85 Gallon.....3 Foot Pile of rocks.

[Squatch XXL]

Arg! My regular image host site is down, and all of my photos ever uploaded are not being cross-loaded. I hope it is not forever....I would hate to obsess and have to reload through other sites.

So, I added a pair of clowns and a pair of Bangaii cardinal yesterday after speaking with some local club members who were over at the house. The general consensus was that without fish waste, my tank is too clean and causing corals to lose their color.

This morning I woke up to a missing clown....not in the DT, not in the sump.....But lucky for it, it somehow was in the overflow box. Somehow it did not make it down the gravity or siphon line. Lucky for it, and lucky for me. I doubt it would have caused an overflow if it got stuck, but nothing surprises me.

I built an egg-crate divider to keep fish where they belong. Now that I still have an open top, and no plan to change it they are officially in gods hands.



If I grow to like this design, I will take it out and spray paint it with some krylon. White simply stands out too much, and I spent way too much time designing every aspect of the look of this tank to have some ugly light diffuser drawing away from the tank.

 

[Pat24601]

Arg! My regular image host site is down, and all of my photos ever uploaded are not being cross-loaded. I hope it is not forever....I would hate to obsess and have to reload through other sites.

So, I added a pair of clowns and a pair of Bangaii cardinal yesterday after speaking with some local club members who were over at the house. The general consensus was that without fish waste, my tank is too clean and causing corals to lose their color.

This morning I woke up to a missing clown....not in the DT, not in the sump.....But lucky for it, it somehow was in the overflow box. Somehow it did not make it down the gravity or siphon line. Lucky for it, and lucky for me. I doubt it would have caused an overflow if it got stuck, but nothing surprises me.

I built an egg-crate divider to keep fish where they belong. Now that I still have an open top, and no plan to change it they are officially in gods hands.



If I grow to like this design, I will take it out and spray paint it with some krylon. White simply stands out too much, and I spent way too much time designing every aspect of the look of this tank to have some ugly light diffuser drawing away from the tank.

Pics are there. Looks great!

 

[Squatch XXL]

Pics are there. Looks great!

Look at every other photo I uploaded EVER.

Then you can have an ironic laugh with me. Hope that postimage returns. I have EVERYTHING backed up on HDD but damn that is lots of info lost on the web.

I may have to set up a storage server on the web.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

best of luck... even their blog, is not being updated
https://blog.postimage.org/?_ga=1.240821571.1707175229.1489431408

 

[Pat24601]

best of luck... even their blog, is not being updated
https://blog.postimage.org/?_ga=1.240821571.1707175229.1489431408

ouch

 

[Squatch XXL]

pair of Bangaii cardinal

The larger of the 2 cardinals has left us. It died overnight, and I couldn't get it out in the morning prior to work.....So it sat in the tank, hung up on a pocci coral. The sad part to me is that the survivor never left its side all day. I will be trying to find another one locally, but I do know that the LFS I got it from was reporting low success rate with them from other buyers. This big-chain store has a no SW return policy, so It got the porcelain send off. God Speed my friend!

I am getting a "Need" list together. I need hermit crabs. I hate how they knock corals down that are not glued 12 times, but it is a necessary evil at this point. I may get some turbo snails as well. I hate them also for the same reasons. Also looking at a BTA to keep my new clowns happy.

Will probably order online and have delivered.

 

[Pat24601]

The larger of the 2 cardinals has left us. It died overnight, and I couldn't get it out in the morning prior to work.....So it sat in the tank, hung up on a pocci coral. The sad part to me is that the survivor never left its side all day. I will be trying to find another one locally, but I do know that the LFS I got it from was reporting low success rate with them from other buyers. This big-chain store has a no SW return policy, so It got the porcelain send off. God Speed my friend!

I am getting a "Need" list together. I need hermit crabs. I hate how they knock corals down that are not glued 12 times, but it is a necessary evil at this point. I may get some turbo snails as well. I hate them also for the same reasons. Also looking at a BTA to keep my new clowns happy.

