The Fire Swamp's 50g SCA Starfire Cube- 🔥🐊. Upgrade Coming Soon

[ECLS Reefer]

6 minutes ago, jack1978 said:

You’re over complicating this with your controlling nature.  You don’t have enough nutrients is my guess.  Just skim and use some floss and carbon.  Oh, and those pesky water changes. Those are good for what ales you. 

I do the water changes. How are there not enough nutrients when the phos is usually round 0.1 and the nitrates always read at 25-50??? I fail to understand this not enough nutrients problem. I feed that tank like 3 times a day 😳😳 HOOOOOWWWW are there not enough nutrients?!

 

 

 

Oh and I dont mind the water changes-it makes it every two weeks. It's the need to ration out the salt for making water that makes me want to slow doing three tanks' worth of changes every single week. And I have a humongous skimmer in the sump. And floss somehow makes everything worse in there- I took it out a long time ago to allow water to free flow through the sump. Maybe the sump design isn't great and thats why floss doesn't work as well as with others? If I put floss in there I'd have to change it every single day AND it usually screws up my ATO AND salinity. So, no floss!! 

 

I dont mind using the carbon and phosguard; I just wanted to not have to for expense's sake. We aint all made of money like you Daddy Jack.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Dirté Sanchez
With everyone in quarantine it's hard for Durleene to get cash--nobody visits her corner 😝

[jack1978]

3 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I do the water changes. How are there not enough nutrients when the phos is usually round 0.1 and the nitrates always read at 25-50??? I fail to understand this not enough nutrients problem. I feed that tank like 3 times a day 😳😳 HOOOOOWWWW are there not enough nutrients?!

Go pour yourself a mule. - Doctors orders. 

If it ain’t broke, don’t ####ing break it!

[ECLS Reefer]

1 minute ago, jack1978 said:

Go pour yourself a mule. - Doctors orders. 

If it ain’t broke, don’t ####ing break it!

I edited that last post just for you... you need to update the screen and go read it.

 

 

Tank isn't broken, it's just stubborn about letting me succeed on some things. Like macro. Everybody else can grow macro but me. dammit

 

[jack1978]

2 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I edited that last post just for you... you need to update the screen and go read it.

 

 

Tank isn't broken, it's just stubborn about letting me succeed on some things. Like macro. Everybody else can grow macro but me. dammit

 

Durleene always wants what she caint have! 

[ECLS Reefer]

1 minute ago, jack1978 said:

Durleene always wants what she caint have! 

But for that there's chocolate and strawberry mules.

[ECLS Reefer]

Nighttime reefing. Altuve likes to plop himself into his toadstool throne and stare me down at night. He then also showed me his best side. 
 

Noticed The Blue Dude and Captain America were having a little spat over who would swim in that left area of the tank.

 

The fire shrimp decided to make an appearance front and center.

 

Little Bastet coming by to say hi and then looking for her bed.

 

 

Little Bastet trying to sneak into her bed when no one was around... she’d circle and poke at it and then leave and come back. When Hector the clown came over she decided she’d better get in bed ASAP 😊

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

The Kenya tree is getting huge @jack1978

 

 

 

 

She's getting super close to the two montis, the sinularia and the small hammer back here. May actually move her to the opposite back corner of the tank, where there's a little more room and less stuff for her to jack with. I glued her to a rock when I first got her, so I could move her if needed.

 

 

 

 

 

Awwww, she fell over ☹️. Bout how I feel tonight after work.

 

[ECLS Reefer]

Whoa-- I just realized the SCA's year old birthday is Thursday!! Unfortunate that I'll most likely be at work, but I actually have a shipment of corals coming tomorrow (my last for a while due to the whole virus situation and work cutting hours ☹️). I had hoped to receive another special shipment of some items by now but they haven't come in yet, also due to the lovely virus. But I think I can swing some special birthday something for the tank to look nice.

[ECLS Reefer]

Got the new corals in from @VividCorals! They look amazing. Wish my new frag racks had gotten here too but they haven’t even shipped ☹️
 

New corals added:

 

Rainbow monti

Blue polyp montipora Capricornus 

Liquid lime milliopora

 

Tank is looking great— got in a new nitrate test kit and it showed that the levels are lower than I thought, which is probably partly why I had so much trouble with the chaeto. Also I realized it’ll probably never grow in my sump because I had it positioned in the chamber immediately after the skimmer, so it probably never got enough nutrients even with direct feeds. Oh well. Tank is clean without it. 
 

 

 

Altuve is the biggest lurker ever. 
 

 

Full tank shots.

