Jimbo's CDA 250 Build

[Jimbo327]

Check out all of the small/baby Trochus snails I have just on my front glass. I started out with 15 adults. Luckily, the yellow wrasse doesn’t seem to go after them because they have pretty strong grip/suction.

 

[Jimbo327]

I made some DIY coral snow with cheap calcium carbonate based on this thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-kz-coral-snow-with-97-purity.211722/

I turned off the skimmer and return pumps. And I scrubbed the rocks and powerhead, and dosed DIY coral snow into the tank. Whoa, it got cloudy real quick.

All of the fish went into hiding, and I’m going to let it settle for a couple hours before turning everything back on. I’m trying to encourage more coralline spread…basically a Purple-Up substitute.

 

[JoJosReef]

That's some serious CUC!

 

[Jimbo327]

LOL. Yeah, there isn't a single strand of hair algae or spot of turf algae in my tank. The only algae I have is bubble algae, and I'm going to add a few pitho crabs when I find some at the LFS. The downside is there is nothing for my tangs to graze on. So I feed 1-2 sheets of nori per day.

My CUC game is strong. My coral growing game, not so much.

If you want some baby trochus snails, I can definitely hook you up. But your wrasses may make a quick snack of them though.

 

[JoJosReef]

They haven't been successful with Astraeas and trochus so far, knock on wood. I think the trochus are too strong. Ceriths are toast as soon as they go anywhere that they can be knocked around, like the glass, and only the biggest nerites are able to avoid get knocked off and killed

My pitho crab has eradicated most of the bubble algae and what's still there is simply in places he can't reach. I sometimes grab a bubble algae covered snail and place it right in front of him. Afterwards, clean shell.

 

[Jimbo327]

Went to LFS for some salt, and I didn’t realize how expensive salt has become. $95 for a bucket of Nyos salt. Enough to only make 135 gallons. Crazy.

 

[Jimbo327]

Since it’s time to dump the full skimmate locker and clean the cup. Took the opportunity to make some more modifications to my skimmer.

I added a port on the top of my skimmer lid. This will allow me to drip LC directly into the skimmer (if I need to lower phosphates in the future). The Home Depot bucket lids are my previous mod to hold a bag of carbon and keep the smell/ozone down.




Skimmer cup drains out the skimmate to the DIY skimmate locker (empty 5gal salt bucket) outside. (Yellow frog tape container holds the carbon)