Matt's natural reef

[Matt Carden]

Calibrated and checked my new Hanna Salinity checker courtesy of @MarineDepot today:
32.5 ppt @ 27°C
Looks like 1.0225 @ 80.6°F
I guess it's time to turn down my heaters and I will work on raising my salinity.

I got a lawnmower to battle this algae I've got and some hermits. I also picked a purple pseudo at the LFS yesterday.

 

[Matt Carden]

Little by little increasing my salinity. Last night I increased my salinity to 33.7 ppt.

 

[Matt Carden]

I got my salinity up to 35 ppt yesterday. I noticed one of my hitchhiker corals seems to be coming back to life. I will relocate the rock it came on and post pics later after work. It's furry in this pic but it looks much better now.

 

[Matt Carden]

My wife is slowly coming around to the hobby. She loves watching and talking to Jerry our yellow Wrasse. She hates how overgrown with nuisance algae the tank has gotten. She's one of those neat freaks so I bought HER a Flipper it'll be here today.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

My wife is slowly coming around to the hobby. She loves watching and talking to Jerry our yellow Wrasse. She hates how overgrown with nuisance algae the tank has gotten. She's one of those neat freaks so I bought HER a Flipper it'll be here today.

Beautiful move!

 

[Matt Carden]

As promised a better picture of a hitchhiker coral.
I ordered a cleanup crew from liveaquaria.com today. I ordered some blue and red legged hermits, some Trochus snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, a sea slug, a sea cucumber, and a fighting conch. I don't think they'll have a problem finding something to eat.
I am in the design stages of building a water change reservoir for a diy auto change system, a filter sponge/ carbon reactor, a dosing reservoir, and an electronics board incorporating
reef-pi into my build with a much needed cable management system.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

As promised a better picture of a hitchhiker coral.
I ordered a cleanup crew from liveaquaria.com today. I ordered some blue and red legged hermits, some Trochus snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, a sea slug, a sea cucumber, and a fighting conch. I don't think they'll have a problem finding something to eat.
I am in the design stages of building a water change reservoir for a diy auto change system, a filter sponge/ carbon reactor, a dosing reservoir, and an electronics board incorporating
reef-pi into my build with a much needed cable management system.

That's going to be a happy CUC!

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Looking good. The hitchhiker corals are cool.

 

[Matt Carden]

Well sad day yesterday, we lost our Ricordia ☹

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Well sad day yesterday, we lost our Ricordia ☹

dang, that sucks! Sorry man...

 

[Matt Carden]

Thanks @crusso1993 . I've lost a fire fish now a Ricordia and a Toadstool (but I knew I wasn't ready for the Toadstool but it was free). My yellow Wrasse Jerry is doing great so the water cant be that bad. I did have an issue with my Auto top off (my fault) that caused my salinity to drop from 35 ppt to 24 ppt so that probably what killed the Ricordia.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Thanks @crusso1993 . I've lost a fire fish now a Ricordia and a Toadstool (but I knew I wasn't ready for the Toadstool but it was free). My yellow Wrasse Jerry is doing great so the water cant be that bad. I did have an issue with my Auto top off (my fault) that caused my salinity to drop from 35 ppt to 24 ppt so that probably what killed the Ricordia.

Happy to hear Jerry is good!

 

[Matt Carden]

Today I discovered why we should use better bulkheads for our reef tanks. I was pulling my emergency drain to slide my light support behind it and the nut on my stock bulkhead split causing me to have to shut down my sump. I am planning to rework my plumbing. So for now I am just going to replace the nut, which I've ordered and will be here Tuesday. I am planning to replace my current stock bulkheads with Hayward bulkheads. They will hopefully hold up better.

 

[Matt Carden]

I spent a good 6 hours over the weekend removing as much of the nuisance algae in my tank. I used a powerhead to blow it off and some manual removal. I removed some of my sand that was overgrown. I caught most of the floating algae in a fish net and flushed it.
Two days later and the tank still looks good. Hopefully I'm through the worst of the uglies.
I estimate that I have at least 12 species of algae, micro and macro.

 

[Matt Carden]

I found a few more hitchhikers in the last week. There is a clam but he isn't attached at his feet. When I try to move him into a crevice to hopefully reattach, he won't move. He seems to be attached at his mouth/gripping the rock. He appeared to be free floating yesterday so I tried to sneak up on him and he gripped the rock before I could move him. I found 2 urchins. I also found something that looks like Apstasia but it doesn't appear to have tentacles. Looks more like 5-7 spade shovels pointing in towards the center. I tried to get a pic but too small.

View attachment 20190313_185350.jpg

 

[NY_Caveman]

I still find new critters in my live rock 7 months in. That has to be the best part of reefing.

 

[Matt Carden]

I still find new critters in my live rock 7 months in. That has to be the best part of reefing.

Only if you buy true live rock.

 

[Matt Carden]

My first Saltwater FOWLR tank I had running around 6 months. All dry rock and sand. I didn't go through ugly stages so I thought it would be easy this time too. A little more challenging this time around.

 

[NY_Caveman]

You get some bad too, but usually the tank sorts it all out while it matures.

 

[Matt Carden]

Today I cleaned out enough GHA/dino to fill the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket about an inch. It must have weighed 3 lbs.

I didn't see Jerry all day
I hope he didn't jump out and get eaten by my cat or dog.
I tried to put a cover under my light support contraption but it didn't work out too well so I removed it.
I have a plan to incorporate hinged eggcrate around my light support to keep jumpers in, I just haven't had time to build it.

I got my plumbing repaired and my sump back online yesterday but alas my power supply got wet in my leaking plumbing so it shut down. I got the power supply working today and the pump running. Man it smelled like a sewer when it started running. I ran some carbon for a couple hours while I cleaned the algae.
I really need to clean up my electrical management!

I made some homemade frozen food today. I combined Oysters, Mussels, Clams, meal worms, and Crickets blended in a food processor and froze in mini ice trays.