 

 

[mitten_reef]

4 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

Got the new corals in from @VividCorals! They look amazing. Wish my new frag racks had gotten here too but they haven’t even shipped ☹️
 

New corals added:

 

Rainbow monti

Blue polyp montipora Capricornus 

Liquid lime milliopora

 

Tank is looking great— got in a new nitrate test kit and it showed that the levels are lower than I thought, which is probably partly why I had so much trouble with the chaeto. Also I realized it’ll probably never grow in my sump because I had it positioned in the chamber immediately after the skimmer, so it probably never got enough nutrients even with direct feeds. Oh well. Tank is clean without it. 
 

 

 

Altuve is the biggest lurker ever. 
 

 

Full tank shots.

 

 

Tank looks good, the new additions are sweet!

[ECLS Reefer]

Just a few candid clips of the fish schooling for dinner, Altuve being a typical turd about the camera, then hiding in his toadstool throne. Rather awful photography because I didn’t have my filter lens at the time.

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

Took the new frags and put them on a holder today, though it’s not a great one. At least they’re out of the way of the hermits blundering around and knocking them over 

 

Little Bastet is still looking great and eating like a little pig!
 

 

[Ratvan]

Things look amazing in here. Love seei g the Leopard and Clowns loving life 

[ECLS Reefer]

3 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Things look amazing in here. Love seei g the Leopard and Clowns loving life 

I wish I could get a great video of them suddenly rushing together as a school because they want food- it’s pretty funny. They all seem to have settled in wonderfully and I hope this lot is with me for a long time. The clowns I’ve had a year, the blue dude (YTD) slightly less, but they’re the seniors for the tank now. 
 

Because I was at work I totally missed the one year anniversary and forgot to post it up ☹️ I can’t believe I finally got to the one year mark!!! 😱

[WV Reefer]

34 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I wish I could get a great video of them suddenly rushing together as a school because they want food- it’s pretty funny. They all seem to have settled in wonderfully and I hope this lot is with me for a long time. The clowns I’ve had a year, the blue dude (YTD) slightly less, but they’re the seniors for the tank now. 
 

Because I was at work I totally missed the one year anniversary and forgot to post it up ☹️ I can’t believe I finally got to the one year mark!!! 😱

So, let’s party now,....

 

Happy One Year Birthday!!!!!! Yay!! 🎉

[Ratvan]

🥳😎🥳

[ECLS Reefer]

[ECLS Reefer]

This tank is continuing to do well. Have been adding Reef Biofuel instead of vibrant to help with nutrient levels after the aborted chaeto adventure. The tank is doing well, back on an at least every 2 weeks water change schedule even with heavy feeding. The little lime millie has great polyp extension and the two montis are looking good. Added the stag horn in from the Evo hoping to save it from further bleaching, but we will have to see if that works. 

 

Have been experimenting with my old DSLR camera to see what it will render; the images on the screen of the camera are AWFUL but I'll see what happens when I download them. 
 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

So tomorrow (today) since it’s so late, I get some new RFAs and a couple of corals in. And seriously I have to slap my hands and freeze my credit cards after this. I’m pleased with how the tank is going at the moment and I hope it continues to grow. The self isolation boredom is leading to super bad spending habits 😬

 

Anyway. Got a new specimen of my other unicorn- an elegance. We shall see how well this one does, now that the tank is more mature. It’s a smaller one to begin with and has been with the LFS for a long time. Hope it does well for me. 
 

 

 

 

[Ratvan]

3 hours ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

So tomorrow (today) since it’s so late, I get some new RFAs and a couple of corals in. And seriously I have to slap my hands and freeze my credit cards after this. I’m pleased with how the tank is going at the moment and I hope it continues to grow. The self isolation boredom is leading to super bad spending habits 😬

 

Anyway. Got a new specimen of my other unicorn- an elegance. We shall see how well this one does, now that the tank is more mature. It’s a smaller one to begin with and has been with the LFS for a long time. Hope it does well for me. 
 

 

 

 

Nice Elegance 

[ECLS Reefer]

4 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Nice Elegance 

IF I can keep it alive. Unicorn and all

[ECLS Reefer]

So the tank is officially ONE YEAR old as of 4/16. I ordered a small birthday present Friday for it, in the form of 4 new RFAs, two small brain corals and a really pretty rainbow ricordea. Now I think it's truly packed full like the little Challenge Tank and I will have to leave it alone to grow. The fish finally came together as I wanted them, and though the coral frags aren't necessarily placed in their final places, at least they're growing and acting happy. 

