Neon green!

[john472]

Hello, First time poster but I've spent many a night reading the posts to learn as much as I can. I tried to get answers to questions from my LFS(or LreefS) only to get burned many times. Anyway, here are my green questions I hope to find answers. Thanks for your time to read this and hope to get some feed back.
Current set up: 75 gal tank glass, 4'T5 four bulb fixture, 2x icecap gyre, one canister filter, 40lbs of pukani rock. fluval 110 HOB i use it as a skimmer. filter floss and carbon!
stock: yellow tang impulse buy(wish it was a one spot fox face) bangia cardinal, purple fire fin, 2 clowns(hosting duncan) 3 azure damsel(three stooges too busy fighting each other to attack any other fish.)splendid dottyback(killer of zoa eating pests!) blue neon gobie! loves to clean fish! I will always have one of these!
1. Condy anemone, I've read most stories of them eating fish, but will feeding them before placement stop/ reduce them eating fish?
2. Can someone share their experience with a HOB overflow? Do you have to get matching sizes or is it better to get alarger HOB overflow box to prevent the sump from getting too low? I have a 75 gal but can't drill it. (tempered glass) I'm not willing to risk it. However I would like to get a sump at some point.
3. Lessoned learned, while coral is photogenic, i've just learned about food! now the explosive growth everyone talked about is really taking off! So why don't people say that while coral can survive on light they thrive on food! ((FYI i target feed everything with pumps off.))
3.2 Will soaking mysis in aquavitro fuel fatten the food? I'm doing it for four months but not really sure if it helps more so than just the food itsself. No negative effects unless you count duncan rapid growth. (seriously went from one head to simultaneously growing four additional heads.)
3.5 What will duncan's eat larger than mysis shrimp? I feel that mine are too big now and need larger food. current head size is inch and a half across.
3.6 Coral and food, can you over feed coral? Seems like everything in my tank can eat once a day every other day. Am I just feeding them too little(size) food? My zoa, kenya tree, octospawn, torch, birds nest, clam, and gsp are getting phytoplankton gold. While my ricordea, duncan, Pit Viper Leptastrea, plate coral, blasto, all want mysis.
3.7 Will phytoplankton survive/thrive in a tank as they are light dependant?
4. Seems like my stocked tank is doing good with my fool proof way of dosing via purple up. Anyone else try this for calcium, mag, iodine dosing?

 

[sfin52]

Duncan’s I feed mine raw chunks of frozen shrimp, squid, mysis, brine, pieces of Aquadine saltwater mine they were doing great till Dino took them out

 

[john472]

Duncan’s I feed mine raw chunks of frozen shrimp, squid, mysis, brine, pieces of Aquadine saltwater mine they were doing great till Dino took them out

My condolences. I'm fighting against zoa eating things that look like amphipods they hide in the rock and feed my coral banded shrimp/ dottyback. When they get too numerous I dip the whole rock in coral RX and fresh water. The combo shocks my zoa but murders those bugs by the bucket full! *pun intended.

 

[Sandroni]

I have an engineer goby he is about 7 inches, 2 years old and they grow up to 1 foot. They like to burry under the sand in caves so they don’t like bare bottoms. They do good on frozen mysis and pellets.

 

[john472]

I have an engineer goby he is about 7 inches, 2 years old and they grow up to 1 foot. They like to burry under the sand in caves so they don’t like bare bottoms. They do good on frozen mysis and pellets.

Cool! How does he do with other tank mates?

 

[Sandroni]

Cool! How does he do with other tank mates?

He does great, he doesn’t bother my cleaner shrimp or sexy shrimp, I haven’t seen any agression with my clowns.

 

[john472]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[john472]

So here is a quick segment on my experiences on reef life. first to start the current look. (not final product but letting it grow in. Slow start because I didn't know i was asking the wrong questions.. So, the question of what i need to keep coral was too vague. The right question was, "What do i need to help my coral thrive/grow?" The answer, food. They are able to survive on light alone but they need food to grow! Target feeding and experimentation is the way I learned. Some deaths occurred an it hurt not just my wallet but the fact that a animal died. To me no different then a cat or dog. I don't let it go, I learn the five "W's"

Why did it die?
What can I do better?
Who can I turn to for education?
Where did it start to go south?
When the time comes will I be able to get the next one to thrive?
Answers are different. The only real thing all reefers have in common is we all learn.
(top pics))My first lesson/mistake was an acrylic 30gal tall. Combined with poor lighting,/no feeding of coral made everything struggle. The green plants were a great way to fight off my algae issues as you can see. I rushed it with no cycled rock either. You can see the small amount of pukani was not live and an issue of me not having the information I now have. Mostly via trial and error, shifting through a lot of disinformation. finding things that worked and putting that experience in my tool box. my purple condy anemone was a bat in its past life. I feed it while acclimating to help ease my fear of it trying to eat one of my small fish. The blurry urchin that loves broccoli. The duncan that grows like crazy! The torches are only an inch, inch and a half. The blastos have soo many heads under the larger heads they love food!one is red and green the other is purple and green. alway on the look out for orphan mushrooms. Particularly dark purple. Goal of getting the current stock to fill it up is over the regular goal of low nutrients. feeding coral ever other day and fish the opposite days. Letting the coral feeding of aquavitro soaked mysis become shared by all. first day pellets/second day mysis+phyto/ third time nothing/ fourth time pellets repeat cycle.

My 75 is as big as I will go. expanding to the sump will be next major$$ project. For example i will update my 75 gal with a 35 gal sump. Effectively making my tank 110 gallons. Going to plant it up with a cheto reactor/refugium/xenia/phytoplankton/marine blocks for the bottom.***
I love the look of white sand but i hated watching it syphon up into the bucket. I got a coral gravel and cut 2/3 of the funnel of my vaccum. Now its really easy and all the little shells hold bacteria better. ((IMO)) **Side note I can suck up the red bacteria without a loss of the heavier sub strait.

 

[john472]

Lesson learned.
dose every day purple up iodine cal, and magnesium. water change for the other elements once a week.
Current plan, Code name "fluffers"
Condy anemone going to switch to a meatier food rods original for the duncan, blasto, plate coral, brain, and condy.
Feeding change up:
Once a week food cycle for all except the duncan. Duncan will get every third day because of the number of heads on it.(its a beast!)
Phytoplankton for the zoa, clam, target fed.
Increasing food for increased growth letting the nitrate phosphates rise then dip with 25%water changes every week..
clean up squad consisting of margarita snails, trocus snails, turbo sanils, hermit crabs.
Acropod hit squad consisting of banded coral shrimp and dottyback and hermit crabs..

 

[john472]

Excerpt.
I don't broadcast food so the nassarius snails died being slower to find food over hermit crabs.
Astraus snail starved to death not being able to right itself and starved to death.
No need for emerald crabs. Starfish can eat sleeping fish and don't have a brain to find food/ must be target fed to survive. No desire to have one without a contribute to my tank.
Noticed my urchin will suck the live rock dry(white) for food gave it broccoli to assist in its diet hides in the day hope it adapts to coming out more during the light changes or it will be excommunicated.
I would like a wrasse for color and clean crew but banded coral shrimp will eat them if found sleeping. The shrimp does dig into tiny rock holes for any type of food so its sniper cleaning keeps him in play.

 

[john472]

Using coral frenzy seems to be a really good product. Not sure just how munch of the dry food the coral can digest but they seem to respond to it quickly. No detectable growth spurts as yet.