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Cultivated Reef

AP24 Set Up! (Picture Intensive)


Kylebeano

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y did you buy a filter to make a fuge if you can just put the cheato in the back?

 

I like having better control of it hanging on the back, its more defined and acute. It will also be easier to maintain for myself, as the back chamber is narrow and sometimes harder to access.

 

green sponge as you claim ( picture quality sucks so not certain ) but sounds like a common green sponge.. and red algae looks/sounds like red slime algae..

 

make sure wally has shells to change in/out of or else he'll eat your snails right out of theirs

 

Thank you,

Well, I like the neon color of it, I hope it grows more lol

and I'll grab some more shells when I get the rest of the CUC

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Well I added the Koralia2 back in, stirred up quite a bit, but its settled down a little. Im getting some neat tornado looking agitation things in the valley. I was hoping to fill the valley with rics, how do you find out the dead spots or flow of the tank, besides all of the tiny debris going everywhere! Can I add some kind of solute that wont harm anything and is easily visible to follow the flow? Thanks everyone!

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Well, the algae is growing pretty well, and the diatoms are blooming all over the place. So I bought a small clean up crew. Just 5 astrea snails, one bumble bee, and two more little hermits(and a bunch of shells for them to move into), along with a coral banded shrimp. Drip acclimated all the new critters for about half an hour. They are in there pretty busy getting things tidy, all except for the shrimp, hes just been hanging around a cave for a while. Im not sure if I should feed him pretty soon? Wally is keeping his distance from the others atop a rock that he has been sleeping on for the past couple days. Hes monitoring all their progress lol.

 

Anywho, here are some pictures. Tell me what you think!

 

Before CUC

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Some of the guys

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And a FTS

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Shrimp arent really cleaners. they eat unwanted food that fish dont grab. I think it might be a bit early for the shrimp, but thats just my thought. BTW- good job getting more cuc.

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Shrimp arent really cleaners. they eat unwanted food that fish dont grab. I think it might be a bit early for the shrimp, but thats just my thought. BTW- good job getting more cuc.

They all seem to be working a little and i fed the shrimp cyclop-eeze, it really likes them! I went to a different store and got 4 nassarius and 2 ceriths as well. I need to go to yet another different store to finish the CUC, some more ceriths and a nerite. Thanks NRM!

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oceanahollic

everything is looking great. for the flow I will tell you a different mod i did. on the left side i took out the locline and put a hydro deflector and replaced the stock pump with a mj900. and on the right side I bought a some 1/2 inch locline and connectors, elbow, etc, drilled a hole and put in a nother mj900. i took out the bioballs sponges and all i have back there is a bag of chemipure. I have great random flow and on the top right the water skims over the back like a one inch waterfall. no oils on top at all and all of my coral and fish love the flow.

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everything is looking great. for the flow I will tell you a different mod i did. on the left side i took out the locline and put a hydro deflector and replaced the stock pump with a mj900. and on the right side I bought a some 1/2 inch locline and connectors, elbow, etc, drilled a hole and put in a nother mj900. i took out the bioballs sponges and all i have back there is a bag of chemipure. I have great random flow and on the top right the water skims over the back like a one inch waterfall. no oils on top at all and all of my coral and fish love the flow.

That's great! Thank you for the suggestion, it really does add an impressive more amount of flow it seems. My water is level between the display and the back :( I always wanted it to actually flow over

 

Would I have to drain my tank to do that kind of setup?

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No. I still drill holes and change pumps around in my 24gAP. How many pounds of live rock do you have, looks kinda light.

Cool. 21lbs, unless my LFS's scale is off :/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tank Update:

 

The cycle has been complete for a little while now, been doing regular water checks with multiple LFS and everything is fine. Almost all of the algae is gone, except for the macro I have in my fuge! I bought a few testees :huh: just some coral and a chromie to tell me how well they can thrive in my tank. And so far everything is loving it! Here are some pics, OH! and im using a new camera, it is unbelievably better!

 

AC70 Fuge finally set up. Light is just a do it yer selfer with a "daylight" bulb.

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Yes, there is an aptasia on there, but I dont know whats wrong with the black polyps, is that a disease?

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The xenia, from what I hear, are the first ones to tell you if something is wrong. They've been staying open, but im concerned about how much current they're getting, is it too much?

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Atnics shot

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And these are not so much a test coral :D I just couldnt pass them up. I feed them once a day, ill probably move it to once every other day as they start to feel more at home.

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And there's a green striped shroom back there

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FTS

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Now these aren't the final spots for any of the corals in my tank, Just temps as they settle in. Can you please give me any advise on to where suitable spots are for each of the species? Thank you!

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Nice lookin fuge!! Check out www.asira.org/caresheets for a nice summary of placement, etc for your corals.

Hey, thanks! That is a great site, i appreciate it! Your plate coral is neat, I was looking to get one of those since now I feed the sun corals anyway.

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Lots of new stuff added lately!

 

My girlfriend thought that the chromie was a little lonely, and since he has been doing great and looking healthy, I figured it was time for another fish as well. So we went to the LFS a few days ago and she picked out a purple firefish. While we were there I also bought a peppermint shrimp for my little aptasia problem. After acclimating the two, I added them in and my coral banded immediately turned aggressively territorial snapping at the firefish and chasing the peppermint around :( so I bagged him up and exchanged for a nice little cleaner shrimp. These two get along a lot nicer and wont steal as much food from my suncoral.

