ReefGrammie's 90-Gallon Reboot

ReefGrammie · Jul 18, 2020

Another favorite, my dendro is going great since the relocation. It's out all day now. It hated where I had it before, which was still low in the tank with low flow, but it stayed shut all day until I moved it under a ledge.

ReefGrammie · Jul 18, 2020

And for the good, the bad, and the ugly...my fish update. First, I'll start off and say I have never used a QT. This may be a dumb thing, but in 12 years of fish buying I had never had a bad experience....until recently. Long story short, my LFS owner medicated all new arrivals, could tell you exactly how long they had been in the store, were they eating, etc. He got out of business for a short time and I questioned the staff about medicating practices, etc. I was assured they were medicating. Well, they weren't. Previous owner came back and told me he found out they were cutting corners. He was very disappointed, and also heard that others were having fish problems.

I think the problem may have originated from a fairy wrasse. My beloved yellow tang got sick suddenly, and before I could get to the fish store and start medicating, I lost him. It literally happened overnight. He was a favorite. I had him for 6 years and everybody loved that tang. First time I shed a tear over a fish.

Meanwhile, I still didn't know what exactly was going on until the clown started the white stringy poo, along with the flasher wrasse. My favorite LFS (now back under the original owner) was almost destroyed in a tornado and had shut down, so I ventured to another LFS and was told to try General Cure and Focus, which I did for several weeks after reading some of the disease threads. I thought all was well and stopped the treatment. The white stringy poo came right back. After reading more threads, I started fenbendazole and Focus, again for several weeks. Once again, I thought all was well.

In total, I had lost my tang, the fairy wrasse, and my dragonet. I am still in watch and wait mode and have the clown (12 years), cherub angel (6 years), clown goby and 2 damsels (probably 2 years) and the flasher wrasse and watchman goby (most recent additions, probably 6 months or so).

I think the clown may be resistant to cure, so if I see the white stringy poo, he goes in the hospital tank and I will treat the water plus start treatment with medication and Focus in the hospital tank and the DT. I'm not buying ANY fish until I'm 100% sure this problem is over. I've never spent so much time staring at what comes out of fish butts!!! So far, nice brown little poos out of most of them, except I'm still watching the clown. We wouldn't have this problem if they didn't enjoy eating each other's poo so much. ;Vomit

As far as my future stocking plans, I would like to add two more wrasses, maybe an exquisite, mystery, Lubbock's, or a red head solon. My last fish will be a tang. I know a yellow is pushing it in a 90-gallon tank, but my other one did great for over 6 years. I don't know. I may do a bristletooth or a Kole tang. There might be room for a little blenny. Meanwhile, I keep staring at fish butts and watching fish poo. Fun, fun! ;Joyful

TriggerFinger · Jul 18, 2020

Oh no! So sorry about your fish loss. I don’t QT in the everyone gets medicated sense...I’ve gotten three of my fish from a trusted store and *knock on wood*, I’ve been lucky. *knock on wood again* I got a clown off divers den and did put her in an established 30g by herself. She had a mouth wound that healed on its own. She’s been by herself for almost 2 months so I feel ready to move her but the little stink refuses to be caught. I don’t QT coral either so I guess I’m playing with fire. I have quite a few meds on hand if need be, hoping I don’t ever need them. I highly recommend a starry blenny, I love mine! He’s very much like a puppy with a silly personality. Can’t say he does anything for algae control though, he waits for frozen feedings.
it’s amazing how much we stare at poop isn’t it? Between kids and fish, I’m an expert now

ReefGrammie · Jul 18, 2020

TriggerFinger said:
Oh no! So sorry about your fish loss. I don’t QT in the everyone gets medicated sense...I’ve gotten three of my fish from a trusted store and *knock on wood*, I’ve been lucky. *knock on wood again* I got a clown off divers den and did put her in an established 30g by herself. She had a mouth wound that healed on its own. She’s been by herself for almost 2 months so I feel ready to move her but the little stink refuses to be caught. I don’t QT coral either so I guess I’m playing with fire. I have quite a few meds on hand if need be, hoping I don’t ever need them. I highly recommend a starry blenny, I love mine! He’s very much like a puppy with a silly personality. Can’t say he does anything for algae control though, he waits for frozen feedings.
it’s amazing how much we stare at poop isn’t it? Between kids and fish, I’m an expert now

Thanks on the fish loss...I hate fish loss. I've never QT coral either, so I guess I'm playing with fire, too! I'll have to check out the starry blenny. I love blennies in general. They are definitely like puppies! I'm really hopeful this time that the fish poo problem is over...I haven't seen any "dental floss" coming out of the clown's behind lately, but I'm going to give it a little longer to be sure.

