Riding the Wave with Reef Casa: My Studio 12 Saltwater Build 🌊

[PJPS]

Looking great so far!  The fans may like heavier flow (I  give my gorgs sps light and flow, they look obscene with polyp extension).  Given that light isn't going to have any effect, try putting the flow up by 1 notch every few days.  I bet you can get that thing to fluff out nicely, it looks like it wants to.

 

For feeding, in a reef casa, it'll be tricky without any powerheads in there.  You want the returns off so the food is all over the display, in any AOI stock, feeding is an issue.  You want display tank flow, but want to keep the food out of the return.  I'll think on how I'd workaround that issue.  perhaps take out the filter media for the feeding?

 

If you do have a powerhead. just turnoff the return for 30 min while feeding.

 

So far so good!

[PJPS]

6 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

The Diodogorgia nodulifera gorgonian are so hard to keep, IME.  Yours look like the red one, they come in red or yellow. They want regular feeding, don't do well under high light (due to algae growth).  when algae gets a hold on the surface, try to remove as soon as you can.  I see that you're putting it dead center and high in the tank, I'd recommend moving it to the side and as low as possible. have it get plenty of indirect flow (opposite from powerhead), so a) it can feed from any particulate food you provide from the water column, and b) the flow should help with the algae build up somewhat.

 

NPS should definitely be kept in lower light 100%.  You should be thinking dim softy light @banasophia

 

This guy runs a 7' NPS tank, their channel is quality info in general 

 

[banasophia]

26 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

The Diodogorgia nodulifera gorgonian are so hard to keep, IME.  Yours look like the red one, they come in red or yellow. They want regular feeding, don't do well under high light (due to algae growth).  when algae gets a hold on the surface, try to remove as soon as you can.  I see that you're putting it dead center and high in the tank, I'd recommend moving it to the side and as low as possible. have it get plenty of indirect flow (opposite from powerhead), so a) it can feed from any particulate food you provide from the water column, and b) the flow should help with the algae build up somewhat.

 

Thanks, @mitten_reef! I will look up that species in particular. I am planning on making adjustments to the powerhead this weekend and I’ve been debating about moving the powerhead to the other side of the tank to be a little closer. I might move the coral, but since the issue is algae growth not actually being harmed by light exposure, I’m hoping to deal with algae prevention in other ways, like with cleanup crew and good flow. 

[banasophia]

5 minutes ago, PJPS said:

NPS should definitely be kept in lower light 100%.  You should be thinking dim softy light @banasophia

 

This guy runs a 7' NPS tank, their channel is quality info in general 

 

Thanks so much, I’ll have to watch his vids this weekend. 🙂 I kept sun corals, dendros, chili coral, tree sponges, and a spider sponge in my Biocube 16 and they definitely required special care and feeding and thus the tank needed a lot of measures in place to control nutrients. 
 

Lower light is often recommended I think to decrease algae growth, but I think with most NPS the light doesn’t harm them but rather that’s a strategy for decreasing algae growth… not totally sure that is true for this sea fan though, still researching… so my hope is to use other strategies to control algae growth because I would like to keep it where it is. 🤞🤞🤞

[PJPS]

2 hours ago, banasophia said:

 

Lower light is often recommended I think to decrease algae growth, but I think with most NPS the light doesn’t harm them but rather that’s a strategy for decreasing algae growth… not totally sure that is true for this sea fan though, still researching… so my hope is to use other strategies to control algae growth because I would like to keep it where it is. 🤞🤞🤞

I think you're correct, the lower light is just to try not fuelling the algae with all the extra nutrients.  Given their natural environment is lower light, it's probably more comfortable for them, but as for science, I haven't looked if higher light is harmful in any way.

 

My main algae team is a variety of snails.  I might add an urchin if the algae becomes an issue in that tank, but I'd do 5 astrea, 10 nassaurius, 1 turbo, 1 conch... add more as needed for whatever surface is growing algae.   When I feel it's too many snails, I'd reach for an urchin (and say goodbye to my hard won Coraline algae. 🙂

[debbeach13]

The tank looks even cleaner, and the sea fan does look like more polyps are open or maybe larger than before. 

3 hours ago, banasophia said:

The blue sympodium,

Live aquaria recommend moderate light and flow. Mine does better in low flow. It also is like GSP some days it just looks better than other days. 

[Reef Casa]

Looks like you beat the dino ?!

How are things 🙂 ?

