Brand New 8 gallon bio cube

[Why-Me]

Been watching it like a hawk and can’t put my finger on what makes it happy.

He wants something I just don’t know what. He also behaves nothing like any other brain coral. All of his behaviors are radically different, and very very slow.

Well...stop putting your finger on it, it'll be fine ;Smuggrin

 

[living_tribunal]

Well...stop putting your finger on it, it'll be fine ;Smuggrin

I did accidentally* stab him with a Turkey baster earlier today :eek:

 

[Magellan]

I really would not mount the scoly vertically,that I can almost guarantee won’t work out well.

Scolys tissue are very very sensitive unlike a lobos which is pretty thick. It’s similar to a trachy. When you pick it up, you’ll be really surprised by how flimsy and tissue like it is.

Scolys work fine with up to maybe 100 par, they aren’t averse to light like how an acan is. The main concern is giving them space to grow outwards where nothing will irritate their tissue. You’ll notice dimples when something irritates their tissue, happened to my trachy.

Hmmmm. I’ve seen a “scoly rock mountain” before, not sure how they were mounted but definitely growing all over the side of their own rock. I always just assumed it would be no big deal to mount, and that they look great on a sandbed so that’s where most end up. Maybe the backup plan needs a backup plan?

He’s doing fine, looking better than before but I just don’t know him yet like my other frags.

You know when you can just look at your Duncan or birds nest and go I need to raise my phosphates or my trachy wants mysis, the coral sixth sense.

He wants something I just don’t know what. He also behaves nothing like any other brain coral. All of his behaviors are radically different, and very very slow.

I love this! It took a few months of staring at the tank, but I kinda have it down at this point. I can look at my mini acan and my Goni and know just about everything I need to know. eye test doesn’t need a refill...for example: when my acan wasn’t 100% fat and happy at the end of today, after phyto feast and oyster feast, I knew it was water change time. Goni wasn’t fully extended either. Didn’t test the water, because no need.. Just changed it, and they will both be loving life again tomorrow :). Everything else is less sensitive than those two, they are like my early warning detectors lol

what’s crazy is i got the feeling like 3-4 days ago that I was pushing it on the WC, but ignored it because everything was looking so good.

 

[Why-Me]

Hmmmm. I’ve seen a “scoly rock mountain” before, not sure how they were mounted but definitely growing all over the side of their own rock

I wanna do a zoa garden like that
I've seen some cool ones here on R2R, like star wars ones or cool skulls etc.

 

[sfin52]

What’s the like button for “I really appreciate that, also there is nothing worse that can happen to someone and their family...”. The person you love and remember fades away like a battery that can never recharge....

as long as you remeber they are not forgotten. They left a legacy. One generation effects and leaves a mark on the other.

 

[living_tribunal]

Hmmmm. I’ve seen a “scoly rock mountain” before, not sure how they were mounted but definitely growing all over the side of their own rock. I always just assumed it would be no big deal to mount, and that they look great on a sandbed so that’s where most end up. Maybe the backup plan needs a backup plan?


I love this! It took a few months of staring at the tank, but I kinda have it down at this point. I can look at my mini acan and my Goni and know just about everything I need to know. eye test doesn’t need a refill...for example: when my acan wasn’t 100% fat and happy at the end of today, after phyto feast and oyster feast, I knew it was water change time. Goni wasn’t fully extended either. Didn’t test the water, because no need.. Just changed it, and they will both be loving life again tomorrow :). Everything else is less sensitive than those two, they are like my early warning detectors lol

what’s crazy is i got the feeling like 3-4 days ago that I was pushing it on the WC, but ignored it because everything was looking so good.

To the first part of your paragraph, keep in mind that I’m a complete and utter noob and none of my opinions nor advice should ever be taken seriously.

When your scoly gets super happy, it will start to look like he’s melting during the day, I built out a rock structure entirely for scolies, and will test to see how they do, but I think after seeing some of my other stuff that growth will best be on the bed.

You nailed the head on the other stuff. It’s crazy to see just how different all of these corals are. They all have that random thing they absolutely love.

I could name dozens but phyto plankton makes my Montiporas grow faster than absolutely everything. However, my monti digitata absolutely love brief yet intense and turbulent flow to flush his wavy polyps while my cap wants steady but medium flow.

My favias only want to eat only reef roids every day of the week (they aren’t interested in anything else), but my acans only want reef roids every 3 days.

Just weird stuff like that lol. With sps it’s always easy to know when your phosphates are too low.

 

[living_tribunal]

Hmmmm. I’ve seen a “scoly rock mountain” before, not sure how they were mounted but definitely growing all over the side of their own rock. I always just assumed it would be no big deal to mount, and that they look great on a sandbed so that’s where most end up. Maybe the backup plan needs a backup plan?


