Reefer 250

[Chee-tomorpha]

I did a rebuild of this tank back in March of this year. It had been neglected for a few months and had GSP and mushrooms overtake the tank.

Replaced all rocks and sand. And, scrubbed down everything.

Before rebuild:


After rebuild:


Today:

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Current inhabitants:

2x Multibar Angelfish
1x Flame Angelfish
1x Kole Tang
1x Scopus Tang
1x Tomini Tang
1x Leopard Wrasse
1x Ornate Wrasse
1x Melanurus Wrasse
1x Tailspot Blenny
1x Fire Fish

Corals:

2x heads of some kind of torch (had about seven heads but most didn't make it through the rebuild, hoping the two remaining stay alive)
1x Duncan
1x TG Helios Favia
1x no-name green Goniopora
1x Rainbow Goniopora
1x Seagrass Cyphastrea
1x no-name Gold Hammer
1x no-name green base with purple and pink tips Acropora
1x no-name purple base with green tips Acropora (bleached)
1x Rainbow Stylophora (not doing so well)
1x Indo Bonsai Acropora (bleached)
1x Forest Fire Montipora Digitata
1x Nightshade Acropora (browned)
1x Pink Pocillipora (seems dead)
2x Rainbow Montipora (big colony seems dead, a tiny frag is surviving)
1x no-name Green Montipora Digitata (I think)

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Got a nice haul from the @SBB Corals sales event. Will be growing them out in here.

Eventually when the RSP500 is ready, most if not all inhabitants will be relocated to that and I will turn this into a frag tank - I think.

There we're some awesome acros I wish I could have gotten but my skills were too slow. I did manage to get two acros to try in my system. It's probably for the best since this tank is not that mature yet. I've never kept high end acros before so fingers crossed I don't just lose them instantly.

I grabbed enough to get a zoa garden going as well as some clove polyps. I never kept cloves before so that'll be interesting.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

New corals added about a week ago. I think the acros are doing well. They haven't loss any tissues or bleached. Fingers crossed they stay that way.

The zoas aren't doing so well though. A pink colony is doing okay but the other three are closed up.

I've lost more of my torch heads. It looks like it is splitting but it's my last one. Hope it survives.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Corals are doing a lot better than I had anticipated. I haven't lost any yet so kind of impressed with myself. The acros had great polyp extensions when first introduced but have not seen them after day 3. Assuming the angels were nipping at them.

Also, all the fish and shrimp have been relocated to the P500 and now the R250 is fully a coral and invert tank only. Was a pain as the whole scape had to be removed to be able to catch the fish and cleaner shrimps.

It has been three days since the relocation and the clove and zoa are opening back up. I'm starting to see polyps coming back out of the acros.

Not a great shot but rocks are coming along. The purple coralline looks to be covering more and more, but some patches are growing the less desirable green/brown stuff on top of them. Any ideas on how to grow the purple coralline vs. the other colors?

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Tank update. I've been pretty lucky adding a few new frags and not killing them. Most are encrusting, some are doing nothing, and a couple are turning green. However, with no fish to graze I've gotten a few sprouts of unwanted algae. Nothing alarming but am worried if it continues.

But I got three corals that aren't doing so hot. I believe one is a tenuis, one is a millepora and one Goniopora. The tenuis and mille are recent additions and RTN immediately after introduction. The tenuis has maybe two little polyps hanging onto dear life. The mille has a section of tissue intact. The goni is pale and lost all tissue except the polyps.

What's the likelihood of survival. I've not touched these guys nor made any drastic changes to the tank. My hopes is they survive.

It'll be a miracle if the tenuis one with one or two polyps make it. There is no tissue on it except two tiny pink polyps. Not sure on the name, it was a nice pink one with white tips.

The other millepora is purple with blue or white tips I forget.

The goni is a rainbow Goniopora. It was doing really well until the fish transfer. It's been hanging in there but I have been seeing less and less polyps since with no tissue growth.

