ckyuv

Sweet! I’m gona see how you lure them out of the rocks to catch one and you can have em. I think I saw someone on one of these threads use a chunk of shrimp or something so might give that a shot. Was gona order a little more rock from Tampa bay and see they sell the reds so might get another one now he’s cool haha.

Was able to catch him I think that’s what it is

I am thinking it’s a baby red mithrax? If so, it’s getting promoted to display and one emerald gets to go back to rca 🤣

Had to run some carbon so threw a filter sock in my sump yesterday. Just went to take it out and this guy is chilling on it. Any thoughts what this might be? Would have had to come in on the rubble from Tampa bay presumably unless it came on a coral and made it down the overflow:

Diggin the light color. Came out nice!

My dr reefs order came in today. Also my wife went to RCA the other day. This week we added a “pre quarantined” flame hawk, forest fire digi, whatever $10 acro from RCA, a lot more little snails and hermits, a tiger conch and a new bubble tip anemone. the small couple bubble algae bubbles, the cyano or dynos or whatever and the slimy stuff all seem to be going away and all the corals are much more open and happy and getting their colors back. I have been just doing water changes, adding phosphate and feeding 2x a day instead of 1x a day. The mandarin is out a little more and eats the frozen mysis/cyclops in slow motion. I have been buying pods monthly but think I will stop and just keep an eye on it. I got excited cause the Tampa bay live rubble came with a free mangrove. It lost its leaves and looks pretty dead on the top end. Trying to decide if it goes in the composter cause even if it survives roots in my overflow is a bad idea, or gets to stay longer and maybe recover.

The sweepers on the galaxea look cool, everything is looking great!

Great idea didn’t even think of that. Def going to give that a shot today!

Welp I did the thing. I had GSP in one of my old tanks that got on the rocks that always would grow over stuff so told myself I wouldn’t do that or Xenia again. The girls saw the gsp rock with a hermit on it at RCA and the girl working said the hermit looked like a cow grazing in a field. Sooo we got it and the hermit and named the hermit moo moo lol dr reef sent confirmation order shipped. Got more clean up crew (cause I was gona have lots of phosphates and hair algae) a couple corals, a conch and a flame hawk on the way. After buying I was reading they like to jump. 2nd guessing not getting a top before the fish. I had one before that never had issues and didn’t think about it. I can’t get phosphates to go above 0.00 though, I’m not convinced this Hannah checker works or the phosphates I got are just water. Still registering 0.00. Following the directions for the phosphate I have put enough in the tank(I have about 80 gallons total volume) for a 100 gallon tank to have 0.09 at this point. I’ll prob take water up to RCA for another test again this weekend and make sure I’m not crazy. Was hoping to have numbers on the Hannah before my order came in but here we are. slimy stuff on the rocks has chilled out, it’s still there but growing much slower and the diatoms/cyano/whatever on the sand is not growing as fast either. Maybe all you need in life is green star polyps and a moo moo hermit to solve your problems.

I have not heard of the pithos, I’ll have to check them out online. I forgot to mention I got some of the Tampa bay live rubble as well and there was very tiny crabs in the rubble but they were to small to tell what they were. I put them in the sump and will have to keep an eye on them as they get bigger. I’m hoping once I get my phosphate to where I want it, each water change or in my ATO I just add whatever ml to replenish. I’ll have to keep an eye on levels now a little better but I assume bumping it up in about to get some nasty stuff rockin.

Ok this update is overdue. Been pretty busy and have not given the tank a ton of love lately but getting back into it again. The fish have been doing great. Mandarin was a huge worry but it’s plumped up. It still does not come out all that much, mostly lights out. I’ve been feeding often though and I guess stuff makes it in the rocks. Corals have been struggling a bit. My phosphates have been consistently low(0 on every test kit) so I have dialed back on water changes and fed the fish a little extra. I also bought some phosphate to dose the tank with. I think it’s working as I am starting to get some Dino/cyano/whatever the past week. those who said live rock and I shrugged it off cause I didn’t want things like bubble algae or ocean germs or whatever… you win. All the frags I have gotten at RCA have had bubble algae on the plugs at this point so it’s a thing. I should have listened. I got an emerald crab, ordered a new cleanup crew as well as a flame hawk and some corals from dr reef quarantine fish or something online. Anyways, now I am dosing phosphate and got a Hanna checker. Hanna is still showing 0.00 so I upped the dosing. Not sure what number I’m shooting for yet but want to slowly bring it up. Any “final” numbers to try and level it off at are welcome if y’all have numbers you try and keep it at. The internet has a thousand different suggestions here. My anemone has been closed up for the past couple weeks, it must be phosphate hungry but it keeps moving so I put the sponge on the mp40

I have been away from the house the past couple weeks and came home to a bunch of gooey stuff on the rocks. It started in small amounts after I started to dose phyto(I think, maybe just coincidence) but even after I stopped dosing the stuff is growing. siphons off easy as pie, so mostly it’s just visually annoying. I’m chalking it up to me finally getting the uglies in this tank(it’s about 6 months old) but curious if anyone has had/seen this before. I won’t lie, I don’t own test equipment stuff aside from temp and salinity. I might take water up to RCA to test as I’m kinda concerned the dry rock is maybe just leaching crap. I did have a hammer and a red dragon die while I was out of town but I’m assuming that was due to ato running dry for a few days.

We’ll that only took you 6 months haha. Thought about lights at all? You might need another kessil for this one huh?

Not sure I catch your drift here, your thinking just like inverts or whatever that I might not want later on? Also, you said add more. I said ok. They had a cool acan at RCA so nabbed one while grabbing pods: the mandarin came out last night after lights out which was cool. I turned the lights off to add pods today and it came out right away. Hopefully it just needs a few days, it’s so small I’m concerned my anemone or euphylia or something will eat it 😂

The mandarin has not come out since going in the tank, I assume I won’t see it for a couple days. I def have a solid pod population and I dumped pods in when I got it. Assuming it will be ok for now. I did just order some more pods and phyto that will come early next week as a just in case. I just don’t want it to move off prepared foods and to live only… this is what I got: https://www.algaebarn.com/shop/live-foods/combo-packs/5280-pods-oceanmagik-phyto/ I was able to stick the urchin on a thing of nori as well and it seems to be eating it. When I move it to the glass it hung on and has been there all day. If I am about to be feeding the tank 5x a day for this baby tang and baby mandarin I imagine I’m about to have plenty to feed the urchin in the very near future. I’ve been waiting to add too many corals until I got more fish so I could raise the nutrient levels in the water. Presumably that’s about to happen quickly lol