My 75 gallon adventure

[taulgrl]

Had my first experience trying to extract a fish - lyretail anthias who transitioned to male and then developed one pop eye.
Tried to net him using food to entice. Waited till he was asleep.. no luck. Built a soda bottle fish trap - no go. Recruited the husband to chase fish w net while I tried to corner. Nope. Partitioned half the tank off, no dice. Finally yanked half of rock out and fish found the tiniest crevice to hide in a remaining rock. Lifted the rock out w fish still in rock and finally got him! 2 days and hours of chasing. Maybe I should get a fish trap?!

 

[taulgrl]

Popeye treatment worked! Male anthias returned to DT and looking gorgeous. So cool how they can completely transform so quickly.

Added a diamond Goby that is working nonstop to move every grain of sand and a tuxedo urchin. Corals and fish seem happy

would like to add an RBTA or other nem and some more coral. The overflow box is so ugly.. thinking about trying to attach some soft coral to it. Also want to add biodiversity and maybe try a fuge again. Live phyto is on the way and going to try chaeto and pods in the sump. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into a hair algae factory again

 

[taulgrl]

Woohoo got a rainbow Bubble Tip Nem and he/she is so beautiful! Also picked up a leather at the LFS and a little more GSP. Everyone looks healthy and happy so far. 8 months in without anything for filtration other than a filter sock. Nitrates have crept up to 15 but adding Chaeto this week and, honestly, everything seems fine. Trying to stick with the KISS method and put off or avoid getting a skimmer.

 

[Eric R.]

Following! You have some very nice looking fish so far. Jericho, VT based reefer, I also have freshwater experience and am planning to setup a 55g tank in the hopefully not too distant future. Have plenty of research and equipment so far... Nice to see another local reefer on the forums.

 

[taulgrl]

Following! You have some very nice looking fish so far. Jericho, VT based reefer, I also have freshwater experience and am planning to setup a 55g tank in the hopefully not too distant future. Have plenty of research and equipment so far... Nice to see another local reefer on the forums.

Hello and thanks for following! I got some of my coral from a friend in Jericho. Things are going slow but steady here. Good luck with your build, I’m looking forward to seeing it come together!

 

[Eric R.]

Happy New Year! First FTS for 2022?

 

[taulgrl]

Happy New Year from my reef to yours

 

[taulgrl]

Happy New Year! First FTS for 2022?

Thanks, you too. Your turn to post an update. How‘s the mangrove tank doing?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Happy New Year from my reef to yours

Happy New Year!!

 

[taulgrl]

I’ve been keeping an eye on these green palys (or zoas) as they thrive and grow toward the orangish zoas that share their rock. I know they can release toxin because I’ve ticked them off and they’ve released a thread of mucus. Coral in tank closed down a bit so assumed I had one of the paly toxin types ones on my hands.

Last night read a lot and watched videos on how to prune them. Created a steel straw siphon (thanks @Timfish !) and sucked a bunch out today. All seems good. Running fresh carbon just in case.

This is why I love this forum!

 

[taulgrl]

The tank is a year old!

Gave it a good cleaning and took some new shots. Still running just a filter sock and bag of carbon (no skimmer) and Nitrates tested 0 yesterday! Ugh! Time to feed more and pulled a not so thriving ball of chaeto from the sump. I can’t bear to remove the dragons breath macro from sump so hopefully feeding more raises the nitrates.
Plan moving forward is to start a white worm culture and get a Copperband in the not too distant future. Maybe a flame angle after that.
Challenges =an inability to maintain a pod population and my Rasta zoas are disappointingly small.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

The tank is a year old!

Gave it a good cleaning and took some new shots. Still running just a filter sock and bag of carbon (no skimmer) and Nitrates tested 0 yesterday! Ugh! Time to feed more and pulled a not so thriving ball of chaeto from the sump. I can’t bear to remove the dragons breath macro from sump so hopefully feeding more raises the nitrates.
Plan moving forward is to start a white worm culture and get a Copperband in the not too distant future. Maybe a flame angle after that.
Challenges =an inability to maintain a pod population and my Rasta zoas are disappointingly small.

Looking great, love those Anthias fish.

 

[revhtree]

Looking great! Keep up the good work

 

[taulgrl]

Got very healthy and generous frags from @ReefBum ! A red Goni and two different Zoa colonies. Working to glue them down so my urchin stops taking them for a ride.
Also fighting an outbreak of vermetid snails . Trying to hand destroy some each day and got 10 bumblebee snails to hopefully beat them back.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Got very healthy and generous frags from @ReefBum ! A red Goni and two different Zoa colonies. Working to glue them down so my urchin stops taking them for a ride.
Also fighting an outbreak of vermetid snails . Trying to hand destroy some each day and got 10 bumblebee snails to hopefully beat them back.

The bumblebees will help, they do in my tank. Plus, they look cool when they group together

 

[taulgrl]

I did a thing today. One of my toadstool leathers was getting to big so I trimmed it with a razor knife. Don’t have a frag tank or room for the remnants so they went into the trash. Hopefully it heals ok and doesn’t look too terrible for long!
Pics: before, after and the “frags”

 

[taulgrl]

Boring update… just got back from, essentially, a month of travel and everything survived! No new purchases other than an emerald crab that is (hopefully) in the sump somewhere. Time for a deep clean and prep for my next fish ( Copperband?)

 

[taulgrl]

Got this beauty on Sunday and so excited! I drove it from CT to VT (5 hrs) in an extra large bag. Acclimated temp and SG over 45 min and it ate 5 min after leaving the bag. Was eating frozen mysis in the store and so far it eats that, spirulina brine, a fresh clam on half shell and it destroys anywhite worms I put in (started white worm culture a month ago).

I’m going to keep it in unmedicated QT a while to fatten it up and keep an eye on it for disease.

Such a beautiful fish! I’ve been wanting one since I started the tank over a year ago

 

[Bpb]

Have the bumblebee snails been helping against the vermatids?

 

[taulgrl]

Have the bumblebee snails been helping against the vermatids?

I think so! I’ve been crushing them by hand a bit but the spread seems to have slowed down faster than my crushing