Reef Casa Studio 12 Acropora Rescape

[TorontoReefer]

The tank is coming along nicely. I added an alvepora from my bigger tank this week and it’s looking good. I don’t know if I’ll keep it there or not. It wasn’t getting my attention in the bottom of my bigger tank

The hammer corals are doing quite nicely… the orange one seems to have recovered from me being a bit too rough moving it !

I have slowly ramped the Halo light up to about 70% on the blue spectrum. I think the Hammers want a bit more light but my mushrooms might suffer if I turned it up anymore.

I am doing 30% water changes every two weeks and going to try and avoid dosing for now. My dKH seems to stay fairly steady at about 9 and only drops 0.5 between water changes. I’m sure this will change as the tank matures.

I am going to add some easy sps to the right ledge soon and maybe the top ledge as well. Unfortunately my rock flowers are still moving around quite a bit… this has surprised me a bit.

All in all I’m very happy with how the Reef Casa tank is progressing. Im hoping to add a couple more corals this weekend and waiting for a pistol shrimp/watchman goby combo to come up for sale!

 

[reaper93]

The tank is coming along nicely. I added an alvepora from my bigger tank this week and it’s looking good. I don’t know if I’ll keep it there or not. It wasn’t getting my attention in the bottom of my bigger tank

The hammer corals are doing quite nicely… the orange one seems to have recovered from me being a bit too rough moving it !

I have slowly ramped the Halo light up to about 70% on the blue spectrum. I think the Hammers want a bit more light but my mushrooms might suffer if I turned it up anymore.

I am doing 30% water changes every two weeks and going to try and avoid dosing for now. My dKH seems to stay fairly steady at about 9 and only drops 0.5 between water changes. I’m sure this will change as the tank matures.

I am going to add some easy sps to the right ledge soon and maybe the top ledge as well. Unfortunately my rock flowers are still moving around quite a bit… this has surprised me a bit.

All in all I’m very happy with how the Reef Casa tank is progressing. Im hoping to add a couple more corals this weekend and waiting for a pistol shrimp/watchman goby combo to come up for sale!

Love the Blastos

 

[TorontoReefer]

Love the Blastos

Thanks ! I’m really happy with them. I’ve never tried blastos before but I’ve always had bad luck with Acans and they seemed similar looking. Weird how sometimes you have trouble with random corals. For me it’s Acans and torches… every tank I have ever had !

 

[reaper93]

Thanks ! I’m really happy with them. I’ve never tried blastos before but I’ve always had bad luck with Acans and they seemed similar looking. Weird how sometimes you have trouble with random corals. For me it’s Acans and torches… every tank I have ever had !

My blasto was one gigantic head forever and just recently put out a bunch of babies. I love them so much haha

 

[TorontoReefer]

There were a few changes to the tank this week. First, I decided that the purple and green hammer was getting too close for comfort to my blasto garden so I decided to move it into my larger tank. I am going to leave the orange hammer in for the time being and maybe put another one above it to the right.

I picked up a purple anthrax mushroom frag from Fragbox to add to my mushroom garden as well as a green birdsnest frag for the high flow section on the right side. I am curious to see if the tank is mature enough for SPS corals yet. While doing a water change I accidentally broke a piece off my forest fire digitata colony so I decided to try that as well. The disc is way too big but it is all I had on hand at the time. If it does well I will cut the disc down at some point but I was in a bit of a rush.

I've noticed that my alkalinity is dropping a little bit between water changes so I may have to start thinking about dosing All For Reef in this tank too.

The Reef Casa Halo light continues to impress me.. I've upped the white a little bit to bring out some of the colours in the mushrooms a bit clearer. I'll try it for a week and see if I want to go back to all blue.

Next up is a yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp combo. The Royal Gramma is still elusive but is out a bit more often these days. I'm trying to decide what type of garden to put where I took the hammer coral out.. I am leaning towards acan but I'm not sure yet.

 

[TorontoReefer]

Well, this week has some good, some bad and some ugly.

