Jahmic's JBJ 28, first reef build
- Thread starter jahmic
- Start date
Growth pics
Bird of paradise birdsnest:
5/7/12
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5/27/12 - definitely noticing more branching at the tips...it took off this week
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Bird of paradise birdsnest:
5/7/12
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5/27/12 - definitely noticing more branching at the tips...it took off this week
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Flames of hell leptastrea
4/15/12
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5/27/12 - maybe hard to see since it's competing with the paly for space...but it's encrusted alot more
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Duncan
4/15/12
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5/27/12 - crappy photo...but there are new heads popping up
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4/15/12
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5/27/12 - maybe hard to see since it's competing with the paly for space...but it's encrusted alot more
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Duncan
4/15/12
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5/27/12 - crappy photo...but there are new heads popping up
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As predicted...the galaxea is gone...it started stinging its neighbors no matter how much I sculpted the flow. I also redirected both returns to blow behind the rockwork and have noticed much less detritus collecting in the back corners. The flow now sweeps up and toward the overflow from the back corners; glad I finally got that figured out...it was actually easy once I stopped having to worry about the galaxea.
Replaced it with:
cali tort
red planet
monti digi
...lol
Current fts:
More pics...
Only bad news is that I'm getting a mild algae bloom...should've cooked the dry rock I added for the zoa garden up front. Lesson learned.
I have an InTank media basket that's been waiting almost a month to go in...it doesn't fit in there right now with the stock basket and a maxijet for the chiller in the center chamber. I plan on running the chiller on an external pump and setting up a little fuge with the new basket...hopefully it helps.
Replaced it with:
cali tort
red planet
monti digi
...lol
Current fts:
More pics...
Only bad news is that I'm getting a mild algae bloom...should've cooked the dry rock I added for the zoa garden up front. Lesson learned.
I have an InTank media basket that's been waiting almost a month to go in...it doesn't fit in there right now with the stock basket and a maxijet for the chiller in the center chamber. I plan on running the chiller on an external pump and setting up a little fuge with the new basket...hopefully it helps.
Thank you both for the compliments. Lol Chad...I've pretty much decided that now's a good time to stop adding coral to the tank and let things grow in for a bit. If I end up needing a tank stretcher I'll also need a house stretcher 
Or I could always get rid of my bed, sleep on the couch, and get a nice 200 gal in there, haha.
Those ric yumas you hooked me up with a while back have definitely grown a bit...one of them recently detached a piece of its foot and I can see a new one growing in. They also colored up nicely with some green and purple striping...sick fluorescent green rims around the edge of their mouths, and the sometimes show fluorescent orange in the center of the mouth too.
My girl took this photo last week...she loves them now...hated them initially since when I was dipping them and pulled one out of the pee cup it squirted her in the forehead from like 3 ft away, lol.
[attachment=62678:name]
Or I could always get rid of my bed, sleep on the couch, and get a nice 200 gal in there, haha.Those ric yumas you hooked me up with a while back have definitely grown a bit...one of them recently detached a piece of its foot and I can see a new one growing in. They also colored up nicely with some green and purple striping...sick fluorescent green rims around the edge of their mouths, and the sometimes show fluorescent orange in the center of the mouth too.
My girl took this photo last week...she loves them now...hated them initially since when I was dipping them and pulled one out of the pee cup it squirted her in the forehead from like 3 ft away, lol.
[attachment=62678:name]
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Long weekend...
I decided to run a mini fuge in the back of the tank to help support the pod population, which was essentially decimated by my pair of wrasses and the diamond goby. With the pods thriving I had been able to feed much less and keep the goby looking healthy, but it was getting to the point that I was feeding a little more and/or target feeding him to keep him from getting too thin...which helped induce a few spots of gha to grow more than I'd like. Also was getting tired of cleaning the glass 2 or 3 times a week. Not sure if the chaeto will help with nutrient export much given the small amount I'm using, but it will at least help me reduce feedings by supporting the pod population ...which will hopefully also start grazing on the algae on the glass.
