Jared’s 365 challenge - new uns 40c

[Tamberav]

Really pretty zoas! Stay safe!

[ef4life]

The big acro frag may pull through, definitely more color on the base and one of the branches, but it does have a bone white tip 🤞

 

the red sunset monti is just starting to encrust the travertine, and the Jedi mind trick isn’t too far behind.  No real noticeable growth in anything else so far.

 

 

[ef4life]

March full tank shot 3/29/2020

 

 

Video from today

 

[EfrainChicagoDeepdish]

Glad you posted a full tank shot in the contest thread.  I got to catch up on your tank.  It is looking good.  

 

How do you like your dottyback?  I've never had one and you said it is a strong swimmer which makes it a potential candidate for my next tank build.  

[SliceGolfer]

On 3/12/2020 at 12:22 AM, ef4life said:

I’m not sure the big acro frag is going to make it, it’s been holding on but it don’t look good. Hopefully it can recover. Everything else is doing fine. 

 

 

Looks like Aussie Gold Acro to me

[ef4life]

15 hours ago, SliceGolfer said:

Looks like Aussie Gold Acro to me

I’m not sure, it was green and purplish when I got it, it was starting to look good again too, but this morning it’s looking pretty rough again, and my Jedi mind trick is bleaching all of the sudden, so I pulled it out and put it in the 40g. Sunset monti is loosing it’s bright  color too, I need to do some maintenance and testing ASAP, I’ve been super busy though lately.

[ef4life]

16 hours ago, EfrainChicagoDeepdish said:

Glad you posted a full tank shot in the contest thread.  I got to catch up on your tank.  It is looking good.  

 

How do you like your dottyback?  I've never had one and you said it is a strong swimmer which makes it a potential candidate for my next tank build.  

He’s a pretty cool fish, he likes to hide in the rocks, so little holes and swim through are needed, I had a neon dottyback years ago and he tunneled under the rocks in the sand and made caves . I’m not sure how it would do with other fish though, they have a reputation as being sort of aggressive, mines alone in the little pico. I’m afraid to add any shrimp too. 

[ef4life]

Some pictures from today of the pico after cleaning today. Ugly phase is in full swing. I pulled a few corals that weren’t looking so good and put them back in the 40 for now.  I did put some zoas, clove polyps and some green candy canes in a few days ago.

 

[ECLS Reefer]

8 hours ago, ef4life said:

Some pictures from today of the pico after cleaning today. Ugly phase is in full swing. I pulled a few corals that weren’t looking so good and put them back in the 40 for now.  I did put some zoas, clove polyps and some green candy canes in a few days ago.

 

That doesn’t look ugly at all!

[ef4life]

5 hours ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

That doesn’t look ugly at all!

That was after cleaning and 4g water change, but it doesn’t look good to me, lots of algae growing and corals not doing so well/ loosing color. It’s really too young for sps corals.

 

I’ve been thinking about putting my kessil h80 back on the pico, all my frags seem pretty happy under it and coralline growth has been just insane under it. My clear frag rack was completely covered and building up thick coralline under the h80 kessil in under 3 months.

[debbeach13]

I forget what light is on there now? How long has it been on the tank? The contest is what about 3.5 months total from Feb 1.

[ECLS Reefer]

1 hour ago, ef4life said:

That was after cleaning and 4g water change, but it doesn’t look good to me, lots of algae growing and corals not doing so well/ loosing color. It’s really too young for sps corals.

 

I’ve been thinking about putting my kessil h80 back on the pico, all my frags seem pretty happy under it and coralline growth has been just insane under it. My clear frag rack was completely covered and building up thick coralline under the h80 kessil in under 3 months.

I wish I could get crazy coralline growth on any of my tanks. So jealous. I just realized I’ve got insane GHA growing inside the overflow box of my 50g. Super annoys me because I’m not sure how to clean it, plus it’s groooossss

[ef4life]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

I forget what light is on there now? How long has it been on the tank? The contest is what about 3.5 months total from Feb 1.

Prime hd is on it now, I’ve had it on there since before I had a fish in it. 

 

the h80 is the pink refugium grow light, but I just have it turned to all the way blue over my frag sump. 

2 hours ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I wish I could get crazy coralline growth on any of my tanks. So jealous. I just realized I’ve got insane GHA growing inside the overflow box of my 50g. Super annoys me because I’m not sure how to clean it, plus it’s groooossss

I’d leave it, it’s like a mini refugium 

[debbeach13]

So your not really going to change it are you?

[ef4life]

5 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

So your not really going to change it are you?

