Phoenix stage

[iamacat]

Finally, 2020 is ending and that makes it day 66 for my system. Here are some shots from this evening. Lots of new friends and unfortunately some loss. Couple additions to the system.

not even going to list all my frags but it’s excessive. My goal was to grow out gardens of acans, zoas, euphyllia, and shrooms. I also wanted to dabble in SPS. I think I’ve got a pretty good start now lol.

my first batch of frags have grown considerably, especially my birds nest.
The next batch have had plenty of growth with a dozen or so new zoa polyps and a few new acan heads.

unfortunately I was unable to get my clowns to cooperate and I didn’t get my nano set up in time. Things were fine untill about a week ago. The female of my previous pair decided to turn on my platinum. They had all been fine minus normal mild clown posturing. Once the platinum was being beat up the midnight lighting took his turn on my naked and now it’s just the lightning and the snowflake. Sad, but I knew it was a gamble. Natures gunna nature.

Equipment wise I added a CO2 scrubber, my pH now runs 8.05-8.2. I added a 2nd gyre, the OGC setting is fantastic. I added a 3rd hydra because I wasn’t happy with the shadowing or PAR spread. It’s been about 2 weeks with the 3rd and my corals are loving it. Finally got to installing my DOS for AWC, 0.7g a day. Using my other head to dose microbacter7 along with the All for Reef which I have switched to the powder. My salt is now TM pro as the Redsea is now done.

next up I have a nano I’m going to play around with. I’m going to get another X1 dose so I can dose easy sps evo and booster.

thanks for reading
Happy New Year!

 

[iamacat]

Hard to show growth this early but these two are easy to see. Lots of new eyes on my war coral

 

[iamacat]

Interested to see how this plays out. I’ve always wanted a nano but never wanted to have 2 tanks or downsize. I figured this was the perfect time to try. Got myself a little lifeguard AIO 4.1g. Heating with a titanium Hygger 50w. Light is a pico reefbreeders. I am going to run AWC through an extra DOS to manage the nutrient load. I plan to draw water from my display sump as I want to have as close to the same water parameters and benefit from what I dose in my display. I can always draw from my fresh supply of this proves to be stupid.

plan is to cycle over the next week and then I’m going to start dumping all my cultivated pods in there. Use it as an intermediate holding area before they go into the display. While I am finishing up that plan I am going to phase into my next, a green mandarin . I’m going to use the pod filled nano to acquaint myself with it while observing its feeding of frozen and pellet. I have the pieces for a Paul B feeder and I have a brine shrimp hatchery for extra coverage when I move to the display.

this is far from my main focus and I have no issues tearing it down if I don’t enjoy it.

 

[a4edwin]

Boy for a lazy reefer you sure do have a lot going on in that cabinet. Pretty organized but just looking at all that makes me nervous.

 

[iamacat]

Boy for a lazy reefer you sure do have a lot going on in that cabinet. Pretty organized but just looking at all that makes me nervous.

Put the time and money in now and enjoy the process. Only thing I do is add water to my reservoirs and dosing containers once every 3 weeks. Empty my skimmate locker as needed weekly. Feed frozen food and seaweed. You are right it is overwhelming but I got it done and now it’s me doing the stuff I enjoy in the hobby. When I remove the CBR and MAR on that stand it’s looks empty. Thanks for checking it out!

 

[iamacat]

Well for a few days now I’ve been wondering if I’m nuts. The DOS AWC I set up wrong even tho I knew there was something different about the AWC set up. Well after 3 days of no water going into my waste and me thinking it was kinked since everytime I primed the line it would run. Took until I was watching the DOS run during the AWC, I realized the pump runs reverse for removal. I needed up just swapping the connections and problem solved. Felt pretty dumb because I even knew there was a trick but I just didn’t see it. Good news is my salinity was running 33ish ppt and now it has slowly gone up with the new water added from the AWC canceling out my ato needing to run. Thankfully this was my situation otherwise I would have probably lost the tank had my salinity been 35ppt

 

[PanhandleReef]

Well for a few days now I’ve been wondering if I’m nuts. The DOS AWC I set up wrong even tho I knew there was something different about the AWC set up. Well after 3 days of no water going into my waste and me thinking it was kinked since everytime I primed the line it would run. Took until I was watching the DOS run during the AWC, I realized the pump runs reverse for removal. I needed up just swapping the connections and problem solved. Felt pretty dumb because I even knew there was a trick but I just didn’t see it. Good news is my salinity was running 33ish ppt and now it has slowly gone up with the new water added from the AWC canceling out my ato needing to run. Thankfully this was my situation otherwise I would have probably lost the tank had my salinity been 35ppt

Now you just have to remember to swap it back every time you calibrate it. I got tired of swapping so I just went into fusion and changed the setting to make it turn the normal direction.