I couldn't wait for Monday, so I drove over to my newly redesigned post-tornado LFS today. I was peeking through the windows when a guy opened the door. He said the soft opening starts Monday, which I knew about, but I was hoping they might be having a secret soft opening before the official soft opening! The owner wasn't there, but I told the guy to tell him I stopped by. I may have to take a long lunch on Monday...

NashobaTek · Jul 18, 2020

You reboot is a inspiration. My tank is going through the GHA uglies and I am fighting back. Just hate taking pictures of it right now.

I live with my sister in law and she's made it unbearable to be around her so I really only see the tank twice a day when I feed the critters. I do go out after she's gone to bed and check everything out.

ReefGrammie · Jul 18, 2020

NashobaTek said:
You reboot is a inspiration. My tank is going through the GHA uglies and I am fighting back. Just hate taking pictures of it right now.

Your kind words are appreciated! I hated taking pictures of it, too. I only did it to hopefully help someone else along the way. I look back those early pictures and cringe!

FreakPrism · Jul 20, 2020

How do you like the Photon V2+ lights? I am close to picking this for my build but trying to decide between these and 2 Hydra 32. Your thoughts?

ReefGrammie · Jul 23, 2020

FreakPrism said:
How do you like the Photon V2+ lights? I am close to picking this for my build but trying to decide between these and 2 Hydra 32. Your thoughts?

Sorry I'm so late responding! Been away for a few days. I love that fixture. I don't know anything about the Hydra 32 for comparison purposes. This is my 2nd ReefBreeders light. I liked the first one, but the Photon V2+ is even better! It's much sleeker. There are several mounting options included...mine is inside my canopy. Logan has great customer service and has been a pleasure to work with. I bought my first light from him over 6 years ago.

I saw that BRS also carries the fixture and they did a recent video featuring that light. I thought it was informative. The link to the video is here: BRS V2+ demo

Good luck with your decision!

FreakPrism · Jul 23, 2020

@ReefGrammie Thanks!! I ended up getting this light as well. ReefBreeders has a Canadian distributor so that worked out for me. Any wisdom points to share for setting up this light? How high did you mount your light?

ReefGrammie · Jul 23, 2020

FreakPrism said:
@ReefGrammie Thanks!! I ended up getting this light as well. ReefBreeders has a Canadian distributor so that worked out for me. Any wisdom points to share for setting up this light? How high did you mount your light?

Wonderful! I really hope you like the light. That video had some good tips on how high to mount the light with light spread, to minimize dead spots, etc. Seems like they recommended around 12 inches maybe? Mine is 8 inches above the water line. I knew it would be going inside my canopy so I had to just take what I could get, as far as height goes.

Around the middle of page 5, I have my current light schedule laid out. I'm only running a max of about 50% on the blues and white channel. I'm still light acclimating a few acros, so I'm not making many adjustments until those have been permanently placed. I'm shooting for maybe 55-60% max on the blues and white, but I'll let the acros tell me what they think about that! Since mine isn't mounted high, I don't want to fry anything! So far, I'm getting good growth with zoas/ricordeas/chalices on the bottom, montipora and acans in the lower middle, duncans scattered on the bottom to middle, and acros/monti caps up higher. I also drop my lights more drastically in the evening because I really enjoy "glowy time" under the blues.

The programming is definitely a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it's not bad. There are also some recommended schedules on the ReefBreeders website that I think you can download in Excel of Dropbox. I took one of those and just customized it to my own liking. You also can search on this forum for the light and recommended settings and see what other people are using.

ReefGrammie · Aug 1, 2020

Nothing much to report here lately. Corals are doing well. I'm still relocating some and light acclimating a few, trying to find the perfect happy place. I was messing with zoa world yesterday so they're all mad at me. I also moved the JF Chemical Reaction up to the front corner. I think with its long sweepers, it will do better there anyway since it doesn't play nicely with the other corals.

I have noticed that I'm having to dose calcium a little now, so that's a good sign. I need to check parameters today and do a water change...typical Saturday, but it's better than work any day!

ReefGrammie · Aug 1, 2020

I changed my mind. I do have something to report! My pygmy angel has been acting like a jerk lately towards the flasher wrasse. He flashes back, but I was getting tired of it. I've had the wrasse at least 8 months or so...don't know why the angel suddenly became a jerk.

Anyway, I remembered the mirror tiles I had ordered off Amazon months ago. Those tiles helped me catch the horrible 6-line wrasse that was terrorizing everything, especially the flasher wrasse, who basically hid under a rock for several weeks before I could catch the monster. How do you catch a six-line wrasse in a 90-gallon tank with a million pounds of live rock? Acclimation box with a mirror tile inside it! He wouldn't go near the acrylic acclimation box, though every single fish I had was swimming in and out of the box. I taped a mirror tile to the tank glass and of course he hated that other six-line wrasse in the mirror! I then took the mirror tile off the glass and taped it inside the acclimation box with a string of dental floss on the door to spring it. Sure enough, he finally went in the box to go after the tile and I got him!

