Lion King's NPS Predator's Reef

[lion king]

He went in today, so not out that much to get a good pic. But the 3 together look fantastic.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

He went in today, so not out that much to get a good pic. But the 3 together look fantastic.

Looks like a plane under water. Very cool

 

[Goodair]

Should of looked for your build threads much earlier lol, good read through.

 

[lion king]

 

[Goodair]

Have you ever had cyano/algae issues with this tank? Seems like CUC is hard to pick out for this tank.

 

[lion king]

Have you ever had cyano/algae issues with this tank? Seems like CUC is hard to pick out for this tank.

No cuc, it's low light and I run a refuge that gets pretty nasty, that;s only because I;m still feeding mutiple times a day even though I hardly have any corals. You can easily run snails, crabs, and urchins with the lions; I have also have a conch in my other reef. I don't run any cuc in my blackfoot tank. The only thing about the cuc is no shrimp. I'm not sure about the scorps with crabs, lions don't touch the hard bodied inverts. I'm pretty sure the rhino won't touch them, he doesn't even eat ghosties. Cyano is generally due to an imbalance of nitrates to phosphates, too low nitrates to too high phosphates; red light spectrum can also be a contributing factor.

 

[lion king]

Here's another pic of the new lion in natural ambient light.

 

[Goodair]

Beautiful coloration

 

[Goodair]

What do you grow in your fug? I been trying different types of algae, the one I haven't had success with is ulva so far. Its not dead, just not growing. I'm sure the chaeto is outcompeting it, but don't have enough ulva to be alone and honestly the nutrients have been steady to try and force a change.

 

[lion king]

I like using caulerpa, and I'll mix in some red gracillaria, i like a nice looking fuge. i gad an issue and loss my caulerpa and replced with chaeto, I don't care for chaeto. I've really ignored the reef part of tis tank since I couldn't find any nps corals, and the ones I did I had to nurture back to health.

I've never had good results using chaeto for some reason, one lfs owner told me they actually harvest some inland in FL, in what appears to be fresh or at best brackish pools. This chaeto almost always dies off in the marine systems. I've also had issue with hair algae, whether it be because of hitch hiking and/or the nasty stuff out competes the chaeto.

I can't find any caulerpa locally and I usually get my macros from Gulf Coast Ecosystems, it too hot for a delivery here right now.

 

[shred5]

Nice..
My heart sinks every time I see a thread on a NPS tank build. I am always expecting it to be someone trying to feed manually a few times a day. Some of these corals need food almost 24 hours a day.. Nice to see you are trying to figure this out with automatic feeding. One thing I would add is bacteria, it will help with nutrients in the end but it may provide food for some of the other nps corals like dendros or some of the other stuff with smaller polyps that is real hard to keep. I truly think we are on the verge of keeping some of the harder nps corals. I think someone will come out with automatic feeder we can purchase eventually for feeding nps corals.

Smaller footprint skimmers I have used that work well are the Aquamaxx skimmers. Very cheaply built but work well.
Ultrareef skimmers, they skim well and are really well built, can be harder to get.
Deltec makes are great skimmers and Adam here can help you there. This probably be your best bet.
Another skimmer allot seem to like but I never used is Nyos.

I like using caulerpa, and I'll mix in some red gracillaria, i like a nice looking fuge. i gad an issue and loss my caulerpa and replced with chaeto, I don't care for chaeto. I've really ignored the reef part of tis tank since I couldn't find any nps corals, and the ones I did I had to nurture back to health.

I've never had good results using chaeto for some reason, one lfs owner told me they actually harvest some inland in FL, in what appears to be fresh or at best brackish pools. This chaeto almost always dies off in the marine systems. I've also had issue with hair algae, whether it be because of hitch hiking and/or the nasty stuff out competes the chaeto.

I can't find any caulerpa locally and I usually get my macros from Gulf Coast Ecosystems, it too hot for a delivery here right now.

I like Caulerpa too but it can go sexual so you have to watch out there. It is believed caulerpa can also combat through allelopathy to.

