SDReef's 330G CDA Acropora Dominant Mixed Reef

[sdreef]

Fantastic, thanks! Yeah, I found the reefbuilders article but hadn't seen the wandell article in years. A few more questions if you don't mind. How did you start them feeding and what do you feed now? How long did it take to get them everything and what do you feed them?

Here are some of my observations and a bit of speculation on things that may have helped.

Other - 330 Gallon Acropora Dominant Mixed Reef

November 25, 2020 I started the tank one year ago in November. The system is a mixed reef. Here are some photos one year into the build. November 25, 2021 Here are the basics for the set up. Tank Crystal Dynamics 84x34x27 Modular Marine External Overflow 1" Return Lines Lighting...

humble.fish

 

[Acropora52]

Thanks, that's fantastic information and well documented. Thanks for taking the time to post that as well as the link. I have an opportunity to grab a few that are already eating frozen and pellets so I'm going to give it a shot. I already have the plank installed and feed 5 times a time with that in addition to another 2-3 times a day manually and will have baby brine on standby. I'm hopeful that adding them with another group of more gregarious anthias (dispars) will help them with the "dither" fish concept.

 

[sdreef]

Thanks, that's fantastic information and well documented. Thanks for taking the time to post that as well as the link. I have an opportunity to grab a few that are already eating frozen and pellets so I'm going to give it a shot. I already have the plank installed and feed 5 times a time with that in addition to another 2-3 times a day manually and will have baby brine on standby. I'm hopeful that adding them with another group of more gregarious anthias (dispars) will help them with the "dither" fish concept.

That sounds very reasonable. Not a lot of reports of success, so I can only speculate with my one experience with these fish.

Are you looking at tukas or pascalus? If they are eating frozen and pellets and you are prepared for the frequent feeding (as you are), that really increases your chances of keeping these fish successfully.

 

[Acropora52]

That sounds very reasonable. Not a lot of reports of success, so I can only speculate with my one experience with these fish.

Are you looking at tukas or pascalus? If they are eating frozen and pellets and you are prepared for the frequent feeding (as you are), that really increases your chances of keeping these fish successfully.

getting 6 tukas. they had pascalus but they were larger and I figure smaller (younger) specimens are likely more adaptable. I'll update on my build thread when they come in and hopefully do a decent job of documenting what works (and doesn't work).

 

[sdreef]

Practiced taking fish photos. Played with the autofocus and exposure settings.


Blone Naso

Potter's Wrasse

All the fairy wrasse
Lineatus

Roseafascia

Nahacky

Johnsoni

Flame

Earl's

 

[sdreef]

About three months of growth of the splice.
12/29/21

Spent January primarily encrusting
2/03/22

The apical corallite is half green / half red and getting more vertical growth as it continues to encrust the base. It looks like it is thinking about putting out some new nubs.

4/03/22

 

[shandoee]

Wow! Nice tank!!

 

[Acropora52]

That's great growth! Hoping it continues to put out the red as it branches out more. I joined the green splice club so I'm in the acclimation phase now and hoping to get into the encrusting phase and then hopefully into the rare growing with new red phase

 

[sdreef]

Wow! Nice tank!!

Thank you!

That's great growth! Hoping it continues to put out the red as it branches out more. I joined the green splice club so I'm in the acclimation phase now and hoping to get into the encrusting phase and then hopefully into the rare growing with new red phase

This was originally a frag from a frag and in my experience they take longer to get going for some reason. It took a while to get settled, and gradually started encrusting. More recently the nub has thickened and its getting more vertical growth and the red. In my opinion, it looks equally nice in day light or under blues. I hope it picks up the pace.

 

[sdreef]

Some yellow acros with red polyps

Pink lemonade

Pink Floyd

A. speciosa

 

[sdreef]

Some April tank shots.

Although a bit out of focus you can see the Potter's flashing and streaking down the center.

This is what the Potter's looks like at baseline

With the system stabilized and the crocea continuing to grow and do well, I added back a couple maximas. I'm going to see how this goes and would like to add more negative bioload organisms.

 

[sdreef]

This photo popped up on the phone today, one year ago. JF Jolt

Phone photo, one year later

 

[sdreef]

About a week ago, I added a 5" Australian copperband to a social acclimation box in the system. I was concerned primarily about aggression from the group of tangs. The copperband started eating frozen quite well day 1 so I considered myself lucky. There was no attention from the tangs while in the box and so after a couple days decided to release the butterfly.

