Rudzbrewski's Journey to the Reef-er xl425 (V3 sump, Clarisea, plumbing w/ manifold)

[Salty716]

Its been a while! I have 3 fish nearing the end of QT with copper in the upcoming weeks. Solaris wrasse, bengai cardinal, and yellow coris wrasse will hopefully be ready to join the DT soon!

My LFS (A Reef Creation) just had another Live Sale, and I was due for some new additions. I am very happy with the pieces that I will be picking up soon. Fingers crossed that they survive being added to my tank when the time comes:

1: Indo Orange Torch

2: Teal and Red Acan

3: Kryptonite Candy Coral

4: Seductions

5: Rainbow Yodas

6: JF Jolt

7: POTO Boomerang

8: TCK King Acro

9: ARC Peach Giant Table

10: ARC Prince

11: ORA Red Planet

12: WWC Forgemaster

13: ARC Anthony's Pink Granulosa

14: ARC Rainbow Spath

15: WWC Little Red Ferrari

16: TCK Goku

That Goku definitely looks interesting.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Solarensis wrasse didn’t make it. Survived QT and after initially being bullied in the DT, I thought we were in the clear. However, it never seemed fully comfortable even though he would be out and eating, but today I came home to him being devoured by the CUC. Sad to see it go as he could have been a showstopper. Just hope it was a case of being bullied vs any form of disease that QT didn’t eradicate.

 

[tritonpower]

Solarensis wrasse didn’t make it. Survived QT and after initially being bullied in the DT, I thought we were in the clear. However, it never seemed fully comfortable even though he would be out and eating, but today I came home to him being devoured by the CUC. Sad to see it go as he could have been a showstopper. Just hope it was a case of being bullied vs any form of disease that QT didn’t eradicate.

Bummer. I don't have a fairy but want one. That one is beautiful. Hope you can find another

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Bummer. I don't have a fairy but want one. That one is beautiful. Hope you can find another

It was an absolutely gorgeous fish for sure. My LFS seems to get them in every so often, but now that I am doing a full QT/treatment on all new additions I probably won’t be in the market for adding another for quite some time.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Another bummer of an update with the Biota Royal Gramma I got a few weeks ago looking to need a miracle recovery. He was eating and doing well in QT observation (no medications) and then yesterday was barely swimming in a corner of the tank and not eating after one of his QT mates appears to have bullied him and destroyed most of his tail and side fins. QT makes are 2x small/medium clowns, Biota Yellow Tang, and a Biota mandarin. Royal Gramma is now in an acclimation box to give him the small chance he might have.

DT update I added two small power heads in the back corners to help with algae/detritus buildup and am playing around with my Reefwave placement to try and optimize flow.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

The unfortunate trend continues as all of the inhabitants of my QT system were found dead after a weekend trip out of town. It makes me thing the royal gramma was victim to whatever caused the rest to die vs bullying.

I’m not 100% sure what the cause of the system crash was, but the only thing that came back on tests irregular was super high nitrates and no medications or additives were being used. Leading to most likely cause being lack of consistent, large enough water changes. For now I am going to tear down the QT system and clean it to be sure. I will set it back up once I have a solid time period to focus on adding new fish and decide at that time what my final stocking will be. Super bummed because the Solaris wrasse (made it through QT), yellow tang, royal gramma, and mandarin are things I’ve wanted since I started up the hobby.

I will be able to solely focus on my DT now and hopefully keep learning and improving in the hobby.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Haven't tested my DT in a long time since I've been doing ICP every 3 months and things have been looking ok at least, but with the QT issues decided to test it and the Goku has been turning grey up the one side. Turns out some ammonia (0.2-0.4) surprisingly showed up which I never would have guessed amd my dkh was 6.0. Nitrates were only about 5-10, so that wasn't too bad and phosphates in the 0.1ish range which was good. Guess things were trending in a bad direction and this was a good wake up call. Going to slowly increase my dkh over 3 days and increase my daily dosing (was 7.5 ml/day rs foundation B).

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Used a 10% bleach solution and cleaned the entire QT system as I broke it down. Will reconsider what’s next when I have a few months to really dedicated the required time and effort.

Focusing on the DT, getting parameters where they should be and have and ICP and NDOC test coming for my quarterly check up (will be first time doing NDOC). Here are some updated pictures. I realized while taking them my Jolt frag was knocked off its place.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

I will be due for a mixing station cleaning in the next few weeks. Had to clean the power head to get it back spinning and there’s a ton of crud in the bottom.

Also noticed my Neptune Dos head for the new SW was leaking and turns out the silicone tube in the head itself was leaking. Time to order some backups.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Added a couple new inverts today:
-More bumblebee snails to help with the vermetid a that are well past the point of anything other than accepting they exist
-Blood cleaner shrimp. Always thought skunk cleaner shrimp were a cool tank inhabitant, but went with the larger blood cleaner to hopefully discourage the melanarus from taking interest
-Sandsifting star to help with the sandbed and just another unique inhabitant. Been waiting for these guys to come in stock at my LFS

I also did some annual maintenance that I always dread with the mixing station where I wash out the sediment and buildup from the SW storage container and replaced the RODI components.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Forgot to mention my NDOC and ICP tests came back relatively positive. Want to get my nitrate and phosphate into absolutely ideal range even though they are not by any means at a concerning level. Other than that continuing when I’ve been doing and trying to manage stable and ideal water conditions to help promote coral growth and health. May consider adding a third Hydra 32 in the future to really get the PAR up and in a perfect world really bring out colors once things start growing out. This would involve also modifying my mounting setup for the lights by putting them on some kind of sliding track.

