Grog

Completed the 'canopies' for the lights today. Labelled all of my wiring connections! Installed an ATO just like on the 40 breeder. I'm ready for the live rock! Canopies I added some bolts to the side so they won't fall through. Very tight fit so they are just press fit, not screwed in. Final product visible in the FTS. Labelling I HATE trying to find the cord for an item. Old test engineering thing, all connections get labelled. FTS

Hide and Seek I'm super paranoid about the Helfrichi Firefish. Expensive, to me, small fish. Disappeared again. Pops up. Disappeared again. What is going on? Tank has been disrupted. Normally, I hear folks adding a fish with aggression disrupts a tank. Nope. The addition of the blood red shrimp caused it! Took me a few days to figure it out. All the fish love this one hidey hole. Blood red shrimp decided that hidey hole is now his. Fish are all pissed.... Well. Oddly enough blood red shrimp and Helfrichi are buddies. Helfrichi is deep in the hole. Big blood red shrimp is in the entrance. None of the other fish will come near. Pygmy Angel and Royal Gramma want NOTHING to do with the blood red shrimp. They avoid it like the plague. Helfrichi comes out for feeding, and a few minutes after, but goes back in and is 'guarded' by the shrimp. Very odd but this has been going on for about a week now... Not what I expected.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Tossed the Hygger lights. After testing with Tim, not enough PAR. So, I removed all the previous lights and replaced with two Rolan 22" from SB Reef. Two for less than $300 shipped! 22" dimmmable led aquarium light for saltwater corals (sbreeflights.com) Way better. Two channels. Dimmable seperately. 180W per black box, so 360W over the 75G tank. That will do! Pictures below. Oh, and the first shipment of the TBS Package is due on SW Airlines Monday at 10:00 AM! Happy week for me. Here is the thing with mounting legs etc. Nice non-metallic screws to tighten to the tank. Check out that driver! The fan pulls air from the heat sink on the light. Good design. All channels 100% Blue 100% Non-Blue 100% I'm not using the legs. Flush mounting on the rim of the tank. Fits perfectly! No picture. Too reflective. I will likely elevate it via some 1X2 wood to get it off the water surface to prolong their lives.

Galaxea is looking like it should tonight. Sweepers out and all the little green mouths open. Very cool

My intent is to have two different systems for sure. Maybe not totally unmixed but I'm trying to do less in each system. I think that was one of the issues with my last tank. Tried to do to many things. Competing requirements etc. Very tricky.

Ooh, UPS arrived. New corals. Purple Milka Stylo X4 (Top rack) Orange Monti Cap (Lower rack) Mystic Sunset Monti (Middle rack) TCF Flurry Acro (Top right) Garf Bonsai Acro (Lower rack) Stylos are going in the 70 when it is set up. Might keep one in this tank. Montis and Acro should likely stay in this tank. Hard to get a picture but I am most liking the colors on the Mystic Sunset monti. An irridescent blue with some red in there. I'll likely move it down to the same rack as the orange monti. Still waiting on my live rock and sand. Need that tank up and running, the Galaxea's sweepers are real! Like 6-8" long and out all day long. It has taken over a good 1/3 of the tank space. 70 it will have the top area of half the tank to itself. Once the Galaxea is in its proper place, I can spread the montis out in this tank. For now they are chilling/acclimating in the frag rack.

I'm no expert, but everything I've read about the HS says, 'fast growth' and 'easy to frag', even accidentally. So, that tends to match what you are saying. Fast and easy don't really tell us anything. All relative. So, my goal is to document it somewhat, if only for this specific hunk of coral. The oozing growth areas are noticeably larger even this morning. It aint as fast growing as my cucumbers in the hydro tent but it is a fast-growing coral for sure. I'm hoping over a few months I can say something like, this coral averaged X" in diameter per month. Another note: it is interesting to watch everything close up at night. The HS looks like a flat chunk of rock at night, completely retracted.

All parameters stable. No issues with the tank. Nice slow roll. Something I'm working on is photos documenting growth and growth patterns on the Hollywood Stunner. I won't post these weekly but more like quarterly, but here is the start. Interesting to see same angle shots with growth over time. This is about three weeks. IMO the growth area is where the black and red lines are. That is about 1/4" of growth in those three weeks. Multiple mouths have formed and grown. The area with the red line only now has pronounced other flesh under the mouths that was not there previously. I'm going to keep taking photos weekly from the same angle. I want to save these to document how they grow, and not just say that they grow 'fast'. Sample size of one, so take it for what it is worth.... 😛 This is also a marked improvement from the earlier post. The other side also has interesting growth. Almost looks like it drips or oozes into spots. The red highlighted areas were not there when it was added a few weeks ago. Cool critter to observe.

Urchin also wearing the zoas too? He's giving the decorator crab a run for its money.

