Griev's IM-200 Mangrove Lagoon

[Griev]

First day of school, so far so good on aggression. Genicanthus are usually pretty chill so the introduction was pretty quick.

 

[CoralB]

Looks like reef delete upped their power and is offering a free upgrade. Hopefully the upgrade makes it work more like they promise!

Reef Delete v1.02 sees a 1.7 times power increase | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

ITC’s Reef Delete pest zapping flashlight is to receive an upgrade. Launched in October 2021 this truly unique reef tank pest control device promised great things but in practice, many users have so…

reefbuilders.com

I’ll still wait to see it works for others first

 

[CoralB]

Nice builds !!!

 

[TheWB]

First day of school, so far so good on aggression. Genicanthus are usually pretty chill so the introduction was pretty quick.

That’s awesome. I love it. Not sure if I’ll have enough room in my upgrade ( 48x22x16 will be the display dims) but if I feel like I do I really want a pair of the Spotbreasts. I know you had a pair in your 50 lagoon so I’m thinking I’ll be ok but I’m kinda on the fence. What are you feeding yours?

 

[Griev]

I have an autofeeder at each side of the tank, and they turn 4x a day. One has a mix of TDO Chromaboost and Hikari Seaweed Extreme pellets (medium size), and the other is Sustainable Aquatics Hatchery Diet (small size). I also drop in a frozen cube of PE Mysis on each side every 2-3 days.

The new spotbreasts aren't going after the pellets yet, but should catch on pretty quick. I train them by feeding the Mysis every day and making sure to rotate the pellets on top of the frozen to help train them.

 

[Griev]

Feeding time!

So far the new trio of spotbreast angelfish are settling in nicely. Figured out the pellets are food, and no aggression with the watanabes at all.

The smaller male Watanabe got into a bit of a fight with the larger male and came away with a couple bruises and a double case of popeye. Followed humblefish's Epson salt dosing guidance and it's almost entirely cleared up after a little more than a week. I think they got it out of their system because the big male has been ignoring him since he got the popeye.

 

[Griev]

I printed a dragon skull, but the snails love it for some reason so now it's a unicorn...

 

[Griev]

Been a while since a FTS

 

[TheWB]

Been a while since a FTS

Thats looking really good. I see the vision coming together with the eyphillia on the left side. How are the other rows of corals coming along to complete the look you were going for?

 

[Griev]

The other rows are starting to look really nice, can't wait to see how they look with more growth.

Overall though it's been slower going than I expected. I have been having issues with corals generally not doing well in the tank. I was keeping nitrates between 0.5 and 1 and phosphates between .1 - .03, but everything was either slowly bleaching out or in the case of SPS they'd look great but not really grow at all and eventually STN.

I decided to lower my lights a little bit and after reading some anecdotal stories of success with the types of coral behaviors I was seeing, I've been dosing Kent Marine Coral-Vite for the last 2-3 weeks and things are looking much happier. I need to test nutrients, but I'm afraid high readings will stress me out, lol.

If things continue to do well and grow, I'll continue adding more corals to the right and middle rocks finally.

 

[Griev]

 

[Griev]

Finally done tweaking my 3d printed auto-feeder chute, now with a mesh porthole. I like this design because I can also drop in a frozen cube without taking off the lid and walk away without worrying if it'll get sucked into the overflow.

 

[Griev]

Local reefer hooked me up with a 5 frags worth of golden hammers. With the new additions, I think I'm done with this rock for now.

 

[Griev]

Order on the way from aquaSD! Filling in some more blastos and duncans on the right rock, a monti to encrust the right dragon skull, and some zoas to start planting the "lawn"

 

[Griev]

More blastos and duncans, a monti to encrust one of the skulls, and some zoas. Getting more Zoas locally today, see if we can't get this lawn filled in.

 

[Griev]

When the lights start to dim, the dancing begins. It's fascinating watching Watanabes' social behaviors.

 

[Griev]

The monti I picked up is looking good and growing, so I picked up a couple acros from a local clearing out their tanks for a move. The purple polyps on this one really pop.

 

[Griev]

I wonder how it tastes

 

[Griev]

Fragged two of the mini colonies and did some gardening

 

[Griev]

Added a stripe of pink frogspawn to finish up the euphyllia rock.

I also added some purple gorgonia and red and purple acans to the softies section.

I've still got plenty of aquascape to fill in on the central rock with SPS, zoas for the bare bottom, and I haven't quite decided to do with the left side of the right rock, but it's starting to finally feel like a full reef.