Do these three have any chance?

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

So far the mille is the only one hanging on. I haven't noticed anymore tissue loss so I got my hopes up for it.

The Rainbow goni lost another polyp or two and shrinking more.

The other acro that I think is a tenuis is gone. There's nothing left but a whit skeleton. I'll leave it and not pull it out until there's algae all over it. Still hoping for a miracle.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Aside from those 3, all other additions are doing good, not great.

I've been seeing each batch or corals I get go through phases. The SPS begin by turning green, transition to looking drab, and then begin coloring back up.

The best case of this is the Indo Bonsai I got from @Tidal Gardens 2-3 months back. I thought it was a gonner but has encrusted almost the entire plugs and started getting it's purple back.




My torch from my rebuild I believe is no longer in danger of dying anymore. The surviving two heads have began growing tissue over the old dead skeleton.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Added a new Maxima clam last week and I was pretty worried it wouldn't make it. But it's been a full week now and it has been really happy.




The remaining corals seem to have survived the NOPOX forward siphon incident. Most have lost what little color they had developed. The three stressed ones all perished. Another three acros took a beating.

This guy's STN to 10-20% remaining tissue. It looks to be stabilized now and I hope it'll turns around.



The Indo Bonsai lost color and polyp extensions


But a lot of LPS/Zoa continued to create new heads

From 3 heads to 10


Developing heads all around the current head. Crazy! I've never experienced this before. There's at least 8 new heads forming.


Hammer split to two heads, then started developing a new head between the two heads along the stalk. Again never seen a new head just pop up like this. Always seen heads split only

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

I am participating in a Battle Corals grow out contest. Received the frag last week and it has been pretty happy. I have seen some growth since then but the color is definitely turning brown. I hope it turns around soon. Would love to see this frag piece turn into a colony. The polyps have two that are longer and are white in color and looks very cool.

 

[DIFish]

Nice rebuild! Noticed you have 2 gyre pumps, what kind of flow are you putting through them?
Also interested in the complete removal of rocks, did the tank re cycle after you removed all of the rock and sand?

Looking much cleaner without all of those mushrooms!

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Nice rebuild! Noticed you have 2 gyre pumps, what kind of flow are you putting through them?
Also interested in the complete removal of rocks, did the tank re cycle after you removed all of the rock and sand?

Looking much cleaner without all of those mushrooms!

Thanks!

The gyres are running at 50% power. One is on the gradual mode with a 1 second pulse time. The second is set to alternate gyre mode, also set to 50%. This combo seems the be working well for my current scape and corals.

Removing the sand and rocks did recycle the tank. I had used a couple old bags of Matrix which helped cycle the rebuild a lot faster.

 

[DIFish]

Nice! I definitely like the gyres but was too scared to go for 2 on my 250. I like that yours can make a lot more turbulence for the corals. Will be following the progress!

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Some new additions from @AquaSD

Firecracker zoa. I think will be a nice complimentary color to the blue Maxima. I planned it to colonize the same rock as the clam. A little shy, tried opening a few times but munnid isopods keep crawling all over it.


A lobo of some kind. Got a message the WYSIWYG wasn't available and they subbed it. I forgot what I got so I'm good as it looks healthy.


PinkPop Spath. I think the rim of each polyp is almost metallic so grabbed this one. Hoping I can get that color back.


Peachy Tabling Acro. Excited to see this one extend it's polyps. Grabbed it solely based on that alone haha


Purple ring blasto. It is in a semi permanent spot. Not sure where to place it as it has a low light requirement. Seems happy so may just leave it. I've seen them directly on the sand and prefer that look. May move it - IDK


Dalmatian Alveopora on the same rock as the pink zoas. I think the white will be a nice backdrop to bring out the kind of muted pink of the zoas.


