C-Reefer's Journey Into The Dark Side

[C-Reefer]

Moved Gobiwan, broke down and bleached QT, then ran with very heavily Primed water for about 1 hours, then drained, and let sit in the hot sun for 5 or 6 hours.

Went to the LFS today, picked up 15 lbs of reef ready rock, CUC for the nanocube, Paraguard, and 8 Cardinal tetras. They had candy cane pistols which i assume is a Randalls, looked exactly like it, for VIP price of $20, $5 less then normal! I was so tempted as i cant find Seawalker, i pretty sure hes in there but i csnt find him. Ill get him another shrimp eventuallu. They also had super duper cute tailspots, and gorgeous royal grammas and bangaii cards.

Tetras promptly went in QT, they will be allowed to settle in for a few days, and then I'll do Prazi, then hit them with Paraguard, then 10 days of metro for velvet and uronomea. @Stella1979 the instructions say to dose every day until symptoms gone, how long should I dose? A week? The guy I talked to did a lot of WTing, said they wouldn't need much as they treated them already. Leery bc last bath I got was covered in ich... but I think proactively treating with Paraguard will get any possible diseases off, and a 4 week QT should be plenty of time to see any diseases.

I've decided on the stocking for my biocune:
1 YWG and pistol shrimp (GobiWan)
1 Tailspot Blenny (algae and cuteness)
2 Bangaii Cardinals
MABYE 1 fire fish but it depends on how aggressive Gobiwan and the tail spot are.

In the 20 lomg:
2 clowns
1 royal grAmma
1 six line

I need to cut out a section of tailspin he biocube hood so I can put a grow light over it and start some cheato. Right now it's having a really bad diatom/cyano/hair algae outbreak. Hopefully now I have a CUC in there (1 Emerald crab, 2 blue legged hermits, 1 red legged hermit, 5 astrea snails) it should start clearing up.

I busted up the rock tonight some, and will start mocking up scapes tomorrow. I'll be gone today midday through Friday evening but I think everything will be fine. I'll out the auto feeder on the QT for the catds.

Gobiwan has settled in well, braver then I've ever seen him, but it is still a new tank. I'm super hoping that once I get him a shrimp buddy, rock, and peaceful fish he will be a lot braver. Plus without constant traffic by his tank. He doesn't have a burrow yet, just been chilling. I'm only going to feed kn the front of the tank so hopefully he'll make his burrow near the front when I out rock in.

Scap ing will be an attempt at the lagoon style while still having lots of room for corals.

I talked to the main manager there about what corals sold the fastest for them. He said plain old euphyllia, your basic hammers, frogspawn and torches always sold the best. Said he'd always buy frags off me for s good price. Also zoas. Said blastos were really good, but hard to frag. Said Nems were really really good if I got a nice Rainbow or Rose bubble tip. Said people would always take those. I'm debating between RBTAs, or euphyllia and zoas. Would bangaii Cardinals get stung by RBTAs? Will euphyllia get hurt by them? Zoas?

I apologize for any erros, this was sent from my phone

 

[C-Reefer]

Got a fish order from saltwaterfish.com. Been super impressed!

620 Pistol Shrimp - Randalli $13.99
595 Cleaner Clam $4.99
19652 Banner (Bangai) Cardinal $11.99 x2
5156 Tiger Sand Conch $7.99
249 Firefish Goby $13.99
704 Shrimpgoby - Barbershop $14.99
18419 * Tailspot Blenny $10

Alrighty, here's a big update. I'm going to have to make multiple posts as its lots of pictures.

To start off.... one of my Bangaii's died. No reason. I think he got wedged into the rubble, because that's where I found him. It happened overnight, as he was there that ngiht, and gone when i looked in the morning. My CUC had at least been taking care of it, so thankfully no ammonia spike. It just really sucks as I did have a pair... and now I have one which I don't know the gender of, so I'm going to try and sex it via vents. However, I can't sex via vents at the LFS as they have to be fed super full. So I'll have to try and get a fish that looks the opposite of mine, and hopefully go off jaw shape.

