My 50 gallon slice of the ocean

[LEOreefer]

Dude that sucks, relapse is my favorite coral. I'll be waiting for the update

Yea it was a small frag but it was my favorite thus far! Good thing is the store I got it from stocks it regularly so once I get everything stable again I’ll pick another up! I also posted the tank update above

 

[Barrett]

Sorry about your frogspawn they are one of my favorite corals.

 

[Barrett]

You will like the nuvo 10, that is what I use as my coral/invert qt.

 

[trevormass7]

I'm a naughty reefer with no qt[emoji17][emoji23]

 

[LEOreefer]

You will like the nuvo 10, that is what I use as my coral/invert qt.

I needed something with a small footprint and the AIO is deff a bonus feature.

My stock list will look something like this
2 bengi Cardinal
1 stary blenny
Royal gamma
Some sort of goby
A dwarf angel
Snow flake clown
And some sort of wrasse.

Now this will be the order for the most part that I will add them over the course of several months. I will quarantine 1 or 2 at a time to help manage ammonia in the QT. I figure no problems I want each fish in quarantine for at least a month so they will go through one full ich life cycle. If all goes to plan and there are no issues present figure one or 2 fish will be added to the DT every 30-40 days. This will allow the bio filter to adjust and not shock the system.

I’ve really though this out and feel this is a good plan. Now of course if there are issues or death in the DT the. This process will take longer as I really don’t want to rush things

 

[Barrett]

You might consider adding the dwarf angel last. Helps the other fish have time to adjust and find there own territory. I love my diamond watchman goby but she can be a pain in the butt moving the sand all around, carrying cuc around the tank. She does keep the sand perfectly clean with out any help from me.

 

[LEOreefer]

You might consider adding the dwarf angel last. Helps the other fish have time to adjust and find there own territory. I love my diamond watchman goby but she can be a pain in the butt moving the sand all around, carrying cuc around the tank. She does keep the sand perfectly clean with out any help from me.

Thanks for th advise ! I will movehim to the end of the list

 

[Quartapound]

That’s where we snorkeled in the area of riviera maya. It was a amazing experience you won’t be disappointed

If it's anything like it was last year they'll have a hard time getting me to leave at the end of the week! I made a video of the snorkeling/turtles last year, looking forward to seeing yours! Hoping for good weather/clear water!

On the QT side of things, I like keeping an Aqua Clear foam loose in my sump so that I can get the biofilter going in the QT/hospital tank as quick as possible when I need it... you might want to consider putting something in the display tank now that you can transfer to the QT when you get it and jump start the cycle with some beneficial bacteria (if you haven't done so already!)

cheers

 

[LEOreefer]

Hey everyone I know I've been promising some pics from my snorkeling trip in mexico, I was very sick for the last week but all is good now so here we go!

 

[LEOreefer]

I don't consider myself to be an expert in anything reef related esp. when is comes down to some of the extremely knowledgeable folks on this board. What I believe is I have a solid understanding of this hobby and what we all strive for. Everyone wants the pristine clean, algae free, pest free tank as do I. What I saw in the underwater habitat was the exact opposite of what we look for in a reef tank. It was covered in grey/ brown unsightly algae, there was very little color and there was what looked like detritus everywhere! Now I will admit that I use the term reef lightly as corals where scarce, they once that i came across were of the soft coral variety, sea fans etc..... I did come across a beautiful huge brain coral and some spa scattered around. It begs the question do we try to hard to keep algae out of our systems? should we embrace small amounts of algae for the sole purpose of keeping our tank inhabitants happy?

I don't have the answers to that but I will tell you I've never seen so many healthy big fish in my life, I'm talking about tangs the size of my head, rainbow patriot fish half the size of me, all healthy and happily grazing on the stuff we cringe at..... I should also note that our tour guide told us this was considered brackish water as all the really beautiful fish were concentrated where the underground fresh water river emptied into the reef which I though was real interesting!

Some of the video and pictures might appear blurry, that was the salt and fresh water trying to mix almost like a oil and vinegar......so here are some pics and videos take a look and share with friends !

 

[LEOreefer]

Here are some videos

 

[LEOreefer]

And now for some pics!

 

[LEOreefer]

Here are some beautiful tangs I saw

 

[LEOreefer]

How about some coral shots with some angel fish ?

 

[LEOreefer]

This was the best / biggest coral I saw on the entire reef, what I think is a brain coral

 

[LEOreefer]

Look closely you can see a stingray!

 

[LEOreefer]

and some more random pics!

 

[LEOreefer]

....

 

[Barrett]

Hey everyone I know I've been promising some pics from my snorkeling trip in mexico, I was very sick for the last week but all is good now so here we go!

Glad to hear you are on the mend.

 

[LEOreefer]

Tank update !
It’s a a little delayed but I came home from my honeymoon and the tank was in rough shape. I lost a frogspawn coral and I had what looked like dinoflagellates all over the place. It was long stringy Brown alage with bubbles in it. I fought this for the last week all the while my corals had very poor polyp extension and color. My GSP was retracted all last week.
I did a 3 day black out , on day 4 I scrubbed all the rocks and vacuumed the sand. During the3 Day blackout I also dosed 10 ml of hydrogen peroxide. At the end of the 3 days what I believe was dinoflagellates we’re gone for the most part. I did extensive research as to why this might have happened and found there was relation between 0 nutrients and this alage. I went on to test my phosphate and nitrate and sure enough both were at 0. I also believe this was the cause of my corals looking stressed.

Due to the fact I do not have any fish I done really have a source for nitrate and phosphate. So I took the gfo off line and went to every other week water changes as well as dosed phosphate and nitrate into the system. The result was the Dino’s did not come back and my corals slowly coloring back up with much better polyp extension!