First Reef Tank - 150g

[Brisk]

Update for this week:

• CSB moved out of its intended spot. Not at a spot I would like it. I'm trying to get it to move, but so far no success.
• The 2 Exquisite Wrasses so far are getting along.
• Royal Gramma just hides behind the overflow box and haven't seen it come out.
• Tiger Pistol Shrimp died and the YWG has no companion.
• Injured Helfrichi still MIA.
• Choati Wrasse started to peck at the rocks and occasionally takes a bite at food and spits it out.
• Powder Blue Tang from Dr. Reef did not past their QT. Getting a replacement from them.
• Ordered 2 additional Royal Grammas to make it a trio, hopefully.
• Ordered 2 Court Jesters. 1 more main tank, and 1 for frag tank.

I also got the parts I needed to modify the ReefMat 1200. I'm going to try to see if I can get the RM set up today.

 

[Brisk]

For my next project, I decided to start culturing phyto and pods. I went ahead and ordered the kit below. I also picked up the brine shrimp hatcher from BRS to try it out.

 

[twentyleagues]

For my next project, I decided to start culturing phyto and pods. I went ahead and ordered the kit below. I also picked up the brine shrimp hatcher from BRS to try it out.

Are you just going to start with 1 type of each?
If its that brine shrimp hatch dish I have heard good things about it. I have a couple old school hatchers that I wouldnt part with for the world. I have had them since the '90s still in useable condition surprisingly with them being mostly plastic.

 

[Brisk]

Are you just going to start with 1 type of each?
If its that brine shrimp hatch dish I have heard good things about it. I have a couple old school hatchers that I wouldnt part with for the world. I have had them since the '90s still in useable condition surprisingly with them being mostly plastic.

I'm still researching on what types to start. I did get their starter culture which is the Nanno and copepods. My goal is for pod growth and feeding corals. Got any recommendations/tips?

This is the hatchery I got.

 

[twentyleagues]

I'm still researching on what types to start. I did get their starter culture which is the Nanno and copepods. My goal is for pod growth and feeding corals. Got any recommendations/tips?

This is the hatchery I got.

Yeah I have heard good stuff on that one, from a few sources.
I have never had good luck with phyto so I am out on that.

 

[Brisk]

Got my culture kit and started the first batch of phyto/pods.

 

[Brisk]

Today I finally got the ReefMat installed with both the primary and secondary drains. I hear a slight waterfall sound when I open the cabinet so I think I may need to switch the primary and secondary drains because I only have the gate valve on the primary. The primary will not have a gate valve, but the secondary will have a gate valve which I'm hoping I can tune it to stop the waterfall sound. Otherwise, it looks like it is working very well.

I also used coral snow for the first time but I don't see any difference. I wonder if I'm doing it right.

 

[twentyleagues]

Today I finally got the ReefMat installed with both the primary and secondary drains. I hear a slight waterfall sound when I open the cabinet so I think I may need to switch the primary and secondary drains because I only have the gate valve on the primary. The primary will not have a gate valve, but the secondary will have a gate valve which I'm hoping I can tune it to stop the waterfall sound. Otherwise, it looks like it is working very well.

I also used coral snow for the first time but I don't see any difference. I wonder if I'm doing it right.

The water isnt clearer after?

 

[Brisk]

The water isnt clearer after?

It probably was. I just couldn't tell lol. It looked the same to me.

 

[Brisk]

Yesterday I harvested my first phyto and pods. The starter kit was nanno and tisbe. The phyto came out looking good but the pods I did not see any when I sieved them out. I put the same pods culture back, thinking there are pods and just needs more time. I think next week I'm going to order the tetra and tigri to start on those.

Today I ordered a Vivienne Wrasse from NY Aquatics. Excited to see how it'll get play with the other Leopard wrasses.

I also got back my 1st ICP results this week. I'm thinking the results aren't too bad?

