Fishfreak2009's 75 Gallon Mixed Reef

[Fishfreak2009]

Welp, I've screwed up. I had the vodka dosing up to around 10mL daily and nitrates started dropping. I ended up dropping them too fast and they're now at 0. Phosphate is also down to 0.1 instead of 0.5. My small purple monti cap with green polyps completely RTNd and my gorgeous garf bonsai acro colony is now showing STN and has lost half of its tissue.

I dosed nitrates tonight and fed even heavier than normal, and will be testing nitrates daily for the next month or so.

I also now have more hair algae then ever. I pulled a fair amount tonight, but will be adding something to eat all the hair algae.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Tank isn't looking too bad overall. Most of the corals seem none the worse for wear. All showed polyp extension tonight, even the remaining garf bonsai when I fed reefroids, oyster eggs, and mysis to all the corals. I also added 3 more jumbo mexican turbo snails to help with the hair algae. The clowns also laid another massive clutch of eggs.

Here's a quick pic after cleaning the glass and removing a bunch of hair algae by hand.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Went to the Southeast Michigan Reefers summer meetup today and got to hang out with a ton of local reefers and had a blast doing so! Won some orphek lenses in the raffle, so I will be playing around with some cell phone photography the next few days.

Also picked up a really nice red brittle star probably 6" across for this tank. A few days ago I added a tiger serpent star as well, but it has purple stripes instead of the usual brown. Really cool critters, just didn't get a pic of either.

Here's a couple photos I snapped with the orphek lenses before lights out tonight.

 

[BaraCats]

Fantastic photos, it's been great watching your tank progress. How are the acro and montis recovering after the vodka dosing issue?

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Fantastic photos, it's been great watching your tank progress. How are the acro and montis recovering after the vodka dosing issue?

The monti cap and the garf bonsai completely RTNd. The other acros all seem completely unfazed and are continuing with polyp extension etc. The rose bubbletip anemones seem a little angry, they crawled down halfway into the rockwork, I'm assuming the stress is causing them to split.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A few pics from this evening with the sun coming through the window and hitting the tank.

The pintail and rhomboid fairy wrasses are hiding in the pics because I just cleaned the glass and pulled some hair algae.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Sun set enough to get the whole tank in 1 pic without glare.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Trying out my new Orphek lenses from the SEMI Reefers meetup tonight with the blues on. I'm in love with these corals and the color!

 

[Projects with Sam]

gorgeous!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

gorgeous!

Thank you! I love this tank. I can't wait for the corals to grow in more.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I've been trying to keep my hands off other than to feed, clean the skimmer cup, top off, and scrape algae off the glass/pluck hair algae (which seems to be going away on it's own now). Nitrates are sitting stable around 10ppm without me doing anything, so trying a hands off approach and just monitoring everything with my salifert kits.

The clowns laid eggs again 2 days ago, as you can see in the pics. I also included a pic of the maxima clam (which is growing quite well, almost doubled in size) showing how it is right next to the bubbletip anemone. It seems unfazed by it, and continues to do well. I'm really happy with how the corals are growing, especially the Acroporas.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Just a quick video. Linking my instagram video since youtube butchered the video quality.

Ashton Nietzke on Instagram: "75 gallon mixed reef 7.28.22"

0 likes, 0 comments - ashtonnietzke on July 28, 2022: "75 gallon mixed reef 7.28.22"

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[Fishfreak2009]

Spent some time playing around with the Orphek lenses for my phone tonight.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

The rose bubbletips and green torches look so good waving in the flow.

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[Fishfreak2009]

Found the yellow watchman goby today that we haven't seen since his last appearance about 3 months ago. He was living in the sump, in the chamber below where the filter socks hang. I caught him and moved him into my wife's evo, where he will be easier seen, get more food, and have a better life. He hasn't grown at all since the last time we've seen him. Not fat, not skinny, just small. He should do much better in there.

 

[Projects with Sam]

He hasn't grown at all since the last time we've seen him. Not fat, not skinny, just small. He should do much better in there.

He did better then dead at least!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, the corals are growing nicely, I've actually had to frag a few, and accidentally fragged some of the others. We decided to move some corals to other systems that were growing too close to one another as well.

And, we got one of the last fish to go into this tank! Today we finally picked up a small male mandarin dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus). He's about 1" long, and super fat. I'll try to get pics when he comes out of hiding.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Snapped a few pics tonight with the orphek lenses

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I tried unsuccessfully to get one of the bubbletips off the rock today, since they seem intent on smothering the giant clam now. Hence why they are hiding in the pic from today. Clam is much happier with them not burying it in tentacles and blocking all the light.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Managed to remove one of the bubbletips to keep it from smothering my maxima clam. The clam seems much happier now. All the fish are doing very well.