I decided to give the pygmy angel another angel to terrorize for a few days, hoping maybe he'll simmer down and leave the flasher wrasse alone. He's pretty busy with that other angel in the mirror now...or chasing off the damsels who also want to look at the other damsels in the mirror. ;Hilarious The things I do....

ReefGrammie · Aug 2, 2020

More maintenance today. I bought a replacement heater for my old Finnex, but hadn't installed it because the other one was still operational. R2R had a post a few days ago about replacing your heater...I found some old paperwork yesterday while rummaging through my fish cabinets and my current heater has been in place since December of 2013!!!

This started making me really nervous, so I decided it's time to replace the heater.I bought a new Finnex with a controller, very similar to what I had. I have attached the new one, but still have the old one in turned down to about 75. I want to make sure the new one is doing exactly what I want it to before disconnecting the old one. I will keep it as an emergency backup.

After this, the only pieces of equipment I haven't replaced are the skimmer and the return pump. I do want to replace the return pump, but I may wait until later in the year and see if I can get any good deals around Black Friday. I have a spare in my mixing station that I could use if needed. I'm looking at the Reef Octopus Varios and EcoTech Vectra. I've had great luck with Reef Octopus products over the years with both of my reef tanks, so I may go with the Varios. Decisions, decisions. ;Joyful

I'm sure my Bubble Magus Curve 5 is around the same age because that's when I upgraded to the 90. I may just keep it going for now unless skimmers have drastically changed over the last 6 years!

TriggerFinger · Aug 2, 2020

Timely post. I think my heater is acting up...it’s set to 77 but I noticed my tank reading 80 and 81. I think it needs replaced and also plugged into a controller. Which I have; also not hooked up. They intimidate me though...along with skimmers...lol. Good luck in your new skimmer search! I have a vertex (not hooked up) and used a HOB reef octopus before with good results.

ReefGrammie · Aug 3, 2020

TriggerFinger said:
Timely post. I think my heater is acting up...it’s set to 77 but I noticed my tank reading 80 and 81. I think it needs replaced and also plugged into a controller. Which I have; also not hooked up. They intimidate me though...along with skimmers...lol. Good luck in your new skimmer search! I have a vertex (not hooked up) and used a HOB reef octopus before with good results.

Heaters scare me. I remember once after I set up the 90-gallon tank, I noticed the tank temperature was climbing. Somehow, I must have been messing in the sump and the probe was out of the water!!

I do like this controller better. You can set a maximum and a minimum temp where it alarms if the temp gets too high or too low. If it's too high, the heater also shuts off. The default high setting was 93 degrees....ummm, nope! I think I changed it to 85. The default low was 67....nope again!

The fun part was I don't have access to the back of my tank, so I had to pretty much install everything through the front of the sump. Not an easy task. My old heater had a controller and the power strip is nailed to the back of the cabinet, so it wasn't terrible, but still...

najer · Aug 3, 2020

I hate when stuff drops off my watch list, sorry to hear about the fish issue, I also don't qt anything but our supply chain appears healthier in Europe generally and I trust my lfs.
They know how I acclimate and release fish, bags floating and water added by the cup over 20 - 30 minutes and then the bags are slowly upended and the fish swim out, they would tell me if there was anything in the system.

Onwards and upwards.

DiefsReef · Aug 3, 2020

TriggerFinger said:
Timely post. I think my heater is acting up...it’s set to 77 but I noticed my tank reading 80 and 81. I think it needs replaced and also plugged into a controller. Which I have; also not hooked up. They intimidate me though...along with skimmers...lol. Good luck in your new skimmer search! I have a vertex (not hooked up) and used a HOB reef octopus before with good results.

You seem to have a lot not hooked up

sfin52 · Aug 3, 2020

TriggerFinger said:
Timely post. I think my heater is acting up...it’s set to 77 but I noticed my tank reading 80 and 81. I think it needs replaced and also plugged into a controller. Which I have; also not hooked up. They intimidate me though...along with skimmers...lol. Good luck in your new skimmer search! I have a vertex (not hooked up) and used a HOB reef octopus before with good results.

If you are looking for a new skimmer hob kind the reef octopus are fantastic. Recommend classic 1000 or 2000

TriggerFinger · Aug 3, 2020

lol can ya help a girl out?! I’m a work in progress ;Smuggrin Seriously, it’s ridiculous I know. I haven’t needed a skimmer yet due to my sloooow stocking. I have 4 fish in the display now and a newbie in observation so I should have some nutrients building up to warrant a skimmer.