Andyf30's Red Sea Reefer 170

[Andyf30]

Quick update, I finally received my lid from Clearview! It is a thing of beauty. Even with COVID and production delays their customer service was a delight to deal with. Planning on moving some easy starter coral in at the end of next week from the WWC live sale. Parameters are stable and ammonia/nitrite has been at zero for a few days even with increasing nutrients.

Currently In the middle of a second bacterial bloom. I sort of expected that however with the dry rock start. Skimming wet to help clear it up. Looking forward to an update with color at the end of this week!

 

[Andyf30]

Woke up to an interesting sight today. Found some small white specs on my glass. I’m not sure how I got them in here, but I most certainly have copepods all over my glass. Only thing I can guess is they came in on the extra piece of real reef I got the my LFS. Regardless, never a bad problem to have, especially in a new tank!

 

[Andyf30]

Well two weeks in and between Dr. Tims and the extra piece of rock that had been in a system with fish prior to adding it to mine, my tank is now easily handling ammonia. Finally! An update with things in the tank.

A pair of black snowflake clowns. Unsure of gender yet, are the first fish members in the tank. My final stock list includes these two, a small tomini or kole tang (whichever I can find locally that is healthy), a yellow coris or melanurus wrasse, and a goby. Maybe a blenny as well (tbd).

And now for the corals that came in today from @WWC all of them opened up within minutes and look great! The rainbow monti was the freebie and looks awesome. List is:

WWC Grafted Cap
WWC Rainbow Monti
JF Sector 001 Favia
WWC Cotton Candy Chalice

I've been borderline obsessive of managing water parameters (blame the stickhead in me, give it another month and we will have acros in here I swear) and so far everything is doing well.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0 (started feeding the clowns a bit more to help bump this up)

Alk 10
Calcium 430
Mag 1380

I keep telling my fiancee to expect the uglies with the dry rock start, so with adding things happening now, I give it maybe a week before we start seeing algae and the like.

 

[Andyf30]

Weekend update:

Did a water change and a full testing gauntlet today. So far the tank has had no issues with ammonia with the clowns. Ammonia was 0 and nitrates are slightly over 0. Not quite 2 on Red Sea color chart, but just a hint there.

Mounted all of the corals after giving them a day or so the acclimate on the sand bed and put my lighting in acclimation mode for 4 days. They all look great, even the tester SPS. Went to get saltwater yesterday and my fiancee insisted on getting one single head of Rasta zoa's, which are her favorite.

I have to admit, I was worried about the monti's, but they are rock solid right now. Full polyp extension and happy as can be. I'll fully exhale when they start showing growth. If they really take off in the next few weeks I may explore a birdsnest or a green slimer or something easy.

Still waiting on the uglies! I'm starting to see some fuzz on the rocks here and there but nothing striking yet. Once I start to see some brown here and there I will add a small CUC and eventually in a few weeks a small Tomini tang.


A question for all of you R2R'ers out there:

At what point would you feel confident in adding a cleaner shrimp? I know they are very hardy, but I have been nervous about adding one this early out of fear of any kind of ammonia spike.

 

[Andyf30]

Recently posted in the equipment forum about an ATO upgrade. Man that built in reservoir drains fast. Felt good to take it out today.

Went with the XPaqua duetto. Install was easy and everything looks to be in good order. For some reason the check valve wasn’t in the packaging so I’ll contact their customer service about that.

Overall, the tank is doing great. Water parameters have been rock solid and the coral are growing well. Rasta has a new polyp coming in, the grafted monti is already visibly getting new growth, and the rainbow monti is coloring up and encrusting.

Definitely starting to head towards some algae! Kinda relieved it’s finally happening. Sooner it starts sooner its over!

 

[Andyf30]

Updated FTS:

 

[Andyf30]

Well, I am going on a vacation for the weekend later this afternoon and unfortunately the pump for the Duetto worked for one top off and now has completely failed. I woke up at 4 am to the alarm going off for no water coming through the system. Sent in a service ticket and will wait and see, but unfortunately, I am now in the position where I have to go to the LFS before leaving and get a new ATO.

The standard system could be reinstalled, but it would run dry by the time we got home.

 

[Andyf30]

Managed to scramble to the LFS and got a TUNZE nano that worked out of the box no problem and upon returning home it had held the salinity rock solid. I'll be doing a water change tonight and will take some updated photos.

Some additional updates:

Came back to a bit of algae and diatoms and I think we have finally reached the point of needing a few snails. This week I will be picking up 2 or 3 trochus snails, a few nassarius snails, and a cleaner shrimp (less of a CUC, more of a viewing favorite!)

