D Z's garage frag tank(formerly CAD 34G Mini)

[805reef]

Sweat build you have going. Following along

[D Z]

Sweat build you have going. Following along

Thanks! Always glad to have another follower!

 

Safe travels on the trip dude !! I'm sure the tank will be fine while your gone. I wouldn't worry too much though. I'm sure everything will acclimate well while your in Vegas. Let me know how the pieces did while you were gone !!

Thanks Steven!

 

My trip went well. We got home from Vegas pretty late on Friday, but we had a blast. I didn't lose too much money, spent plenty on drinks and food, but still had a little left for Reefapalooza yesterday!(more on that in a minute) Unfortunately, for some odd reason, my cleaner shrimp died while I was gone. Really at a loss as to why. Other than that, it looks like I told my sister in law to put a little too much tech M in each day, so my mag went up to 1500 and caused my alk to go up a little again. The only thing that seemed to be effected was the blue with yellow tip maricultured frag from living reef. It was already in rough shape and just didn't handle the change well. It RTN'ed pretty quick. I did a big water change when I got home and all is well now.

 

I picked up a nice little frag pack from ReefKid right before I left for Vegas. I got a frag of green granulosa, hawkins echinata, pink mille, red wine acro, and a sunset mille. So far, everything looks good, has good PE, and is starting to gain some color back.

20150411_225638 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

20150411_225807 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

Reefapalooza was awesome yesterday! We were exhausted from the Vegas trip so we only made it for the last couple hours yesterday, but I was able to pick up a bunch of stuff for great deals.

 

I picked up a rainbow Stylo and a tyree undata from World Wide corals for $50.

20150412_225600 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

20150412_225326 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

I talked to JoshPorkSandwich for a little while. He wanted to trade me his entire frag tank and business for my 5 month old son, cause he's so cute! My wife made me say no, but I ended up getting a nice frag of a pink goni, some utter chaos zoas, and a frag of gatorade zoas(which were not open yet last night) for $100. Not a bad deal.

20150412_225730 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

20150412_225345 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

I got to meet Jason Fox. Pretty cool guy. He showed me some pictures on his new 700 gallon system in his basement, which he filled in 2 weeks! If you are interested, he has a thread that I have been following for the 700 over on R2R. I ended up getting a nice sized frag of Red Dragon from Jason for $30.

20150412_225631 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

And last, but not least, I picked up a frag of gard bonsai and 3 more rics to fill out my ric garden from Modern Aquaria, which is Alex B's new store.

No pics of these yet as the bonsai needs to color up and the rics were not attached to rubble so they are sitting in a plastic container with rubble for the next week or two.

 

So here is my frag rack as of last night:

20150412_225208 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

And a FTS, cause who doesn't love a FTS.

20150412_225847 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

[lilmatty5dimes]

Glad your trip was good. Seems like you got some great deals. Nice additions.

[metrokat]

<---- red dragon

Noticeably pretty coral. Plus it's a JF. can't go wrong. Nice buy

[D Z]

Glad your trip was good. Seems like you got some great deals. Nice additions.

Thanks Matty! I have missed the last two shows in Orlando due to being out of town so I was really glad to get to this one, even if it was only for the last couple hours. Definitely worked out well, as I did get some great deals!

 

<---- red dragon

Noticeably pretty coral. Plus it's a JF. can't go wrong. Nice buy

Thanks Kat. It has been on my list for a while, just icing on the cake that it came from Jason Fox.

 

Ehhhh and while Im here, here's a couple more random shots from over the weekend.

Some of the zoas I got off of ReefKid a while back. They have colored up very nicely.

20150411_225707 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

My pink lemonade that is finally starting to get closer to its potential color.

20150411_225735 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

My plate all happy in its little cove.

20150411_225529 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Rastas and some blue/yellow zoa that I cannot ID

20150411_225542 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

And finally a cool shot of the Wellso

20150411_225615 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

[Reefkid88]

Damn Randy,that Red Wine and Sundet gained a lot of color back in just a weeks time !! That's crazy. Glad to hear the trip went well,and all is well in the tank world. Sounds like you made out like a bandit at RAP yesterday,how was it ?

 

That Red Dragon was SUPER CHEAP !!! I want a frag when it grows out or you break a piece off lol. Seems like you and Sanjay have had horrible luck with LR's mariculture pieces. Which sucks... Don't worry though,I lost my Mr.Pacman and my PC Rainbow.. So I feels your pain man !!

[ReefWeeds]

Wow, everything looks awesome! I'm enjoying following your tank thread.

[lilmatty5dimes]

Wow that wellso looks great. I've always wanted one. Someone has one for $50 but I just don't have any room on the bottom of the tank with all my chalices. Can't get rid of those.

I've got some z&p's for sale if your interested. It's on the livestock forum.

[D Z]

Damn Randy,that Red Wine and Sundet gained a lot of color back in just a weeks time !! That's crazy. Glad to hear the trip went well,and all is well in the tank world. Sounds like you made out like a bandit at RAP yesterday,how was it ?