Not sure yet, if I can speed up coralline growth it might be worth it, since algae tends to not grow as much on it as it does bare rocks. And the prime does have a pretty bad disco ball effect vs the kessil, but the kessil has no controller so it’s just on or off vs the primes ability to ramp up and down which I like. The pico is way too small to just run both 😅

[debbeach13]

None of your rock or frags have any coralline. That's how it usually gets introduced. We need to find a way to get you a piece of rubble with some on it. Any reef clubs near you? I wonder if I chipped one of my rocks and tried to mail it to if that would work.

[ef4life]

11 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

None of your rock or frags have any coralline. That's how it usually gets introduced. We need to find a way to get you a piece of rubble with some on it. Any reef clubs near you? I wonder if I chipped one of my rocks and tried to mail it to if that would work.

There is coralline already, just not a ton.  The rock with the green star polyps has quite a bit since it’s an established rock. yesterday I actually took my frag rack and scraped a bunch off into the pico so that should help too.

[debbeach13]

That should definitely help. 

[ef4life]

Here’s an April full tank shot, not much has changed in the looks department. Tanks kind of in an ugly phase right now. I pulled out the acro that didn’t make it. I added some more frags of zoas, so I think this tank is going to end up mostly zoas as time goes on. I’ll try to add back in some sps as the tank matures more. I really want the encrusting corals to cover all the travertine in this tank. I did pull the hydor flo out to see how the tank will react to the change in flow, I never liked how much room it took in the display. I might try one of the vca rfg’s in its place, or leave it as is.

 

[ef4life]

Things haven’t been that great this month, the dottyback has passed on. Not sure exactly what happened, but I know it was partially my fault. When cleaning I pull the rockscape out and scrub and do the water change. I used some peroxide to kill some algae. I put the rock in my big tank to dilute and wash away any peroxide. Maybe it caused a mini cycle of the rock and ammonia killed him? Maybe stress idk. 

 

As for the corals, all Stoney corals have been pulled out now as if yesterday. They have just slowly declined. The zoas and clove polyps have been doing great though. And now that there is no fish, I stopped feeding and algae isn’t much of a problem now.

 

Not sure what I’m going to do with this tank as far as stocking right now. I have a couple new frags of zoas, but I might go with a whole new rockscape.  

[debbeach13]

Hope things turn around for your tank. Some new could be fun.

[ef4life]

So brs had some all for reef in stock today, so I bought a couple bottles of that today, and I bought 2 kamoer x1 dosers. I’m putting one on the pico and the other on my Biocube. I plan on trying out the sps again in this tank. All the frags I have back in my 40g are recovering nicely. 

 

The mj900 pump is just too much for the little 5 gallon tank no matter what I tried, so I swapped the little Eheim 300 I originally bought for it, I have a eheim 600 on the way to try that out, hopefully that will be perfect. 

 

I increased the lighting intensity on the ai prime today too so hopefully it’s not too much. I’m on a list to use the Az frag clubs par meter, so hopefully I’ll get it in a few weeks. I have 4 tanks to measure par on not looking forward to doing it, but I am looking forward for the results and changes I can make in my tanks.

 

I actually kind of like this tank with no fish. I’ll take a fts for may today after I clean it up.

[ef4life]

no algae problem now since there has been no daily feedings. I’ve been adding a little coral amino or a splash of food every few days just to keep some nutrients in the tank. Zoas haven’t really been happy, but the clove polyps are loving life and growing 🤷‍♂️. I forgot I still had the blue digi in the tank, it’s grown a tad, but it’s brown, it’s never had good color since I got it.

 

anyways the may fts 

 

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

20 minutes ago, ef4life said:

no algae problem now since there has been no daily feedings. I’ve been adding a little coral amino or a splash of food every few days just to keep some nutrients in the tank. Zoas haven’t really been happy, but the clove polyps are loving life and growing 🤷‍♂️. I forgot I still had the blue digi in the tank, it’s grown a tad, but it’s brown, it’s never had good color since I got it.

 

anyways the may fts 

 

 

 

Oh wow I love those cloves they’re pretty!

[ECLS Reefer]

35 minutes ago, ef4life said:

no algae problem now since there has been no daily feedings. I’ve been adding a little coral amino or a splash of food every few days just to keep some nutrients in the tank. Zoas haven’t really been happy, but the clove polyps are loving life and growing 🤷‍♂️. I forgot I still had the blue digi in the tank, it’s grown a tad, but it’s brown, it’s never had good color since I got it.

 

anyways the may fts 

 

 

 

Honestly your tank is so unique in the build and pretty with the mood lighting- maybe it doesn’t need a fish right now. Just pack it full of lps and run with it, or zoas and shrooms like mine. They’ve taken off like wild fire in mine and they love the water being somewhat skanky by the end of the week.