Fishfreak2009's 75 Gallon Mixed Reef

[Fishfreak2009]

Really enjoying how fast the corals are growing in here. The frogspawn and gold hammer both grow so fast. They've been cut down to just a couple polyps 3 or 4 times now and are getting decent sized again. Don't mind the dirty glass, the tank gets cleaned tomorrow.

In other news, I picked up a fish to help with the hair algae in the small cracks of the rock where the turbo snails don't seem to get rid of it. Scored an awesome deal on a 4" powder brown tang. Looked a lot nicer in store, but faded during the transport home. He's already in copper and eating Caulerpa like a champion. Quarantining it for now with the hi-hat, and will move both over once the cupramine treatment is done.

And can anyone tell what side of this sour apple birdsnest branch fell on the frogspawn?

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Picked up a few more new fish for this tank today, compliments of my amazing wife!

3 Pseudanthias lori
1 Cirrhilabrus isosceles
1 Cirrhilabrus labouti
1 Cirrhilabrus brunneus

All the fish are already eating VERY well in quarantine. The powder brown and hi-hat are in a 10 gallon, while the 20 gallon has the others along with a powder blue for my 180, a few mollies that live their full time, and a picasso percula who lives there full time.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I'm already obsessed

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, the powder brown was completely covered in velvet on Saturday afternoon, with no marks on it on Friday when I bought it. I had it in full strength cupramine. It was steadily getting worse, so Saturday night I did a 10 minute freshwater bath followed by a formalin dip. It seemed somewhat better after those. Sunday morning it had some spots, Sunday afternoon completely covered again, and it died overnight.

I'm just glad it was in quarantine, and in a different quarantine from the rest of the fish I bought on Saturday since it came from a different store.

 

[Projects with Sam]

wow dodged a bullet there. sorry for your loss.

 

[Crabby48]

That sucks but glad it was separate. Hate mixing tangs in qt for that reason

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A bunch of pics and a quick video:

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Scored this 60" acrylic 100 gallon with stand for free today! Looks like the 75 is gonna get an upgrade! Just have to figure out what I want to use as a sump. I wanted to use a spare 75 gallon I have, but it wont fit in the stand.

 

[Projects with Sam]

Scored this 60" acrylic 100 gallon with stand for free today! Looks like the 75 is gonna get an upgrade! Just have to figure out what I want to use as a sump. I wanted to use a spare 75 gallon I have, but it wont fit in the stand.

wow what a score!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, I decided to move a few fish in here out of quarantine. The first is my yellow banded possum wrasse, as I was originally going to put it in my fluval evo, but am nervous that it would get eaten by the maxi mini anemones. Second is my powder blue tang, as I need something to help get this hair algae under control, and I know he'll eat it since I've been plucking it and feeding it to him in the quarantine tank. Also added a male Cirrhilabrus chaliasi from quarantine.

Debating on if I should add the male yellow brotulid, or if I should remove the female during the tank swap and move the 2 of them to their own system to seriously attempt spawning them.

Also added a new Acropora spathulata and a new Acropora tenuis today!

And some pics from tonight:

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Update:
Bad news first:

2 of the anthias disappeared. One morning they just didn't come out. Tore everything apart looking for them and couldn't find them.

Good news:
Cirrhilabrus chaliasi is finally out and about!

The horseshoe crab has learned 8:30pm is feeding time and comes out to be handfed squid or shrimp every night.

Picked up a pair of splendid pencil wrasses (Pseudojuloides splendens) and a black leopard wrasse (Macropharyngodon negrosensis) on Friday who are doing really well in quarantine. All 3 are eating frozen like champs.

And picked up some gorgeous corals at the Lansing Swap today from vendors and from a local reefer we met up with!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A few pics from today! Both the banggai cardinal male and the threadfin cardinal male have a mouthful of babies currently!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Added the newest member of the hair algae control crew today, and the new guys in quarantine are doing really well! The pencils and the leopard even started eating pellets!

