fenderchamp's 3.5 gal bow front

[fenderchamp]

And more rock added. the picture was taken right after I put the rock back in the water.  I think I can see all the corals I have in the tank from the front now, which was the main idea,  I also think I have room for a couple for frags, and I can see some spots where I can extend a little more if I really want to.  I've decided that's it's easier to add rock in a controlled manner than to take it off. 

 

This tank has been getting the 100% water change/entire tank torn apart and cleaning treatment every week for the last 3 weeks when I've been gluing more rock on.  I think I might make a couple of minor adjustments next week though "adjustments" are easier set than successfully pulled off. My intention is to add this green montipora frag and a flame boi favia frag that got stung badly by another favor in this  5gal AOI tank that was put up for the 9-5 contest.   Maybe the main glob of that rainbow Monti can be popped off and moved up and back a little bit.  

 

I'm a little worried that the hammer is getting boxed in too much, but it hasn't seemed to bother it too much yet and it keeps growing up slowly and splitting, so I guess we'll see.  I don't want a bigger tank, I'd like have all of the rock covered and not lose any species to war, but we'll see what happens I guess. 

 

[fenderchamp]

The next day

[brandon429]

FenderC

 

I like how your tank looks awesome even though it’s being handled very very thoroughly/borderline roughly compared to the kid gloves most fearful folks apply to their tanks. Yours is a testament to rip cleaning not being harmful, a total water change + clean out is indeed a rip clean. 

 

it would be harmful if in those events you stirred up brown, yucky mud. Your tank is clean bottom, so any waste is pre oxidized and neutral as you’re removing it. Having no detritus upwelling is what makes the activity safe, and repeatable by others. Anyone who wants to regenerate an invaded tank, or regrow formerly starved corals, should study your thread. Right before you do a takedown cleaning to add rocks, blast em with feed the morning of

 

 

let the polyps hang fat with food when you drain it later on in the day, won’t hurt. Then you’re refilling pristine water on completely full corals. What a great cheat this is for all pico reefs. Doesn’t have to be done forever, can be used for eight weeks to add mass for anyone. 

 

most reefers if polled would state that back to back water changes weekly with 100% cleanings would be destabilizing. It’s not, and your ongoing pics show it.

 

 

laughing at us rn: hermatypic corals on a fringing reef in fiji where waves have been smashing down HARD for an entire millennia, and where not one dot of detritus exists because of ten billion gallons of rip cleaning happening daily since forever 

[brandon429]

I rate your system the least likely to have dinos and cyano of any tank on this board. I don’t believe in jinxing with a predictive statement, my own reef holds the same prediction. Anyone willing to be this thorough simply can’t have dinos or systemic cyano, those are sedentary reef diseases. I’ll never allow it in my tank, looks like you aren’t allowing those common invasions either. Dinos and cyano could not withstand this degree of work, invaded tank owners please take notice.

We ask rip cleaners for like 1 or 2 big cleanings over the life of the tank…Fender does that degree of work on a given Tuesday, and you see his reef shining. let this work willingness example stand out. 

I like seeing these examples of: oh you want to see water changes? Here’s 15 x 100% changes (posts pics of fully open and healthy corals anyone would want)

[fenderchamp]

Water change shots

[fenderchamp]

@brandon429 before I ever started this tank, I read tons of build threads and your threads and approach, and what I had been doing with pretty good success with my fancy goldfish tank for a few years formed my approach. 

 

summed up it's bare bottom tank, weekly %100 water changes, clean the whole tank every water change, minimal filter, good food and lots of it and no weird chemicals. 

 

The only thing I'm adding chemical wise is 2LF Cbalance, which I copped from your old comments in threads, ordered it when I got the initial stuff for the tank, I have a couple of digital meters, Salinity and Alkalinity, I check Salinity and temp every day.  I don't check alkalinity anymore, because I think I know what the tank needs for the most part.