Got a few beginner sticks coming at the end of the month from the @FraghouseCorals sale! Excited to see if my old acro tricks haven't left me. All of the corals are thriving so far. The two monti's, the most fickle of my tank inhabitants, are cruising. Both have colored up since shipping and are encrusting onto the rocks. Nutrients are still a bit low so i am trying to feed a bit more without causing a boom of algae production.

 

[Andyf30]

Somewhat of a long update. For gear: Added another mp10, one was good, but if I want this to be SPS dominated I needed a bit more. Even at 100% it was just too lopsided of a flow pattern. Additionally, got an ATO reservoir that finally replaced the home depot buckets that had been sitting in my living room.

As for coral, some new arrivals. Added a Green with blue tips frogspawn and a frag of RR Pink Cadillac. The Pink Caddi grows like a week at my LFS and is their cheapest frag available. Also, it was on my list anyway, so I won't be mad if it takes off. The order from fraghouse comes this Friday, and so far the Pink Caddi hasn't lost any color, is encrusting, and has great polyp extension. Between the additional flow and staying on top of parameters, I am excited to see how these new frags do!

The list showing up Friday is:
- BC Aquatic man
- PC Superman
- Paletta Pink tip
- FHC Powerhouse
- FHC Ugly duckling (this frag looked huge and was super discounted so I couldn't resist)
- FHC Neon ******
- FHC Purple Bonsai
- Reef Pets Blue Tip Green Slimer
- WWC Yellow tips
- Uchins Shimmer and Shine

With that list, I will likely only have room for 2 or 3 select frags to allow grow in (luckily, I only have 2 or 3 left that are must haves for me)

I know I have been a bit slow on pics, so I will update Friday when everything comes in.


Lastly, added one new fish. Taking it slow with them. Added a small juvenile colored melanurus. Looking to probably add a goby, a captive bred mandarin, a firefish, and a small tang down the line. That should pretty well complete the fish list.

 

[Andyf30]

Corals have arrived! Most had polyp extension in the bag. The only one that seems a bit browned out is the Uchins Shimmer and Shine, the others all look amazing and are CHUNKY. The Blue tip Green Slimer is roughly 3 inches tall.

From L to R:
WWC Yellow tips, FHC Neon Gasm, BC Aquatic man, PC Superman, FHC Bonsai, FHC Powerhouse, Uchins Shimmer and Shine, and FHC Ugly duckling

Had to glue these two down as they didn't fit on the frag rack:
Paletta Pink tip and Reef pets blue tip green slimer

 

[Andyf30]

Had an oopsie a week and a half ago while testing an auto feeder and dumped pellets into my overflow. Got most of them out but of course a few were still there. Left for a couple day road trip and came back to the uglies! Got what I think is brown, red, and green cyano all over the place. Thoughts on my id? Tried my best to get decent pics. Did a big water change since I know the source of the nutrient spike and the algae I siphoned off or stirred in the sand hasn’t grown back so that’s good.

 

[dlish89]

Man what a rough start you had. I give you credit for hanging in there. I am curious ... who paid for the replacement tank? I just started up a 170 myself and its great to read how others are doing and see what changes are made on the system. I can see wanting a new ato already but I do not want to have anything outside of the stand. So that will be a project Keep it coming. great looking tank

 

[Andyf30]

Man what a rough start you had. I give you credit for hanging in there. I am curious ... who paid for the replacement tank? I just started up a 170 myself and its great to read how others are doing and see what changes are made on the system. I can see wanting a new ato already but I do not want to have anything outside of the stand. So that will be a project Keep it coming. great looking tank

Thanks! I ended up paying for the replacement, but I have to give Red Sea kudos, despite the customer service issues initially they gave me the new display approx. $400 off retail.

As far as changes, the ATO has made my life so much easier. I know a lot of people use side cabinets for this model and the 250 to maximize room for equipment. There is a specific Ikea model too that matches the stand. I already have a few small changes down the line, the main one being the replacement of the diaphragm valve and the drain. Nice stuff, but I’d rather have a gate valve in there.

Thanks for following along! I’ll post an update in the next few days!

 

[Andyf30]

This weeks update:

Nothing new to really report for stocking. Had some corals come in from WWC's black friday flash sale. Only a few! Got an acan, a gonio, a purple stylo, and an ultron favia. The stylo came in a bit banged up, however WWC gave me a credit for it. It survived to boot! Never a bad thing.

Tank is still settling in. All of the sps have maintained most of their color and are encrusting well. The WWC yellow tips especially has taken to my tank. I believe I had a salinity swing in the last few days that was rectified by a water change yesterday. The JF Jackolantern and the Paletta pink tip seemed to take it the worst, with everything else seeming fairly stable. They have a bit of algae growth on some receding areas, but haven't gone completely yet.

