90g living room reef

[Schnizzle]

Thought I would share some of my clean up crew additions today. I had an abalone and two turbo snails but they didn't make it. The turbo snails were only to combat the GHA but that is gone now (they passed prior) so I wont be adding any more. The abalone was fascinating to me and I would love to try another. Interestingly enough, the tube worm on its shell survived and is still growing well.

I'm finding that I don't have much luck with mail order critters. The exception to this is orders I get from @reefcleaners . They have been doing quite well. I would say I have over 90% survivability from John vs well below 50% from others I have tried. This may well be something I am doing wrong but I have been following provided instructions to the letter.

This is the Strawberry Crab, Neoliomera pubescens. Very high energy when it decides to venture out, which is completely random. I cannot hand feed it like I can the Emerald Crab. This one retreats when I move towards it in the tank. However, if I am outside he seems unbothered. It is a he, crabs are easy to sex. He's an adreanaline junkie and has been known to cliff dive. I just cant catch it on camera.

This little periwinkle was a welcome hitchhiker that came in with some cerith snails. After seeing it a few times the first couple weeks it seems to have disappeared. I have not seen it or the shell for a while.

I picked up a Pencil Urchin. I love the look of the Long Spine Urchins but I'm afraid of being stuck. I already have panic attacks when the foxface comes near me. It already paid off once when I was cleaning GHA out of the tank and bumped the urchin. Stubby spines saved the day! As I posted this picture I noticed the periwinkle here as well hiding at the top.

I found a Banded Serpent Sea Star that was rather unimpressive in color but super active. I definitely enjoy searching for this little guy. Currently its home is in the Xenia patch. A perfect spot as he doesn't have to venture far for food and can retreat under the frag plug to hide from unruly hermits.

Running fallow for 80 days really allowed the micro fauna to flourish. There was an increase in pods that can only be described as an explosion. Along with this was the appearance of some worms. Since this one I have found either a colony or one really wide Spaghetti Worm.

One thing I didn't really expect was to actually have success with tank breeding a Nassarius Snail. My snails are in a constant cycle of egg laying. Nothing for a couple weeks then one morning the tank will be covered. This little guy managed to survive to a size that my fish no longer see as food. It seems to like the front glass panel and this is where I seem to find it a few times per week. It's been really fun watching it grow from the size of a pin head to a little more than a pea now.

Sorry for all the glare and mediocre photos. I am no photographer, but here is a decent video I managed to get of it searching for food.

 

[DiscGolfRob]

Love this update! All kinds of cool stuff, in there!

 

[AiKkz]

keep the pics coming, awesome build!

 

[Mykawl]

Do you think the hydroids & bropsis got into the tank from the Chaeto? Where did you order it from?

 

[Schnizzle]

keep the pics coming, awesome build!

Thanks! It took me a lot longer to read through your build. haha I'm doing this as a feeler tank. If all goes well I'll upgrade to a 300 when we more to our forever home in the next few years.

 

[Schnizzle]

Do you think the hydroids & bropsis got into the tank from the Chaeto? Where did you order it from?

So originally I did think that. However, I recently had a snail grow bryopsis out of its shell. Not so sure anymore. Both times I had bryopsis I used Reef Flux and it took it out.

The original hydroids could have came in on anything. I'm told they simply "appear" in just about any new tank then disappear as quick as they showed up.

 

[AiKkz]

Thanks! It took me a lot longer to read through your build. haha I'm doing this as a feeler tank. If all goes well I'll upgrade to a 300 when we more to our forever home in the next few years.

Yeah my build is long because like you I over think everything and do a ton of research before pulling the trigger on something lol...

 

[telegraham]

Time to talk about my Space Invader Pectinia. It was and still is my favorite. However, there isn't much data in the way of care out there. Much of my information on it came from the label on the bag from @TopShelfAquatics and talking to other reefers that have them. Successful or otherwise they all had some great info. @telegraham was immensely helpful and appears to have given me the final pieces of information needed to save this one from the boneyard.

I added coral way too soon, in my opinion. This tank started in October of 2018. In February of this year I decided to "watch" my first live sale on the forum. I was amazed at the selection of coral available. Then I saw it and to my delight and then panic, I purchased it.

I received this coral 8 February and was thrilled with how beautiful it was. I felt it looked better in person than photos.

I placed it in the home I had planned for it and fired up the lights. I like to think this is every reefers first mistake, or two. First, I have no experience at this point in coral placement. I can follow the "rules" all I want but I didn't know my flow dynamics. Second, WOW was I not prepared for the onslaught that is The Battle of the Uglies. This will be covered in more detail in another posting.