 

I try to be spot on with the temp/salinity and add Cbalance to keep the alkalinity from crashing out over the course of the week, which it certainly will if I don't.  

 

But in any case I got a large chunk of my approach and my inspiration to start this from your comments in threads and your threads.  I haven't bought a single book about the hobby yet.  

 

If my tank was large, I would approach it differently, simply because I wouldn't want to mix that much water or pay for it.

 

But with this little tank,  I literally take my rock out, stick it in a bucket, carry the whole tank up to my kitchen sink, pull all the little shells and rubble I like out of it, rinse it out with saltwater in a pint jar, and clean the tank right there with a plastic bun or a brush or some paper towels. 

 

So far the approach has been working for me, I think, though I don't know if it would work for everyone.  I'm not sure how well it would work with a fish either. 

 

[fenderchamp]

57 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

I like seeing these examples of: oh you want to see water changes? Here’s 15 x 100% changes (posts pics of fully open and healthy corals anyone would want)

 

more like 50-60 water changes so far.  I think I'm on the 5th bucket 55 gal bucket of RS pro and it's has been up since Mar 21. 

 

I also have a 5 gal acrylic tank with an AIO filter running only floss that I haven't been changing water on or cleaning as religiously as this tank, It hasn't thrived in the same way, though it gets the same light, and same feeding for the most part, and the same salt, and it's not like it's dying off or anything, but I'd like to see more growth.

 

I've hit weekly water changes for the last couple of weeks on it, it's due for one tonight or tomorrow.  I want to see if it gets the love for 3 months what kind of impact it will have. 

 

The thing about frequent water changes and maintenance is that if you wait until the tank looks like it really needs it, it's probably a little late.  

 

Sometimes it's hard to bring yourself to tear everything down when it doesn't look dirty.  But usually when you get it torn apart, you realize how dirty it really is.  I try to get myself in the frame of mind that it should always look great and then it will keep looking better and better over time.  Any amount of negligence will take its toll on the water quality and the occupants.  My 5 seems to be a testament to either that, or to live rock has to get to a certain age in a tank before the corals start to thrive and really grow quickly.

 

Of course my tank is tiny and there is no filter on it at all, only a powerhead, so I can't speak to large tanks with filters.   

 

[brandon429]

100% agreed, such a good reefing approach and tank to show for it 

 

too bad large tankers got all them headaches. they get the really nice fish aware, but I wouldnt want to own a wrecked large reef I'd hate the hobby and without rip cleans I dont know how to reef lol. so, its picos for me, fer good. 

[fenderchamp]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a couple shots before the launch of operation rainbow rescue.  The hammer is stinging the new growth, as you can see, and those zoas are starting to encircle it completely.  earlier this evening  the main piece of rainbow was popped off of the rock.  Some of the zoas were scraped off, a few pebbles were glued up and the main piece of rainbow was relocated a short ways off (like 3/4 of an inch) from it's current location.  More pictures to follow.   the cyphestria was also broken into a couple of pieces and some of it moved in shadier locations, it seems to be turning red, so ... well we'll see what happens now. 

[fenderchamp]

 

 

 

With a bit of anxiety on my part the rainbow monti was popped up and reglued on a couple more big pebbles yesterda.  I wielded a square exacto blade to scrap the surrounding zoas back.  I managed to get some of them up intact and glue them onto a frag, where I'm happy to say they are open today.  I also popped of some of the cyphestria and glued it under the duncan, we'll see how it likes the shade. 

 

I wish I could get the zoas off of the rock a little more cleanly. the whole rock was probably out of the water about 15 minutes.  I think I've posted a picture of the sacrificial cookie sheet I use for my coral operating theater. 

 

Hopefully the rainbow will recover and spread more than ever over the next few months, we shall see.  It seems like, unless one wants to end up with 1 variety of coral in ones tank, one need to groom it.  It's kind of stressful and certainly disruptive though. 

