Red Sea reefer 250 - Mixed reef!

[Chrille26]

New family member!
So happy to finally be able to add one of the fishes thats been on my wishlist from the start, a Percula Picasso clownfish.
Since its smaller then my black Ocellaris clown I hope they will get along. There have been some buffing this far but nothing major or worrying.

Also as I mentioned in a previous post, I would show some pics of the surviving SPS frags I ordered.
They havent really recovered fully from the cold shipping but they are starting to color up and show some polyps.

Montipora Setosa:

Montipora Digitata forrest fire (broke into 3 frags from one) :

 

[Lowlandreef]

Awesome tank! Just finished reading your whole thread, and loved it. I have a similar sized tank, so it's nice to see someone going through similar stuff. Keep it up!

 

[Chrille26]

Awesome tank! Just finished reading your whole thread, and loved it. I have a similar sized tank, so it's nice to see someone going through similar stuff. Keep it up!

Thank you! Appreciate the kind words.
Just checked your thread and it also looks like its coming along great, going to be fun seeing it progress!

 

[Lowlandreef]

Thanks a lot for checking out my thread! Will be fun comparing both of our progress in this hobby

 

[Chrille26]

Some more LPS!
Lets keep it short and sweet. Today I added a Favia and a Chalice, so two new LPS in. They are freshly dipped and placed in the pics so not very happy. Hope they open up soon.

Favia:

Chalice, purple/green:

 

[Chrille26]

What a difference.
Pulled out and cleaned my skimmer today. It had a thick buildup inside the cup and neck, and the skimmer body had algae growing all over it. And what a difference it made! Much thicker foam and the pump sounds alot better, well worth the effort!
Blasting with wetskimming to flush it through a couple of times now.

 

[Chrille26]

Finally going to get decent shots, once I figure this thing out!
Was given this Nikon D3100 from my father. Now I have alot of reading to do in the photography forum so I can really show of some nice shots of the tank. Here are the first shots taken, I know they arent great but I have yet to figure out all the settings on this thing!

Melanurus Wrasse looking really suspicious:

Picasso Clown trying to escape the frame:

Red firefin Goby hanging in the back:

Sorry Im not making this camera justice at this point, will work on my photo skills the coming days!

 

[Chrille26]

Alot of Chaeto posts lately, not sure why Im so fascinated by it, guess Im just baffled by the rate of growth in my fuge right now. I keep harvesting but by the end of the week its so thick I cant even turn it within the basket.
Its so dense that it holds the square shape of the basket.
Could it grow so fast because I dose 2part in the same chamber so the Chaeto get alot of trace elements? Or is my water just so dirty haha!

 

[Chrille26]

A question about photography!
HOw do you cancel out the blue light if you dont have a orange filter? Im really struggling to capture the colours in the aquarium while taking photos.
Is there any settings like WB or something I can tune to make the colours clearer?

 

[Chrille26]

Water clarity and polishing.
Today my reactor for activated carbon arrived along with a jug of carbon and a filtersock to rince the carbon.
After letting hot water run through to carbon for a while to remove dust and open up the pores, I added it to the reactor and mounted in the sump.
I will have it running 12 hours per day right now.
Its going to be fun seeing if there is a sigificant difference in clarity within the next couple of days.

Perfect size for my tank and with a built in pump. Also very easy to mount with the hang-on mount.

Mounted in the back of my third chamber right after skimmer.

 

[Chrille26]

Sad loss.
Today I got home to find my Melanurus wrasse dead on the sandbed. He didnt eat last night and he burried his body but not head when going to sleep so figured something was up. Chalking up another sad fishloss, its part of the hobby but still its allways tough.

