New 10 gal, power head and surface skimmer only

[Ohmegg]

This is my new attempt. After success with a 20 gal biocube (Aquabox) Iv decided to try smaller and more minimalistic tank. Crushed coral bed, 8 lb dry rock, plus some dead bleached coral I found at grandmas house (fungia skeleton, boiled prior to adding). And some boiled oyster shells and sea shells.

Equipment:lights: Beamwork  12" EA 30 15x - 700 lumen 12x 10000K, 3x Actinic. $25

Cheap tetra heater from Walmart $10

60 gph power head with sponge zip-tied to intake $12

small surface skimmer box from Amazon $25

Last time I used "neutral" gravel in the 20 g. This is my first time with crushed coral. Wow, didn't know when bag said "minimal rinsing required " it meant, "waste 2 gallons of distilled water rinsing it then wait 3 days after putting it in tank for cloudy water to get better"
...the journey begins!

 

 

[Ohmegg]

After adding 5 male "feeder" guppies ($.99 each). I added a bottle of freshwater "bacteria" from Walmart. Can't remember the brand but I'm sure it's garbage. Fed the guppies for a few days then left for a week. Came back, and started adding 1/4 cup of reef crystals dissolved into 1L of aquarium water twice a day. These little guys are tough. Added a few squirts of Dr.Tim's one and only once salinity got to 1.015. Keeping the lights on a 10 hr light cycle even though Dr.Tim recommends against it. 

[Ohmegg]

Still haven't used surface skimmer above water because there hasn't been any surface scum, just using it for flow at the moment. Got a candy cane LPS from LFS, they had their frag tank at 2.020 for some reason so that's what I'll keep mine at. Accidentally added almost the entire bottle of Dr.Tims after adding the coral. The coral looks happy for now but I may add a little salty pre-made water to the tank before I leave for a week. All the guppies look happy for now.

[Ohmegg]

Added a ball of "unique ball algae not yet described by science" 😂 that I got from petshrimp dot com. They said they keep em in their brackish shrimp tanks but they can survive full marine. Was going to acclimate it slowly but was out of town so spouse just tossed it in, water from bag and all...hope it doesn't intro something bad. 🤞 

 

[Ohmegg]

Got home. Looks like not acclimating the "unique ball algae not described by science" from brackish to full marine did indeed disintegrate it. And one of the male guppies is MIA and presumed turning into whispy strands of goo somewhere in the rockwork. Probably should do a water change, but life necessitated that I just add the Euphyllia, Rasta zoa and Blondie zoa I picked up right into the tank without dipping or acclimating or removing from nasty plug. Hopes next week I'll have time to test water and everything won't be dead , and maybe I'll have time to change the cardboard shoebox background to something more professional 🤞...ugh

 

 

[Ohmegg]

Ugly stage started with green algae. Took one of the male feeder guppies back to the store to reduce male harassment as I purchased two female balloon mollies from Petco. They had freshwater ich, so hopefully their immune system will fight off rest of infection after I drip acclimated them over 48 hrs to full salt water. Added a two headed red candy cane coral. Snipped it off the plug to reduce hitchhikers and splintered one of the heads accidentally, it tore on both sides but mouth is intact. Added one turbo snail. Did, 15% water change.

 

[Ohmegg]

The two pieces of red/green candy Cain seem to be healing ok. Replaced cheap surface skimmer with a small good quality 90gph pump. Added a "chalice". Everyone seems happy. Amazingly. 
 

[Ohmegg]

Neglect for a week, then feeding, then neglect for a week, then a feed (cheap Tetra brand BettaMin flakes...fed to fish and corals). Amazed to see everything doing so well. Very little algae, mollies, guppies and 1 turbo seem to be doing the job while I'm away. 0 evaporations because of glass lid. I run air pump at night with regular bubble Stone to add oxygen. Still haven't tested anything or done a water change. Added a Euphyllia, I think it's a torch, a piece of Pocillapora near the top, and red zoanthid. Started seeing's first sign of red dino however. 

