Billy's 40g Florida Keys Biotope

[debbeach13]

Congratulations on the 1 year mark. It is a mile stone and the tank looks great.

[billygoat]

Oh hey! You guys remember this tank? Yeah, me neither... 

 

Just kidding of course! My reef is still doing well. 😅

 

[CD_Scapes]

19 hours ago, billygoat said:

Oh hey! You guys remember this tank? Yeah, me neither... 

 

Just kidding of course! My reef is still doing well. 😅

 

I’m going to start to feel that way soon too. Getting an IM 14 soon along with my 30a 

[billygoat]

I really need to be better about updating this thread! A few big changes came through this week that will no doubt have an impact on the tank moving forward: Chad the Crab is out, and the second chromis is out as well. The poor chromis (middle of the three I originally had) was getting pummeled just like the wimpy chromis that came before him. I re-homed him and now he is doing much better. Chad was a similar situation: the damage he was doing by stomping on my corals was beginning to accumulate, so I transferred him to my friend's 120g tank. Now he has lots of space to roam.

 

It's only been a few days since I moved those animals out, but my corals already look a lot happier.

 

 

These Ricordea are like "At last, we can breathe!" 😂

 

Remember that tube coral that looked like it was going to die? Turns out it just needed to be fed... a lot. I feed it just about daily now and it looks way better.

 

 

I need to clean those powerheads, but after cleaning the return pump today (a massive chore on the IM40 - in fact I kind of hate this tank because of how hard it is to get the pump out!) I think that'll have to wait until next week. 

 

 

[Sharbuckle]

1 hour ago, billygoat said:

I really need to be better about updating this thread! A few big changes came through this week that will no doubt have an impact on the tank moving forward: Chad the Crab is out, and the second chromis is out as well. The poor chromis (middle of the three I originally had) was getting pummeled just like the wimpy chromis that came before him. I re-homed him and now he is doing much better. Chad was a similar situation: the damage he was doing by stomping on my corals was beginning to accumulate, so I transferred him to my friend's 120g tank. Now he has lots of space to roam.

 

It's only been a few days since I moved those animals out, but my corals already look a lot happier.

 

 

These Ricordea are like "At last, we can breathe!" 😂

 

Remember that tube coral that looked like it was going to die? Turns out it just needed to be fed... a lot. I feed it just about daily now and it looks way better.

 

 

I need to clean those powerheads, but after cleaning the return pump today (a massive chore on the IM40 - in fact I kind of hate this tank because of how hard it is to get the pump out!) I think that'll have to wait until next week. 

 

 

I love this tank so much, look how freaking perfect it is!!! 

[Sharbuckle]

Future TOTM right here 

[billygoat]

2 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

I love this tank so much, look how freaking perfect it is!!! 

 

2 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

Future TOTM right here 

Thanks @Sharbuckle! Means a lot to me, especially coming from you! 😁 It would be pretty funny if this tank got featured, considering most of its inhabitants are exactly the same as those in my previous TOTM tank... everything is just a whole lot bigger now, lol.

[Sharbuckle]

21 minutes ago, billygoat said:

 

Thanks @Sharbuckle! Means a lot to me, especially coming from you! 😁 It would be pretty funny if this tank got featured, considering most of its inhabitants are exactly the same as those in my previous TOTM tank... everything is just a whole lot bigger now, lol.

The growing TOTM! I love it. 

[billygoat]

Trying to give this tank its due with another well-deserved update!

 

A few months ago I added a frag of Pocillopora and a frag of branching Porites as test subjects in my seagrass tank. These are hardy SPS for sure, but the seagrass tank is basically a mud puddle: predictably, they didn't really do too well. The Porites actually looked fine in the other system, but a few days ago the Pocillopora started losing flesh from its base. I decided to go ahead and pull both of them, and added both frags to the Caribbean tank here. They're not Caribbean corals, but hey - this tank is getting older now so I'm allowed to fudge things a bit. 😅

 

 Here's the Pocillopora. It was pink when I got it but turned brown in my other tank. You can see where it started bleaching out down at the base.

 

 

Astute observers of this thread may remember that when I got my rocks in for the seagrass tank (more than three months ago now - wow! Time flies!) I had to evacuate a disintegrating gorgonian frag and transplant it into this tank. I'm pleased to report that this coral has totally recovered, and is now doing quite well. Hopefully it will grow big and strong like its neighbors.

