Matt's Innovative Marine 100 EXT

[mattzang]

Looks great. Is that a coral in front of the copperband? Or just an odd piece of rock lol

I think that was my pocillopora I just couldn’t break it off easily so it remains

 

[mattzang]

 

[mattzang]

got a tunze 6065 with the idea of creating more surface agitation while letting the octopulse and nero do the across tank flow since they're wavemakers. seems to have done the trick and now i have that boiling water type surface flow. bummer they're not smaller, though

while getting a pic of the back of the rockwork to show it doesn't touch the back wall i got a couple pics of the midas blenny squeezing into his bolt hole

 

[mattzang]

got a polyplab lens thingy for pics, seems kinda good to fix the blue issue, but my phone struggles to focus with it on. either way, these were a few decent pics. the multicolor is hard to get right with the white on gray areas of the body, the iphone doesn't know what to do

 

[mattzang]

released the orangeback fairy wrasse today, no real aggression from the flame wrasse

algae and aptasia still hanging out, but CUC working on that. i did a week of really dim lights and that seems to have helped get rid of the cyano, or maybe the CUC just worked on the detritus

yellowhead jawfish is in there under the rock in the front on the left, but i haven't seen it come out yet. i added some smashed up rubble rock to that area so he can make a better burrow hopefully

 

[mattzang]

on the QT front i have a pintail fairy wrasse, small tail pencil wrasse, and a sunburst anthias in QT. i did a h2o2 bath and then 6 days in a sterile container, then another h2o2 bath before adding them to QT. i also tossed in a black molly and uhh.. the black molly i think died. it was stuck to a powerhead, but seemed alive so i helped it get unstuck and it sorta swam away, but now i can't find it lol. but i don't think it was a disease issue, possibly salinity, not sure. all 3 fish still look great and all are eating. nonetheless i guess i'll try another black molly when i get back from a short trip out of state tomorrow or perhaps i'll just do TTM since these will be the last fish i'll be adding from my own QT as i'm egregiously overstocked already.

 

[mattzang]

 

[mattzang]

 

[mattzang]

alk 9
no3 25ish but maybe a tinge darker, but not nearly as dark as 50
po4 seemed pretty close to .10 maybe somewhere between that and .25

i was gonna test calcium but then.. it took all of like 5 minutes to test that other stuff so i'm pretty spent

the hope was nutrients to be a bit lower than that, but recent skimmer issues and the ATS taking a bit to come online properly will hopefully lower that in the future. unless i add more fish and feed more..

it might be coral time soon

in my last tank my sps lived and grew, but growth was slow. my nutrients were always quite high and things actually seemed better when nutrients were higher, but i'm guesstimating it was slow growth due to high nutrients and lower light. so if i have high nutrients again this go around i can crank up the lights quite a bit. or high nutrients will just hinder my growth whatevs

i generally prefer alk closer to 8 than 9, but nothing is really eating up alk and i use IO and the standard alk is sorta high. coralline seems lacking, and i also have like 6 urchins now and ime urchins love them some coralline

 

[mattzang]

Pics super dim but figured I’d take some pics before overnight stn nightmares

ran out of actual frag plugs so giant green slimer went right on a rock and green Monti is on a disc in the sand. Green Monti was a generous freebie but I’m not sold I want Monti caps in the tank as they just get so big and grow over everything, but it can hang out for awhile as a tester

added
-red planet
-Asd tapioberry
-purple stylo
-Hawkins Enchinata
-wwc yellowtip
-some green Aussie freebie tabling looking character
-Aussie gold tort
-miyagi tort
-asd rainbow Phoenix monti
-flaming Phoenix monti
-toxic green or something anacropora

now to see what makes it.. hopefully everything and I just have some dull colors for awhile

 

[mattzang]

Frags looking surprisingly decent

polyp extension on red planet is pretty nutty, not gonna expect that long term with the angels cruising around tho

 

[mattzang]

Added a Randall’s assessor and heniochus diphreutes today. Cbb taking note

fedex was kind enough to leave them in Indianapolis for an extra day, but fishotel.com had them packed super well so neither fish seems worse for the wear

 

[mattzang]

and released the heniochus. felt bad for him in the little box and the cbb seemed to not mind him much

 

[Mike Kearns]

I love all the different fish you have, I really need to up my fish game!

 

[mattzang]

haha thanks.. i kinda overshot the stocking i had in my mind. but i think i can make it work! lol

 

[mattzang]

 

[mattzang]

 

[mattzang]

 

[Mike Kearns]

I want a Fathead anthias! Does your damsel fish dig in your sand? I have a yellow tail blue damsel in another tank who destroys my substrate. I don't want that in my main tank but would like to add a damsel.

 

[mattzang]

I want a Fathead anthias! Does your damsel fish dig in your sand? I have a yellow tail blue damsel in another tank who destroys my substrate. I don't want that in my main tank but would like to add a damsel.

he does have a bit of a tunnel he dug himself, it's that area directly north of the jawfish next to the empty snail shell

i wouldn't say he destroys the substrate tho. the jawfish messes with the sand a bit, but the worst is my midas blenny who will grab a mouthful of sand, get mid tier in the tank and then releases it. idk what he's doing, but the montis i don't think love it lol