Electric Rim Alveopora. Striking colors.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Moved the red dragonett from the P500 into this tank as it did seem like it was eating the Tisbees in there. This tank has a ton of munnid isopods + Tisbees pods. It seems to be eating in here and filling up it's sunken stomach from when I recieved it. I plan to move it back eventually or could add a green mandrin and name them Mario and Luigi for my twin boys.

 

[Lavey29]

Looking back at your original post, I thought your rockscape looked excellent. Completely natural appearance, well done.

What happened to your fish? Some of those were never going to do well it a 250 due to the small size.

You're also having an excessively high failure rate with SPS because the tank just is not mature enough to sustain them. Yes a few easier ones may push through but typically you need to wait till about 10 months and have good coraline growth throughout the tank. Prior to this parameters are unstable and SPS don't do well.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Also a new addition that is doing great. A purple tip urchin. It's been hanging around the gyre since introduction. It's doing a great job cleaning it up too.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Looking back at your original post, I thought your rockscape looked excellent. Completely natural appearance, well done.

What happened to your fish? Some of those were never going to do well it a 250 due to the small size.

You're also having an excessively high failure rate with SPS because the tank just is not mature enough to sustain them. Yes a few easier ones may push through but typically you need to wait till about 10 months and have good coraline growth throughout the tank. Prior to this parameters are unstable and SPS don't do well.

Thank you! I moved all the fish to my new Peninsula 500. This tank is mainly a coral tank. However, I may add a couple utilitarian fish back as the algae growth has gotten a little out of control. I have a bunch of these tuffs of algae. They're easy enough to pull out but I don't want to stick my hands in the tank too much.



I've been experimenting with a few corals. I've lost at least 5 SPS now but have had some successes. Tank is coming up on 8 months now and is helping me a lot. I've never been successful with SPS except a birdsnest so I'm pretty stoked.

I currently have:
20 SPS - 5 are not doing so good but seem to be recovering

11 LPS - all seem to be doing pretty good

9 zoas - newest addition is still closed but all else are looking good too

There's two dead hammers to be warranty claims. They came all necrosed. It didn't have a fighting chance. This morning the tenticles just turned to mush.

 

[Lavey29]

Thank you! I moved all the fish to my new Peninsula 500. This tank is mainly a coral tank. However, I may add a couple utilitarian fish back as the algae growth has gotten a little out of control. I have a bunch of these tiffs of algae. They're easy enough to pull out but I don't want to stick my hands in the tank too much.

I've been experimenting with a few corals. I've lost at least 5 SPS now but have had some successes. Tank is coming up on 8 months now and is helping me a lot. I've never been successful with SPS except a birdsnest so I'm pretty stoked.

I currently have:
20 SPS - 5 are not doing so good but seem to be recovering

11 LPS - all seem to be doing pretty good

9 zoas - newest addition is still closed but all else are looking good too

There's two dead hammers to be warranty claims. They came all necrosed. It didn't have a fighting chance. This morning the tenticles just turned to mush.

Nice, I'm glad you moved them to the large tank. I tried a couple easy SPS around 8 months and they did not make it. As I got to the year mark the tank went through an evolution and became much more stable and predictable. I now have 35 SPS corals in the tank and only lost one due to shipping.

I think you will find over the next few months your tank becomes much more stable. You do need some fish in there to provide nutrients to your corals though. I'm phasing out all my coral supplements and just relying on fish fertilizer now. I have the XL300 so basically same as yours.

 

[Chee-tomorpha]

Yeah I'm found I had to supplement nitrates and phosphates a week or two ago. Been ramping the lights up too which seems to be helping the entire tank. I wish I could get my hands on a yellow Tang. I may just got for another Scopus as it does a great job before being moved over. I'm hesitant because I don't want to be feeding two tanks. It's especially troublesome when I'm away.

I have a red dragonett in there now. I have plans to move it back to the peninsula when it fattened up but may just keep it and add a green mandrin, maybe.