ChickenHawks Reefer 350 Build

kartrsu

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
718
Reaction score
544
Location
Glendale, CA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hey, thanks!
I am planning on doing QT for all my fish and am leaning towards quarantining frags and inverts too now. The main tank does have a uv sterilizer so there will be additional disease management incase anything gets through qt. I really want to keep a powder blue eventually, so I want to get it right from the beginning. Any recommendations for sources on quarantining inverts and coral? I couldn’t find it on Humblefish, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere...
The website I linked sells quarantined inverts. I thin TSM aquatics may be the only one that offers quarantined corals but I’d double check it’s done without fish.
 
OP
OP
C

ChickenHawk

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2014
Messages
17
Reaction score
19
Location
Kremmling, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Update!
so far three out of our four fish have made it through their quarantine and into the display! The foxface had no issues throughout the process, where as the two clowns struggled with internal parasites for quite some time. I treated them with prazipro for their initial two weeks in qt, then started feeding them GenCure with Focus for their remaining time in qt. They went through 30 days of copper power at 2.5 and then another two weeks of prazipro. Finally, they stopped pooping white strings and have been doing great since! I still have my Midas Blenny in QT.

The blennys tank started getting a ton of small worms all over the glass, so small you can’t see any defining features other than a segment in their middle. I couldn’t find any info on this parasite but it didn’t seem to bother the blenny.the blenny was treated with prazipro for two weeks and given medicated food for about a month as well as going through 30 days of copper power. Still, nothing would kill these small worms. I did multiple large water changes and scraped the glass to get them out but couldn’t eradicate them completely. just recently i did a tank transfer with a fresh water dip in between to prep the fish for the display. Once I see that the worms aren’t spreading in this new clean tank it can go into the display.

In addition to getting some fish in the tank, we decided to get some small coral frags to add some biological diversity and to itch that coral scratch ;) the corals we got were three acans, four zoas, a uma, and a purple stylo birdsnest. Before adding them to the tank, we did a multi step dip including ReVive, clean tank water, Bayer, clean water, and peroxide along with a scrubbing, removal of visible pests, and the removal of some of the frag plugs. I know, I know, doing a full quarantine on the fish but not the corals... ‍I’ll be running a UV sterilizer and practicing ich management rather than eradication.

Additionally, we added two jars of copepods and are dosing live phytoplankton.

The lights are on what will be their normal schedule... I’m only slightly scared of what might happen... but they are set for equal parts blue and white( my preference) running at 30% 15k. We are managing nutrients using water changes and regular dosing of MB7, as well as adding the other organisms for biological diversity.

This past weekend I got a melon size ball of chaeto from a shop who said it was super clean, came from the Reef Builders tanks. It is currently sitting through its own qt just in case. I did a fresh water dip on it and a bayer dip. About 7 large pods came off it but that’s all! Now it will stay in a bucket with a heater and light for 16 days before being added to the sump.
50F28A78-B465-49EA-94F0-B17F914DA1BA.jpeg


So far things are going smoothly, but we all know how fast things can change... so we’ll see. While I know there are safer routs to success than turning on the lights early and what not, part of the appeal of this hobby for me is giving things a shot and seeing what might happen. We try and think about each decision and how it can affect the rest of the system, but at the end of the day there is so much that can’t be foreseen and patients is truly a virtue (that I struggle with) :)

update: I wrote this on Monday and forgot to post. When I got home Monday, I noticed the Midas blenny breathing heavily with its mouth open. It wouldn’t eat, which is the first time it’s ever not accepted food. I did a 50% water change and added API quick start. The ammonia badge hadn’t changed from yellow and I didn’t get a reading on it before doing the water change. Unfortunately, Tuesday after work the blenny had died. I’m terribly frustrated that this fish had made it through all its treatments over the course of months doing really well and in its last few days before being moved to the display it didn’t make it.
7184D626-AF0F-4492-B0E2-2AC32E825558.jpeg
C4887C1A-BE88-4021-92D3-E5873FD72B73.jpeg
DA30B438-B041-420B-B441-10C2103B8CB3.jpeg
E1A9FC9B-CD50-4703-A401-2C71B6A420A8.jpeg
0F3A665C-2D12-424B-A30A-EE965722DDCF.jpeg
0A9D73D8-1795-42A8-A27C-6F51990072A0.jpeg
9953B129-66C3-42F2-BF08-7C5AB466B859.jpeg
B86A7591-34DB-4DEA-8991-9B1AF1288905.jpeg
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
C

