New build in progress - 60g cube

[Crabs McJones]

cyphastrea coral maybe?

 

[Webslinger]

looks like a Duncan

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Upgraded the CUC today finally. Reefcleaners.org states that they keep their inverts in a fishless environment so I temp acclimated and dropped em in. I did go with a smaller package than what was recommended for my tank size because the quantity seemed a bit much. Here's what I got (no hermits for this tank, don't want to mess with shell replacement)

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Did a full round of water tests with some new kits yesterday. I hadn't tested for Ca, Alk, Mg yet since the tank is so new. Was nice to get a baseline check on those #'s. Will probably run a round on the replacement water for the WC to see what I'm putting in to the tank.. Went with Hanna for Alk, AquaForest for Ca, and Red Sea Reefer for Mg. Salifert for the rest. I had really only been testing NO3, PO4, and salinity on the regular. Looks like I need to do a water change with the elevated NO3 & PO4. Normally NO3 is <5 and PO4 is .05 or untraceable.

Is that Mg level too high?

Salinity - 1.025
Alk - 8.3 dKH
NO3 - 10 ppm
Ca - 415 ppm
Mg - 1400 ppm
PO4 - .25 ppm
pH - 8.25

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Here's a quick, low budget video update of the tank

Other updates
- The Sally lightfoot crab had to be banished due to bad behavior and creeping the wife out
- The Storm Clown continues to act like he ate lead paint chips; swims mostly at the back of the tank and is generally not very visible (drives the wife nuts). I'm hoping to add a nem to the bottom of the tank in hopes that he hosts it, otherwise we'll just have to live with the window licker that he is..
- I recently picked up 10 random frags from Yourreef.com during a live sale they had(3/21/20). The pics posted are from their site because my camera skills are meh and I'm lazy lol. I'll work on getting some in tank shots. Basically I threw em in a frag rack about 2/3's of the way down in the tank and raised them up over 2 weeks before mounting them in their forever spots. So far they're all doing really good, was surprised I didn't kill any of em lol. I didn't dip any of them either which probably was a bad move, but so far so good I think(days in).

JF Jack-o-Lantern Leptoseris (my favorite of the bunch)

YR Twisted Favia

Christmas Favia

YR Blue Sea Favia

Electric Oompa Loompa Paly (Already growing a second head)

Meteor Shower Cyphastrea

JF John Deer Leptastrea (Might end up unseating the lepto as my favorite, really pretty coral)

Pluto Passion Paly (This guy already has 3 additional heads growing!)

Two others I don't have a pic of - random kenya tree frag which I almost managed to kill lol, and some unknown montipora that was thrown in as a bonus frag.

Shout out to @YourReef for the job they did on the sale and the shape the corals arrived in. That was the first time I've ever ordered coral online and I'm super happy with how it turned out.

 

[Webslinger]

get that rock work higher.

 

[ReeferRod]

Thank you for posting, nice tank build. I appreciate your help.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Thank you for posting, nice tank build. I appreciate your help.

Thanks for the comments! You're welcome on the advice, glad I was able to help a little

 

[SMSREEF]

The Storm Clown continues to act like he ate lead paint chips;

So funny!!! I hope he acts better with the anemone.

Your tank is coming along great!!!

 

[WiscoFishNut]

So funny!!! I hope he acts better with the anemone.

Your tank is coming along great!!!

Yeah, he/she has been acting weird like that since the other clown died.

Thanks for the compliment on the tank! In general I'm really happy with how the tank is progressing. I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to things like flow, lighting, and fragging, but in other areas I feel more confident finally(water chemistry/testing). That and getting better at following recommendations on livestock

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Added some chaeto and pods to the fuge section of the sump over the weekend. I hope I'm not introducing a new problem I didn't have already lol. Doing weekly water changes keeps the NO3 & PO4 fairly low, but could be better (<15ppm NO3 & .05-.1ppm'ish PO4).

I guess I'm mainly doing it to give the pods someplace to propagate.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Well the chaeto seems to have done the trick. As of yesterday NO3 is down to 2.5ppm & PO4 was undetectable at least to me using the Salifert test. I'm thinking about picking up the Hanna ULR tester for PO4, but I could use some recommendations.

Picked up some new corals during @ChaosAquaculture 's live sale over the weekend. The few SPS pieces were budget steals meant to see if I'm ready to deal with more difficult corals lol.

GB Avatar Chalice

Master Chief morph

Fire & Ice morph

Mystery chalice

Aussie Blasto

JF Atomic Sunrise Zoanthid

ORA Frogskin Acropora

Lithophyllon

Bubblegum Digi

Fire & Ice morph

Rainbow Montipora

Red & Blue Acan

Freebie from a live game

Gorilla Nip morph

OG Rasta

I'm pretty stoked for the new additions! Hopefully everything goes good with the shipping this week. I swear this Covid-19 lock down and live sales are a bad combo lol

 

[Scubabeth]

Looks great, @WiscoFishNut! Thanks for sharing with us over on Humblefish's forum!