 

 

 

 

 

So here's the one year update on system setup:

 

SCA Starfire 50g cube with sump

Started (4/16/19)

 

Equipment: 

Inkbird temperature controller

Hydor 400 watt heater

Smart ATO micro

Trigger systems Emerald 5g ATO reservoir

Jebao DCP 4000 Sine wave return pump

Ice cap 1K gyre wave pump

Reef octopus 110 INT skimmer

AutoAqua smart skimmer security switch

Redsea 90 LED

Jebao 4 channel dosing pump

Marine color 3 chamber dosing container + 1 single chamber

Marine Color 4 channel tubing holder

Wifi single channel multiplug

Single channel multiplug

Telescoping lightbulb fixture

Highgrow 36W blue LED bulb

Small shop light

 

 

Filter Media: 

Seachem Matriculates carbon 

Seachem Phosguard 

In Tank Filter floss 

Water change schedule - Every other week on Fridays or Saturdays

 

 

Dosing Schedule:

Seachem Reef fusion 1 BID

Seachem Iodide (actually out of this but usually BID)

Brightwell Aquatics Magnesion QID 

Seachem Reef Fusion 2 QID

Seachem Reef Trace weekly on Wednesdays

Strontium (currently Kent) Q 4 days

Brightwell Reef Biofuel daily

Brightwell Microbacter 7 weekly

Testing schedule - weekly on Friday or saturday

 

 

Substrate/Aquascape:

Carib Sea Hawaiian Black Live Sand x 50lbs

Purple live rock from LFS~ 20lbs

Fiji live sand from LFS~ 14lbs

Maori live rock from LFS- 26lbs

 

 

Livestock: 

Starry blenny

Black snowflake clown fish pair

Yellow tail damsel

Yellow Coris wrasse

Leopard wrasse

Tricolor (clown) wrasse

Bicolor blenny (sump)

Yellow watchman goby (sump)

Fire shrimp x1

Peppermint shrimp x 2

Pincushion urchin x 2

Tiger sand conch x 2

Electric blue hermit crab x2

Halloween hermit crab x4

Emerald crab x 3 or 4

Dwarf blue hermit crab x?

Tiger pistol shrimp

Bumble bee snails x3

Trochus snails x a bunch

Nerite snails x a bunch

Asterina snails x a bunch

Cerith snail x a bunch

 

Bristle worms-- very few and those all transplants from the Evo.

 

Green Star polyp x 1 mat

Branching GSP x2

Palys x1 (nebula)

Palys x MANY (not sure on the species but pretty and fast growing)

Purple rhodactus mushroom x 1

Hammer x 2

Torch x1

Green/red Montipora x1

Red montipora x 2

Rainbow mdntipora x 1

Green/blue montipora x 1

Purple Monti x 1

Lime Milliopora x 1

Strawberry staghorn x 1

Green zoa x 1

Blue zoo x 1

Mystery zoa x 2

orange and white gorgonian x1

Leathers x 2

Blue Kenya tree x 1

Sinularia x 3

Pavona x 2

Poccilopora x 1

Rainbow acans x 2

Acan lordowensis x 1

Frogspawn x 1

Cup or scroll coral x 1 

Goniopora x 1

Alveopora x 1

Toadstool x 2 

Elegance x 1

Brain coral x 2

Ricordea x many on one Tonga branch

Yellow ricordea x 1

Rainbow ricordea x 1

Donut coral x 1

Duncan polyp x 1

Chalice x 1

Rock flower anemone x7

 

 

Feeding Schedule:

Frozen: cyclops & brine/Nyos Gold pods/zooplankton/phytoplankton/two droppers of selcon/ 2/8ths teaspoon of reef roids -- three times per day for leopard wrasse

Frozen: cyclops, brine, marine cuisine, emerald cuisine, reef frenzy, mysis, reef plankton, plankton/ phytoplankton/ zooplankton/ three droppers of selcon/ Zoe/ 2/8th  

              teaspoon dried spirulina/ 3/8ths teaspoon reef roids/ saltwater--- once per day for all critters

Seaweed -- every couple of days for blennies

Pellets: hikari carnivore blend/herbivore blend/ algae pellets -- every other day or so for sump dwellers and display tank

 

 

I think thats it 😳 You don't realize how much stuff you've accumulated or how much you do every day until you write it all down!! 😱😱

 

[ECLS Reefer]

SCA is doing pretty great! Moved some of the frags off the holders today and onto the rocks. The stag still looks like garbage so it stayed on the frag holder. Something happened to one of my gorgeous new brains- either RTN or a hermit not sure. Regardless it got put on a holder and up higher so I could see it better and keep it out of reach. Other than that, not a heck of a lot to report. 
 

 

 

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

Whoops forgot a few good shots!

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

So today I noticed that the millie seems super happy with his placement. I hope the stag will bounce back and I can find it a similarly happy placement in there.