Other then that, all the other fish are doing great! The blenny is the most shy, he mostly hangs out on the back wall. I wish he would come out on the rockwork. I do know he's doing some work because I can sometimes see teeth marks on the glass. Very cute, but not the colors they advertised. I may send saltwaterfish an email asking about the false advertising, and mabye post a review on it warning its not the color on the pic. Other then that, I've been super impressed with SWfish. Good packaging, brave, healthy fish. Here's a cool pic of the blenny I got though.

These pics were taken at night under blues, and ofc the fish don't look great without whites. So bear with me. I'll have to try and get some pics of them another time during the day.

The Black Ray Goby and Randalls Pistol are best buds, and are always working. They've created a mansion! Always out and about, and dang, that pistol is a little superman. He'll push massive pieces of rubble out.

Got soem 1/4 inch mesh from BRS and made a screen for this. Looks great, and is finally turning into the sleeker reef I imagined. Looks far better then the plastic wrap, plus its safer for the fish, and easier to take on and off. The tank had been building up heat to about 82 but nothing I could do about it without a lid. Now its back to normal levels.

The new zoas I got. I'm not sure if they're magicians anymore, in fact I'm pretty sure they're not. They have more of a blue/green/white center, almost like fire and ice except with green instead of blue. They haven't opened all the way up though so I can't tell yet. I think they'll be really pretty though.

The two head hammer frag I put in. I have it acclimating to the higher light, so its just sandbed for now. I have the whole thing planned out where I want everything, but it'll be hard to explain so ya'll will just have to watch.

And last, as I've reached my pic max, here's FTS in blues and mixed, and whites.

More posts coming with updates

 

[C-Reefer]

20 long mixed reef update!

All corals are doing well, I've mostly stabilized alk by just dosing reef builder in the ATO. Need to get two part and test kits, I found a salifert combo alk/calc/mag on amazon for $45, I'll be getting that, and then the two part will be expensive. Oh well.

Side note: Just did some research while posting this, and found out that I think the new zoas are Ring of Fires. Zoanthid Catalogue 11

Lets start it off with an FTS! All pics I just posted, ect, are taken with our canon powershot. No gel filter required!! Love that camera.

Here's the hammer that is splitting into three heads, and has 4+ heads growing around the base. Can't wait for him to fill out, one of my favorites. He's still mad because I just got these and lights just turned on.

Here's my little clown babiessss. They're fat and sassy, and super cute. Impossible to get a pic of with all they're wiggles!

Love the right side of my scape. Filled in, and colorful! Yes the right side is empty. May or may not be a reason for that. Yes the top is super dirty and biofilmed. I don't know why... it just appeared all of a sudden. I'm running an airstone to keep it aerated. I think I'll drop water level and mabye install a skimmer onto my aquaclear. Also, thinking about mabye swapping my AC50 with the AC110 I got.

My green monti. I love it. It grows really fast!

Turf wars are about to start, but I love this little piece. Lots of color, and super cool to watch.

The hammer, now I've moved it, is so happy. Should've moved it sooner. Hopefully it'll start actually growing as it hasn't grown at all.

Candy cane which is now fully split into three seperate heads. Wish it grew faster because its such a gorgeous coral. So glad I got a kryptonite and not a duller one. It really makes a difference as it glows even under whites.

Love this view. Its also the one I see the most. Yes that caulerpa has almost taken over loll. Need to trim it back hard.

Another post coming probably.

 

[C-Reefer]

Here's kind of the catchall for pics that I didn't get to add to the first two.

Hollywood stunner. Gorgeous coral, but not my favorite.

Here's a pic of the firefish I got last night, i flipped the whites on and managed to snap this off before he darted to his burrow. I'm trying to avoid naming the fish until I've had them for a while, so I'm sure they won't die. Sounds harsh but... I can't get attached.

Blondies on the left, and everburners mabye? THe ones on the right are bright pink in the middle. They started out as one polyp. They need more light.

Zooooaassss taken over by caulerpa.

The GSP is already encrusting and growing fast.

Call this my birdsnest rock, even though it has setosa and monti. One of my favorites. All different colors, and really cool looking. The birdsnest has all grown so much.

