Schreiba's ADA 60P

[teamschreiba]

Update on the two leathers. The tyree toadstool is doing great! Also recently picked up a long polyp toadstool. It’s small now but the polyps are already extending even further than when I took the picture. 
 

 

[teamschreiba]

New FTS! I pushed the two islands together for a little different look. Upper left floating island is lower than normal because the anacropora lost its color so I was trying to lower it for awhile to color back up again. Let me know what you think!
 

[JR!]

nice to see an old face. love the tank brother

 

[blizzardscout2]

I love your reef so far. I really like the concept and the clean look. Sorry about your losses, it always is hard. I look forward to seeing your progress in time. Keep up the great work!

[teamschreiba]

Thanks @JR! and @blizzardscout2 ! 
 

My nutrient levels have still been really low and have been seeing some corals lighten so I picked up the KZ nano kit and have started some PO4/NO3 dosing again. We’ll see how it goes!

[teamschreiba]

I’m thinking about adding sand to the tank since I’m getting tired of cleaning the bottom of tank so often. It really doesn’t look good given the minimalist approach. Any thoughts or opinions? 

[East1]

1 hour ago, teamschreiba said:

I’m thinking about adding sand to the tank since I’m getting tired of cleaning the bottom of tank so often. It really doesn’t look good given the minimalist approach. Any thoughts or opinions? 

I did the same, for the same reason when I had a bare bottom tank, one thing to be mindful of is that some sand will adhere phosphates, meaning eventually algae will grow on it and cause a small algae cycle

[JR!]

as long as you clean the sand from time to time youre fine.

[teamschreiba]

Thanks for the suggestions! Tropic Eden live mesoflakes are on the way! 

[Zer0]

I vote for sandbed pretty much always. I've never been a fan of barebottom tanks, it always ruins the immersion for me lol. Not saying barebottom tanks can't be nice, just saying I prefer a substrate. Unless it's gigantic crushed coral substrate, I dislike that stuff more than I do barebottom lol

[Bella's Reef]

1 hour ago, teamschreiba said:

Thanks for the suggestions! Tropic Eden live mesoflakes are on the way! 

That is what I am running in my setup and it looks great. 

[teamschreiba]

2 hours ago, Zer0 said:

I vote for sandbed pretty much always. I've never been a fan of barebottom tanks, it always ruins the immersion for me lol. Not saying barebottom tanks can't be nice, just saying I prefer a substrate. Unless it's gigantic crushed coral substrate, I dislike that stuff more than I do barebottom lol

Yeah I thought the not having to clean the sand would be easier but turns out it’s exactly the opposite. Unless you have tons of rock basically covering the bottom glass it ends up looking really ugly and you have to clean it more than sand. 

1 hour ago, Bella's Reef said:

That is what I am running in my setup and it looks great. 

That does look great! I’ll probably go for a little bit shallower of a sand bed but the overall setup is very minimal just like mine 😃

[mdannyg]

I'm kind of going through the same decision if I want to go back to sand because i do love how sandbed tanks look, but i so don't miss dealing with all the sand. it also made it so much easier the last time i moved my tank since it was bare bottom.   I feel that if you  do have a barebottom tank and have a few random pieces of gravel or shells here and there, it helps it not seem as dirty and looks more natural vs if you're trying to keep it completely spotless.  You're tank is looking great by the way. 

[Bella's Reef]

4 hours ago, teamschreiba said:

Yeah I thought the not having to clean the sand would be easier but turns out it’s exactly the opposite. Unless you have tons of rock basically covering the bottom glass it ends up looking really ugly and you have to clean it more than sand. 

That does look great! I’ll probably go for a little bit shallower of a sand bed but the overall setup is very minimal just like mine 😃

Ya that was 20lbs in the UNS 60u, dumped it all in and I may consider taking some out honestly. 

[teamschreiba]

5 hours ago, mdannyg said:

I'm kind of going through the same decision if I want to go back to sand because i do love how sandbed tanks look, but i so don't miss dealing with all the sand. it also made it so much easier the last time i moved my tank since it was bare bottom.   I feel that if you  do have a barebottom tank and have a few random pieces of gravel or shells here and there, it helps it not seem as dirty and looks more natural vs if you're trying to keep it completely spotless.  You're tank is looking great by the way. 

Thanks!! But yeah the pictures I post definitely don’t reflect how it looks most of the time with regards to the bottom glass. I tried getting a long handle scraper to keep my hands of the tank but still clean it and to be honest it just doesn’t work that well. Plus my clownfish are terrors and try to bite my hand when I stick my hand in with the shorter scraper. I never really had these problems in the past with sand and a little cyano or diatoms on the sand is much easier to clean. I think the really mature bare bottoms ends up with coralline algae covering the bottom but I’m just not getting there except maybe with green/brown hard algae 😅 

2 hours ago, Bella's Reef said:

Ya that was 20lbs in the UNS 60u, dumped it all in and I may consider taking some out honestly. 

