ADA 60p Soft Coral Mangrove Peninsular - Long overdue update

[teenyreef]

Glad things are looking up!

[Benny314]

It'a amazing the difference LPH of air draw makes. This new Hydor skimmer of mine was out classing the Aqua One G244 it replaced. However I've changed out the recirculating pump for one that pulls an extra 100lph of air over the original pump and it's skimming better again (and now it's quiet too).

Glad your upgraded upgrade skimmer is more to like what you need.

[East1]

Glad things are looking up!

 

Thanks man!

I can't wait till the cyano is clear and I can post an updated photo.

 

It'a amazing the difference LPH of air draw makes. This new Hydor skimmer of mine was out classing the Aqua One G244 it replaced. However I've changed out the recirculating pump for one that pulls an extra 100lph of air over the original pump and it's skimming better again (and now it's quiet too).

Glad your upgraded upgrade skimmer is more to like what you need.

 

Yeah, it actually makes such a big difference! I think the most important thing with skimmers is being able to turn them down, so having a really powerful skimmer and being able to turn down not only the air draw but the water too, it's what I love about the vertex, you can not only adjust the volume of air it takes in but also adjust the ratio of air/water (it has like a screw in the venturi, you turn it and it lengthens the intake for water and blocks part of the air intake) and it makes finding a good balance so easy! I think a lot of people just try push as much air into the pump, but the real balance point is found when the air/water mix suits the pump while pulling a large net volume of air to start with.

[East1]

Getting there

 

I forgot to post but I got the butterfly 2 days after the skimmer. He's not eating frozen but I have a craptonne of pods from all that I feed, so he's fat.

 

 

 

I also am going for the smart-connected-tank theme now!

 

[East1]

Cyano seems to be dying down thanks to the new skimmer, I added a dose of Cerpofor Micosidol to the tank. Looking at it, it seems to inhibit or reduce the growth rate and ability to reproduce of the cyano, and it's definitely a charged molecule, so I think it's just a Macrolide, Either way, that plus removing most of the cyano manually seems to have halted the cyano, plus using a syringe pump to dose nitrate daily at about 3ppm/day seems to have reduced my PO4. I hope to have the tank stable enough to add some acropora as a canary in the coalmine this weekend.

[East1]

I'm still alive, despite the past week or two of tank deciding to asplode.

 

[East1]

The copperband was removed due to feeding and coral health concerns sadly, he's been replaced with a pair of chalk basslets and a potter's angelfish. I plan to add more gobies and keep the theme of small fish for now. I think the soft-coral dominated scape looks really good, but I really want one large centerpiece acro for the front portion of the tank, so i'm on the hunt!

[East1]

 

 

[dpoltsdsu]

That looks great. How is the Potters holding up?

[East1]

That looks great. How is the Potters holding up?

 

Thanks!

 

I think after keeping SPS for such a long time, a soft-coral dominated scape is such a welcome change! I don't mean from a maintenance point of view - I still run the tank as if it was a SPS reef, with carbon dosing and heavy import/export - but the fact that soft corals are able to move and adapt (in the sense that they'll fill the space they're given, point toward the light and adjust their shape and size to the flow) in a period of days instead of years as is typical for SPS makes creating an aquascape that's visually pleasing so much more of an art than a waiting game as it was previously.

 

I lucked out heavily with the potters, I got it from a fellow reefer who had purchased it, QT'd and conditioned it for 3 months prior to release in his tank - where it promptly got bullied and had to be sold. It's feeding well on New Life Spectrum and is the only fish in the tank now, as I plan to keep it for a long time, perhaps till I order in some nano gobies. It did have what I assume was lymphocytosis but it seems to have beaten the infection and healed since. I need to set up my Aquatronica to manage the temperature of the tank and keep it stable at ~22c because I think it currently runs too warm for the fish long-term

[xlzerolx]

Great looking tank. question.. how did you get the sand to slope from back to front without it becoming level and flat?? Is that the work of the mangrove? It looks awesome adds a whole new dimension to the tank with the multi level sand look. I browsed through your thread but couldn't find a description of it.

[East1]

Thanks!

 

It's held in place in a two-fold way - the first is by making a good mixture of powder- and sugar- fine sand, one is the Red Sea sand that actually feels like flour, and the other is some cheap 0.5-1mm fine oolite. This varied grain size acts in a way similar to carbon-hardening steel on the slope friction. The second is by using the rocks cleverly, you'll notice that the sand is banked up behind the rocks, the aquascape is mostly 2 big rocks, one at the back that's mostly submerged at a 60* angle into the sand, and the other that's submerged on the sandbed and later covered, both of these act as retaining structures. This does mean that my liverock is actually about 50-70% submerged in the sand, but I don't really have the rock for biological properties and I have a sizable skimmer and biopellet system to provide bacterial surface.