My acans. The 4 new heads have finally developing color. Cant wait to get a big ball colony like @Stella1979

These zoas, one polyp floated there a month ago from a fragging and its taken off. The duncan was mad so I didn't take a pic of it. So many heads though, and its still growing.

Couldnt' resist throwing these in. Love coming back to it after a trip and seen it grown in. Need to shape th limno a bit more, and shape the right side. Also pull all the huge monte carlo LOL.

 

[ScottandAlisa]

Awesome thread so far! I just got a tailspot a few days ago too. The light stripes on its back are actually from stress. Give him a couple days and those will go away!

 

[Genomecop]

Did you quarantine the new fish?

 

[C-Reefer]

Awesome thread so far! I just got a tailspot a few days ago too. The light stripes on its back are actually from stress. Give him a couple days and those will go away!

Thanks!! Its been quite the journey. Hopefully he'll continue to settle in as surprisngly hes my shyest fish. Mostly hangs on the back wall, and almost never see him on the rockwork.

Did you quarantine the new fish?

No... theres a story behind that though. I was going to, but QT was not cycling enough ammonia. When they arrived QT was barely pushing through 0.5 ppm of ammonia even though I'd been cycling for weeks and it had been cycled before. The JBJ I knew for sure was cycled, I'd been ghost feeding lots and it was pushing through around 2 ppm easily. It also had a lot of mature live rock rubble and sand. I knew it was a risk, but I hoped that since they would all be in the same shipment and ordered from a reputable dealer they would be healthy. I knew if one got sick I'd have to go fallow, but it was a risk I was willing to take as opposed to almost certanly losing some in QT due to ammonia. I will QT any further additions.

Got a new coral yesterday, a Platygyra I think. Purple/red ridges and blue/green center. Was going to get some more fish for the 20 long but QT still not cycled ugh. Didn't want to spend $20 on a instant cycler either. I'll just keep working on it, probably transfer some live rock rubble or something.

 

[C-Reefer]

Alrighty guys!

First off, my first frag swap was a total and complete sucess!! Tons of new corals, more equipment, met some amazing people and got a new favorite LFS. The LFS owner is really cool, and they do aquarium installations... . Might be applying there for a job when I can drive! Also, I asked if he was interested in my skimmer, and he said yes. FInally!!! Gonna give me $300 for it, which is $200 below retail, but heck, I can't complain. He's giving it to me in store credit, but they can order in any fish I want and have stellar prices. I also found out I've been waaayyyy overpaying and my two "favorite" LFSs. I won't be going to those two unless I have to now, I've found multiple other better ones. Also met a good friend again, and we swapped some coral and equipment. He was the one I swapped for the clowns. He has other corals that him and I will be swapping, like a dendro and zoas and hammers along with others.

So now lets see the haul! I got from Logan (good friend I told ya'll about): Jack O Lantern Leptosiris, and a frag plug of Rastas. 7+ heads I think. I also swapped him a hammer frag for a Jebao RW8, which I'm super siked about as I needed a powerhead/wavemaker for the JBJ but didn't want to spend $50... bingo! The jack o lantern is super amazing and brightly colored, mabye a new favorite or close to it! Can't wait to see him grow out. Big bonus... its Vols orange! GO VOLS!!

The Rastas are still mad, but yesterday 1 head came mostly out and I saw skirts peeking out of others, so I hope I see some happy rastas soon.

From the LFS I got a $5 baby Fungia, what a steal! I've been wanting one for a while and this one is beautiful. I also got a $5 small bright red shroom, which I'm looking forward to putting on my shroom rock.

And rainbow acan pic cause I love it

Big reveal coming in next post because I want plenty of pic room for it!

 

[C-Reefer]

This is an invert I've wanted for a very long time. In fact, it was one of the corals/inverts that made me want a reef tank. I've definitely wanted this from the very beginning but I've been waiting and biding my time and it seemed like now, when I could get it from a local reefer, gorgeous colors... it was the chance I'd been waiting for. Super huge thanks to @Dufish for the stunning nem! I love it man!

