Cronic's 75g Reef (100% Biological Filtration)

[CronicReefer]

So what are you going to do with your zoas from the old tank?

They were attached to rocks that were covered in bubble algae and some GHA so I just decided to let the rocks all dry out and I'm going to bleach them back white and sell them to LFS for some store credit. Not really what I wanted to do but none of the zoas were rare or difficult to replace. Just one rock with about 40 polyps of watermelon zoas and another with about 40 polyps of WWC Twizzlers.

 

Yes, you are completely correct about lumphocystis. It rarely kills and usually runs its course with no harm done. I worked for a lfs 12 years but I did not see tangs afflicted with it often, it was more common with angels so just make sure of your diagnosis.

I'm leaning towards lymphocystis as it showed immediately after he had some fin damage and has not gotten any worse since the original spots appeared. My clownfish had something similar on his fin when I first transferred him but it cleared up in a couple days.

[vlangel]

They were attached to rocks that were covered in bubble algae and some GHA so I just decided to let the rocks all dry out and I'm going to bleach them back white and sell them to LFS for some store credit. Not really what I wanted to do but none of the zoas were rare or difficult to replace. Just one rock with about 40 polyps of watermelon zoas and another with about 40 polyps of WWC Twizzlers.

 

 

I'm leaning towards lymphocystis as it showed immediately after he had some fin damage and has not gotten any worse since the original spots appeared. My clownfish had something similar on his when I first transferred him but it cleared up in a couple days.

That sounds promising then. I have seen it take weeks to clear, but again that was on angels. Maybe clowns and tanks are not effected as much.

[CronicReefer]

That sounds promising then. I have seen it take weeks to clear, but again that was on angels. Maybe clowns and tanks are not effected as much.

Hope so, whatever the clowns problem was it hasn't reappeared so far. I think the LRS Frenzy I feed them helps a lot with keeping them healthy and eating when stressed or injured.

[CronicReefer]

Just a little tank update for the beginning of the month. Did my first 25% monthly water change and everything is doing great! Seeing lots of new growth and much faster compared to my previous tank. I think I let the phosphates get a little high as I'm having some serious algae growth now on the rocks and glass but I added some ExtraxPhos and the growth has slowed tremendously. I purchased a little blue tuxedo urchin for $20 from the LFS on Sunday and he has been happily munching away on the algae. My tang still has the lymphocystis virus but doesn't seem to be any worse for wear as hes constantly out pecking at the rocks and has no problem competing with my clowns for the frozen food.

 

Some pictures, my water was a little green from scraping algae off the front glass.

 

FTS 2.2.16

 

 

My Blue-Tip Pocillipora was looking extra fluffy and is showing tons of new growth. Next to him is my walking GHA bush. I could never figure it out but my turban snail's shell always grows tons of nuisance algae while the rest of my snails only have coralline on their shells.

 

 

 

Little Blue Tuxedo, he is a little larger than a golf ball.

[CronicReefer]

This weeks update I'm sad to say my tang did not survive the virus. One day it stopped eating and the next it was a $50 meal for my lobster....I'm not going to be buying any fish for a while. The clowns are healthy and show no signs of illness so cheers to that. I've also been using the DIY KZ Coral Snow and my water has been unbelievably clear. My corals also seem to love the new lighting and tank as they have all shown noticeable growth over the past month compared to almost nothing the previous six before that. It's tax return time so I placed a huge order with marinedepot.com to have enough dosing and filtration supplies to last me the next year. I picked up two more SPS frags as well from the LFS. A Red Planet Acro and Wild Orchid Acro that both look great but my camera fails at taking any decent pictures.

 

FTS below, still lots of room for corals. Need to find another badass chalice and would like to get a frag of ORA Pearlberry Acro and a ORA Pink and Green Bird of Paradise.

[CronicReefer]

Who doesn't love a clownfish video ?

 

 

Wild Orchid Acropora. I really like the way these look as colonies with the thinner branches and nice pastel colors.

