Reef Rehabilitation 29g cube and equipment room build

[AaronFReef]

Got my three firefish in together in the display! Cut treatment two days short so I could do it on the weekend and figure I’ve reduced the statistical chances enough.

Added three red leg hermit crabs (not scarlets I think....not sure these guys are good. Regretting it). Added five trochus snails and one emerald crab. The crab is doing work on the GHA.


Got the calcium doser set up and am tuning it. Alk is stable at 8.6 with no day to day change! Phosphate is at 0.01 ppm and nitrates are at 0.2 ppm. Need to keep feeding heavy and up this so when Algae Barn gets their next stock of chaeto ready I can order a softball size clump and try and get it going. Will add their 5150 pod mix to add some more variety when I do that maybe.

Still have minimal coralline growth which I can’t explain. In fact I’m questioning if the small shade of pink on a couple rock nubs is even coralline and not very small faint patches of cyano. Anyone got any idea? Am I just being impatient? We are at month four.

 

[AaronFReef]

The CUC has really done its job and the coralline is growing all over now. I suspect the fluctuating levels from inconsistent dosing were my issue. I have things pretty well tuned but am still having trouble maintaining any detectable phosphates. Nitrates are around 0.2.

I got my first corals this week. A local reefer gave me some Rasta zoas and one other I forget the name of and a nice neon green Nepthea. I couldn’t resist myself today and stopped at a LFS with the awesome name of License to Krill Aquatics and got a Cali tort, an unknown Acro, and Aussie acan, an encrusting/possibly branching monti, and a Toxic Pie chalice. They’re looking good!

 

[AaronFReef]

Well I’ve done a poor job keeping this up to date. Lots has happened since. I now have 20 corals, three happy firefish, almost no cleanup crew thanks to some murderous “blue leg” hermit crabs, and a boat load of what I think is dinoflagellates. I’ll update more at some point but here’s some pics from the last month.

 

[AaronFReef]

I’ve still been meaning to update this and I vow to soon. Here’s some pics for progress. Battles GHA for a long time. Got some more trochus and margarita and Cerith snails to battle it and have it beat back. Got some spirulina or maybe cyano (h2o2 test in progress) that’s been bothering me the last week. Skimmer airline going through the wall is reducing flow and causing the skimmer to not function properly since insufficient air. Got some try 3 AlgaeBarn chaeto and they finally sent a decent non-dead hunk of chaeto and I’m dosing both phosphate and nitrate daily to try and keep levels detectable on PO4 and nitrate above 0.2 and aiming for at least 1 ppm.

Got some monti eating nudis a few weeks ago and ditched two caps when they showed signs sadly and aggressively dipped my digitata and other cap and they never showed a sign so after a week of every two day dips I stopped and luckily never seen another sign for weeks. Got lucky there. I dipped but must have had eggs present on one orange cap I bought.

My coral growth is doing great on many. Slow on others. My Hannah calcium meter has been ridiculous and telling me bad numbers so my calc was around 560. Slowly working it back down using a salifert test. I validated my Hannah meter with calibration tests they provide. Trident showed the salifert was right. My alk is elevated and stable around 9. Magnesium never needs dosing and is around 1400 thanks to Tropic Marin Pro Reef with elevated levels.

Got some amazing frags from a local reefer and finished stocking the tank with acros for now I think. Could use some more ricordea as we love them and wife needs more she likes. Would like another euphyllia.

Pic time!

 

[AaronFReef]

 

[AaronFReef]

Did some PAR testing with BRS rental and found I was a horrible judge of PAR. My par peaked about 150 at the surface with my light at 70% at the 18” or so height I probably had. So I lowered it to maybe 10” and dropped the percent to 60% and am working it up towards 100 where I found my rocks would be between 150 at the edges to 350 at the tops. This was with my ideal color of 27% and no extra colors added with the Spectral Controller X

 

[AaronFReef]

It has been so record-breaking hot the last three days I’ve been floating bags of ice from 2-5 PM in the sump and QT while closely monitoring temps for the last few days. The room temp has risen to 89. Portable AC for the room arrives today. Hopefully it solves it.

Meanwhile my new chaeto is battling with cyano and maybe spirulina in the DT. Nutrients keep going from 0 ppm PO4 to 0.22 ppm back and forth nearly daily as nitrates get exhausted and replenished through heavy feeding and dosing of brightwell. I did a cyano ID test by adding some to an shotglass with tank water and pouring hydrogen peroxide in and looking for bubbling. It bubbled though I didn’t look for pink tinted water. I’ll have to repeat. For two days I’ve been dosing 4 mL (1 mL/10g system volume) to my sumps return chamber and haven’t seen too major a die off of cyano. I did a deep scrubbing of glass and sanded yesterday to try and beat back the microalgae.

The QT has a yellow tang of about 4” and a sailfin blenny in cupramine and prazipro (flukes we’re getting to the yellow tang) and they’ll be done a week from tomorrow and ready for some DT time. The Cerith and nassarius snails have been laying eggs on the glass for a while now so hopefully if I’m lucky I’ll get some baby clean up crew for free!

