Proper Introduction, Loveland reefer

[Thomas Doty]

Since I started my reef tank 2? years ago the masc community has been a great resource to help get me through the ups and downs of the hobby, so thank you all. My tank is a 4'*2'*2' display with a 30 gal sump. I have it stocked as a mixed reef, and now that's its aged I'm trying to fill it with sps. My live stock includes 2 oscilarius l, fox face lo, starry blenny, shark nose goby, royal gramma, 3 bangai cardinals, cleaner shrimp, 2 conch, 2 turbo, 2 periscope snails, and 8 bumblebee snails. I nuked everything a year ago with improper vibrant dosing/ peppermint shrimp rampage, but everything is pretty stable now. I have my system set up to be super low maintenence, socks as needed, ato with 40 gal Reservoir, auto dosing 2 part, and dry skimming. I run carbon gfo as needed. The tank runs 4 ppm nitrate,.08 ppm phosphate, 7 alk, 300 CA, 1392 MG. I'm trying to slowly increase alk and CA. I'm also currently trying to manage cyano, hydroids, aptasia, and blue clove polyps. All my corals are growing and happy except my green toadstool leathers. They have all been closed for 3+ months now. Any way, thanks again to everyone. If anyone has suggestions or critiques, please let me know what you think. My goal is to have a healthy mixed reef that can be maintained monthly or remotely. View attachment 19720 View attachment 19720 View attachment 19721 View attachment 19722 View attachment 19723 View attachment 19724

 

[neil82]

Welcome! Thanks for sharing.

 

[SynDen]

Welcome! Good start on a reef tank.
I will say though before you go spending money on a bunch of SPS, you should get rid of the cloves, those things will cover everything eventually, and I mean everything. Almost nothing will stop them from spreading, so you either need to resign to having a clove tank, which can be pretty, or you will need to eradicate them all together

 

[Thomas Doty]

Thanks! Yeah I hate the cloves. I know it's gonna be a big project, so I've been putting it off. I read a thread on using fluconazole, but don't want to kill my inverts and gsp. At this point is my only option fragging the pavona and turbinaria from the rock and the sterilizing it? Its also on my rock that's pretty encrusted by psammocora which. The sps surrounded by it don't seem too bothered btw, is that normal?

 

[SynDen]

If you do want to get rid of it, the only way really is fluconazole, because its really the only way to ensure you get 100% of it. Even if you remove the rocks its on, it only takes one little polyp hiding somewhere in the tank and it will invade all over again. So many people take out the inverts, and gsp, if you want to keep it, and put in a temp tank while you do the treatment.
That being said clove tanks can actually be quite pretty. They have good color and and decent motion, I just wouldn't go putting any expensive sticks in it unless you want them covered over by the cloves.
If it was me I might just let the cloves take over that tank, and then setup a different tank for sps instead.

 

[Thomas Doty]

120 Reef update April 2022

I finally got new camera glass and cleaned the tank, so might as well share an update before something breaks. Not much has changed visually in my 120, but my parameters and over all health have been improving.

Since implementing brs/balling hybrid dosing my alk stays between 8.5-9.5, ca is 440, MG 1460, and most notably a ph of 8.20-8.35. I have noticed much better coloration and growth, which I mainly chalk up to a higher ph compared to the 7.8 lows I would get before. I currently use 1 gal jugs to store a and b, and a 2 gal jug for C. They all run out the same time after ~50 days, so ideally I want to switch to 5 gal buckets and 10 gal tub down the road.

I simplified and downsized my filtration both to increase nitrates and lower maintenence time. Filter socks are only used when I rescape or clean out the sump mulm. I no longer run carbon or gfo. My skimmer is now rigged to a diy co2 scrubber and only runs if my ph dips below 8.2. There's a fistful of chaeto growimg in the small refugium a that grows slow and keeps my nitrates around 8-16 and phosphates at.02 or lower.

After getting my alk and nitrates up, I thought it would be a good time to swap the ai prime for a hydra 26 HD. The tank now has 2 hydra 32s and the 26 in the middle.

The stocking is pretty much the same for now. I lost a Cardinal that never really looked healthy, a shark nose goby who I suspect encroached on my royal gramma, my cleaner shrimp, and a massive 2" turbo. I've added a kole tang, and have a scopas and 2 new Cardinal in quarantine now. Unfortunately I've discovered more unwanted critters as well. Today I just dipped all my zoa rocks after finding nudibranchs munching on them. Here I was blaming the foxface the past few months for them not opening. I found some Fulgidae worms in the rockwork originally from this tank that I transfered to my 20 gal, so I'm sure I've got tons more... To top it all off, I have video evidence and black tipped claw molts that lead me to think there is a 2-3" gorilla crab in there killing my snails and shrimp. It's avoided my cup trap the entire 3-4 months I've been hunting the bastard. At least the berghia I added destroyed "all" my aptasia. The blue cloves are still breathing, even though there's fenbendazole 10 ft away. They seem to have slowed down spreading and kalk paste has been managing their inevitable take over. I'm considering adding an angel or butterfly to try and thin them out too.