 

Red Planet Acropora, it's a much darker pink than it appears in the picture but these are one of my favorite tabling acroporas.

[CronicReefer]

Was going through some pictures of how some of my corals looked when I originally purchased them and I didn't realize how much they had really grown. I took some pictures of them today for some comparisons. There is about 12-15 months of growth for most of the corals in these pictures. I wonder how they will look a year from now being in the new tank ?

 

Blue Tip Pocillipora

 

Frogspawn

 

Capnella sp.

 

Hammer Coral

 

Warpaint Scoly.

[markalot]

Another new tank I missed, subscribed.

 

Things are looking good, but sorry about the tang. Jealous of the Red Planet, I have yet to keep one alive but probably because I don't feed enough. I hope.

[CronicReefer]

Another new tank I missed, subscribed.

 

Things are looking good, but sorry about the tang. Jealous of the Red Planet, I have yet to keep one alive but probably because I don't feed enough. I hope.

Hey thanks for checking out the tank and following along, I get a lot of inspiration from tanks like yours. I hope I can keep the Red Planet alive as well. It has such a nice dark pink color too and tabling acros are my favorite. Good luck with the increased feeding in your tank.

[CronicReefer]

Another successful and healthy looking molt from my lobster . It had been quite a while since his last so I'm assuming it is no longer a juvenile.

 

 

In other tank news I got a McCoskers wrasse and a new coral frag called Leprechauns Beard. The coral is one of the hariest SPS I've ever seen. I'll try to get some pictures of those when they are done acclimating to the new tank. The wrasse I'm really excited about but he's hiding in the sand so I'll try feeding him in a little to see if it will get him swimming about.

 

Leprechauns Beard, freshly fragged by my LFS.

[CronicReefer]

The wrasse discovered copepods so he posed for a picture real quick before he got fat. I'm loving the colors on this guy.

 

 

Nom nom nom

[CronicReefer]

My conch lives! I thought my lobster had eaten him which would have been very unusual as the only live food he has killed is my stomatella snails. I guess the conch is a ninja cause he had been unseen for over a week.

 

My wrasse has not shown any any agression towards my clowns even during feeding so I'm happy about that. He does seem to flash them alot which I'm not sure how to interpret.

 

My pocillipora is growing like crazy. I've never had my corals grow this fast so I'm really excited to see this. One month difference between pictures.

[ninjamyst]

i have been looking for a McCoskers Wrasse. They are so vibrant. Yours look great!

[CronicReefer]

i have been looking for a McCoskers Wrasse. They are so vibrant. Yours look great!

Yeah they are really beautiful fish. I may get him a lady friend if my LFS can get me one. They do like to dig in the sand as he makes dust storms a few times a day.

[CronicReefer]

My SPS collection is growing . I picked up a nice size Blue Monster frag and Pink Lemonade frag from the LFS today. My tank is growing a little bit excessive algae in some areas yet I can go over a week without cleaning the glass so hopefully my snails and urchin will mow it down. My pokerstar monti also started growing hair algae on it again about 10 days ago after it had disappeared since transferring over. The hair algae on the monti is just so confusing to me as no other coral ever has a problem, I'm hoping one day it will be able to over grow it. The red planet has turned into a light pink planet a few days ago, polyp extension is still normal, so I'm hoping it's going through some encrusting phase or just acclimating still. My wrasse is getting along great with my clowns and spends most of the day hanging out with them which is cool to see. I'm pretty pleased with the growth from most of the SPS so far and all the other corals are looking better than ever.

 

A few crappy cell phone pics, hopefully I can save up and buy a decent camera so I can get some good quality photos like the rest of ya'll.

Blue Monster, I think this will be one of my favorites once its grown out.