ChickenHawk

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2014
Messages
17
Reaction score
19
Location
Kremmling, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Update-
After two months of not posting due to busy schedules, some things have been added and improved!
Due to the loss of the Midas blenny in QT and summers busy schedule, we decided that purchasing pre quarantined fish would be a great way to get more fish without the stress of finding time to manage qt on our own. We ordered a purple tang and a (don’t get mad) powder blue tang, along with a cleaner shrimp 5 nassarious snails and 5 trochus snails. These came from Dr. Reefs Quarantined Fish and they arrived easily and super healthy looking! After following the acclamation directions provided, they joined our fox face and two clowns with no issues. I am definitely purchasing from this guy again!
we've had a small bout of cyano and some diatoms, but nothing crazy and neither have been treated with anything. Coralline algae has started to grow in small patches. We used the coralline in a bottle awhile back. We have also been keeping a close eye on our nitrates (3ish), phosphate(0.03ish), alk(9ish), calcium(450ish) and magnesium(1400ish) as well as dosing balling. While we have been dosing by hand mostly over the last two months, we recently went on vacation so we got and set up Kamoer dosing pumps. Due to setting them up last minute before the 5 day trip, we didn’t do great at dialing everything in and when we got back, we had a little alk swing that caused some die back on many of the corals. We are currently attempting to fix the issues and hopefully we don’t fully lose anything.
we have made a schedule for feeding live phyto every day, aminos every other day along with benepets and then every three days or so spot feeding mysis to the corals. Fish get nori every other day and we have an auto feeder dropping TDO and seaweed extreme pellets twice a day.
Currently we are doing 10 gallon water changes every Wednesday and changing out the filter sock every 5 days or so. The skimmer is running great, chaeto is doing well keeping Po4 down, and carbon is being replaced every month or so.
next steps for the tank will be to get a good lid so that I can order a few more fish. I would like a pygmy geometric hawk fish, a pink streak or melanurus wrasse, and I’ll have to decide later what kinds of blenny and or goby I would like. We will continue getting corals as we find ones we love and maybe put in some online orders for them soon.

in response to our precipitation issue, we removed the clumps of hardened sand. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of crystallized calcium and we will be able to stabilize our alk. The alk drop we had experienced was from 9DKH to 7.5. We have not been able to keep alkalinity up for even a day. We called BRS and they advised us to dilute by half our soda ash mixture and calcium and then dose twice the amount. We will see how this method goes and hopefully we won’t lose are corals to low alk.I will keep you posted on how everything goes!
That’s it for now, Until next time!
04F25ED7-43EB-4C30-BC62-5A2A393B8A26.jpeg
AFFBDFA8-2660-43CB-98F3-D5F60953CEA5.jpeg
B5C0F8CC-1501-47A5-835B-A2B333C994DB.jpeg
AC96CAFD-0F46-445C-B66A-8842C484C24B.jpeg
2DF905D7-5176-4A11-8B3A-48791B3C2F54.jpeg
20F94929-6C0D-4F9C-9551-8C304890EEE2.png
8931D4C2-E42D-4E09-9487-55CC94BAF44B.jpeg

B1ED6940-67E2-4C23-A64A-5CA02C20BCEC.jpeg
9FF2BC13-45FF-4104-8C1C-6233294A2AAC.jpeg
1511A0FB-22BD-4737-ADA5-9BA65F81A405.jpeg
2C3BA283-DC9D-49BB-BA2C-C8D6E52465EE.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • FullSizeRender.mov
    77.2 MB
Last edited:

Going off the ledge: Would you be interested in a drop off aquarium?

  • I currently have a drop off style aquarium

    Votes: 2 1.1%
  • I don’t currently have a drop off style aquarium, but I have in the past.

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • I haven’t had a drop off style aquarium, but I plan to in the future.

    Votes: 26 14.9%
  • I am interested in a drop off style aquarium, but have no plans to add one in the future.

    Votes: 85 48.6%
  • I am not interested in a drop off style aquarium.

    Votes: 54 30.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 5 2.9%
Back
Top