90g progress after 6 months

[alfieohalfie]

Howdy everyone!
I made a post earlier today introducing myself since I finally signed up for R2R. This will be my progress from here on out with everything I have (new and used) and detail my process along the way.

Used:
90g display
Mode sump roughly 25-30 gallons
2x Nero 5 power heads.
Bubble magnus skimmer(RIP)
2x gen 4 radions
2x t5 ballasts 4 bulbs total

New:
Hydros XP8
Hydros X4
Hydros wave engine v2
Reef Octopus Varios4
Reef Octopus classic 150 skimmer
Icecap 4k gyre
ATI coral plus bulbs
Maintenance equipment
Built a wooden stand
RODI I use is the aquatic life I got from amazon
Salt I use is Fauna Marin

Tanks been cycles and running for just over 6 months and decided to go with about a 3 month cycle.
QTd and army inverts during that process and thrown in then started taking a proactive approach to QT my fish prior to adding the display.
The inverts were chowing down during the 2 ugly phases I underwent. And during that the coralline is starting to show on the back glass and powerheads. Minor specs on the rock work as well
I plan for an SPS dominant tank so my fish selection isn’t too heavy nor will it be.
So far the fish include a Sailfin tang, 2 clowns, 1 yellow banded possum wrasse, and 1 coral beauty angel fish. The next addition will be a bicolor fox face and a powder blue. Thats about all I plan on doing for fish

I feed my fish rods food with some selcon
And my sailfin and angel fish devour nori like they’ve never eaten in their life.

I really suck at taking photos but I’ll post the pictures of the initial build when the tank was setup and I’ll be more active with taking more.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

 

[Stang67]

 

[alfieohalfie]

So about 2 weeks ago my boss gave me a huge colony of SPS, not entirely sure on the species but I’m sure it’s a montipora digitata?
However, he noted if I can’t keep this alive then give up lol.

Few,creepy crawlies but not worried at all. After all this is an eco system and either it’ll get eaten or it won’t and after some research, these aren’t too bad. I did find some other stuff. But mind you, this thing was about 10”x6” but of trimming had to go down.
currently have it in a storage container with a pump and heater and a cheap light to let it settle after a potassium chloride dip, one more week and I’ll do another dip and throw it in the display.
also snagged some smaller lps and sps frags to let settle and see how they do. But I wanna watch them grow big and strong.
I work a lot so my lights are ramping down blue by the time I’m home. This weekend I hope to throw everything in and take some photos to show what I got going. Even picked up a cheap underwater phone case to show what I got for better perspective.

Cheers!

 

[alfieohalfie]

Today’s update on the colony. Polyp extension is nice. Looks healthy to me unless anyone has to comment otherwise. Hoping to pick up some more frags this week and plant a couple more.

 

[alfieohalfie]

An update since I have the day off a time to give an update.
I replaced the t5s last week. 2 blue plus and 2 aqua blue special. I felt this combo gives me the nice look of the tank and not the super blue everyone is after. I feel like I can appreciate the tank more.
Plus I only get to see the tank like this every other Saturday and Sundays on my day off since I work so much.
I recently added a Minnow, to dose some trace elements that were lacking since my first ICP. Was it too soon for one? Probably, but I wanted to see how the tank was doing since I’m just shy of the year mark. So, it’s a plus in my book.
I put up some sps frags that caught my eye at a coral trade event to see how they do and all but two are doing great. The LPS are doing fantastic and the Acan I picked up a couple of months ago was originally about 5 heads and oh, how’s she’s grown. As far as the not so good sps. Not freaking out, still gonna keep an eye on them and see how they do.
All my fish are doing great and fat. I plan on adding some tiny algae eaters and “schooling” fish to brighten things up. So that’ll come in the next few weeks while I restart the QT and get them nice and healthy.

In the future I plan on picking up the Hydros X10 and IV combo to monitor my alkalinity once a day. I care much more about my ph and salinity more and the steps I’ve taken have accomplished a steady 8.4high and 8.3 low is working out nicely.

All that aside, til next time. Cheers!

 

[alfieohalfie]

More frags I put in this past week. Water change was yesterday so everything’s looking good so far.

 

[alfieohalfie]

 

[alfieohalfie]

My girlfriend and I went to check out some corals and as an early birthday present she got me an acropora gomezi. Can’t wait to see it grow!

 

[alfieohalfie]

Water change day and some updates on the sticks and other lps. Again, ones not doing so great but I noticed some recovery so I’m just gonna leave it alone and continue doing what I’m doing.

