My first tank reefer 625 xl g2 build

[Reefdiculous22]

So I thought I was growing algae on my Aussie lord and scrubbed it with a tooth brush. Come to find out it was probably new growth and I ripped tissue from the skeleton. Pls do not do this. I found out just the round base is the plug the rest is all coral. It sucks but I fed it mysis shortly after and it ate so I believe it will bounce back. Hopefully it doesn’t get any bacterial infections but with all the cyano and Dino in my tank it probably will. Wish me luck. Happy reefing. Cheers

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Went to the lfs today to take back my problem child fox face and brought home some new additions. Kole tang, blue hippo tang, 2 cleaner shrimp, 10 blue leg hermit crabs, and a 6 line wrasse. He’s hiding so couldn’t capture any pics of him.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

I think I’m finally getting some coralline algae going on!

 

[i cant think]

The tank is looking great!
Do you have a current update on stocking?

 

[Reefdiculous22]

The tank is looking great!
Do you have a current update on stocking?

Thank you! I lost one shrimp and the 6 line. I haven’t been able to recover there bodies. I have no idea where they went. I added 2 fighting conches and a tiger conch as well as a few turbo snails.

The tank is looking great!
Do you have a current update on stocking?

 

[Soilworker]

Thank you! I lost one shrimp and the 6 line. I haven’t been able to recover there bodies. I have no idea where they went. I added 2 fighting conches and a tiger conch as well as a few turbo snails.

Dang, that's a bummer on the 6 line and the shrimp. Hopefully that's the last thing that doesn't make it. I had a red corris wrasse that was going belly up in the bag by the time I got him home. He didn't end up making it.

I love my conch! I need to get some more. I think two more like you have. The one I have is constantly eating diatoms and algae.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Dang, that's a bummer on the 6 line and the shrimp. Hopefully that's the last thing that doesn't make it. I had a red corris wrasse that was going belly up in the bag by the time I got him home. He didn't end up making it.

I love my conch! I need to get some more. I think two more like you have. The one I have is constantly eating diatoms and algae.

That would be nice. But I just noticed more bad news. I think I have a vemited snail on my zoa. Just noticed it for the first time today.
Yes conches are cool. Mine stay buried most of the time. Lol

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So I’ve been battling a huge cyano outbreak for over the last month now. But I noticed this week it hasn’t come back quite as strong as it usually does after a water change.

This was taken august 6th 2022. This is what it would looked like 2 to 3 days after a water change

these photos were taken today. I cleaned the rocks and sifted sand plus did a 20 gallon water change on Sunday. This is the best it’s looked in a long time. The corals are doing well as so are the inhabitants. Although I did lose my last cleaner shrimp the other day. At a complete loss as to what happened to him. I got up to go to work and put a flashlight in the tank and he was dead laying on the sandbed in the center of the tank. He was fine the night before.
My skimmer did overflow during the night. Don’t know if that had something to do with it or not. RIP

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So far this is probably my favorite coral in my tank. Not really a lot going on right now trying to save up for some more equipment. Not really sure where to go next in this venture .
Tank just hit 3 mo. There’s still a little cyano but it’s nothing like before. Started dosing pods and phyto . Now my refugium is a different story.
it’s full of algae. I turned the lights off for a few days but didn’t help much. Anyways just wanted to share my mushroom and give a little update.
Any advice on what to do next I’m open. Happy reefing and cheers.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Got a couple new corals for the tank. A bubble tip anemone and a green tip torch.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Just reached mo. 5. Coraline is taking off and so far everything seems happy. A couple close calls but all in all pretty happy. Slow and steady.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So it’s been a very long time since I have posted. This will be a long post as a lot has happened since my last post. If you take the time to read it, thank you and I hope you get something out of it.
Back in the months of April and May my tank crashed. It was totally my fault. There were a variety of variables that fueled the outcome. One was I bought the Red Sea 1200 reefmat. I stopped running my skimmer thinking the mat itself would provide adequate filtration for the bio load I had at the time. This was not the case.
Combine that with the fact that I was running low on DI resin and to conserve I reduced water changes to 3 weeks instead of weekly, all while continuing my regular feeding habits of 1 sheet of nori as well as feeding flakes and frozen in the evening per day. I was also not testing regularly. Everything had been looking good and stable up until this point. I was also battling Cyano and Dino, that also played a roll in the decision to reduce water changes. I read that water changes fuel these.
So around the end of April beginning of May I started to notice my Acanthophylia , Duncan, and other corals starting to shrink and lose flesh.
I finally got my resin and some reagents for my Hannah checkers and immediately went to work. Nitrates had jumped to 50ppm and phosphates were a whopping .80! Insanely high. I did a 40 gallon water change every 2 days for a week for a combined 120 gallons of water. I added GFO to help reduce the phosphates and turned the skimmer back on. While doing the water changes I siphoned the mats of Cyano/Dino and did this over the course of the next couple of weeks. During this time I lost my Acanthophylia, Duncan, Favia, Indo Torch, and Micromussa. It was just to little to late.
However on a positive note my Hammer, Merletti, Zoas, Mushrooms, and BTA, all survived
as well as all my fish and most of my invertebrates. I did lose a few snails. Which brings us to date. I am back on weekly water changes , about 25gal a week. Nitrates are down to around 20 ppm and phosphate is hanging around .08 instead of .80. I’ve had white sand for around 3 weeks now and coralline algae is starting to thrive again. I’ve started using Kalkwasser with the newly updated Reef ATO plus. Which has been phenomenal in the recovery process. My PH has been 8.0 in the morning and around 8.2-8.3 in the evenings.
I’m very happy that things are turning around to where they should be. Some new additions to the tank include the following:

Male and female pair Bellus Angels
Diamond Watchman Goby
Juvenile One Spot Foxface
New Duncan
Cyphastrea
Cespitulina?- LFS said it was a type of Xenia

Older stock(for reference)
Desjardini Sailfin
2 Pajama Cardinals
Gladiator and Oscelaris Clown pair
Yellow Eye Kole Tang
Roseband Fairy Wrasse
Biota Yellow Tang
2 cleaner shrimp
2 fighting conch
1 strawberry conch
Turbo and asterina snails
Hermit crabs
Trocchus snails

Sorry for any misspelling. And if you made it thru this you are my hero! Things are finally looking up and I’m looking forward to dusting myself off and going to the next level. I am very humbled by the experience and learned sooo much. I feel bad for the animals that were lost . All I can do now is try my best not to let something like this happen again. Thank you stopping by and Happy reefing!

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Trying out the Orphek lenses on the iPhone. I think it would work better with a single lens camera.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Went and got a few new corals to add to the tank. It’s been aboitbt3 months since the tank crashed. Everything seems to be going back in the right direction so I bought a few new corals.
The Duncan isn’t as nice as my last one but it was only 30 bucks so I picked it up.

 

[whitcory]

Just checking out your thread. I also have the same tank as you but an older generation. sorry to hear about your crash but encouraged by your recovery. I am 1.75 years in with this tank (check out my thread). I have had no crashes and like you have added the reefmat to the older gen 1 tank. I love it. My tank is doing well but I am moving slow and steady with everything. Anyways, looks like your tank is maturing and your corals coming along well. I also have a Duncan that has grown so big and out of control. Good luck and I’ll be following along.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Just checking out your thread. I also have the same tank as you but an older generation. sorry to hear about your crash but encouraged by your recovery. I am 1.75 years in with this tank (check out my thread). I have had no crashes and like you have added the reefmat to the older gen 1 tank. I love it. My tank is doing well but I am moving slow and steady with everything. Anyways, looks like your tank is maturing and your corals coming along well. I also have a Duncan that has grown so big and out of control. Good luck and I’ll be following along.

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the empathy. I did lose some really nice pieces.
Things are coming along pretty good. I recently installed the Red Sea ato+ so that makes my life easier. Working on getting some dosing pumps to start keeping my levels stable. It’s been about 3 mo now and my lvls are getting close to where I like them. The crash was definitely an eye opener but it really motivated me. I move a lot slower and research a lot more now. Not gonna be putting anymore 400 dollar corals in my tank for a while. Lol
Thanks again and I will be stopping by to see your thread. Happy Reefing.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Just checking out your thread. I also have the same tank as you but an older generation. sorry to hear about your crash but encouraged by your recovery. I am 1.75 years in with this tank (check out my thread). I have had no crashes and like you have added the reefmat to the older gen 1 tank. I love it. My tank is doing well but I am moving slow and steady with everything. Anyways, looks like your tank is maturing and your corals coming along well. I also have a Duncan that has grown so big and out of control. Good luck and I’ll be following along.

You don’t have a thread link.

Just checking out your thread. I also have the same tank as you but an older generation. sorry to hear about your crash but encouraged by your recovery. I am 1.75 years in with this tank (check out my thread). I have had no crashes and like you have added the reefmat to the older gen 1 tank. I love it. My tank is doing well but I am moving slow and steady with everything. Anyways, looks like your tank is maturing and your corals coming along well. I also have a Duncan that has grown so big and out of control. Good luck and I’ll be following along.

 

[whitcory]

Try this!

Build Thread - RedSea 625 XXL New Tank Build - "The Whitquarium"

Ok, I‘m starting to think of my new fish list. What to add. My current stock is as follows: -2 Clowns -1 Royal Gramma Basslet -1 Female Melanarus wrasse (not changing to male!) :( -1 Loepard Wrasse -1 Tailspot Benny (I want to trade him back to LFS) -1 fox face Rabbitfish (currently in...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[whitcory]

Also, how is that ATO? I have been eyeballing that. i got the one that is related to Neptune. It is OK, but uses a float valve to keep level. I have heard good stuff about the red-sea option. Will see. I don’t love the Red Sea app though.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

Also, how is that ATO? I have been eyeballing that. i got the one that is related to Neptune. It is OK, but uses a float valve to keep level. I have heard good stuff about the red-sea option. Will see. I don’t love the Red Sea app though.

It’s awesome. Before I got the ato+ the ato it came with, with the float valve, wouldn’t keep up with evaporation. It basically dripped fresh water back into the system. I took it out and just topped off manually. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure you leave it off after you do you water changes or turn off the return pump, until your water lvl stabilizes. I’ve turned it on too early and had to add salt water back into the system to raise the salinity.
I don’t mind the app. I really haven’t had to many problems with it. Some minor disconnects now and then but nothing major. I would definitely recommend it. It also has a temp probe , which is nice for redundancy.

Also, how is that ATO? I have been eyeballing that. i got the one that is related to Neptune. It is OK, but uses a float valve to keep level. I have heard good stuff about the red-sea option. Will see. I don’t love the Red Sea app though.