Will probably order online and have delivered.

I lost one of my banggai cardinals after 3 years. It was also part of a bonded pair. It's sad, but apparently they just don't live very long.

 

[Squatch XXL]

It was also part of a bonded pair. It's sad, but apparently they just don't live very long.

I wouldn't think my set as "bonded" but they were the last 2 at the LFS. 36 hours after purchase, one turned up dead.....It was the larger model, and I don't know its age.

I hate being a fish coroner. Cause of death: Unknown/possibly natural causes. I will be looking at online purchases in the future....just to try something different.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Went to a frag swap today.

Got home and acclimated and ran other errands. A few hours later, I returned and rearranged rocks, removed a few in front I didn't like, and imported 2 pieces of agrocrete from my other disaster.

 

[Pat24601]

Looks good! Which frags are new?

 

[Squatch XXL]

Looks good! Which frags are new?

There is a staghorn that was a very respectable piece, a few random small acros to kill and this full red monti cap. The cap is much thicker than a standard cap, and it has a special name....but I forgot it. The cap is what was the most interesting thing to me that I found there. One of the acros is part of a group challenge to have it survive for a year, and to see who's is bigger.

Also, picked up a small bta. It seems to have put a foot down right where I orientated it. I would love to have it stay put. Hopefully it stays and the clowns find it.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Looks good! Which frags are new?

I got some good late night shots. I am running my lights very low, and have been and everything is perking up.

Some sort of stick:


Really slick red monti cap. It has a neat texture, and is very thick.



Undata?



A very small acro frag.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I am still settling in corals, and have been fragging and duplicating from my larger pieces. My frogskin acro is the fastest thing in the tank, and Ill be spreading it around. I haven't cut it up yet. Things are adjusting well.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I haven't cut it up yet.

I cut it up. I got 13 pieces that are close to the same size as it was initially 07-2016. It is insane how fast that thing grew. Now I have 14 of them all over 2 tanks. I will glue them down eventually, but I want the blenny to clear out some algae first.

Here is the first "best" photo of the purchased frag 07-2016. It had been in my tank for 2 months already.


Then to all the pieces it made.









This one below is what is left on the rock.


This one is random pieces that fell into the collection bucket. I think some will make it.

 

[Desmond]

Very cool build

 

[Squatch XXL]

The sump has always been a 27 gallon black tote. My skimmer is a very generic ebay thing, and because I DIY I was able to modify a few things about it to make it work great. One of the things that it requires is 6.25" of water. I had time this last weekend, and had leftover acrylic. I made a "box" for the skimmer that allowed for me to put some sponges and media in a much better way than I had before.

Keep in mind that 100% of the acrylic was free. It was attached to a screen door that someone was throwing out. It is not thin or cheap stuff either. This project cost me glue.










It has been in a few days, and works great. All of the water in the tank flows through a disposable sponge. I am happy.


****Edit****
In addition to the filter box, I changed out 25 gallons of water. ALL of the water came from the sump (approx 13g) and the rest I vacuumed the gravel for. Once I figure out where the wrasse is sleeping, the crushed coral base is gone. I am growing to hate substrates.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Long time, no update.

The tank is still intact. I have added fish since my last post....Too many lol. First, I fed them as much as they would eat daily... At one point I had a small foxface die and vanish somewhere in the tank. I had one clown vanish one day while cleaning....I think it hit the floor and the cat made off with it. I Have found no signs of either fish to this day..........then I got a horrible algae outbreak. HORRIBLE. I actually refused to even take photos or talk about it. I saw it starting, and managed to catch it early but there are casualties. Thankfully I have a 40 gallon in backup always so most of the coral survived. Quite a few were dislodged by my scrubbing, and as it happened I just took them out and remounted and kept them in the 40 for the time being.

In the last month I have dramatically cut back feeding, and increased weekly water changes to close to 40% @ 30 gallon. I have scrubbed rocks every other day for weeks, and have been running 100% of the sump through various stages of mechanical filters. Basically, the only thing leaving the filter box is clean water.

