New Tank Build!

[coryscritch]

[coryscritch]

On 5/27/2020 at 6:21 PM, Leoito said:

+1 on the aquascape, love all the different levels and caves. Also, damn, that's a nice power strip. 

Haha. Thanks, I wanted to keep everything on one strip. I also didnt want anything plugged in under the sump. 

[coryscritch]

I haven’t updated this is a while. Went through a few things. Bouncing back nicely over the last few months. Added some photos below. One day I’ll get a filter for my phone. Overall I’m pretty happy with the growth of all the sps I have. The setosa started to die a while back, but is now recovering nicely. I added an Orphek led bar to my fixture. I really like the color it’s brings out. What’s not pictured- blood shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 3 black ice clownfish, 3 bubble tip anemones( all decided to post up behind the rock), gold goby, a few zoa frags and a sinularia. 

[coryscritch]

So I decided to fill up my tank with Acro. I’ve had success with the staghorn. So I went all in. There’s a local guy in Queens,NY who has an excellent selection of frags! He invited me over to his house and he had an amazing 300gal display. I will post a photo of it, as well as what I got. 

[coryscritch]

Haven’t updated this thread in a while. Some of the acros passed away. Some are doing very well. I guess that’s part of the deal. I’m learning as I go! Here’s the pictures of some growth 

Unfortunately I can only upload 25mb of photos and I guess that’s all you get. Haha 

[coryscritch]

Figured it out. Here’s the rest of them. 

[coryscritch]

It’s been a while. A couple of crashes, we moved 8hrs north, but we’re still cruising. 

[coryscritch]

In addition to the clowns. I’ve added a pair of cardinals. So we’ve got a 6line/pair of clowns/pair of cardinals. May put a small goby in. Not sure yet. 

[coryscritch]

Anybody else’s sump look like this? I mean they’re growing on the chaeto now. I’m talking about the feather duster. They’re mainly in my sump. 

[mcarroll]

Beauty!!!

[coryscritch]

On 7/1/2023 at 4:54 AM, mcarroll said:

Beauty!!!

Thank you 

[coryscritch]

Everything’s looking good and continues to grow! Lps not so much but that’s kind of always been the deal in here. 

[coryscritch]

Even with 5 fish in here. the clowns still manage to have their babies. 

[Jaren45]

Looking awesome, is that big colony on the left a spongodes?

[coryscritch]

40 minutes ago, Jaren45 said:

Looking awesome, is that big colony on the left a spongodes?

Thank you. It is! 

[coryscritch]

So we ran into a heater malfunction that I believe resulted in some sort of weird algae outbreak. Had no idea my tank was 83-84. The birds nest took a hit, everything kind of took a hit, but I think we’re coming back again. 

[coryscritch]

So the weird algae is Dino’s . I’ve been battling for over a month now. I increased my feedings, took out my filter socks. Really just trying to dirty up the tank. It really only seems to spread across my glass, back wall, and power heads. A little bit on the sand, I don’t touch what’s on the sand, I’ve been siphoning the Dino’s out daily (collecting everything in a small net recycling the water) from the glass and power heads, I seem to be winning the battle. The tank is looking much better 

[Reefkid88]

Have you used a microscope to ID it was infact Dino's and which strain ? I recently had an outbreak I thought was dino's and it was infact NOT but looks identical. 

[mcarroll]

A cheap toy microscope is all it takes too....I started with one similar to this which cost me around $12:

 

You only have to spend $50-60 to get a very decent basic scope which is A LOT nicer to use than a plastic toy scope, if you think you'll want to use it more than once.  👍

[coryscritch]

I’ll pull some gunk out and put it under the scope. My kids have a pretty decent microscope. 

[coryscritch]

So I was able to get some stuff under the scope. It does appear to be Dino’s. I snagged a little video. Not sure what kind 

[mcarroll]

On 10/8/2023 at 4:41 PM, coryscritch said:

So we ran into a heater malfunction that I believe resulted in some sort of weird algae outbreak. Had no idea my tank was 83-84. The birds nest took a hit, everything kind of took a hit, but I think we’re coming back again. 

83-84ºF is really just tropical, not "high."    What is the tank's "normal" temperature supposed to be?  Dino's in the wild are often triggered to bloom in sync with seasonal changes....I suspect this is what happened here, but we need more info.

 

To me there's something additional going on for your birds nest (etc) to react like that.

 

Can you post water test results for whatever you currently can test?   In addition to the tank's normal operating temperature (already mentioned), we'd be particularly interested in no3, po4, alk and specific gravity....but also everything else too.  🙂 

 

Can you also let us know how you're cleaning and filtering the tank?

 

On 11/6/2023 at 2:38 PM, coryscritch said:

It does appear to be Dino’s.

Yes, but seems to be co-blooming with A LOT of green algae.

 

This doesn't seem like a "traditional" dino bloom – which should be a good thing overall.

 

Get back to us with the testing data you have as well as info the the other questions.  👍

[coryscritch]

Thanks for getting back to me. I’ll test those two tonight/tomorrow morning. As far as temp goes, im at 76.2, salinity is at 33.5. I like to keep the temp at 76. Running a protein skimmer/UV/refugium/filter floss. What’s weird is I don’t really have any algae on the rocks. There’s a small spot of hair algae, but it doesn’t spread or grow. Everything is on the power heads and glass. 

[mcarroll]

76º is pretty low for a tropical reef.   I wonder if you are/were seeing a partial coral bleaching from the spike in temperature?  Why not keep the temp around 80ºF like usual?   Unless you're doing something sub-tropical like a Caribbean theme, something like 78º-82º is the typical range you see for tropical tanks IME.  I will say your corals look like they were pretty happy up to this point though!  🤷‍♂️

 

During bleaching, dino's are released from your corals, hypothetically just until conditions for them improve.   IME this phenomena can look like a dino bloom (and I guess it might technically be one).  

 

The corals don't have to look much different from normal while this kind of bleaching is happening if it's not a severe bleaching – "tweaked" like you mentioned.  (Severe bleaching is when you get that translucent-tissue/greenish color you've probably seen somewhere before.)

 

Can't say for sure precisely which type of dino is in your scope photos though.  

 

Standing by for testing data.  🙂😉 

 

[coryscritch]

No theme here, just want a nice tank. Haha. I have no problem cranking the temp up. I will raise it to 78-79. So I just tested using Hannah test kits. My phosphate is .061 and my nitrates are 1.41.  Those numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. I’ve struggled with nutrients in this tank. Thank you for your help