Nick's 345G Build

[this is me]

Don’t know if I’m growing into the Gem or It’s truly a striking fish. I admit, I didn’t really think the fish was that nice. I got it because it’s somewhat rare and expensive. Haha. It’s certainly growing and putting on some weight.

 

[RJKain-777]

Don’t know if I’m growing into the Gem or It’s truly a striking fish. I admit, I didn’t really think the fish was that nice. I got it because it’s somewhat rare and expensive. Haha. It’s certainly growing and putting on some weight.

There beautiful fish, and the rarity and expense makes it that much more desirable.

 

[Super Fly]

Picked up the bad boy green gigantea today. These guys have been with me since 2015 but were in my friends tank last year when I broke down the old tank. The green was wreaking havoc in his tank.
This is about an hour into the tank. The size should double that when it’s all settled.

very nice! curious, do carpet nems go for walks around tank like BTA or do they remain in the spot one places them?

 

[this is me]

Walk around? No. I think it would take a lot of their energy to move all that mass.
Shifting its weight, Yes. The foot stay on the same rock but the body can move slightly. And since it’s quite large, the area that it can take is quiet a real estate. It’s a real death zone. This is why they’re in their own tank as I can’t possibly give both of them 2/3 of my 7’ foot. And besides, I honestly think they’re more happy in their own tank.
I’m waiting for an order of 20 clowns(god bless me) and UPS is understandly running late.

 

[this is me]

Clowns arrived last night. I always liked Onyx clownfish. So why not 24 of them. I think there’s room for 24 more.
Don’t tempt me.

 

[sdreef]

Clowns arrived last night. I always liked Onyx clownfish. So why not 24 of them. I think there’s room for 24 more.
Don’t tempt me.

Looks a little empty if you ask me, LOL. Just kidding, interesting how they gravitate toward the anemone with the higher flow. Looks great

 

[this is me]

The purple gig has always been the preferred host by the clowns. I’m not sure why.
The flow is provided by two MP10QD(one on each side) on random reef crest mode. It just happened that the left side is running at the highest flow rate while the right is on low.

 

[TexAgReefer]

Clowns arrived last night. I always liked Onyx clownfish. So why not 24 of them. I think there’s room for 24 more.
Don’t tempt me.

Now that is awesome!! Crazy how they can just get lost in those anemones.

 

[this is me]

Last update for 2020.
Overall, it has been a good year for this new build despite of all that was happening. Let's hope for a better 2021.
Just before Christmas, I added another Whitetail Bristletooth Tang, a Magnificent, and a pair of Blue Spot Jawfish. All is well. As the year ended, I can proudly say that I haven't killed any tang in this build. I've lost a few Anthias and Chromis but that was about it.
Here to 2021!

 

[this is me]

The Jawfish are ticking me off. This madness gotta end!
As much as I love the Blue Spot Jawfish, this is not what I can tolerate. I thought they just make their burrow and not just digging for the hell of it.

 

[this is me]

And I have to admit. I need to do a better job than "add the fish to the tank, research after".
ow the pain of trapping the fish. Not my cup of tea. But a punishment for doing the above.

 

[Gablami]

The sand dwelling fish are the hardest to catch IME. Good luck!!

 

[Wen]

The Jawfish are ticking me off. This madness gotta end!
As much as I love the Blue Spot Jawfish, this is not what I can tolerate. I thought they just make their burrow and not just digging for the hell of it.

Sorry the blue spots didn’t work out.

if your looking for movement at the bottom of your lovely tank without burrowing hassles, might I suggest a very underrated fish, the humble high hat (Equetus acuminatus).
Peacefull, patrols the bottom 6”, doesn’t dig in sand, easy keeper, different body shape and striking stripes.
I got mine from KP and highly recommend it.

 

[this is me]

Thanks Wen,
I will have to look into that. A black and white fish on the bottom section will compliment the tank nicely.

I won the war with the Jawfish a couple weeks ago. Beautiful fish, but I can't have my corals buried and sand dug up. They are in the temporary tank. I'm thinking of setting a tank up for them but I'm not in the mood right now with the winter.
I think they're the reason why my PO4 spiked up to 0.14ppm. Still trying to lower that down. It's now at 0.07ppm after two manual large water change and aggressive GFO.

First one was using a trap. This one was quite easy. With some food and rubbles in the trap, it dart right in.

The second one was caught the early morning after when it came out of its burrow in the back and started to dig under the brain coral(which is now dead). I had to scramble on this one because I saw it was my only chance to quickly nab it. You can see its head under the coral.

 

[panic]

Nice work on the catch. Some fish can never be caught and they always seem to be the ones to live the longest.

 

[Super Fly]

Nice work on the catch. Some fish can never be caught and they always seem to be the ones to live the longest.

Murphy's law! And that fish always somehow knows when u'r trying to catch them and never enter the fish trap.

 

[Wen]

I’m glad you caught the blue spots and sorry about your brain coral. Love the trap photos, thank you.

Can you share more about running gfo? My phos is climbing too fast for wc to control. Tomorrow, I’m set up a brs gfo reactor to a manifold...any advice?

 

[this is me]

What’s your PO4 level? While GFO is very effective to keep a lower PO4 level low, it’s not very cost effective to reduce higher PO4 level. I will not use GFO to reduce PO4 level higher than 0.10 if I want to keep the level below 0.04ppm. With our kind of water volume, it will take a stupid amount of GFO to do that. Instead, if my PO4 is higher than 0.10ppm, I would do a couple of large waterchanges(30% or more) to knock down the PO4 then renew my GFO to prevent it from going up. Then a couple more waterchange to knock it down again and now the GFO can lower it to sub 0.04ppm.
You also have to be real careful with using too much GFO. I never seen a problem with sudden changes of PO4 through waterchange but I’ve seen damage on the corals when the PO4 is suddenly reduced by using too much GFO.
My GFO reactor is nothing fancy. I have a maxijet 1200 on a BRS dual GFO/carbon reactor with a valve where I tune it so that the GFO is tumbling. Make sure you can tune the input flow. I don’t care for the carbon flow rate but I do take care that the GFO is tumbling. After a couple days, it may slow down so you may have to adjust the valve a bit. you can see the MJ1200 fed to the reactor. I’m using the high capacity GFO from BRS.
Again, you have to be real careful with using too much GFO. My system is probably in the 400Gallons of water and you can see how little of GFO I’m using in the first chamber of the reactor.

 

[this is me]

My stash of salt. The cheapest and most available salt. I do 3G a day in CWC and 40G to 50G manual change when I feel like it or when something is off like the recent spike in PO4.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

The tank is coming along and looks great! I’m blown away by the size of the gigs also. How are the sps?