SChambers

Thanks, pm'd

Hey all, I am looking to get some leather corals for my tank to help it get more established. I tried starting out with some SPS and have managed to kill off most of them, so I am looking for something cheap and hardy while I get the feel for coral care and get my tank better established. Let me know if y'all have anything or could point me to somewhere to take a look. Thanks!

Yea I'm not sure what to do... If I lose them, I am not sure how to prevent further loss in the future. I know there is a lot of factors that go into each specific coral... Amount of water flow, Lighting levels and amount of time for lighting... I have a power head for water flow and it is the one most people suggest for the size of my tank. I'm not quite sure if I have optimal placement for the best flow or if I placed the corals properly to get the flow they like. For lighting I am running day lights from 11 am to 7 pm and the blue lights from 7 am to midnight... this will all change when I get my retrofit though. I'm hoping the instruction guide gives a good suggestion for how to program the controller for optimal coral care. I looked into both the nanobox retrofit and Steve's LED retrofit. Ultimately I ended up going with Steve's LED after reading multiple reviews and inputs.

Well, I am going to try a retrofit because I would really like to keep the hood on. I couldn't find a decent option to be able to keep the tank covered since it is a bow front and I am not crafty enough to make my own from acrylic like I have seen others do. I have cats and a kid and I am too scared things would get in the top if I left it open. I also got the inTank fuge basket for the back and a LED underwater light so I can start growing macroalgae back in the second chamber. I haven't had any macroalgae up to this point, but I hope this can help my tank stabilize. I saw my fish sitting towards the top of the tank and sometimes mouthing at the surface, so I was concerned that the O2 levels in the tank might be getting low. I did a larger volume water change to help that and it does seem to have helped the fish; however, the corals up top are degrading badly. I think the bizzaro cyphastra is lost, it is entirely white and I don't see any polyps. The Nauti Spiral Montipora is losing color by the day and the Rainbow Montipora has not gained any color back. PO4 - 0.05 Mg - 1240 Ca - 390 pH - 8.0 KH - 9.3 NO3 - 5 NH3 - 0 Salinity - 1.025 NO2 - 0 This larger water change caused my KH to drop, but so did Ca and Mg. I did a Mg dose to try and get that level up, but I am going slow with it. I think the larger water also negatively impacted my corals... Not sure how to balance this, but I don't think I can salvage the 3 that are losing colors. The LEDs won't be here for a bit and I'll need to go slow with dialing up the LEDs on the retrofit so I don't blast my corals and allow them to acclimate. The vermetid snails are also being a huge pain... they keep latching to my corals and are all over the tank. No matter how many I break off there are more all over the place and they keep coming back. I did treat the anemones and they are mostly gone... I missed 2 aiptaisia and I will treat again soon.

I situated the meter on the rock near coral and took the reading with the lid down, but it was propped open the thickness of the probe wire.

Got out to aquadome today to rent a PAR meter. Top of my tank at the height of the highest coral I am reading 130 and then lowest coral I am reading around 75. The measurements are definitely not exact since this tank has a hood on and I could not get it to fully close while reading out on the meter. PAR does seem low when comparing it to suggested lighting levels for most of my corals so that is a bit concerning. There are a few retrofits for my tank that I could upgrade lighting with or I could look at removing the hood all together and adding lighting. Not sure what would be best or most economical at this point.

Thanks jolt. So I had a bit of a set back today. Got home and noticed the color was looking very bad on my rainbow montipora and that my tank was super cloudy. Apparently my pump somehow got stopped up and had next to no flow going. All I did was resit the pump in chamber 3 and the flow went back to normal. All I can think is that the pump got too close to the wall between chamber 2 and 3 and it cut off flow. I have suction cups on the bottom of the pump, but they don’t stay stuck. Hope I don’t lose the rainbow because I really like that coral.

So I wasn’t able to get out this weekend due to my son getting sick. I will try and rent a PAR meter when I can, but the research I have is pretty mixed on the stock lights for LED biocube. There are some upgrade retrofits that I could get if it is not enough. I am not seeing any growth on the corals yet and I think I am about to have another cyano bloom. I ordered Aiptaisia X to deal with the pests and that should come in soon. PO4 - 0.03 MG - 1320 Ca - 400 pH - 8.0 KH - 10.3 NO3 - 10 NH3 - 0 Salinity - 1.024 Parameters seem to be heading in the right direction. Still trying to figure out what that growth is as well.