Texas Oyster Restoration | The Nature Conservancy Not the newest news but relevant.

New livestock! Went to Aquadome yesterday. Grabbed a nice Galaxea, a mushroom rock, and a red shrimp. Shrimp is hiding but here are the Galaxea and mushroom rock. Galaxea is already sweeping like a boss.

Tim came by last Friday and was nice enough to bring his PAR meter. We tested the tanks and there were two surprises. 1.) The 75G tank's cheap Hygger lights don't put out much PAR but the actinic supplemental strip from SB Reef does. IIRC 80% of the PAR was from the supplemental bar. (I'm trying to order a second, so it gets the right 'look'.) Hygger not being high par was not a surprise but the actinic supplemental putting out about 125 PAR itself at the bottom of the tank was a shocker. 2.) The big surprise was that the screen I had on top of the 40G breeder was blocking 2/3 of the PAR from the Kessil 😬 After finding out item number two, I knew I had to replace the screen on the top. It is window screen designed to keep sunlight out so, I guess it was doing its job! I removed the lid and temporarily put an Amazon box over the top to keep Mr. Fantastic from jumping. Removed the window screen and added wooden dowels a cross bracing for the new material. The new material is what is called 'bird netting'. People use it over tomatoes to keep birds off. Plastic so it won't rust. About 1/4" gaps. I cut grooves for the dowels with a round bit with a Dremel tool. Then just glued them in. This keeps the netting from sagging. After assembly I painted it all black. Then I stapled on the bird netting with stainless staples. This should work to keep the fish in, and not Nerfing my Kessil. Since there is so much more PAR hitting the tank now. I re-did my light settings, and reset the light on to 'acclimation mode'. This is VERY easy in the Kessil. I'm very happy with the light, the app, the mounting, everything. It is a great light. Only not running two over the 75G because of the fiberglass shark replica above the tank. Shark is not moving! So, I needed surface mounting lights for that build. Overall, even redoing this project the lid was under $20 total. The bird netting was a huge 14' square piece for $9 so I have enough to build a similar lid for the 75G. Below are the obligatory FTS and look at the screen installed. I'm playing with manual camera settings to get the pictures to look as much like the actual tank as possible. Eventually, I'll get that down. One last development. The Hollywood Stunner had sweepers out today. They are pretty substantial. Remind me of the sweepers my Frogspawn used to put out. These were a good 6" earlier. Very cool. Until next time.

ATO is working. And I'm enjoying the bit of freedom. Seems to be sensitive and keeping the tank filled at all times, not letting it drain down an inch then filling up. Got some really cool green palythoa grandis from Tim. They won't stay in this tank long term. They are detined for the 75 but they are doing great, opened up and full of that nice green color. Fireworks polyps opened up. The cryptic 6-line is making appearances now. Cool little fish. Skittish but fun motion patterns. Seems like a good citizen. Did the weekly water change. All is good. All parameters right where I want them. No surprises. Put all the things I need to turn off during the water change on a single strip, so I can turn them off at once. (Heater, HOB filter, power head, ATO) It sucked unplugging them individually. I even labelled them. Tomorrow, I'm redoing the screen top with a less PAR blocking screen. Should be fun. More details tomorrow.

No real progress on this build but...... I ordered live rock and sand from TBS today! Woot! I went with a 60G package, an additional 60# of sand, and 60# of additional premium rock. I want to be able cull through to find the perfect pieces so the extra will help. I can put the extra in another tank.

Thanks for the palys!

Good to see others still posting here.

Added an ATO today. Works pretty good. The little optical sensor is kind of cool. Had to trim some of the rim off of the tank to fit it, but that is expected. Petco has tanks 50% off so I bought a 20-gallon tank for the ATO reservoir. I'm pretty happy with this. It has an optical sensor and looks like it will work well. One thing is the instructions suuuuuuuuuuck. They shipped with Chinese instructions. Had to find better ones online and those were questionable. Got it set up and I'm not back siphoning any more. Worth $80 and I don't have to worry about daily top offs. I'll just fill the ATO reservoir when I do my weekly water changes. I do worry a snail might adjust its position. I may get a big *** neodymium magnet to replace the stock one. I'll do that when I buy magnets for hanging my cover on the front of the stand. Trying to make this look presentable and not ghetto like some of my systems look.

UPS truck just dropped off my TBS order for this tank. So, 8# or so of gulf rock added to the system. This should add some biodiversity. They included two porcelain crabs and a chunk of macro. I put it all in the tank, but the macro will be moved in a week or two, to the new 75 g. Not sure I want a bunch of macros in this tank. But don't want to toss it. And the CUC did their job. The sand bed looks much sandier, less algae than yesterday. They did a number on it in about 4 hours. Earned their keep.

No real huge changes or issues to report this week. Water parameters holding nicely. Did a 10% change on Monday. Got a clean up crew today, so that should help. Also, added a cryptic six line wrasse as my potentially final fish. I may have room for one more....

