SuncrestReef's Red Sea Reefer XL 425 build

SuncrestReef · Jul 19, 2018

The alveopora has opened up nicely!

NY_Caveman · Jul 19, 2018

SuncrestReef said:
The alveopora has opened up nicely!

Nice! I am seriously considering one for my new system. Love the thick tubules. Watching it move in your video may have clinched it for me.

SuncrestReef · Jul 19, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Nice! I am seriously considering one for my new system. . love the thick tubules. Watching it move in your video may have clinched it for me.

Glad you like it! What's amazing is how much it can retract into the coral skeleton. Here's a photo from when I first added it to my tank:

NY_Caveman · Jul 19, 2018

SuncrestReef said:
Glad you like it! What's amazing is how much it can retract into the coral skeleton. Here's a photo from when I first added it to my tank:

Wow, that is crazy! Looks dead.

SuncrestReef · Jul 19, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Wow, that is crazy! Looks dead.

I know! I was worried at first because it took almost 24 hours before it fully expanded from the skeleton. It's definitely one of my favorites and I love watching it flow in the current.

SuncrestReef · Jul 20, 2018

My cleaner shrimp molts about every two weeks. I'm always amazed at how they can completely slip out of their exoskeleton, leaving it fully in tact including the very fine antennae:

Antics · Jul 20, 2018

SuncrestReef said:
My cleaner shrimp molts about every two weeks. I'm always amazed at how they can completely slip out of their exoskeleton, leaving it fully in tact including the very fine antennae:

The favorite snack of my fish... cleaner molt. ;Vomit

SuncrestReef · Jul 20, 2018

Antics said:
The favorite snack of my fish... cleaner molt. ;Vomit

I always pluck the exoskeleton out of the tank right away when I find it in the morning. The shrimp always molts at night, and I can tell it's happened because he doesn't eat the following morning (which is highly unusual since he's a glutton) so I know to look around the tank to find it.

SuncrestReef · Jul 22, 2018

Here's an updated full tank video:

Antics · Jul 22, 2018

Looking good!

SuncrestReef · Jul 22, 2018

Some people might be getting tired of all my pistol shrimp videos, but this one really cracked me up!

The shrimp was basically kicking buried snails out of his front yard. Eviction #1 at 0:15, eviction #2 at 3:50.

SuncrestReef · Jul 24, 2018

Today I added a nice goniopora to my tank. Here's a time lapse video as it was opening up, along with a lot of other activity taking place around it:

SuncrestReef · Jul 25, 2018

Today I added a beautiful chalice:

Here's my latest full tank shot. The new chalice fit nicely below my rock arch:

SuncrestReef · Jul 30, 2018

With the summer heat wave, I was struggling to keep my water temp from spiking during the day unless I really cranked up the house air conditioning to the point where I needed to wear a sweater indoors. I looked into getting a chiller, but I don't really have room in my cabinet and don't want it external. Instead I picked up a basic 18" fan from Home Depot for $32 and attached it to an unused outlet on my Apex. I was amazed at how quickly it can cool the tank, with the Apex running the fan only about 10 minutes per hour based on the temperature probe reading.

Here's the Apex code I used and found the temperature stays between 78.0 - 78.3:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Tmp > 78.1 Then ON
If Tmp < 78.1 Then OFF
Defer 000:30 Then ON
Defer 000:30 Then OFF

mch1984 · Jul 31, 2018

SuncrestReef said:
Today I added a nice goniopora to my tank. Here's a time lapse video as it was opening up, along with a lot of other activity taking place around it:

It was as much fun to watch the pistol/goby in that video.

SuncrestReef · Aug 2, 2018

Sure, I could be sleeping, but instead I'm looking at my coral after the lights go off. It's amazing to see how some corals change at night. Look at the difference between my lobo during the day and when the tentacles extend at night:

NY_Caveman · Aug 2, 2018

SuncrestReef said:
Sure, I could be sleeping, but instead I'm looking at my coral after the lights go off. It's amazing to see how some corals change at night. Look at the difference between my lobo during the day and when the tentacles extend at night:

Cool contrast! I love that.

SuncrestReef · Aug 4, 2018

I started dosing 2 part a few weeks ago, but I found that there wasn't enough flow in my sump to properly disperse the soda ash before it precipitated, so I have been manually dosing it into the display tank in front of the return nozzles. To resolve this problem I ordered a small powerhead for my sump and aimed it at the dosing tubes. I'm using a Tunze Turbelle Nanostream 6020:

I attached it to my Apex EngeryBar and programmed it to only run while dosing. It works great and is super quiet, so now I can sit back and relax while my DOS and this Tunze powerhead takes care of dosing for me.