Brand New 8 gallon bio cube

[living_tribunal]

I’m starting to have this belief that the absolute best good for corals, especially sps, are phytos.

If you are just doing phytos and aminos, your s*** is going to grow fast.

I love phytos in every way, they lower your nutrients, grow your pod pop, and grow your corals. They are a wonder substance and heavily underestimated.

 

[living_tribunal]

Yes absolutely. if you look around this forum, it’s not hard to see that people have success with an incredibly wide range of parameters...meaning if the corals are happy and stay happy, things are where they should be, because your tank has found its balance. Obviously numbers like salinity and ammonia need to be pretty exact, but if they are off or have a swing, trust me you will know with a glance! Even something as important as alk can be all over the place as long as it’s reasonably constant. I watched so much YouTube early on in this hobby, and saw experienced reefers say over and over “don’t chase numbers”. So I don’t. Not even sure what they all are. But every time I have my LFS test just to be sure, I always get these looks like “why the heck are you making me do this”.

whatever you are doing, do the same things over and over. Your tank will find a sweet spot based on that repetition and your corals will love you for it. Every time I’ve changed or added something, my tank took a while to balance out again, and I would think those peaks and valleys would be even more pronounced in a smaller tank!

Amen to this, and I appreciate the wisdom.

I have t pretty easy tbh, I only have about 50-60 frags and so I don’t have to worry about the big 3 parameters. Something tells me if my coral keeps growing like this, things are going to get a lot trickier soon here.

I finally brought back my monti cap from really bad shape, he’s growing at a crazy pace right now. People tell me how much monticaps can take out of your params so I’m just kind of enjoying noobeville while it lasts.

 

[Magellan]

Amen to this, and I appreciate the wisdom.

I have t pretty easy tbh, I only have about 50-60 frags and so I don’t have to worry about the big 3 parameters. Something tells me if my coral keeps growing like this, things are going to get a lot trickier soon here.

I finally brought back my monti cap from really bad shape, he’s growing at a crazy pace right now. People tell me how much monticaps can take out of your params so I’m just kind of enjoying noobeville while it lasts.

I have less than 1 coral per gallon (granted some are getting larger!) I think I’m at 22 right now. The sps can be big alk consumers (the only parameter I consistently test). And I would definitely not call it wisdom, just my .02

haven’t even had my first reef birthday yet, if you see me say something dumb don’t be afraid to google!

 

[living_tribunal]

I have less than 1 coral per gallon (granted some are getting larger!) I think I’m at 22 right now. The sps can be big alk consumers (the only parameter I consistently test). And I would definitely not call it wisdom, just my .02

haven’t even had my first reef birthday yet, if you see me say something dumb don’t be afraid to google!

Vise versa! I say a lot of dumb stuff 24/7. @Katrina71 just excuses me cause her and @Why-Me were around when I got my first frags 4-5 months ago. (Had a lot of freak outs, Katrina had to tell me to breathe)

 

[vetteguy53081]

I added a new AI Prime 16HD to my existing Prime HD. Can't figure out how to link the two as parent/child though.

In the app, when you click in light- you will see option to parent and enter serial number, etc

 

[living_tribunal]

Whoever recommended I get a turbo for my frag tank, thank you.

He's cleaned more turf algae/cyano in 2 hours than my previous snails cleaned in two months.

 

[Magellan]

I wanna do a zoa garden like that
I've seen some cool ones here on R2R, like star wars ones or cool skulls etc.

I’ve got a rock right now I’m letting get taken over. I have some orange mini zoas (they had a name but who cares...they are orange) some yellow mini zoas (more common) green palys and a red mini acan. I want to put one more species on it (blue hornets would be amazing) and just let everybody duke it out for the available real estate.

incidentally, I have sooo many pictures of that rock! It’s also my Magellan memorial garden. I’m kinda sentimental, and my very first coral was a stowaway (green paly polyp) that came with my urchin, part of my first purchase when I went CUC before fish. His name was Magellan. I’ve got an entire thread on here dedicated to him, poor guy was a direct casualty of glass cleaning. I had the rock too close to the glass and was using a long handled glass scraper...he moved after I had started, and when i went back over that spot I accidentally poked him with the corner of the scraper. Tried to nurse him back to health (over a period of months, thought I had succeeded!) but eventually the spot that got poked rotted away and he died soon after...Now I have Magellan the Second hard at work! This guy is even more thorough, it’s incredible.

