Red_Beard's 75 Tank Build

CanuckReefer · Oct 30, 2021

Red_Beard said:
It has been far too long since I've updated here, not a ton has changed as summer has been really busy, my beautiful wife has had me packed with honeydo's. I formed up and poured a new back patio. 19'x25'. Which has been really nice. And building a bed for my 3 year old. She wanted a princess bed...it turned out to be a bed, reading nook and bookshelf. With princess drapes.
For tank updates:

Back and side panes are kinda skummy, i havent cleaned them in 6 months. The millie i picked up was coloring up nicely untill something happened, not sure exactly what still, but i do have some speculative guesses, and it rtn'd and blew all of it's flesh off over the course of a day. Was dead when i got home. We did pick up a few fish. 2 new clowns, misbar mocha and standard orange ocellaris. They have been named nemo and mocha. The two new ones were starting to be good friends untill oreo, the dominant female that ive had for years, welcomed mocha into her nems. Then both mocha and oreo began relentlessly picking on nemo. Poor dude. He hangs out next to the nems and as soon as the other 2 get distracted jumps in and chills untill they notice and chase him out again lol.

We also picked up a leopard wrass. Beautiful fish! It has gotten pretty fat hunting all the pods in there. Really fun to watch too, it has 2 moods so far, sleeping in the sand and hunting. Lol

Poor dendro too, the foxface has decided it tastes good and has slowly bothered it near to death. There is only one head still holding on. I might kick it into the sump and see if i can get it to come back.
Anyways, that is really all thats happened other than maintenance.
Happy reefing!

Nice tank... progressing very nicely! Congrats on the new clown. Following.

Red_Beard · Nov 1, 2021

Wow...
Was reading through this last night, can't believe it's been a year since i picked up this valadia. Poor neglected thing is still on the frag rack

Least it looks happy there lol.

Red_Beard · Nov 16, 2021

☹

Down 3 clowns. Mocha, Oreo, and Nemo died. Brook is a very fast acting beast. I noticed it, ordered treatment, shipping was 3 days, and casualties happened the day before it showed up. I was going to qt the clowns for treatment but the pajamas fins are looking ragged along with the diamond goby so i figured why not just treat the whole of it and not stress everything out by catching and moving them. This is day 2 of ruby rally pro dosing. So far everything is looking fine, snails, corals, nems, fish are even looking better too. Fingers crossed we get everyone back to full health.

Red_Beard · Nov 22, 2021

Hopefully we are out of the woods. Stuff is looking much better, my lone clown is behaving normally and other than a notched tail is looking much better. Thank goodness all the other fish are fine, the only other ones that were showing issues were the pajamas and they are looking better too. All the coral is looking great, the nems got stringy and sad for a few days but have perked right back up. All in all I’d say rally did what it said it would. I chucked in some carbon to soak up the rest of the rally. I will have to post another pic when the water is cleared up.

Red_Beard · Dec 9, 2021

Yep, definitely over the hump. Fish look healed up and the corals are all puffy and happy.

Gonna say rally pro for the win on this. Even the acros still look great.

Red_Beard · Dec 9, 2021

And a follow up of the clown. The notch is looking much better

Red_Beard · Dec 18, 2021

Frag time. Had to clean up a bit the zoas were starting to look homeless and the hammer was losing heads in the sand. I did the zoas last weekend and the hammers this afternoon, two heads are still a bit unhappy about the change, but the others are already peachy.
I should have gotten a bigger rack (this one is full. Got 20 plugs on it) and more plugs. The zoas done even look like i touched them!

Red_Beard · Jun 26, 2022

Holy cow where does time go!? I have been MIA for like 6 months.... life happened. Had a baby, you know, just little stuff. Tank has been grossly neglected, getting a little bit of hair algea. Luckily most things are automated so almost everything is still doing great, except my rock full of armor of god zoas that got some mushrooms stuck to it and they havent been happy since, even after i pulled the mushies. Still dosing diy nopox and that has been working great, a little slime in the sump, but no3 15 ppm, po4 is still high though at .2 ish. Stick looks great though:

Candy cane is looking awesome, have about 8 heads now.

And the hammers are the size of a youth soccerball.

I am going to give acans another shot, picked one up while was in the city the other day, the last one lasted 2 months and evaporated. I am going to feed this one more, i only fed the last one every other week or so. Also picked up a stunning lobo:

Raege · Jun 27, 2022

Congrats on your new addition! It’s been a while since I changed diapers only fun I get is emptying skimmate

Red_Beard · Jun 27, 2022

Raege said:
Congrats on your new addition! It’s been a while since I changed diapers only fun I get is emptying skimmate

Thank you! Diapers and skim are about the same color and consistency most times, not as noisy though. But the skimmer cup hasnt smiled back yet either.