 

I hope this helps, I can provide diagrams if necessary. You can use the planted tank methods to get a good slope without the use of rock as in larger tanks, my method can be quite costly! If you google around, planted tank enthusiasts have found great ways for slope maintenance using corrugated plastic pieces, but I find that a slope looks best when natural

[East1]

[vlangel]

I am guessing you get some denitrification from the deep end of the sand bed. I really like the looks of your tank. It's very beautiful in a natural way.

[East1]

I am guessing you get some denitrification from the deep end of the sand bed. I really like the looks of your tank. It's very beautiful in a natural way.

I actually get too much! I dose 6ml potassium nitrate a week with some carbon to keep phosphates down, alongside feeding really really heavily. I've recently purchased an external recirc biopellet reactor to fine-tune my nutrients a bit, I also think I need to dose more nitrate than I currently do.

[East1]

It's been a while since I posted. Unfortunately, the potters passed away, I didn't expect it - it was eating well and looked settled but such is life. I have a coral beauty in QT as of the 26th, hopefully this will prove hardier.

I've taken a few photos, sadly the sinularia at the front was sulking, and it demotivvated me from thoroughly cleaning the glass, I'll do so when it opens up again and post a revised photo!

 

 

 

I think this is my favourite view of the tank, the view from where I almost never sit...

 

 

Looking at all the new photos, they are really badly coloured - I'll have to get more soon!

[4x5]

Sorry about the Potters, they're such pretty fish. Your mangroves are looking good though - at what stage did you start wiring them? And did you do any pruning to get branches or does one just wait it out and see where it goes.

[East1]

They're gorgeous, but really delicate. I was tempted to try again but most LFS here have fish come in with flukes and such regularly, so the chances of getting a healthy one to start are quite low. I only started wiring them properly about 2 months ago, or so.

 

I had pruned them once, if you look on the tallest one, the center where the two branches spilt off from was a bud that I had cut to start the branching, since then however they seem to just open new leaves with extra branch buds. I'm not sure at all what causes this but it seems to be when they're receiving ample light without getting burned from the heat. They can withstand a shitton of light as long as it doesn't burn them - I have both radions running at 100% and my photoperiod is about 16 hours at the moment, and has been for half a year now.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Sorry about the potters- really like those fish- considered one for my 50gal. Was it a nipper at the sps? You have some nice size colonies growing ? tanks looking great

[East1]

It didn't, but I only had one SPS colony with it in the tank at the time, most of my coral now is soft coral. I've actually been trying to get the tank stable as part of an experiment - I want to run the tank as if it were an SPS tank, so keeping all the parameters I think are important perfectly stable and regular, providing good quality and adequate feedings and dosing relevant trace elements with regularity to see if it's possible to get bright and colourful soft corals using the same methods as high-end SPS tanks

 

Got sidetracked there, but most fish that will 'nip' SPS won't do much harm, unless it's an obligate corallivore and can eat the entire polyp, the worst you'll see is the colony pulling in it's polyps and not being fuzzy.

 

Anyway, some hurried new years photographs. I added my old Jebao pump to add some chaotic flow and the corals seem to appreciate it, photo was taken right after it was added so they aren't looking their best

 

 

 

[vlangel]

I really like this tank. Its has a great aura about it, natural and peaceful.

[East1]

Thanks! It took a different turn when I re-did it post crash, I'm quite pleased. I wish I had a bit more space, I'd love to have a large acro or two in there!

 

 

 

[RustyRocket]

Nice going! Looks like you've spent a lot of time and money in this tank! Love the set up.

Could you show your mounting solution for the Radions? Cant quite figure out whats going on there and also whats that syringe?

Where do you get your corals btw? I'm in Manchester, but has to pop into Network Rail office in Stratford every 2 weeks. Only been to Aquatic Design Centre.

[East1]

Nice going! Looks like you've spent a lot of time and money in this tank! Love the set up.

Could you show your mounting solution for the Radions? Cant quite figure out whats going on there and also whats that syringe?

 

Where do you get your corals btw? I'm in Manchester, but has to pop into Network Rail office in Stratford every 2 weeks. Only been to Aquatic Design Centre.

 

Too much of both, in fact! I think all of the equipment on the tank currently was bought second hand, so I've paid roughly half-price for pretty much everything, which softens the sting.

 

The radions are mounted using this http://www.amazon.co.uk/MDM11S-Single-Monitor-Bracket-Pull-Out/dp/B001BSDVW4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

there is a version with a 1m upstand pole which I use. The syringe is on a dosing pump and doses a mixture of live phyto, reef roids from polyplab, amino acids and vitamins from aquaforest and pure creatine monohydrate (the bodybuilding stuff). I usually only remember to refill it like twice a week, though.

 

All of my corals are from ADC, I think you have to be there on the right days, usually shipments come in on Tuesday or Thursday. In about a day or two, all of the good stock is usually gone because most people who go regularly know when to go sadly!

[East1]

I re-arranged my room!