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Looks great, @WiscoFishNut! Thanks for sharing with us over on Humblefish's forum!

You bet! Thanks for checking out my builds I've had a couple hurdles on this particular setup, but nothing that couldn't be overcome with some search sessions on here thankfully. After this next batch of corals arrive I swear I'm hitting the pause button other than getting that lawnmower blenny. The last fish will probably be a red mandarin or ruby red dragonet as a Christmas present later this year for my wife since she's dying to have one in the tank.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Minor update - still battling the uglies; corals are doing fair-good; fish are all good; lost both shrimp for some unknown reason, replaced the scarlet skunk.

Had our first significant power outage of the season (a little over 2 hours). Of course it hit right near midnight so I didn't want to drag the generator out. Battery backups worked like they should for the MP10's. I also dropped in a couple battery powered airstones for good measure. Temp swing was only a degree or two thankfully. It's definitely time for a automatic whole house generator.

 

[jk_s124]

Minor update - still battling the uglies; corals are doing fair-good; fish are all good; lost both shrimp for some unknown reason, replaced the scarlet skunk.

Had our first significant power outage of the season (a little over 2 hours). Of course it hit right near midnight so I didn't want to drag the generator out. Battery backups worked like they should for the MP10's. I also dropped in a couple battery powered airstones for good measure. Temp swing was only a degree or two thankfully. It's definitely time for a automatic whole house generator.

That was a heck of a storm last night. Good reminder why back up systems are important.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Minor updates -

I think I've turned the tide on my self induced war with algae (GHA, turf, and a few bits of bubble). Adjusted some bad coral feeding habits and ramped up the CUC (latest additions in the pic below).

I'll be starting a dosing regimen with 2 part in the next couple of days. Between weekly water changes I'm seeing Alk drop down to 6.6 dKH. I decided to start with manual dosing of ESV B-Ionic. Eventually I'll look to add a doser, but for now I want to learn how it all works before screwing things up in an automated fashion due to lack of experience lol.

Most of the recent corals have been mounted to their permanent homes, but there's sill about a dozen left to go. A few duplicates will probably end up in my nano set up.

Here's the additional CUC that was added to the existing snail army. I plan on relocating the nerites to the tank in the basement to live out their carpet bombing egg laying lives..

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Minor update - I finally pulled the trigger on a legit RODI system.. I had been using a smaller RO only unit up to this point. I don't know why, but it was much harder to click check out on that item than it is to drop a few hundred on corals or fish lol. The RO unit was doing pretty decent to produce 1 TDS water, but I know it needed to be replaced with a real system.

Hopefully it'll help with the algae war. I seem to be making headway, but the presence of bubble algae makes me nervous since the natural remedies are limited. If I knew I could trust crabs I'd get another emerald, but those buggers like my torch too much.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Some updates -

The ruby longfin fairy wrasse is no longer with us.. Apparently I waited too long to put together the DIY lid

I opted to go with All-for-reef for dosing to get Alk back in line since its super easy to use. I just started a couple days ago. So far I've been dosing 10ml per day, and I'm seeing Alk rise by 0.2 per day. Seems like a pretty safe rate of increase, but please let me know if I'm off. I'm looking for advice on a good level to aim for, so any advice is much appreciated. The coral stock is pretty much mixed at this point.

I didn't manage to get the RODI unit installed over my staycation, so its on the to-do list this weekend along with making the DIY lid.

Hopefully I'll be picking up a baby foxface rabbitfish this weekend to add another weapon in the war on algae. (*edit* - I plan on re-homing him once he gets to big for the tank.) The algae is slowly getting under control, but I have some Phosban and a reactor on the way to speed things along. I've read plenty of posts about the dangers of zeroing out PO4, so I'll try my best to be careful to avoid it.

I think I'm done buying coral for a while lol. At least for this tank I have a test frag in the nano right now to see how it does. One thing I really underestimated was how large torches can get. The one I've had in my tank since the beginning is getting huge.

I'll post some update pics once I get the algae under control. Right now its still pretty gnarly lol

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Small update - I got the foxface rabbit fish and installed the RODI system finally The end tables the cans are sitting on are super strong so I'm rolling with it rather than building something. I've almost got the pieces collected to finish the mixing station. The plan is to add spigots to both of those brutes, set up a pump in the FW side to pump water to the SW side and then have that one running a couple big powerheads and heaters for the mixing. It'd really be nice to get a strong enough second pump to pump the SW upstairs so I don't have to lug buckets of water.. In our guest bathroom there's actually an old laundry chute that I could run a hose through, but I'd have to convince the missus that its a good idea lol.