 

[iamacat]

Now you just have to remember to swap it back every time you calibrate it. I got tired of swapping so I just went into fusion and changed the setting to make it turn the normal direction.

Thanks for the heads up. I was going to investigate further on how to rearrange it. Seems like a very annoying thing they did. Nothing info wise other than the picture at set up. Would be nice if they had an option to designate the dos for AWC and just auto set the pump to run the directions it should for AWC. Just seems like unnecessary complications

 

[iamacat]

wheewww. Everything is settled in and I hate my snowflake clown more than ever. Aside from her murdering my fav 2 clowns she was absolutely obnoxious as I glued my last 12 frags. I ended up with glue all over myself. I broke half my birds nest and knocked another 3 frags off because of her.

I have a couple of areas I left open for future additions. I filled in my acan, zoa, euphyllia, and shroom gardens. Now I get to watch them grow out, pretty excited to see the gaps fill. All sticks are up top but I might move them around as they color up. With my 3rd light I am now sitting 300+ up top and about 100-200 around the sand bed. I’ve noticed an increase in polyp extension and coloring since adding the 3rd.

im getting closer to be finished. I have sensors to set up and that’s about it. I’ve considered do a couple mollies because I am just interested in that, but I don’t think I’ll want them in there long term. The nano is almost finished cycling, just about to finish clearing a second ammonia dose in under 24hrs. The ATO I planned to use didn’t work, my oversight, so I’m waiting on the new one I ordered. Once that’s set I’m going to begin the PODulation process.

it’s crazy to think where I was back in October. Confident but nervous. Everything has gone exceptionally well. I’ve proven to myself that I can be successful in this hobby, just took years and years to put it together. Can’t wait till I learn even more, part of the reason why I’m always on the help forums, trying to pick up others knowledge and see if mine is correct.
Thanks for visiting!

 

[iambes]

Wow! Looks amazing

 

[iamacat]

Ordering my 3rd ATO for the nano now. The duetto I got to replace the reefbreeders that didn’t work for me also doesn’t work period. This one’s just dead from the box, not my stupidity. I’m not joking when I say I’ve had to do everything 3 times. One day I will get the nano ATO set up!

 

[Pipo5]

Man beautiful tank i just got the same tank and lots of apex gear I also wanted to do auto water change was wondering how thow do you have your dos schedule set up much u taking out?

 

[iamacat]

Been a rough while since posting on the forum. Shortly after starting this reef and documenting I became seriously ill for about 1.5 years and for 8 months of that I lost the ability to use my hands. So my reef went through the ringer along with me, but thanks to my automation and hardware, all my inhabitants survived minus the demanding corals. The biggest killer were my pulsing xenia shading out the euphyllia and SPS.

this pic was taken when I regained some function of my hands and started to try sprucing the place up a lil. I had barely done any water changes of significance and those were accomplished by my girlfriend. Battled Cyano for a bit and then chopped away a bulk of the Xenia, had to leave some because the clowns mated and were laying eggs in them. Spent some months slowly getting the system back in order trying not to do too much at once and let the system work itself back into rhythm with me finally doing husbandry again. Beginning of the summer we decided to move forward with selling our home to cash in on the market while it was hot.

This week I made the move to my OG home and have got the tank humming along in the new location, getting ready to restock some pieces that I miss.

 

[iamacat]

Man beautiful tank i just got the same tank and lots of apex gear I also wanted to do auto water change was wondering how thow do you have your dos schedule set up much u taking out?

I was doing about .75g a day on my 75g and that was doing good. I went back to manual WC tho and I like that because I’m more involved. I had some issues where being consistent with making water to have in the new container became troublesome and the take line was still taking. I still won’t be going back to AWC in my new place because I like the intimacy of the manual WC.

