OP
OP
besskurz
Active Member
Hello reefers!
I have been mia for a little time, but here is an update of the tanks!
- Bowl is running for 2years and 9 months
- Frag will make 1yr soon
- Anemone jar maybe 6 months?
But lets list what happened since that time, so I dont forget myself in future lol.
GSP war is over:
For two times I took the rock out of the tank and scraped everything I could see, in total it was like 4-5hrs of work. I had to remove the tip of the rock because it was too difficult to clean the cavities - I made a little video in my channel about that. I dont recommend at all, but i was not willing to replace the rock.
Gorgonian frags:
Finally I sold them all yesterday. Next harvest schedule for 2026 :)
Zoas:
I received a couple of zoas donated by a friend who was moving and I found a good place for them in the back, I kinda made some sort of stairs with several levels which you can see in the begining of the video. Its working well until now.
Duncan:
That is a coral that keeps growing and growing now. very happy with that, I feed benepelets and shrimp in a random agenda.
Kenya:
Its the coral that gives me now the most maintenance, because i need to keep an eye on the babies. Or it takes me more time to scrape them out of the rocks.
Xenia:
It was moved from the glass to some of the media bricks in the back.
--- now you will think, why tha h*ll this guy keeps those invasive corals. 1- I find them cool, 2- they are my chickens. Every other day I have a new frag, and people just seem to like them. $15 today, $15 tomorrow and I was able to already payback the tanks this way. took a long time for sure, it would be way quicker selling SPS, but... what is quick in this hobby anyway? - to crash a tank. lol
All 4 reef:
I recently changed from Kalkwasser to All 4 Reef.
Mainly to reduce room in my cabinet. No big benefits. Bowl KH is always around 8ish
I have a constant unbalance of CA and MG which I manage with WC.
I still throw an unmeasured quantity of kalk in the ATO but not much because this feeds the other two tanks.
Frag tank kh is around 9-10ish.
Water Changes / WC's:
If you read this thread since the begining you will see that I was on the "NO WC" team big time.
BUT! I changed. sorry. Now I do weekly. It takes me 5 minutes!
All I can say is that right now, its just not worth it to skip the WC's.
When your tank is SMALL and in the beginning, thats all right - this was me for +1year.
But now with sps, and large corals, its just not possible.
Brine shrimp:
I tried my hand growing brine shrimp at home for the gorgonian and other corals.
It was fun, it was nice to see them growing and feeding corals, but I'm way too bad in measuring things. I overfed the tank and started to have some sort of clowdy algae growing in NEW frag plugs which were not very cured yet. But I just bought some additional CUC, WC's and its back on track. The bowl is now very permissible to these dumb mistakes now.
The travel:
This January, I made a trip to Brazil again - working, visiting family - and the tanks where here.
This was all I could see for 30 days, very dramatic.
ATO jug was running low around day 26 and a friend with zero knowledge in aquariuns came in to fill the RO-DI jug and that is all.
KH was 8.8 when I left, and 6.3 when I was back.
MG was 1480 - and then 1240.
CA - I dont know.
So what happened? My corals just kinda stalled during that entire time.
With exception of this green birds nest? - i dunno the name. you can see in the bottom left with green-brow color.
It lost coloration and some tissue, but other than that its all fine.
And some macroalgae - the dragons breath is fine but the red gracilaria died off, but come on that is ok.
No crash, no curse, no plague, just some algae left over in those SPS from the brine shrimp situation, which is now gone - you can see in the video.
Several WC's and we are back on track. I hope to do not leave for so long again, but... I know the limits now.
And that is it guys.
Happy reefing!
I have been mia for a little time, but here is an update of the tanks!
- Bowl is running for 2years and 9 months
- Frag will make 1yr soon
- Anemone jar maybe 6 months?
But lets list what happened since that time, so I dont forget myself in future lol.
GSP war is over:
For two times I took the rock out of the tank and scraped everything I could see, in total it was like 4-5hrs of work. I had to remove the tip of the rock because it was too difficult to clean the cavities - I made a little video in my channel about that. I dont recommend at all, but i was not willing to replace the rock.
Gorgonian frags:
Finally I sold them all yesterday. Next harvest schedule for 2026 :)
Zoas:
I received a couple of zoas donated by a friend who was moving and I found a good place for them in the back, I kinda made some sort of stairs with several levels which you can see in the begining of the video. Its working well until now.
Duncan:
That is a coral that keeps growing and growing now. very happy with that, I feed benepelets and shrimp in a random agenda.
Kenya:
Its the coral that gives me now the most maintenance, because i need to keep an eye on the babies. Or it takes me more time to scrape them out of the rocks.
Xenia:
It was moved from the glass to some of the media bricks in the back.
--- now you will think, why tha h*ll this guy keeps those invasive corals. 1- I find them cool, 2- they are my chickens. Every other day I have a new frag, and people just seem to like them. $15 today, $15 tomorrow and I was able to already payback the tanks this way. took a long time for sure, it would be way quicker selling SPS, but... what is quick in this hobby anyway? - to crash a tank. lol
All 4 reef:
I recently changed from Kalkwasser to All 4 Reef.
Mainly to reduce room in my cabinet. No big benefits. Bowl KH is always around 8ish
I have a constant unbalance of CA and MG which I manage with WC.
I still throw an unmeasured quantity of kalk in the ATO but not much because this feeds the other two tanks.
Frag tank kh is around 9-10ish.
Water Changes / WC's:
If you read this thread since the begining you will see that I was on the "NO WC" team big time.
BUT! I changed. sorry. Now I do weekly. It takes me 5 minutes!
All I can say is that right now, its just not worth it to skip the WC's.
When your tank is SMALL and in the beginning, thats all right - this was me for +1year.
But now with sps, and large corals, its just not possible.
Brine shrimp:
I tried my hand growing brine shrimp at home for the gorgonian and other corals.
It was fun, it was nice to see them growing and feeding corals, but I'm way too bad in measuring things. I overfed the tank and started to have some sort of clowdy algae growing in NEW frag plugs which were not very cured yet. But I just bought some additional CUC, WC's and its back on track. The bowl is now very permissible to these dumb mistakes now.
The travel:
This January, I made a trip to Brazil again - working, visiting family - and the tanks where here.
This was all I could see for 30 days, very dramatic.
ATO jug was running low around day 26 and a friend with zero knowledge in aquariuns came in to fill the RO-DI jug and that is all.
KH was 8.8 when I left, and 6.3 when I was back.
MG was 1480 - and then 1240.
CA - I dont know.
So what happened? My corals just kinda stalled during that entire time.
With exception of this green birds nest? - i dunno the name. you can see in the bottom left with green-brow color.
It lost coloration and some tissue, but other than that its all fine.
And some macroalgae - the dragons breath is fine but the red gracilaria died off, but come on that is ok.
No crash, no curse, no plague, just some algae left over in those SPS from the brine shrimp situation, which is now gone - you can see in the video.
Several WC's and we are back on track. I hope to do not leave for so long again, but... I know the limits now.
And that is it guys.
Happy reefing!