Setting up the fuge meant pulling the mj12 out from under the stock basket and plumbing a mag 2 externally; the mj was plumbed to my chiller. That mag pump leaked a little when I first tested it, so I rebuilt it with a new impeller, o-ring, and added a bead of silicone around the edge. It's running great and much quieter than that mj12 was in the rear sump. Also cut down my tank temps by about 1.2 degrees getting that pump out. Picked up the InTank basket so I'd have some more space for chaeto and better flow....that basket was worth every penny...so much better than the flimsy stock basket...which by the way broke and had to be patched after 3 months of use. The chaeto is being lit by a 10w submersible halogen lamp opposite the DT light cycle. I'll try to get a pic of everything later on...
Also worth mentioning is that my chemical filtration likely exhausted. I changed the purigen out today with a fresh batch, and will probably wait about a week to replace the chemi pure elite. I'm debating using another bag of that, or just going with gfo and carbon from brs. I like the convenience of the cpe...but would rather be able to replace the carbon on a monthly basis and (hopefully) change the gfo as needed every couple months...the cost definitely adds up with the cpe.
Aside from the small amount of nuisance algae here and there, the tank is doing great. Got my dosing regimen down to where I should only need to check my levels weekly, and will probably just manual dose for a few weeks before attempting to set up an autodoser. The better half stopped by this weekend and was shocked by how much things have grown and colored up over the past couple weeks! It was hard for me to tell if anything changed as far as colors go...so it was definitely nice to get that confirmation from her.
Here's a few pics to reward anybody that read that wall of text...or appease those that just scroll til they see the good stuff.
ORA and green/pink birdnest frags starting to intertwine...no recession on them so I'm thinking they should get along next to each other and create a natural look. You can also see some more growth on the monti digi in the back. Still waiting to see that one start encrusting onto the rockwork, but it's definitely on the edge of that plug and getting close.
Better angle for the lighting...can definitely see the color popping on the polyps getting blasted with light.
Shot of the cali tort...comparing it to my previous photo there's little growth aside from a few more corallites at the tip...but it's colored up quite nicely.
I'll take the blame for the algae on the glass, btw. Started supplementing the feeding with reef chili once a week for the past 2 weeks, and also dose aquavitro fuel once a week. The fuel I've been using for the past 6 weeks, but I recently cut the recommended dose down A LOT as it was just causing instant blooms of green algae on the glass. Had been dosing 5ml every Wednesday, down to 1ml now. No more instant algae overnight, and the corals still color up nicely after dosing, especially the zoanthids. After a few weeks dosing 1ml a week I'll prob go to 2x a week and see what happens. I'm usually a skeptic of products like that...but I've been watching some previously tan zoas color up nicely since I started dosing "fuel", and my alpha omegas definitely got more intense coloration after I started using it...and this was before I started my alk/ca dosing a couple weeks ago.
Definitely enjoying my new perpetual science project
I decided to run a mini fuge in the back of the tank to help support the pod population, which was essentially decimated by my pair of wrasses and the diamond goby. With the pods thriving I had been able to feed much less and keep the goby looking healthy, but it was getting to the point that I was feeding a little more and/or target feeding him to keep him from getting too thin...which helped induce a few spots of gha to grow more than I'd like. Also was getting tired of cleaning the glass 2 or 3 times a week. Not sure if the chaeto will help with nutrient export much given the small amount I'm using, but it will at least help me reduce feedings by supporting the pod population ...which will hopefully also start grazing on the algae on the glass.
Setting up the fuge meant pulling the mj12 out from under the stock basket and plumbing a mag 2 externally; the mj was plumbed to my chiller. That mag pump leaked a little when I first tested it, so I rebuilt it with a new impeller, o-ring, and added a bead of silicone around the edge. It's running great and much quieter than that mj12 was in the rear sump. Also cut down my tank temps by about 1.2 degrees getting that pump out. Picked up the InTank basket so I'd have some more space for chaeto and better flow....that basket was worth every penny...so much better than the flimsy stock basket...which by the way broke and had to be patched after 3 months of use. The chaeto is being lit by a 10w submersible halogen lamp opposite the DT light cycle. I'll try to get a pic of everything later on...