 

[iamacat]

 

[Skeeter4890]

I have been off this site for a while too and I know you were one of the first people I followed, your story is amazing and I’m so glad you got use back in your hands an you’re now (seemingly) healthy and keeping the tank rolling I love it! I am finally able to start my own reef tank but it’s just going to be a 20 gal cube just excited to finally get wet in the hobby

 

[iamacat]

I have been off this site for a while too and I know you were one of the first people I followed, your story is amazing and I’m so glad you got use back in your hands an you’re now (seemingly) healthy and keeping the tank rolling I love it! I am finally able to start my own reef tank but it’s just going to be a 20 gal cube just excited to finally get wet in the hobby

Appreciate it! I’m doing pretty darn good now, can’t complain. Tank is getting back in order and I’ll start sharing some updates. I look forward to seeing what you get started

 

[iamacat]

As the weather gets better i will be replacing some of the corals i lost. Great success with the corals that survived with me. Survival of the fittest for a while tho and some of my favorite more delicate pieces didn’t stand a chance as husbandry stopped and Xenia over grew.

birdsnest didn’t enjoy the move and I lost two grapefruit sized pieces

Fuzzy Grinch Milli

Teal Ring Lord

Pasta Sauce Lord

I had a gift card to AquaSD from 2 Christmas’ ago. AquaSD is my fav to order from due to quality of product and delivery as well as $ and availability.

Torch growth over exactly 1yr. 3 heads to 11+

I have to remove a hundred dollars worth of Xenia every 45 days as they get to areas I don’t want them. Now I’ve got them growing on the back wall which is where I would prefer they exist. I love the way they flow and pulse, but I don’t enjoy the light and flow they steal from other corals.

Other corals that have thrived are my encrusting corals. They have established their territories on one rock and are growing out in their agreed upon regions.

Orange Bubble Tip anemones total 9 now from the 1 purchased in late 2020

I battled Cyano for a while and just couldn’t cut through after a month of natural remedies and elected for Chemiclean. Had great success with the treatment and managed the oxygenation well.
Only issue was my Zoa colonies collapsed or retracted into small buttons. They seem to be reproducing again, but the size is not what they were. Same thing has happened with my fuzzy green mushrooms. They were like a carpet covering a rock the size of a volleyball. Now they are not as fluffy but still healthy and reproducing.

I have been dosing AB+ with great success in coloration and increased growth in the small amount of SPS I have remaining.

 

[iamacat]

Cleaned my Nero 3 yesterday and successfully found my Nero 5 that I had lost during the move. I was not happy with the decrease in dynamic flow which I believe had a negative effect on some corals.
So yesterday I reinstalled the Nero 5 in a similar fashion that I had it while my tank was thriving which moves the water opposite to the gyre flow. Nero 3 is back to the bottom right to move water behind the rocks and prevent detritus build up on the rocks.
Nero 5 is set to 38% pulse mode 2s:4s 8pm-1pm. 2s:2s 1pm-8pm
Nero 3 set to 69% pulse mode 4.5s:4.5s 24hrs

With this the Torch is dancing better and there is much more energy in the tank across the board.

I also found my PAR meter along with the 5 so I checked to see if the new scape was similar to the last. Readings were 100 in the sand bed corners to 130 in the middle of the tank on the sand bed. The rest of the readings were a perfect bell curve with the top middle reading 280 at the top of the purple stylo. Encrusting Towers on the right read out at 190.

Here is my AI settings which have remained the same since probably 1/21. It’s a Saxby original that i adjusted to balance my eyes and nuisance growth.

clowns have been spawning for a while now and I am considering getting my phyto and pod tanks back up and running as well as my brine shrimp factory to attempt raising the fry. I think the babies would be a very interesting mix and am curious

 

[Skeeter4890]

Cleaned my Nero 3 yesterday and successfully found my Nero 5 that I had lost during the move. I was not happy with the decrease in dynamic flow which I believe had a negative effect on some corals.
So yesterday I reinstalled the Nero 5 in a similar fashion that I had it while my tank was thriving which moves the water opposite to the gyre flow. Nero 3 is back to the bottom right to move water behind the rocks and prevent detritus build up on the rocks.
Nero 5 is set to 38% pulse mode 2s:4s 8pm-1pm. 2s:2s 1pm-8pm
Nero 3 set to 69% pulse mode 4.5s:4.5s 24hrs

With this the Torch is dancing better and there is much more energy in the tank across the board.

I also found my PAR meter along with the 5 so I checked to see if the new scape was similar to the last. Readings were 100 in the sand bed corners to 130 in the middle of the tank on the sand bed. The rest of the readings were a perfect bell curve with the top middle reading 280 at the top of the purple stylo. Encrusting Towers on the right read out at 190.

Here is my AI settings which have remained the same since probably 1/21. It’s a Saxby original that i adjusted to balance my eyes and nuisance growth.

clowns have been spawning for a while now and I am considering getting my phyto and pod tanks back up and running as well as my brine shrimp factory to attempt raising the fry. I think the babies would be a very interesting mix and am curious

You should definitely breed your clowns if you have the time and an extra tank!