180 gallon SPS focus build

[ReefBeta]

In the passed week I started adding animals to the tank. It started with moving the big sebae anemone from the old tank because it's getting bigger and expanding and stinking a lot thing. I also moved the acanthophyllia over, because it was not doing too hot in the old tank, for unknown reason to me. The only reason I could come up is that there are three different kinds of anemone in it and chemical warfare might be a thing. It looks more puff now in the new tank.

I also moved the niger trigger and cleaner wrasse to the new tank, so that there are some fish I can feed.

Last things I moved over are the NPS gorgonian. Then I bought some more.

The white one was a surprise find in LFS. They said it's NPS, but the more I look at it, the tiny and brown polyps tell me it's photosynthetic one. Today I chatted with one in LFS that has a good gorgonian collection and it's indeed a photosynthetic one and it's called rusty gorgonian.

 

[ReefBeta]

Then I realized, since I have some coral in the new tank that I need to keep alive, and have to turn the light up, I might as well start adding new corals. So there is goes.

And the full tank shot

 

[AdamBWS]

Your scape is awesome. Looking forward to seeing what this tank becomes!

 

[ReefBeta]

Wiped the glass for the first time, and full tank shot.

 

[ReefBeta]

Noticed last night that the new trachy lost so me tissue at the edge. Didn't think it's too much problem. Today I see some stringy hanging from around it. I tried to blow it away, and end up blowing out quite some white pieces of flesh. For the whole day today it didn't open up much. So tonight I decided to do an iodine dip, added with amino acids.

Apparently, the tissue lost in the behind was a lot more significant. The white flesh was those lost tissues. It puffed up a bit during dip, which is good sight.

Before returning it to the tank, I also glued it onto a big frag disc, so that it's elevated off sand bed a bit, in case the sand was irritating it. The tank it came from in LFS don't have sand.

 

[mattgsa]

You have a really nice tank, I love how you incorporated the NPS corals.

 

[ReefBeta]

You have a really nice tank, I love how you incorporated the NPS corals.

Thank you. I always love NPS. So I'm super happy to find a perfect solution to put them in a mixed reef.

I also trying another fun coral placement: GSP on wave shield.

 

[ReefBeta]

First shipment from marine collectors arrived today. It's Bimaculatus Anthias trio. My two fish also out of quarantine, a royal gramma and a pintail fairy wrasse.


Surprisingly, the cleaner wrasse keeps picking at the anthias when they first added. Can't tell if it's just looking for new source of parasites (it will be disappointed lol), or it's actual aggression. But either way it's clear that the anthias are bothered by it. After I added the two fish from my quarantine, that attention died down, or say more distributed to all new fish. They're all out and about already.

 

[ReefBeta]

Just got the first water incident of the tank. When I feed the fish, BOTH of the check valve failed to come down, and the sump got overflowed. Fortunately I was right by the tank and managed to restart the pump before too much water got out. At the end only about a gallon came out. I'm so glad that I line the bottom of sump with shower liner. Clean up is soooo easy.

I am so replacing those expensive yet ridiculous wye check valves. The flipper check valve have yet to fail once in my 42 gallon after a year. These wye check valves are not even a month old. Don't believe in everything BRS said ...

Also I'll be adding a siphon break to both return for safety redundancy.

 

[ReefBeta]

Yesterday the reef cleaner package arrived. Hermit and emerald crabs got off to work right away. Just overnight, the algae on rocks are all cleaned off.

Before

After

The sand still need some work by the snails. Snails are slow at getting to work. Will see how it goes in couple days.

 

[ReefBeta]

Today the trachy continue to get worse. About 1/3 flesh has fallen off. The fell off flesh is already rotten and smells.

So I decided to cut of the good part hoping to save it. I didn't realize how hard it's skeleton is. It's as hard as base rock.
Here is the seemingly health half in iodine dip after the cut.

 

[ReefBeta]

Today I got some really exciting corals

First is the rainbow pectinia. Have been looking for that color morph for a long time and first time see it. So I grabbed it immediately.

