Dawn's 56 gallon natural nutrient reef.

[Lula_Mae]

Your tank is looking so nice!  I love the giant clump of botryocladia on the right, red grape is one of my favorite macros.

[vlangel]

29 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Your tank is looking so nice!  I love the giant clump of botryocladia on the right, red grape is one of my favorite macros.

Thanks Lula Mae.  I also love red grape. Yes, this tank has been slow in developing but it is getting there.

[vlangel]

I do not get as much bubble algae as I used to but occasionally when I syphon water out for a WC I also syphon out patches of bubble algae, which I just did. 

 

Another thing that I must keep on is my photosynthetic purple sponge.  It is beautiful and easy to grow but it is somewhat invasive if not kept up with.  It can grow on top of corals and macros smothering them.  It is fairly easy to pull off of most rock surfaces but if a tiny piece is left or breaks off it can start a whole new colony!  I recommend being mindful of this when placing it in the tank.

[vlangel]

See this Instagram photo by @vlangelbike

I took this FTS at eye level so that the tiers are more distinguishable and thus more appreciable.

[WV Reefer]

44 minutes ago, vlangel said:

See this Instagram photo by @vlangelbike

I took this FTS at eye level so that the tiers are more distinguishable and thus more appreciable.

 

Looks great! 

 

Im currently finding out about the prolific growth of the purple sponge. 

[yoshii]

Looks great!
The tiers look so cool, my next tank I want to add at least one tier like your tank!

[vlangel]

9 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

 

Looks great! 

 

Im currently finding out about the prolific growth of the purple sponge. 

It looks so beautiful and innocent until its in your tank, ha ha!

[vlangel]

9 hours ago, yoshii said:

Looks great!
The tiers look so cool, my next tank I want to add at least one tier like your tank!

Thanks yoshii!  I am a fan of DSBs and when I set this tank up as an aio building a retaining wall was the only way to implement a DSB.  After I made the first tier I realized how much more room there is for coral because I am utilizing the height of the tank but still keeping sandbed area.  The other advantage for me is I have a lot of rock and sand in this tank for biological filtration (since I don't have a skimmer, reactor or fuge) but its not an ugly rock wall.  All that rock has kept this tank extremely stable.  Finally after doing it, I realized just how natural it looks.  I doubt I would ever set up a tank without tiers now.

[vlangel]

Tomorrow I head south to watch grandchildren.  My son is in the midst of a tank upgrade so with his coral in a holding tank for now, plus broken coral pieces he plans to send me home with some new frags.  I can't remember for sure what he has but I know there are monticaps and pocillipora.  He is into SPS.  I think he said he had a rounded end birdsnest too.  Most of my coral are so small still that I don't have much to offer, just a turquoise trumpet frag.  He isn't into softies at all.  I do have a strong powerhead that will help his coral until he can buy a gyre.

[vlangel]

I came home from visiting my son.  He gave me some great frags.  He sent me a purple cap and orange cap.  He also gave me a pink birdsnest and a green pocillipora.  There is a very pretty encrusting reddish purple coral with blue polyps and a green war coral with red eyes.  Most of them are nice size frags too.  I will have to give some real thought as to where I will place them.

[vlangel]

See this Instagram photo by @vlangelbike

FTS May 2019 after I added frags given to me from my son.

[WV Reefer]

1 minute ago, vlangel said:

See this Instagram photo by @vlangelbike

FTS May 2019 after I added frags given to me from my son.

 

The new frags look nice...... with their size they fit right in  😊

[vlangel]

On 5/19/2019 at 7:01 PM, WV Reefer said:

 

The new frags look nice...... with their size they fit right in  😊

Thanks WV,  I agree.  The new frags were of a decent size so they really do fit in with everything well.  The new additions seem to have adjusted well too.

 

This tank is really shaping up nicely.  It is to a place that I can now start to enjoy watching everything grow out.  There is room for more coral but the tank no longer looks empty so I don't feel compelled to have to buy anything unless I see something that really catches my eye.

 

With the addition of the SPS I will do some testing to see how much alk and CA is being used.  I will probably need to add 2 part to my water change water.

