Luke's 20 Gallon Simple Reef Tank

[Luke78]

Live-plants.com is out of stock on almost every one of their macros. What are some other good places to get macro algae? Is reef cleaners a good one?

[Tired]

Yes, reefcleaners is good. Live-plants has shifting availability because their products are seasonal. 

[Luke78]

11 minutes ago, Tired said:

Yes, reefcleaners is good. Live-plants has shifting availability because their products are seasonal. 

Thanks. I think that I will probably order the codium and maybe even a ricordea from them. From reefcleaners, I want to order some Grape Caulerpa  Red Gracilaria, and maybe also some of what looks to be palythoas from the picture (they call them button polyps). Is this something that should be ordered all at once or should I spread them out? I probably won't order the ricordea right now and will see how the button polyps do before I make any more coral additions. 

 

[Tired]

Should be fine all at once, that's not much to add. 

[Luke78]

39 minutes ago, Tired said:

Should be fine all at once, that's not much to add. 

Thanks, I ordered them and they should come in by Thursday.

[Luke78]

The macro algae did not come in yesterday, but it did come in today. They sent me 2 frags of all the macros. I have already acclimated them and they are now placed in the tank. I'm reluctant to turn on the lights because I don't want to burn anything. If I have my lights dimmed all the way down and everything is at the bottom off the tank with mostly indirect light then they won't get burned right? How does this placement look as far as not burning anything. The tank is slightly cloudy and it has been a couple days now, but I think it may be starting to improve.

 

[Tired]

Dim lights would be fine, yeah. I don't really hear about macroalgaes getting burned like corals do, either, though I don't know if that's just because macros don't retreat visibly like corals do when overwhelmed. A brief light acclimation can't hurt. 

[Luke78]

The palys are already almost open. I'm glad that they seem to like my water so far.

[billygoat]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

Dim lights would be fine, yeah. I don't really hear about macroalgaes getting burned like corals do, either, though I don't know if that's just because macros don't retreat visibly like corals do when overwhelmed. A brief light acclimation can't hurt. 

I agree here - I've never had problems with macroalgae (or soft corals such as those palythoas) getting burned by my lights. I've read that red macros can be a bit more sensitive to light than other varieties, but I think their lighting preferences have a lot to do with the exact location where they were collected. Many of them probably don't care about lighting at all, or will at least adjust quickly to whatever you give them. That being said, I think you did the right thing. A bit of light acclimation will do no harm, and may help them out in the long run. 👍

[Luke78]

Here is a picture of the playthoas that I took today. I’m so glad that they’re all open!

[Luke78]

Hello everyone. I haven't uploaded for a few weeks now, mostly because there simply wasn't anything to report on. Yesterday, I bought a lantern basslet from my local lfs and he/she seems to have acclimated just fine. All the parameters have maintained a good range during the time where not much was going on and the water has cleared up substantially. The grape caulerpa unfortunately slowly deteriorated and died, but everything else managed to be just fine. The palythoas haven't really grown much, but they are displaying better color. They seem to like the light intensity at around 60-75% rather than 100% for some reason. I'm not quite sure how that will play out when I get corals that require a higher lighting intensity,but I guess they would do well in a spot with indirect light once I ramp the lights back up. I also rigged up a piece of aluminum screen as a lid so the fish could not jump out (the guy at the lfs warned me that they like to jump). Here is a tank shot and a picture of the fish. The fish shot was quite hard to get because he's really skittish (wild caught maybe?).

[Luke78]

Hello, I just thought I would do a little update on this tank since I got a Florida ricordea for it the other day. Nothing much has happened since May, other than some growth from the palythoas and some new polyps growing off of them. The ricordea seems to have colored up a little bit since I bought it and it maybe be splitting, but I’m not sure. 

[Tired]

It has two mouths that look reasonably far apart, so I'd say don't be surprised if it turns into two fairly soon. If it's not splitting now, it's very strongly considering doing so.