Seabass's In-wall 100 Gallon

[WV Reefer]

16 minutes ago, seabass said:

I've been admiring @WV Reefer's Monti cap for awhile now, and have been thinking about adding one to this tank.  Anyway, like everything in this tank build, I've been dragging my feet about doing much of anything.  Do you realize that I started setting up this tank more than 5 years ago.

 

I normally don't check the classified forums, but I was just checking some recent post and came across @HarryPotter's SPS (CLEAR MY RACKS!) Sale.  Knowing Harry's reputation, I was intrigued.  Anyway, this post is going to have a significant impact on this tank, as I decided to make this tank focus on Montipora.  Harry is setting me up right with:

• Encrusting Sunset Montipora sp.
• Montipora digitata
• Green Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)
• Forest Fire Montipora digitata
• Montipora undata
• Red Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)
• Christmas Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)

I should be getting these corals on Tuesday.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Hopefully I'll have a little time to prepare the tank for the new additions.  It shouldn't take a lot, just a bit of cleanup.  I'm also planning on moving the mini carpet anemones to this tank (down low); they seem to be fine hanging out down by the sand.  I might even move a few zoanthids over too.

 

 

Yay!!!! Can’t wait to see them in the tank. 😃

[HarryPotter]

48 minutes ago, seabass said:

I've been admiring @WV Reefer's Monti cap for awhile now, and have been thinking about adding one to this tank.  Anyway, like everything in this tank build, I've been dragging my feet about doing much of anything.  Do you realize that I started setting up this tank more than 5 years ago.

 

I normally don't check the classified forums, but I was just checking some recent posts and came across @HarryPotter's SPS (CLEAR MY RACKS!) Sale.  Knowing Harry's reputation, I was intrigued.  For those interested in Acros, he has a beautiful red millipora.  Anyway, his post is going to have a significant impact on this tank, as I decided to make this tank focus on Montipora (a more forgiving SPS than Acropora).  Harry is setting me up right with:

•  Encrusting Sunset Montipora sp.
• Montipora digitata
• Green Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)
• Forest Fire Montipora digitata
•  Montipora undata
• Red Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)
•  Christmas Montipora capricornis (Monti cap)

I should be getting these corals on Tuesday.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Thanks Harry!  Hopefully I'll have a little time to prepare the tank for the new additions.  It shouldn't take a lot, just a bit of cleanup.  I'm also planning on moving the mini carpet anemones to this tank (down low); they seem to be fine hanging out down by the sand.  I might even move a few zoanthids over too.

 

 

 

Woo hoo for montipora! Depending on the weight of the box and how their fee works, I may be able to add another. I am able to ship using weight only, as my boxes have no dimension greater than 12". I am not sure how their equation for boxes under 12" works; whether the rate is linear, exponential etc.

 

Random tidbit: Even though I agree that acropora are more delicate, in my experience acropora beat montipora in 1v1 chemical battles unless the montipora shades out the acro. 

[seabass]

So I wanted to clean this up a bit before I got my corals.

 

Some of the Caulerpa prolifera.  It's kind of taking over the sand bed.

 

I'm kind of bummed about this algae.

 

I used the fragging technique to remove it.

 

The tank as it sits now.

Most of the Caulerpa prolifera is in the back now.

 

I still want to do some testing and move the other inverts over here.  Plus, I have to add back the MP10 (or, IDK, maybe I'll add something else).

 

 

[seabass]

I removed the mini carpets from my 40 gallon:

 

My favorite:

 

Nice neon green:

 

A muted forest green   You can see the irritated foot.  I'm not worried, it'll be fine.  I've beaten it up worse before.

 

You can see all three in this pic.  I kind of like the green one where it is here, but it's already let go and dropped down.  Who knows where they will be tomorrow.  I just want them secure before Tuesday afternoon when I put Harry's Montis in here.

 

Dems vs Republicans:

 

It's amazing that you can take decent fish pics once you've cleaned the walls.  Fish and chips:

 

[SeaFurn]

Looking good! I like the neon green one. How big will they get? 

I can’t wait to see coral in this tank! 

[seabass]

 

7 minutes ago, SeaFurn said:

How big will they get? 

Those anemones are probably more than 10 years old.  I know, hard to believe.  I guess they don't get that big when you don't feed them.  IDK, I think people have reported them getting to be about 6".  They green one has probably shrunk a little over the years.  They've been in a tank without fish for a few years.  I'm sure that's affected how much food they get.

[A Little Blue]

On 5/28/2013 at 4:28 PM, seabass said:

Well that might be over selling it. I'm not planning on investing a bunch of money into it. I just want to try and avoid some potential problems.

 

 

Hmm... I'm a bit disappointed. The phosphate level of the water, in the container with my rocks, is testing at 0.21ppm. I wonder if I need to do a stronger acid wash. Maybe it's the organic bits that I noticed, which are releasing the phosphate; and the problem will go away after they are broken down (and the water is changed). Maybe a soak in bleach would help. SeaKlear Phosphate Remover should be able to bind what is in the water, but I've soaked them in a lanthanum chloride solution three times already.

 

I tested a newly mixed batch of saltwater (some old IO mix that I've been trying to use up) just to rule that out. It was 0.05ppm; which is pretty poor, but apparently not the main problem. The only additions I've made were Dr.Tim's One and Only and Dr.Tim's Ammonium. I wonder if the bacteria in a bottle could be a source of phosphate; however, I've never heard that to be the case, and it just seems logical that the rock is causing it.