 

The fish family

[CronicReefer]

My Dad wanted to go see the fish store I buy all my live stock from. He used to keep a saltwater reef in the 80s and wanted to see how much things have changed and also offered to buy me a fish and some coral. I decided to get a starry blenny to help eat up some of this hair algae and because blennies are straight gangstas. I got a pink starburst monticap and this really nice looking unnamed acro. It has a deep blue center with green covering the tips and bright green polyps. Any ID on it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Such bold fish which is why I like them so much

 

Unknown Acro, looks very promising

[CronicReefer]

Finally time for an update on the tank. After an unexpected nitrate spike from a water change, ammonia was unexpectedly found in my fresh saltwater but the issue has been solved. My nutrients seem to finally be back in order as the algae is receding and the cyano bloom has consolidated itself to the refugium. However I lost pretty much all of my new SPS frags so after looking around the LFS today I decided I would buy my first clam. It's an ORA Blue Maxima around 2.5" long and seemed to be in good health. The tank is recovering great otherwise and I plan on buying some larger SPS frags in a couple weeks. I also want to add more fish but it seems like everything jumps or grows too large. I'm thinking about a foxface as I would like for it to be an herbivorous fish. In other news I got the new LG G5 and the camera is amazing for capturing realistic colors, I'm so pleased with how accurate they appear now.

 

[CronicReefer]

Clam is looking even better today, has even better mantle extension than it did at the LFS and I love the deep purple mantle with blue rim under the T5s. It was in the sandbed when I got home this morning from work so I took the opportunity to position it closer to the light. Seems to be transitioning well but I know these things can look great for months and then pretty much die overnight. If it looks good 6 months from now I'll probably by a second or third to fill up the middle rock. It's very porous with a gentle slope and should provide a good foundation for clams to grow on.

 

[CronicReefer]

Took a picture under some bluer lighting today. The pattern is much more noticeable from this angle as well.

 

[CronicReefer]

My pocillipora has finally been showing good polyp extension again for the past week so I went and got some different types of acropora to test out in my tank, LFS was selling three for $50 so got a great deal. They seem to be doing great so far and I will be adding some more in a couple weeks after I see some signs of growth on these frags.

 

[CronicReefer]

Going to be setting up a sulfur denitrator this week after I finish constructing it, if anyone has ever been interested in using one and curious about the results. I will be posting updates and results of how long it takes my tank to drop to zero nitrates and the affects on alkalinity as well. Pretty excited to get this thing up and running, general plans for constructing one yourself can be found here.

[Newstead]

Will be interesting to follow this!

[CronicReefer]

Took a little longer than I expected but the Sulfur Denitrator is up and running. It is a recirculating reactor I built myself for around $100 using an MJ900 pump. The bottom layer is 1L of Seachem Matrix followed by 1/3lb of CaribSea LSM sulfur with CaribSea ARM Calcium Reactor media on top. I got the idea from this article and the Marine Depot video on denitrators posted in their forum section so I decided to give it a try. My tank is currently at around 25 nitrates so I will monitor and post results as things progress. I'm expecting my tank to hit 0 nitrates within 4-6 weeks if everything goes as planned.

Some pictures of the unit

[CronicReefer]

First 24 hours of sulfur denitrator cyling has passed. Very happy to say the effluent out of the reactor is less than half the nitrates compared to what is coming in. PH of effluent is around 7.5 and alkalinity is around 6.8-7.0 and current drip rate is set at 1/second.

[CronicReefer]

It's been over six weeks since I bought any corals for the tank but today I decided I would give a new frag a try. I was so excited to get this tank populated with corals but after the incident in March with the water change, all the plans have gone out the window and it's been one long waiting game since. The three previous frags I bought all ended up with STN and then my pocillipora which was my only remaining SPS ended in the same fate. I allowed the rest of the algae to die off from the rocks and now all that remains is some brown algae on the glass that would be easily removed but I leave it for my blenny and inverts to eat. I also did a few 50% water changes to remove anything in the water that may be causing more sensitive corals harm as all my LPS and mushrooms are growing great but it seems like SPS just wanted to melt. Sulfur denitrator is working very well, reducing nitrates with no issues so far to any livestock. I also got a new fish last week, a bi-color dottyback, which has some really bright coloring.

 

Platygyra from WWC

 

Bi-Color Dottyback

 

Before (4.7.16)

 

Today (6.9.16)