 

After adding the new fish and crustacean, I thought that the tank needed some new color besides purple. Plus there is so much left over food from the suns, there needed to be more feeding corals. I went and got a small candycane frag and some nice blastos. The candycanes were a little damaged from the LFS and are nursing very nicely back to color and shape, a couple heads were brown and now are green just like the others. Today i fed both the blastos and the canes some of the granule cyclopeez and they swallowed the things after about five minutes.

 

Sorry, but no pictures of the new stuff yet, ill have to wait for my sister to let me use it when she gets back from italy (shes in pisa nrm).

 

Oh, and the peppermint hasnt touched the aptasia yet and i noticed a bristle worm the other night, with a slight red tint to it (I saw about two inches of it), I hope its not a fire worm. It crawled over my sea cucumber and the cucumber didnt seem to mind.

 

Ill get some pictures soon!

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Cant wait for pics.

Neither could I, I just used my GF's camera.

 

Here are the pics!

 

Lets start off with an updated pic of my xenia. I moved them to a less turbulent area, and turn the pumps off during feeding

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And on to the GSP who noe fully extend, no more little black parts

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The new blastos

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A shot of some new zoas. Im not sure what kind they are, theyre a mixed bright green center with a green ring, lets just call them green zoos

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And the recovering candycane, i clipped off the tiny head from the larger branches and placed it up a little higher. The camera isnt showing the green color in them :(

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Here is where they are all placed, some of these spots are not final

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And a top down of that valley

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Moving over to the suncorals

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The new cleaner

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Here is a shot of the mushroom and other zoos

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Mostly opened up

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Top down

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Peppermint

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Firefish

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Chromie

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Nas

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and

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Finally a FTS

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nice tank! i love those sun corals! they will be in my tank as well when mine cycles. And i must ask, why ditch the bioballs in favor of chaeto? how do would one maintain the chaeto in the back compartment?

 

Ive got one thing on my mind though - you started this project on the 25th of sept and the lfs said you water was fine on the 29th....could your tank have cycled in just 4 days?

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nice tank! i love those sun corals! they will be in my tank as well when mine cycles. And i must ask, why ditch the bioballs in favor of chaeto? how do would one maintain the chaeto in the back compartment?

 

Ive got one thing on my mind though - you started this project on the 25th of sept and the lfs said you water was fine on the 29th....could your tank have cycled in just 4 days?

 

Thank you! Ive seen that some others have already answered your question on the bioballs, but I did it mostly because of peer-pressure :D lol, most people on this forum have advised against the balls. They build up and hold nitrates.

As far as my fuge, I have calupra in it, not chaeto yet. All it needs is some low light and a little current will help, it also serves as a nice biological filter.

And I did have quite a short cycle. The rock was fully cured with very little die off since I live about ten minutes from various LFS. I do have pics of a little bit of the diatom bloom, and after I dropped in my clean up crew I cut the lights for a while to help them with the algae. Everything is pretty stable now.

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Thank you! Ive seen that some others have already answered your question on the bioballs, but I did it mostly because of peer-pressure :D lol, most people on this forum have advised against the balls. They build up and hold nitrates.

As far as my fuge, I have calupra in it, not chaeto yet. All it needs is some low light and a little current will help, it also serves as a nice biological filter.

And I did have quite a short cycle. The rock was fully cured with very little die off since I live about ten minutes from various LFS. I do have pics of a little bit of the diatom bloom, and after I dropped in my clean up crew I cut the lights for a while to help them with the algae. Everything is pretty stable now.

 

Really wish I had a good store closer. You're lucky your LFS so close. It took me almost 3 hours until my rock was in my tank. Good luck with your set up!

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Really wish I had a good store closer. You're lucky your LFS so close. It took me almost 3 hours until my rock was in my tank. Good luck with your set up!

I am fortunate lol, I have 3 in the immediate area, then two about 20 minutes away. Living in a city with coral in the name is kind of ironic as well haha.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing how yours turns out as well!

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Bought some more new corals. Im happy with my selection now, im going on a one month coral buying hiatus now :lol: we'll see how that goes. Im a little skeptical about my coco worm placement, ive done some research, but couldnt come out with a result as to where it would like the flow or anything, advice? Anyway, here are some pics of the buggers.

 

Daisy polyps?

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Im not sure what kind of mushroom this is, some sort of yuma? ID please (it has purple w/ blue tip bumps, then the kind of translucent area is florescent blue/green with a purple ring in it and neon green mouth, very pretty)

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Green Hairy Mushroom?

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Orange Ric with purple center, blue rim and two neon green mouths

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Here is a shot of them in the valley

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A neon green candy cane to go with what im suspecting to turn out into blue candy canes!

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The new coco worm, it hasnt come all the way out yet, maybe an inch or two, I drip acclimated it for 40 min

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A top down shot

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and a FTS

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Thanks and any advice on placement and care is welcome!

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Glad your slowing down. Even though your tank is cycled dude, its still new and it can only take a little thing for it to crash. Everything looks cool though. I would put the worm in the sand.

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