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

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

The sand is looking great. Nice top-down picture. Your right it is a good way to see which corals might be too shaded. I really hope the sea fan recovers. How's Hank?

Yeah, it will be a bummer if I lose the sea fan. 
 

I actually had a scare with Hank on Saturday because it appeared that he got a brine shrimp stuck in his throat and he was having labored breathing and looked distressed for quite a long time. I tried to catch him but that seemed to stress him more, so I gave up on that plan and just hoped he would be okay. He seems to be fine now and has started sleeping in a candy cane at night again, rather than the sandbed, so that’s good.

 

And Marshall, my possum wrasse, is doing great and very active. 

 

I didn’t do my water change yet or test my parameters… something seemed to contaminate my water change water at the end of last week and there was weird stuff floating on the surface so I had to dump it and clean the bucket and filter a new batch of water last night. I’ll do the water change tonight and I’m sure it’s much needed.
 

It’s possible that the issues with the monties and sea fan could be due to parameters being out of whack, not the lighting, since I’m really late on my water change and I’m not dosing anything. 

[debbeach13]

It's funny that Hank sleep in the dirty sand. Then when the sand got cleaned he moved back to the candy cane.

1 hour ago, banasophia said:

And Marshall, my possum wrasse, is doing great and very active.

Also good news. 

[banasophia]

Okay, tested parameters before doing my water change last night:

 

SG 1.025

pH8.0
ammonia 0

nitrite 0

nitrate 24

phosphate 0.2

alkalinity 7.056

calcium 425

magnesium 1311

 

Did a 2 gallon water change with RSCP.

 

Trying to save the sea fan and the good news is that it started opening back up today. Don’t know if it was the light, the parameters, or something else, but hoping it will make it without any further sloughing/tissue loss.

 

 

There was also a lot of tissue loss with my candy canes while the lights were limited. Hoping they will also recover.

[Sharbuckle]

I love that little goby so much! 

[Lebowski_]

You’ve sold me on the Halo - looks fantastic.

 

 

[banasophia]

On 3/29/2023 at 7:02 AM, Sharbuckle said:

I love that little goby so much! 

Thanks, me too… he’s my cute lil dude. 🤗

 

On 3/29/2023 at 10:14 AM, Lebowski_ said:

You’ve sold me on the Halo - looks fantastic.

 

 

It does seem to grow corals well and has quite a bit of flexibility with the three separately programmable color channels. I’m just running it with two phases right now - a whiter light phase during the afternoon / early evening, and then a bluer phase late evening until lights out, lights out is the third phase.
 

For a while I was using a timer to create an additional blue sunrise and sunset phase (with the timer cutting power to the light in the middle of the dim blue phase to have full lights-out for a few hours), but I stopped using the timer and doing this when I had to cut back my lights because of the dino. 
 

Before I had to cut back the lights because of the dino, it seemed the corals were all growing pretty quickly and seemed happy. 
 

You can see two new heads on the acan Hank is perching on today:

 

 

My montipora digitata is starting to bounce back since turning lights back on for a normal duration. Still waiting to see if my beach bum monti will bounce back. And also still monitoring the candy canes for regrowth.

 

 

And I’m happy to report the sea fan is opening back up nicely… hoping it can regrow the lost tissue on the tips:

 

 

[banasophia]

[banasophia]

Enjoying the tank so much now that the dino has subsided and I can keep the lights on. Looking forward to removing the UV sterilizer, but don’t want to jinx it… wish me luck! 🤞🤞🤞

[Reef Casa]

glad your over the dino ! tank's looking sooooo good 

[banasophia]

Just now, Reef Casa said:

glad your over the dino ! tank's looking sooooo good 

Thanks so much! The dino was a major bummer, very relieved I seem to be past it and can really enjoy the tank again. Hoping to set up an inkbird and maybe a doser soon. 
 

But before that, I think I introduced aiptasia when I added one of my clove polyp frags, so I’ll first I need to do a bit of aiptasia eradication. What do you like to use for aiptasia control? 

[banasophia]

I cannot believe it! I had not seen my little yellow rose goby in weeks, I thought for sure he had succumbed to the dino. But he’s still alive and I got a very brief glimpse of him tonight!! He’s super cute and looked fine, swimming out about 1-2 inches from his spot in the rock at feeding time. Not that awesome that he apparently made his home at the back of the scape.
 

Still assuming the pistol shrimp didn’t make it though, since I stopped hearing the snapping sound at the same time the fish disappeared. 
 

