Righteous’s dream 100g SPS build

Righteous · Oct 25, 2019

Just picked up a couple of fish... better photos coming soon, but here's a quick phone photo for the time being. So excited about this guy... Diamond Tail Flasher!!

Any flasher wrasse experts out there? Is it possible to keep him with other flashers like a McCosker's to get him to terminal phase?

The Aquatic Arsenal · Oct 25, 2019

Wow, you take great pictures. Everything looks great!

Righteous · Oct 25, 2019

The Aquatic Arsenal said:
Wow, you take great pictures. Everything looks great!

Thanks! My wife likes to remind me its all due to her awesome camera

Righteous · Oct 25, 2019

A little bit flashier

Righteous · Mar 3, 2021

So I felt like this thread could finally use an update... and man have there been some changes.

Long story short, due to "life" I was away from my tank and unable to manage it on a daily basis. The tank did fairly well for a while this way thanks to automation... but unfortunately I wasn't there to watch my condi anemone crawl into a power head and nuke the tank... killing all the fish in one swoop. This happened nearly a year ago, and I am still upset I let it happen.

From there on, obviously, things went downhill. I also went through a process of moving the tank to a new house... which I won't go into detail on (it sucked!). At this point the tank was basically on life support until I knew I could fix it.

So here's the aftermath just before I started to bring the tank back to life. This is basically after all the fish died, and then being unable to take care of it for about 4 months. The horror!!

And yes, that's a Gigas clam loving it in there, lol.

So the process of bringing the tank back to life involved only one complete water change, followed by vibrant and fluconazole. Since I had lost most of the coral by this point, I figured aggressive measures wouldn't be a bad idea.

The end result was a fast and amazing turn around. The coral that did survive before, actually did amazing during the vibrant and fluconazole treatments. All of this was done without a refugium online, just skimming.

So that image was in October, and here is the tank now.

Once the uglies melted, I introduced the rabbit fish and some clowns, and brought the refugium online. Since then I basically slowly added more livestock. Including the Gigas, about 11 corals also made it through. I'm also digging the bare bottom at the moment.

I'm now growing out lots of new Acros, with some more or on the way. I seem to have hit on good coloration and health with heavy export via my full size triton sump, 24/7 skimming, 3 times daily feeding, and dosing ammonia via Triton NH Alpha daily.

So never give up... no matter how bad it gets.

Righteous · Mar 3, 2021

Some eye candy...

Righteous · Jul 9, 2021

Thought I'd share some updates.

I outlined in another thread a short battle with Dinos. The dino bloom started when I left for a vacation and my nutrients plummeted. I battled them for about a month, and haven't had any issues with them since April.

My solution was to immediately increase my nitrates to about 5ppm. I also started running an oversized 54 Watt UV filter, with slow 180gph flow. Every evening I would blow off the rocks, and ran a filter sock which I'd change out about every 3-4 days. I also refrained from dosing any minor trace elements until they were gone.

I had noticed that the majority of the Dinos, and then the Cyano that followed tended to show up on the back rocks, so I've also added 2 mp10s on the back wall to help with any dead spots.

Only other issue with the tank is that the Red Planaria that were in my sump that i could never get rid of finally made it into my tank. So far they have not been too bad, generally sticking to the bottom areas around the rocks. I blow them off occasionally, but they seem at a steady state at the moment. I don't notice the Melanarus eating any, so I added a Leopard Wrasse and a Spotted Dragonet to see if they'll make a dent.

I really don't want to try flatworm exit without first filtering out all the flatworms, and having tons of water ready to water change, so fingers crossed they start to run their course.

Here are the new additions, and a recent FTS.