I love this! It took a few months of staring at the tank, but I kinda have it down at this point. I can look at my mini acan and my Goni and know just about everything I need to know. eye test doesn’t need a refill...for example: when my acan wasn’t 100% fat and happy at the end of today, after phyto feast and oyster feast, I knew it was water change time. Goni wasn’t fully extended either. Didn’t test the water, because no need.. Just changed it, and they will both be loving life again tomorrow :). Everything else is less sensitive than those two, they are like my early warning detectors lol

what’s crazy is i got the feeling like 3-4 days ago that I was pushing it on the WC, but ignored it because everything was looking so good.

Spamming here but do you trust what your corals say first and then test second?

With how I am with my corals now, I tend to really only go off of how they act and test when I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

 

[Magellan]

To the first part of your paragraph, keep in mind that I’m a complete and utter noob and none of my opinions nor advice should ever be taken seriously.

When your scoly gets super happy, it will start to look like he’s melting during the day, I built out a rock structure entirely for scolies, and will test to see how they do, but I think after seeing some of my other stuff that growth will best be on the bed.

You nailed the head on the other stuff. It’s crazy to see just how different all of these corals are. They all have that random thing they absolutely love.

I could name dozens but phyto plankton makes my Montiporas grow faster than absolutely everything. However, my monti digitata absolutely love brief yet intense and turbulent flow to flush his wavy polyps while my cap wants steady but medium flow.

My favias only want to eat only reef roids every day of the week (they aren’t interested in anything else), but my acans only want reef roids every 3 days.

Just weird stuff like that lol. With sps it’s always easy to know when your phosphates are too low.

Oh yea, “complete and utter noob” is exactly my thought after reading your complex opinions on corals I haven’t even kept yet!

I just broadcast feed the phytos, oyster feast, and reef roids. If they want it, it’s in the water! Keeps my hand out of the tank, and keeps my corals from getting lazy ;) I have definitely cut back on reef roids though. Film algae every time to one degree or another, I can tell within a few hours if I over did it or not by how thick it gets. Always give a big feeding right before a wc since I’ll be cleaning the tank anyway!

(random thought: since the phytos are possibly helping keep phosphates down, should I perhaps dose them after the reef roids on reef roids days? My normal feeding schedule is phytos, oyster feast, RR)

 

[sfin52]

Anybody win the brs 10k giveaway

 

[Why-Me]

THIS
would be awesome covered in zoas

 

[living_tribunal]

Oh yea, “complete and utter noob” is exactly my thought after reading your complex opinions on corals I haven’t even kept yet!

I just broadcast feed the phytos, oyster feast, and reef roids. If they want it, it’s in the water! Keeps my hand out of the tank, and keeps my corals from getting lazy ;) I have definitely cut back on reef roids though. Film algae every time to one degree or another, I can tell within a few hours if I over did it or not by how thick it gets. Always give a big feeding right before a wc since I’ll be cleaning the tank anyway!

(random thought: since the phytos are possibly helping keep phosphates down, should I perhaps dose them after the reef roids on reef roids days? My normal feeding schedule is phytos, oyster feast, RR)

I’ve noticed the EXACT same thing and have a few opinions on it.

I used to think all my frags loved roids but after trying an empty baster placebo many would exhibit the same behavior I perceived as a “healthy response”.

I think it might have been you who taught me how to feed my goni and have since implemented it on all questionable frags (everything that isn’t a blasto, favia, favites, or acan) only come to learn that they don’t like roids!

I’ve also noticed cyano outbreaks despite very low phosphate and nitrate levels after feeding roids which leads me to believe that the cyano can digest the super fine particles of roids immediately as they break down to phosphate. This is why I’ve noticed cyano and film algae heavily concentrated around plugs of frags I thought “loved roids”.

Roids now only feed my hungry lps that are for sure eating them and won’t leave many particles (Duncan, acan, favias, etc).

Everything else gets broadcast fed with oyster feast, phyto, and aminos.

Phyto appears best and easiest consumed with flow, with oyster feast I keep on flow but all the way down, just enough for tentacles to hold onto the eggs.

If you get a scoly, you’re going to have to get used to target feeding mysis every other to max 3 days (if you want them to stay healthy). For my lobos, trachy, and wilsoni, I target feed mysis every other day and give my lobo a solid 30 minutes of no flow to fully consume it. (The wilsoni especially needs no flow to eat because they don’t have tentacles).

Scolys and trachys eat faster so they only need about 10-15 minutes but they 100% need pellets or mysis, roids won’t suffice and will only tick them off.

 

[Magellan]

Spamming here but do you trust what your corals say first and then test second?

With how I am with my corals now, I tend to really only go off of how they act and test when I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Yes absolutely. if you look around this forum, it’s not hard to see that people have success with an incredibly wide range of parameters...meaning if the corals are happy and stay happy, things are where they should be, because your tank has found its balance. Obviously numbers like salinity and ammonia need to be pretty exact, but if they are off or have a swing, trust me you will know with a glance! Even something as important as alk can be all over the place as long as it’s reasonably constant. I watched so much YouTube early on in this hobby, and saw experienced reefers say over and over “don’t chase numbers”. So I don’t. Not even sure what they all are. But every time I have my LFS test just to be safe, I always get these looks like “why the heck are you making me do this”.

whatever you are doing, do the same things over and over. Your tank will find a sweet spot based on that repetition and your corals will love you for it. Every time I’ve changed or added something, my tank took a while to balance out again, and I would think those peaks and valleys would be even more pronounced in a smaller tank!