As for the algae outbreak, after doing some peroxide testing, I have determined I in fact have a mix of cyano and not dino's as I had initially feared. Did some reading on reef cleaners and came to the conclusion I have Calothrix cyano which looks a lot like dino's, but dino's don't bubble in a peroxide bath and cyano does. Cue long exhale. Now I am just waiting on some additional cleanup crew to arrive to help battle the problem back in addition to manual removal.

I have a question, I am currently running my 2 mp10's on the back of my tank. I was wondering if I should move one of them, or both of them, onto the sides? Maybe get more of a cross flow on the scape? I certainly have a lot of flow, but it is mostly indirect on the sps and the lps are getting a fair amount too. Looking for creative ways to make everyone happy in a small tank. Anyone with a RSR170 or similar that has had this problem?

I will post some updated photos tomorrow when the daylights are on, I am currently not equipped in the least to take photos with blues as of now. Need to get a gel lense pretty badly.

 

[Andyf30]

Some photos as mentioned above:

New frags that have come in. Will probably be my last acro's. Time to keep things happy and growing. From left to right, TGC Cherrybomb, A browned out ASD Rainbow Milli, BigR WD, and CB Beastmode.

Updated FTS featuring my Midas blenny

A close up of the WD. It has greened out a bit on my frag rack but I plan on getting it glued in the next week or so after it has had some time to settle in.

 

[Andyf30]

Finally got my hands on a PAR meter! After watching the BRS video on the Hydra I knew I had to accommodate the spotlighting effect a bit better.

Ended up with the light way back on the mount. In a tank this small a future note for everyone, your lps on the bottom will be getting 250+ par if you aren’t careful. Mine are all living and fine, but I am sure they will be much better now!

All acro’s are getting between 250-350 PAR and all lps and zoas are between 100-180 which is a much better range.

 

[Andyf30]

A bit of a tough update. I am going to be sending all of my acro's to a buddy to hang onto them. I came back from vacation with a tank sitter (an experienced reefer, the issues were not his fault) to a few SPS gone and a few receding from the base. I have come to the conclusion that my tank is just too new for the moment and the nutrients are just too low for SPS to thrive.

I will be repopulating the tank with easier to maintain corals for now and then will slowly add back SPS a few at a time. No sense in killing acros just for the sake of looking at them. They were doing fairly well before leaving as I had increased feeding substantially, but the sitter could only come visit every 3-4 days and the feeding slowed down. Algae issues are much improved lol but the coral suffered a bit for it.

I will start a multiple front approach of feeding more, adding a few more fish, and feeding coral foods more. Hopefully this will slowly start to reach a "heavy in, heavy out" mentality. Will update with photos in the near future! I have plans to add some hammers and a torch to the tank to create some movement and fill in some gaps.

 

[Andyf30]

Hello everyone! Been gone for a bit as a result of a surprise 45 day deployment. An OOD on a ship went down with COVID and to avoid delaying sail day too much I was tapped as I am currently on a land assignment nearby. This will be a pretty big update!

The SPS frags are still with my buddy. During the deployment my fiancee was watching the tank, but I forgot to tell her how to adjust the skimmer (big whoops in hind sight). Nitrates and phosphates spiked despite her following every other instruction and I lost the last two montipora that were in the tank and also lost a few LPS. Currently, the tank is sitting is sitting with some softies and a few of the remaining LPS.

When I got back:
Nitrate: 35+ ppm
Phosphate: .04

Now:
Nitrate: ~ 15 ppm
Phosphate: .02

Vodka dosing has worked like a charm and in just a week or two the nitrates have come down nicely. Lately I have been loading up on some softies and a few LPS now that the water is cleaner and healthier. The nicest thing about coming back 45 days later, is the rocks aren't bone white anymore. They are finally looking like...well....rocks!

Lastly, a big update! I jumped on the radion sale and snagged a G5 pro. I have been wanting a radion for years, and between my tax return, the stimulus, and saving during COVID, figured why not!

I will have some pieces coming in tomorrow from the Cherry Corals sale and will update with pics!

 

[Andyf30]

As promised, photo dump:


New Radion looking spiffy!


From left to right: JF Lethal Lepto, JF Beach Bum, OG Leng Si Cap

An adorably tiny Sunkist bounce from a buddy locally, and a RR Spicy Lemon Favia! The other big additions will be shown when they open up a bit more! Hopefully acros in the next few months here!

 

[PanchoG]

I just went through your thread, great job! very nice tank.