Two-Month Update:
It’s been almost two months since I added water and enough has developed to post another update.
Here’s how the tank is looking at 7 weeks:
Two-month video
The major update since last month was adding the fresh liverock from TB Saltwater - about 85 lbs of premium and branch rock. This was really nice rock with tons of life including sponges, macro algaes, feather dusters, live (for now) barnacles, tunicates, coralline algae and of course a variety of hitchhikers. I rinsed most of the hitchhikers off but a pistol shrimp managed to get past me. Haven’t decided if he’s a big enough problem to be worth trying to remove.
But if you can get past the risk of hitchhikers (which, in my experience, find their way in anyway and are usually harmless), the biodiversity on this rock is incredible and it has been a huge boost to the overall health and vibrance of the tank. If I were starting over, I would certainly use TB Saltwater again.
As you can see from the video, I needed to supplement the TBS rock with some manmade rock to fill out the full rockscape. Im hoping that, in a few months, I won’t be able to tell them apart anymore. This rockscape is essentially my final design - subject to adding a few small rocks here and there. It accomplishes my primary goals of a lot of negative space, an abundance of mounting points, high mounting points directly under the lights for acros and montis, and sufficient flat low surfaces for LPS and other low-light corals. It looks a bit sparse now but I didn’t want to repeat a mistake I’ve made in the past of creating a big, full rock scape and running out of space when the corals grow in. This setup leaves ample room for coral growth. It also has a lot of open arches for strong flow and diversions for fish.
With the exception of one small bubble coral that I think came in damaged, everything is thriving. I’m seeing great polyp extension and growth in my sps corals but some of the acros aren’t as bright as I’d like. In part, that is my lighting. I’ll be adding more actinic and UV to bring out fluorescence. It’s also biological. When I added the new live rock, my phosphates and nitrates began to climb. Phosphates went from below 0.01 (Hanna ULR) to 0.08 and nitrates went from below 0.1 to 2.4 (Hanna LR). So I cut back on food and coral supplements (aminos, Pohl’s Extra, Coral Vitalizer). The nutrient levels are falling now so I will start ramping those supplements back up to dial in the SPS coloration.
Btw, the video is shot through a yellow filter to cut out the blue cast. It makes it closer to the colors I see with my eye but overcompensates a bit so the actual colors are somewhat bluer than the linked video shows.
The fish are all either captive bred (shipped from ORA and Biota) or fully quarantined from Ocean Devotion. Fish list: White Tailed Bristletooth Tang, Desjardini Sailfin Tang, 5 Lyretail Anthis, 4 Gold Lined Rabbitfish, 2 Percula Clowns, Green Mandarin, Molly Miller Blenny, Supermale Rhomboid Wrasse.
I plan to add a few more large feature fish but will otherwise let this livestock assortment grow in from here.
I have some ongoing projects including:
- adding more UV and blue light
- adding a calcium reactor
- automating dosing of KZ products
- swapping out one of the return pumps to a Vectra so I can connect it to the battery backup
- installing a permanent refugium (I have a temp in place but my carpenter is so far behind schedule that I still don’t have the shelves in place for the final one).
- finishing the woodwork surround for the tank and posting pictures of the final install
- increasing flow near the water surface
These and follow ups on the filtration and flow systems behind this setup will be addressed in future posts.
It’s been almost two months since I added water and enough has developed to post another update.
Here’s how the tank is looking at 7 weeks:
Two-month video
The major update since last month was adding the fresh liverock from TB Saltwater - about 85 lbs of premium and branch rock. This was really nice rock with tons of life including sponges, macro algaes, feather dusters, live (for now) barnacles, tunicates, coralline algae and of course a variety of hitchhikers. I rinsed most of the hitchhikers off but a pistol shrimp managed to get past me. Haven’t decided if he’s a big enough problem to be worth trying to remove.
But if you can get past the risk of hitchhikers (which, in my experience, find their way in anyway and are usually harmless), the biodiversity on this rock is incredible and it has been a huge boost to the overall health and vibrance of the tank. If I were starting over, I would certainly use TB Saltwater again.
As you can see from the video, I needed to supplement the TBS rock with some manmade rock to fill out the full rockscape. Im hoping that, in a few months, I won’t be able to tell them apart anymore. This rockscape is essentially my final design - subject to adding a few small rocks here and there. It accomplishes my primary goals of a lot of negative space, an abundance of mounting points, high mounting points directly under the lights for acros and montis, and sufficient flat low surfaces for LPS and other low-light corals. It looks a bit sparse now but I didn’t want to repeat a mistake I’ve made in the past of creating a big, full rock scape and running out of space when the corals grow in. This setup leaves ample room for coral growth. It also has a lot of open arches for strong flow and diversions for fish.
With the exception of one small bubble coral that I think came in damaged, everything is thriving. I’m seeing great polyp extension and growth in my sps corals but some of the acros aren’t as bright as I’d like. In part, that is my lighting. I’ll be adding more actinic and UV to bring out fluorescence. It’s also biological. When I added the new live rock, my phosphates and nitrates began to climb. Phosphates went from below 0.01 (Hanna ULR) to 0.08 and nitrates went from below 0.1 to 2.4 (Hanna LR). So I cut back on food and coral supplements (aminos, Pohl’s Extra, Coral Vitalizer). The nutrient levels are falling now so I will start ramping those supplements back up to dial in the SPS coloration.
Btw, the video is shot through a yellow filter to cut out the blue cast. It makes it closer to the colors I see with my eye but overcompensates a bit so the actual colors are somewhat bluer than the linked video shows.
The fish are all either captive bred (shipped from ORA and Biota) or fully quarantined from Ocean Devotion. Fish list: White Tailed Bristletooth Tang, Desjardini Sailfin Tang, 5 Lyretail Anthis, 4 Gold Lined Rabbitfish, 2 Percula Clowns, Green Mandarin, Molly Miller Blenny, Supermale Rhomboid Wrasse.
I plan to add a few more large feature fish but will otherwise let this livestock assortment grow in from here.
I have some ongoing projects including:
- adding more UV and blue light
- adding a calcium reactor
- automating dosing of KZ products
- swapping out one of the return pumps to a Vectra so I can connect it to the battery backup
- installing a permanent refugium (I have a temp in place but my carpenter is so far behind schedule that I still don’t have the shelves in place for the final one).
- finishing the woodwork surround for the tank and posting pictures of the final install
- increasing flow near the water surface
These and follow ups on the filtration and flow systems behind this setup will be addressed in future posts.
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