Come 19 March I saw the first sign of trouble.

"No big deal", I told myself. There are lots of posts with people talking about coral recession and the changes they made to counter the event. I currently believe there are lots of people that have experiences like mine and give up. I chased parameters and stability. I had a Duncan coral that looked nice so I thought this thing should be doing good too. I started up my dosing pump to bring up and stabilize the alk. In doing so I failed to take into consideration that I use reef crystals (high cal and mag) and only have 2 pieces of coral at this point. This sent my cal and mag way too high. Even with water changes I was struggling to get my parameters back in the proper ranges.

Come 20 April it was clear whatever I was trying wasn't helping.

I found a few articles about people trimming coral skeleton to help them recover faster. I agree with this thought, less surface to grow over to reconnect and "seal" itself again. This is where reaching out to people helped save my coral. Sometimes you simply forget the basics and start reaching right past whats needed. I never once thought, "maybe it just doesn't like that spot". Maybe it did, maybe it didn't but this is one of the two things I did.

18 May all trimmed up and in a new home with less flow and light.

It was at this point that I was advised to stop the dosing pump. Which made a lot of sense. I think I was just being lazy or trying to be too techy. Perhaps a bit of both. I switched to the basic IO salt at this point as well in an effort to bring my numbers back down to where they belong. I got some equipment together to make water changes easier and it now takes me about 15 minutes from start to cleanup to change 20-25 gallons. From here I was able to breathe a sign of relief as recession stopped. Shortly after, recovery started. I could see new growth. I am ecstatic!

26 May

2 June

9 June

25 June

30 June

Today

This thing is FAT and I'm assuming happy. It eats like crazy and is growing again. There are also lots of short little tentacles popping out from around the eyes. Oddly enough, to me at least, the third eye reappeared right where it was starting originally. I don't know if this is memory or chance. Maybe someone out there can shed some light on this for me? I am thrilled and as with some of my prior posts, I hope this helps someone out or inspires someone to keep pressing on.

I have another success story that you can kind of see in the timeline above as well. You can see my GHA fading and the coralline coming in. That might be my next post. In the meantime, enjoy this time-lapse of my pectinia eating.

That’s a fat/happy SI! Well done. [emoji4]

Jim

 

[Schnizzle]

That’s a fat/happy SI! Well done. [emoji4]

Jim

A million thanks to you for letting me pick your brain!

 

[Schnizzle]

I would have to say that aside from the Xenia, which seems to grow anywhere, my Duncan (Duncanopsammia axifuga) is the happiest coral in my tank. While I haven't noticed any growth in the stalk, the polyps have gone wild. Some of the original seven get so big that they appear as though they are about to burst. I find it hard to believe how something so large can shrink down to nearly nothing and retreat into a pinhole when threatened or "sleeping". In this post I think the pictures will speak for themselves. Most of the pictures will have the polyps closed up so you can see the numbers. The final pictures is as it sits today when fully expanded, which is most of the day.

10 February it went in the tank.

 

[Raege]

Just got thru your thread Love the stand with the extra space! Very nice looking tank.

 

[Schnizzle]

Just got thru your thread Love the stand with the extra space! Very nice looking tank.

Thanks! I learned a lot in this build and will be changing a few things on the next one. The biggest mistake I made is pushing the sump all the way to the left. It is horrible to work in there now and almost impossible to see much of the refugium.

 

[Raege]

Thanks! I learned a lot in this build and will be changing a few things on the next one. The biggest mistake I made is pushing the sump all the way to the left. It is horrible to work in there now and almost impossible to see much of the refugium.

A reefers tale If we only knew then what we we know now . i know my next sump will be much different as well way to tight a space

 

[Schnizzle]

Well, after tank testing last night I discovered I have a new problem. Nitrates and phosphates. 15 and 0.51 respectively. In the sense of nutrients, GHA was my friend. (I'll have a post on my victory against cyano and GHA eventually) Admittedly, I have been feeding too much. I'm going back to my QT type feeding regime. Clearly everyone making it though and looking healthy says it was enough nourishment. A pinch of NLS pellets in the morning and a cube of frozen in the evening. My Ulva Lactuca isn't doing the job alone so I'm going to add gracilaria. The Foxface and Tang will love the trimmings and it's a fast grower. The sea lettuce is growing well but I don't have enough surface area for it to really explode. In the meantime, 20% water changes once a week to help get it back to coral safe ranges.

On a side note, I want a sea cucumber. Everyone says they do not tolerate high nitrates. What is "high"?