[Jakesaw]

Just curious, why you're doing FW fish in SW tank.  Is it budget, if so I can appreciate that.  

 

 

[Ohmegg]

11 hours ago, Jakesaw said:

Just curious, why you're doing FW fish in SW tank.  Is it budget, if so I can appreciate that.  

 

 

No I just really like guppies.  The balloon mollies are just in there to help with algae. Once tank gets more mature and the mollies get too big I'll re-home them at LFS that sells them for $10 and get some female fancy guppies for these pretty "feeder" males. Guppies are great, they pick at algae, and in the future (hopefully) little pods and other things. Also Very low bio-load. I already go a week at a time without feeding. The idea is to have a complete ecosystem with very little input. Also guppies are just awesome. They are the only fish that has demonstrated scientifically to display "culture". They are beautiful, intelligent, and only a $1. This is kind of a proof of concept project to demonstrate how anyone can have a low maintenance, ultra low-budget, reef. I rarely do water changes and have 0% evaporation because of the glass lid so I don't even top off (we'll see how that goes this summer). 

[Ohmegg]

After a week and a half away, and trusting spouse not to over feed, I come home to...uhg. Lots of algae, one male guppy MIA and presumably his rotting corpse the cause of chemical imbalance. Film on surface of water (need to clean sponges on power heads), bubbles emanating from the rocks, pocillapora bleaching and pretty red mohecan sun zoas melting...will do massive water change. On the bright side I now have two salt water "muppies".  One of my mollies must have given birth. 

[Ohmegg]

So I think I got Oodinium on one of the Frags, it's spreading rapidly and I have to get back to work so I won't have time to acclimate my fish to fresh water and save them. 😔. Saw the  scraping yesterday and one of the guppies scraped the wrong coral (Duncan)...chomp. 
 

[Ohmegg]

1 1/2 month old reef. Finally stocked with enough coral for me to be satisfied. Only loss so far has been "mohecan" zoa that is still in there but covered in algae and melting a little bit each week. Added ricordia, rhodactis, and orange bam bam zoas. Hair algae, weird think long skinny algae (kinda looking like Cheato) and some Dino starting to dig in. 

 

[Ohmegg]

Zoanthids stretching so I added my old Wavepoint 8 wat small light over the zoas and other corals set on a timer for "high noon". Added a red legged and blue legged heritage, an Asterina snail, a Tubro snail (hopefully will eat some of the red hair algae) and a nassarius which vanished under the gravel and haven't seen since. Micro fauna really taking off as well as surface scum. 

[Ohmegg]

Sadness abounds as monti eating nudibranch discovered. Had to put this big magnetic ceramic "natural looking " frag rack in there so I can place monti frags on plugs for easy dipping. 😞 

 

[Clownfish king]

It’s looking really cool dude.

I wish I could get me Duncan to stop being pissed off cause my shrimp stepped on it slightly so that it would open up like yours.

[Ohmegg]

Tank update: Month 7. Lyngbya under control with manual removal. Have azithromycin but haven't taken the plunge yet to nuke my tank. Gave my clean up crew to LFS because they just knocked things over and never ate the lyngbya, so now I got an outbreak of weird stringy almost macro algae. It almost looks like chaeto. Plating monti almost totally bleached out so I broke it up and put it different locations, now it's still growing but with very little color, strange. 
 

[Ohmegg]

Took the plunge. Got 2 Goniopora 🤞

[Jakesaw]

On 4/19/2022 at 11:56 AM, Ohmegg said:

Tank update: Month 7. Lyngbya under control with manual removal. Have azithromycin but haven't taken the plunge yet to nuke my tank. Gave my clean up crew to LFS because they just knocked things over and never ate the lyngbya, so now I got an outbreak of weird stringy almost macro algae. It almost looks like chaeto. Plating monti almost totally bleached out so I broke it up and put it different locations, now it's still growing but with very little color, strange. 
 