 

 

Ah, and I can't forget the mangroves! Remember the experiment I was conducting - growing mangroves in the sump chambers of this tank, some planted and some not? Well, we're almost four months in now and the planted ones continue to do extremely well. In fact they're doing so well that they've outgrown the light radius of the Kessil LED on this tank. I bought a new LED grow light that I am going to hang over the rear of this tank specifically to help the mangroves out, so that should be arriving next week. Stay tuned!

 

As for the non-planted mangroves? Well, you can compare the two test subjects in this photo below... the hanging mangroves have some crazy long roots, but their growth is definitely stunted.

 

 

Here are some more general photos of the tank. My rocks are extremely pink.

 

 

 

Speaking of extremely pink... do you folks think it's time to clean this powerhead? 😅

 

 

Now that I look closely at the photo above, I can see a baby rock flower anemone growing between the intake vents at the top of that pump. Maybe I can let it go for another month or two. 😂

 

Okay that's all for now! Thanks as always for visiting.

[Ratvan]

Still love this tank, always so much to look at, not least all those gorgeous gorgonians. 

Really interesting to see the progress of the Mangroves too, a stark contrast between them indeed

[DevilDuck]

Love the pink coralline! Maybe I can buy some scrapings off of you 🙂 

[billygoat]

On 10/14/2021 at 1:07 PM, DevilDuck said:

Love the pink coralline! Maybe I can buy some scrapings off of you 🙂 

I would just mail you a bag of pink water... you should see the crazy blizzard of coralline flakes that happens whenever I scrape it off the walls! 🤣

 

On 10/14/2021 at 12:39 PM, Ratvan said:

Still love this tank, always so much to look at, not least all those gorgeous gorgonians. 

Really interesting to see the progress of the Mangroves too, a stark contrast between them indeed

Thank you! The mangroves are definitely interesting to observe over time. In fact I installed a new light for them yesterday that will probably affect some serious changes in this system in the coming weeks and months!

 

 

That's a Soltech Solutions "Aspect" 20w pendant grow light. It's quite bright, and adds an interesting warmth to the tank's lightning. Everything feels more... sunlit? The actinic "reef tank glow" that I am used to is definitely a bit more attenuated now, but I am not sure I dislike the new look. My Ricordea seem to love it so far. They are gigantically expanded.

 

 

Now I can see this causing some issues in the long run, of course. For example there is now light spilling into my sump chambers where there was none before, so algal growth is likely to be a concern back there. If it ends up being a problem I can add some additional snails to the sump, but snails won't do much about coralline encrustation. I'm also unsure about whether the additional light will impact my corals negatively over time. It's not the greatest spectrum for coral growth (6500k) so it may cause those corals closest to the light to brown out and lose their color. That being said, most of the corals right under the light are brown gorgonians anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter? Right now the reef tank light is running on a 12 hour photoperiod including ~3 hours of ramp up time on each end of the max intensity period at midday. I am thinking of running the grow light to coincide with the middle 9 hours of that period, so the Kessil light would be on by itself for the first and last hour and a half of each day's cycle. 9 hours should be more than enough to encourage the growth of those mangroves. Maybe 8 would even be sufficient.

 

Anyway this is all highly experimental, but here we go! 😅 Let me know what you think. 

[A.m.P]

Love the warmer color cast, you could always just cover your rear chamber to keep light from spilling-in. Any cheap piece of plastic with equally-cheap water-stick aquarium background glued to it will work just fine.

[billygoat]

Some more photos of the new lighting situation!

 

 

 

The mangroves seem to like it. Their meristems are tilting up towards the light now, instead of out towards the tank. Well, except for that one on the right. 😅 I wonder how tall they will grow before they become root-bound?

 

This Pocillopora frag is bouncing back nicely. It never showed polyps during the daytime when it was in my other tank, but now they are extended all the time.

[Poodges]

Your tank looks fantastic.  Very cool to see such a natural looking setup and the results of your experiments.  
 

I assume your planter mangroves are in the chamber adjacent to the return chamber?

 

Thanks to you I have multiple gorgonians in my tank.  I went 10 years of reefing without one, and can now never imagine a tank without them.  Happy 2022 and Happy Reefing!

[Tired]

I just had a couple of hidden cup corals pop up on some live rock. Do I remember right that you have one of those? 

 

Are these things safe for tiny cleanup crew, fish, and shrimp? I swear I saw somewhere that they're potentially a bit predatory, as corals go.