TinyChocobo’s Red Sea Reefer XL 425

TinyChocobo · Mar 7, 2018

The Anemone the other day made his way into one of the vortech pumps. I think I got here in time as he wasn't cut/hurt by the pump blades and I turned the pumps off and got him out. He was totally deflated and sad looking.

I moved him to the live rock and left the flow off until he attached. Now he's got his foot well into the rock and is puffed up and looking good. I get the feeling he won't be moving anywhere anytime in the near future.

I also added a Blue Spotted Puffer, a Blue Streak Cleaning Wrasse, and two Yellow Tangs. The tank is heavily stocked but everybody has a hiding hole and room to swim. The plan is honestly to get a much larger tank within the next 12 to 24 months - I'm thinking on the order of 250~300 gallons.

I built a temporary chaeto reactor to help keep nutrients in-check. The light is a grow bulb - but I have a Skimz MBR157 coming that I will put inside the sump and will use it's built in lighting.

TinyChocobo · Mar 7, 2018

Puffer and Tang

Puffer

Blue streak cleaning wrasse in 'time out'.

TinyChocobo · Mar 8, 2018

It turns out my Apex temperature probe was mis-calibrated and reading about 1.5 degrees F higher than it should have.

TinyChocobo · Mar 10, 2018

5 of my 8 clown fish have totally disappeared. Nothing else seems to have gone missing. 1 clown I did find stuck to one of the vortech pumps but the other 4 are totally MIA.

I haven’t had any spikes in nutrients and there are no dead fish on the floor.

I have 2 Yellow Tangs, a red hawk fish, a cleaner wrasse, and a blue spotted puffer.

The hawk fish is eating frozen mysis as well as flake food with the rest of my fish but he is the only suspect I have right now.

The rock is all dry rock from BRS so I don’t think I have any hitchhikers.

TinyChocobo · Mar 19, 2018

I was looking at ordering an AquaUV 57Watt through @MarineDepot but after discussing my needs with MarineDepot and AquaUV - I believe I'll be putting a 25 Watt unit on the system. At my normal turnover rate on my return line it should help keep the water clear and most baddies at bay and if I have a case of Ich I can drop the return down to 400 GPH and it will also irradiate ICH while still maintaining 4.5 times turn-over per hour.

Reefer Deez · Mar 19, 2018

Sorry to hear about the clowns Do you have any full front rank shots to share?

TinyChocobo · Mar 19, 2018

Reefer Deez said:
Sorry to hear about the clowns Do you have any full front rank shots to share?

I do but they're all very blue and hard to see. I'm going to set up my nice camera tomorrow and try to get a good shot of it.

Currently I have 3 Clowns, 7 Green Chromis, Two Yellow Tangs, A Red Hawkfish, A Long Spine Urchin, a Pincushion Urchin, and One/Two Anemones. He has two mouths and small tentacles between those mouths - but seems to be taking his sweet time splitting

.

I lost the puffer as well - I don't know what happened to him - he was acting totally normally and swimming around being his usual ham - and then WHAM he was being devoured by the urchins.

My yellow tangs destroy the nori I put in the tank and are also eating frozen mysis which surpises me a bit.

Zotch · Mar 19, 2018

Did you setup the tank and 2 days later add 8 clowns and an anem? You seem to be losing way to many fish and I think you are moving ahead way too fast.

TinyChocobo · Mar 19, 2018

Zotch said:
Did you setup the tank and 2 days later add 8 clowns and an anem? You seem to be losing way to many fish and I think you are moving ahead way too fast.

I had just set up the display tank - yes - but I had live rock running in a 40 Gallon breeder for a long time before it was added to the tank. The cycle was long over. I didn't go into details about it because it was far from glamorous

. I even had my MarinePure blocks in the 40G Breeder so that they would get colonized.

TinyChocobo · Mar 20, 2018

I've been reefing for years - although this setup is new/young. I honestly am not sure why I lost the fish I lost - I really can't explain it. I've never had that happen before and I could find nothing wrong with my parameters. I made sure my cycle was complete before I added anything and I watched for ammonia when I added my fish.

Yes - I added a lot of fish fast - I won't dispute that - but I was watching very closely so that I could react quickly to any issues that arise - but I literally saw no issues arise with the parameters.

I just went from having X fish to Y fish overnight - and found no corpses - no ammonia spikes, nothing ... it was really just like something in the tank was killing my fish.

I did find a nasty looking 'worm' of some kind floating on the surface not too long ago - I took a picture of it but my phone ate it

. At any rate - I've lost nothing beyond that puffer in a while and everything seems to be doing fine. My nutrients and ammonia have been good. I've honestly been baffled.

TinyChocobo · Mar 28, 2018

Oops

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TinyChocobo · Apr 2, 2018

So I have been dealing with a chrysophyte bloom. Some details in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/half-of-my-aquarium-looks-good-the-other-half-i’m-not-sure.373980/

I had a LOT of them mostly covering one smaller rock in the back - it was/is almost completely covered in what looks like brown slime with long stringy parts reaching up towards the top of the tank...

I just went to take a picture of it - and my pincushion urchin is there - and a good portion of the chrysophytes appear to be gone...

I do have a fair bit of red cyano on my rocks now as well - but as this is a new tank I'm probably just going to scrub some of it off when I siphon for a water change here in a few days. I only have one coral in the tank and it looks healthy and colorful so I'm not really worried at this point about anything.