OP
OP
Update for the month of may!
Officially 6 months in for the tank. It feels like longer because I was researching probably 4+hours a day for several months prior to finally deciding to bite the bullet. It's been a great journey so far and I don't see any end in sight and, am already planning a dream build lol.
Anyways, first things first, my last post I talked about the huge disaster that was my previous skimmer. I ended up getting a Reef Octopus Classic 90 HOB skimmer, and it was making skimmate the next day. I've been really happy with the skimmer and how well it's performed. It's a little louder than the last one, and takes up a bit more space in the tank but overall I'm really happy with what it's pulling out. I also hooked up a CO2 Scrubber to see if I could get a ph boost and it seems to be doing the trick. My ph before was averaging just below 8.0 and now is pretty consistantly at 8.2 and I've seen much better growth on my corals.
I also was able to do make my first frag plug. The pulsing xenia I have has been throwing babies around like crazy so I snagged a few and put them on plugs. I've already given away 2 of them.
I also participated in the last @AquaSD live sale and won a gift card so I picked up a few more pieces. I'm really happy with the pieces I ordered.
A Gold Indo wall hammer with two heads! He's so cute!
A really nice scoly (the pic doesn't do it any justice) an acan, and some red and green war coral.
I really have the tank filled up quite a bit with coral at this point.
On another thread I mentioned having some really small flatworms, they are the kind that just eat algea, and are super small, I also have a lot of detritus worms. It wasn't on my list, but I decided with these pests popping up I should get a six line Wrasse.
This is about the best pic of the guy I have. He's so fast and always on the move. It's amazing to me how he has found different nooks and crannies in the rocks that I didn't know were there. He's a blast to watch, and since he's out so much, all the other fish seem to be out and about more as well instead of hiding in their respective caves and corners.
I also picked up a couple of Emerald crabs, as I saw a few spots on an old frag that had a couple pieces of bubble algea. They have already taken care of that within a few days.
One of the Duncan corals I have is also starting to spit more heads. I thought something was wrong with it at first, but quickly realized it was starting to split. I'm really happy to see this happening as I feel it's a good indicator of tank health.
Looking forward I'm going to be going on vacation for 2 weeks in September, and I have had a concern with my tank and making sure it's good while. I've started setting up an auto feeder, and a dosing pump to test out on a short 4 day vacation we are taking this month. I also have a camera already installed to visually check as well. I'll probably have some tweaks and such to do, but I'll post more when I have more solid plans/results.
That's about it for now. Thanks for reading and stopping by.
Officially 6 months in for the tank. It feels like longer because I was researching probably 4+hours a day for several months prior to finally deciding to bite the bullet. It's been a great journey so far and I don't see any end in sight and, am already planning a dream build lol.
Anyways, first things first, my last post I talked about the huge disaster that was my previous skimmer. I ended up getting a Reef Octopus Classic 90 HOB skimmer, and it was making skimmate the next day. I've been really happy with the skimmer and how well it's performed. It's a little louder than the last one, and takes up a bit more space in the tank but overall I'm really happy with what it's pulling out. I also hooked up a CO2 Scrubber to see if I could get a ph boost and it seems to be doing the trick. My ph before was averaging just below 8.0 and now is pretty consistantly at 8.2 and I've seen much better growth on my corals.
I also was able to do make my first frag plug. The pulsing xenia I have has been throwing babies around like crazy so I snagged a few and put them on plugs. I've already given away 2 of them.
I also participated in the last @AquaSD live sale and won a gift card so I picked up a few more pieces. I'm really happy with the pieces I ordered.
A Gold Indo wall hammer with two heads! He's so cute!
A really nice scoly (the pic doesn't do it any justice) an acan, and some red and green war coral.
I really have the tank filled up quite a bit with coral at this point.
On another thread I mentioned having some really small flatworms, they are the kind that just eat algea, and are super small, I also have a lot of detritus worms. It wasn't on my list, but I decided with these pests popping up I should get a six line Wrasse.
This is about the best pic of the guy I have. He's so fast and always on the move. It's amazing to me how he has found different nooks and crannies in the rocks that I didn't know were there. He's a blast to watch, and since he's out so much, all the other fish seem to be out and about more as well instead of hiding in their respective caves and corners.
I also picked up a couple of Emerald crabs, as I saw a few spots on an old frag that had a couple pieces of bubble algea. They have already taken care of that within a few days.
One of the Duncan corals I have is also starting to spit more heads. I thought something was wrong with it at first, but quickly realized it was starting to split. I'm really happy to see this happening as I feel it's a good indicator of tank health.
Looking forward I'm going to be going on vacation for 2 weeks in September, and I have had a concern with my tank and making sure it's good while. I've started setting up an auto feeder, and a dosing pump to test out on a short 4 day vacation we are taking this month. I also have a camera already installed to visually check as well. I'll probably have some tweaks and such to do, but I'll post more when I have more solid plans/results.
That's about it for now. Thanks for reading and stopping by.
