30G Mixed Reef Cube

[Sumo Reef]

Used Pro mode and set a light filter at 10k

Looks great, I have the galaxy 7 maybe I should read up on the camera options too, my pics are less than average of my tank.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Just found out about my camera a bit lol galaxy s9+

Much better. You picked out some great corals!

 

[Sumo Reef]

Much better. You picked out some great corals!

Appreciate that! Last pack had too much green so wanted some red. Next I'll get some blue.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Appreciate that! Last pack had too much green so wanted some red. Next I'll get some blue.

My wife said the same thing “everything is so green”. Well, green pops!

 

[Sumo Reef]

Came home to find something on one of my acros. Panicked a little and thought it was a nudi. So I prepped some dip and pulled it off with tweasers. My guess is it was a piece of our frogspawn.

 

[Katrina71]

It does look like a nudibranch, but frogspawn too.

 

[DHill6]

I have run neo therm heaters horizontal and also at an angle without problems. All run in sumps.

 

[Sumo Reef]

It does look like a nudibranch, but frogspawn too.

Exactly! [emoji51]

Pulled it off and threw it away. Doesn't look like any bite marks on the acro. Here's to hoping it recovers [emoji482]. Polyps are still retracted.

 

[scubareefer]

I am looking at buying one of these setups, do you mind telling me what the total cost was for the tank, stand and sump? Thanks in advance!

 

[Sumo Reef]

I am looking at buying one of these setups, do you mind telling me what the total cost was for the tank, stand and sump? Thanks in advance!

I paid $900

 

[Sumo Reef]

So tank is moving along. We lost our blue reef Chromis unfortunately. His replacements were 2 green chronos and a helfrichi firefish named Petunia.

Added some pod rocks from algae barn and added them into sump where possible. Hoping these help maintain a larger pod colony. Tank was going through a major diatoms outbreak but seems to be settling. And cyanobacteria coming in now. This tank is sllloooooow on its whole new tank process.

 

[Sumo Reef]

We are now past the cyano stage and tank just received a heavy dose of elbow grease! Got some new frags and unfortunately lost our 2 acros from the original wwc frag pack to cyano - it overtook them. Tank looks awesome now and started to dose nopox to get n03 levels down a bit. Weekly water changes maintain the n03 at 20-40ppm. Never did a large water change after cycle so I believe the high levels are still just leftovers from that. Dosing them down to 2-5ppm and seeing if the water changes maintain that level.

Added a 9w UV sterilizer and set to run during the day and off at night. The flow rate is set to kill algae ~140gph.

 

[Sumo Reef]

Also, as you can see, we got another icecap1k gyre and swapped the a-b's on each of the gyres. One has two left blades and one has two right blades. They are both on alternating gyre mode set at different angles, min/max, and ramp time. Flow in the tank is perfectly erratic now lol.

 

[Sumo Reef]

Here's my light schedule on my hydra26. Mounted about 10 inches or so above tank.

 

[Sumo Reef]

Wanted to see what progress some of our first corals have made in the last few months, so I threw together these comparison pics. Enjoy!

Not sure on the name. (Pink Monticap) - Progress over a month show the ends have flared up and filled in. Decent growth on this one.

Starburst Montipora 2 months progress.
This one bleached out a little during the dino/cyano battle and had amazing polyp extension still. Color is coming back.
This one has grown over the glue and encrusted on the rockwork. Great extension towards the back-right side too.

Stellata Montipora - One month progress.
Cant really see much here. Looks like more polyps and better extension? You tell me lol

WWC Banana Table Acro - One month progress.
Not much here. Ends have flared out more and show signs of growth. Waiting for this one to encrust.

 

[Sumo Reef]

Well, ****.... aiptasia!

Dunno if I want to take a chance with peppermint shrimp after all the horror stories out there.

 

[Sumo Reef]

Bought a couple peppermint shrimp last weekend and overnight the aiptasia was gone [emoji16]

 

[Sumo Reef]

Hey Guys!

I know it has been a while but wanted to give an update. The tank had a minor mishap back in December. I left the RO unit on and overflowed the sump with freshwater. This caused a lot of my coral to die (salinity and alk swing?). I have been fighting with the tank ever since to get it stablized and healthy.

Well I am happy to tell you that for the last few months the tank is doing GREAT now! Was not happy with many aspects of my tank and was considering many options such as a Neptune, Triton, new sump etc. Well, I decided against all that. I came to the realization of the kind of reefer I want to be. I want to be engaged in my tank without getting caught up in all the latest tech and theories. I'm sure this stuff helps tremendously with larger tanks, but I don't think it is needed for smaller tanks.

So, I cut out all the fancy stuff and went back to the basics:

• Tossed the refugium.
• Tossed the UV.
• Removed the idea of needing a controller from my mind.
• Switched from pellets to stricly frozen
• Switched to the AB+ Profile for the AI Hydra26
• Changed my dual gyre settings to acheive an ~30x turnover rate (a bit complex of a schedule so ask if you're curious)
• changed temp setting to 78, down from 80
• target salinity is now 1.026 instead of 1.024 (LFS target)
• making my own Salt now instead of buying weekly from LFS (Red Sea blue bucket - LFS used this too just different salinity)
• broadcast feeding reef roids twice a week with skimmer off for a couple hours - this is preceeded by 10-15 drops of polypbooster

Also, my No3 has been sitting around 20-25 for the longest time even with weekly 30% water changes. I have had the brown dust/algae for a while and it would cover my gyres in a single day after cleaning them. So the last two weeks I did a series of 50% water changes (4 total) every few days. Last night I did my last 50% of the series which finally got the nitrates down to 5ppm (salifert).

Sadly, I have no pictures for you guys right now. BUT - I will post some this weekend and update you all on corals and livestock!

 

[Rjukan]

Glad to hear you got it turned around. I had a similar disaster on my 75g many years ago, forgot the RO on in the sump, but got real lucky in that the return pump failed before getting too much fresh water in the tank.

Looking forward to seeing some pics!

 

[Sumo Reef]

As promised!