 

[banasophia]

Did a 2 gallon water change last night (Red Sea Coral Pro), removed the UV sterilizer, and swapped out the stock pump for a Sicce Syncra Silent 0.5. The stock pump flow was good, but the pump was very noisy at times. 
 

So nice not to see the UV sterilizer sticking up! 

[banasophia]

Sitting with my cat, enjoying the beautiful view of the tank… I wish you could see the colors better, but it’s in the blues phase right now and my two reef photo apps don’t seem to be working at the moment for a distance shot like this. It’s so nice now that the dino is cleared up, and I hit the aiptasia with some Aiptasia X, so they seem to be under control… very happy with the state of the tank.

 

Thinking of adding a Fiji yellow and pipe organ soon.

 

[MapleReefer]

On 1/22/2023 at 4:11 PM, banasophia said:

When March at Reef Casa sent the items I purchased, he generously also sent me a second box of their precut filter floss plus their House Keeper media rack to test out! The media rack looks nice.

 

Have you had success in using the House Keeper on your Studio 12?

I find that the small plastic water "deflector" they include does not fit in place when I'm using the House Keeper. And without using the deflector, a lot of the water ends up going around the Keeper, as opposed to into/through it...

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, MapleReefer said:

 

Have you had success in using the House Keeper on your Studio 12?

I find that the small plastic water "deflector" they include does not fit in place when I'm using the House Keeper. And without using the deflector, a lot of the water ends up going around the Keeper, as opposed to into/through it...

Yes, I had that issue in my tank too so I went back to just using the floss holder and that is working well for me. I really love the floss shelf design… genius!

[banasophia]

Two gallon water change with RedSea Coral Pro last night. The sea fan seems like it closes up to shed right around 8-9 days after a water change when I’m running late on the weekly schedule, then sheds and opens back up over the course of a day or two after I do the water change.

 

Need to try to do water changes right at the one week mark and see if I can prevent it from closing up and shedding. When it’s shedding it needs extra TLC… I have to squirt it with the turkey baster several times a day to remove the the shed from all the branches.
 

 

I want to increase the lights for better photography and coral growth, but I’m afraid the dino will be like a vampire and take it as an invitation back into the casa.

[debbeach13]

Lots of people love blue. Makes the colors pop and is much better than dino's. 

That is interesting about the fan and water changes. If you go to weekly maybe try just 1 gallon. It should be enough to replenish what is needed but less of a shock. Of course, I have never had a fan. So, I know nothing about them.

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Lots of people love blue. Makes the colors pop and is much better than dino's. 

That is interesting about the fan and water changes. If you go to weekly maybe try just 1 gallon. It should be enough to replenish what is needed but less of a shock. Of course, I have never had a fan. So, I know nothing about them.

Yes, definitely better to avoid the dinos - they are no fun at all!
 

Good thought about the water change volume… and reminds me that I need to fix my float valve level on my water change bucket to make less saltwater each time now that I’ve broken down the Evo 5… I have way more saltwater than I need and you’re not really supposed to make RSCP in advance. 

[banasophia]

My little yellow rose goby is such a little stinker… I came into the room and saw him from like 10 feet away sitting on the front of the scape for an instant near Hank and the acans, but as soon as he saw me he darted back to his hole in the back of the scape… maybe I’ll see him for an instant again in a few weeks. 

[banasophia]

Decided to stick with the 2 gallon water changes for now… did one last night, still RSCP. Tank is looking so pretty tonight and Hank and Marshall are just hanging out. 
 

Side lamp on:

Side lamp off.

 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

Looks clean to me, very nice. Love to see Hank out and about.

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Looks clean to me, very nice. Love to see Hank out and about.

Thanks! I think I’m going to test my parameters tonight or tomorrow and if everything is looking good I’ll adjust the light schedule. I think I need either more time or higher percentage to make the corals happy and I’d like to increase the whites so I can get better pics. 

[banasophia]

Changed the light settings Sunday or Monday to increase the whites to 45% during the first phase for better photography and wow, corals seem like they started to grow much faster. So far so good. 🤞🤞🤞

 

I did my 2 gallon water change with RSCP tonight. I think this tank still really needs a special something… not sure what… I do still like the idea of a Fiji yellow, but I worry it will get too big too quickly. 

[debbeach13]

How's the fan doing?

[banasophia]

You read my mind haha… I just woke up and came in to check and see… it’s still open this morning yayyy!!! 😁 Lights are still out, so it may be hard to see the little open polyps in the pic. 🧐

 

As you can probably see though, this tank is getting a bunch of spirorbid worms… I had this in my Nuvo 10 as well… will have to see if there’s anything I can do about them.😖