There was an alveopora colony I was eyeing forever that I finally bought 2-3 months ago after my small alve frag started to grow back. I love this coral and really think its size brings the tank together, of course my clowns decided to start grinding up. On it... Fast forward to now. The rbta I had in my 20 is now in this tank looking stunning, and the clowns are beginning to change hosts thankfully. If they didn't I was sadly going to put the coral up for sale. I've collected a few new frags that are starting to grow in. The JF slow burn Monti is on of my new favorites along with this blue/ green milli?. If any one can id the blue/green milli? on the rack, thank you.

When I discovered the zoa eating nudibranchs today, I decided to dip all zoa rocks and rescape the left side. I changed the layout to put the zoa rocks in front, and hide my egg crate/ ugly frag rack in the back. I'm sure things will continue to change as always.

Thanks to whoever has the patience to read this and happy reefing to everyone. All criticism and tips are welcome! Sorry about potato pics, corals> new phone.

P.S. I included a snap shot of my apex temp, ph and salinity. The past few day my tank has been struggling to keep up with the colder house, added heater today. It looks like the low temp coralated with some erratic salinity changes. I'm wondering if this due to "salting out" in the solution from low temp or more likely a probe issue?...

 

[Thomas Doty]

Crab video clip, bottom right
Crab bottom right https://imgur.com/gallery/fq9tUOV

 

[zombie]

Salinity spikes that correlate with temperature does not mean your actual salinity changed. It means you need to adjust the temperature compensation. The exact number you need varys between tanks and also varies based on your KH, CA, and MG levels. I use reef crystals at 35 ppt in my tanks and need TC set to 2.6 to stay consistent with temp changes.

Sent from my SM-G986U using MASC mobile app

 

[Thomas Doty]

Thdnks. Does tc mean temp constant? I don't how many time I've had to check the salinity/ temp chart. The tank is 36.5 at 78°, which should give me a little less than 1.026. Between 78° and 76° I always see a linear relationship between salinity and temp, but this time my low temp seemed to really throw things around. I was just wondering if there a threshold where the relation ship changes, similar to salting out in super saturatedcv solutions.
It seems to be stable now that I have the new heater in there

 

[zombie]

TC is temp compensation constant. Based on the swing I am seeing, it doesn't look like you have that enabled at all. I am seeing a 2.3% increase per degree C, so if you have that turned off, I would enable it with a value of 2.3

Neptune doesn't spell it out very well in the app, bit basically conductivity increases with temperature at a value of 2-4% per degree Celsius. This varies depending on KH, CA, Mg, normal specific gravity, temperature range, etc. The temp compensation reduces the value by X% per degree Celcius to compensate. This is centered about 25C or about 77F.

From my experience, pretty low temperatures will not vary this relationship much. I have a saltwater mixing barrel in my basement that often gets in the low 60s and a finely tuned temp compensation value will keep the probe reading constant from low 60s all the way to 78. I get maybe a .3 ppt variance with that huge temp swing after tuning my TC.

Sent from my SM-G986U using MASC mobile app

 

[Thomas Doty]

Thanks for explaining that! I put in 2.3 last night and it looks good so far. I've been meaning to dig through your posts and optimize my apex, just been too lazy lately. The stress of my atk not engaging may just push me to it though.

 

[Thomas Doty]

Slow and steady is the name of the game. Its been almost 3 years since i started this 150 galllon system and it feels good. Im pleased where everything is at regarding my low maitenence goals and overall health. I did an ati test finally and was fairly happy with the results, attached if curious.

The bad; Pyram snails are picking off most of my snails and conchs. Hollywood stunner is growing and encroaching on left side. Trident unit needs work after long period of inactivity. Goniporas are dieing
The good; ph is stable at 8.2 - 8.4, blue cloves have stopped spreading without fluvonazole, tank has been opperating succesfully with maitenence once every 2 months on average.
Im planning on cleaning up the left side and fragging everything soon. Thanks in advance for any critiques or advide. Im also open to selling/ giving certain peices to anyone, if interested just pm me.

 

[Thomas Doty]

My view 99% of the time haha.

 

[jda123]

If you still have the cloves, buy the Angelfish Plus food with the fenbendazole in it - it is green and called like Deworming I, or something like that. Just feed your fish the flake food a little at a time. I got some cloves out of nowhere and I had to do this and it took a few months, but they are all gone and I guess that my fish have less worms if they ever had any. No issues at all with my acropora or clams. Most of the cloves died in a few weeks, but it took longer to get all of them. This is too easy to kill these things slowly and nuking your tank for an instant death is reckless, IMO. The stuff will also kill xenia and some other types of colonial polyps, so read up on it.

BTW - you want fenbendazole to kill cloves, not flucanazole.

 

[Thomas Doty]

I think i have fenbendazole canine dewormer, just havent pulled the trigger. I like the idea of the agnelfish plus better though given its worked for you... Im gonna try and get rid of most of my soft corals beforw i try anything. Did you add extra carbon or do extra water changes while feeding the angel plus?

 

[jda123]

I just fed the fish once a day a normal amount of flake food. Absolutely nothing else.