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Greg's Reefing Saga ( first frags in )


ReefGoat

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3 hours ago, Jaren45 said:

Looking great! I love how many other 22g's are active on the forum right now

I agree! I love the footprint of this tank. 

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  • 8 months later...
ml86743

How's the tank getting along?  I've recently taken the jump with the UNS 90L, basically the same tank.  I was wanting to plumb it peninsula style even though the tank will be displayed like yours, but I like how you have your overflow in the corner.   What are you using for a return?

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  • 3 months later...
ReefGoat
On 4/5/2024 at 1:14 PM, ml86743 said:

How's the tank getting along?  I've recently taken the jump with the UNS 90L, basically the same tank.  I was wanting to plumb it peninsula style even though the tank will be displayed like yours, but I like how you have your overflow in the corner.   What are you using for a return?

I don’t remember exactly I’d say sometime around September of ‘23 I had back to back doser incidents. Auto siphon events. I thought I had fixed it the first time by changing up the way everything was mounted and orientated.

 

the first time sucked but I got through it. Lost two corals. The second time happened about a month later once I got my confidence back and thinking I had fixed the problem, turned doser back on. Lo and behold I come home one day and the tank looks abysmal. I check the 2 part and it had dumped entire bottle of calcium and entire bottle of alkalinity. Still have no clue why. This time everything died besides the fish
 

 

got depressed about it and just topped the tank off and fed the fish. From that point until around June 1st. So almost a year. You couldn’t even see through the glass it was so bad. Large white hard specs everywhere 

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ReefGoat

Cont.

 

Beginning of June this year my wife told me the tank had to go. Salt creep everywhere. Filthy glass. It was an embarrassing sad sight. So I broke it down. While I was breaking it down. Once I was shaking the “mulm” or whatever it was off the rocks in a bucket of saltwater and stirring the detritus from the sand. I noticed how nice everything was under that layer. Life everywhere. Amphipods, copepods, minimal algae. Coraline on the rocks. I was shocked. Sand was white. Only the glass and equipment was filthy. So I picked the best rocks several cups of sand. As many critters as I could muster up and I put them in the Deskmate that was in the closet from the beginning of this journal lmfao. 
 

 

I would have tried to clean it up. But I can’t even describe how filthy and salty everything was. It was amazing she didn’t blow up on me sooner about it. I think she felt bad for me lol

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ReefGoat

This is my final attempt at reefing. Absolute final attempt. Not including weather disasters or something out of my control. If I can grow this tank out and impress my wife. I’m going to go ahead and build my dream tank (small dreams here guys). The 90 cube, depending on the spot we settle on. She wants the bigger tank (because fish choices), but less ideal spot. The spot the I prefer because of the way I’m going to connect it to my water storage and shit. Lends itself more to a 60 cube. 
 

 

only time will tell. 

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TheCoffeeReef

Good luck with the reboot! Hearing about your automation issues has made me glad of my decision to run full manual, but not exactly a chore on a little 22ltr Pico 😅.

 

Any thoughts on stocking? FOWLR tank?

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ReefGoat
18 hours ago, TheCoffeeReef said:

Good luck with the reboot! Hearing about your automation issues has made me glad of my decision to run full manual, but not exactly a chore on a little 22ltr Pico 😅.

 

Any thoughts on stocking? FOWLR tank?

It was a Jaebo doser that I paid like 40 bucks for. I’m 95 percent sure it wasn’t something I did. I’ve seen people have the setup almost exact like I had it, placement wise. I’m pretty sure it was some kind of defect. I should’ve bought a higher quality one. I’m not afraid of automation. I just will never cheap out on automation again. 
 

I actually just got started on the automation of my deskmate. I’m slowly building my hydros collective. It’s pretty neat. I’m one cable coming in from having auto water change setup. As time goes by I’m going to grow the control system to monitor and do all kinds of cool things with hydros. Then eventually when I get the bigger tank. It’ll all transfer over 

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ReefGoat

Hydros sensor I use as over fill. This tanks pump chamber will fluctuate wildly if that floss gets too dirty and clogged up. Early on I had a salinity swing because of this. I use this sensor to tell me if that intake chambers water level gets too high. I also suspect a snail had gotten back there and got on the ATO sensor as this was before I had the lid. The snail was on top of the sensor when I woke up and realized I had overflowed. The floss was also very dirty upon inspection. So it was a combination of the two I think. Perfect storm
 

It sends me a red alert on my phone and I can shut everything down. Preventing overflows or the ATO running away from me(which shouldn’t happen again with the snail issue resolved) but I’m supposed to be talking with them this week to see if there’s a way I can program it to AUTOMATICALLY shut everything down besides the powerhead in the event that sensor reads wet. And give me some time to either call someone if I’m out of town. Or rush home if I’m in town.  just been lazy and haven’t called them.

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ReefGoat

I’m horrible at coral photos but this is my start. My favorite viewing angle. It’s getting late so some things are clamming up on me. I guess they know the lights are about to go off. 

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Airedale.Reef

 

On 7/13/2024 at 9:45 AM, ReefGoat said:

This is my final attempt at reefing. Absolute final attempt.

Oh yeah! Corals look nice, and I am extremely interested in following your hydros journey! Looking to add some automation in the future, and look forward to seeing your thoughts. 