Immediately after the release the gem tang started to take swipes. The gem is also about 5". I also have a 6" chevron tang who started taking cues from the gem and also started becoming aggressive. I was fortunate and the copperband willingly swam back into the acclimation box unharmed.

A couple days later, I decided to try again. This time, I deployed a mirror on one end of the tank, and placed a clip with Nori. I also fed the tank heavily. The aggression from the gem was less sustained this time, but any time he would see the copperband he would take a swipe. The chevron and other tangs all were more mellow. The copperband was doing a good job evading the gem and I decided to give it a little more time to see if things would settle. I turned out the lights early and the aggression stopped. In the morning, I fed the tank heavily first thing, added fresh nori, and kept the mirror going. Unfortunately, all this was ineffective and the gem continued to be aggressive. The butterfly was unharmed, but wouldn't survive if this continued. Again, he willingly swam back into the acclimation box.

While he was in the tank, I witnessed him slurp his first aptasia! So, the Australian copperband who was eating frozen and had eaten some small aptasia was a keeper.

I was careful when sequencing the stocking of the tank, but there are always tradeoffs. I wanted herbivores early. I wanted clams and wanted them added prior to a butterfly. And that's I arrived in the current predicament. So the final tactic was to attempt to reestablish the pecking order by catching the gem, purple, scopas, and chevron and allow the copperband to get settled into the system.

I caught all the tangs yesterday, and the copperband has been released in the display. In a week or two, I'll attempt to release the tangs back. If the aggression resumes, they will be rehomed and I'll start with smaller tangs as my last resort.

 

[Hydrored]

About a week ago, I added a 5" Australian copperband to a social acclimation box in the system. I was concerned primarily about aggression from the group of tangs. The copperband started eating frozen quite well day 1 so I considered myself lucky. There was no attention from the tangs while in the box and so after a couple days decided to release the butterfly.

Immediately after the release the gem tang started to take swipes. The gem is also about 5". I also have a 6" chevron tang who started taking cues from the gem and also started becoming aggressive. I was fortunate and the copperband willingly swam back into the acclimation box unharmed.

A couple days later, I decided to try again. This time, I deployed a mirror on one end of the tank, and placed a clip with Nori. I also fed the tank heavily. The aggression from the gem was less sustained this time, but any time he would see the copperband he would take a swipe. The chevron and other tangs all were more mellow. The copperband was doing a good job evading the gem and I decided to give it a little more time to see if things would settle. I turned out the lights early and the aggression stopped. In the morning, I fed the tank heavily first thing, added fresh nori, and kept the mirror going. Unfortunately, all this was ineffective and the gem continued to be aggressive. The butterfly was unharmed, but wouldn't survive if this continued. Again, he willingly swam back into the acclimation box.

While he was in the tank, I witnessed him slurp his first aptasia! So, the Australian copperband who was eating frozen and had eaten some small aptasia was a keeper.

I was careful when sequencing the stocking of the tank, but there are always tradeoffs. I wanted in herbivores early. I wanted clams and wanted them added prior to a butterfly. And that's I arrived in the current predicament. So the final tactic was to attempt to reestablish the pecking order by catching the gem, purple, scopas, and chevron and allow the copperband to get settled into the system.

I caught all the tangs yesterday, and the copperband has been released in the display. In a week or two, I'll attempt to release the tangs back. If the aggression resumes, they will be rehomed and I'll start with smaller tangs as my last resort.

You are a legend at catching fish. I gave up after about 3 hours a trying to catch 1 purple tang even with my wife’s help.

A copper band is high on my list but all my fish are jerks.

 

[sdreef]

You are a legend at catching fish. I gave up after about 3 hours a trying to catch 1 purple tang even with my wife’s help.

A copper band is high on my list but all my fish are jerks.

Thanks, lol. It's a two person job. We caught the gem, scopas, and chevron in less than 10 minutes. The purple escaped my divider and was a bit more of a challenge.

The key is to limit where they can go. I use grocery bags, place holes in the bags, and weigh them down with rocks. These are a readily available free form item to occupy space, and for some reason scare the fish. The first step is to start by deciding where the best part of the tank would be to catch the fish. Once that's decided, you decide where to start placing the bags to flush them out to the desired spot in the tank.

In my tank, I start by placing bags in the back center to flush the fish forward. My scape is most conducive to netting a fish on the right front side. So I then start in the left back corner and progressively work my way to the right. The fish move away from the bags and eventually I have them restricted the right side of the tank. In my case used about 15-20 bags to give you a sense. Takes about 15-20 minutes of prep time. I also use some egg crate and the bags as a divider. This depends a little on the layout of the scape.

