125 w/header fuge build

[fermentedhiker]

Got an order of inverts from Bluezoo today for the header fuge. 2 pom pom crabs, 4 astrea snails, 2 zebra turbo snails, 1 randalls pistol shrimp(company for the goby), Hawaiian feather duster, electric flame scallop, and an Atlantic sand cucumber.

Also had a discount coupon with reefcleaners so I got some more dwarf planaxis, zig zag perwinkle, porcelain crab, and 3 shaving brush macros.

Of course everyone went instantly into hiding so no pictures at the moment.

 

[Ippyroy]

Very nice setup. I will happily be following along.

 

[count krunk]

any updates?

 

[fermentedhiker]

Not a lot. Shortly after this I went in for surgery and then I had a velvet outbreak which took out half the fish. I'm just getting things on an upward trend now. So of course now I'm dealing with some equipment failures. The eflux powerheads in the header tank all died and one of the sicce voyagers quit working. Then a bad connection on the header light caused it to have a ruined control plug(should have the parts on Tuesday to do repairs to the plug). I need to make tops for the 125 as I lost a few fish to carpet diving. I need to build a shelf to hold the ghl doser. Algae in the dt is minimal, except coraline which is starting to cover a decent percentage of the rockwork. Chaeto/ulva in the fuge is growing very good(deep green color and fills the chamber corner to corner and full of pods and bristle worms). Hopefully harvesting the chaeto/ulva will bring nitrates down and if not I'll have to try carbon dosing. If parameters stay in line and the couple of corals continue to survive and grow I'll be adding a large green BTA and letting it get established before moving my Barrier reef clown from my other tank where her tendency to dig is causing problems for the coral.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Finally got around to doing another big water change. So nice being able to prep for a large wc and not being carrying any buckets.

Post WC params
SG 1.026
DKH 7.6
CA 450
MG 1500
Nitrate 20(hard to tell with the Nyos color chart as the colors don't actually match after 12)
Phosphate 15 ppb

 

[fermentedhiker]

Replaced one of the eflux powerheads with a coralbox rn-1 from @Reef Breeders for the header fuge. The thing is almost too much on it's lowest setting. I'll probably have to get a second one for the other end since it's a 6 foot tank but I want to see how it runs for awhile before I get a second one.

Also setup my GHL 4 head doser that was on my other tank but it never uses enough to justify the cost of the GHL. Since this will be an SPS dominant tank it makes more sense to have it on this one. I've got all 4 heads in use for this one. Alk, Ca, TM part C, Vinegar/Vodka.

Time to get this thing in good order.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Got my ATI ICP test back and I'm happy to say it looks pretty good.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Been fighting a loosing battle with aiptasia for months now. I was making good headway with red sea aiptasia x for awhile but I think I tried to do too many at once and only partially hit a few. Which led to me having hundreds of babies show up a week later. I tried Franks aiptasia killer which works better than the red sea stuff but it's still hard to get the ones on vertical faces.

I broke down and ordered some Berghia from saltyunderground. They sent a couple extras which is nice considering they aren't cheap. I placed them in the header fuge which is where most of them are. If they are successful at reproducing I'll move some down the DT to hopefully finish off the job.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Sent in a N-DOC test. Like my other tank it shows high Organic carbon and high nitrates although not as high on the nitrates which makes sense since the fuge on this tank is working much better.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Got another Malu from Aquasd this one was a much better match to it's photo.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Got an order from bluezoo. Everything arrived in good shape and made it through acclimation okay. I got a kole tang, yellow tang, and a chocolate tang. Also made an impulse buy and got a squamosa clam as

 

[fermentedhiker]

My current battle with this tank is bubble algae. I'm hoping the tangs and orange blotched rabbitfish hold it in check in the display. The display/header fuge is another issue though. It's too small for a tang of any kind really. I find emerald crabs fairly destructive against other small invertebrates (they are crabs after all). I considered using vibrant but that puts at risk all the display macros I'm trying to get established.

 

[fermentedhiker]

So the bubble algae battle continues. Interestingly I tested nitrate for the first time in awhile and it's bottomed out at least according to API. I'll double check it again later with my Nyos test kit. I'm assuming the clams might have something to do with that, but it could just be the fuge or my light carbon dosing is having an impact. My elegance coral is closed up which has me worried. It was looking really good for a few days but if it doesn't turn around soon I fear I lose it. So far the Tangs and Rabbitfish haven't shown any interest in the bubble algae . The squamosa and Crocea clam seem happy enough and the dendros I recently added are happy as well. So I'm not sure what's bothering the elegance.