Comeback Tour - Haggisman14's Eshopps Deskmate Build

Haggisman14 · Nov 27, 2023

I must say, it's really cool when you've realized that a coral has fully set in to your reef, and you're able to see continuous solid growth out of the corals!

Man I love this hobby!

Haggisman14 · Nov 28, 2023

Today I did a little rearranging. I noticed some zoa's I had in the back left of the tank weren't doing that great (big polyps had gotten small), I moved it down front where hopefully they will do a little better I also moved my single headed lord to a new location as it's been in the same spot for almost 8 months without growing AT ALL....figured why not. In doing so I also accidentally broke the tip of my WWC Grizzly Adams coral, and I was able to get it mounted to the top of one of my rocks in a HIGH FLOW area. I'm told this coral likes flow, so this area should be perfect for him...I'm hoping this also brings out the GRIZZLY part!

I"ll grab a new picture tomorrow once the white are back on!

Haggisman14 · Nov 30, 2023

Gumbies R Us · Nov 30, 2023

Haggisman14 said:

Tank is looking great!

Haggisman14 · Nov 30, 2023

Gumbies R Us said:
Tank is looking great!

Thanks! I'm really happy with how it's progressing!

Haggisman14 · Dec 5, 2023

A little top down 3/4 shot for y'all.

Tank got a 1 gallon water change yesterday, some reef roids and aminos today and a fresh glass scraping!

Enjoy!

Keko21 · Dec 12, 2023

Following I just started my deskmate cycle two days ago!

Haggisman14 · Dec 12, 2023

Keko21 said:
Following I just started my deskmate cycle two days ago!

it's going to be a fun ride! Looking forward to watching you trick yours out!

Haggisman14 · Dec 12, 2023

Going to be going on vacation, and I DID NOT get the doser that I wanted, however I have a colleague that's going to do my top off regimen for me while I'm away (super easy), and then come the new year i'll look into getting that doser, as well as All For Reef to get the growth rate cracking over here!

Haggisman14 · Dec 14, 2023

Vacation time...lets go!

Haggisman14 · Jan 2, 2024

I'm back! More or less I was away from the tank for about 15 days. I was completely out of the office from 12/15-12/23, and had a colleague top off my tank daily for me during the time. 12/24, I checked in on the tank, and did my own top off, 12/26 I did a water change, and then 12/29 I came in and did my final top off of the year, and also added a new emerald crab (old one died), and 15 small blue leg hermits to help with some algae issues in the tank.

Overall tank is looking great. Here's a picture as it sits now (keep in mind this is no glass scraping, no algae pruning, nada!

Today I"ll be doing my first water change of 2024, along with some algae pruning! My bubble algae did have a bit of an explosion while I was away. But I'm hoping now that I"ve got an emerald crab in there he'll get to work (might have to add another one in the future).

I also purchased my first bottle of All for Reef, that I'm going to start dosing next Monday.

In this time all corals are doing well. My SPS are all doing great. My fox flame lost a little of the color from its tips, but I know that'll come back. everything is encrusting really well, and my PC Rainbow that I almost lost is nice and thick, and putting good skeleton down on its base, and it's starting to slowly get that reddish hue back. My favias are going really strong, putting down a lot of base, and my golden eye chalice has really exploded in growth over the last month.

I'll send some updated pictures after I do my water change, and prune some bubble algae, and then get some close ups of the corals.

Thanks for looking!

Haggisman14 · Jan 3, 2024

A little photo dump of new pictures from today post water change.

All for Reef gets delivered today, and I"ll start using it tomorrow! Going to manually does for now, and then figure out a doser in the future.

Shoutout to @WWC & @Battlecorals for all the corals in this tank! They're all doing great!

A few top down shots, and then coral shots!

No real vertical growth at all on this little blue/purple tort frag of sorts (WWC), but it's got tons of coralites, and has thickened up like crazy since I put it into the tank..and it's also super fuzzy!

lubeck · Jan 3, 2024

Looking good. Are you done with stocking coral and fish?

Haggisman14 · Jan 4, 2024

lubeck said:
Looking good. Are you done with stocking coral and fish?

Are we ever really done ;-)

Fish wise I really don't see me putting anything else in the tank other than the two clowns that are in there now. They've been in there by themselves for almost a year now, and I feel like if I were to put anything else in there, they've bully the hell out of it and probably kill it.

Coral wise I'm definitely NOT done! Im' probably done with SPS corals for now, but there might be some rooms for some montis/encrusting SPS, and definitely room for some more zoas, favias, lords, and some more cyphastrea that i might toss on the back wall to mix with the GSP that's growing back there.

I'm really curious to see how the tank responds to the All for Reef, read really good things about it both growth wise, AND color wise. It arrives later today, so I'll start that up on Monday!

lubeck · Jan 4, 2024

I realized a little too late that I probably overstocked my corals as they all started to take off and fight for real estate. I didn’t leave enough for the colonies to really mature after 1.5 years.

Haggisman14 · Jan 10, 2024

Cool little update in the tank. My meteor shower cyphastrea has FINALLY gotten it's color back! Took a long time, but now under whites, you can finally see the deep teal base color. It's also an encrusting beast!

This picture doesn't truly do it justice, but the yellow/orange polyps now REALLY pop!

Haggisman14 · Jan 10, 2024

Did my weekly water change, and even though I"ve got my emerald crab in the tank, I tried to do a DEEP CLEAN and purge of a lot of the bubble algae that I can see and get to in the tank.....man it was a lot more than I thought I had. In some instances I would scrape out 1, and 2-5 came with it (buried in the rock work).

I did my best NOT to pop any of the bubbles, and I'm still thinking of adding another small emerald crab to the tank too.

Next up is a few bumblebee snails as I have some vermatid snails that just won't quit!

The reefing saga continues...and I love it!

Haggisman14 · Jan 11, 2024

So today marks 1 week since I started dosing 1mL of All for Reef...and I can say that I can already see a difference! This comparison shot is 8 days apart, taken the day before I started dosing.

Sadly the picture doesn't do it justice, but the whole top portion of this coral has blue tips now, and is showing substantial growth! Growth has been slow and steady on all my SPS, but I think we're on the cusp of things REALLY taking off now!

I can't wait to see what my month long progress shots are going to look like!

It's really starting to take on the colors like Adam's Colony picture (photo credit @Battlecorals )

Haggisman14 · Jan 15, 2024

I would highly recommend trying Tropic Marin's "All for Reef" This is my second full week of dosing, and I"ve already noticed a change in color of some of my corals (slight change), but I've already noticed a significant difference in growth in my SPS corals (previously grew very very slowly), and also my zoa's seem much happier too (open more and putting down more mat for new polyps).

The 15 little blue leg hermits that I added at the end of December have also made a huge difference! All the little hair algae that I had in the tank (had a bit of a bloom while I was on vacation), is all gone again! I know not having any algae in the tank is impossible, but all these little guys are taking care of it and keeping it in check.

Thanks for looking!