Let me present my new Rose Bubble Tip Anenome!!! Absolutely stunning guy, good bubbles, the right size too. I can't wait for him to settle down hopefully somewhere visible and get happy and big. Once he does, I'll force my clowns to host him . He's moved around a good bit, and is now snugged up against the intake to the AC. When I put him in I put a sponge on jic and I'm very glad I did. I'm really hoping he moves up front soon. He's mad in that spot too so idk why he doesn't move. I sort of tried moving him this afternoon but no dice. Any advice? Just leave him alone?

 

[C-Reefer]

And to finish it off, here's some more photos

Pretty birdsnest :hungry:

Love this view. Looks so full! Still need to glue down the hammer

Remeber what I was saying about the hammer losing color a while ago? Its gorgeous now.

Love taking pics of the candy cane, gotta be one of my favorite corals. If only they came in blue that bright!

Look at all the coralline!!!

Left side (my fav right now, but once the RBTA settles down I'll put a lot of the new frags on the right side):

Right side (look at all the coralline!!) Everythings took off again since alk and calc has stabilized with dosing kalk

And to finish it off with an FTS!

Side shot

 

[C-Reefer]

Finally ordered a grow light for the JBJ, its almost ready to fill again. The nem has moved further and is now under the AC ntake. Hoping it continues to move around front.

 

[BedrockIOMC]

Hey man good to see someone else from Knoxville. Maybe we can meet up sometime and take a check out the tanks. If you ever need some help or anything just get in touch. Good luck with the tank.

 

[C-Reefer]

Hey man good to see someone else from Knoxville. Maybe we can meet up sometime and take a check out the tanks. If you ever need some help or anything just get in touch. Good luck with the tank.

Awesome another reefer in Knoxville! What fish stores have you been to so far? I'd suggest joining Volunteer State aquatics group on Facebook, and also check out the ETRC (east tennessee reefing club) section here. definitely try and go to the meetings too! For sure if I need anything I'll give ya a shout, don't need muh physical help normally becuase I do nanos lol, but mabye sometime I'll need something. Once you get your tank running you should come over and I can get you some frags!

 

[C-Reefer]

The nem is finally on the move! It moved all the way up to the top back right corner yesterday, which I'm super siked about! Hopefully it continues to wander today onto the rock and finds its happy place .

I'll be going by my new favorite fish store (Parrott Aquatics) hopefully this week or next week to trade in a skimmer and pick up 200 gallons worth of Fritz RPM. Pretty excited about that as I've heard lots of good things about Fritz and it meets my req. May also see if they have two part dosing stuff and test kits. Only thing I'm a bit nervous about is I've finally got my alk and calc stable with kalk with the IO. The corals have taken off, but I'm just worried I'm going to have to try and get the right dosage amount again.

When I do... I'll finally be filling the JBJ and starting it cycling. Since the accident with the outbreak... I'll be taking it very slowly. After it cycles I'm only going to add one fish, the only fish that survived the outbreak, the tailspot blenny, and my CUC and then let it get over the uglies. No corals till then. The tailspot should help with algae, and he's cute. . Yes, I have treated the tailspot. He got a full treatment of Kordon's Rid Ich + (formalin) in QT, and then a full treatment of 14 days of Metroanzidole. I believe that should kill every possible disease right? I think it was brook or velvet so I think I've got my bases covered. If I need to, I will do another treatment of another med to make sure he's completely clean. @Humblefish what's your thoughts?

On the 20, its doing incredible. Ever since I started dosing kalk everybodies been happy and have taken off. Whihch is such a relief, I HATED seeing my corals slowly bleaching. I mounted the new frags, and they look great!

 

[C-Reefer]

I'll start with the 20! Dosing is going well, I have Calcium automated at 40 milliliters a day. It's slowly increasing by about 25 ppm a day. I'm up to 330 now. Target is 450. Magnesium is coming up too, it's up to 1380 which is almost target. Dosed up supposedly to target - 1440. I'll test tomorrow. Alkalinity is finally coming down, and is down to 10.5 today. Yay!! Target is 8.5. Hopefully well hit targets soon! Hopefully we'll be ready to fully automate dosing soon.

I've been talking to local reefers, and evidently by high PO4 might be caused by the low magnesium... I haven't done any research but I'm wondering what's young to happen with Magnesium back to normal. I'll still add chemipure, mabye Sunday afternoon.

