90g Mixed Reef

[ReefJCB]

Hopefully the BTA ends up in a great spot.

 

[leahfiish]

Yeah, so far it's pretty good, not exactly where I wanted but that's okay.

 

[Matthew Frost]

Yeah, so far it's pretty good, not exactly where I wanted but that's okay.

At least its visible. [emoji3]

 

[leahfiish]

This picture makes Sherbert look tiny but I believe he's almost fully grown.


Despite siphoning out the cyano and cleaning off all the rocks, it keeps coming back quickly. I highly suspect that part of the problem is flow. I'm waiting to see if I am upgrading before deciding how I want to deal with it. I should have some exciting things happen at the end of October.

 

[leahfiish]

Tested my water today. My nitrates are down to about 15 according to the Red Sea test kit. Which was surprising since my cyano keeps getting worse. I have a microscope to confirm the ID just waiting on slides to come in the mail. I cleaned it all out on Tuesday but it's already back, just as bad if not worse today (Thursday). I've aimed a powerhead at one of the worst parts to see if it helps.
My alkalinity is dangerously low, I've been pretty busy lately and have kinda been neglecting dosing figuring the extra water changes I've been doing would correct it but apparently that's not the case. I'm glad I decided to test today. This is why I like lps and softies, when I neglect the tank they don't really care. If this tank was sps dominant with my current alk level they would be dead. Lol.
My male Clownfish LOVED the anemone and the female didn't care about it until last night when she decided she liked it too and kicked him out. And now she keeps chasing him away from it. She is so rude.
Edit: phosphate was at about 0.16 maybe a little lower, which is about the same as last time I checked. I'm going to try to do a water change tonight if I can.


Cyphastrea is encrusting already, very exciting!

 

[leahfiish]

I'm going to try setting my lights only to the deepest blue setting for the next few weeks and see if it helps with the algae.

 

[leahfiish]

Made some new saltwater last night that was about 2/3 aqua vitro salinity and 1/3 instant ocean. I typically use 100% salinity and don't usually check the parameters of the new water other than temperature, but I did today since I was curious about why my alkalinity was dropping so low. Turns out the new water is 6.5dkh.... Huh?? Last time I checked 100% salinity it was 8.0 but that was a different bucket. I expect IO to lower the values a little bit but not that much. So I held off on my water change and dosed some alkalinity into the mixing container, I'll check it again when I get home.

 

[leahfiish]

Still getting some weird alkalinity readings, still trying to figure that out.
The anemone keeps moving towards the back. ;Facepalm

 

[leahfiish]

 

[leahfiish]

I went to C-Sea's Fragginstein in Cleveland... And I got 13 new corals!
1 sun coral
1 zoanthid
1 torch
1 chalice
2 favias
2 ricordias
5 acans

Better pics coming once they all open up.
Still struggling with cyano. Doing a water change tomorrow and siphoning it all out... Again.








Here's a few pictures from the tables

 

[leahfiish]

Really love this new one

 

[leahfiish]

Wanted to give a quick update.
I'm currently acclimating my new crescent tail fairy wrasse into my display after his successful qt period. Right now the boss of the tank is my female clown, who chases my hooded fairy wrasse pretty regularly. In return, the hooded fairy wrasse chases the jawfish back into their burrows, and also occasionally chases the male clownfish. The new crescent tail fairy is about half the size of my hooded fairy, so I'm hoping there's no issues there and that my hooded fairy isn't too hard on the new guy. I'm using an acclimation box to gauge any issues, but still a little bit worried.

Most of my new corals are looking good, kind of having an off day today though as my torch, trachy, and favia are a little shrunk, not sure why. I really love all my new corals, I have no buyer's remorse and I'm glad I broke my budget.

Also, my clownfish decided they love my anemone a little too much. I had to seperate it in my acclimation box, it was pretty beat up and I don't really think it's going to recover.

In other news I am going forward with my upgrade soon. I've got my plumbing already, and my tank, stand, return pump and overflow box are all on the way. I am going to be drilling my tank myself, which makes me very nervous, I've never done anything like that before and it's a very expensive mistake if I mess up. I would appreciate any advice here.

Once I get the tank home, the plan is to fill it with RODI water until it's just below the drain, then mix the salt in and add a heater. Once it's mixed and ready I will drain my current tank and catch my fish out so I can take my sump out of the stand. I'll move the rocks and corals as it's draining to the new tank. Then I'll quickly plumb everything in, and full the sump up with stored saltwater, and reintroduce my fish.

I'm trying to plan everything out ahead of time to make that transition as smooth as possible. I've drawn out my plumbing and I'm going to fit and glue as much as I can before the transfer so it goes as smoothly as possible. It's going to be tricky but I really hope it works out.

 

[leahfiish]

Here are some recent pictures.

 

[leahfiish]

So the acclimation box failed and the new crescent tail escaped into the tank.
He is shy but I watched for 30 minutes this morning and he was becoming more and more brave. Unfortunately the male Clownfish is chasing him, as is Sherbert, occasionally, but I think he will settle in. It is really impressive watching Sherbert flare his fins out to show him who is boss. I've also noticed Sherbert chasing the clownfish today, usually is the other way around.

 

[leahfiish]

New Crescent tail wrasse has settled in very well, no issues with any of the other fish. Great outcome!
The anemone also escaped the acclimation box and is now attached to my kessil mounting arm clip on the top of my tank. Interesting.

 

[leahfiish]

Making progress with the sun coral

I start by feeding it either reef roids or frozen rotifers, this seems to make it open up quickly. The right side always opens first.



Then I follow it up with mysis

I am not really sure if the mysis is necessary, but I like it because I can actually watch it eat it, and know that certain polyps got food. It's hard to know if they are actually eating the rotifers or reef roids. I would love to hear any input on this.

Also, this is a lot of food so I am thinking about switching to a tupperware method for feeding unless the small particle foods are enough, or it learns to open without having to waste the rotifers and reef roids.
My blastos seems to like the rotifers as well. I wasn't super impressed with the reef roids overall. Some of my acans showed a feeding response but nothing that wouldn't happen with other foods. But if it keeps my sun coral happy I will probably repurchase.

 

[leahfiish]

I tested my water today because some of my corals have been looking angry. My orange blasto was shrunken, yesterday one of my acans wasn't totally open, and my trachy hasn't really opened 100% since last week. Today it is especially shrivelled and I noticed some bleaching on the bottom? I'm not sure if this is normal but I've never noticed it before.
Sg 1.026
Mg 1440
Ca 400
Alk 8.1

I am having trouble with my alkalinity test or my reef fusion causing weird test readings. I am in contact with Seachem about it. I've been trying to dose 10ml of reef fusion every day and After I test, for the next 24-36hrs my alkalinity will read very high and then drop down to the normal level (currently 8.1 but I am trying to slowly raise it). This is pretty annoying because it's difficult to tell exactly how much my dose is raising my kH. I doubt it is actually swinging that much but we'll see.

 

[leahfiish]

Also, after watching Brs's recent video with par charts for the ap700, I think I'm going to raise my light intensity slightly. I have it maxing at 40% right now but I think I'm going to slowly bump it up to about 65-70 over the next few months and see how everything does. I don't think my corals on in the bottom 6" are getting quite enough light.

 

[leahfiish]

I gave my powerheads a good clean today, scraped the glass and tested phosphates >0.36, but at least my acans look happy. Lol
I added some new phosguard and stared carbon dosing again...

 

[leahfiish]

Blasto is mostly back to normal today.


My overflow box for my new tank arrived, too.

That front part is the only part that goes in the tank
Build quality seems solid and modular marine was very quick to reply to all of my dumb questions.