[vlangel]

As things often happen, I stumbled onto a cool thing quite by accident. My gyre was eroding my DSB at the front of the tank. I wondered if I put some larger rubble rock pieces under the sand with smaller pieces more at the surface if it would impede the erosion. Not only does it seem to be working but its a pretty cool looking zone in and of itself. It is the perfect place for a jawfish lair and they have been on my wish list. I plan to do a video soon so anyone interested can see it then. O yeah, I think I will order some pods and squirt them in that area as its a good safe place from most of the fish. 

[vlangel]

I took a feeding time video so you can see all the fish.  You can see the new rubble zone in the right fore ground which is pretty cool.  In the future it should be a good place for a pair of jawfish to build lairs.  For now I am hoping that pods propagate there.  The tank is pretty dirty so try to just overlook that.

[vlangel]

The 56g got some lovin' this morning with a 9 gallon WC, some macro algae pruning, nuisance algae removal and change the filter floss.  I have not done a parameter test in a while so that will happen when everything settles.  Some of my coral look a little browner so I want to see if the PO4 is way up out of line.  I added coral vite, strongium and iodine too which at least should be good for the macro algaes.

[vlangel]

 

I still have not tested the parameters, (can you tell I hate testing?).  I really need to do it however to know if much CA and Alk are being used and if the nutrients are in check. 🙄

[seabass]

11 hours ago, vlangel said:

I still have not tested the parameters, (can you tell I hate testing?).  I really need to do it however to know if much CA and Alk are being used and if the nutrients are in check.

Same boat here.  I throw out more test kits that have expired than I care to admit.  Your tank looks great though.

[vlangel]

8 hours ago, seabass said:

Same boat here.  I throw out more test kits that have expired than I care to admit.  Your tank looks great though.

Thanks seabass, I also throw away a lot of expired test kits. 😕

[vlangel]

I finally tested parameters yesterday.  Prior to that it had been since 4-4-19 that I tested.

Nutrients were high, even too high for this high nutrient tank. NO3 was 50-60 and PO4 was 2 ppm.  I did another WC today.

 

The alk was 7.7, down from 9.9 in April.  CA was the same 450 and Mg was quite high, 1500 which is up from 1250.  I don't remember blindly dosing Mg but I use Instant Ocean salt and its low in Mg.  Anyway, I definitely don't need to dose that for a while.

 

In spite of parameters being off, the tank looks great.  Hopefully I can bring it in line with some xtra WCs.

[vlangel]

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByqcDFipvzn/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

[debbeach13]

As usual it looks great. I am sure a couple W/C will bring it back in line. You have been around long enough to know not chase the numbers and make small adjustment over time. 

[vlangel]

30 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

As usual it looks great. I am sure a couple W/C will bring it back in line. You have been around long enough to know not chase the numbers and make small adjustment over time. 

Thanks Deb.  Yep, us long time reefers don't freak out over stuff.  I did another WC last night so I will test this morning to see if things are moving in the right direction.  The coral looked really super last night before the lights went out so I am thinking a few xtra WCs will right things.

[vlangel]

I tested PO4 and NO3 this morning.  NO3 came down to 25 ppm, which is about where I want it.  The PO4 still looked to be around 2 ppm and I prefer it at 1 ppm, so I added a small amount of a PO4 sponge to the AquaClear chamber.  I will check PO4 again on Sunday.  I don't want to strip the water of phosphates because the macro algaes need a 30:1 ratio of nitrate to phosphates.

[vlangel]

I thought it might be fun for you to see my 1st real reef tank.  It was a 90 gallon AGA set up in fall of 2004.  Originally it was an aio with a Marineland Penguin 400 with dual bio-wheels FOWLR tank.  In 2007 I added a sump and VHO lighting and moved into real reefing.  This pic was taken in Aug 2010.  A year and few months later my mother in law became confined to bed in our home and I became a full time caregiver.  This tank and a 120 gallon FOWLR in the basement were now more than I could manage so I sold them both.  That is when I bought my 36 gallon bowfront and joined N-R since I had never kept a smaller tank.

 

I still have coral/frags from that era.  Also all my rock, barnacles came from that tank.  I recycle everything if possible. LOL