[banasophia]

13 hours ago, PJPS said:

My main algae team is a variety of snails.  I might add an urchin if the algae becomes an issue in that tank, but I'd do 5 astrea, 10 nassaurius, 1 turbo, 1 conch... add more as needed for whatever surface is growing algae.   When I feel it's too many snails, I'd reach for an urchin (and say goodbye to my hard won Coraline algae. 🙂

Oh yeah, I typically keep a heavy duty clean up crew myself with mostly snails… turbo snails and ninja stars are my favorites. I ordered a custom cleanup crew from @johnmaloney at Reef Cleaners for this tank after the cycle was complete… I don’t think I posted pics at the time:

 

I don’t have much experience with urchins… had a pencil urchin for a while and it did well with my algae and then I rehomed it. I’ll have to keep urchins in mind.

[banasophia]

11 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

The tank looks even cleaner, and the sea fan does look like more polyps are open or maybe larger than before. 

Live aquaria recommend moderate light and flow. Mine does better in low flow. It also is like GSP some days it just looks better than other days. 

Yes, the sea fan is opening up more, here’s a pic from tonight. 

 

 

May need to move the blue sympodium… thanks for the info! 

 

[PJPS]

Just now, banasophia said:

Yes, the sea fan is opening up more, here’s a pic from tonight. 

 

 

May need to move the blue sympodium… thanks for the info! 

 

Looks stunning!  She’ll be glorious all fluffed out.  Remember it’s not interested in anything fleshy, keep up the powder/liquid (I assume the hikari marine cubes have good stuff in the juice).  Don’t overfeed shrimp or flake/pellets, you barely need much of those, think only of the fish, everything else is feasting on the rest.

 

Looking on the right path, those polyps are just shy and need to muster their courage.  I bet they’re far more visible within 48h, full fluff in a couple of weeks at this rate 👍🏻.  Real full fluff in a couple of weeks is quite speedy! 

[banasophia]

2 hours ago, Reef Casa said:

Looks like you beat the dino ?!

How are things 🙂 ?

Hey @Reef Casa! Still working on the dino, but thankfully it’s mostly gone! 😅 Things are great, and I’m looking forward to adding the media rack this weekend to test it out. 
 

Couple of questions on the Halo light:

• Do you happen to have any PAR readings for it yet? I’m thinking of renting a PAR meter to check it out… 
• Is it normal for the time display to disappear when the light is running and to just see the blinking red colon, like in the pic below, or is there something that I’m supposed to push to keep the time display on? 

[banasophia]

38 minutes ago, PJPS said:

Looks stunning!  She’ll be glorious all fluffed out.  Remember it’s not interested in anything fleshy, keep up the powder/liquid (I assume the hikari marine cubes have good stuff in the juice).  Don’t overfeed shrimp or flake/pellets, you barely need much of those, think only of the fish, everything else is feasting on the rest.

 

Looking on the right path, those polyps are just shy and need to muster their courage.  I bet they’re far more visible within 48h, full fluff in a couple of weeks at this rate 👍🏻.  Real full fluff in a couple of weeks is quite speedy! 

Thanks! 

The spirulina brine shrimp are for Marshall, my sweet little possum wrasse… they are his favorite food, he slurps them up! And it’s so funny because he does not like the spirulina mysis shrimp at all and will not touch them. The Sustainable Aquatics pellets are for Hank, my yellow clown goby, but I also crush some of them and the corals like them too… the possum wrasse eats them occasionally, not consistently yet.

 

Heres a pic showing the ingredients of the Coral Gumbo… it has tiny ingredients so I find it to be a good option that I alternate with baby brine shrimp and rotifers.

 

[banasophia]

Good article about sea fans:

https://oneworldoneocean.com/blog/blue-zoo-gorgonian-sea-fan/

[PJPS]

That Hikari is full of stuff it can grab from the water, just let it melt 100% before feeding to maximize particulate it the water.  Don’t want a bunch of good stuff melting in the sand.

 

😊

[banasophia]

10 hours ago, PJPS said:

That Hikari is full of stuff it can grab from the water, just let it melt 100% before feeding to maximize particulate it the water.  Don’t want a bunch of good stuff melting in the sand.

 

😊

Yeah I always thaw it, mix it with tank water, and squirt it in… and to clarify, the food in the pics I posted above, including the two frozen cubes, gets split between three nano tanks. 🙂 

[banasophia]

Well the tank seemed to be doing better and better, with a more diverse ecosystem, and the sea fan was still opening until Tuesday…

 

 

The dino seemed to be fading away, I was seeing pods on the glass and in the water column… also seeing little patches of cyano, diatoms, and possibly some tiny spots of coralline growing… unfortunately it looks like I probably have some bryopsis as well which likely came from my Evo 5, but it’s not too bad at this point so hopefully it will not totally invade. 
 