I got these cut-to-fit pads, and have them stacked back-to-back. First is standard floss, then carbon, then nitrate then ammonia. More than likely I Have a phosphate issue, and if I had more room in my filter box, I would have a big pack of carbon also.



Physical removal of algae and proper feeding schedule are required. I am so used to single species reef tanks that I never had an issue like this. Who knew how hard it was to keep a whole bunch of various fish.

In addition to this disaster, my cell phone died due to high impact work usage....My new phone takes great photos of everything not lit by blue leds.

I am changing back to t5s shortly, and do have a 6 bulb unit coming. I think it will fit nice. I prefer the color and control of the t5 over the led units I have. Basically, I have a budget for nice T5s, but not LEDs....I don't mind the yearly bulb replacement cost at all. The ATI/Giessman bulbs will average me $17/month or less depending on sales. I am thrifty, and buy in bulk and have been hunting.

The last time I bought 3 years worth of bulbs because they were on sale for $9-$12/per for 34" t5ho giessman. My pile is needing a refresh anyway.

My current fish population:

Hoven's wrasse (moved over from 40g)
1 blue devil chromis (tame and friendly to all)
2 false percs (1 snowflake variety/1 regular)
2 cardinal
1 lawnmower blenny (always fat and full)
1 small yellow tang (SHHhhhh, don't say that so loud)

Everyone plays nice EXCEPT that they really like snails. They all have a part in it, but every turbo snail, all the way down to the stomatella are dead. There is a pile of shells at this point, so my cuc is really just about 45 hermits. I plan on getting about 30-40 more. I think that it would be a huge help.

The tang was a time-bomb of a purchase. It is very small, but it was very bold at the store. Very very bossy. My "boss" does not care what size tank that I have, so when I need a bigger tank, Ill just have to get a bigger tank. Maby just a big fowlr and keep it piped in....Hell, Id be happy with a big kids pool with a few MH lamps over it.

 

[Squatch XXL]

Everyone is alive and well. I am winning vs GHA. Slowly, but expected. 30g / week. 2 feedings/week, and possibly one right before I start sucking out water. I FINALLY got a test kit. I actually got a whole slew of them for everything that I have never checked before. The ONLY one I used thus far was phosphate. After 2 checks, it seems that I have 0, which was my suspicion and preferred result. This means that my horrible husbandry is tied up in all the algae, and that eventually I will physically remove it as the critters devour what they can. Id rather get rid of this through a skimmer than filter floss, but this the mess I made.

I have added (since my last post) 2 dozen margarita snails and 4 turbos. I do know the margarita prefer "cooler" temps. I keep my tank at 76f, but I think the hermits and the wrasse will get them before the temps.

I added a pair of pp-15s, and removed all of my power heads. These things are amazing, and much too powerful. I would advise others that these seem to be honestly labeled for size. I have 2-1/2" of space from the top of water to the eurobrace, and these 2 pumps could easily splash out.

I am running them in "c" mode for bursts at 75% long enough to cause upwelling on opposite side of rocks. I can say that the acros have better PE over the past few days.










Tank looks well enough to show pictures again. keep in mind, it was matted in places with algae a few weeks ago.

 

[SPR]

For you green hair algea have a look at Vibrant and there is a whole thread elsewhere about it (171 pages and counting!). Might take you a week to read it all!

I had some hair algea that just would not budge so I tried this stuff and after a few days is started to drop off, and within 2 weeks it had all gone and it's stayed gone. I just dosed 12ml every 2 weeks and only 2 doses.

I have just started using it again as a maintenance dose every 2 weeks and I can definitely say it makes your tank sparkle. With my set up it did exactly what it claims to do, but I also think you have to have the basic cause of the algea under control like phosphate etc.

You also need to be able to skim out/remove the die off as certainly with my system nitrates went up (10-16ppm) although phosphate stayed low as I'm running Rhowaphos.

 

[cracker]

Looks great Man !