 

[Magellan]

They will get absolutely massive. Like 3+ inches, and just bulldoze your frags. At least that’s what my LFS told me, and showed me some really impressive specimens! Said they only keep them in their larger tanks. Yours seems destined to be quite the sea monster with that kind of work ethic!

 

[living_tribunal]

They will get absolutely massive. Like 3+ inches, and just bulldoze your frags. At least that’s what my LFS told me, and showed me some really impressive specimens! Said they only keep them in their larger tanks. Yours seems destined to be quite the sea monster with that kind of work ethic!

I think he will be going to the display for sure after qt in that case. These things are nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire frag rack is spotless in the morning.

Maybe like 2-3 trochus and that crazy slug thing will be enough for the frag tank.

 

[living_tribunal]

I’ve got a rock right now I’m letting get taken over. I have some orange mini zoas (they had a name but who cares...they are orange) some yellow mini zoas (more common) green palys and a red mini acan. I want to put one more species on it (blue hornets would be amazing) and just let everybody duke it out for the available real estate.

incidentally, I have sooo many pictures of that rock! It’s also my Magellan memorial garden. I’m kinda sentimental, and my very first coral was a stowaway (green paly polyp) that came with my urchin, part of my first purchase when I went CUC before fish. His name was Magellan. I’ve got an entire thread on here dedicated to him, poor guy was a direct casualty of glass cleaning. I had the rock too close to the glass and was using a long handled glass scraper...he moved after I had started, and when i went back over that spot I accidentally poked him with the corner of the scraper. Tried to nurse him back to health (over a period of months, thought I had succeeded!) but eventually the spot that got poked rotted away and he died soon after...Now I have Magellan the Second hard at work! This guy is even more thorough, it’s incredible.

Beautiful tank!

 

[Magellan]

I think he will be going to the display for sure after qt in that case. These things are nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire frag rack is spotless in the morning.

Maybe like 2-3 trochus and that crazy slug thing will be enough for the frag tank.

I’ve seen over and over that you should have about 1-1.5 CUC members per gallon. I added a few at the time until my tank started to stabilize. I think ideally, there is just a slight amount of algae visible. Meaning your cuc is always trying to play catch-up and almost getting there, but not starving. Also means there’s plenty of nutrients for your corals

 

[living_tribunal]

I’ve seen over and over that you should have about 1-1.5 CUC members per gallon. I added a few at the time until my tank started to stabilize. I think ideally, there is just a slight amount of algae visible. Meaning your cuc is always trying to play catch-up and almost getting there, but not starving. Also means there’s plenty of nutrients for your corals

I personally feel like 1-1.5 cuc per g is too much. I think people wayyyy overdo it. People recycle these poor things!

I kind of get attached to everything I keep and also want some algae in my tank. I feel similar to how you are with keeping a little more algae than they can handle. I probably have 1 cuc per 2 gallons and it's working well. This turbo could easily dominate 5 gallons by itself.

 

[Magellan]

I personally feel like 1-1.5 cuc per g is too much. I think people wayyyy overdo it. People recycle these poor things!

I kind of get attached to everything I keep and also want some algae in my tank. I feel similar to how you are with keeping a little more algae than they can handle. I probably have 1 cuc per 2 gallons and it's working well. This turbo could easily dominate 5 gallons by itself.

oh by no means am I advocating go out and buy 15 more snails! just that you might have room for a few more members. it seems that as long as you have visible algae you are growing enough food to support a larger cuc.

 

[Katrina71]

Andrew has a few massive snails. The others don't survive his watchman.

 

[Katrina71]

@Magellan I'm sorry for your losses

 

[Katrina71]

So I wake up to find you guys gaming and talking tank.

 

[Katrina71]

It makes me very happy to see the love and support through all of it here. Not just our tanks. I feel very fortunate to be a part of your lives in some small way.

 

[NY_Caveman]

It makes me very happy to see the love and support through all of it here. Not just our tanks. I feel very fortunate to be a part of your lives in some small way.

I am a proud Katrinarino!

#Katrinarinos

 

[Katrina71]

Coral warefare. Ugh. The dendro got it's butt kicked by a plate it got knocked off on. I think it will recover, but...

 

[living_tribunal]

Coral warefare. Ugh. The dendro got it's butt kicked by a plate it got knocked off on. I think it will recover, but...

Plates can whoop some tail like that?

I channeled my inner noob a little too hard the other day and bought a Kenya tree and Xenia, those guys are growing wayyyyyy too fast and are starting to touch everything :/. I might have to sell them.