Wrangy's Reef - 80g of Wrasse & SPS

[Wrangy]

I'll have to check out those pepper vids, my last couple plants have produced sweet f all!
Tanks looking good and ready for more acros. Hows your phos and nitrates going?
I still cant get phos to test on my test kit and nitrates wont fall, think i need to dose phospate... My couple tester frags are starting to look sad.

Definitely worth checking it out! The Pepper Lovers Community on Google+ is unreal too if you want all things peppers! Lol
Haven't tested the phos and nitrates recently but did a MAJOR clean of the matrix and sump yesterday! Lol so much coralline scraped as well!

Looking good!

Thanks mate!

 

[Wrangy]

Couldn't decide which shot I preferred more so here's two crappy phone shots! Picked up some AMAZING frags on the weekend from a mate and gave the tank a good old scrub! Got some fresh salt water to do some sand siphoning tonight as well!

 

[Wrangy]

A couple of much nicer pictures lol the phone ones really are crappy in comparison haha

 

[bubbaque]

Looking good!

 

[Wrangy]

Looking good!

Thanks mate! We're getting somewhere finally! Been a long road of up's and down's! Getting some more really gorgeous frags soon though!!

 

[bubbaque]

Now we need some close up shots of the corals! What is the thing with the numbers on front of the stand? Also, what's in the basket?

 

[Wrangy]

Now we need some close up shots of the corals! What is the thing with the numbers on front of the stand? Also, what's in the basket?

I do need to take some close up so I have some points of reference for all the corals! Numbers at the front are the pH controller for the calcium reactor. There's very little in the tank which is why it's using bugger all and the pH is as that, I haven't tested the alk in a week or two due to travel so I might need to get onto that tonight! The basket is my secret shroom stash haha the lights in the sump need an upgrade and until that happens I've moved the frags up to the DT, so they'll go back under once I sort the lights

 

[Wrangy]

Also I thought I'd do a bit of a fish run-down too. I've had some pretty **** luck in the last 12 months with fish unfortunately Some unexplained losses, surfers and sump divers but my babies that are in the tank at the moment are doing really well. They get feed pellets 4 times a day and I've been really slack and haven't been feeding frozen of late but everyone is at least fat and happy. The best part about the fish is my Magma Wrasse is finally turning into a terminal phase male! He's getting really really stunning and just the most gorgeous deep red!

My current fish list sits at 9 fish, 7 in the tank and 2 in the sump:
- "Burgers" Chaetodon burgessi (he's the only one with a name haha aside from the mean things I call my female gold nugget)
- Centropyge colini
- halichoeres melasmapomus (she's my oldest fish and holds a very dear place in my heart)
- liopropoma susumi
- Cirrhilabrus shutmani
- Hologymnosus doliatus (he's getting too big and needs re-homing, also the destructor of snails lol)
- Odontanthias borbonius

The sump monsters are:
- A pair of premnas biaculeatus, Gold Nugget Maroon Clownfish who I adore because the female is an aggressive little cow and the sump tank is her's haha

I have some plans on future additions that go as follows:
- 3-5 pseudanthias flavicauda, a bunch were collected recently and I've been waiting for a rarer more interesting species of anthias to add to the tank. P. tuka are my all time favourites but I can't afford to put that much time and effort into them.
- Cirrhilabrus isosceles, I had a gorgeous male but lost him to mystery causes and they're one of my favourite species so I will be getting another!
- Paracheilinus attenuatus, another one I've wanted for quite some time!
- Macropharyngodon vivienae, a harem of these beauties would blow my mind!!
- An Australian caught prognathodes sp. is a must for me, I love butterflies so much!!
- Lucky last is my pipe dream fish that one day I will own! The infamous cirrhilabrus claire!!!!


That's about it for this fish update haha

 

[bubbaque]

It seems like you like a bunch of different fish and I’m the same way. I went and visited WWC 900 gallon a few days ago and their fish was 95% tangs. I would of loved to see a huge variety of fish but I think they keep fish for a job.

