Sharbuckles Reef

[Sharbuckle]

8 hours ago, DNR88 said:

Nice scape, lots of potential! 🙂

Thanks 🙂 I’m very excited to fill it with coral. Not sure what to buy first

[Sharbuckle]

8 hours ago, billygoat said:

Dang, look at all that sweet gear! The sump setup looks super clean. I'm lovin' everything you've got going on in here.

Thanks billygoat. It pays to buy everything little by little over 9 months.... otherwise I’d probably get kicked out lol 

[Sharbuckle]

Added a very small handful of hermits and a couple snails today as diatoms have started to bloom. 
 

my vectra s2 return pump arrived at the LFS but I can’t get there for a week.

 

will pick up more CUC and the pump next Saturday.

[Sharbuckle]

I had a little 10g tank running to keep me busy while I set up this tank.

 

today I shut it down and moved over my pistol/goby pair. Well I found the goby but I think the pistol shrimp was inside one of the rocks. So I put the rocks into my display for now. Keeping an eye out for disturbed sand and then I can remove the ugly white rock.

 

diatoms continue. 

[Sharbuckle]

Vectra S2 is installed! 
 

I’m blown away by how quiet it is. 
 

 

[Sharbuckle]

Going to hook up the battery backup tonight too. Maybe attempt to clean up the rats nest.... but probably not 

[Sharbuckle]

incredible news.

 

the goby and pistol shrimp have been reunited and are burrowing together again.

 

now I can take that ugly white rock out of the display and sump it 

[Sharbuckle]

Bad news though.

 

hair algae....

[Sharbuckle]

Three day lights out starts today. I’ve got one tiny setosa frag that will unfortunately have to endure this.... 

[Pjanssen]

Good luck

[Sharbuckle]

4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Good luck

Thanks 🙏 May add a small kole tang and lawnmower Blenny this week 

[Sharbuckle]

Bolstered my clean up crew today.

 

Added:

10 Trochus

10 Red Legs

1 Emerald Crab

 

I also added a lawnmower blenny.

 

the hair algae seems to have slowed down and browned out a bit after the lights off period. Going to turn lights on again today and see how the new crew does. 

 

[Sharbuckle]

I am BLOWN AWAY at how fast the new inhabitants have removed the hair algae.

 

In less than 24 hours they have eaten between 80%-90% of it.

 

Lets hope running some GFO can keep it at bay. Going to try building my own algae scrubber! Stay tuned for that.

before and after pics

 

[Sharbuckle]

48 hours later and the tank is 100% algae free. Amazing 🙂

 

now that it’s algae free it’s time to add some corals, I may or may not have bought 12 frags from a local guy today...... okay I did.

 

they arrive tomorrow

[Sharbuckle]

Frags frags frags! 
 

I’m going to try my absolute best to grow this tank from little frags from local reefers.

 

thats the plan. 
 

so now I’ve got some little frags on the rock work. Put them on the frag rack for a couple hours to let them get used to the tank and then placed them throughout the tank.

 

i picked up:

pink digitata

forest fire digitata

la lakers monti

orange setosa

elkhorn montipora

 

grape ape favia

dragon soul favia

 

gold leptastrea

gold pssamocora

 

green hammer

green/purple hammer

turqiouse hammer

 

green goniopora

 

two chalices

 

 

woohoo!

 

 

[Sharbuckle]

Okay so I went a bit frag crazy and there are now 32 frags in the tank.....

 

 

Also LPS only has clearly gone out the window...

[Sharbuckle]

 

[Sharbuckle]

Update! 

[Sharbuckle]

I took on the insurmountable task of cleaning up my rats nest today. I used the stand that came with the tank as it’s sitting beside the tank anyway.

 

 

I also set up the Kamoer ATO today.

 

now I just need a doser and a better container for top off water. 

[billygoat]

1 hour ago, Sharbuckle said:

I took on the insurmountable task of cleaning up my rats nest today. I used the stand that came with the tank as it’s sitting beside the tank anyway.

Clean! I love the look of it all set up and running. I really hope that I too can have a system like this some day. 👍

[Sharbuckle]

18 hours ago, billygoat said:

Clean! I love the look of it all set up and running. I really hope that I too can have a system like this some day. 👍

You definitely can have a system like this! I just took my time buying the equipment piece by piece. 
 

Today I spent some time and set up my old desktop computer beside the tank as a command centre. I’ve got apex fusion running on it and I’m going to create a spreadsheet of testing data. Going to get a webcam and microphone for some live streaming as well. 

[Sharbuckle]

Found an incredible deal on a 24" t5 hybrid. perfect size for this tank. 36" would hang over the tank and aesthetically drive me nuts. Getting it tomorrow.

 

In the mean time I made a new intro video for my youtube channel.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sharbuckle]

Tested the big three today.

 

Ca 440

Alk 7.7

Mg 1350

 

No need to start dosing yet. Once frags starts growing we shall see.

 

T5 hung up yesterday. Tank is definitely more filled out with light. Happy reefer right here.

 

hope you’re all staying safe.

 

 

[Sharbuckle]

Oh also, diatoms started making a slight return today. Will be monitoring. 

[Sharbuckle]

Picked up some nassarius to keep the sand bed churned up.

 

On top of that I picked up some food for the corals. Phytoplankton and some reef roids.

 

Tested parameters again today and Alk dropped by one point. Seems like a huge drop for one day and only a handful of frags.

 

Needless to say I picked up some ESV two part and will start dosing if these numbers continue to drop.