nbd13's Return...150g Custom Bare-bottom SPS/Angel/Modified Triton Method Reef

[nbd13]

Small update:

- first fish in the DT, davinchi clowns went in yesterday.

- got a cleanup crew in as well along with a cleaner shrimp.

- got shipment from Adam @Battlecorals today. I’m not into names much but got a nice bunch.

1. Poletti Yellow Tip
2. Glass Slipper
3. Miss Scarlet
4. BC Secale
5. Shades of Fall
6. Excaliber Millie
7. Soft Pink Millie

- Also don’t want to jinx it, but got this gem from Divers Den, fingers crossed it starts eating...hopefully settling in to QT today and will eat tomorrow [emoji1695][emoji120]. Perfect size at 2 1/2”!

That’s all for now. Got the triton stuff for dosing and will be setting up DOS system this weekend.

 

[Scurvy]

Great start! Tagging along from here.

 

[nbd13]

Great start! Tagging along from here.

Thanks.

My dKh is holding around 8.5 with dosing 1.5 mL/day of triton 1-3b.

I need to harvest chaeto today or tomorrow. Stuff is growing like a weed! Probably why my PO4 is so low. Need to get more fish in there! 2 borbonius made it through first stage of QT. Have 2 small juvi Red Sea regals right now in the first stage.

Trying to decide between more anthias of some type...or go with some fairy wrasses. Thoughts?

Also need a tang, not sure if I want a black tang or gem tang...

 

[ngoodermuth]

Very nice looking build... that juvi regal is adorable. Fingers crossed it eats for you soon, it took three for me to get one to eat properly :/

And definitely Gem tang, if you are going to drop the dollars might as well go all the way

 

[nbd13]

Very nice looking build... that juvi regal is adorable. Fingers crossed it eats for you soon, it took three for me to get one to eat properly :/

And definitely Gem tang, if you are going to drop the dollars might as well go all the way

Thanks!

The juvi regal is eating like a champ. I have another one that’s slightly larger maybe 2 3/4” that I got Tuesday. Ate a few pellets that night and hasn’t eaten since. Might pick up some love mussels today to see if I can get him eating.

Any thoughts on fairy wrasses vs. anthias?

Thanks

 

[ngoodermuth]

Thanks!

The juvi regal is eating like a champ. I have another one that’s slightly larger maybe 2 3/4” that I got Tuesday. Ate a few pellets that night and hasn’t eaten since. Might pick up some love mussels today to see if I can get him eating.

Any thoughts on fairy wrasses vs. anthias?

Thanks

I would say fairy wrasses, but I might be a little biased. I have 6 wrasses in my tank currently lol The only drawback I’ve found with fairy wrasses is getting to the point where you have enough that all get along. I have had trouble getting more than two at a time to co-exist in my 120... I feel like as soon as I have three, somebody starts getting picked on or becomes aggressive. It could just be bad luck on my part lol

If you go with fairies, I feel like you are better off to have like 4-5 different ones off the bat, instead of adding them one at a time... but that can get pricy depending on the species you are after lol.

 

[nbd13]

Thanks. I was thinking about getting 3-4 fairies....flame, rhomboid and lineatus plus one more.

Just feed the regals. The little guy is eating great. The big one didn’t touch a thing. Looks like love mussels it is for later.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Updates?

Beautiful tank!

 

[nbd13]

Updates?

Beautiful tank!

Thanks!

Yes, lots of updates. Going on vacation Wednesday for a week, hopefully the tank is ok while I'm gone. Have a neighborhood kid coming to feed the fish once a day and setup the apex auto feeder for another feeding.

I will update when I get back with some pictures. Have 10-12 SPS in there and are doing decent.

Had some issues with fish QT, so far 2 borbonius and 2 clowns in the tank, the others did not make it sadly.

Have more fish coming when I get home and with the excellent help in the Fish Disease section, think I found the problem with what I was doing wrong in QT. Fingers crossed. Have some exciting fish coming in.

Big update when I get back....

 

[nbd13]

Quick update....

Since getting into this hobby 15 years ago, I dreamed about getting a conspic angel. I was young and in school, couldn’t afford one, so settled for a blueline (was was an awesome fish).

Today as a birthday present from my awesome
Wife I got the go ahead and received my Captive bred Conspic Angel from Matt at POMA labs!!!!

What a treat! Matt was awesome to work with. He picked me out an awesome specimen! It arrived in a huge box for 1 fish:

Open the box to find this:

The “pull here” tab was awesome. It’s always a pain to get the tape off from the lid. This tab took the tape right off!

Every fish comes with a certificate:

Matt took extra time to write a personalized note in their catalog which was very cool:

The fish was packed in a huge bag, with a ton of water.

Acclimated the fish and he’s hanging out in my acclimation box for a few days so the tangs can get used to him. Sorry for the bad pictures. He’s a little shy...but man is he FAT!

So excited about this!

Maybe this weekend when I have time I’ll take some tank pictures and do a big update. More exciting fish coming too!

 

[nbd13]

Update time...

Tank has been so, so lately...been battling this algae, not sure what it is. Thought it was Cyano, was taking over my chaeto. The chaeto was growing like a weed, then slowed way down. I dosed some red slime remover just over a week ago with little effect. Maybe it’s dyno’s?

