? They were all very similar in size and I’ve been feeding fairly heavily to avoid exactly this.
Is it time to go walk a beach and try find a few spare shells?

So sorry about your loss!

 

[ENDUexe]

It is with heavy hearts that we announce our first fallen operative.
On this day, Red Leg 003 was killed in action following an unexpected escalation of friendly fire with Red Leg 001. What initially appeared to be minor inter species bickering rapidly devolved into a high stakes shelljacking incident, ultimately resulting in the tragic loss of 003.

With the conclusion of the formalities, how on earth to I prevent my hermits from killing one another? They were all very similar in size and I’ve been feeding fairly heavily to avoid exactly this.
Is it time to go walk a beach and try find a few spare shells?

Yes you need spare shells of varied sizes. They will hijack your snails as well.

Good to know. All the snails are a lot bigger than the hermits so fingers crossed I have a bit of time before any such shenanigans.

I’ll take the wife shell hunting this weekend!

 

[ENDUexe]

First, some good news.

I added my first piece of coral yesterday! A happy little GSP frag. As basic as it may be, it’s super exciting. We’ll get around to the nicer stuff once I’ve proved I can keep things alive.

Now for the bad news. It’s time to face my first adversary. Dinos are here, and they’re here in force.

Tuesday afternoon after a day of light!!!

Thursday morning after a short blackout.
This behaviour, combined with the pearling and stringy structure, leads me to believe it's Dinos and it's releasing into the water column at night.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect the cause could be high TDS supermarket RO water and too much light. My LFS is a bit of a drive away, so over the past couple of weeks I’ve resorted to using supermarket RO for top-off. It was cheap and readily available. I took a sample to the LFS yesterday and asked them to test it. Turns out the TDS is around 130–140 ppm. YIKES.

Based on other people’s experiences, it seems a full arsenal works better than any single weapon. Here’s the strategy.
Please chime in if you have any other recommendations. I’m all ears. The one thing I can’t really do right now is UV, as a proper setup is cost-prohibitive.

1. I’ve cranked up the flow as much as I can with my single small powerhead.
2. I’ve reduced the lighting intensity and shortened the duration by a couple of hours. If that’s not enough, I’ll dial it back further before trying a multi-day blackout.
3. I’ve seen a bunch of people recommend stopping water changes, but I don’t really like that idea. Instead, I’ve picked up some Seachem Reef Nitrogen and Aquavitro Seed to keep bacteria growth and nutrients up while doing regular water changes with decent RO water. I’ll siphon out any new dino growth as I go.
   My phosphate has been pretty high for a couple of weeks, so the plan is to bring it down with water changes while dosing nitrate to try to get the two in balance.
4. I’ve also ordered a live pod culture.

In other news!
The Home Assistant smart reef gets better by the day. I recently picked up a little temperature and humidity sensor and an IR blaster so I can turn my dumb aircon on and off while I’m away. Hopefully that’ll help keep the tank temperature more stable. South Africa is pretty temperate, and central heating and cooling systems aren’t all that common unless you’re a baller, so this is the next best thing.

Next up - a leak sensor for under the cabinet and a smart plug for the skimmer so I can set up water change and feed modes.

 

[Nixperience]

I wouldn’t think it’s dinos. That usually comes from low nutrients. You are in the break in period, so it’s likely diatoms, which is from the excess silicates in the sand and dry rock. Lighting does increase diatoms blooms, but they’re essentially harmless. Just don’t add too much for corals until they start to fade. Astrea and cerith snails and seeding the tank with copepods will help consume them and they will just dissipate with time as well. It’s the ugly phase which is usually in the first 3 months of a new system.

 

[ENDUexe]

I wouldn’t think it’s dinos. That usually comes from low nutrients. You are in the break in period, so it’s likely diatoms, which is from the excess silicates in the sand and dry rock. Lighting does increase diatoms blooms, but they’re essentially harmless. Just don’t add too much for corals until they start to fade. Astrea and cerith snails and seeding the tank with copepods will help consume them and they will just dissipate with time as well. It’s the ugly phase which is usually in the first 3 months of a new system.

Initially I thought the same thing but as it started to grow out, it started getting pretty stringy and it’s pearling like crazy.
I’ve also read that diatoms is a dusty like coating that is easily blown off of rocks and sand. This stuff is much more of a slime like coating that needs to be scraped from the glass or scrubbed off the rock work with a toothbrush. Even when siphoning the sand, a lot of the algae remains on sand grains so I’m effectively just mixing the algae deeper into my sand bed.

Do you think a 400x -1000x digital kids microscope would be sufficient to determine what I’m dealing with? They are like 15 USD this side

 

[Nixperience]

Initially I thought the same thing but as it started to grow out, it started getting pretty stringy and it’s pearling like crazy.
I’ve also read that diatoms is a dusty like coating that is easily blown off of rocks and sand. This stuff is much more of a slime like coating that needs to be scraped from the glass or scrubbed off the rock work with a toothbrush. Even when siphoning the sand, a lot of the algae remains on sand grains so I’m effectively just mixing the algae deeper into my sand bed.