That wierd stringy thing is how my DINO started.  Long browish long hair filaments streaked across tank.  Smaller ones like your pic on front of tank.  I could go to bed at night with none - by the next day - I'd have a foot long hair in tank when it was at it's worst.  All my corals started receding in health - candy canes and ACANS shrunk back a bit, lost one of my Hammers and another not looking so good.  When I finally removed one manually and smelled it, smelled like total rot nasty.  Been removing with turkey baster and battling daily since.

 

Keep up on your testing in case things turn you can correct quickly.  I just tested my Alk the other day ( have been ignoring this test ) and was in the 6-7 range ( which I think is low ).  But I have not been testing for a baseline regularly.  

 

Today is last day of my blackout and I get to peek inside tomorrow to see results.  Currently pulling filter floss pad out twice daily from HOB.  My floss pad is still pulling up dark matter and smells of rot though the amount of color has been declining the past 2 days.  Drains out with pinkish water when I ring out the pad.  Smell is awful but i'm hoping this black out will kill off the problem. 

 

 

 

 

[Ohmegg]

2 hours ago, Jakesaw said:

That wierd stringy thing is how my DINO started.  Long browish long hair filaments streaked across tank.  Smaller ones like your pic on front of tank.  I could go to bed at night with none - by the next day - I'd have a foot long hair in tank when it was at it's worst.  All my corals started receding in health - candy canes and ACANS shrunk back a bit, lost one of my Hammers and another not looking so good.  When I finally removed one manually and smelled it, smelled like total rot nasty.  Been removing with turkey baster and battling daily since.

 

Keep up on your testing in case things turn you can correct quickly.  I just tested my Alk the other day ( have been ignoring this test ) and was in the 6-7 range ( which I think is low ).  But I have not been testing for a baseline regularly.  

 

Today is last day of my blackout and I get to peek inside tomorrow to see results.  Currently pulling filter floss pad out twice daily from HOB.  My floss pad is still pulling up dark matter and smells of rot though the amount of color has been declining the past 2 days.  Drains out with pinkish water when I ring out the pad.  Smell is awful but i'm hoping this black out will kill off the problem. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the advice. My Alk has been really low, I think my Duncan just keeps eating up al the calcium carbonate because it grows so fast. As for this weird stringy green stuff I can’t figure out if it’s a macro algae or bacteria. Dipped a strand in 3% hydrogen peroxide and looked at it under the microscope. Can’t find any nucleus, can’t tell if cells are lysing or not.

 

[Ohmegg]

Update. Moved two states over by drilling a hole in the top of a cheap cooler and running a battery operated air pump w stone in the water while driving. Got rid of all crushed coral bed and went straight bare bottom once I set it back up. Kept an "ark" of small frags and all my rock. Stomatella snails and brittle stars hitched a ride on the rock and currently bake up the bio load + bi weekly feedings. Corals thriving, no problems for 3 weeks now. 

[Ohmegg]

Update. Almost a year old. Sponges and green hair algae going crazy. Not really " normal " green hair algae. This stuff grows like a bush from a single hold fast as is easy to remove. 

 

[Ohmegg]

Moved again. Acclimated guppy/endler hybrids seem happy. Hair algae out of control so got a CUC and pray the little buggers didn't bring in a cycst of Ich or oodinium or some other diseases my babies don't have immunity for. 🤞

 

[Ohmegg]

Update. Think I definitely had a mini cycle after the move. Down to two guppies. Finally getting some Endolithic algae in the coral skeletons and rock, with a few spots of coralline algae. Yay! It only took A YEAR!

 

[Ohmegg]

Ugly stage month 13: Hair algae that nothing would eat and green “bacteria” that looks like algae somewhat under control with manual removal. Now is the age of bubble algae 😢. Bought an AI prime 16.