 

[AaronFReef]

A local reefer sold me some sweet frags last week. At this stage I have the following coral:
Walt Disney
Green tabling acro
ARC fireworks
ORA Laura’s purple polyp
Blue Millepora
Green Bali slimer
Sunset Millepora
Green monti cap with orange polyps
Orange digitata
GARF bonsai
Orange ricordea
Australian acan red/orange
Green nepthea
Rasta zoa
Pink zoa with green mouth
Blue zoa colony
Sunny d zoa
Small green zoa
Unknown acro large frag

Three firefish

Assortment of astraea, Cerith, margarita, and nassarius snails

 

[AaronFReef]

I upgraded my skimmer intake extension airline to 3/8” flexible silicone and man what a difference. I kept having my skimmer make loud water splashing sounds from the output of the riser pipe because the venturi would be partially blocked on the air intake. I decided to try and expand it and though the line I got is too easy to kink, I managed to get it working for now and have seen a huge pH increase. All week the house had been closed up due to the record breaking heat and my pH has been horrible. Going from 8.25 peaks to staying around 8.05. Now that I have the large hose, I’m stable around 8.2-8.3. And I mean stable. I also added chaeto last week which may be starting to take off with its reverse photo period but between the two things are doing great.

My monti cap has massive growth around the edge and my ORA Laura’s purple polyp and gARF bonsai are encrusting at the base well. My digitata is, well, being a digitata and exploding in growth.

It’s had two worms with the sweeper tentacles out it’s main branch and I’ve tried to kill them by super glueing their holes closed but they sneak their tentacles out around the glue. They are slowing the growth by either stinging it or my repeated harassment of the branch in trying to kill the offenders. Any trick to defeating them?

 

[AaronFReef]

 

[AaronFReef]

I finished the QT for the yellow tang and sailfin blenny today and placed them in the the DT. The yellow tang has some serious HLLE I believe from the copper treatment. I didn’t see it as well in the dim light of the QT. I’ve been feeding him lots of selcon, garlic, and general cure + focus soaked PE mysis pellets with some free feed nori and chaeto so I don’t think it’s nutrition. He’s eating like a pig as is the blenny in the algae garden that is my DT.

Got a Jebao 55w UV sterilizer last night to defeat the dinoflagellates. Haven’t run it yet since my manifold is 1/2” and the UV is 3/4” but this weekend I will.

Meanwhile the hammer coral seems to be improving after a week of being concerned about a brown coating covering the bottom side of its tentacles and base. Doesn’t seem to be brown jelly disease.

My SPS are thrilled and coloring and encrusting heavily. Even my new ones including the Walt Disney are very happy. I almost have my Kessil up to 100%. Currently made it to 88% with color at 27% and UV at 10% on a 8.5 hour full light and around 11 hour total light schedule. It drops off sharply at the edges and is basically moonlight after 10 hours.

 

[AaronFReef]

 

[AaronFReef]

I’ve been battling Dinos and doing poorly but I’ve got my nutrients up with phosphate staying around 0.02 ppm and NO3 up to 1-2.5 ppm. Got my Jebao 55w UV sterilizer aka “The Bazooka” hooked up today and hopefully it knocks them back. Got some silicate dosing too with some Sponge Excel by Brightwell Aquatics. Hopefully these three things defeat it. I’d like to pull the Jebao as soon as I can. This setup scares the bejesus out of me.

I was feeling like throwing in the towel last night trying to find a way to get this giant UV on the tank and my wife the awesome idea to just attach it directly to the stand today.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I was feeling like throwing in the towel last night trying to find a way to get this giant UV on the tank and my wife the awesome idea to just attach it directly to the stand today.

Nice and smart. Hope it has a positive effect.

 

[AaronFReef]

The Dinos have been gone since yours after I put the bazooka on. I love it! It’s looking clean. My skimmer has gone nuts and my phosphate and nitrates has risen quickly while the Dinos die off. I’m thrilled.

Also my no name acro has been coloring up and becoming one of my favorites.

My SPS are all doing great and encrusting and growing heavily. Especially my digitata.

 

[AaronFReef]

Took some more pics this morning going out the door. After @ibacha gave me some tips on how he set up his Kessil I am slowly shifting towards more UV and added red at 10% and green at 5%. Leave UV on after hours for a nice fluorescence show while we watch some TV shows! Pics in a sec.

 

[AaronFReef]

Acros are really encrusting phenomenally now. Acan has about 10 new heads since I bought it so I hope they start growing out and flattening my acan ball of dough

 

[AaronFReef]

I’m still having trouble with my alkalinity rising even though I’ve gone from dosing 34 mL a day to 22.5. Not sure what could be causing this other than the fact my dinos are now of the coolia strand. I cut the top off my digitata to kill the boring worms in them with two sweeper tentacles and one still lived through it! I cut off a full inch of growth and it retracted and lived through it! What a beast.

cali tort is finally regaining color! Woo!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Those colors are excellent. The Cali, Miyagi and Oregon tortuosas are so wonderfully, deeply colored.

 

[AaronFReef]

Those colors are excellent. The Cali, Miyagi and Oregon tortuosas are so wonderfully, deeply colored.

I love it and hope it picks up the pace growing so I can pop it off the frag plug and glue it down. It seems so fragile with that growth pattern of delicate little branches. I think it’s going to be a star of my tank.