Red Sea reefer 250 - Mixed reef!

Chrille26 · Mar 27, 2020

Phytoplankton and beginning of a refugium!
Hey! For once its not a update about me adding more livestock to the tank. Im just doing some smaller additions as well as testing some new stuff.
Since I added a lot of pods about 10 days ago I figured I would keep the population not just alive but thriving and maby even multiplying?

Got some bottles of phytoplankton, and Im going to add about 15 ml 3 to 4 times a week to start to see how it works out.

Added first dose as soon as it reached roomtemp. Skimmer off and first dose green water officially in:

Also added a growlight to my sump. I wont be adding macroalgae just yet since I have to devide the third chamber somehow to avoid algae in the returnpump. Im also looking for "clean" algae right now.

Lastly I just added another streamer to add flow to a corner that turned out to be a deadspot, also got better overall surfaceagitation.

Thats it for now, more to come though.

Chrille26 · Mar 28, 2020

Chaeto goes in, in a temporary cage!
Got a good deal on some Chaeto from a clean tank so decided to go for it. Bought some plaastic storageboxes and drilled some additional holes for flow and light.
Will make a real refugium compartment as soon as I get some good materials to use as divider, but this will do for now, aatleast my pods will have somewhere to live and hopefully it also pulls some nutrients out of the water.

Homemade chaetocage:

Its live!

Chrille26 · Mar 28, 2020

Lots of LR in the display, coarse sponge in the inlet, skimmer, 4,5 lbs of bio-spheres, dosing of pods and phyto, and now chaeto. Feels like I should be able to keep nutrients within reasonable levels right now.
Beginning to look like a decent reef cube.

Have a great weekend!

Chrille26 · Mar 31, 2020

dang Valonia (bubble algae) popping up! Emerald crabs to the rescue?
I really like using live rock when starting out. Its aesthetically very nice looking and it have made my cycles go fast and smooth, I also feel like it help my tank mature quicker then with dry rock.
Also there is alot of cool critters and filterfeeders all over it.

But dang, this time I really got some of the biggest headaches, Valonia (bubble algae) and Aiptasia.
Noticed the first algae bubbles appear a couple of days ago and removed one or two by hand, and now couple of days later its spreading like the plague!

I know most would opt for Vibrant at this point but I really dont want to upset the balance in the tank right now, plus I just added Chaeto to my refugium and Im not sure that wont be affected by it?
(also no vendor in Sweden sells it so I need to order it from somewhere else.)
Anyway, bought two Emerald crabs as my first attempt at slowing the spread and hopefully they mow it all down!
Most of the bubbles are young so the crabs should ba able to nip most of em!

Bunch of bubble algae, biggest patch I have found:

Some other spreading:

My first line of defence arrives! Looking pumped and ready to feast!

One of them even went straight under the rock where the patch is, to the left of him:

And one starting eating away at some random algae growing under a rock. "slow down buddy dont eat yourself full on that, save some space for the main course"

If the Emeralds dont work I will order Vibrant, wont let the tank get overrun with this pest algae.

Chrille26 · Mar 31, 2020

On a more positive note, More Copepods!
Since I added Chaeto to my sump I felt I should kickstart my mini refugium by adding more Copepods! As I already went to buy two crabs I grabbed some bags of pods too. Poured 360 ml of pods straight over the Chaetoball. Hopefully with some help of phyto they will feel at home and maby even start a family.

In they go!

And a bonus redlight pic of my new Emeralds going to down on some algae on my Zoa rock:

WiscoFishNut · Mar 31, 2020

That's really nice set up you have there! Keep a close on those crabs.. When mine got rid of the algae he started getting rough with my torch.

Chrille26 · Mar 31, 2020

WiscoFishNut said:
That's really nice set up you have there! Keep a close on those crabs.. When mine got rid of the algae he started getting rough with my torch.

Thank you! And thanks for the advice! I have done quite alot of reading on Valonia and Emeralds and it really seems that they are a hit or miss when it comes to both corals and bubble algae. I will give them a shot and if I notice polyps go missing or damage to coraltissue they will get sumped and returned to the lfs.

I do really like the biodiversity they bring to the tank though.

Chrille26 · Apr 2, 2020

Corals crazy for phyto
Since I started adding phytoplankton it feels like the corals really extend their polyps and they generally look fatter and happier. Might just be imagination but I like it.

My tricolor havent really opened up yet but it is starting to show some green at the tips.

Inertiatic · Apr 2, 2020

The tank is coming along very nicely! I absolutely love your Duncan, they've always been one of my favorite corals. Sorry about your carpet surfers

I had a two spot hogfish that my wife and I absolutely loved that also jumped through a screen, it was a very sad day.

I do have a few tips from my past experience. Your size tank won't be able to support 10 turbo snails, the vast majority of them will probably die off in the next coming months. If you can, I would see if any reefer friends could take some off your hands. I started with two in my previous 55 gallon and one of them died in about a year. The other one is a trooper though and has been alive for about 6.5 years now, he's easily at least 3 inches long. They go to town on algae!