Do you think a 400x -1000x digital kids microscope would be sufficient to determine what I’m dealing with? They are like 15 USD this side

No idea on that one lol. I just find it odd you would have dinos this early. Definitely not cyano.

 

[ENDUexe]

Update time!

The algae is still here but the bacterial dosing, a 3 day black out and getting my nitrates up definitely seemed to help a bit. The growth is significantly slower and I’ve also noticed a few patches of green hair algae popping up. I know this is usually not the best news but the way I see it, it’s a bit of competition which can only be a good thing.

Regarding stocking, I decided to pull the trigger on a small hammer frag as well as a purple dartfish and Midas blenny.
The fish are currently chilling out in holding tanks at the LFS while they undergo a 10 day quarantine but I brought the hammer home yesterday.

It seems pretty happy in its current spot and went from being retracted to extended in about an hour or two.

 

[ENDUexe]

Just a quick question regarding all dosing.

I’ve mixed up a batch of sodium bicarbonate that should net me a +0.1 dkh for every 5 ml of solution and have started dosing 5ml every morning (based on testing, my tank consumes around 0.1 per day).

I also have a bottle of the granulated all for reef standing by.
The way I see it, water changes should be more than sufficient in replenishing the consumed major and trace elements that a single hammer, couple inverts and bacteria would consume.

Am I correct in thinking I only need to dose alk to maintain stability right now or should I start dosing A4R instead of just straight alk?

 

[ENDUexe]

Please no judgment, this may have been a brainfart but the price was too good to pass up.

I picked up this little Goni frag on Wednesday. I know its almost certainly too soon but I figured that if I can keep this little thing alive, I have won half the battle. I have been spot feeding it AB+ and reef roads and things look promising so far. It sulked for a few days but it's now starting to extend (even if it is only for a few hours a day).

I also picked up a little Acan frag, a pink hammer and a teal hammer.

FTS

Tomorrow the Midas blenny and Purple Dartfish can leave quarantine so there is more to come!

 

[ENDUexe]

On the positive side of things, everything is happy and extended. I picked up these two last week Friday. The striped one reminds me of the Cheshire Cat.

Now for the not so good news... Looks like my one hammer has waminoa flatworms on it.
Do I dip all 3 given the proximity or just the one for now?

 

[squidarcher]

On the positive side of things, everything is happy and extended. I picked up these two last week Friday. The striped one reminds me of the Cheshire Cat.

Now for the not so good news... Looks like my one hammer has waminoa flatworms on it.
Do I dip all 3 given the proximity or just the one for now?

Dip all 3!!!

 

[ENDUexe]

About the goni...
I know it hasn't been very long but it seems to be happy - happy enough that I picked up another 2. They've been sulking for about a week now but look to improve daily.

Other than that, I added a few more hammer frags, two new fish (Benny the midas blenny & Jerry Springer), and a cleaner shrimp.

I also picked up two acro frags yesterday which may have been a mistake.
In my defence, they were around 5 USD equivalent and I thought I would give them a try, even if it's a canary in a coal mine kind of situation.

I plan to add a few easier SPS frags soon (Stylo, Setosa, birdsnest & Pocillopora) to see what sticks but yes, I probably should have done so before adding these two.

 

[ENDUexe]

 

[nelson850s]

It's been a long month but as of tomorrow the tank is officially 1 month old and we are finally getting somewhere. Ammonia levels are almost zeroing out and nitrate is reading at around 20ppm.

For the first 2-3 weeks, my ammonia levels seemed to be pinned. Not entirely sure why, but I decided to pick up a cheap stick-on thermometer just to sanity check myself and I'm so glad I did.

It looks like my used Inkbird may have been defective. It was reporting 25 C while the water was frigid and the stick-on thermometer was reading 15-17 C. I tried calibrating it in an ice bath and it read correctly, but only a few days later it was stuck again at 25 C while the water was cold. Around the same time I decided to check my alk, which was sitting at 5.2. I dosed it up a bit, and between that and the temperature fix the cycle finally seemed to get moving.

Needless to say, the Inkbird has been replaced, but it also led me down a bit of a rabbit hole and gave me a solid project to kill time with. I picked up a Meross MTS960 as the replacement and promptly added it to Apple Home. After realising how easily that device could be switched off by accident, I decided to go another route. I have since set up a Home Assistant server so I could put read-only tiles in front of it, but one thing led to the next and I now have a full blown reef dashboard and a laundry list of additions that I plan to add.

What started with heater control quickly became pulling my Jebao devices into HA, then building parameter logging, and finally upgrading the Noopsyche lighting control.

I really wanted to make use of the control interface that BitBarista put together, the one change being that I wanted it all accessible on my network and through HA. Given these Noopsyche lamps just straight up don't work in LAN mode and only work over a direct AP connection, step one was bridging my home and lamp networks. What I landed on was connecting an ESP32 to the lamp and bridging that into my HA instance over USB serial.

We have a long weekend coming up this weekend and I'll 'unfortunately' be going away for it, but if parameters continue to track in the right direction, I should have my first fish on Monday. Super keen!