I did not realize those were snails. I do have tubes like that extending from all over my rocks and my torch coral. It seems like there is not an easy way to deal with them. I tried breaking as many off as I could, but I doubt I did very much to impact the population. I also spotted some Aiptasia which I hope to get a peppermint shrimp to help deal with. I could also try some Aiptasia X if the shrimp doesn’t seem to take to them. I also have this soft growth on one of my live rocks that I cannot seem to identify. Any ideas?

Really interesting read, thanks for all the detail... I would love to be able to get something like this setup as I get more experience in the hobby. Any updates on progress for the tank?

A little late on the pictures but here we go... Whole Tank - Chalk Bass - He did have an injury to his eye, but it is starting to recover Firefish Goby - Torch Coral - It got really white after my last cyanobacteria treatment, but now it is starting to get color back toward the edges. I'm hoping it colors up nicely Nauti Spiral Montipora - Green Goblin Anacropora - I just noticed those black spots toward the bottom... is that something I need to be concerned about? Bizzaro Cyphastrea - Montipora Setosa - Rainbow Montipora - This one is hard to take a good picture of... I'm hoping it gets bit more color after I have raised it up in the tank. Lemon Lime Favia - LA Laker Turbinaria - I'm worried about the color on this one... it seems really dull. The green is not very vibrant and it doesn't glow under the night lights

Big congratulations on the article... was a really good read and something to try and aspire to as someone new into the hobby

I will think a little more about doing the ICP test and might get it in the next few weeks. I tested my tank again tonight and I'm hoping things are going in the right direction, but I don't know if it is enough. PO4 - 0 ... still 0; I tried dosing, but have not removed chemipure/purigen as Timfish suggested. If the dosing continues to not have an impact, I will try this but I don't want to run the tank for an extended period of time without these... any suggestions? MG - 1260; down a bit, but I don't want to dose any because I think it will let me Alk go up too high Ca - 400 pH - 8.0 KH - 10.9; down a bit from last week so this is going in the right direction NO3 - 10; no change from last week, but I don't think 10 is a bad number... is it too high? NH3 - 0 Salinity - 1.024 I didn't get to working on the tank until the night lights had already kicked on so I will try and get some pictures tomorrow of the corals and the tank overall. I had a rough time getting the corals to stay with my seachem reef glue... I tried going pretty light on first application, but I had to go pretty heavy to get it to stick. I looked up some suggestions and it looks like layering with glue + putty would be better for the future. Also, my sea urchin was being a pain and kept picking up my frags and dragging them around the tank. However, they seem to be in place now and staying put. During my water change this week, I did about half as much as I usually do and scrubbing on the algae to try and help clear that up as Timfish had suggested. I usually do a 5 gal change, but did about half of that. I think the GHA is looking better, but it is not a massive impact yet. I also notice that I have a lot of bristle worms including quite a few babies... seems like there was a pretty big boom in breeding and now they are swarming out in the light during feeding time which I think means they overcrowded and are now having to struggle for food. Is this something I need to look into manually removing some or will this auto correct?

I missed these posts since I guess I forgot to click notify me of replies... Thanks for y'alls input so far. I will check at my next aquadome visit about renting a PAR meter. I mounted my corals this past weekend after looking up and getting some input on the light levels each require. I will post some pictures later with my next water test results. They are still alive so that is good... Is the ICP truly that useful? It looks like a 2 week turn and just from the few tests I've done so far, the results aren't stable from week to week for my tank. I am wondering how reliable the results would be... I would hate to react to a parameter that has since subsided or overcorrect and cause my tank to crash.

Thanks Tim, I will work on trying to get the phosphate levels up... the salifert kit does not have ideal resolution it seems and I keep doubling up to try and get the higher resolution, but even then I didn't see any color to call it above 0. I have created a new post in tank builds if y'all are interested or could continue to help me out with tips

Thanks for the welcomes all. I have started up a tank build thread if anyone is interested or wants to give some advice!

I am starting up this thread to track my tank progress. I have gotten a lot of great advice so far from y'all so I am hoping to track progress here and flourish into a really beautiful reef tank. Equipment: Pump: Cobalt Aquatics 30003 MJ1200 Pump InTank Media Basket Filter Floss up top Chemipure in middle chamber Purigen in bottom chamber Powerhead: Hydor Koralia Nano 565 Circulation Pump Heater: Aqueon Pro Adjustable Heater 150 W Rock: 20 lbs Live Rock 20 lbs Live Sand 15 lbs Dry Rock Livestock: Firefish Goby Chalk Bass 4 Hermit Crabs 1 Sea Urchin 2 Snails Tigger Pods Corals: Torch Coral Nauti Spiral Montipora Green Goblin Anacropora Bizarro Cyphastrea Montipora Setosa LA Laker Turbinaria Rainbow Montipora Lemon Lime Favia Last test parameters: PO4 - 0 Mg - 1320 Ca - 410 pH - 8 KH - 11.2 NO3 - 10 Salinity - 1.024