Second is the blueberry gorgonian. I special ordered it from LFS.

Third is a carnation coral. I mentioned it when ordering the blueberry, totally not expecting it to be available. It looks decent in the tank.

I mounted the blueberry gorgonian under the overhang to the right.

Its polyps have not fully opened yet. So I didn't feed it tonight. Give it a day or two to settle down first.

 

[ReefBeta]

I got this aquamaxx reactor for activated carbon. I really love its quality and design. The top can be taken off without the rack, means I can take the body off to replace media without taking off plumbing.

Also the connector is standard 1/2 npt, so I can easily replace it with other connector, like a 3/8 quick connect here.

Here is it running in the sump. Haven't load any media yet.

 

[ReefBeta]

Finally added the siphon break to the return line.

Very hidden, big enough that it's not likely to clog, and still able to direct the flow somewhat.

 

[ReefBeta]

Now I realize, it has been a long time since I start new tank with sand, and kind of forgot about it. For the pass week, the brown stuff, probably diatom, are gathering on the sand. They focus on several spot and don't really move. Last night I decided to stir them up, hope it go into water column and got pick up by filter. Then this morning, the whole sand bed got a more even lighter brown... Did a water change for the first time and siphon the sand bed, there actually not much dirt coming out of it. Guess just the waiting game now.

 

[ReefBeta]

The trachy didn't make it. I have terrible record on those meaty LPS. That one looked very healthy in the LFS. I start to think maybe it was my dipping that hurted it. Maybe next time, I will just do visual inspection on the bottom instead.

 

[ReefBeta]

One of the female bimaculatus anthias died from some pretty dramatic injury. It first appeared hiding one day. Then the next day it came out and I noticed the scar on it. In the next couple days, it continue to come out for a bit of feeding, and hiding for most of the time. But the scar is getting bigger and darker. The day before it passed, it came out like half of the day. I thought it's getting better, then the next day it died ... It didn't look like caused by disease, otherwise it would die a lot faster. It looked like some sort of physical injury that's too much to heal. Maybe it's the male, which has been showing aggression to the females in the pass week. But it's unusually for it to cause damage in the belly. So the cause is still pretty mystery.

 

[ReefBeta]

I am running without a controller at the moment. Most of the equipment have smart controller already that I don't actually feel a lot need for a controller in hurry. The Maxspect Jump return pumps have feed mode already. The Maxspect skimmer also have feed mode as well as delay start.

Only one left, the UV. It should not be turned on when the return pump is off. I did try leave it on during 10 min feed mode. The temperature of the outside of the UV unit got up to 86F in 5 minutes. Not good. So I have been manually turn off the UV when starting feed mode, and turn it back on whenever I remember. Then I remember, I have a Belkin Conserve Outlet that I had hard time finding a use for it. It has a master outlet and a set of slave outlets. The slave outlet will be turned off when the master outlet is off (no current). That's perfect solution right there! The return pump is the master, UV and skimmer are the slaves. When I start feed mode on the master, after couple second delay, the UV and skimmer will be turned off. The master continue to have power, so it will exist feed mode normally. And the skimmer will start after a delay for its built in delay start timer.

The only thing I don't have right now without a controller is PH monitoring. But I honestly not too worry about that value because even knowing it doesn't help a lot in the day to day husbandry. I'm not controlling PH in any means anyway. It's more of a good to have than a must have.

 

[ReefBeta]

Was playing with flow last couple day, and got some interesting finding.

I have been using gyre mode on the MP40. I have been having trouble with getting the pump on the right front to push the flow all the way to the left end. The pump on left front have no problem pushing it to the very right end. After tinkering, I found that it was because the left pump was slightly lower, by less than an inch. After moving it up a bit, it can now push water across 6 ft length. It make sense when gyre is mean to push water in one side, and have it comes back from the other side, creating the circle. If the forward flow is too close to center, the back flow will push back the forward flow. Now I'm moving all 4 pumps closer to the surface, and printing a better slimmer wave guard for them.

 

[ReefBeta]

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