Red_Beard · Jan 1, 2023

Time for another 6 month update.
I am sad to admit, I have been pretty overloaded lately and the tank has been pretty neglected. 2 casualties are foxy rip foxy :,( and my tricolor valadia. Foxy fell victim to hlle, probably due to me thinking that there was enough algae in the tank for some greens and only giving nori once a week. We were out of town for thanksgiving and when we got back it was looking pale and sad, pulled it out to see if I could do anything but by then it was too late. Lesson learned, but the cost was steep. The acro fell victim to a stuck relay in my ato (I have since rebuilt it with solid state relays. Stick now stupid thing!). It dumped in way too much ro and dropped my salinity to 30 ppt. I think it took me too long to notice. Fixed the salinity but it is toast. Everything else is going gang busters, too many nems, they all look great. Mushrooms need to go, got too many of them too. Hammer is doing awesome, except I broke it again, now there are 3. Candy cane went from 2 heads to 10. I picked up a lobo 5 months ago and it is looking puffy and happy still. Sand bed is sparkly white thanks to the goby. I do have a bit of bryopsis starting but really not too bad all things considered.
All in all I am pretty surprised. Just in autopilot stuff is going better than I would have thought. I have been dosing homemade nopox at 3 ml per day with a kamoer pump, haven’t done a water change in 6 months. Tested water yesterday and my no3 is 8, po4 is .12. I still dose BRS 2part and Red Sea trace every week or so, alk is 8.7. Anyways, foxy’s passing caused us to need another herbivore, so we picked up a little yellow eye tang. Cute little 2 incher. I will have to grab some pics tomorrow when it isn’t so blue.

Raege · Jan 2, 2023

sry for the losses they suck no matter how they happen

glad everything else chugged along in semi auto mode tho.

Red_Beard · Jan 2, 2023

Raege said:
sry for the losses they suck no matter how they happen
glad everything else chugged along in semi auto mode tho.

Thanks man, hopefully it works out for the best and kicks my apathy out. I have definitely been paying more attention to the tank lately.

Red_Beard · Jan 2, 2023

Here it is, raw. Dirty glass, tipped over hammer, dead acro on the rack, bropsis and all.

Sometime soon i am going to redo the the scape for more coral space and to get rid of those freaking mushrooms. They spread almost like gsp, except they pop off babies and there is no confining them to an island. Maybe i just need more flow, dunno.

Red_Beard · Jan 2, 2023

One more pic for now, this is the back side of that tipped over hammer in the front middle, grundles of baby heads! Good deal too as the goby killed the bottom row by burying them repeatedly.

Red_Beard · Jan 19, 2023

Those little dudes are growing quick! Update pic:

Red_Beard · Jan 19, 2023

Also, update of the yellow eye, beautiful colors, the picture doesnt do justice. It was pretty pale for a week, but after getting fed like a pig on quality food(back to making my own with shrimp, squid, muscles and clams, spirulina, selcon, nori etc) it has a brilliant blue band all the way round and the white spots are starting to show really clearly.

Red_Beard · Dec 2, 2023

2023 update:
It has been an eventful year. Lost my leopard wrasse, changed out my rockscape, pearly(the yellow eye) bullied my diamond goby to death(super sad, i loved that fish. Too scared to get another as i dont want it bullied too), picked up a baby scopas that was skin and bone and transparent white and nursed it up to fat and happy, beautiful yellow and brown color. Its name is shadow. After I moved it into the display tank,the yellow eye has been significantly less aggressive and they play quite nicely together. I also picked up a green halichoris wrasse whom i have decided i quite like.
I also picked up a bargin bin battle box from Adam over at battlecorals. Cant speak highly enough about him and his coral. It all was super health upon arrival and all of it has grown more than i would have expected.
These are the frags when i got them back in August:

And here they are now, taken tonight:

I have been amazed at how fast the forest fire and seriatopora have grown! Really they all have grown very nicely though. I also have been amazed by how much more alk and cal i have had to dose. Just with those consumption is easy tripple what it was. Also, if you were wondering why they are still in a frag rack, it doesnt really show, but i am battling some pretty gnarly turf algae in patches of my new scape, trying to get that under controll befor plopping these beauties down permanently. You never really notice now hard your snails work, untill they are gone. My tank glass and everything EXPLODED in algae and it took me at least a month to realise it was time to replenish my snail population. The urchin was doing its best but couldnt do it alone! So i got another urchin, a conch, 3 turbos, 6 astraeas, and an emerald crab. The difference just that made has made me a believer all over again. Here is a full tank shot: