My transition from lifelong fresh water to reefing

[Brad Miller]

BERGHIA NUDIBRANCHS....
I had a lot of Aptasia and tried all the recommendations everyone has tried (except adding animals)
Biggest one was over 4” tall, so I ordered 10 of them from Reeftown.
On August 9th, they showed up (next day air)
I followed Captain Jeff’s directions and acclimated them, then left jar on its side for them to crawl out on their own to a rock with little flow while lights out.

That was the last I saw those guys.
About 2 weeks ago, my grandson noticed the biggest Aptasia was gone ! (Those guys must have ganged up on the evil mother first to intimidate all the others )

I just now saw two of them (about 1” long now) eating the last one in my tank that I can see

$150 is what they cost me and I don’t regret it at all.

 

[Brad Miller]

I ordered the XP Aqua Sumpless Auto Top Off System for my frag tank.
I had a hard time choosing which way I wanted to go with my existing setup, DIY, brands, features, reliability ect...
I like this one for the reliability and the added benefit of surface skimming.

 

[Brad Miller]

Just got my Water Test results;
Turns out I have high Aluminum and Lithium.
Most likely from my salt and not worried about it.

 

[Brad Miller]

Received and set up the XP Aqua Sumpless Auto Top Off System on my frag tank.
Gotta say, this is a pretty cool idea for surface skimmer and ATO !
Working great !

 

[Brad Miller]

Started seeing a lot of bubble and hair algae.

came up with a siphon hose with a pointed acrylic rod attached and by using that with a small pick in my other hand, sucking bubble algae up and into my filter sock every week.

I hope the 3 emerald crabs I just got will start working their magic soon.

I also just got 12 Astrea snails and their really chowing down on the hair algae on the rocks.

The Aptasia is returning again, so I just put 2 peppermint shrimp in the tank and hope they develop a taste for it.

so....I am cutting way back on the amount of food I feed along with changing the filter sock every other day in an effort to reduce the algae growth.

 

[Brad Miller]

My new way of drip acclimation from display to sump so temps stay the same;

 

[Retro Reefer]

Tank looks great! Nice job Had to laugh at your nudi story mine did the same thing.. most of my aptasia were on the right side of my tank, had probably a dozen tiny babies so that's where I released my nudi's.. I didn't see any signs of activity at all for about a week and then one morning I noticed that a single monster size aptasia on the far left side was gone! Had me scratching my head why they would pass up all those tender little meals and travel to the far side of tank to tackle that beast first.. lol. They did clear 99% of them but the couple that were missed have repopulated my tank so I just ordered another batch of berghia's, hope they get them all this time