 

[tbrown]

Yesterday I harvested my first phyto and pods. The starter kit was nanno and tisbe. The phyto came out looking good but the pods I did not see any when I sieved them out. I put the same pods culture back, thinking there are pods and just needs more time. I think next week I'm going to order the tetra and tigri to start on those.

Today I ordered a Vivienne Wrasse from NY Aquatics. Excited to see how it'll get play with the other Leopard wrasses.

I also got back my 1st ICP results this week. I'm thinking the results aren't too bad?

That reminds me! I have to feed the Phyto today.

Still need to order a few other Phyto strains and the Pods.

 

[Brisk]

That reminds me! I have to feed the Phyto today.

Still need to order a few other Phyto strains and the Pods.

How often do you feed? And what Phyto/Pods strains are you running?

 

[tbrown]

How often do you feed? And what Phyto/Pods strains are you running?

Currently only running Nanno. Gonna order three additional strains plus Tigger, Tisbe, and rotifers to start.

 

[tbrown]

I feed once a week.

 

[Brisk]

My 2nd harvest of Nanno phyto. This time I used 2 tanks and was able to fill up a gallon to use for the week. The Tisbe culture however is troubling me. For the 2nd week, I'm not seeing any pods in the sieve. I also tried shaking the PodNest but that didn't help. I'm not seeing much pods crawling around the bag except for one or two. I'm going to try again but this time I'll wait for 2 weeks before harvesting.

My Stratosphere Zoa doesn't look very happy. It doesn't open up as big as it used to. I'm thinking it's probably the algae that is growing around it. I took it out today and swabbed some hydrogen peroxide around it. Let's see if that helps.

 

[Brisk]

Quick update for this week. My Yellow Watchman Goby finally paired up with the Tiger Pistol Shrimp. It was amusing watching the Pistol Shrimp work. It is making a mound of sand so far.

 

[Brisk]

I did my 3rd harvest of the Nanno and Tisbe. I went 9 days without harvesting this time and the phyto did not crash. The Tisbe I still can't figure out. For the 3rd week, I don't see an increase in population. This time around, I only saw maybe a few sparkles of movement in the sieve. I even squeezed out the PodsNest to get them to come out if they were in there. I'm going to restart the copepods with a new bottle.

 

[Brisk]

So I think it's been about 2 months struggling with the CSB to finally stay put in the spot I chose for it. I added a bit more rock structure around the spot hoping that by blocking some flow, it'll stay. So far it seems to worked because it hasn't moved for 2 weeks now.

Over the week, I finally started to glue some corals onto the rocks. I started with the torches/hammers and some of the SPS. Mushrooms, Blastos, and Acans I moved to the sandbed. The tank looks a lot cleaner and roomier without the frag rack. The other frag rack has Gonis and Zoas that I'll move also in the next couple of weeks.

My Strat Zoa is still struggling to stay alive. I haven't seen any improvement on it but all the other Zoas are looking better.

 

[Brisk]

Not much to update for this week. Here are some photos of corals.

 

[Brisk]

I did a water test a few days ago. All looks good except for Nitrate and Phos are high. I was feeding frozen food 3 cubes a day on top of feeding 4x from the auto-feeder. I have cut down on the frozen cubes to 1 to 2 a day. I'll give it another test later next week. Everything else looks good. I have been dosing AFR in the mornings and Phyto at lights off. I have also been dosing Manganese and ammonium (stopped for now until Nitrate comes down).

I also started to look into battery backup options. I don't remember the last time we had a power outage in New York City but I think it was like 8 years ago. I'm planning to get one of those power stations to run the return pumps. It looks like I will need to do some tinkering with Hydros to make it work. I found a DIY guide for it.

Low Power Mode/Prime Power Loss Detection w/o Icecap Battery (or WE/WELE)

Normally Hydros can detect when prime/wall power is lost by using the Icecap V3 Battery backup on a wave engine. Hydros does this by seeing the drop of DC power into the wave engine from 24V wall power to 12V battery power. Then you can configure Hydros to fall back to a pre-defined "low power"...

forum.coralvuehydros.com