Then with a couple nets and couple people get the fish out into the corner and can net them out. Takes another 15 minutes to clean up. In the end, the fish were caught and the area was clean in about an hour. I ended up with one small frag of oregon tort and did need to glue a couple pieces back in place (all because of the purple).

In a smaller tank, you could drain the water to a lower level which could be effective. That's how I'll catch them out of the 60 gallon tank. Most of my wrasse will follow food into the acclimation box making them easier to catch. I also like catching fish at night when I know where they sleep. It's fast and fairly atraumatic. A fish trap works, but requires some patience and time, and sometimes I just want to get things done on my own timeline.

 

[GBRsouth]

Thanks, lol. It's a two person job. We caught the gem, scopas, and chevron in less than 10 minutes. The purple escaped my divider and was a bit more of a challenge.

The key is to limit where they can go. I use grocery bags, place holes in the bags, and weigh them down with rocks. These are a readily available free form item to occupy space, and for some reason scare the fish. The first step is to start by deciding where the most open part of the tank is to allow me to catch the fish. Once that's decided, you decide where to start placing the bags to flush them out to the desired spot in the tank.

In my tank, I start by placing bags in the back center to flush the fish forward. My scape is most conducive to netting a fish on the right front side. So I then start in the left back corner and progressively work my way to the right. The fish move away from the bags and eventually I have them restricted the right side of the tank. In my case used about 15-20 bags to give you a sense. Takes about 15-20 minutes of prep time. I also use some egg crate and the bags as a divider. This depends a little on the layout of the scape.

Then with a couple nets and couple people get the fish out into the corner and can net them out. Takes another 15 minutes to clean up. In the end, the fish were caught and the area was clean in about an hour. I ended up with one small frag of oregon tort and did need to glue one colony back in place (all because of the purple).

In a smaller tank, you could drain the water to a lower level which could be effective. That's how I'll catch them out of the 60 gallon tank. Most of my wrasse will follow food into the acclimation box making them easier to catch. I also like catching fish at night when I know where they sleep. It's fast and fairly atraumatic. A fish trap works, but requires some patience and time, and sometimes I just want to get things done on my own timeline.

This needs to be made it's own thread in general fish discussion. Here and elsewhere. I want you to tag me into it so I know you've done it in two locations. Or I'm going to name more of your corals for you!

 

[Dan I]

Amazing tank! You have pretty much what I want for my dream build. I really enjoyed reading your approach on handling this tank in all aspects from fish selection to your microbiology diversity. I am on page 7 right now.

When buying mud from IPSF and Floride Pets, did you add to your sump?

 

[sdreef]

Amazing tank! You have pretty much what I want for my dream build. I really enjoyed reading your approach on handling this tank in all aspects from fish selection to your microbiology diversity. I am on page 7 right now.

When buying mud from IPSF and Floride Pets, did you add to your sump?

Thank you, hope it gives you some ideas.

I don't have any substrate in my refugium or sump. I used 3 cups of the florida pets when I was pre-cycling the rock prior to arrival of the tank. I had this contained in a tupperware container and periodically rotated it through the bins. It wasn't very precise, but I do think it helped as there was a good number of types of bacteria when I sent the first microbiome analysis. This was prior to adding anything from IPSF.

With IPSF mud and sand I added this directly to the tank's substrate. The texture is a little different than the rest of the tank, so I placed it toward the back of the tank where it was hidden by the rock work. I added this around the four month mark and then again recently a couple months ago for a boost.

 

[sdreef]

This needs to be made it's own thread in general fish discussion. Here and elsewhere. I want you to tag me into it so I know you've done it in two locations. Or I'm going to name more of your corals for you!

I like that idea. I'll see how things pan out when I reintroduce the tangs as I may need to do this one more time in the near future. In the meantime here are a couple no name acros

A. millepora, Daylight

Actinic XHO

A. microclados, Daylight

Actinic XHO

 

[Jeffcb]

Practiced taking fish photos. Played with the autofocus and exposure settings.


Blone Naso

Potter's Wrasse

All the fairy wrasse
Lineatus

Roseafascia

Nahacky

Johnsoni

Flame

Earl's

I like that idea. I'll see how things pan out when I reintroduce the tangs as I may need to do this one more time in the near future. In the meantime here are a couple no name acros

A. millepora, Daylight

Actinic XHO

A. microclados, Daylight

Actinic XHO

Great pics. I have been working on aquarium photography. Defiantly a learning curve....