 

[alfieohalfie]

I had to work today so I did a little late of water change than normal with the light ramped down so the orange filter was used. I don’t know what happened the past two weeks but I was fighting Dino’s. I didn’t want to take the approach of tackling with chemicals. Despite so many discussions, post, articles, etc. I chose to just stick to what I’m doing and being proactive at scrubbing them and siphoning out and it seems after a couple of weeks they’ll slowly but surely going away. I did start my display with dry rock and my sump filled with about 15lb of live rock from my lfs and tbs. But time will tell. My corals don’t look terrible and still showing growth and encrusting nicely. My torch and hammer are actually splitting new heads! I noticed a few sps even starting to branch out! It’s exciting to see growth and plan on picking up more. Richard normally services my posses massive 800g tank at the shop so he noticed a branch fell off a huge colony in his tank so he bagged it up and gifted it to me so I put it on a frag plug and let it heal up before I placed it on a rock and I think it looks good where it’s at but time will tell.

 

[alfieohalfie]

Today I got home and found my torch polyps closed up but with a twist. I see splitting into three heads!
I haven’t got the normal polyp extension I normal would get the past weeks which I kinda thought it was because I added another gyre on the other side of the tank so the added flow maybe had stressed it out. This is exciting to see!

 

[Dipolyps]

Today I got home and found my torch polyps closed up but with a twist. I see splitting into three heads!
I haven’t got the normal polyp extension I normal would get the past weeks which I kinda thought it was because I added another gyre on the other side of the tank so the added flow maybe had stressed it out. This is exciting to see!

This is inspiring.

 

[alfieohalfie]

This is inspiring.

It really is! Can’t wait to see the others grow

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Today I got home and found my torch polyps closed up but with a twist. I see splitting into three heads!
I haven’t got the normal polyp extension I normal would get the past weeks which I kinda thought it was because I added another gyre on the other side of the tank so the added flow maybe had stressed it out. This is exciting to see!

Glad to see they are splitting!

 

[alfieohalfie]

Glad to see they are splitting!

It’s exciting for sure!

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

your tank is dope AF

 

[alfieohalfie]

your tank is dope AF

Thanks! About 80% of this build is powered by marketplace, Craigslist, and offer up

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Thanks! About 80% of this build is powered by marketplace, Craigslist, and offer up

you saved a ton of money

 

[alfieohalfie]

A few things changed but not really. I had an issue with my Kalkwasser and caught it early enough. My ph normally ranges from 8.2 low to an 8.4 high if I’m lucky. Well, it went up to 8.6 and I was alarmed but not calling 911.
The doser shorted and would not turn off.
I HATE testing
But I know it’s necessary.
After I set everything up and before I threw corals in I tested my alkalinity and found my range to be in the 9s
Ok cool, and it jumped to 11
Still I’m not freaking out.
Took the doser off, got another set up and cleaned up my container and made a fresh batch. Over the course of over a week and a water change consumption brought it down to normal so I left it. Kicked the kalk back on. Ph was lowest 8.1 without kalk. No harm done. Time to move on.
Today was the first water change I did when I took the time to “clean my sump”. I just siphoned detritus.

But it was piling up in there. I noticed some algae growing too. (Ignore the dinos) It’s from my understanding that kalk kicks phosphates out to some degree. And let me be honest. I don’t test it. I’ve never seen a problem to make me say, let me get a tester. Will that day come? Maybe. But whatever.
There’s some bits I couldn’t siphon but it’s fine.
I’m lazy.
Anyway. Growth looks good. Some sps should be shaggy but aren’t but I’m more focused on growth and health right now.

On my last water change I accidentally knocked a branch of my Forrest fire but I just reglued next to it. No biggie

Also had a coral that’s been lookin iffy to me but I left it alone in hopes to recover. And my left alone I mean I snipped the tips. Fight or flight in this household bud.

Seems the tips healed and the encrusent finally started so I’m happy to see that.

Im the worst at gluing and some frags fell. So I repositioned them and sure enough I ran out of putty. So I should have more tomorrow.
Also. Setup my cabinet with my controller and supplies.
Pictures incoming.

 

[alfieohalfie]

During the week one of my Nero 5 **** the bed. So I had to get a back up and then order the power heads I wanted which are the octopulse 4. But I ordered a sicce voyager 7 and man this thing moves some water but it’s HUGE.
Also I needed salt a while back on the fly and instant ocean was available so I was using that. One bucket of salt. Gunked my mixing container and pumps so bad I was set on the “I'm gonna use this for emergency and qt only” so I see many good things about these 4 part salts. I’m referring to Esv and captiv8. I got a box of esv and see how this goes. Sometime during the midway point of running out I’ll go find a bag of Morton purex and order captiv8 and give that a go. That’ll give me about 10 weeks of observing which salt I like more. I understand the convenience of having a premixed salt bucket but mixing the individual elements was SO MUCH EASIER. Than adding salt, checking salinity, adding more blah blah. Cooking scale, half a brain. Done. The instruction specifically states to mix to a higher salinity because you can always add water. To my luck I actually hit it right on 1.025.
Nice.
Obviously. Everything looks awesome after a water change. So time will tell.

It’s always something.

Cheers.