 

[Wrangy]

It seems like you like a bunch of different fish and I’m the same way. I went and visited WWC 900 gallon a few days ago and their fish was 95% tangs. I would of loved to see a huge variety of fish but I think they keep fish for a job.

Yeah, I like just about everything but tangs. For some reason, I find no appeal at all from tangs, they do nothing for me at all. Wrasse, angels and butterflies are my real weakness. Once I have a massive tank I'll be filling it similar to Bryn Robert's tank with large angels and butterflies!! Wrasse galore as well haha the tank will definitely end up being a wrasse dominated tank though the more I get haha
Yeah, I don't blame them for using a bunch of workhorse fish!

 

[YHSublime]

Everything is looking great! You're going to run into the same problem as me soon, and run out of space!

 

[Wrangy]

Everything is looking great! You're going to run into the same problem as me soon, and run out of space!

Thanks man, I'm definitely going to run out of space but whats the good of having a reef if you can't completely pack it in haha

Hoping to get a pretty kickass frag pack soon too!!

 

[Wrangy]

Added a couple new pieces and cleaned the glass still have some water to be changin'

 

[bubbaque]

Looking good! The cleaned glass makes a huge difference.

What is that long white and black fish?

 

[Wrangy]

Looking good! The cleaned glass makes a huge difference.

What is that long white and black fish?

Yeah, it does make a difference! I'm really enjoying the contrast with the clean backdrop, I just need to get motivated and clean the overflow off haha

That is the serial snail slaughterer and he will become a monster! Hologymnosus doliatus and I got him when he was tiny, smaller than a pinky finger! He will be moving to a new home soon as he killed one of my strombus (conch) snails the other day and there's a snail graveyard in one of the corners haha he's such a personable fish and isn't shy but just a little too destructive on my snails.

I took some actual corals shots last night too, might do some top downs tonight after I repot my chilli's!

 

[Wrangy]

So I took some real shots the other night and given I didn't use a tripod they're not terrible








Also I did take a bunch of coral pictures but without the tripod they were awful haha only one was decent and in focus haha so here it is and she's a gorgeous monti!!

 

[bubbaque]

What are you using for nutrient export?

 

[Wrangy]

What are you using for nutrient export?

That's an interesting answer haha I have:

• 8L Seachem Matrix media (it was 10L but I removed 2L in a clean and overhaul last week), that has it's own sump compartment.
• 250-300ml of AquaForest Carbon in a bag that get a lot of the water flowing through it, changed monthly.
• RLSS R8-i skimmer.
• 3 drops of AF -NP Pro and Pro Bio S daily.
• A sprinkle of Pro Bio F daily, this is pure laziness but it works haha.
• The Coral Essentials Energy+ also has a big impact on nutrients as it converts them to make them more edible to bacteria which the corals then consume.
• ~10% water change a week.

I run no GFO or phosphate removers and for food input it's three to four pellet feeds a day by autofeeder and frozen not super often as I'm lazy feeding that haha. With all that the glass needs scraping every couple of days but that's also partly to the aminos being dosed

 

[Wrangy]

I was doing some mucking around last night in the tank and was using the porthole to see what I was doing and I have to say things are looking pretty nice and the colours are coming along happily!! So I suppose I'll need to do some top down shots of things!

In the mean time here's a completely unrelated update! haha I spent a few hours on the weekend doing some gardening and here's the results! The first lot is the second batch of peppers to go in and there's some very beautiful and interesting pods I'm very excited about!





Strawberries are getting there, they'll need some light feeding soon


Repotted and cleaned up all the original batch of peppers and the jalapeno is coming back after being infested with aphids!


Peas and tomatoes are just going crazy!! lol










Super duper excited about this guy too!! Going to take a while before I get any fruit from it though.

 

[bubbaque]

After seeing your peppers I thought about trying to grow some. I told the wife I wanted to try and she said they will just die, lol. I think she's right, so I never went forward with growing any.