Deep Blue 80g LPS and Wrasses

[leahfiish]

I also traded my icecap 3k for a JF My Miami chalice today.

 

[leahfiish]

Got a bunch of corals today! One box from the TCK/ARC live sale and another box from a reef2reef member. Almost everything arrived in good shape.
Here are my live sale purchases
Bizzarro Cyphastrea

Pink War coral

Dayglo favia

Strawberry orange sherbert chalice

Echinata

War coral

Fox flame

Goldmeister chalice

Tyree aspera

Meteor shower (got 2 of these lol)

Cherry Cyphastrea

ARC Monet's Madness Cyphastrea

And a freebie watermelon chalice

 

[leahfiish]

And from a reef2reef member I got an awesome pack of encrusting corals
I love this freak hair it's definitely one of my favorites


I forget the names of some of these

 

[leahfiish]

And here's the group shots

 

[leahfiish]

Treated the display with prazipro yesterday, the skimmer is still going crazy.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/pod-attached-to-fish.519514/

Most of the new corals look okay.... both of the meteor showers are bleaching so I moved them to lower light corners. The pink war coral is also looking a little pale so I did the same with that. Monet's madness cyphastrea looks like it's dieing under white light but looks great under blue light. I'm a little nervous about that, I hope it is okay. It's kind of hard to tell. I got about 25 trochus snails on Wednesday, as well as a scarlet hermit, another fighting conch, and some nassarius snails. The algae is still about the same. I might remove it manually and then the snails may be able to keep up with it. It's mostly on the shelves, so I could just easily remove them to scrub them which is pretty convenient. The only coral I have on the shelves right now is the fox flame which seems to be doing fine.

 

[leahfiish]

Today I scraped the algae off of the back glass and the shelves, removing as much of it from the tank as I could. The meteor showers don't seem to be losing tissue anymore in the corners and everything else still looks good. I fed some reef roids and reef energy today. My alk is down to 12.7 and my nitrates are at 2. The skimmer has been going crazy lately from the prazipro but I added a bag of carbon and it has finally settled and pulled out the whole collection cup worth of crap in the last 2 days.

 

[leahfiish]

Forgot the pictures! Here's a before and after of the cleaning today.

 

[leahfiish]

Received a few corals from Pablo at Marine Farmers. I found out about his shop through Instagram and contacted him through there. I got a weeping willow toadstool and giant Bali xenia frag, and he threw in a freebie gorgonian, awesome! All of the bags were labeled. The frags were double bagged and the plugs were inserted into a piece of Styrofoam to keep them upright and prevent them from hitting the sides of the bag. He included a heat pack, and packed the frags in one of those bubble wrap/foil bags. I received them at 2:47, right on time for usps priority mail express 1 day shipping. When they arrived I temped them at 69 so I let them float for about 15 minutes until they were up to 78 and then put them in. They almost immediately started to open which is awesome. I will say that the frags are definitely a little smaller than expected, the xenia just looks like regular xenia but I have faith that it will grow into what it's supposed to be.

 

[leahfiish]

Tested my alk at 12.1 today, it is slowly dropping which is good and what I was hoping for. I also tested my phosphate for the first time on this system and it's at 1.21. No wonder I have algae and some of my corals are having issues. I'm going to use Brightwell's Phosphate-E to lower it. I set up a basket with some filter pads in it under my drain lines. The bottle says 1ml eliminates 1ppm of phosphate in 4g. I'm going to try to slowly bring the number down over the course of about 2-3 weeks. So I'm going to go with 0.05.ml to eliminate 0.05 phosphate in 4g and then multiply that by 25 to treat my ~100g water volume = 1.25ml daily. I am going to dilute it with RO/DI water and either drip it in slowly or manually dose spread out over 2-3 doses in a day. I have read that this will drop alkalinity so I'll continue to closely monitor it.

 

[leahfiish]

Tested my alk at 12.2 today, continuing to dose the brightwell phosphate-e. I'm on my 3rd dose today. So far I see no negative effects. I'll test my phosphate again on Friday. I also added another bag of sand on Sunday, I'll still need 1 more though.

 

[leahfiish]

Took as many corals as I could off the plugs today and glued the chalices down. Also cleaned the shelves and the glass!

 

[ReeferReefer]

Following along. What are you stocking plans as far as fish go?

 

[leahfiish]

Following along. What are you stocking plans as far as fish go?

I definitely will be getting a blue star Leopard wrasse and a Midas blenny. Also thinking about a brunneus wrasse, black storm clowns, jawfish, clown fairy wrasse, and sharknose gobies, along with a few others. I haven't fully decided yet.

 

[ReeferReefer]

I definitely will be getting a blue star Leopard wrasse and a Midas blenny. Also thinking about a brunneus wrasse, black storm clowns, jawfish, clown fairy wrasse, and sharknose gobies, along with a few others. I haven't fully decided yet.

Very cool list. I have to say that the blue star leopard wrasse is one of my favorite fish that I have ever kept. Hard to wrong with them if you can find a healthy animal.

I haven't taken a look at the brunneus before, they look amazing!

I am hoping to put together a wrasse tank so I'll be watching what you put in your tank!

 

[leahfiish]

Very cool list. I have to say that the blue star leopard wrasse is one of my favorite fish that I have ever kept. Hard to wrong with them if you can find a healthy animal.

I haven't taken a look at the brunneus before, they look amazing!

I am hoping to put together a wrasse tank so I'll be watching what you put in your tank!

I had a brunneus very briefly and it was awesome so I'm looking forward to getting another. I've never kept a Leopard in my own personal tank but have cared for others and I agree, definitely a favorite.

 

[leahfiish]

Tested my nitrates at 2 today, alk at 12.4 (a little weird but not too concerned). Fed the corals (Red sea A+B and reef roids).
I'm thinking about upgrading my flow just haven't really found something I'm happy with yet. I don't want gyres, I've had them before and don't want to clean them that often. I am leaning towards maybe just another koralia or possibly a nero 5 but they're pricy, will have to save for a bit first. Hmm.

 

[leahfiish]

Phosphates at 0.82 today, down from 1.2 last Sunday. Brightwell phosphate-e seems to be doing the trick.

 

[leahfiish]

Phosphate down to 0.26.
Nitrates at 2
Kh down to 11.7.

 

[leahfiish]

Phosphates were at 0.14 yesterday, alk at 12.1. I fed all the corals after testing and I'll check again today to see if there was any impact.

 

[leahfiish]

Phosphate at 0.3, oof. I dosed 0.1ml of phosphate-e
Here's some recent pics:
This favia is regaining color, it lost a lot of its pink but in the last week it has come back nicely.

Here's a few top downs under whites



I am really impressed by this chalices growth and coloration so far

Here's some top downs with the bluest setting on my lights

You can see I'm still dealing with some algae but getting it under control.
I also got this new interstellar mushroom.