 

Thoughts anyone?

I also wonder if bleach would help.....

Get the rock right to avoid issues later. 

[seabass]

Bleach can help get rid of organics.  I actually bleached everything in my tank to sterilize it after a dino bloom.  I probably could have just used tap water.  Ultimately, I ended up replacing all the original rock with some other rocks that I was curing for more than a year (I'd dump lanthanum chloride into it every so often).

 

Right now, I have no detectable nitrate or phosphate.  So whatever it was, it's not a problem now.

[A Little Blue]

10 minutes ago, seabass said:

Bleach can help get rid of organics.  I actually bleached everything in my tank to sterilize it after a dino bloom.  I probably could have just used tap water.  Ultimately, I ended up replacing all the original rock with some other rocks that I was curing for more than a year (I'd dump lanthanum chloride into it every so often).

 

Right now, I have no detectable nitrate or phosphate.  So whatever it was, it's not a problem now.

Glad to hear that. As much as I am cautious when using LV, dead rock gives me nightmares. Seems like a lot of work to get it right and hope it doesn’t leach some nastiness. 

[seabass]

I agree.  I actually prefer live rock, although I currently have no rock which didn't start off dry.  It takes a good amount of time/work to get it to mature.

[seabass]

So this is where they stuck:

 

Purple:

 

Green:

 

Neon green:

 

[mitten_reef]

It's about time this tank gets some corals.  I'd love to do a monti-dominated tank one day. 

 

This journal may have been started before I even knew what a nano reef was.  jk, i knew the tank went thru a few rough patches.  

 

[specore]

On 8/12/2018 at 9:29 PM, seabass said:

I removed the mini carpets from my 40 gallon:

 

My favorite:

 

Nice neon green:

 

A muted forest green   You can see the irritated foot.  I'm not worried, it'll be fine.  I've beaten it up worse before.

 

You can see all three in this pic.  I kind of like the green one where it is here, but it's already let go and dropped down.  Who knows where they will be tomorrow.  I just want them secure before Tuesday afternoon when I put Harry's Montis in here.

 

Dems vs Republicans:

 

It's amazing that you can take decent fish pics once you've cleaned the walls.  Fish and chips:

 

Man, I hate chiseling those things off their rocks.  

[seabass]

So I got my montipora corals from @HarryPotter this morning.  All I can say is that Harry set me up right.  He was very generous on the frag sizes, and everything was very healthy.  This is going to be a great addition to my tank.

 

             

 

My cocker spaniel Jake wants to know what I got today.  The corals came well protected in these specimen containers (floated upside down with some styrofoam).  I floated the containers in a zip top bag, in my sump, while I got the Bayer dip ready (150ml of tank water to 10ml of Bayer).  I soaked them for 20 minutes, then double rinsed them.

 

Here they are in my tank:

[seabass]

2 minutes ago, specore said:

Man, I hate chiseling those things off their rocks.  

Me too.  Luckily, they were attached to the bottom glass and I just used a plastic scraper to pry them up.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

I just finished all 17 pages lol. Tank looks really nice now. Glad everything is coming together on it. I'm a little scared when I set my 75 up. I may just end up biting the bullet and getting live rock for it. Who knows lol. I'm still in the planning and saving stages.

[seabass]

15 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I just finished all 17 pages lol.

Wow!  Someone once described this thread as a lot to do about nothing.   I have to agree.  Hopefully this tank will eventually amount to something more.  I think it's finally on its way.  Thanks for following.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

2 minutes ago, seabass said:

Wow!  Someone once described this thread as a lot to do about nothing.   I have to agree.  Hopefully this tank will eventually amount to something more.  I think it's finally on its way.  Thanks for following.

Someday I'll have a page for people to follow. I actually learned a few things from your thread that I didn't know so it was helpful for me at least.

[seabass]

With my new SPS frags, I'll have to test (and eventually dose alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium).  But just to give you an idea how often I have been testing my alkalinity;  I got out my Hanna Alkalinity Checker and the liquid reagent was all caked up around the cap.  I cleaned it up and performed a test.  It read somewhere around 2.5 dKH.  I know that had to be wrong, so I looked at the expiration date, which was 2012.

 

So I just got my new Salifert Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium test kits today.  While a bit more involved, I think that I prefer Salifert's alkalinity kit (although I still use Hanna's ULR Phosphorus Checker).  I haven't had a chance to run the tests yet, but will post the results this weekend.  I'm hoping they aren't too far out of whack.  At least the frags still look healthy.

[pappadumplingz]

New tank is looking killer mate! Nice frag haul. The monti itch has really hit me recently too

[1891Bro]

On 8/12/2018 at 6:29 PM, seabass said:

 

Dems vs Republicans:

 

 

So old school, where’s the Russian interference?

[seabass]

So it's been almost 2 weeks since I got my montipora pack from Harry.  They are still alive and kickin'.  I really need to get them off the sand.   Maybe tonight or tomorrow.  I'm dragging my feet 'cause I'm not sure where I want to mount them.  Then there's the Duncans and zoanthids in my other tank.   And I'm not even sure that I want to move my blastos over.  Anyway, here are my monti corals tonight:

 

 

 

IDK, maybe even a little growth.

[Justind823]

I'm blown away... there are corals in this tank!

[seabass]

[Sharbuckle]

Whoa. Things are happening. Yassssss