Caleb's first reef tank

[Impunitus]

Moved the mushrooms today. Will get a picture of them tomorrow as lights were very much off when I finished. Older picture below, they are on the circled rock to get an idea on where in the tank they are now. Hopefully this is a happy place for them :)

 

[Impunitus]

Picture dump from this afternoon/evening.

Mushrooms from the top. You can see the rock covered in them, the jawbreaker and the citrus.

Mushrooms from the front. Can see the citrus and the superman colony

Ducan is looking fat and happy after being fed today

Torch and hammers looking great. The teal hammer is really big!

Top shot showing hammers, torch, Master Yoda stick, and my GSP rock

Hammer that lost 2 heads is looking OK. Not getting worse, no visible flesh band coming back yet though

 

[tbrown]

Keep an eye on that torch. They can send out sweeper tentacles that can get several inches. My old torch could reach almost 7" away!

 

[Impunitus]

Keep an eye on that torch. They can send out sweeper tentacles that can get several inches. My old torch could reach almost 7" away!

I honestly was getting ready to put the torch or 2 of the hammers onto another frag holder I have to get them away. Everything opened up A LOT more today than it was yesterday so need to readjust!

 

[Impunitus]

Moved the torch after lights off last night. Seems to be happy with its new location!

Video of it as well. Does not appear to be too much flow, but I'm always open to more informed opinions.



Clowns are having a great time getting after the pods on the walls. They eat when fed, but are not as excited about food as the wife's clowns are when feeding time comes.



Mushrooms seem to be happy with where they have been placed. Will continue to keep an eye

Is this my duncan pooping? Strings coming from the mouths of quite a few heads.


Happy Sunday everyone!

 

[tbrown]

Torch looks happy. It's a lot of flow but it's random which is good. I've seen torches in a lot more flow than that doing extremely well.

 

[Impunitus]

Wife and I got the tree decorated this afternoon. Our favorite time of the year for sure.

I'll be performing gymnastics to get to our saltwater bucket for the next month!

 

[Impunitus]

Phosphates have been trending up. Going to swap out GFO this evening for 1 TBSP and continue to monitor. I have learned less is better for this.

Skimmer still making micro bubbles but also still letting it drain back into the sump right now. Going to give it a few more days and then put the drain cover back on. It is making skimmate but trying to let it break in completely and also waiting on the high level sensor before I let it go unsupervised :)

 

[Impunitus]

Got the GFO swapped out. Will continue to monitor my phosphates but continuing to feed as I normally do.

Skimmer was making a really awful noise today, so bad I thought the pump was on its way out. Got the pump out and took a look inside. There was a very large now dead amphipod. I figured that was the source of my noise and put the pump housing back together....and working as it was before.

I do wonder if I should get a screen or maybe floss of some sort to prevent future adventuring friends from making the same thing happen. Do not think there is any damage and think most of the sound was just the amphipod getting blasted by the impeller in the pump.

 

[Impunitus]

Polo Reef giveaway! https://share-w.in/caleb-95534

 

[Impunitus]

Apologies in advance for video quality, but think I may have a Mantis shrimp in my tank! Have heard it clicking for a while now, but saw him move around when i had all flow off during feeding tonight. Caught about a minute of video of him.

Also think this is a mantis shrimp? Looks like a small smasher mantis which would line up with the TBS rock. @LiverockRocks what do you think?

I can try for better video tomorrow during feeding, preferably with my filter on to make it not this insane blue that I have right now. Also apologize for my shakiness! We got a camera for Christmas that I hopefully will be able to get better pictures/videos with soon.

 

[Impunitus]

Another question for the masses. Should I remove this algae growth in the chamber that is my fuge? Chaeto is growing inside the basket, but lots of other stuff growing too.

I assume there's probably two schools of thought and some clean it up and others leave it, but trying to understand why you may do the option you recommend. Its not causing any flow issues between chambers and I would clean it up if it was.

 

[tbrown]

I clean the non-macro growth personally. It can (and will) another your macros if you let it.

 

[tbrown]

Eventually the macros take over and it's all good, but until then, you gotta protect it somewhat.