First the good. I think that I found a hammer that will work well with the orange one... the purple and green was just too big. Hopefully the two eventually grown together and give me a nice little garden. I also picked up a purple montipora that I am going to try out... It's not the brightest SPS coral I've ever seen but it's an interesting shape and colour. The blastos and mushrooms are still doing great.

Now the bad. My royal gramma died yesterday.. it never really did eat properly or settle in nicely. I tried a variety of frozen foods and pellets but it never really showed much interest. I usually buy captive bred fish and made an exception with this one. I think I will go back to captive bred only.. they seem to do much better in my experience. My rock flower anemones are playing hide and seek again as well.... I'm not sure I would have put them in if I had it to do all over again but I am going to stick with it!

And the ugly. I had some serious hair algae growing in the rear chambers. I dropped a couple of turbo snails in and they have pretty much cleaned it all up but now I'm getting some algae on the sandbed. It's not terrible, and to be expected with a new tank. I was hoping maybe I would magically avoid the ugly stage!

I'm still changing about 30% of the water every two weeks and dosing a very little bit of All For Reef after one week. All in all I'm still very happy with the tank and these little hiccups are to be expected!

 

[TorontoReefer]

A few changes this week. Some for the better… some not so much.

My mushroom section is looking really good I think. I’m really happy with with the Purple Anthrax mushroom that I added a couple of weeks ago. The two easy SPS corals that I added are also doing well. The forest fire digitata is starting to encrust on the plug so it must be happy ! The hammers retracted for a day or two this week but have bounced back nicely.

However, one of my blastos isnt looking great. The mouth is constantly open and the flesh is definitely receded. It has always been a little bit unhappy looking but is starting to get worse. I’m not going to declare it a goner yet but I’m preparing myself for it!

Oh.. and the rock flowers still seem to wander wherever they like.. I’ve given up on trying to contain them

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well the Halo light is growing the SPS corals.. even with the intensity at about 50%. It’s definitely a solid light !

Here’s hoping that what is doing well keeps doing well and my unhappy blasto makes a comeback !

 

[TorontoReefer]

This week I decided to move both my alveoporas into the Reef Casa and set them up as a garden. I think it will look really nice when they grow in.

I had to frag off a dead head on one of the blastos and move it into a lower light area to let it recover. Hopefully that does the trick. The rock flowers are on the move again but I like where the red one has settled so hopefully it stays put.

I’ve gone back to a weekly 10% water change as my two sps corals were starting to look a little bit rough at the 10 day mark. Maybe once the tank matures a bit I can try every 2 weeks. Thankfully it’s not much water so it only takes a couple of minutes.

I’m holding out for a nice orange plate coral to put front and centre. I’m not sure what to put on the “roof” since it it very high light.. maybe some more easy sps corals.

I seem to be over the gross algae in the sand bed stage but my rocks are brown from all the diatoms.. I think the bloom is done but the rocks are stained. I will probably just leave them and let the corals grow over rather than scrubbing them

 

[TorontoReefer]

I’m still annoyed that my rockflower anemones won’t hold still but this is pretty cool! My sexy shrimp has started hosting

 

[Fragbox Corals]

Looking dope !

 

[TorontoReefer]

Well.. this hobby is nothing if not humbling. I made the decision over the last week to redesign this tank. There are a few reasons for this:


I really like the tank itself and find it very easy to maintain. The Reef Casa Halo light pairs really well with a tank this size and the corals really pop. The random flow generator was also a great add on and helped to eliminate dead spots in the tank.

I am really happy with the rock structure that I built and am going to use that in my redesign. I also really like the corals that I have chosen and most are doing really well. My blasto garden has been a bit of a failure.. I think it is getting too much light.

I am going to keep the rockflower anemones but I don't think I would add them if I was totally starting from scratch. I did find that placing a favia next to the one that I wanted to move caused it to "run away" and clear the spot that I wanted to use for my hammer garden. I am going to use the space that used to have my blastos for a Hellfire torch coral and placed the blastos in lower light areas of the tank.

The mushrooms seem happy where they are and I am going to just leave them alone. I added some zoas and an open brain coral that I will leave on the sandbed.