 

That Red Dragon was SUPER CHEAP !!! I want a frag when it grows out or you break a piece off lol. Seems like you and Sanjay have had horrible luck with LR's mariculture pieces. Which sucks... Don't worry though,I lost my Mr.Pacman and my PC Rainbow.. So I feels your pain man !!

Thanks buddy. Yeah, things seem to be finally coloring up better for me. I'm diggin the red wine acro, pretty cool piece! Where did you get that one at? RAP was pretty nice. As I said, I was only there for the last 2 and a half hours, so I didnt really get to see any of the presentations or participate in raffles or what not, but we had fun. LOL, with how fragile the red dragon is, I'm sure I will bump it and break off a piece at some point. I'm pretty clumbsy and yeah, I'm done with maricultured pieces...

 

Wow, everything looks awesome! I'm enjoying following your tank thread.

Thank you very much! Almost to the point where I won't have anymore room left, then I have to just sit on my hands and watch things grow. Not sure how I am going to do that without wanting to buy more, but I guess time will tell...

 

Wow that wellso looks great. I've always wanted one. Someone has one for $50 but I just don't have any room on the bottom of the tank with all my chalices. Can't get rid of those.

I've got some z&p's for sale if your interested. It's on the livestock forum.

Thanks Matty. It took a while for the larger LPS to grow on me. Not sure why, but they didn't appeal to me for the longest time. I really don't know what I was thinking, cause this thing is one of my favorite pieces in the tank! I'll check out your z&p's, but I'm really running out of room at this point. I still need to find places for 4 or 5 zoa frags that are still on plugs in the sand.

[lilmatty5dimes]

Yea I love the meat/donut coral. Had 2 in my 150 cube before it crashed and had to be my favorite pieces. I know the feeling. Don't have much room in my 12g tank for really anything. I'm going to be needing to get my 30g up faster than I was planning or start selling stuff off. Lol

[Reefkid88]

I got the Red Wine from LF. I Really wish I could have made it out there man. I'm still pissed about it,but I had no time. I'm sure there will be more shows this year lol. Hahahahaha sounds good man. I want some more sps,just select pieces though. I'm waiting to see how the tank responds to the metal halides when it gets here Thursday

Yea I love the meat/donut coral. Had 2 in my 150 cube before it crashed and had to be my favorite pieces. I know the feeling. Don't have much room in my 12g tank for really anything. I'm going to be needing to get my 30g up faster than I was planning or start selling stuff off. Lol

Yeah dude,you really need to get that 30 up real quick. And btw those prices are STUPID good on those Zoa's.

[D Z]

Power has been flickering all night from nasty thunderstorms.....I've got an air pump just in case but I really don't want to deal with this tonight.

[Reefkid88]

Is it bad down that way too ? It was crazy as hell at my work. That storm came in so damn strong. It was pitch black in Sanford when I got off work.

[D Z]

Is it bad down that way too ? It was crazy as hell at my work. That storm came in so damn strong. It was pitch black in Sanford when I got off work.

Yea man, last night was rough. It stormed hard for about 2 hours....power kept flickering. At one point my wife says, "So what are we gonna do if the power goes out?" and I kid you not, at that very moment the power went out. I looked at her and said, "You just had to say that, didn't you." LOL! Luckily it came back on about 2 minutes later. One thing that sucks, though, is that remote controlled power strip I use does not automatically come back on, so my return pump, heater, and skimmer were off for about an hour before I realized. Now I know...

Yea I love the meat/donut coral. Had 2 in my 150 cube before it crashed and had to be my favorite pieces. I know the feeling. Don't have much room in my 12g tank for really anything. I'm going to be needing to get my 30g up faster than I was planning or start selling stuff off. Lol

Get it going! 2 tanks is always better than 1. Let me know when you get a thread started and Ill check it out.

 

I got the Red Wine from LF. I Really wish I could have made it out there man. I'm still pissed about it,but I had no time. I'm sure there will be more shows this year lol. Hahahahaha sounds good man. I want some more sps,just select pieces though. I'm waiting to see how the tank responds to the metal halides when it gets here Thursday

 

Yeah dude,you really need to get that 30 up real quick. And btw those prices are STUPID good on those Zoa's.

Im guessing you meant living reef? Don't worry about it man. I missed both last year so I know how you feel, but there is always CoralCon in October! I'm interested to see your tank with the halide over it.

[D Z]

Forgot to mention, the purple mille mini colony that I got from Living reef had been slowly loosing a bit of tissue from the base. Took it off the rock last night and superglued the the tissue loss and put it on a plug up on the rack. Really done with these maricultured pieces, just way too delicate.

[Reefkid88]

That's crazy man lol. Women seems to have a special talent with stuff like that. Thank god everything was all good with everything. Which piece RTN'd again ?

 

That's so weird you've had such a hard time with them. I've gotten frags of the mariculture sand they've been fine. Like I've said before,I've just got good luck of something. Idk.

[D Z]

That's crazy man lol. Women seems to have a special talent with stuff like that. Thank god everything was all good with everything. Which piece RTN'd again ?

 

That's so weird you've had such a hard time with them. I've gotten frags of the mariculture sand they've been fine. Like I've said before,I've just got good luck of something. Idk.