 

I hope this attempt works out - We are cheering for you! Solid progress so far. 

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TheCoffeeReef

Really cool, and although I've not used this kind of automation, I've had poor experience with Jaebo wave maker, packed up after a couple of months- bought a TMC nano and it's been solid going since and a fraction of the size- agree completely on avoiding cheaping out with the equipment.

 

I've seen other posts saying about alerts sent, can imagine if you can remote kill the power it being a godsend for a traveling worker.

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ReefGoat
8 hours ago, Airedale.Reef said:

 

Oh yeah! Corals look nice, and I am extremely interested in following your hydros journey! Looking to add some automation in the future, and look forward to seeing your thoughts. 

 

I hope this attempt works out - We are cheering for you! Solid progress so far. 

I can tell you this. I’m still under a week using the hydros. But it is absolutely amazing what they have created. The range of products they offer, the price point, the APP, the user friendliness of it. It’s pretty awesome. I had Neptune systems apex on my old Cadlights 45g. Maybe I’m just tech illiterate. But that thing was so cumbersome to set up and I would’ve had to scour the forums and literally study like a college course to learn how to utilize most of the features. This thing is literally plug and play. There’s a slight learning curve. But their documentation and how to’s get you through it fine. Neptune Systems had none of that from what I remember. Not only that but as a Louisianan. It’s nice to support a Louisiana company 

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Airedale.Reef
7 hours ago, ReefGoat said:

I can tell you this. I’m still under a week using the hydros. But it is absolutely amazing what they have created. The range of products they offer, the price point, the APP, the user friendliness of it. It’s pretty awesome. I had Neptune systems apex on my old Cadlights 45g. Maybe I’m just tech illiterate. But that thing was so cumbersome to set up and I would’ve had to scour the forums and literally study like a college course to learn how to utilize most of the features. This thing is literally plug and play. There’s a slight learning curve. But their documentation and how to’s get you through it fine. Neptune Systems had none of that from what I remember. Not only that but as a Louisianan. It’s nice to support a Louisiana company 

It is always nice to support local! Glad to hear you are din find quick success with the hydros, even only being a week in. Plug and play is appealing to me, and this is definitely a tool I will consider in the future. Thanks for sharing. 

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ReefGoat

I can officially vouch for joes juice. I had three visible aptasia that have been hanging around on this live rock since I bought it way back at the beginning of this journal. I’ve had the joes juice for a long time but always put it off. Well because frankly I was nervous to use it and it sounded to good to be true. 
 

it literally melted them. I can see where in a big tank with an aptasia in a hard to reach spot this wouldn’t be ideal. Or a tank with a BUNCH of them. It wouldn’t be ideal. But for a small nano tank with an easy to manage Aqua scape. This stuff is impressive and I recommend it 100%

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  • ReefGoat changed the title to Greg's 22 gallon is Dead (now a deskmate)
ReefGoat

We have babies. I’m not going to get too high on myself. It’s my luck that is most probably the easiest zoa on earth to reproduce. I’m happy though.

 

most of these Zoas that I purchased a little while back from Top Shelf were only just a couple polyps each. Some only one polyp

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ReefGoat

When purchase I think there was like 2 maybe 3 on this one 

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This one’s being an ass hole. 

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ReefGoat

Another ass hole. But it has dropped one baby

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I really like these. I think they’ve increased by just a couple. Not too many though 

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ReefGoat

Happy Duncan just finished eating not too long ago. Flow should be turning back on from feeding soon 

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This one’s purty 

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ReefGoat

I’ve finally got my phosphates stabilized. Since the transfer from the DeAd 22 gallon long. I’ve been struggling with high-ish nitrates (12 to 15) and plummeting phosphates. At one point I did witness some bubbles on the rock and back wall ( oh no ). But I have been checking phosphates daily and adding accordingly for like a month. I did nothing else and didn’t panic. Just keep my phosphates always higher than .04 and never over .10 and the bubbles have been gone for weeks. As of last Friday I haven’t had to add phosphates one time and they’re testing anywhere from .07 to .09 consistently since Friday. In a couple weeks I’ll probably resume my 1 gallon water changes weekly. But keep a watchful eye on the phosphates. I just started testing calcium and alkalinity last Friday and they’re staying stable at around 7.8 and 420. Hopefully I’ll start seeing some consumption soon and either the water changes will replenish. Or I’ll dose it. I don’t care either way. I’ll do whichever works for me. 
 

I’ve got pinapple sponges growing in the back chamber all over the bio media balls from the 22g. I’ve got lots of copepods scurrying around and the amphipods finally went nocturnal on me. Thank god. I think the fish put the fear of god in them. Starting to see coraline spread on the rock. Though not as fast as I’d like. Night time lights off the tank just awakes with life. My brittle star does his thing. A few bristle worms and other worms I have no clue what they are come out to play. My CUC comes to life. 
 

just praying a hurricane doesn’t come and ruin everything 

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ReefGoat

It won’t be long and I’m going to go full stupid and pack this thing with a few more corals to fill it out. I want to glue some stuff to the back wall. Not too sure what though. 

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  • ReefGoat changed the title to Greg's Reefing Saga ( first frags in )

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