Building From Scratch

[ShakeyGizzard]

Been busy, still fighting cyano. It appears to be irritating my corals. Been doing the customary blowing it off the rocks, sand, and corals. Unleashing a beast of copepods come the 7th, plus some microbactor 7, I will win the up and down battle with dinos and cyano. I think this was brought on by my lack of maintaining the copepod population. So, tune in tomorrow for more .

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Been busy today getting the Copepods settled in, 2 strains of pods (Tisbe and Apocyclops) are started up in there own jugs with the phyto added. Also since it was a by one get one free, a bottle of each went in the display tank. Have them set up behind the crab tank.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Tisbe pods are doing great, the apocyclops are slow growers at this point. Been feeding a blend of phyto since my single strand phyto order has been delayed. I have an emergency frag tank set up for a friend that had a major problem happen to his tank (busted) and no its not a redsea. Details will come later if saving the corals was possible.

 

[XtraKargo]

Do you have a microscope to ID the dinos? I was dosing this bacteria and it helped me with my dinos along with adding some live rock from the LFS. Was able to see them die back in under a week.

Also, I read through the whole build. Great work! It is fun to see the fruits of our labor come full circle. Your work is no exception.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

@XtraKargo I'm over the dinos, my phos and nitrates hit zero because of my algae fill sump. everything appears to be going smooth at the moment. I never did ID the dinos, just went through the motions to combat them

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Looks like my Calico crab is reaching the end of his days. He has been pushing food away when offered to him, this behavior is normal a day or two before he molts. The crab has not molted in about 8 months, and he has refused food for over a week now. Research shows that they live 2 to 3 years in the wild, I have had him going on 2 years and not sure how old he was when we got him.

 

[trellemania]

A. That Calico crab looked awesome- It sucks to hear its slowing down
B. I just found your thread and I just read all 8 pages haha really liking your build. Following along! Hope the cyano is losing the battle!

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

A. That Calico crab looked awesome- It sucks to hear its slowing down
B. I just found your thread and I just read all 8 pages haha really liking your build. Following along! Hope the cyano is losing the battle!

Sorry for late response, wife really liked the crab, he passed, old age comes fast for some species. The cyano is at bay for now.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Loosing site of my copepods on the glass, time to dose some pods. Tank looks clean, has me worried since I am used to battling something. Have been dosing magnesium to get the numbers up some from 1260 to 1350.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Magnesium level have dropped to 1260, not sure why. Just LPS corals in the tank. But anyway, bringing the level back up to 1350 slowly with BRS magnesium. Trying to keep things stable. Will get it to 1350 and check to see how fast it drops and dose as needed.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Approaching 1 year on the tank, parameters are finely showing some stability. Sticking to my maint schedule seems to be paying off. Instead of large water changes two times a month, I have been doing 4 gallon changes a week. Still gradually bringing magnesium up, cant figure out why the water changes have not.

phos - .25
nitrate - 10
dKh - 11.0
ph - 8.0
mag - 1320
calcium - 460
salinity - 1.026

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Won a $100 gift card from Live Aquaria , decided to use it on the Sicce ultra zero pump. Been wanting one of these for a long time. Should improve and speed up my tank maintenance

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Have 2 acro frags on the way from SBB corals, dipping into the mixed reef world. Hope this goes as planned, I think the tank is ready.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Added some SPS corals to my Tank, may have been to early since I have not acclimated my other corals to higher PAR. But I am moving it up, slowly and hope the new frags don't brown out on me.

Candy Castle

Cream Cicle

one LPS added , Red Bling Acan

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Had to make amends with the new frags, was not totally prepared for them when they got here. have been acclimating my existing corals to slightly higher PAR (going smoothly so far) but have added a frag rack to keep the new frags in a better lighting until I work this out. No pic since I got home late and the lights are already out for the night.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Have some copepods coming for my tank, also have two single strain phyto coming. I crashed my phyto with a simple mistake so I am starting it back up. I moved away from farming the pods, time consuming and a headache to harvest the pods.

 

[trellemania]

I was wondering how complex it would be to farm pods… thanks for answering that

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

So far so good the phyto appears to be growing. maybe by next week I can divide it up and harvest some. Was gifted a Jebao DCP 3500 return pump, new still in the box. Don't know if this pump will work for the 40 breeder. I will check it out .

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Harvested my phyto this morning, man do I have to much. don't know how long it will last in the fridge. Started a new batch same amount as before. I will down size after this next batch is done, either less water in existing jugs or smaller jugs.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Was gifted a Jebao DC return pump. Going to hook it up and see if it can be tuned to my liking. I may keep it on if its works out and send the Sicce AC pump to back up.