 

Next time I have to do some of this, I'll get somebody to take pictures and maybe I can get some technical tips and tricks and tool advice from more experienced reefers. 

 

 

[fenderchamp]

MY AI SETTINGS

 

 

It’s been set like this or dimmer since it’s been up.  

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[fenderchamp]

Iphone pictures, no filters, regular light settings. 

 

 

[fenderchamp]

oops

 

 

 

 

 

[fenderchamp]

Oh bother!  Something I've always feared and half expected happened.  When I was putting my now much added onto, with many pieces super glued to it rock back in the tank, a large chunk broke off in my hand sending the whole kit'n'kaboodle careening into the tank.  It seems like super glue only lasts so long in the saltwater.  

 

I'm not sure how I'm going to get it all back together, the hammer is on a frag plug, but all of the inhabitants seem to be ok.  

 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

Looks pretty good to me. 

[fenderchamp]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Looks pretty good to me. 

thanks, I don't hate it now or anything but... 

 

this is a fairly challenging hobby in any case, and this is just another aspect of a large range of challenges.  

It does look like that little zoa colony is opening back up! 

[RaymondNoodles]

I’m enjoying your build thread!

[fenderchamp]

It seems to be settling down.  I glued the green monti when I did a water change about 5 days ago or so.  I put the frags in it tonight.  I swap them back and forth with water changes

[fenderchamp]

[fenderchamp]

 

I reglued the hammer last night.  I did it out of the tank during a water change with a complete disassembly of the tank last night. This picture was taken about an hour or two later. 

I think I like the new location.  It's up in the open and should be able to expand it's polyps further.  

It opened up pretty well today, but I didn't take a picture today 

 

[LazyFish]

Your tank is so full of stuff. It looks great.  I cant wait for mine to get grown in like this. My stuff is growing but it will take time.

[fenderchamp]

18 hours ago, LazyFish said:

Your tank is so full of stuff. It looks great.  I cant wait for mine to get grown in like this. My stuff is growing but it will take time.

your tank looks great! I was reading your thread just a few days ago, I love all the different zoas you have.  I think part of the appeal of reef tanks is watching 'em grow and change, and worrying about every little thing 🙂 After I saw your Purple Heart zoa's I was trying to find some. 

[fenderchamp]

 

Pruning content!! 

 

I've been eyeballing this border between the stargazer zooas and the rainbow montipora for a while now,  Really I've just been looking at the pretty colors, but I decided that trying to figure out who was ready to eat who might be a good idea and tonight I decided to take a turkey baster to the situation and look a little closer.  I don't really know exactly what really I'm doing so... keep that in mind.

 

 

 

It looked to me like the montipora was actually growing up on the zooa's themselves. in the case of some of the stargazes the monty might maybe even encapsulate them soon.  So I decided to, declare war, intervene and chip away at the rainbow a bit.  I used a couple of those square, chisel like exacto blades, I had a couple of real rusty ones on handles so I chipped a bit and broke both of the blades.  I think new blades would have been fine.  I took the broken blades out, but nonetheless tomorrow this tank is getting the 100%/cleaning combo jic, besides it's time.  I have done a couple 100+ percent water changes in the last couple of weeks, but I haven't actually broke it down and cleaned the bottom, mainly because I put some berghias in there and I didn't want to straight up kill them.  I can't find any more aptasias, or berghias for that matter now knock on wood.

 

 

 

 

Here's the Turkey-basterized border, for your viewing pleasure before.

 

 

 

 

"when the cuttin' was done"

 

/me fancies himself "a pool shootin' boy, name of Willie McCoy, but down home they call him slim!" for a moment

 

 

 

 

I glued some of the little chips to some rubble on a frag plug, we'll see if they grow, I'll post some pictures later of how this war-torn little border recovers.  

 

 

 

 

 

[fenderchamp]

Seems ok

[fenderchamp]