150g Indio-Pacific Biome

[Sascha D.]

I started the skimmer full closed, but I quickly noticed the cup was going to overflow. To fix the problem, I raised the skimmer about 2" using a piece of Styrofoam. I also opened the drain line for the skimmer cup and just let it run. Not much happened the first two days. I would hear funny noises coming from the sump, like rushing water, but that was about it. The night of the 2nd day I decided to close the collection drain and see what I could get out of the skimmer.

Here's what I got after twelve hours. It probably smells as bad as it looks. I'm afraid to open it!

[lenver]

I want some of that macroalgae, let me know

[Sascha D.]

I want some of that macroalgae, let me know

What are you looking for? Where do you want to put it?

[lenver]

I want some of that macroalgae, let me know

What are you looking for? Where do you want to put it?

I want it for my refugium, I want to grow it so I can feed it to my tangs, and if there is some of the red that my tangs won't eat that's also good.

[Sascha D.]

I want some of that macroalgae, let me know

What are you looking for? Where do you want to put it?

I want it for my refugium, I want to grow it so I can feed it to my tangs, and if there is some of the red that my tangs won't eat that's also good.

My One Spot Foxface doesn't eat any of the red macroalgae, so that might be a good one for your display. Gracilaria Hayi is a pretty red, but it requires pruning every few weeks or the body becomes too heavy for the holdfast. Ulva is basically fresh Nori and it has a life expectancy of about 15 seconds in the presence of any tang or rabbitfish. C. Prolifera is supposed to be eatten by some tangs, but I haven't tried it with my foxface yet.

[lenver]

Let me know how much and when is a good time to pickup, i'll probably some of each.

[subsea]

Please save a start of Gracilaria Tikvahae for me. In Hawaiia, it is used along with Gracilaria Parvispora as a raw veggie treat called Red Ogo. Gerald Hesslinger of IndoPacific SeaFarms told me that many Hawaians prefer Tikvahae. Three years ago, I grew Tikvahae under 1000W MH in a 75G tank using a vertical loop current to promote tumble culture. In one month, I removed 35 lbs of macro with seed inoculation of 1 lb. In the near future, this stuff will feed the world.

As I have recently added several tangs to my macro displays, I must retract my statement that tangs do not like Gracilaria Hayi. The Yellow Tang will eat Gracilaria Hayi before almost anything else. As I have much in my display tanks, the Yellow Tang pruns the shrub.

Even though Rabbits and Tangs will eat C. Prolifera, they must be very hungry before they do it. All will readily eat Caulerpa Paspoidies, which keeps it prunned nicely if the pressure is not too heavy. Ulva grows so fast, it will overshadow everything else that grows under it. However, it does not like LED lighting. Stick with 2700 kelvin cfl.

I consider that stinking skimmate as nutrients for my macro, some of which I eat. Nutrient recycling at its best.

Laissez la bonne temps roulee,

Patrick

[Sascha D.]

Purple Digitata and Blue Acropora

Blue Acropora

Pink Acropora and Green Birdsnest

Purple Hammer

Birdsnest I got from Ty

[Sascha D.]

Green Digitata

Acan Echinata

Palythoas. They are brown with a green sheen and a green mouth

One Spot Foxface

Mellow Yellow Zoanthids

[FarmerTy]

It begins!!! Might as well go ahead and order a CaRX and Apex now dude... you've got the fever!

[Planeden]

Very nice. I like that purple hammer.

[Sascha D.]

It begins!!! Might as well go ahead and order a CaRX and Apex now dude... you've got the fever!

My wife likes the colored sticks. Women only like expensive stuff!

Very nice. I like that purple hammer.

Me too! I have a feeling that will be a popular frag if I decide to break any pieces off later.

[Sascha D.]

Week 23 Update:

Time to update my projects and revisit my stocking list.

