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Chud’s 13g Holistic Reef


nicholc2

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So a little update and then a couple pics. First, I am now fully automated except for water changes. Tuesday I added two BRS dosers to dose my ESV 2 part solution. So far so good and things are maintaining levels well.

 

As for the excitement I experienced last night, I was changing my water and noticed something slimy coming out of one of my rock anemones. I initially thought maybe it was distressed, but then realized what I was seeing was sperm! I've never had that happen to me before, so it's pretty exciting. I know these guys reproduce sexually, so I'm not sure if its neighbor is closed up accepting the gift or if it's just a coincidence. Either way it's very cool!

 

On a side note, apparently RA sperm is edible because the tailspot was over there eating it at one point. :lol:

 

1st pic with my iPhone and second is with my Canon:

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  • 1 month later...

So if you saw my last FTS from April, you saw a lot of nuisance algae (Lobophora and Bryopsis to be exact). Well in addition to the help my Spectrapure was giving with ultra pure water for partials and ATO, I decided to get a couple turbo snails and my daughter picked out a red emerald crab. All I can say is WOW! The turbos have annihilated the bryopsis. It's completely gone at this point. No signs of it anywhere. The red emerald was a long shot for the lobo, but I figured WTF. Well man am I glad I did. He has wiped out probably 70% of the lobo in my tank. He has also gotten big and fat off of it! He has at least doubled if not tripled in size since I got him and he eats the crap out of that stuff. He is amazing! Here he is. Sorry it's a bit blurry, but he moved on me. Guess he's camera shy.

 

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Also, since I was snapping pics, I went ahead and got quite a few. Notice the growth and color changes in almost all the SPS. The one I rescued from the store is doing amazing. It has regenerated all its skeleton flesh at this point. I'm so happy about that! The other new acro is getting bluer all the time. The new growth is much bluer than the pic shows. It's going to be quite the specimen once it fully colors up. Both of them are already encrusting over the epoxy I glued them to the rock with. My original acro hasn't changed in color much, but it's got some good growth and is nice and fat. The pic below of that one is the same angle exactly as the last pic I took in April, so it's easy to see the new growth.

 

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Just noticed I got my red emerald buddy in this pic. Do you see him? :)

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Wonder what that snail is thinking about now? LOL

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So it’s been a while. Since my last post I had a crash and lost most of my corals due to my ATO failing and getting stuck in the ON position which took my salinity to brackish levels. That caused a GHA outbreak. So fun!

 

Somehow my Favia, Trumpet colony, and both of my rock anemones made it through the madness but that’s about it. 

 

Things have been stable for a while and I’m adding coral back at this point. Here are a few of the new additions. :-)

 

Once I get everything mounted I’ll do a FTS. DC07EF3B-7377-4972-B863-EA28CD013432.thumb.jpeg.e225a783eadf0c3a4e28f841f00338b9.jpegF83CEA8D-9B71-44DA-A0F5-E99D017BE6EA.thumb.jpeg.fb1a25191cbbb07778e653bab80284c0.jpegB045CEAB-7ECC-4FC5-BBD5-C94882CE74AF.thumb.jpeg.150a9b98d26800965e6fba7a64ea3c76.jpeg

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One other update. Started dosing nitrates. Even feeding reef chili, reef roids, amino and fish food daily I still have zero nitrates.  PO4 read 0.024 with the Hanna ULR checker. Not sure if I’ll have to start dosing that too.

 

That’s some efficient bacteria!

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Christopher Marks

Welcome back @nicholc2, Sorry to hear of the ATO mishap!

 

Glad to see you’ve gotten the system back on track now though, the new SPS frag collection is beautiful.

 

Has this reef been running for over 5 years now? 

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9 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Welcome back @nicholc2, Sorry to hear of the ATO mishap!

 

Glad to see you’ve gotten the system back on track now though, the new SPS frag collection is beautiful.

 

Has this reef been running for over 5 years now? 

Thanks!  It's good to be back in the swing and obsessed again, though my wife might disagree.  LOL

 

Yes, even with the ATO and subsequent crash it's been going non-stop for 5 years now.  The trumpet coral, favia, and rock anemones were the only survivors.  The favia is still recovering but the polyps are starting to get big again to fill in the gaps where they recessed/shrunk which is good.  The trumpet I'm actually selling as frags to make room for more SPS and acans.  I also want to get a clam as well.

