MRBH22’s 310 peninsula with fish room build

[mrbh22]

One more thing. The rock in the display is starting to show signs of life and I had to clean the glass for the first time. So things so far is going in the rite direction.
Is it just me or do you also enjoy when a tank starts to show the ugly’s?

 

[mrbh22]

Little update. Fish are all well and good. I h just hooked up the AFS to the Neptune and it’s nice but I need to get it dialed in. It dumps too much food on 2 clicks over and none at 1 click over.
I’ve been chasing the alk there is literally one head of hammer in the system and the alk drops almost a full point per day without dosing. So I have dosed a ton of alk solution trying to get the DKH to 9. I believe I got the calcium up to 440 and the mag to 1350. I need to test the water change water when I do my next waterchange. I have to assume the alk is really low from the Manufacturer. I’m looking for a group of anthias and a couple Benggai cardinals. Then i guess I will take out a small loan to buy the tang gang. Lol. I want to place all the tangs in at once and let them develop a pecking order all at the same time. After the fish are all done. Then I will look forward to when I start seeing coraline so I can get the starter corals in.

 

[piranhaman00]

Running halides! This is ridiculously awesome!

 

[mrbh22]

Small update. I have been trying to find a group of lyretail anthias to get in to the tank before the tangs get in but I cant get ahold of more than one at a time. So yesterday I went all in and got most of the bigger fish. I got a blue hippo tang. A scopas tang. A pair of blue jaw triggers. And a 2 barred rabbit fish
I will probably get another couple of tangs to add later but I also could be done. I’m not a huge fish guy. I’m more of a coral guy and the fish are there to complete a job.

 

[mrbh22]

Making a bit of progress. I’m building the water change station stuff this week. I bought a cor 20 so I can control it with the apex easily. I think I’m going to look into going the auto water change route. If anyone has a good or bad experience with using a dos for AWC let me know.

 

[mrbh22]

So finally an update. It took me 6 months to put this water change setup together. I also recently got my UV plumbed in. All the fish are doing well. I need to get another batch of fish but I have a vacation planned for early sept. I have a few pics to share that show some of the fish room.
The rock is finally showing life but I’m not sure if it’s Dino’s or some other form of brown algae. So I will be taking advantage of the water change station to do a nice big WC before we go on vacation.

 

[mrbh22]

added some more fish this week.
4 lyretail anthias
1 large starry blenny (dude is a boss)
1 target mandarin
1 big eye cardinal

Through qt I lost one anthia weird story , all 5 were perfect through qt. But when I netted them to move them to the big tank I placed them into this gallon water pitcher. When I looked in the pitcher when I was getting ready to move them over this fish was all contorted to one side ,mouth open , and breathing heavy. I first blamed myself that I might have injured it when I netted it. So I put him back in the qt to see if it would survive the night. So the next morning I go check the qt tank and the fish is swimming around swimmingly all normal. So I soop it up and place it in the big tank. And all seemed well. Then the following morning I find it dead laying in the sand.
I also lost a copperband butterfly that didn’t make it 24 hrs in qt. (My version of qt is observation for 3-4 weeks. And don’t Medicate unless fish show Signs of sickness.
Also got a few corals to make sure that the tank is ready for coral. (it’s been 1 year) I just started to see coraline actually growing in the last month or two. I have some pics because that’s what we all are here for.
Don’t mind the sand I’ve been lazy on sandbed maintenance

 

[rockyb]

Looking amazing!

 

[squidarcher]

I'm glad its all coming together!

 

[mrbh22]

Little after Xmas update. All seems to be doing well. The corals are growing and encrusting. The SCOP looked like it had RTN everywhere and I thought it was a goner but I decided to lower it down a bit and I had some flatworm stop from KZ that people seemed to say did amazing things for struggling corals. So I started dosing 12ml every day. And magically it started to get healthier by the day. And actually really started encrusting and coloring up about 1-2 weeks after I started dosing it. Fish all look happy the mandarin is getting fat! So all is well. Happy holidays and new year to everyone!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Little after Xmas update. All seems to be doing well. The corals are growing and encrusting. The SCOP looked like it had RTN everywhere and I thought it was a goner but I decided to lower it down a bit and I had some flatworm stop from KZ that people seemed to say did amazing things for struggling corals. So I started dosing 12ml every day. And magically it started to get healthier by the day. And actually really started encrusting and coloring up about 1-2 weeks after I started dosing it. Fish all look happy the mandarin is getting fat! So all is well. Happy holidays and new year to everyone!

I like how the fish in the one picture you took is just trying to move out of the way of the photo as fast as he could. Coral looks great though!

 

[nuxx]

Looking great

 

[mrbh22]

I like how the fish in the one picture you took is just trying to move out of the way of the photo as fast as he could. Coral looks great though!

thanks! those anthias are all about being in the camera he must have gotten hit with some water movement lol

 

[mrbh22]

Big haul at the Cincy reef swap. I ended up with way more frags than I planned for. Also missed out on some pieces I was looking for that just weren’t there. Still looking for fox flame, palmers blue Mille, Walt Disney, and. The obvious Homewrecker.
Here is the list from the swap


Pink cadillac.
Ponape birdsnest
Lava flow chalice.
Tubbs stellata
Bubblegum digitata.
Lazys blue zing birdsnest
Yellow tenius from cheesy corals
Paletta pink tip (tri color)
Neon green toadstool
Hawkins echinata

I have got to figure out how to take better pictures ( all tips appreciated but here goes.

 

[mrbh22]

added a couple more frags now that everything is settling in nicely. got a real nice chunk of Bill murray acro that i split up with a friend. Also got a real nice coral from Lazys coral (shop,house) called Lazys silverback its deep blue and has dark polyps but has bright yellow coralites. and my buddy broke off a piece of his monti cap and gave it to me so i added that as well.

i purchased some of the tunze coral gum. i must say i like it because it does what is advertised. however the working time says like 1 min. and its actually more like 20 seconds and you are done. so there was a learing curve to using it and its not cheap so my word of advice to anyone using it is to mix very small amounts and see what works for you before mixing up a good size piece.

did do a full round of testing and all the #s look good.

Cal was a bit low at 400 so i bumped it up to 425.
Alk was at 9.2 (i run anything from 9 to 9.5)
mag was a little low also at 1300 so i dosed it up to 1350
nitrate was 10.4
phosphate was .04

i am happy with those numbers, i have a big water change mixed up and i want to knock it out but i like where the nitrate and phospate are so im not sure what to do with this water.

im assuming that the nitrate and phospate being low is what has killed off the cheato i have tried twice to get to grow in the refugium.

 

[mrbh22]

added more coral to the the tank. they are all still on plugs. looks like everything is doing well. i need to figure out where i want to put everything. i will share pics of all the goodness. i havent made any other major changes.

i had a halide ballast start to go on the fritz and was having a hard time locating another. i did manage to find and order one as a backup.

i have to do another slew of tests and see where the water is.