It’s really too bad because besides that everything has been coming along nicely. Finally have this ghost overflow tuned. The only annoying this is whenever you clean anything and the return pump looses gph the overflow needs some tweaking. Which is very annoying.

We lost power for about 2 hours yesterday, everything was fine, but my wife suggested we get that whole house generator now rather than wait! She said she was worried about my tank haha! Knew I found a good one.

Still trying to locate a trident that should be the last piece of equipment I need/want for a while.

The all has been pretty stable at around 8.0-8.4 with dosing the triton method.

The fish list:

- 2 Davinchi Clowns
- Powder blue tang
- Purple Tang
- 2 borbonius anthias
- POMA Captive bred Conspic Angel

I have 4 more fish coming out of QT in about 8-10 days. Stay tuned for that.

Corals:

All sps so far, except a hammer and torch coral. I envision more torches and some zoas to fill in the bottom of the tank and a few select chalices then the rest sps.

So far I’ve gotten 1 battlebox from Battle Corals. Adam was awesome to work with, but just not for me. So...

I’m taking a different path that 90% of people, instead of paying for expensive named pieces for a 1/2” frag I’m going mostly wild colonies. People probably think I’m crazy, but back when I used to do this 12-18 years ago there were few named pieces, frags were usually 1-3”, now these are “mini colonies”?!?! Just can’t get over it...these designer corals are insane. It’s hard to even get an accurate picture or know which vendors don’t alter pictures or take them under blue lighting.

Anyways, rant over. So, I got about 6 wild colonies 6-8 weeks ago and most of them have encrusted to their spots already. Then I just got 6 more a few days ago. Time will tell

A few full tank shots just to document. These are from my iPhone. Some are with no filter and then some are with the orange filter from polyplabs:

Anyways that’s it for now.

 

[nbd13]

Hi everyone,

Update time and advice time...posted this in the SPS section as well...

I am having a battle with Dino's currently, the SPS look great though, their color and growth is pretty decent.

My PO4 on Hanna ultra low meter is 0.01-0.03 and my Nitrate is unmeasurable! When I used to have SPS tanks 12-20 years ago, I always had higher nutrient levels and it worked for me. I think I may have an imbalance going on here? I feed 2-3 times a day heavily. I have 7 fish currently with 4 more coming out of QT this week. I do have an oversized skimmer, but always have since I love fish as much as SPS.

My chaeto in my fuge will not grow...too low of nutrients? I tried dosing some iodine. I have an ICP test I'm going to send off soon. I thought the Dino's may be consuming some of the nutrients, but I still can't believe I have 0 nitrate and PO4 at 0.01-0.03!

Any advice here? I do not really want to get into dosing to get nitrate up...but that might be my only choice?

Thoughts?

 

[count krunk]

check out @Rakie 's post in this thread https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brand-new-8-gallon-bio-cube.297335/page-504#post-5673318

post #10075. very good explanation of chaeto.

that is def dinos, and your nutrients are very low.

Dr Tim gave a speech at RAP Orlando. He got a tank off of dino looking algae by cutting back the skimmer and adding in bacteria once a week or so.

 

[nbd13]

check out @Rakie 's post in this thread https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brand-new-8-gallon-bio-cube.297335/page-504#post-5673318

post #10075. very good explanation of chaeto.

that is def dinos, and your nutrients are very low.

Dr Tim gave a speech at RAP Orlando. He got a tank off of dino looking algae by cutting back the skimmer and adding in bacteria once a week or so.

Thanks for the info. Wonder if I just dial my skimmer down some instead of skimming wet like I am now if that would work.

Wonder what bacteria he added?

 

[nbd13]

Small update:

Added 4 new fish to the display after graduating from QT!

- Small 3” bandit angel
- Joculator angel
- Lineatus wrasse
- Pintail wrasse

All are doing great, eating and everyone seems to be getting along so far besides the occasional flare from the purple tang.

Also added 2 Mexican turbos and 20 Trochus snails tonight to see if I can combat these stupid Dino’s. Also started dosing H2O2 for the past 4 nights at 1ml/10 gallons so roughly 17 ml total ever night. So far no change. From what I read it can take 5-6 nights before a difference is seen.

Some pictures. These fish are hard to capture!

 

[nbd13]

I took the chaeto out today. Also started feeding heavier the past 2 days trying to get nutrients to up. Turned skimmer way down to skim dry. Added 12 Mexican turbos, hopefully this stuff isn’t toxic to them...

SPS are starting to get Dino’s on their tips, very upset about this as they were doing awesome before these stupid Dino’s came along!

I cleaned my UV today and think the bulb might be broke, one of the metal tabs broke off and is loose within the UV lamp tube, lamp still turns on but is not too bright and doubt something should be loose within the lamp...SO I’m hopefully the replacement I have coming Wednesday will help my problem!

Fingers crossed as I fear I might loose some sps if these don’t go away soon!

 

[nbd13]

Another update...

Dino’s are GONE! Changed out my UV bulb, removed my chaeto and feed the crap out of my fish to get my nutrients up. That seemed to work!

Also during the last month when it got hot in Michigan, my pH dropped to 7.4! So I added a scrubber and it’s up to 8.01!

Fish are all getting along, hopefully the sps color comes back. 3 corals browned out bad, may loose 1 coral out of the whole ordeal which I can live with.

This is just 24 hours after adding it and I’m at 8.02 and slowly rising! Very pleased!