So I added about 15 lbs of dry rock to the 20 lbs of live rock already in the tank to aquascape it a bit better. Jolt hooked me up with some great corals that I have been keeping toward the front to acclimate. In the next day or two I want to move them to rock and hopefully get everything going. I'm thinking about moving this to over to a tank build to try and document the process my tank makes as I learn more and more since this has gotten a bit away from the cyanobacteria discussion. Current parameters: PO4 - 0 Mg - 1320 Ca - 410 pH - 8 KH - 11.2 NO3 - 10 Salinity - 1.024 I got my Mg and Ca up; however, the KH went up even more so I need to try and figure out how to address that. The NO3 is also getting a bit high

Thanks for all the help. I will head out to Aquadome tomorrow to take a look at corals and ask about some pods and some more live rock. Do you have any tips for aquascape in the tank? Right now it looks highly unnatural especially with the lack of corals... I would like to set myself up for success if I'm going to start adding things in.

Salifert kits came in today... Results: PO4 = 0.06... had to double the quantities for the higher resolution test because first one came up 0 Mg = 1170 Ca = 390 pH = 8 KH = 10.9 NO3 = 2 ppm Taking a look around the internet it doesn't seem like my parameters are too far off. My Mg seems to be a bit low. Is testing for NH3 with the API kit any use still or stick with the saliferts I have?

I am down south of Slaughter and Manchaca intersection. That would be awesome, but I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience or slow down your own tank progress when you decide to start it back up. As far as adding some easy corals, it looks like some good ones would be star polyps, brain coral, maybe another hammer. I started with the scrubbing on the algae today during my weekly water change... hopefully, I will have some of the test kit stuff by next weekend and can work on getting this tank looking a bit better!

Thanks for all y'alls help and suggestions... I'm starting to price check some of these things to get an idea of how much it would cost to get things moving on this front. Right now, I'm thinking I will get the following: Salifert test kits for the things not covered in my API kit (I don't think I will take the dive on the more expensive Hanna checkers yet... although I do really like the digital readout. The color comparison always has me second guessing myself) Various nutrients to dose and correct levels; thinking to just go with brightwell as of right now for simplicity It sounds like I might need more CUC. I looked at the PodYourReef website, but I am really not sure which copepod species would be best... also I am a bit concerned if I don't have anything that feeds on them could their breeding get out of control and overwhelm my reef? More live rock... from looking at other tanks I'm tempted to rearrange my live rock and add some to build up along the back wall.. this will give me a grading of height for coral placement for various corals that need more/less light. Are there any trusted resources for maricultured or wild that you would suggest? Does this just contain more biodiversity than getting it from my local shop? I will try to get that stuff and get my water tested and everything in proper balance... I will work on scrubbing at the hair algae and then add some corals. Do I need to try and add larger frags or is starting with some small ones okay? I didn't really understand that adding more corals would help combat the algae. I got spooked losing the hammer coral and was very hesitant to expand into anything else. For the hair algae, is there detrimental effects of having it in the tank or does it just look bad? If I rearrange the rock, some of it might end up underneath or something... Do I need to make sure it is gone or will it matter?

Thanks for all the tips. Do you have a preferred brand of tester that you trust for those elements? I have never dosed my tank... is there a line of product you trust most? For the green hair algae, I have tried to remove it from my rock before. I pulled the rock out and tried scrubbing with a toothbrush to no avail. I am also very worried about hurting any of the crabs or other life that might be on or inside the rock when removing it from the tank. Any suggestions on how to effectively remove it? Does the amount of live rock in the tank look proper? I believe by weight I am on the low side of the suggested live rock. I do weekly blow off my rocks with a turkey baster. I will have to take a look at the pods, I am not familiar with what that is.

Thanks, I had no idea about that. Now I am wondering if that is why my hammer coral died... I will look into getting some better testing or get numbers from my local store. For the picture request, I have attached below. The cyano seems to have cleared up but I still have some brown discoloration in the sand.

What kits have a phosphate test? I have a salt water master test kit from API. Are there specific additions to a clean up crew you might suggest? I do have an additional power head in the tank for some extra water flow. A koralia nano 565 circulation pump for 565 GPH in addition to the pump. Maybe I do not have it set up for good flow in the tank? I have the power head on the opposite side of the pump return by the intake to the heater chamber.