Also worth mentioning is that my chemical filtration likely exhausted. I changed the purigen out today with a fresh batch, and will probably wait about a week to replace the chemi pure elite. I'm debating using another bag of that, or just going with gfo and carbon from brs. I like the convenience of the cpe...but would rather be able to replace the carbon on a monthly basis and (hopefully) change the gfo as needed every couple months...the cost definitely adds up with the cpe.
Aside from the small amount of nuisance algae here and there, the tank is doing great. Got my dosing regimen down to where I should only need to check my levels weekly, and will probably just manual dose for a few weeks before attempting to set up an autodoser. The better half stopped by this weekend and was shocked by how much things have grown and colored up over the past couple weeks! It was hard for me to tell if anything changed as far as colors go...so it was definitely nice to get that confirmation from her.
Here's a few pics to reward anybody that read that wall of text...or appease those that just scroll til they see the good stuff.
ORA and green/pink birdnest frags starting to intertwine...no recession on them so I'm thinking they should get along next to each other and create a natural look. You can also see some more growth on the monti digi in the back. Still waiting to see that one start encrusting onto the rockwork, but it's definitely on the edge of that plug and getting close.
Better angle for the lighting...can definitely see the color popping on the polyps getting blasted with light.
Shot of the cali tort...comparing it to my previous photo there's little growth aside from a few more corallites at the tip...but it's colored up quite nicely.
I'll take the blame for the algae on the glass, btw. Started supplementing the feeding with reef chili once a week for the past 2 weeks, and also dose aquavitro fuel once a week. The fuel I've been using for the past 6 weeks, but I recently cut the recommended dose down A LOT as it was just causing instant blooms of green algae on the glass. Had been dosing 5ml every Wednesday, down to 1ml now. No more instant algae overnight, and the corals still color up nicely after dosing, especially the zoanthids. After a few weeks dosing 1ml a week I'll prob go to 2x a week and see what happens. I'm usually a skeptic of products like that...but I've been watching some previously tan zoas color up nicely since I started dosing "fuel", and my alpha omegas definitely got more intense coloration after I started using it...and this was before I started my alk/ca dosing a couple weeks ago.
Definitely enjoying my new perpetual science project
Thanks guys.
I made a separate post to figure out what to do about this:
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Just noticed this sponge? growing on the shelf rock...probably going to pull the rock at the next water change and see if I can get some of this sponge away from my corals. Not sure how invasive it is, but am tempted to just nip it before it takes over...it's too close to my leptastrea and encrusting on the duncan's skeleton. It's gotta go.
I made a separate post to figure out what to do about this:
View attachment 7461
Just noticed this sponge? growing on the shelf rock...probably going to pull the rock at the next water change and see if I can get some of this sponge away from my corals. Not sure how invasive it is, but am tempted to just nip it before it takes over...it's too close to my leptastrea and encrusting on the duncan's skeleton. It's gotta go.
Just realized I didn't have any pics of the sick favia that Mike hooked me up with...probably because I though it was hating life in my tank up until recently.
Here is a pic taken about a month ago...the almost exposed skeleton was scaring me.
It also seemed like the mouth was moving around a lot, and that the tissue was receding from the mouth toward the base. So I did what any worried reefer would do, and target fed pellets almost every other day for a few weeks.
Here are a few pics I just took during feeding...this one is of that same side.
And this one is of the other side, which was also looking like the skeleton was "pushing through" the flesh:
New mouths! Lol...and I was SO worried it was receding. There is clearly a new mouth formed in that last pic, and the one prior looks like it has 4 forming. Sick!
I just might keep target feeding once or twice a week...the color on this guy is sweet.
Here is a pic taken about a month ago...the almost exposed skeleton was scaring me.
It also seemed like the mouth was moving around a lot, and that the tissue was receding from the mouth toward the base. So I did what any worried reefer would do, and target fed pellets almost every other day for a few weeks.
Here are a few pics I just took during feeding...this one is of that same side.
And this one is of the other side, which was also looking like the skeleton was "pushing through" the flesh:
New mouths! Lol...and I was SO worried it was receding. There is clearly a new mouth formed in that last pic, and the one prior looks like it has 4 forming. Sick!
I just might keep target feeding once or twice a week...the color on this guy is sweet.