 

[Impunitus]

Afternoon! Stopped by the LFS and grabbed some snails to replace what my neighborhood mantis has rudely slayed. They have someone who is looking for any mantis so will take it off my hands once we catch it.

Tested parameters this afternoon as well. Phosphates and Nitrates are becoming more stable at this point in time. Need to dial in my AFR dosing for Calc/Mag as well as Alk. I do have light usage, but not 5ml a day usage. May be 5ml every other day so 2.5 daily? Will do some trials and figure out where that ends up being. I have an X10, so ideally would like to have the Hydros handling this dosing in the long term once I figure out what it needs for upkeep

Nitrates: 15.8
Phosphates: 0.21
Alk: 8.3
Calcium: 445
Mag: 1290
Ph: 7.85-8.15 daily swing

Skimmer level sensor got here today, so able to put the plug in the cup and starting to pull out skimmate. A little more wet than I think I would want it, but will dial that in over time now. It is pulling out gunk so not going to complain. I still need to set it deeper in the sump, looking to make a egg crate stand for it. I may end up making a false bottom in the sump and moving my pumps up onto it as well and maybe putting some live rock in the bottom. We have extra rock in my wife's tank that we're going to need to pull out and would feel bad to just let it all die off. Its all good TBS stuff, so want to keep it if we can.

 

[Impunitus]

Got the sump cleaned up a bit. Got a lot of the non-macro growth off, but also just turned it around since the other side had no growth. Figure I can continue to do this to save the cleaning effort a little.

Also put some F-Aptasia we got to use on an aptasia that was growing on the GSP rock I've had for a while now. Got some of the GSP but it'll grow back in no time.

Mushrooms are not liking the spot I chose for them. Dropped the orbit down to 25% max and the MP40 is still offline. The microbubbles are showing me the flow is random, but still not low enough for the mushrooms it seems. Might try in the center and see how they react to that.

 

[tbrown]

With the X10, you could consider the IV and let the doser dose according to your alk demand?

 

[Impunitus]

With the X10, you could consider the IV and let the doser dose according to your alk demand?

I am looking at one long term, but would also need to get an XS (or something with more sense ports) as well as setting up somewhere to put the outputs from the testing. The X4 is going to be moving to the wife's tank so I'll have the X10 and XP8 on my tank. I'm full on sense ports now with everything I have at this point (ATO water level sensor, skimmer level sensor, tank temp sensor, leak rope).

Who knows, maybe the Maven will finally be out and I can talk myself into that decision instead lol. Otherwise in a few months I'll probably spring for an IV. I just know whatever I go for is going to be at least one more controller addition of some sort!

 

[tbrown]

I am looking at one long term, but would also need to get an XS (or something with more sense ports) as well as setting up somewhere to put the outputs from the testing. The X4 is going to be moving to the wife's tank so I'll have the X10 and XP8 on my tank. I'm full on sense ports now with everything I have at this point (ATO water level sensor, skimmer level sensor, tank temp sensor, leak rope).

Who knows, maybe the Maven will finally be out and I can talk myself into that decision instead lol. Otherwise in a few months I'll probably spring for an IV. I just know whatever I go for is going to be at least one more controller addition of some sort!

I'm still trying to decide how I want to divy everything up between my two tanks. XD is going to the 8 and then I either want to get an X2 or move the Minnow from the 70 to the 8. A couple more level sensors and a leak rope should be enough to get my 8 when I want it for control including 100 mL daily AWC.

 

[Impunitus]

I've been thinking about what my next fish should be. I have an idea on the fish I want, just not sure what the best order to add additional fish will be. Doing this 100% right I should not have started with the clowns, but here we are :)

In terms of fish I would one day like to have in this tank
Wrasse of some sort (6 line or fairy maybe? Better idea for this size?)
Orchid dottyback
Yellow watchman and a pistol shrimp
Purple firefish
Tailspot blenny
Long term I would love to have a Mandarin Goby

I'm open to suggestions for other options as I'm not married to anything other than the dottyback. My wife really wants one and I agreed to putting one into the tank eventually!