I also cleaned up my 20 display. Finally got the light hung, and got the refugium cleaned up! Looks soooo much cleaner now. I have an extra powerhead now because the JBJ is running on just the RFGA, which is enough flow for that tank. The nems didn't like having another powerhead in there. So I'll put that in and set them to alternate or something. @Stella1979 what do you do with your two and how do you hook them up as master and slave?

I was working at my LFS today and they had this GORGEOUS trachy. I fell in love. I'm reeeallly tempted to get it, I'm going to give him a call and see what I can get price wise. I do get a employee discount... Btw, that was under Kessil. Almost nothing as good for the colors.

They had some nice gonis I was tempted by too.

Ill probably pick up an octospawn eventually too.

Btw... Got to play with a Kessil A360X yesterday. Super cooollll. Moonlights, storm mode, and the controllability was fantastic. Great color spectrum too! Check out the size of this brittle star in their shark tank

And now what you've all been waiting for... The scape is finished!! It's in the tank and I'm LOVING it! The nems are happy too! Btw water level is down because pumps are off because I was letting the nems grab on. I'm planning on a big euohyllia garden on the left branch, and I'm not sure what on the floating rock. If I get that trachy.. it might go on the sandbed on the spot of light between the arms. I think thayd look really cool. BUT, i dont think id be able to resist the temptation of putting it in my 20

P.s... little tip I've learned, glass cleaner is FANTASTIC. Cheap too, it's like $2 a bottle and it lasts a really long time. Just make s7re to spray it on the rag away from the tank. Don't spray it on the tank.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Wow, what a rich post. The Trachyphyllia, the Starfish, but what I really loved was the aquascape. Great job!

 

[C-Reefer]

Wow, what a rich post. The Trachyphyllia, the Starfish, but what I really loved was the aquascape. Great job!

Thank you! Wish I had the room to include everything that goes on with my tanks because their always changing.

 

[C-Reefer]

So yeah, I decided to upgrade after I found a stellar deal on a used 75 with all the equipment. So I picked it up two sundays ago, and transferred everything last Sunday.

Sot he tank has been moved over and is finally cleared up and happy! Stil on the todo list: Clean up the rest of my very large mess, clean up and finish breakdown of the 20 and JBJ, mount all the corals, mount the lights, clean up all the very large mess of cords under the stand, and tweak the rockscape a wee bit.

But now for some pics! Rockscaping was a beast, I'd never rockscaped with such a need for height and depth. I like what I ended up with though. Lighting is temporary, I'm going to hang the lights (x2 ocean revives) and take off the fluval light. Just needed lighting for the corals and so I could see.

I actually am liking this sump more then I thought, but definitely going to be ugprading to the bashsea and hard plumbing eventually for the larger fuge area and the cleaner look. I'm currently using the sock area as a fuge, which is actually decently sized. Planning on getting something like a filter media cup so I still can run mechanical filtration like floss, while retaining the fuge area.

The cords are terrible, I was just throwing everything in to try and get everything alive and running. I'm picking up a bunch of cord management stuff from work Thursday, clips, and velcro, and all that good stuff, so it should be nice and cleaned up soon. Tangled wires make me want to scream :mad:

Thankfully, all the corals are very happy, including the Holy Grai torch. Fhew! Everybody is currently tossed on the sandbed, hoping to get everything mounted today as school is out for the non-existent "winter storm" I'm going to plan it out a bit so I get some gardens, euphyllia, zoa, leave some room for acros

I do have 5 fish curretnly in the tank,2 clowns, firefish, tailspot blenny, and added this morning, a yellow coris wrasse out of QT. He immediately dove into the sand. He was super active in QT and was out swimming within the day I put him in so I can't wait until he's out and about everywhere. Here's a picture with 4 of the 5 fish, all 4 originals. I've been shocked by the different behavior of the fish. Everybody is far braver, and the amount of swimming has skyrocketed. My blenny, used to always hang out in his hole and mabye come out for a few minutes when I wouldn't be around. Now, he's already out and swims all over the rocks eating algae, even when I tap on the glass. The firefish is always out now, and is actually swimming around instead of staying right over his hole. The clowns, wow, they're the biggest difference. Before they would always sit and swim in the back left of the tank, coming to the front occasionlly when I fed. Now, they are all over the tank. Constantly. I've never seen them swim this much. I love it!!

