BioCube 16: Schitt’s Reef

[BristleWormHater]

I think macroalgae might be my next addition, how do you keep it alive in your tank?

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

I think macroalgae might be my next addition, how do you keep it alive in your tank?

I don’t do anything special! I bought the ones I thought were pretty from Mosaic Macros and put them where I thought it’d look nice. Most of the pretty decorative ones need calcium, so ironically I have been doing more water changes (I was doing every two weeks and moved to weekly) even though my levels are low to keep them growing. That ended up benefitting everyone!

My faves, red hex and string of pearls look amazing and require very little maintenance (I prune the pearls just out of a personal preference for how I want them to look).

Halimeda is a cool plant but it isn’t performing very well and looks kinda bleh. I’ve heard it’s hard to succeed with these. The red fern is also beautiful but I don’t think mine are doing well (a creeping dark growth on them) and might remove them soon.

Blue hypnea is GORGEOUS but you need to be careful if you are going to prune it, little pieces spread easily.

I hope you get some! I credit all my tank’s early success and avoiding the worst of the ugly phase to having macroalgae and copepods.

 

[revhtree]

Happy tank birthday!!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

A little higher than usual for the little conch. I probably need to drop some algae wafer in tomorrow…

 

[aztoza]

A little higher than usual for the little conch. I probably need to drop some algae wafer in tomorrow…

So fun looking XD
My trochus made a break for it yesterday, climbed all the way up to the rim during water change and chilled out of the water a couple minutes…silly.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

My @SBB Corals arrived! They were shipped very securely and arrived in good condition. Here they are straight out of the box and into the tank:

1) Green berry Goni
2) cherry blizzard Goni
3) blue glaze Goni
4) dragon ball z encrustor

The blue glaze was a freebie. Three gonis! I’m gonna have to give them their own area in the tank, haha. I’ll post another pic after it looks like they’ve recovered from their trip!



These aren’t the exact frags I ordered but example pics from their site for my later reference:

 

[BristleWormHater]

My @SBB Corals arrived! They were shipped very securely and arrived in good condition. Here they are straight out of the box and into the tank:

1) Green berry Goni
2) cherry blizzard Goni
3) blue glaze Goni
4) dragon ball z encrustor

The blue glaze was a freebie. Three gonis! I’m gonna have to give them their own area in the tank, haha. I’ll post another pic after it looks like they’ve recovered from their trip!



These aren’t the exact frags I ordered but example pics from their site for my later reference:

They sent me a free moonshiner goni they look great once they open up!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

They sent me a free moonshiner goni they look great once they open up!

What size frags did you buy? I only bought the tiniest ones so I dunno if they’ll stretch out like that yet! But they poked out a little by the time the welcoming committee, David and Alexis, came out to say hi:

 

[BristleWormHater]

What size frags did you buy? I only bought the tiniest ones so I dunno if they’ll stretch out like that yet! But they poked out a little by the time the welcoming committee, David and Alexis, came out to say hi:

My frag looks smaller, but there's different types of gonis some have a longer stem with less bulky polyps, others have a shorter stem and longer polyps.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

My frag looks smaller, but there's different types of gonis some have a longer stem with less bulky polyps, others have a shorter stem and longer polyps.

We’ll find out which one I have eventually! The first task is to keep them alive. Now that I have way more LPS than I planned, I gave in and got the salifert mag/cal/alk test kit.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Just for fun, a video of feeding time! Any sound effects are my son babbling off cam, haha.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Found the home for 1 of my new frags. I think the bright green will look so cool above a bed of blue!

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Not too many changes recently, and I think the tank is appreciating it. A bad FTS here with low light cause I’m writing this in the early AM:

I relocated the red fern to make room for an encrusting coral. I think it likes the move- less turbulent, slightly less light.

I removed the halimeda- it was an interesting macro but it wasn’t thriving and was making things look sloppy, besides which I needed the space for my new SBB corals. Sadly, the cherry blizzard goni didn’t make it, but they gave me store credit. I’m also rehoming the zoa colony I never particularly liked. It did me the favor of starting to do poorly, LOL.