 

[Schnizzle]

Just a quick note that everything is looking good in the tank. I haven't disappeared or lost interest but getting married in September and finding out that we have a baby on the way is definitely time consuming. Hopefully I can post some good updates soon. The tank hit the one year mark in October and I think I have finally figured things out enough to advance from noob to beginner. I have managed to bring back corals from nearly dead and many of my corals are sprouting new polyps. That's all for now.

 

[DiscGolfRob]

Just a quick note that everything is looking good in the tank. I haven't disappeared or lost interest but getting married in September and finding out that we have a baby on the way is definitely time consuming. Hopefully I can post some good updates soon. The tank hit the one year mark in October and I think I have finally figured things out enough to advance from noob to beginner. I have managed to bring back corals from nearly dead and many of my corals are sprouting new polyps. That's all for now.

Congratulations! Looking forward to updates, when you have time to post them!

 

[BeardedMcG]

All that is exciting news! Congrats on everything and the success you're having with your tank is great!

 

[coralkurd]

Man I love this thread. Gives me so much hope to succeed and keep on pushing. Especially the qt parts. Please don’t stop updating.

 

[Schnizzle]

The algae... Let me tell you about the most annoying thing I have ever experienced aside from GoT season 8.
Green Hair Algae and then it's demonic friend, Cyano. The GHA got so bad at times that it would grow on top of the Cyano.

Naturally I decided to add to my clean up crew to assist in my never ending battle.

Of all the rude and expletive things to happen, Bryopsis, AGAIN! I'm not sure if this came in on the snails or the frags I ordered but here we are. I wasn't overly concerned because, as you know, this is one foe I have defeated before.

I was given a tip to use Chemiclean on the Cyano. Just so you know, follow the instructions. The above photo was just from curiosity. The skimmer is set at 0 here. Once the photo was taken I removed the collection cup and set it to wide open throttle. I had been using pillow stuffing (poor man's filter floss) but the bubbles were so numerous it decided to float up rather than stay in the trap properly. As soon as the Chemiclean was finished I dumped in the Fluconazole to knock out the Bryopsis.

Unrelated to this current posting but happening at this time was another learn from my mistakes moment. I decided to get a filter sock to use when scrubbing algae. I don't have a holder so I would just rig it up on the drain pipe while I cleaned. Well, bubbles started coming out of my return nozzles while I was scrubbing and I knew it was bad. The sock had filled with algae and leaned over to one of the 30 out of 360 degrees that would allow it to drain all the water behind my stand and onto my floor... Moral here: don't "rig" anything that you aren't going to stare at every second of it's existence. I have weights of all kinds I could have laid on the filter media but for some reason the sock seemed more fun...

Now we follow the instructions and perform the water changes after the proper period of time. First I wanted to scrub the lawn that I was growing in the tank.

After scrubbing and water changes I spotted my first bits of coralline algae. I also noticed that my rocks had a new green tint to them. I'm not sure what this is. It looks different than my other coralline, even to this day. But it proceeded to cover my rocks and really help impede the GHA from returning. That's a new friend in my book. A few weeks later...

GHA, Cyano and Bryopsis are gone. I am celebrating like you wouldn't believe. The photo above was taken in July. This week I just noticed two quarter sized patches of GHA coming in and then reducing in size. I think now the CUC, Blenny, Tang and Foxface can keep things in check. Following this post I'll post up my new feeding routine and see what others think.

I don't know if it was coincidence in timing or if the Fluconazole did kill the GHA as some others have claimed but this is my story. Hopefully anyone struggling as I did will find this post and see that there is a way to win.

 

[Schnizzle]

My current feeding routine is as follows:
1/3 a sheet of LRS Seaweed once a day
Mornings consist of a cube of P.E. Calanus or Hikari Coral Gumbo. With either of these is a small pinch of 10-15 New Life Spectrum pellets.
Evenings see either P.E. Mysis or Hikari Brine Shrimp.
Basically the tank has a P.E. day or a Hikari day. haha I need to order more LRS Fish Frenzy because everyone seemed to love that. It's just that with travel it's easier to tell people to pop out a cube of x rather than "a fingernail sized portion of this raw meat slab".

Current livestock list:
Solorensis Wrasse
Royal Gramma
High Fin Red Banded Goby with a. Randalli pistol shrimp
Banggai Cardinalfish
Blotched Foxface
Tomini Tang
Firefish x2
a. Ocellarius (juvi)
Lawnmower Blenny

Does anyone have any advice here? Am I good or still feeding heavy?