My 75 gallon adventure

[Sleeping Giant]

How's the new fish doing? I love it, I want one.

 

[taulgrl]

So good! Eating like a pig. I’m doing 14 days of copper and then sending him to the DT. Crossing my fingers for a smooth transition

 

[Sleeping Giant]

So good! Eating like a pig. I’m doing 14 days of copper and then sending him to the DT. Crossing my fingers for a smooth transition

Any signs of ICH?

 

[taulgrl]

Any signs of ICH?

Nope, doing it preventatively. I know many say you should do copper for 30 days but I’ve always done 14 preventatively and so far, so good

 

[taulgrl]

One big happy family! Copperband is eating clam, live white worms, frozen Mysis and frozen blood worms. The other fish are digging the new foods

 

[Sump Crab]

One big happy family! Copperband is eating clam, live white worms, frozen Mysis and frozen blood worms. The other fish are digging the new foods

Copperbands are beautiful fish

 

[Eric R.]

Looks great! Can't wait till I have the opportunity to setup a bigger tank... I have all of the equipment (and then some) but just no space and time at the moment, so the 13.5g nano will have to do for now. I'll have to post some pictures when my new phone arrives this week!

 

[Mschmidt]

Have you solved the overflow visibility issue?

 

[taulgrl]

Have you solved the overflow visibility issue?

Nope, its still ugly and too visible lol. I'd post a picture but I just got back from being away and my algae / cyano has gotten a bit out of control!

 

[taulgrl]

Happy New Year to my reef! Fish and (most) corals are doing great but, as always, there are some new challenges to deal with:
1. Phosphates (and algae) are a bit out of control(1-1.5 ppm). After ALOT of research (thank you R2R!) going to try to bring them down with Phosphat-E, some 5 micron socks and a weird IV bag thingy
2. Once Phos is lower going to attack my Bryopsis with ReefFlux (and then continue my battle w Phos)
3. Assuming I don’t crash my tank after all of this, I think My KiSS method of carbon and a filter sock needs to be reevaluated. Thinking about adding skimmer and carbon-GFO reactor
4. Can’t keep an emerald crab alive in DT. Tried 3.. all dead shortly after Intro. One lived for 2 mo in sump but then was never seen again once moved to DT. I think my CBB may be the culprit but would like to try one more time withBIG crab
5. Asternia stars getting out of hand. Want to try harlequin shrimp and then rehome once it does it’s thing
6. My overflow is still ugly but thanks to my not so secret Santa I have some tools to start working on it (once I can get it clear of the bryopsis growing in the weirs)

 

[quentin17110]

I have had freshwater aquariums over the years and found myself with some spare time on my hands and a newly acquired 75 gallon, used, pre-drilled tank with an old Durso setup. Time to try saltwater! I quickly realized that saltwater is much more complicated. Each step required a bunch of research and decisions. I'm about a month into it and here is my current status:

Equipment so far:
Aqueon pine stand
Trigger systems Crystal 30 sump
Syncra Silent 5.0 Pump
BRS 6 stage RODI
Lots of plumbing stuff
30 lbs (so far) dry rock
Will be getting powerheads asap (leaning toward 2 Koralia Evolution (1500 GPH) - is that enough flow for soft and LPS coral?
Really struggling to decide what lighting to get. Will add light later to help prevent algae probs
Skimmer added once up and running

Almost done with plumbing. Decided on Herbie overflow but waiting on black PVC fixtures so return (which will come up over back) will look good.
Water made, rocks 'scaped (draft #1) hoping to get tank running with water, rocks and sand in a week or two. Will post pics then.

Plan after that is to add inverts and then when the water checks out, a few mellow fish.
Eventually want a fabulous tank of soft and LPS coral with good variety of fish....

Just started with a 75 gallon as well, interesting to read you

 

[taulgrl]

Just started with a 75 gallon as well, interesting to read you

Thank you, it’s been a blast. Start a build thread so I can give you a follow.

 

[dstockwell]

Lookin good

 

[Eric R.]

So you're currently running without a skimmer? My 2 cents is careful with bringing down nutrients too fast, crashing nutrients can be way worse than having them slightly high. Your corals and tank look great, is the only issue you're having some nuisance algae?

My own method is control algae with herbivores and manual removal, and having enough corals to deprive the algae of a place to get a foothold. Do you have any urchins? Is the fox face your primary herbivore? Could get a tang.

I'd personally skip the fluc and gfo. Skimmer is probably a good idea, helps remove some nutrients, can boost your pH as well.

 

[Eric R.]

Also, have you heard any of the discussions with Rich Ross about nutrients and algae? He's got some interesting things to say. Him and Ben Johnson were talking on reef beef recently about Ben crashing a tank by bringing P down too fast with gfo.

I'd maybe be interested in Harlequin shrimp if you were to get one/some and then want to pass them on. Would be a cool invert for the classroom. I'd need to start breeding asterinas! I don't have a ton. Or more likely just get some from local reefers regularly.

 

[Eric R.]

Also, strangely enough, I'd be interested in taking some bryopsis off your hands if you were willing to collect some for me. I have a classroom tank I'm trying to breed sea slugs in, and supposedly one of the foods for juveniles in bryopsis.

 

[taulgrl]

So you're currently running without a skimmer? My 2 cents is careful with bringing down nutrients too fast, crashing nutrients can be way worse than having them slightly high. Your corals and tank look great, is the only issue you're having some nuisance algae?