My blasto rewarded me with a couple new heads! I wasn’t expecting that so soon:


I’ve had a slight increase in hair algae. I think it’s because I increased the amount I feed, but the fish and shrimp CLEAR the tank in only a few minutes so it seemed necessary. On the topic of hair algae, can you believe there is a snail under this?:


Lastly and very exciting for me, there has been a corraline boom! Every frag that had corraline on it has grown a ton more, and both the back wall and my rocks have tiny patches appearing on them— two on the back wall and about ten scattered on the rocks. Still small enough there’s no point photographing them, but they are definitely there and growing! Feels like a big success for my not-even-four-month-old tank.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Nice to see your corals doing well! My corals are doing pretty good too but I haven't updated the build thread because the tank has entered the ugly stage.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Nice to see your corals doing well! My corals are doing pretty good too but I haven't updated the build thread because the tank has entered the ugly stage.

The ugly stage is part of the process! You should still post pics, so you can compare and see how much it’s improved later.

 

[aztoza]

Nice to see your corals doing well! My corals are doing pretty good too but I haven't updated the build thread because the tank has entered the ugly stage.

Yes pics please! It will be nice to see how far your tank has come in the future. Also, all the rest of us with the uglies need to know we’re not in it alone haha.

 

[chaewon]

I removed the halimeda- it was an interesting macro but it wasn’t thriving and was making things look sloppy, besides which I needed the space for my new SBB corals.

I have some Halimeda in my fuge and tried to grow it in my display as well. It wasn't thriving either and what seemed to happen was it that was catching bits of sand and detrius, which caused algae to grow over it despite it getting heaps of flow. Chucked it back in the sump and all the nuisance algae is gone.

Keen to see how the rest of your macro's grow !

 

[steveschuerger]

Tank is coming along. I started with the BioCube 16 before moving to bigger quarters . Made it into a freshwater tank but ironically moving it back shortly to a salty. And yeah SBB has great Gonis. I’ve got about 21 of his myself . These are a bunch o recent acquisitions from the past couple of months

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Tank is coming along. I started with the BioCube 16 before moving to bigger quarters . Made it into a freshwater tank but ironically moving it back shortly to a salty. And yeah SBB has great Gonis. I’ve got about 21 of his myself . These are a bunch o recent acquisitions from the past couple of months

Those are super cool! I am a Goni fan but they are definitely my highest difficulty coral right now. Of the three I got, one has died and one still seems like it’s acclimating, but one looks like it has agreed to stay alive for at least the near future! I’m calling it a win, haha.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

I wanted to get in an FTS before Reefapalooza this Sunday!

Major changes since last time:
- Had to remove the red fern macroalgae because of some kind of slime that wouldn't go away no matter what I did, and covered all new growth.
- My big clump of string of pearls was infested with GHA beyond what any CUC could do. I cut it way back to the handful of baby stems that weren't covered with it.



Minor updates:
- AOI, Bambam, and Pink Zippers are all regularly growing new polyps, so I'm confident in their future. Yellow Submarines are bright and vibrant and happy looking, but no growth yet. Mandarin Oranges are in decline due to shading from the Xenia.
- The xenia has begun to invade, with two baby branches popping up where they weren't invited. I will be removing them on my next maintenance.
- GSP is finally making clear advancements onto its rock. The mat has grown probably 2 square centimeters, and one or two new polyps. But it's accelerating.
- I added three more astraea snails, getting a mini-GHA-bloom back under control. Found and killed a pyramid snail and am now praying there aren't any I missed.
- Corraline algae spots are everywhere, growing both in number and size. I'm really proud to have gotten there in only 4 months!

Plans:
- Move the goniapora that's currently on the substrate to somewhere with lower traffic.
- Get more sand sifting snails (smaller ones that can get where the strawberry conch can't)
- Buy max 3 more zoas, I'm hoping I can find blues or yellows. Add either a soft or LPS that is flowy, so I have more movement than just the xenias. Maybe one more encrusting coral.
- Still deciding whether to wait for my sea star population to grow on its own (I have 2 asterina and 2 micro brittle stars), or to buy more. If there are micro brittle stars for sale at reefapalooza I will probably buy a bunch. I love seeing their little arms waving around at feeding time!

When I have more time later, I'll post some progress pics of individual corals!