Thanks Tim.

OK, not going to worry about it. Looking at the pics from the vendor I purchased from, it looks like this edge is where it was supported by egg crate previously. I think it will be OK and is the growth edge. Blue line is my highlighting. I could be wrong but I'm not too worried now. I'm going to leave it be. But I do still wonder if I need to glue this one, or if it will encrust?

Ok first question on the chalice. I've never had a chalice before so no clue about growth patterns etc. Looking at the edges here, is that growth, where it is kind droopy oozing on edges? (Hoping this is not something bad...) Also, I put it on that piece of rock as a temporary measure, for acclimation and elevation off of the sand bed. I kind of like the rock and chalice combo. Do I need to glue it or will it encrust and attach itself? I can take it out and glue it but I like to leave things alone as much as possible. And yes, the other frags are a little close to the chalice. Temporary during acclimation. Edit: Tested the water this evening. All good. Nitrates barely noticeable. Not zero so I called it 2.5 PPM. Ammonia and nitrite both at zero. (I'm being more careful about feeding quantities and swishing the sponge from the HOB filter in clean saltwater every three days or so, to dislodge any food particles stuck in there.)

Got in the corals today. Super happy with the experience from thecoralfarm.com. Great communication, packaging was suberb, came in on time, corals were healthy, and bigger than they looked in the ads. Zero complaints. The birds nest was so happy, when I pulled it out of the bag and put into the dip, it opened in the dip and has been open since. Some pics below: Galaxea, Hollywood Stunner, and Birdsnest. Sorry for the crud on my glass. I normally do my cleaning in the evenings, and it is a bit dirty. The purple tint is from the camera. It freaks out with the Kessil depending on the angle. The only sad coral are the fireworks polyps, I'll get a pic of them after they recover. Everyone is at the bottom of the tank. I put the Kessil on 'acclimation mode'. Never had a light that could do that before. I think it is running at like 20% and ramps up over 14 days or so....

Updated the stocking list. Tang is out. I had a second guess, "Do I want this eating my macros?" no..... Is this tank big enough for it? Maybe.. So, its out. Now I need something to fill that slot. Not sure about either butterfly or copperbands though.... Still thinking. I'll stock slowly so not a big deal. The decision can wait. Filled the tank with the last bit of water yesterday and got both HOB filters running. Tank is nice and clear but has no sand or rock. Took forever as I only have a 13g mixing can. One batch a day... sigh..... Now I'm waiting for TBS to give me a ship date....... Played with the lights. They will grow macro, they are bright, but the color is not the visual I want. It is very white. I'd call it a clean 6500k mix. Just one of these Hygger lights would be perfect in a tank with Oscars or a Red Devil. I want more of a traditional blueish reef color for viewing so, I ordered one SB Lights Actinic 48" bar to supplement these. Hoping this will make it look better and allow me to have macro and coral in this tank. The galaxea going into 40B will be moved into this tank, once this tank is stabilized. It can live in front of a return and sting away at non-existent enemies, to its hearts content. Personally, I think sweeper tentacles are cool. I don't think the macros or fish will care. Maybe it will become a galaxea dominant tank? Like I said before FOWLR'ish.... zoas/paly may work too. (I do have a liking for the large green tinted paly grandis.) I'm not too worried about coral beauty or the foxface munching them from past experiences.

Tested water today for the first time in a week. Ammonia was not at zero. Barely off the zero mark. I called it .25 PPM. Nitrites at zero. Nitrates at 2.5, again not zero but not the next color on the scale. I think I'm probably slightly overfeeding. The fish are all doing good even if they are scaredy cats. They all come out eagerly for feeding. The royal gramma is by far the most agro feeder, he wants to eat. Nice to see. The peppermint shrimp has been MIA for days, suspect dead but no carcass has been found. I had planned a water change anyway, so I did it. 30%. Why 30%? Because I have a 12g trash can and that is what I mixed. Figured that also dropped the numbers to close to zero. Didn't bother to retest afterward. I'll do it again next week sometime. Cleaned out the HOB filter during this process. Lots of 'stuff' in it. That should also drop the numbers down too. Happy with the way things are going. Will likely add the 6-line next. Ordered some corals this weekend. Looks like I have a Galaxea 'colony', a Hollywood Stunner frag, some fireworks polyps, and a green birdsnest on the way. Did a hack job of editing the photo of my rockscape to show where I think I will place them, once they arrive. Birds nest top right, where the HOB filter overflow is and in higher light. Galaxea down in the bottom right, on a piece of rubble. Should get good flow from that HOB overflow from above and be far enough away from the birdsnest. It is a temporary tank inhabitant and will go to the 75 soon. Fireworks polyps left sand area on a rock island. Again, using some rubble. Hollywood stunner on the lower left side of the rock work.