With that said, the turbos that do survive can get pretty big. They end up being little bulldozers and will knock over your frags. I would always find corals in the sand, especially my Monti cap. Once they start getting larger, definitely make sure your corals are glued down or in a frag rack.

I would be very aggressive with that bubble algae. Don't wait to see if the emerald will eat it or not, I would manually start removing what you can. I reacted too slowly when it broke out in my tank and it spreads insanely fast. Razor blading the bubbles off into a siphon seems to work well, doing your best to not pop the bubbles.

Looking forward to seeing your tank progress

Chrille26 · Apr 2, 2020

Inertiatic said:
The tank is coming along very nicely! I absolutely love your Duncan, they've always been one of my favorite corals. Sorry about your carpet surfers I had a two spot hogfish that my wife and I absolutely loved that also jumped through a screen, it was a very sad day.

I do have a few tips from my past experience. Your size tank won't be able to support 10 turbo snails, the vast majority of them will probably die off in the next coming months. If you can, I would see if any reefer friends could take some off your hands. I started with two in my previous 55 gallon and one of them died in about a year. The other one is a trooper though and has been alive for about 6.5 years now, he's easily at least 3 inches long. They go to town on algae!

With that said, the turbos that do survive can get pretty big. They end up being little bulldozers and will knock over your frags. I would always find corals in the sand, especially my Monti cap. Once they start getting larger, definitely make sure your corals are glued down or in a frag rack.

I would be very aggressive with that bubble algae. Don't wait to see if the emerald will eat it or not, I would manually start removing what you can. I reacted too slowly when it broke out in my tank and it spreads insanely fast. Razor blading the bubbles off into a siphon seems to work well, doing your best to not pop the bubbles.

Looking forward to seeing your tank progress

Thank you for all the advice and kind words!

Loosing fish is allways rough, especially when you have had them for a long time.
I realized how important a tight lid is, the smallest gap and they find it. :/

I think you are right about the snails, I wanted to stay on top of the algae at the beginning when the tank goes through all the stages of algae, but now that it seems like it has stabilized I will take your advice and hand some off. I will probobly house 2 of them in the sump to keep the glass around the Chaeto clean.

Yeah the more I read up on Valonia I see how much of a plauge it can become, the next water change I will def manually remove as much bubbles as I can.
How did you manage it and get it under control?

Chrisfish · Apr 2, 2020

Just finished going through your thread , thoroughly enjoyed it!! Your tank looks great, looking forward to seeing more.

NatD · Apr 2, 2020

I really like the way you set up your rock! Nice job.

Chrille26 · Apr 2, 2020

Chrisfish said:
Just finished going through your thread , thoroughly enjoyed it!! Your tank looks great, looking forward to seeing more.

Thank you for the kind words!
I really love this hobby and keeping this journal really gives it another dimention, plus in a couple of years I can look back at this and go "what was I thinking!? " or "why did I do that?!"

Chrille26 · Apr 2, 2020

NatD said:
I really like the way you set up your rock! Nice job.

Thank you! Im feeling happy with it but Im worried I wont have place for all the corals I want to add, guess the normal route of action then is to get a bigger tank.

Chrille26 · Apr 2, 2020

Going from mixed reef to SPS dominant? More Acroporas!

Decided to add some more Acros because they look awsome.

Acropora frogskin:

Acropora Millepora:

Acropora Eschinata (If I remember correctly?)

Photo of top of the rocks as of now, I will move some of them around tomorrow.

Inertiatic · Apr 2, 2020

Chrille26 said:
Thank you for all the advice and kind words!
Loosing fish is allways rough, especially when you have had them for a long time.
I realized how important a tight lid is, the smallest gap and they find it. :/

I think you are right about the snails, I wanted to stay on top of the algae at the beginning when the tank goes through all the stages of algae, but now that it seems like it has stabilized I will take your advice and hand some off. I will probobly house 2 of them in the sump to keep the glass around the Chaeto clean.

Yeah the more I read up on Valonia I see how much of a plauge it can become, the next water change I will def manually remove as much bubbles as I can.
How did you manage it and get it under control?

The sad part is I never did! It is what turned my reef into a FOWLR, I couldn't get it under control because I reacted too late. This led to my tank looking hideous, which in turn made me lose interest in upkeep. This was before things like Vibrant were on the scene, which I definitely would have tried.

Chrille26 · Apr 4, 2020

Bad start to a Saturday.
Woke up to find my new Eschinata has lost all or most of its tissue. Also some dark algae showing throughout. Guess since it was a newer frag witch was trasported, dipped and placed in my tank it was too much stress for it. Sad but rather now then later.
The frogskin and millepora är looking really good.

Since that wasnt enough my yellow wrasse was found dead in a streamer after its been missing for two days. No sign of sickness or parasites so not sure what happened.
Know this is part of the hobby so wont put too much into it, just keep on truckin.

Chrille26 · Apr 4, 2020

Not a wrasse but..
While out doing some other stuff I decided to swing by my LFS to see if I could get a new yellow wrasse. Turns out getting shipments from the other side of the world is hard right now so no wrasses in.
But as allways something else caught my eye. A lawnmower blenny, so here is the new guy!