 

One thing is for sure, my bacteria are crazy good after that mess.  I just dosed nitrate for the second time yesterday.  I put enough in to raise it about .25ppm or so the first time because I want to take it nice and easy.  However, when I checked the next day that raised level was already negated and back to 0.  I'll have to see what it takes with dosage to keep steadily increasing it while competing with my bacteria.  I was hoping I would be able to get away with raising it manually, but I may end up having to invest in another dosing pump.  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

My first baby Berghia!  First time I’ve had one actually develop into a full grown Berghia. Cool but also means there are some aiptasia still lurking around. So let the new generation have at it!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Long update. Lost one of my acros. Started as what I “think” was alk burn but progressed into full blown STN. I tried lowering the alk and keeping it steady around 8 dkh but didn’t help. All the others were still doing ok. 

 

But then a bad storm hit a few weeks ago and took out my power. Could have been worse. There was an F1 tornado that touched down less than 2 miles from my house so in the grand scheme of things I can’t complain. 

 

However with the outage I went down to only send/return pumps for flow to conserve UPS power. I have several units as backups as well. This would have been great except when the power did come back on the battery side of one of the ones that had the heater plugged in didn’t turn back on immediately with power. I didn’t know until I got home from work the next day and the temp dropped to around 68 or so. This has caused 3 more acros to start STN. In each case with these three it started at the base. I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. 

 

The one other thing thing that confuses me is with higher feedings and nitrates and lower alk I expected the SPS to really respond favorably. However most have browned up quite a bit. I’m not sure what to make of that. I increased the intensity of my XR15 a tad. I had dropped the intensity quite a bit while the original SPS was having issues so it could be as simple as that. Time will tell I guess. Just trying to be patient and ride it out and hope for the best.

 

Ah the joys of reefing!  Just when you think everything is running smooth!

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So I had never ordered fish online until today. I wanted some more fish diversity in my tank so here are my new green banded gobies from live aquaria. :-)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Unfortunately I’ve experience more losses from the power outage and subsequent temperature drop. This week I lost my strawberry shortcake and green acro.  Another green acro was starting STN but seems to have stopped for now. The rest are ok so far and I’m keeping things as stable as possible. At this point it’s just wait and see. I really hope that’s the last of it. 

 

In both of the cases this week it started as STN and then BAM! RTN really fast. Freakin sucks!  😞

 

Ironically enough my favia has never looked better and my acans have 3-4 new buds at the base so at least something is going right. 

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Well I “think” everything has stabilized for now. No other acros are showing signs of STN or RTN at this point. One that had been showing starting signs seems to be stopped and is healing over the small area of lost tissue. I’m keeping alk as stable as possible and everything seems to be ok. Crossing my fingers!

 

Here’s a couple new tank shots of what’s left at this point. The second pic was me playing with the orange filter with only blues on. 🙂

 

 

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Now that things are nice and stable again I decided to finally get a clam. Always wanted one and a local shop had some nice ORA baby maximas. I’d say he’s about 3” or so. So far doing well after a few days in the tank.  🙂

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As is the case with most reef tanks there have been losses and additions since my last post.  Also I have re-imagined my filtration by removing skimming and adding a chaeto filled HOB refugium.  

 

Unfortunately I lost my clam.  He never attached himself and finally receded and died.  I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I'm going to try again with another soon.  I also lost one acro colony, but it was one that never colored up or looked all that healthy to begin with.  I have one colony that started to recede but is now recovering and is coloring back up.  My 100% focus is on parameter stability!

 

I am loving the new filtering technique!  Generally speaking, losing the skimmer and adding the refugium has been a positive experience.  I am seeing better polyp extension from all the SPS and nitrate levels are staying between 2-4 ppm without the need for dosing, so that is also a positive improvement.  Having the refugium on an alternating light cycle has also stabilized PH.

 

I recently added several acro colonies and another acan colony.  The acan colony still hasn't expanded fully, but given the success of the one I started with I am confident it's only a matter of time as it gets used to the new conditions.  The green one in the pic below started as 4 heads in March and now has triple that amount!   I sold all but one head of my candy cane colony and picked up a fungia plate and what I believe is a lepastrea which hasn't fully opened either.  Hopefully everything will continue to love the new setup, color up,  and grow nicely.  🙂

 

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Tired of spending my days at work wishing I could watch the tank I've ordered this from Amazon:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M15WH9C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It comes Friday and I should then be able to see my tank anywhere and any time!  Yay!

 

Also, I bought a bunch of stuff from CultivatedReef recently and once I have everything mounted I'll do a new FTS.  🙂

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Here's my latest FTS after mounting the CultivatedReef.com corals.  I'm still undecided on a couple pieces if they're going to stay where they are, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with how it looks.  Now stuff needs to grow and fill in and I need to start using my good camera and not my iPhone for pics.  🙂

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

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