 

[lion king]

Nice..
My heart sinks every time I see a thread on a NPS tank build. I am always expecting it to be someone trying to feed manually a few times a day. Some of these corals need food almost 24 hours a day.. Nice to see you are trying to figure this out with automatic feeding. One thing I would add is bacteria, it will help with nutrients in the end but it may provide food for some of the other nps corals like dendros or some of the other stuff with smaller polyps that is real hard to keep. I truly think we are on the verge of keeping some of the harder nps corals. I think someone will come out with automatic feeder we can purchase eventually for feeding nps corals.

Smaller footprint skimmers I have used that work well are the Aquamaxx skimmers. Very cheaply built but work well.
Ultrareef skimmers, they skim well and are really well built, can be harder to get.
Deltec makes are great skimmers and Adam here can help you there. This probably be your best bet.
Another skimmer allot seem to like but I never used is Nyos.




I like Caulerpa too but it can go sexual so you have to watch out there. It is believed caulerpa can also combat through allelopathy to.

I've only read about caulerpa going sexual online, Ive never seen it in person. I dont have a ton of experience with macros but have friends that do. No one I know has ever had that problem either. I have one friend that runs several large tanks and uses caulerpa as his primary nutrient control source, never an issue. The only thing he said to me was harvest it and make sure the tank has enough nutrients to cover its needs. I believe the problem lies with people over filtering all nutrients out and giving too much light(some people even do 24 hrs).

 

[shred5]

I like using caulerpa, and I'll mix in some red gracillaria, i like a nice looking fuge. i gad an issue and loss my caulerpa and replced with chaeto, I don't care for chaeto. I've really ignored the reef part of tis tank since I couldn't find any nps corals, and the ones I did I had to nurture back to health.

I've never had good results using chaeto for some reason, one lfs owner told me they actually harvest some inland in FL, in what appears to be fresh or at best brackish pools. This chaeto almost always dies off in the marine systems. I've also had issue with hair algae, whether it be because of hitch hiking and/or the nasty stuff out competes the chaeto.

I can't find any caulerpa locally and I usually get my macros from Gulf Coast Ecosystems, it too hot for a delivery here right now.

I've only read about caulerpa going sexual online, Ive never seen it in person. I dont have a ton of experience with macros but have friends that do. No one I know has ever had that problem either. I have one friend that runs several large tanks and uses caulerpa as his primary nutrient control source, never an issue. The only thing he said to me was harvest it and make sure the tank has enough nutrients to cover its needs. I believe the problem lies with people over filtering all nutrients out and giving too much light(some people even do 24 hrs).

Back in the day we had caulerpa growing in our reef aquariums. Eventually it was in a refugium.
I have had it go sexual many times. It gets little fine hairs on it and the water goes cloudy.
Pruning it is supposed to help stop it going sexual also lighting it 24 hours is thought to help prevent it but I am not sure it was ever proven. When it went sexual it really never did anything though. Probably food for filter feeders.

I never had issues with chaeto but yea it can come with bad stuff if you do not get it clean from a reliable source.
It also can be a detritus trap if not done right.

 

[lion king]

The most stunning group of lil' predators, kind of lost my passion for the nps corals. I would have to see something pretty nice to get me back, and I'm not too optimistic.

 

[lion king]

 

[Goodair]

what is that next to the rino

 

[lion king]

what is that next to the rino

That's a chili coral, I thought they looked neat side by side, makes the rhino look like another coral.

 

[Goodair]

That's a chili coral, I thought they looked neat side by side, makes the rhino look like another coral.

Its amazing how well they camouflage. Can't imagine how hard it would be to find those out in nature in a dark area.

 

[lion king]

I haven't given up yet, I picked up an elephant ear sponge today. I really do enjoy the color of this feather duster, it is a little different. When it cools down I will order some more from Gulf Coast. I haven't seen any nps gorgs in stock for months so I'm hoping, I'll likely pick up a red finger sponge. Oh yeah btw, the rhino is a bulldozer, so anyone considering one for a reef. I don't mind and he's not going to cause trouble for anything I'm putting in this one. But he just walks all over, lays all over anything, like I said, he's a bulldozer lol.

 

[Goodair]

Feather duster looks nice. Im still waiting on the weather to cool down before ordering some stuff from them too.