 

[Chrille26]

Moving in?
Caught my clowns playing or trying to host my Duncan today after lights out. Funny to see, just hope they dont bother the coral too much. I read that Duncans can be tolerable of it but we will see if they decide to stay.
Also did some testing today, guess I am within range on most params right now except Nitrate and Phosphate witch turned out to be zero or really close to zero!
Salinity: 1,026
KH: 8,2
Cal: 420
Mg: 1410
No3: 0
Po4: 0

 

[Chrille26]

Ongoing battle with dinos!
I have been having some issues with zero nitrate and phosphate, which have ended up in a dino outbreak. Its not too bad, doesnt seem to be harming my corals or inverts at this point, but I am not going to slack on it. I have stopped water changes and feed a little heavier. I also started to dose microbacter 7 to try to outcompete the dinos.
Today I did a temporary UV sterilizer install to try and remove as much of the dinoflagellates from the water column during the night as possible.

Temporary install outside of the tank, I didnt have time to do a proper setup but was eager to get it running so this will do for now.

Water returning from the UV to the opposite side of the DT.

 

[Chrille26]

Here is some shots of the extent of the dinos.

 

[Chrille26]

Current state.
Here are some shots of the tank where I am at right now. The dinos are getting pushed back by UV, but I am experiencing some ugly phases right now. Algae is growing and thats something I will have to deal with when the dinoflagellates are gone.

FTS with the UV pump clearly visible at the front, an eyesore but it serves a purpose right now.

A positive thing about my tank right now is that all the corals are doing great, I see growth and PE despite current issues.

Another positive thing is that running a UV together with a GAC reactor is that the water clarity is top notch.

Also noticed this bristleworm while feeding, its waay too big for my taste, but I wont make any attempts at catching it right now, it doesnt really bother anything so I will let it stay for now.

 

[Chrille26]

Another take.
Tried something new in my Dino battle today. Siphoned all brown slime I could find through a 20 micron filterroll that I attached to my siphon.
The water in the bucket was crystalclear but the filterroll trapped ALOT of stuff. Hopefully all the dinos got stuck in the roll but we will see in the coming days.

The filterroll fit perfectly on my siphon.

Alot of gunk stuck when done!

 

[Chrille26]

Splash of color!
Got a yellow coris wrasse yesterday. I though it would stay under sand for some time but it showed up this morning looking curious.

 

[Chrille26]

Not much positive to report right now.
The struggle with heat issues is real right now, I am cruising around 84f right now and I have a AC cooling the room while using frozen bottles to get the temp down. Its clear corals are affected, my Duncan and Euphyllias are retracted and wont extend.

I have managed to beat dinos after a long battle but now I have Cyano to deal with instead.

I killed of alot of GHA and Bryopsis with Flux RX but I dont know if my corals where afftected by the treatment also.
My Cheato survived which is a positive.

I also managed to drop my healthiest sps, which was a green slimer, on my floor while moving corals around, and broke it into 6 different pieces. I glued them down and hope they all pull through and build a new colony, but I am really bummed about it right now.

Other then that I am just dealing with the heat right now, so no new additions or so. Here are some current shots of the state as of today.

FTS:

Plating Monti and Caulastrea still going strong and growing steady in the heat:

Fragments of my Green slimer glued down between my Setosa and Digitata:

Most of my LPS are unhappy right now, Duncan and Euphyllias wont extend and I have lost 2 Acans and a Favia:

This Seriatopora has lost all color between polyps, I dont know if it is due to a move of it or the heat but it is not happy right now:

 

[Chrille26]

My first real knockdown in this hobby!
Yes, sometimes a fish die with or without visible reason. Same goes for corals, less then optimal conditions can hurt a coral but they can also die for no apperent reason. This have happened to me a couple of time through this build thread.

But whats happening to me right now is something different. I went on a 5 day trip and left the care of my tank to a family member.
When I came home from the trip the tank looked like this:

Most corals bleached or dead. Thankfully all fishes made it through.
I immediately did a 20% waterchange to try and reduce the nutrients and the imbalances that occured.

Today is a week later, sadly I am still removing sceletons of dead coral.
I did another 20% waterchange and cleaned the skimmer, changed GAC, harvested Chaeto and siphoned out alot of detritus.
The inhabitants are far from habby right now but I am not giving up, I will keep up with husbandery and try to save as much as I can!
Acan, Favia, Birdsnest:

The struggle continues.

 

[Sean W.]

Great build! can you share the results of your DIY screen cover? I'm currently looking for a solution to build a screen for my tank, curious to see what you came up with