Projects

1. ATO - Automatic top-off seems like a distant wish at this point, but I'm not giving up on the dream! So far I have attempted a variety of things to add an ATO to my system. When setting up this tank I opted to get the largest sump possible in order to have a large refugium. As a result, I cannot fit a standard resevoir into my stand. I have tried a 5g bucket, a 10g tank, and a 5g water jug. I suppose a 5g glass tank might work, but the evaporation might cause an additional problem. Despite the problems finding a resevoir, I have also tried out an ATO kit that I got from Drs Foster and Smith, but had to return it because the mounting system was too narrow to fit on my 40g breeder. For the price I paid, it wasn't worth attempting a retrofit. I'm down to looking at DIY projects and thing I have found a good gravity fed project, but I'm having trouble finding a glass resevoir.
2. Saltwater Mixing Station - I need one more 55g barrel for clean RO water. Drill holes, install bulkheads, install plumbing, install mixing pump.
3. Aquascape - I recently had some aquascape tumble. I guess I'm just too clumsy to have rockwork that isn't properly secured. After some research, I've narrowed it down to three options. The easiest option is to lean the structure against the glass, but I would see reduced flow. Next would be acryllic rods and it would require me to pull every rock out of the tank one by one and drill them. Lastly, I could use cement. It's been popular lately, but I have a tall tank and I don't know how secure it would be.
4. Light mounting - I need to find a better way to mount the lighting fixture. Due to the shape of my canopy, I have to move the lights every time I do anything in the tank.

Current Stock - Right now I'm pretty happy with my tank. I would like to add 1-3 larger fish that actively swim around and that's about it.

Current Fish

• Oscellaris Clownfish - 2
• Blue Chromis - 9
• OneSpot Foxface

Current Inverts

• Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• Emerald Crab
• Fighting Conch - 1
• Queen Conch - 2
• GBTA
• Tiger Pistol Shrimp
• Tiger Sea Cucumber

Possible Stocking Additions - Right now I'm leaning towards a Kole and PBT, while possibly adding a Christmas Wrasse after my shrimp get a little bigger and/or a Mandarin when the tank ages a bit more.

Hawaiian Yellow Tang

Yellow-eye Kole Tang (Hawaii)

Powder Blue Tang (Hawaii)

Despair Anthias

Lyretail Anthias

Carpenter Flasher Wrasse

Chrimstmas Wrasse (Wife's pick) - May eat my shrimp

Dwarf Angelfish - Contemplating Ebil's, Flame, Coral Beauty, and Potter's.

Red Mandarin Dragonet - The tank is establishing nicely, but pod population still too low.

[Sascha D.]

Please save a start of Gracilaria Tikvahae for me. In Hawaiia, it is used along with Gracilaria Parvispora as a raw veggie treat called Red Ogo. Gerald Hesslinger of IndoPacific SeaFarms told me that many Hawaians prefer Tikvahae. Three years ago, I grew Tikvahae under 1000W MH in a 75G tank using a vertical loop current to promote tumble culture. In one month, I removed 35 lbs of macro with seed inoculation of 1 lb. In the near future, this stuff will feed the world.

As I have recently added several tangs to my macro displays, I must retract my statement that tangs do not like Gracilaria Hayi. The Yellow Tang will eat Gracilaria Hayi before almost anything else. As I have much in my display tanks, the Yellow Tang pruns the shrub.

Even though Rabbits and Tangs will eat C. Prolifera, they must be very hungry before they do it. All will readily eat Caulerpa Paspoidies, which keeps it prunned nicely if the pressure is not too heavy. Ulva grows so fast, it will overshadow everything else that grows under it. However, it does not like LED lighting. Stick with 2700 kelvin cfl.

I consider that stinking skimmate as nutrients for my macro, some of which I eat. Nutrient recycling at its best.

Laissez la bonne temps roulee,

Patrick

Right now I'm growing about a gallon of extra macros in my refugium. Out of my macroalgae, the G. Hayi grows the best and doubles in size every month. Next would be C. Prolifera and Ulva. My G. Tikvahae took around three months to double and I've tried it under 5k CFL and T-5 lighting. Halimeda Discoridea has been growing fairly slowly. I have it in the display and I've noticed around 2" of growth in three months. I imagine I would have to supplement Ca to get it to grow any faster.

My foxface eliminated all of the G. Tikvahae and Ulva from my display, but doesn't eat G. Hayi. I haven't tried Chaetomorpha or C. Prolifera on him yet. Surprisingly he doesn't eat H. Floridana. I will have to prune it back soon.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Sascha D.

[subsea]

G. Hayi is my favorite macro. However, in one tank, Yellow Tang will eat it first. Caulerpa Paspaloides is another favorite. It took more than a month to adjust to LED lighting.

Not many things eat Prolifera and even fewer eat Chaeto.

Patrick

[Sascha D.]

Lenver was saying that his tangs each Chaeto. I've never heard of that but apparently his slurp it up like spaghetti!

Right now I'm finding G. Hayi taking over my refugium. The ulva grows on top of the water and the Gracilaria grows under it.