My own method is control algae with herbivores and manual removal, and having enough corals to deprive the algae of a place to get a foothold. Do you have any urchins? Is the fox face your primary herbivore? Could get a tang.

I'd personally skip the fluc and gfo. Skimmer is probably a good idea, helps remove some nutrients, can boost your pH as well.

Thanks so much for the advice! Yes, a sudden increase in nuisance algae and bryopsis I can't get rid of on my overflow weirs. I have a large urchin, foxface, lawnmower blenny, astria snails and a couple of hermits. They all do a bit of munching on the hair algae and I've been fairly successful with manual removal of the rest but noone will touch the bryopsis. My fave coral (the red goniopora) has been closed up ever since my phos got out of control so I think there is a connection there. I think I'm going to SLOWLY lower phos and then reevaluate and maybe join the rest of the reefing world and get a skimmer. I'll have to check out the Reef Beef you mentioned. I listen to them occasionally but didn't catch that episode.

I'm happy to slice the Bryopsis off my overflow and donate it to you and your school tank! PM me so we can figure out how to make that happen. I go to CT every month and hope to bring the harlequin back with me some time in February. My local reefing friend with a 120 doesn't have any asternias (can't imagine!!) so its good to know you may be interested in taking it once its munched its way through my tank.

 

[Eric R.]

Thanks so much for the advice! Yes, a sudden increase in nuisance algae and bryopsis I can't get rid of on my overflow weirs. I have a large urchin, foxface, lawnmower blenny, astria snails and a couple of hermits. They all do a bit of munching on the hair algae and I've been fairly successful with manual removal of the rest but noone will touch the bryopsis. My fave coral (the red goniopora) has been closed up ever since my phos got out of control so I think there is a connection there. I think I'm going to SLOWLY lower phos and then reevaluate and maybe join the rest of the reefing world and get a skimmer. I'll have to check out the Reef Beef you mentioned. I listen to them occasionally but didn't catch that episode.

I'm happy to slice the Bryopsis off my overflow and donate it to you and your school tank! PM me so we can figure out how to make that happen. I go to CT every month and hope to bring the harlequin back with me some time in February. My local reefing friend with a 120 doesn't have any asternias (can't imagine!!) so its good to know you may be interested in taking it once its munched its way through my tank.

Dang seems like you have a nice crew of herbivores! Guess that's how the reef dice roll, always seems that some people can get their critters to eat whatever they need eaten, and others have more finicky eaters. I should test my phos, though I never know how reliable my test kit/procedure is. I could probably make a known solution to determine the accuracy of my tests. I know some tanks don't seem to have any trouble with P numbers near yours, though they seem to be fairly mature tanks with significant biomass, like Sanjay's or Rich's tanks. Rich did a good MACNA talk on high P if you've never seen it. He did one this year on algae control, but BRS seems to be really slow to getting around to releasing that one, not sure when it will be out.

Bummer about your goni! I have some yellow ones that were losing a battle to hair algae, so I cut off all the dead skeleton and cut the remaining piece in half, and they seem to be happier. I try to feed them pretty regularly with reef roids, and hit some of my other LPS at the same time. Seems to help, hard to say. This is in my classroom nano, which coincidentally doesn't have a skimmer, pretty much just do large water changes for element replenishment and nutrient control.

 

[taulgrl]

Dang seems like you have a nice crew of herbivores! Guess that's how the reef dice roll, always seems that some people can get their critters to eat whatever they need eaten, and others have more finicky eaters. I should test my phos, though I never know how reliable my test kit/procedure is. I could probably make a known solution to determine the accuracy of my tests. I know some tanks don't seem to have any trouble with P numbers near yours, though they seem to be fairly mature tanks with significant biomass, like Sanjay's or Rich's tanks. Rich did a good MACNA talk on high P if you've never seen it. He did one this year on algae control, but BRS seems to be really slow to getting around to releasing that one, not sure when it will be out.

Bummer about your goni! I have some yellow ones that were losing a battle to hair algae, so I cut off all the dead skeleton and cut the remaining piece in half, and they seem to be happier. I try to feed them pretty regularly with reef roids, and hit some of my other LPS at the same time. Seems to help, hard to say. This is in my classroom nano, which coincidentally doesn't have a skimmer, pretty much just do large water changes for element replenishment and nutrient control.

I love that you are a teacher w a classroom tank. I taught high school science for 19 yrs but closest I came was a betta tank! My goni is hanging in there - no tissue loss yet and as my phosphates have gone down w water changes (1.5 to now 1.0) it is extending a tad and looking a bit perkier. My tank was so stable until this fall. The guys at Pet Advantage also experienced an explosion of algae growth around the same time in their reef tanks and blame it on lampreycide that they think was added to the lake...

 

[Eric R.]

I love that you are a teacher w a classroom tank. I taught high school science for 19 yrs but closest I came was a betta tank! My goni is hanging in there - no tissue loss yet and as my phosphates have gone down w water changes (1.5 to now 1.0) it is extending a tad and looking a bit perkier. My tank was so stable until this fall. The guys at Pet Advantage also experienced an explosion of algae growth around the same time in their reef tanks and blame it on lampreycide that they think was added to the lake...

Huh interesting. I wonder how effective RODI is at removing chemicals of that nature. My current tanks are all well water > RODI, but I will be setting up a tank using municipal water in Essex soon. Still with RODI.