I do need to figure out what fish(es) are going into QT next. Pretty sure I'm going to use the 20 long as myu new bigger QT, size up from the 20 so I can shoot more fish through QT. Anyways, next fish I think are a Royal Gramma, Bangaii Pair, Blue line goby pair. I'm going to use the old 10 gal QT with an old sponge filter for a tisbe pod culture, and culture phyto plankton to feed both the tank and the pod culture. this should get me a huge biodiversity and tons of pods in the tank fairly quickly, which should allow me to get the wrasses and mandarin dragonet eventually.

 

[C-Reefer]

So... a bit of a shocking revelation, my heater was leaking stray voltage. :banghead: I was feeding for the first time tonight, and BAM I got shocked. Wasn't too bad as I'm grounded and GFCI'd but still a good surprise. At the time I didn't know what it was but I had my suspicions as the day before I'd seen a constant little stream of bubbles coming out of the heater. So I got the voltometer, and put one end in the tank and the other on the "ground" which happened to be the light, and turned everything off. 0 volts. Turned on everything one by one leaving the heater till last. 0 volts until I turned the heater on which then jumped to 12 volts. Turned everything off, 0 volts, turned the heater on, 12. So I pulled the heater and put two 100 watt heaters I had on hand. Hopefully getting another finnex 300 watt tomorrow from work. What a great first feeding . Then, the next morning, I woke up to the breaker flipped on the tank. WHaaaattt?? Are you kidding me? I flipped it on, not thinking, and smelled an acrid electric smell and popping noises. I rushed over to the tank, and in the sump the cheap chinese 100 watt heater had blown up. Literally glass everywhere in the sump and the heating element was exposed to the water, sparking all over. Spent a panicked few seconds trying to find the switch, and got it finished. WHHHEWWWW

I did get the 300 watt from work the next day on loan until I got mine, I got my finnex 300 watt titatium a few days ago, and so switched it out again. Dang, I'm only using quality heaters from now on

 

[C-Reefer]

(transferring my build thread onto here, hopefully going to keep this updated like I do my current build thread)
I've been working my tail off trying to get all my junk cleaned up . There was soooo much aquarium stuff, but I found out I have plenty of stuff to still have everything I need or might want, and have enough to set up a whole nother nano tank. So I'm going to try to sell either the 20 long or the JBJ as a complete setup, with everything. So I've finally got everything cleaned up, and today I'm driving into Knoxville and picking up a bunch of stuff. Light hanging equipment, another light, some fish, cord management, mabye a clam . Speaking of clams... there's these stunning blue with green rim derasa clams at work. problem is, they're only about 2-2.5". How hard would it be to keep one under that size?

Anyways, my skimmer is finally broken in and starting to skim. It's still skimming wet but I'm making tiny adjustments so hopefully going to get some good strong skim going. I'm currently using the sock chamber as a fuge, with some matrix and then dragons breath and cheato.

I placed my corals where I wanted them a few days ago, to see how they'd do, see if they liked the spots before permanently mounting them. So here's the layout.

Euphyllia garden. Left plenty of room for them to grow to colonies and for more. There's a black with green tip torch and a frogspawn I'm definitely eyeing at work that I'll pick up eventually.

Here's the zoa garden. I hadn't realized how many zoas I had! Can't wait for it to fill in some, and I'll also definitely be getting some more

Here's Tink. She's very brave now in this big tank, she swims all over the open area and never darts.

This is Spock the Tailspot blenny.

Here's the left and right sides of the scape

The heater is temporary, I'm ordering one Monday. Waiting until monday because I'm also getting pod and phyto cultures at the same time so, wanted to let those guys not get stuck over the weekend :hungover:

Did I mention my Holy Grail torch now has three heads? Also I mounted GSP to the overflow, and also a little piece of digitata that broke off when everybody was moving. I'm loving the big tank life!

Planning on getting a bunch of little filler fish today, stuff like Blue line goby pair, royal gramma, bangaii cardinals, and mabye another blenny.