Also added a really nice pygmy angel to quarantine. It's been at the LFS for a few months now, nice and fat and chows down on everything I've offered so far.

In bad news, the purple and blue torch coral brown jellied. I got it cheap, knowing that the skeleton had been split and repaired with superglue. Should have passed on it...

 

[Fishfreak2009]

And apparently we added the longspine urchin just in time! Today there are 3 baby banggai cardinals hiding in between the spines!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Another update!

To further the battle against hair algae, I ended up adding 2 baby captive bred purple pincushion urchins from ORA. They're already going to town on the algae, although all 3 urchins seem to prefer coralline to hair algae...

I also picked up this really nice Acropora. I haven't seen one like this at my LFS before.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, unfortunately it seems as though I introduced brown jelly disease with the broken purple torch coral I got from the Lansing swap. My frogspawn and my green torch have both jellied out and are gone. Luckily the gold hammer seems unaffected, as do the rest of my LPS.

I'm hooking up a jebao 55w UV sterilizer tomorrow that will hopefully take care of it, and have a backup frogspawn colony in one of my other tanks I will add a frag of, just to test things out.

We recently increased coral feeding as well, as our nitrates and phosphates seem to be very low. Current water parameters are just follows:

Nitrate: 2
phosphate: 0.03
Alkalinity: 9.5
Calcium: 440
Mag: 1400
pH: 8.2
temp: 76 F

The Acropora continue to do well, as do the other corals besides the 2 mentioned earlier. We've actually added 3 new Acroporas, a frag of Magician Palys, a Goniopora, another small Diadema urchin, a blue spotted sea hare, and 3 different starfish! All of them seem to be doing very well so far!

 

[Petcrazyson]

Garf Bonsai acro?

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Garf Bonsai acro?

Yup! One of my favorites!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Picked up a few new corals today for this setup from a local reefer friend. He ordered in a few new fish for me for the FOWLR tank,,and I traded him some equipment for a few frags. Got a few different types of zoas, a hawkins echinata Acro to replace the one I used to have in this system, and he decided to throw in a ReefRaft Wicked Tuna Acro! Lately, a lot of the local reefers in my area have been working to share frags of their colonies with one another to have backup colonies should one of us have something cause a tank crash. With all the recent power outages in SE Michigan, it has come in handy for more than one person, and it's nice knowing I can help them or they can help me if the need arises.

Really excited to see all these grow into beautiful colonies!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Update: eradicated the hair algae and the forest of bryopsis that was growing in here. The 2 longspine urchins have completely consumed it all. Just a bit of bryopsis in the refugium, but it's being choked out by the Caulerpa.

Lost the powder blue tang. Never ate anything but nori, and slowly wasted away. I pulled it a couple weeks ago and moved it to quarantine, and dewormed the fish with panacur, and it expelled a ton of worms. Was basically skeletal after that and continued to decline. I euthanized it 48 hrs after deworming when it was clear it would not recover.

Also removed the chaliasi fairy wrasse today for the same reason. Even though it ate like a pig it continued to lose weight. It did well in quarantine and had been dewormed with praziquantel, but slowly wasted away to a skeleton with scales and skin. I was able to catch it bare handed and move it to quarantine today, where I will treat it with panacur. Both the chaliasi and the powder blue came from the same supplier, so I will be avoiding fish from them for the foreseeable future.

Also lost my big purple valida Acropora colony to an RTN event after I hooked up a brand new jebao UV sterilizer, which blew it's bulbs almost immediately. Luckily, no other corals seem affected, and I have a bunch of frags from it, both in this tank and in a couple others, that are continuing to grow. From now on, I'm not going to try and fix something that isn't broken.

I also added 2 new powerheads the same day I hooked up the UV sterilizer, which has dramatically improved flow, almost too much so, so I will be removing the elegance coral in here and putting it in my 47 gallon system, where the flow is not as strong.

Here's a pic from today after a water change, and pics of the remaining wrasses in the system. All of them are nice and plump (as are the rest of the fish), and are doing very well!