One really cool thing is that my green mushroom split! Now for most reefers this may not be too exciting since mushrooms are known to do this, but in my Biocube 16 it was a very rare event, so the fact that it happened within 2 weeks in this tank was fun to see. Now I should say that I did choose a mushroom from the LFS that looked like it was already widening like it might want to split, so it may have been inevitable… I’m eager to see if it splits again.

 

Here you can kinda see the foot splitting:

 

More separation:

 

 

And tonight, there are two! Bear with me, still trying to figure out the photography with the light, my new iPad, and my new clip on. This pic was with an orange clip on and a macro lens. 

Now, for the thing that is bumming me out: the sea fan stopped opening up on Tuesday. It has taken on a very smooth and shiny appearance. Not sure if this may have been due to being late with my water change, which I couldn't get to until last night, or if it might just be adjusting since the tank is really still finding its balance, or it could be because one of the ninja star snails was climbing on it… so many variables, it’s hard to say. 

 

 

Marshall, my possum wrasse, really loves the sea fan. 

 

I did my water changes in all my tanks last night, using Red Sea Coral Pro salt. I tried to move the hygger mini powerhead to the left hand side of the tank to be closer to the gorgonians and sea fan, but the flow was really blowing Marshall around too much there so I moved it back to the right. I decided to take the random flow generator (RFG) out just because it looked pretty cluttered with that and the powerhead right next to each other. Seemed to work well though… I would definitely use the RFG if I wasn’t using the powerhead… and I would use the two-armed one so one arm can be aimed toward the surface for oxygenation and the other one can be aimed down lower for random flow within the tank.

 

Here’s an FTS from today. You can see it with just the powerhead and standard return nozzle. If you look closely you can see that the middle branch of the digi is growing back where I fragged it. 

[banasophia]

Oh yeah… I forgot to mention… I moved my ricordea floridas to get them out of the higher light zone. I wanted to move the blue sympodium too, but I could not pry it off the rock.

 

Also… I got an email from the company I ordered the sea fan food from… apparently they don’t actually have it in stock… they are checking into whether they can get it for me. 

Beach bum montipora

 

 

[banasophia]

Things I’m hoping to add to the tank in the future:

• goby/pistol shrimp pair
• tailspot blenny
• more varieties of clove polyps
• pipe organ coral 
• teal candy cane
• pink pulsing xenia 
• additional rock flower anemones
• tongan nassarius snail
• fathead dendro 
• feather duster
• some kind of hardy sponge

[debbeach13]

5 hours ago, banasophia said:

Beach bum montipora

This piece is beautiful. 

I hope the sea fan polyps open up soon. That is my favorite addition to your tank.

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

This piece is beautiful. 

I hope the sea fan polyps open up soon. That is my favorite addition to your tank.

Thanks, I hope so too… such a special coral that we don’t see much. 
 

@PJPS thanks for the tip the other day… I watched a couple of Tank Talk’s videos showing his NPS tank and reached out to him on one of his posts… I realized I was already following him because he’s setting up a really cool waterfall tank… he just moved many of his sea fans and gorgonians to the waterfall tank. He said he has only had the sea fans for about four months now, but they seem to be doing well and he is dosing phyto frequently. 

[TheKleinReef]

That sea fan is so cool, I hope it pulls through!

[banasophia]

55 minutes ago, TheKleinReef said:

That sea fan is so cool, I hope it pulls through!

Thanks, me too!! I was hopeful that it was starting to open up… not sure what it’s doing now. 

[TheKleinReef]

Wish I could help, I got my first two gorgonians ever a few weeks ago and one seems to be doing okay? The other came super stressed and it seems to be recovering but I have 0 clue. 😆

[PJPS]

On 2/3/2023 at 11:58 AM, banasophia said:

Thanks, me too!! I was hopeful that it was starting to open up… not sure what it’s doing now. 

They like constant food in the water, so perhaps smaller feedings more frequently OR more time with the returns off/1% when you do feed. I find it trains SPS to keep their polyps out all day.

[banasophia]

1 hour ago, PJPS said:

They like constant food in the water, so perhaps smaller feedings more frequently OR more time with the returns off/1% when you do feed. I find it trains SPS to keep their polyps out all day.

Yeah I’ve been doing the live phyto a couple times a day. Last night a snail was cleaning the sea fan… we’ll see how it looks today.