[subsea]

Out of all the macros that I tested under different spectrum LED, Gracilaria Hayi grew under all spectrum. Surprisingly to me, Ulva did not do well under any of the different LED spectrum. It took Caulerpa Paspaloides over a month before it took off under LED.

If tangs are eating Chaeto, they are VERY hungry.

Patrick

[FarmerTy]

My tangs took a liking to chaeto after I left a ball of it in the display for over 6 months. I think they started eating it out of boredom. I fed those guys plenty!

Had to take it back out of the display once they started snacking on it as it left chaeto droppings all over the tank. The structure holds up decently well after digestion.

[Sascha D.]

I removed 99% of the chaeto I had about three months ago. It started finding it's way into the return pump and I would have strands all over the display. I actually thought I had removed it all, but I looked into the refug yesterday and found a golf ball sized clump.

[subsea]

You may be right about the boredom. Similar to deer browsing on different stuff that I plant. Interesting about Chaeto not be digested the fist time thru.

Patrick

[subsea]

I removed 99% of the chaeto I had about three months ago. It started finding it's way into the return pump and I would have strands all over the display. I actually thought I had removed it all, but I looked into the refug yesterday and found a golf ball sized clump.

Chaeto is my last choice for utilitarian macro algae. I let it and Ulva fight in out in my 150G inground pod refugium.

Patrick

PS. I don't even put it in my catch all 5G bucket refugium.

[subsea]

I removed 99% of the chaeto I had about three months ago. It started finding it's way into the return pump and I would have strands all over the display. I actually thought I had removed it all, but I looked into the refug yesterday and found a golf ball sized clump.

Chaeto is my last choice for utilitarian macro algae. I let it and Ulva fight in out in my 150G inground pod refugium.

Patrick

PS. I don't even put it in my catch all 5G bucket refugium.

[Sascha D.]

Let there be flow!

1. First source of flow comes from the QuietOnes 6000 return pump. After overhead, I get around 1,000gph
2. Second, comes the Hydor Korlia Evolution 1500, laminar 1500gph
3. Jebao WP40 picks up the slack. Currently on reef mode, where it alternates flow between 1,000 - 3,000gph

Total in tank circulation = 5,500gph alternating cross current

Total sump turnover = 6x

Thanks to Niko for putting together a group buy for these Jebao circulation pumps. I got the WP40 and my fish are definately happier.

It's about twice the size as my Hydor Korlia Evolution 1500 and pumps twice as much.

[Sascha D.]

Projects

2. ATO - Automatic top-off seems like a distant wish at this point, but I'm not giving up on the dream! So far I have attempted a variety of things to add an ATO to my system. When setting up this tank I opted to get the largest sump possible in order to have a large refugium. As a result, I cannot fit a standard resevoir into my stand. I have tried a 5g bucket, a 10g tank, and a 5g water jug. I suppose a 5g glass tank might work, but the evaporation might cause an additional problem. Despite the problems finding a resevoir, I have also tried out an ATO kit that I got from Drs Foster and Smith, but had to return it because the mounting system was too narrow to fit on my 40g breeder. For the price I paid, it wasn't worth attempting a retrofit. I'm down to looking at DIY projects and thing I have found a good gravity fed project, but I'm having trouble finding a glass resevoir.
4. Saltwater Mixing Station - I need one more 55g barrel for clean RO water. Drill holes, install bulkheads, install plumbing, install mixing pump.
6. Aquascape - I recently had some aquascape tumble. I guess I'm just too clumsy to have rockwork that isn't properly secured. After some research, I've narrowed it down to three options. The easiest option is to lean the structure against the glass, but I would see reduced flow. Next would be acryllic rods and it would require me to pull every rock out of the tank one by one and drill them. Lastly, I could use cement. It's been popular lately, but I have a tall tank and I don't know how secure it would be.
8. Light mounting - I need to find a better way to mount the lighting fixture. Due to the shape of my canopy, I have to move the lights every time I do anything in the tank.

I'd like to get some of these projects out of the way this week. I'm afraid I'm not ready for the ATO yet. I'm stuck on the mixing station because I can't find a second barrel and I haven't the foggiest idea how to mount the lights. That leaves aquascaping!

Step 1: Get the corals out of the way. How? Well, I'm going to start by building a temporary frag rack. I had a little PVC laying around, so I just used that.

[FarmerTy]

Its like Frag Olympus!