Jared’s sca 50g reef (1 year update 5-17/24)

[Ef4life]

So the tank has been chugging along, I haven’t tested alk as I have been quite busy dealing with other house issues. Namely a major roof leak and water damage to half of our living space. So it’s been quite difficult keeping a Routine going

That was my kitchen

As for tank updates, not much has changed, I lost one clownfish, not sure what happened no body was discovered. I did a 10g waterchange last week just to use the water up since I had to empty my mixing station and move it for demolition of the room it was in. Coralline is growing on the bottom and acrylic overflow wall so that’s good, I need to scrape the overflow before it gets out of control.

The lego reef had an accident this morning, I was moving it back to location when I dropped it on the floor.

Damage wasn’t too bad, but it did release the kraken

It’s mostly the same but slightly different after the rebuild.

Found a new fish in the sump

 

[Ef4life]

Oh and I got a Lego angler fish that glows in the dark

 

[Ef4life]

Not a lot to update on the reef tank, it’s chugging along fairly well. I did pull the pc rainbow as it started peeling flesh. So something is/was off, I think I need to add a Skimmer soon, so I need to budget for that and a new sump for it to fit. I also feel I need more flow there is a lot of just open water space in this tank, I want to add a gyre type power head soon to help get it moving better.

Living without a kitchen isn’t all bad -
Cooked up breakfast in front of the reef

I decided to finally mount the kamoer x1 doser so it’s not just sitting on the light waiting to fall into the sump again. Since I was still having some low alk I also put in a second x1 online for adding in tm all for reef. I got the 3d printed mounts from brs they are made by vca, so that’s cool. Mounted up top and out of the way for the clean look.

A few new additions to the lego reef, fish in new colors and the white ones glow in the dark, new sting ray, and the extra large great white shark which totally can fit a Minifigure in its mouth - divers beware!!!. A friend also surprised me with the black angler fish, that made my day when an anonymous envelope shows up with lego inside. I had no idea where it came from, I figured I ordered it without remembering lol.

And a cool thing I was experimenting with - a passive algae turf scrubber. This is on my main reef system, it’s a penguin 200 hob filter. I like these because they are cheap, silent, last for years, carbon cartridges are Like $1 or less auto shipped on Amazon or use the reusable cartridges with throw away filter floss. Toss the bio wheel you don’t need it. So this filter has a small tab sticking up top in the waters return flow, perfect to hang a piece of knitting mesh to grow algae. The light spill from your display grows the algae on the mesh, honestly just normal operarion of a hob filter will grow algae on the surfaces, so making most of it grow on a removable screen is a maintenance bonus. I can’t really say if it makes a difference or not to the no3/po4 Levels as I haven’t been testing to see how effective it is. But if it lets me go
A little longer between cleaning the glass (which it seems to do) that’s plenty of benefits for me.

 

[Ef4life]

I scraped all the coralline and hair algae i could off the bottom and back glass I could over the weekend, scrubbed the rocks to loosen up a bunch of hair algae, and soaked all the pumps and power heads in diluted muriatic acid to clean them. Kalkwasser tends to shut these Jebaos down after a few weeks, the ceramic shafts get fused to the ceramic bushing inside the impellers and they seize up but a few minutes soaking and they look new.

I also Dusted the lego displays and added a new shark,I have some parts on order to build a new display bommie for the shark, it’s pretty much ready to fall over at all times right now with just a single stud holding up and balancing all that sharks weight

 

[Ef4life]

Tanks chugging along still, lately I’ve been having to daily blow off some algae from the Gregorian, I’m not liking that trend. Going to cut back on the feeding a tad as I’ve been going a little too heavy I think.

Adding all for reef seems to be helping quite a bit, I’m noticing all 3 montipora digitata are growing now, although the bubblegum is the slowest with minimal growth. Not much change on anything else. All the lps seems to be steadily growing although slow.

New lego set I got super cheap, sunken ship and a large sub, which is too big for my current displays really. I have a line an a duplicate set for the same price so might get it to double up the shipwreck part. We will see.

We got cabinets ordered for the kitchen so I started to do demo for the remodel. Old tiny galley kitchen to new open kitchen than will have an island where that wall was and sort of ended. Removed the drop ceiling and will keep it vaulted like the rest of the room. Really opens it up for activities.

 

[Ef4life]

I Added a classic Lego dolphin.

 

[Ef4life]

So I decided to rebuild the island. This new build is going to completely fit over the top of the overflow. Sca offers an acrylic overflow cover, well that warps over time so the new lego display will take over the job.

Here’s the old 16x16stud island vs the new build and the overflow cover, I used the black then blue brick for a gradient in the water to simulate the changing depth. And it’s 5 plates thick for rigidity and room for buried treasures

And here it is so far, relaxing and enjoying a bottle of rum after all this building tonight. I wanted to use the light tan plate for the top layers. But I literally have no wedge plates
Left. This build was very part intensive, it’s really depleted my trans light blue and dark tan so im headed to bricks and minifigs in the morning to pick some bulk and hopefully restock some much needed tans and trans light blue pieces

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So I decided to rebuild the island. This new build is going to completely fit over the top of the overflow. Sca offers an acrylic overflow cover, well that warps over time so the new lego display will take over the job.

Here’s the old 16x16stud island vs the new build and the overflow cover, I used the black then blue brick for a gradient in the water to simulate the changing depth. And it’s 5 plates thick for rigidity and room for buried treasures

And here it is so far, relaxing and enjoying a bottle of rum after all this building tonight. I wanted to use the light tan plate for the top layers. But I literally have no wedge plates
Left. This build was very part intensive, it’s really depleted my trans light blue and dark tan so im headed to bricks and minifigs in the morning to pick some bulk and hopefully restock some much needed tans and trans light blue pieces

Such a cool idea!