Got it! So sounds like I probably won’t be using the whole bag I get either then. Can’t wait to see yours filled up with coral!

[Zer0]

Got a question about the coralline dosing you’re using... Did you just use the one bottle, or are you using more than one?

[teamschreiba]

On 3/26/2021 at 7:55 PM, Zer0 said:

Got a question about the coralline dosing you’re using... Did you just use the one bottle, or are you using more than one?

I did just one bottle. It did show great speks early on but not sure if it made a huge difference in the end since if you’re using dry rock the algae usually takes hold pretty quick. 
 

Also, sand is in! Just waiting for the cloudiness to go away now. 

[Justind823]

Sand! Yes

 

Looking forward to checking it out! 

 

What kind did you end up going with?

[teamschreiba]

16 hours ago, Justind823 said:

Sand! Yes

 

Looking forward to checking it out! 

 

What kind did you end up going with?

Went with the Tropic Eden live mesoflakes. I’ll try and get a new picture up soon!

[isaiahwittingslow]

How's the tank looking with sand? 

[teamschreiba]

14 hours ago, isaiahwittingslow said:

How's the tank looking with sand? 

It looked great at first! Then I added some neonitro and neophos because the parameters were 0.00 and the zoas were not looking so good. Unfortunately that must have thrown things out of balance and caused another dino bloom. This one appeared to be light driven as they got bad in the late afternoon and then went away overnight. 
 

So on Thursday I started a black out and also added a green killing machine UV filter. I unwrapped the tank yesterday and started the lights back with a five day acclimation cycle. So far so good but we’ll see how it goes! 
 

The water has absolutely never looked clearer which hopefully is attributed to the UV filter. I got the 9W one so it is a bit large in the tank but it was the only one available locally and I wanted it quick. I think I could add the 3W one and it would take up much less space in the tank.  I’ll try and get a picture up soon to see what you guys think. 
 

I know that was probably wayyyy more of an answer than you were expecting but wanted to provide a good update! 
 

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much growth due to all these changes but I’ve avoided losses too other than the zoas looking terrible and shrinking in polyp size. 

[isaiahwittingslow]

22 hours ago, teamschreiba said:

It looked great at first! Then I added some neonitro and neophos because the parameters were 0.00 and the zoas were not looking so good. Unfortunately that must have thrown things out of balance and caused another dino bloom. This one appeared to be light driven as they got bad in the late afternoon and then went away overnight. 
 

So on Thursday I started a black out and also added a green killing machine UV filter. I unwrapped the tank yesterday and started the lights back with a five day acclimation cycle. So far so good but we’ll see how it goes! 
 

The water has absolutely never looked clearer which hopefully is attributed to the UV filter. I got the 9W one so it is a bit large in the tank but it was the only one available locally and I wanted it quick. I think I could add the 3W one and it would take up much less space in the tank.  I’ll try and get a picture up soon to see what you guys think. 
 

I know that was probably wayyyy more of an answer than you were expecting but wanted to provide a good update! 
 

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much growth due to all these changes but I’ve avoided losses too other than the zoas looking terrible and shrinking in polyp size. 

Damn that's not good! Hopefully it all smooths out soon. Keen to see what it looks like, I'm in the process of setting up a 60p. 

[teamschreiba]

On 5/11/2021 at 6:49 PM, isaiahwittingslow said:

Damn that's not good! Hopefully it all smooths out soon. Keen to see what it looks like, I'm in the process of setting up a 60p. 

We’re a couple days in now and still no signs of dinos! The UV sterilizer I think was the last piece of equipment I was missing without a sump/skimmer too. Water clarity is fantastic and I haven’t had to clean the glass nearly as much. 

[teamschreiba]

Man I haven’t posted in forever…

 

Tank has finally stabilized and pretty much all of the corals are taking off. The UV sterilizer was definitely the last piece I was missing.  Unfortunately right after I figured that out, I missed that I needed to change my RO/DI filter and was getting quite the GHA outbreak. That’s fixed now though so I’ll try and get a picture up soon! 

[teamschreiba]

New FTS's!  Crazy I haven't posted one with sand yet.  Also, I know the UV sterilizer really takes away from the minimalist look (especially with the cord in the tank...) but the water clarity and sand cleanliness benefits have just been so great that I'm not willing to take it out.  Let me know what you guys think!