 

[living_tribunal]

I’m starting to have this belief that the absolute best good for corals, especially sps, are phytos.

If you are just doing phytos and aminos, your s*** is going to grow fast.

I love phytos in every way, they lower your nutrients, grow your pod pop, and grow your corals. They are a wonder substance and heavily underestimated.

 

[living_tribunal]

Yes absolutely. if you look around this forum, it’s not hard to see that people have success with an incredibly wide range of parameters...meaning if the corals are happy and stay happy, things are where they should be, because your tank has found its balance. Obviously numbers like salinity and ammonia need to be pretty exact, but if they are off or have a swing, trust me you will know with a glance! Even something as important as alk can be all over the place as long as it’s reasonably constant. I watched so much YouTube early on in this hobby, and saw experienced reefers say over and over “don’t chase numbers”. So I don’t. Not even sure what they all are. But every time I have my LFS test just to be sure, I always get these looks like “why the heck are you making me do this”.

whatever you are doing, do the same things over and over. Your tank will find a sweet spot based on that repetition and your corals will love you for it. Every time I’ve changed or added something, my tank took a while to balance out again, and I would think those peaks and valleys would be even more pronounced in a smaller tank!

Amen to this, and I appreciate the wisdom.

I have t pretty easy tbh, I only have about 50-60 frags and so I don’t have to worry about the big 3 parameters. Something tells me if my coral keeps growing like this, things are going to get a lot trickier soon here.

I finally brought back my monti cap from really bad shape, he’s growing at a crazy pace right now. People tell me how much monticaps can take out of your params so I’m just kind of enjoying noobeville while it lasts.

 

[Magellan]

Amen to this, and I appreciate the wisdom.

I have t pretty easy tbh, I only have about 50-60 frags and so I don’t have to worry about the big 3 parameters. Something tells me if my coral keeps growing like this, things are going to get a lot trickier soon here.

I finally brought back my monti cap from really bad shape, he’s growing at a crazy pace right now. People tell me how much monticaps can take out of your params so I’m just kind of enjoying noobeville while it lasts.

I have less than 1 coral per gallon (granted some are getting larger!) I think I’m at 22 right now. The sps can be big alk consumers (the only parameter I consistently test). And I would definitely not call it wisdom, just my .02

haven’t even had my first reef birthday yet, if you see me say something dumb don’t be afraid to google!

 

[living_tribunal]

I have less than 1 coral per gallon (granted some are getting larger!) I think I’m at 22 right now. The sps can be big alk consumers (the only parameter I consistently test). And I would definitely not call it wisdom, just my .02

haven’t even had my first reef birthday yet, if you see me say something dumb don’t be afraid to google!

Vise versa! I say a lot of dumb stuff 24/7. @Katrina71 just excuses me cause her and @Why-Me were around when I got my first frags 4-5 months ago. (Had a lot of freak outs, Katrina had to tell me to breathe)

 

[vetteguy53081]

I added a new AI Prime 16HD to my existing Prime HD. Can't figure out how to link the two as parent/child though.

In the app, when you click in light- you will see option to parent and enter serial number, etc

 

[living_tribunal]

Whoever recommended I get a turbo for my frag tank, thank you.

He's cleaned more turf algae/cyano in 2 hours than my previous snails cleaned in two months.

 

[Magellan]

I wanna do a zoa garden like that
I've seen some cool ones here on R2R, like star wars ones or cool skulls etc.

I’ve got a rock right now I’m letting get taken over. I have some orange mini zoas (they had a name but who cares...they are orange) some yellow mini zoas (more common) green palys and a red mini acan. I want to put one more species on it (blue hornets would be amazing) and just let everybody duke it out for the available real estate.

incidentally, I have sooo many pictures of that rock! It’s also my Magellan memorial garden. I’m kinda sentimental, and my very first coral was a stowaway (green paly polyp) that came with my urchin, part of my first purchase when I went CUC before fish. His name was Magellan. I’ve got an entire thread on here dedicated to him, poor guy was a direct casualty of glass cleaning. I had the rock too close to the glass and was using a long handled glass scraper...he moved after I had started, and when i went back over that spot I accidentally poked him with the corner of the scraper. Tried to nurse him back to health (over a period of months, thought I had succeeded!) but eventually the spot that got poked rotted away and he died soon after...Now I have Magellan the Second hard at work! This guy is even more thorough, it’s incredible.

 

[Magellan]

They will get absolutely massive. Like 3+ inches, and just bulldoze your frags. At least that’s what my LFS told me, and showed me some really impressive specimens! Said they only keep them in their larger tanks. Yours seems destined to be quite the sea monster with that kind of work ethic!