I think it mostly came down to not accounting for the different lighting needs of some of the corals that I chose and placing high light and low light corals too close together. Learning a new tank is always an adventure and I really think that this new setup is going to correct some of the mistakes I made the first time around!

 

[reaper93]

Well.. this hobby is nothing if not humbling. I made the decision over the last week to redesign this tank. There are a few reasons for this:


I really like the tank itself and find it very easy to maintain. The Reef Casa Halo light pairs really well with a tank this size and the corals really pop. The random flow generator was also a great add on and helped to eliminate dead spots in the tank.

I am really happy with the rock structure that I built and am going to use that in my redesign. I also really like the corals that I have chosen and most are doing really well. My blasto garden has been a bit of a failure.. I think it is getting too much light.

I am going to keep the rockflower anemones but I don't think I would add them if I was totally starting from scratch. I did find that placing a favia next to the one that I wanted to move caused it to "run away" and clear the spot that I wanted to use for my hammer garden. I am going to use the space that used to have my blastos for a Hellfire torch coral and placed the blastos in lower light areas of the tank.

The mushrooms seem happy where they are and I am going to just leave them alone. I added some zoas and an open brain coral that I will leave on the sandbed.

I think it mostly came down to not accounting for the different lighting needs of some of the corals that I chose and placing high light and low light corals too close together. Learning a new tank is always an adventure and I really think that this new setup is going to correct some of the mistakes I made the first time around!

Looking good!

 

[TorontoReefer]

Thanks ! My initial vision didn’t work out but I guess corals are living things and do always do what we want them to! I think this setup will work much better !

 

[TorontoReefer]

So I have a love/hate relationship with torch corals. I love seeing them look amazing in the store and I hate seeing them slowly die in my tanks. My history is :

Green torch in a Fluval Sea under stock lighting- died

Purple torch in Innovative Marine 20 under AI prime - dead.

NY Knicks in a fully loaded Red Sea Reefer 200xl under G5 Radions - dead

So here I am trying one last time.. picked up a gorgeous torch and am going to try it in the Reef Casa with the Halo light. Fingers crossed !!

 

[TorontoReefer]

Some big changes this week.

Yesterday I picked up a NY Knicks (I think) torch and a huge birdsnest frag. The tank is really starting to look full and I'm really happy with the reworking of it. My blastos seem much happier where I moved them to... I think they were just in too much light.

I still have a rockflower anemone that has settled where I would like to put my flowerpot corals but he doesn't seem like he wants to move so I think I will have to work around it.

I really hope that the torch does well.. it looks really great under the Halo light on a blue spectrum. I think that maybe because I can't do much in the way of fine tuning with the light or return pump I won't stress it out by constantly changing flow and lighting to find a "perfect" combo and just leave things alone!

I definitely am going to have to move the candy cane coral before it gets stung. Assuming the torch survives I am going to build an acan garden around the bottom of it, since the stem is a bit long but I don't want to try and cut it and risk doing damage.

For the first time I think the Studio 12 is starting to look full and I'm really happy with it!

 

[ReefGuard Systems]

I like the scape!

 

[TorontoReefer]

Thanks ! It was different than anything I had ever done before, which is kind of the whole theme of this tank.

 

[TorontoReefer]

I picked up the Reef Casa Housekeeper to keep my media organized. For now I’m using chemipure in the bottom and floss in the top. Middle chamber is empty. Holds everything well and will definitely make changing the filtration media easier.

Torch is still doing well! I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to stay alive !

 

[reaper93]

I picked up the Reef Casa Housekeeper to keep my media organized. For now I’m using chemipure in the bottom and floss in the top. Middle chamber is empty. Holds everything well and will definitely make changing the filtration media easier.

Torch is still doing well! I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to stay alive !

I had no clue march came our with one of these! That's pretty neat.

 

[Poliwag]

I picked up the Reef Casa Housekeeper to keep my media organized. For now I’m using chemipure in the bottom and floss in the top. Middle chamber is empty. Holds everything well and will definitely make changing the filtration media easier.

Torch is still doing well! I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to stay alive !

did you have to remove those little glass strip siliconed on the side for the floss holder?