The purple mille. I don't think I have ever posted specific pictures of it, but it was the mini colony on the top of the left rock structure in my latest FTS.

[D Z]

Water test last night:

 

Cal: 390(dosed 5ml)

Alk: low to mid 10's

Mag: 1200(dosed appx 3ml)

 

So it looks like all the new frags are starting to consume more Calcium. I have been keeping it pretty stable at 420 by dosing about 3ml per night and now its all of a sudden down at 390. Alk is still high up in the low to mid 10s from my accidental overdose of mag, but the mag has dropped back down to 1200. Hopefully these frags will all start soaking up the alk as I really want it down in the 8s. Also, I think its time to order new calcium and alk kits as I am almost out, and I noticed some debris floating around in the calcium solution. Last time I bought Red Sea, but I think I will give Salifert a try now.

[CronicReefer]

You really scored at reefapalooza. That frag rack is full of some great looking stuff, going to be nice watching those grow out. A little random but what was the verdict on your torch coral dropping polyps (sorry if I missed this post)? Is it growing a new mouth?

[Reefkid88]

Have you looked into Elos kits ? I want to say they're around the same price as Salifert kits. There is a new one out,I think it's called Nyos ? I could be wrong though.

[D Z]

You really scored at reefapalooza. That frag rack is full of some great looking stuff, going to be nice watching those grow out. A little random but what was the verdict on your torch coral dropping polyps (sorry if I missed this post)? Is it growing a new mouth?

Thanks Cronic! It is nice to finally be able to say I can keep SPS happy. I cannot wait for all of those frags to really settle in and start growing and really coloring up. So far, the torch hasn't produced any new heads, but I still do see a lot of interesting "growth" around the skeleton. I'm not really sure what it is, but may be more heads forming. I'll try to get a good picture of what I am talking about.

 

Have you looked into Elos kits ? I want to say they're around the same price as Salifert kits. There is a new one out,I think it's called Nyos ? I could be wrong though.

I have heard of both the elos and nyos kits, but I just feel like they are too new to really know how well they work. I would rather go with one that I know is popular among successful SPS reefkeepers. Maybe when these new kits run out there will be more on the others and Ill give them a shot.

[D Z]

So my salifert kits should be waiting for me at home! Gonna do some testing tonight and see where things are at.

 

I forgot to even mention that my retro kit from Dave came on Saturday, but I probably will not have time to even touch it for a couple weeks. It's a little bittersweet. I can't wait to get it going, but I just have absolutely no time to do it.

 

Also, I am happy to say AquaMaxx held true to their promise and released the WS-1 skimmer yesterday. Needless to say, I just put my order in with MarineDepot! Expect to see my PLS-50 Elite in the hardware section next week.

[D Z]

http://www.marinedepot.com/AquaMaxx_WS_1_In_Sump_Protein_Skimmer_In_Sump_Venturi_Needle_Wheel_Protein_Skimmers-AquaMaxx-UJ00189-FIPSISNW-vi.html

 

In case anyone else is interested.

 

[D Z]

Another thing I am starting to put some thought into and would love input from everyone. I am starting to desire more out of my scape. Also, I need somewhere to place some more of these SPS frags. Inspired a little by Rollajase's SPS pillar and Alex B's picture of his tonga/SPS tank in the new store, I am considering creating a bonsai'ish type structure out of dry tonga rock. I want it to come out of the sandbed where my torch is and branch out to fill some of the middle space in the tank. The torch will probably be relocated to the top of the left rock structure. I'm guessing that it would give me room to add somewhere around 6-8 frags that I would not be able to accommodate with the way the tank is as of right now.

 

Input?

[D Z]

Monday Morning Update:

 

Did some water testing over the weekend:

 

Phosphate: 0.00

Nitrate: 5-10

Calcium: 425

Alk: 10

Mag: 1200

 

So my nitrate was elevated a bit, but that was just because I got a little lazy with the FF. It is usually around 4-5. My alk is still up at 10, but with the sps coloring up and looking happy, I am becoming less and less concerned with that. Everything is looking pretty happy and settled in. I have a lot of frags to place but no time to dedicate to it. At least everything is happy! Eventually I will have a free night and go on a frag placing binge.

 

New skimmer comes Wednesday!!! I need to make a small acrylic baffle extender so I can raise my water height for the new skimmer. That shouldn't be too hard to do, once I find some time to do it! I'm going out of town again this weekend, so another crazy week. Therefore, I may just wait to install the new skimmer until next week.

 

Here is a couple random shots from the weekend and a quick little video of the new goni!

First off, this is the best shot of the torch I could get showing the weird growth on the skeleton. Does anyone know whether this is some type of sponge or new heads forming?

20150417_123337 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Getting some great color on the frags I got from ReefKid

20150417_120752 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

My view from my bed after a LONG day on Saturday

20150418_205441 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

I had not seen this guy in over a month. I was starting to wonder if he had died when I lost my cleaner shrimp unexpectedly, but then out of nowhere, he appeared last night!

20150419_233036 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

And last, but not least, the video of the goni!