 

[tritonpower]

Added a couple new inverts today:
-More bumblebee snails to help with the vermetid a that are well past the point of anything other than accepting they exist
-Blood cleaner shrimp. Always thought skunk cleaner shrimp were a cool tank inhabitant, but went with the larger blood cleaner to hopefully discourage the melanarus from taking interest
-Sandsifting star to help with the sandbed and just another unique inhabitant. Been waiting for these guys to come in stock at my LFS

I also did some annual maintenance that I always dread with the mixing station where I wash out the sediment and buildup from the SW storage container and replaced the RODI components.

I found that the bumble bees do work to an extent although they take many months. They mostly keep the vermetid population down but they are never gone.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

I found that the bumble bees do work to an extent although they take many months. They mostly keep the vermetid population down but they are never gone.

The amount of vermetid there are it would be unrealistic to expect to eradicate them. As long as they don’t do harm I can live with them. Just going to regularly throw bumblebeees in to do whatever help they can and they can eat whatever else as well. Diversity is always good.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Used a 10% bleach solution and cleaned the entire QT system as I broke it down. Will reconsider what’s next when I have a few months to really dedicated the required time and effort.

Focusing on the DT, getting parameters where they should be and have and ICP and NDOC test coming for my quarterly check up (will be first time doing NDOC). Here are some updated pictures. I realized while taking them my Jolt frag was knocked off its place.

Tank still looks really good!!

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Tank still looks really good!!

Thank you! Overall, things seem to be showing signs of growth even if it is slow. Still playing around with coral placements. Seriously debating adding a 3rd Hydra 32 as I think some of the SPS will have colors show better with even more light.

 

[tritonpower]

The unfortunate trend continues as all of the inhabitants of my QT system were found dead after a weekend trip out of town. It makes me thing the royal gramma was victim to whatever caused the rest to die vs bullying.

I’m not 100% sure what the cause of the system crash was, but the only thing that came back on tests irregular was super high nitrates and no medications or additives were being used. Leading to most likely cause being lack of consistent, large enough water changes. For now I am going to tear down the QT system and clean it to be sure. I will set it back up once I have a solid time period to focus on adding new fish and decide at that time what my final stocking will be. Super bummed because the Solaris wrasse (made it through QT), yellow tang, royal gramma, and mandarin are things I’ve wanted since I started up the hobby.

I will be able to solely focus on my DT now and hopefully keep learning and improving in the hobby.

Did you see what I have been doing in the garage? I keep 2 tanks connected to one sump and then when I get a new fish I then isolate the smaller tank for a couple months. It still has live sand and live rock in it. I use no meds. I have always found fish do better in mature tanks. I do a 20% water change every week or 2. The idea of a modern quarantine tank never made sense to me since the tanks are by definition not mature. I wonder if you could try something more like I am doing. Of course you run the risk of disease since there are no meds but if the fish look healthy in my QT after 2 months hopefully there is no disease. I wonder if anyone else does it that way.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Did you see what I have been doing in the garage? I keep 2 tanks connected to one sump and then when I get a new fish I then isolate the smaller tank for a couple months. It still has live sand and live rock in it. I use no meds. I have always found fish do better in mature tanks. I do a 20% water change every week or 2. The idea of a modern quarantine tank never made sense to me since the tanks are by definition not mature. I wonder if you could try something more like I am doing. Of course you run the risk of disease since there are no meds but if the fish look healthy in my QT after 2 months hopefully there is no disease. I wonder if anyone else does it that way.

Yes, I did see this. It’s a pretty cool setup and idea. I can’t go that route though. Don’t have the opportunity for a setup like that to start. Also, after battling an ich outbreak once, I want to do my best to ensure I don’t go through that again. I plan on always using a medicated QT to reduce risk of ich on all new fish unless they are captive bread. There is always a small chance of ich coming in from a Biota fish or on a hard surface from a coral frag or invert, but that is where my current risk tolerance for disease is because it is so difficult to deal with. When I do re-establish my QT I plan to have it running and cycled for approximately 1 month prior to adding any livestock to build up some bacteria and being conservative with the bioload. Just have to ensure I have the proper time to dedicate to the process when I decide to undertake it again.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Another open box AI Hydra 32 popped up on BRS, so I pulled the trigger. Adding a third to see if we can improve growth and mainly colors even though some SPS are showing some growth.

Rumor has it 4 might not even be unreasonable! Who knew!

I will have to adapt my custom mounting, so pics to come in the near future.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

Installed the third AI Hydra 32 today. Used a $12 2”x2” piece of lumber, painted it black, and used it to make a light mount vs paying for a commercially available unit.

Going to start acclimation mode for 21 days beginning at 70% to ramp up the lights and hope for some nice colors and growth!

Salinity recently dropped to 1.022-1.023, so I have been working to increase back to 1.026 via topping off with salt. Just about have it back at goal. Noticed one of the torches was closed tight after the AWC head on my DOS came loose and extra RO was added by the top off instead of SW during water changes for a few days. Hopefully caught it before any long term damage manifested.

 

[Rudzbrewski]

My indo orange torch has gone downhill, so my LFS recommended I dose cipro to try and combat any bacterial infections that might be causing it. Did a 24 hr 2x 500 mg tab bath for the torch and will do 3x 250-500 mg doses every 48-72 hours for the whole tank.