 

[Ef4life]

Such a cool idea!

Thanks,

Here it is now I think I’m calling it finished.

 

[Ef4life]

the return plumbing sticks out above the overflow just a tiny bit, kind of an annoying thing I didn’t realize, so I had to add 2 layers of black plate around the bottom perimeter so it would sit flat. It’s a little thick now, but oh well it will need to be redone it a few months to wash off the salt and grunge that reef tanks build up

But it’s on, and it’s every thing I envisioned.

Full tank shot under the morning blues with orange filter, the lego displays are looking too chaotic, I need to rebuild them and go with a less is more approach in the next iteration. Not sure if I like the sub on the orphek, I like the build, but it’s too big to really be on display.

 

[Ef4life]

They are never “done”


Added a few things and took a photo with an orange gel since it was early still.

New thing I’m trying, I’m trying my hand at growing out some seeds for future bonsai trees. Soil seems good as we got a bumper crop of carrots already

 

[Ef4life]

I added some new clean up crew to all my systems today, s between the 3 tanks I split up 10 bumblebee snails, 5 large cerith, 5 large Mexican turbo, 5 large nassarius vibex, 12 ora peppermint shrimp

I also added 2 mangroves to the sump and you can see one of the large nassarius snails.

 

[Ef4life]

I had a couple new parts orders show up, lots of tan plates for building sand I also now have a full crew of imperial soldiers in training to fight off the pirates.

New sea turtles

Bag of new mountain pieces for the drop off

Mangroves are settling in, and I bought a little spray bottle to mist them with rodi water.

I cleaned the glass yesterday, so it’s looking pretty good, but I have quite a bit of algae growing, so I’m going to take care of some of that today and do a waterchange. The gorgonian is not doing well, some algae keeps growing on it so I have to turkey baste it everyday. Hopefully the maintenance will help that issue resolve.

 

[Ef4life]

So I built this

 

[Ef4life]

The tank is doing pretty well, I did a waterchange last weekend, im still fighting off that bit of algae that’s clinging to the gorgonian by blasting it everyday with a baster.

The nassarius snails I added to the sump sand bed are so much fun to watch. I have been adding some pellets for them everyday and watch them while they hunt. The 2 are doing a good job of turning over the top 1” of sand in the container. The Mangroves are growing, the one in the small container is growing slow bits its in brand new clean sand, vs the larger container with older sand with more bacteria and nutrients trapped in it that has put on a lot more growth in the same time

I have some seedling growth too, these are the first sprouts, so far out of the 6 seed types these are the only ones that sprouted, but it’s still too early to write the others off just yet. There were 4 sprouts in this container, but one went mia - bird? Maybe, the other one was broken off at the soil, it’s still alive not sure if it will survive though

Yesterday instead of cleaning the aquariums like I normally do, I went to brick fest live for a couple hours, I was supposed to meet a friend there but that didnt end up happening, so I snapped some Photos of all the lego brick sculptures - by far my favorite of all was charmander. I need to go through the photos I took with the dslr and I will post some more, but meanwhile iPhone Pokemon will have to do.

And more pirates showed up

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The tank is doing pretty well, I did a waterchange last weekend, im still fighting off that bit of algae that’s clinging to the gorgonian by blasting it everyday with a baster.

The nassarius snails I added to the sump sand bed are so much fun to watch. I have been adding some pellets for them everyday and watch them while they hunt. The 2 are doing a good job of turning over the top 1” of sand in the container. The Mangroves are growing, the one in the small container is growing slow bits its in brand new clean sand, vs the larger container with older sand with more bacteria and nutrients trapped in it that has put on a lot more growth in the same time

I have some seedling growth too, these are the first sprouts, so far out of the 6 seed types these are the only ones that sprouted, but it’s still too early to write the others off just yet. There were 4 sprouts in this container, but one went mia - bird? Maybe, the other one was broken off at the soil, it’s still alive not sure if it will survive though

Yesterday instead of cleaning the aquariums like I normally do, I went to brick fest live for a couple hours, I was supposed to meet a friend there but that didnt end up happening, so I snapped some Photos of all the lego brick sculptures - by far my favorite of all was charmander. I need to go through the photos I took with the dslr and I will post some more, but meanwhile iPhone Pokemon will have to do.

And more pirates showed up

Are you going to get the new sea animal lego set they just released to add to your tank? Loving the updates!

 

[Ef4life]

Are you going to get the new sea animal lego set they just released to add to your tank? Loving the updates!

Thanks, I will probably end up with that set once it hits 20-40% off retail but I don’t think I will display it by the reef. The scale of the brick built animals vs minifig divers is way off. I prefer the minifigs being on display for the fun of it, but I could do a lot more life like brick built corals with the larger scale of the brick built animals which has crossed my mind. The good/ bad thing about lego by the reef is it gets pretty dusty and salt sprayed after a while so it’s going to need to be torn down, washed, and rebuild every year or so which will let me change it as I please.

 

[Ef4life]

so I placed a few orders for needed vintage Lego parts and I bought some of the animals on my wanted list that the sellers had available. A lobster, sand blue stingrays, a sand blue hammerhead shark, trans neon yellow starfish, and an orange starfish. I love that the trans neon yellow flows under the Uv.

I also have the first set of leaves on the mangrove which has made me happy

 

[marinesnow]

Love the legos. Following.

 

[Ef4life]

And we have the first leaves on the mangroves, and the 2 Sephora japonica sprouts are growing up quick although they did have some damage from an insect or something, you can see the damaged leaf on the larger one. No other species have sprouted, the delonix Regia I carefully dug up one seed and it was putting out root, so they should sprout soon hopefully, but i think all the others are now for sure failures.