Wallets empty, wife's angry, and I'm in over my head!

[SoggyNW]

Update. After removing the extra anacropora and the huge birdsnest, I'm noticing everything across the board is looking healthier. A few of my larger acros are starting to get some color back in their tissue, my forest fire digi is getting back it's gree base color that was completely missing, and everything else is looking just a little brighter. The hypothesis was that the fast growing corals we're stripping the water and starving their neighbors and I think It was spot on.

 

[Rmckoy]

Edit: wallet is empty because I only had $100 on me. The bank account is fine. (Wife still doesn't understand why I spent money on a handful of twigs to stick in my tank)

I found a guy on Craig's list selling frags and arranged to stop by today to check out his tank and pick up some frags. He advertised LPS, SPS, and zoas. Turns out he had all those things but was mostly looking to trim back his SPS forest and had no where to put it.

Long story short. For $100 I walked out with a 30 head zoa colony, 3 huge pieces of chalace, and 20 SPS frags. I ran out of glue sticking them to pieces of rubble. My 40b is looking a little crowded.

I previously was only keeping zoas, clove polyps, a duncan, and a torch. Everyone has been pretty happy. I wasn't planning on any SPS in this tank for a while and really haven't done all my homework. Honestly I don't even know how to identify most of what I have.


Parameters

Salinity 1.025
Temp 78
All 9
Nitrates 0
Phosphates 0

Light is a viper Spectra 300watt. I run it 12 hours at ( I'll check power setting tomorrow and edit)

I'm also running an over sized skimmer.

For someone who has stumbled into this as I have. What do I need to know and do right away to succeed with SPS.

And what should I do with the chalace? I tried to glue them to rocks but it wouldn't hold. I ran out of glue and had to just lay them in the sand till tomorrow.

Thanks everyone

Adding that many sps I would keep a eye on cal , mag and Alk .
you won’t notice it right away but that much will start to consume a lot eventually

 

[freepizza80]

LOL, I've been there so my sympathies. Your tank looks really new. Other then couple of softies, I wouldn't put any other corals in there until you can see coralline algae growing on most of your rocks. I say coralline because that will tell you if your tank is healthy.

 

[SoggyNW]

Adding that many sps I would keep a eye on cal , mag and Alk .
you won’t notice it right away but that much will start to consume a lot eventually

LOL, I've been there so my sympathies. Your tank looks really new. Other then couple of softies, I wouldn't put any other corals in there until you can see coralline algae growing on most of your rocks. I say coralline because that will tell you if your tank is healthy.

I'm guessing neither of you looked past the first page? Lol

 

[Udest]

Come to think of it I do wonder how much those guys were eating per day to bottom out the calcium and alk.

 

[SoggyNW]

Stopped in at Petco last weekend just to look and they had 3 pristine looking Blue chromis that spoke to me. They're only maybe an inch long but the 3 of them add so much to the tank and also draw the rest of the inhabitants out of their corners.

Does anyone have a recommendation for an auto feeder that can do just a tiny bit of flakes several times a day? I'm thinking it might help keep chromis from picking on each other if they get lots of snacks a day.

 

[SoggyNW]

Photo update, everything seems to be healthy and growing.

Anyone have an opinion on what will eat pink cotton algae? I'm getting tired of picking it off with tongs

 

[Seph]

Photo update, everything seems to be healthy and growing.

Anyone have an opinion on what will eat pink cotton algae? I'm getting tired of picking it off with tongs

Turbo snails

 

[SoggyNW]

Turbo snails

I can't seem to keep them alive. never much trouble with other snails but turbos are always dead within a week. Maybe I'll try a different source.

 

[SoggyNW]

Just a top down shot I got while I had the pumps off for a bit of mushroom killing. Green hairy mushrooms are now on my "never again" list

 

[albano]

Gotta love the ‘never again list’. If you’ve been in the hobby long enough, you probably have the list!

 

[SoggyNW]

Gotta love the ‘never again list’. If you’ve been in the hobby long enough, you probably have the list!

When I started the tank I was just excited to get anything anyone would give me ( except Kenya tree, that stuff is ugly) now I'm trying to keep everyone from overrunning each other.

 

[SoggyNW]

Tank update shots! Everything is growing like crazy, I'm up to 60ml of AFR a day. I'm slowly making progress on my battle against the green hairy mushrooms. And I noticed that my orange favia (I think it's a favia) has 2 different shades of green starting to show!

And if you look closely below you can see 2 separate little spots where different shade of green are beginning to appear. It was difficult to get a decent photo but their is no question in person.

This is what I call the warzone where an acro, anacropora, and bubblegum digi are all trying to over grow each other. The acro is winning by the way.

A spot on a different acro where the algae is slowly killing it, that side is getting blasted by a gyre and I think it's just to much for the coral.

My green tip hammer is growing and dividing, it's up to 11 polyps. For some reason cotten candy algae loves it and while it isn't difficult to keep it in check I can't seem to rid the hammer of it.

Two new frags on the rack are doing great, not positive what they are but I'm going to clear them a spot and I'll plant them and see what they do.

The chalice is getting to be a problem as it is invading the personal space of my forest fire digi and zoa garden

And last I don't know what I want to do with my green tip birdsnest. When I ripped out the old birdsnest I kept a pinky finger size piece to start over with, but then I never glued it anywhere and now it has grown into this just on the sand bed.

I'm so ready for a bigger tank with more room and options but I just don't have the time and space for it right now. I've tossed around the idea of a small frag tank but I'm pretty sure.ut.would just turn into another tank with no space for more coral.

 

[TheWB]

Tank update shots! Everything is growing like crazy, I'm up to 60ml of AFR a day. I'm slowly making progress on my battle against the green hairy mushrooms. And I noticed that my orange favia (I think it's a favia) has 2 different shades of green starting to show!

And if you look closely below you can see 2 separate little spots where different shade of green are beginning to appear. It was difficult to get a decent photo but their is no question in person.

This is what I call the warzone where an acro, anacropora, and bubblegum digi are all trying to over grow each other. The acro is winning by the way.

A spot on a different acro where the algae is slowly killing it, that side is getting blasted by a gyre and I think it's just to much for the coral.

My green tip hammer is growing and dividing, it's up to 11 polyps. For some reason cotten candy algae loves it and while it isn't difficult to keep it in check I can't seem to rid the hammer of it.

Two new frags on the rack are doing great, not positive what they are but I'm going to clear them a spot and I'll plant them and see what they do.

The chalice is getting to be a problem as it is invading the personal space of my forest fire digi and zoa garden

And last I don't know what I want to do with my green tip birdsnest. When I ripped out the old birdsnest I kept a pinky finger size piece to start over with, but then I never glued it anywhere and now it has grown into this just on the sand bed.

I'm so ready for a bigger tank with more room and options but I just don't have the time and space for it right now. I've tossed around the idea of a small frag tank but I'm pretty sure.ut.would just turn into another tank with no space for more coral.

Tank is looking great. Is that a 40b? I think you're doing pretty good actually as far as room goes. at least you can see the sand and the bottom of the tank. I'm completely out of room and counting the days until the upgrade arrives.