20 Gallon Simple Reef

[dbl]

Last one looks like a pagoda cup coral to me, but I'm not the best at ID's.

 

[hockeyhead019]

That's what others have guessed as well

 

[hockeyhead019]

Not a whole lot to update. Just did some moving around with the scape but other than that this is pretty much just a photo dump lol

Latest FTS:

FTS 5-28-2018 by Jim, on Flickr


Watchman (1 of 1) by Jim , on Flickr


Radioactive zoa (1 of 1) by Jim, on Flickr

I started playing around with angles to shoot the whole tank. Seems like this is a favorite in the forums, and I can see why! Cool angle to view things from

FTS (angle) 5-28-2018 by Jim, on Flickr


Firestarter (1 of 1) by Jim, on Flickr

 

[Dsnakes]

Everything looks happy! Keep it up.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Everything looks happy! Keep it up.

Thanks! Yeah everything looked rather happy today, hence the photo op lol

 

[hockeyhead019]

Swung by the LFS today... couldn't pass up on $20 for a 4 headed duncan. Although 3 heads are small I still couldn't just let it go lol. Looks like it's acclimating well to the light and hopefully will be ready for a photo-op tomorrow!

In other news, I shuffled my light settings to a pre-set timer and ramp specifically for "LPS+" for my specific light through my bluefish controller. Man does it make the coral pop after peak daylight hours!

 

[hockeyhead019]

Picture dump:

Firestarter Zoas by Jim, on Flickr

Duncans by Jim, on Flickr

Frogspawn by Jim, on Flickr

Moar Zoas by Jim, on Flickr

Working on trying to get sharp pictures while maintaining the correct exposure.

 

[dbl]

You should dump more! Pictures look great.

 

[mattgsa]

Great tank, really looking forward to see it grow.

 

[ParsedOut]

Super impressed, your photography is obviously getting better and I love your coral choices.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Wow! Thanks for the replies everybody!

You should dump more! Pictures look great.

Thank you! Definitely something I've really started to enjoy

Great tank, really looking forward to see it grow.

So am I! I'm looking forward to some growth comparisons over time.

Super impressed, your photography is obviously getting better and I love your coral choices.

Thank you! It's been fun to work on and the community here has a ton of great information on it. I love the simple corals (mostly because they're gentle on my wallet lol)

 

[hockeyhead019]

Photo update time!

Not much has changed in the tank besides my constant battle with various nuisance algaes lol

Here's a couple growth shots


Tank (3 of 4) by Jim, on Flickr

vs


Duncan by Jim, on Flickr

The duncans are probably thriving the most in the tank. I think because they benefit from the spot feeding. Not to say other things aren't doing ok but I think these are doing the best lol. 2 new heads are coming in but it's tough to see them in the picture because they're behind one of the main heads lol


Radioactive zoa (1 of 1) by Jim, on Flickr

vs


Radioactive Zoas by Jim, on Flickr


Tank (4 of 4) by Jim, on Flickr

vs


Firestarter Zoas by Jim, on Flickr


Micromussa_ by Jim, on Flickr

vs


Micromussa by Jim, on Flickr

For some reason the micromussa seems to be struggling? It has two or three new heads forming but the existing ones have struggled to fully extend. I'm not sure if it's not getting enough light on the floor of my tank? Maybe too much flow as it is in the main water column? Any recommendations are welcome.

I've also updated the FTS at the start of the thread too


FTS 9-14-18 by Jim, on Flickr

Figured I would try and keep the images relatively small in the thread as to not make anybody's browser crawl lol they're all linked to flickr with shooting info in case anybody is interested.

Cheers!

 

[hockeyhead019]

So I did some reading in the hitchhikers section and was able to ID two things that have been bugging me in the past few months.

Thanks to https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/what-is-that-a-r2r-guide-to-common-new-tank-hitchhikers.443382/
I have a ton of vermedit snails and pineapple sponges. I've been removing the snails by just chipping them away during WCs.

 

[Preme]

Looks really good!

 

[hockeyhead019]

Looks really good!

Thank you!

 

[hockeyhead019]

Time for a quick update as my tank has now been up and running for just over a year!

I've changed out my sump light for something that might be able to grow the cheato a little more efficiently:

Out with the old:

Old Sump configuration by Jim, on Flickr

And in with the new!

Amazon grow light by Jim, on Flickr

New Sump by Jim , on Flickr

The installation isn't pretty by any means :/ a lot of it is due to the space constraint I have in the sump and the fact that the lights are on such long goosenecks. But it'll do, that cabinet stays closed the majority of the time

Here's a quick shot of the cheato ball. I'm curious how much it grows in the next month or so. I was only seeing it double in size in a month and change in the past. The cigar cutter is there for reference

Cheato 11/5/18 by Jim, on Flickr

Also, I've started eyeing up a reef-pi build. I love having the controllers to work with the tank but my digital aquatics rig isn't supported anywhere any more and the last power outage we had the head unit came back online a little out of whack. It sorted itself out but left me scratching my head a little about how much life it has left.

So I'm going to be grabbing a Pi 3 B so that I can use the GUI and look at all the fun graphs.

 

[saintsreturn]

Love the update and the work! Keep it up and keep posting pics. If your tank has the nutrients to pull, that small cheato ball will grow to the point you will be giving the stuff away.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Love the update and the work! Keep it up and keep posting pics. If your tank has the nutrients to pull, that small cheato ball will grow to the point you will be giving the stuff away.

Thanks, that's the goal. Keep all the algae in the sump and out of my DT lol. I'm considering blacking out the DT for two days or so to try and get some more of the algae off the rocks and let the cheato ball grow.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Update time:

Livestock:

Lost the O. Clown :/ and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what happened. He was eating well and didn't show any signs of illness. I don't think he jumped but I haven't seen any remains anywhere in the tank. Then again between the pistol shrimp and the crabs I don't know how much there would be left.

I'm still slowly acquiring hardware for the ReefPi project, I'll definitely start a build thread on that when I get it rolling.

But the big news... I grabbed a macro lens! Tamron 90mm Macro (older version) arrived yesterday and here's some quick shots just goofing around with it:


Orange Riccordia, on Flickr


Grumpy Pagoda Cuphttps://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Overrun Micromussa https://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Grumpy Duncan Colony https://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Frogspawnhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Red People Eaterhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Magician Zoahttps://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr


Acan https://www.flickr.com/photos/153495213@N06/, on Flickr

Clearly still working on my focus and depth of field but this lens is crazy sharp and a ton of fun to shoot with. I think next on the list is a full frame D610 when I stock up enough reward points to grab one lol.

I've started every other week feedings with Polyp Labs Reefroids and man, everything loves it! Zoas actually have an active response when it's in the water column and I spot feed all of the LPS. So hopefully that keeps all my zoas happy.

Everything seems to be doing ok, but really only ok, I didn't take a picture of my other two zoas because they were quite grumpy and only partially opened. If anybody has any tricks or things I should look at/think about I'm all ears. I've kept an eye on all the main parameters (ammonia, trates, alk, salinity and Ca) and they're all stable and good.

Regardless I'm pretty happy with the tank currently and really looking forward to watching that magician zoa grow out. Absolutely love that one!

I'm overdue for a FTS update, hopefully I'll get time to snap one today and go back and add it to the main page.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Double post....

Yesterday evening while staring at my tank I realized that my acan has at least two new heads growing! Pretty excited to see it doing well

I wish that magician zoa would grow some more heads because man o man is that thing just mezmorizing to look at!