First saltwater tank, 40 breeder

[KleineVampir]

Now thinking of getting into the fragging business. Some of these frags could easily be fragged further even now without any additional growth. I'd just have to become a coral surgeon and have a decent place to work and the right tools.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I bought the frag rack and I'm putting out my rocks for sale so I can clear out half the tank for frags. I think 103 (frag plug capacity) ought to be enough! I plan on just working with the zoas I now have and growing them out. So I have decided to try out getting into fragging and selling corals!

 

[KleineVampir]

Also last night I lost a shrimp, which sucks. Why I keep losing shrimp I just don't know.

 

[KleineVampir]

Of course with shipping the way it is nowadays, this is gonna be a pretty slow start! All the stuff I've ordered in the last few days is about a week - 2 months out.

 

[KleineVampir]

Another realization that I'm coming to is that stony corals are a lot more difficult than soft ones. And to be honest, for me at least, they aren't worth it. At least not for the moment. I don't know why I thought montis were a beginner coral. That's gotta be some of my biggest advice for the new reefer. Stay away from stony corals unless you fully understand the constant calc/alk/magnesium balancing act that's gonna be taking place nonstop because of them. They're just a bunch of glorified rocks anyways!

 

[KleineVampir]

I shouldn't say that! Nothing wrong with stony corals but you have to understand that you'd probably want a bigger tank and spend a lot more money on them. Especially for the dosing pump. A lot of the difficulties I've been facing have been as a direct result of playing on hard mode from the beginning! Personally I would rather have happy inverts, soft corals, and no dosing pump.

 

[KleineVampir]

Some stuff actually showed up ahead of amazon's apparently pessimistic ETA's. So now I'm just about ready to frag except that I need the plugs. I got a cutting board, the frag rack (that I should take a picture of now that the tank is different), and coral dip. Still wish I could get rid of the montiporas. They're just gonna die from not enough light I think.

Also it's donning on me how much coral I would need in order to keep me busy. My initial thought was to just stick to these 10 zoas until I grow enough but I dunno. I guess that is just a really slow start.

Another thought, they sent me a paly frag and I actually like them. Not sure why, maybe because they are a bit more reactive than zoas. They eat food better too as I found out today trying to target feed them with a syringe.

 

[KleineVampir]

 

[KleineVampir]

Well now I have a big old rock full of xenia in front of that frag rack, another big zoa frag, and a nephtea leather. Also it looks like I'm pulling off the 0 water change tank finally. Though I don't know if some vinegar added to my ATO is considered cheating! I think it does help but maybe I should go without it to see what happens.

 

[KleineVampir]

Right now I'm at the point where I have all the fragging stuff, but I have to wait for the coral to adjust to my tank. I think it's important to only frag corals that are doing great, otherwise it's like operating on a patient who's sick when you don't have to. So I guess I'm finding myself in a bit of a waiting game. I guess I can't expect corals to actually keep me busy yet.

The other news is that I think the remaining 2 cardinals are a breeding pair and I might end up with babies. It's kind of a longshot but you never know. I mean it's not exactly a concerted effort on my part. I'm hoping they'll be able to hide in that xenia instead of an urchin. But I will need fry food quick. Dunno if reef chili counts! It might work!

 

[KleineVampir]

Ok I upped the light by quite a bit. Going from 50% to now 60%. And from 6 hours to 8. This will really push the system as far as its ability to keep algae out of the tank. But I think my corals are dying for more light even if they are just zoanthids. Still pondering. I might amp down the light back down to 50% later. But something tells me they wouldn't mind a bit more brightness too.

As far as how the tank's nuicance algae looks right now, well... I think there's still some gha on the substrate though it's not crazy. And there's still a bit of cotton candy on the rocks. Nothing too wild though. I think the scrubber helped a lot but also the fact that the phosphate in the rocks is finally just about out. They say the scrubber can actually make the gha on the rocks grow faster because it pulls so much phosphate out of the water that the rocks start to leach more. So it can make your problem even worse for the first few weeks which is pretty nuts. But I do have some more confidence now to where I feel like I can up the light. We'll see what happens!

 

[KleineVampir]

Well guys, I have successfully eliminated water changes! In both freshwater and saltwater. Year 1 I knocked out freshwater. Turns out you need a lot of light and a lot of plants. Year 2 I knocked out saltwater though it wasn't as easy. The phosphate leaching out of the rocks was a problem for almost the entire year. The algae scrubber was huge though and basically sucked all the nitrate and phosphate out of the water. Once it sucked some phosphate out, the rocks started leaching more into the water which kept the GHA problems going; but ultimately it managed to suck it all out and now there's basically no issues. Also I think the presence of coral helps, even soft coral.

One experiment I'm thinking of doing is simply turning off my skimmer to see what happens. I think the scrubber would kick in and compensate but it might throw off the bacterial balance. For now I still want to run it as is to make sure the nuisance algae is more or less done for.

Also so far it seems fine without the vinegar. It probably wasn't that much to begin with anyways. It woulda been pretty diluted sitting in the 5 gallon ATO reservoir.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I lifted that light up onto a stand, and turned it up to 100% power. The problem now is that I can't open the tank lid all the way! It's kinda wack. Thinking about maybe getting an amazing light financed on BRS or something. Lol.

 

[KleineVampir]

I won a local zoanthid auction. No other bids but for 100 I thought it was a good deal!

 

[vetteguy53081]

You did well !!

 

[KleineVampir]

You did well !!

Thanks for saying so. Especially upon seeing these things open up, I think you're right! Many of these I've never seen anything like before. I guess this is why this guy does it...now I'm addicted to his coral!

 

[KleineVampir]

Well sad news. One of the cardinals died leaving just one left. That said, it wasn't because of the tank conditions. He wasn't eating for nearly a month it seems like. I almost tried digging around in his mouth after he died, for babies, but man...it's pretty morbid and even if I did get some babies they probably wouldn't make it. I don't think I'm ready for a cardinal breeding project. Right now it's all about the zoas really.

 

[KleineVampir]

Also a few days ago I switched the return line from going into the HOB fuge, to just going directly into the tank. On the other side of the overflow. The water looks noticeably better after doing that, and I think the evaporation has gone down considerably too. So pretty soon I'll have to take out the hob.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well that was disappointing! The poor little cardinal I just got died already! RIP Sir Dies-Immediately II. (The first one was that yellow tang.)

I bit the bullet and bought another of the same exact light. Turns out, double the light, double the power! And I might be able to plug it into the same controller/timer thing.

 

[KleineVampir]

Aw man...my system is officially awesome! I got the second orbit marine LED light installed. Easy peasy and it runs off the same remote and hub unit, following the old programming. Though I did amp the photo period down to 12 from 14. So now my light is twice as bright, nearing about 100 par for all those zoas of mine! The tank is lit amazingly and since it's all LED, it's forever! No bulb changes or inefficiency. And since they are big long strips, they dissipate heat evenly and without fans. And better light coverage/less shadows.