Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

[mhucasey]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Ok! Well I took some pics . I have the beginnings of a reef!

Woot! Congrats on getting the ball rolling. Did you bond or bind the live rock together? I'm starting to collect ideas for a future tank upgrade, hopefully near future. Looking forward to more updates as the process goes along

[renevilleneuve]

Thanks for the sharing privilege. Seems like I am watching birthgiving (in French;accouchement) the teasing gave quick results. I know, I know you were away for a week which prevented you from posting for a month. Looking forward to every meticulous detail.

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

Woot! Congrats on getting the ball rolling. Did you bond or bind the live rock together? I'm starting to collect ideas for a future tank upgrade, hopefully near future. Looking forward to more updates as the process goes along

Very psyched, I must say! Will recieve a few new frags on Tuesday from a Toronto supplier. They will be Interceptored and dipped (along with my current frags) and then I will start placing some acros in the dt.

This tank, I placed the rocks without any glue. I have done it this way on all my tanks except my last 300g. That one, I used two part epoxy to glue everything together. I don't really have a preference. Not glueing allows for rearranging from time to time but also leaves the potential for collapses..

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by renevilleneuve

Thanks for the sharing privilege. Seems like I am watching birthgiving (in French;accouchement) the teasing gave quick results. I know, I know you were away for a week which prevented you from posting for a month. Looking forward to every meticulous detail.

Rene! 'Away for a week which prevented you posting for a month' hm...
J'aime ton sens de l'humour aigu!
Biggles is a master at subtle public shaming. It's very effective.
Plenty more picks to come.

[reefmutt]

Well.. A small chemistry update.. Pics of the 20 odd frags I have already added will come when I have a little more time..
Before I went away at Christmas- about two weeks, now, I had a n of 5 and a p of between 0 and .02. Before I went away, I added a cheato ball, some ecobac + pellets to my aio pellets- to top off the chamber and I added a few more sections of dsb. AND the fish weren't being fed as much because my mother was only coming once a day to feed them. So, today's numbers showed n down to about 1-1.5 ppm and p up to .09. Interesting how the balance can shift.. I assume now that I am home and will start adding more fish and more food, the n will creep up a bit and the p will fall... We shall see..
Ca is 450
Alk is 7
Mag is 1600
I also got my hands on some Bayer. (Thanks Eric!) i really can't say from personally experience how effective it is but anecdotally, the evidence seems very strong. I dipped all of my new frags in a bath of 10ml Bayer to 250ml tank water- which is on the strong side of the range that people seem to have tried. The corals came out of it with polyps extended in minutes. As if they didn't even notice. This will be my dip from now on for new additions..

[mhucasey]

FYI if you need interceptor(Spectrum) in the future, i.e. if the Bayer missed anything, try "Pet Shed". Its a pet supply place out of Australia that will sell you Spectrum without a prescription. For 40 bucks I have the equivalent of 9 doses for my system.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Rene! 'Away for a week which prevented you posting for a month' hm...
J'aime ton sens de l'humour aigu!
Biggles is a master at subtle public shaming. It's very effective.
Plenty more picks to come.

Pretty sure you just put some kinda weird French hex on me Matt......

I'm super jealous of your purple tang and that dragon acro. Never seen one of those in a shop, what species are those true dragon acros Matt. I assume yours is the same species as Greg's green dragon (i want that so bad )
Turdinaria's are one coral i never took a liking to, they look a bit like cactus leaves to me lol. That acan looks yummy as does the torch and that smooth skin acro.
I didn't realise how far out of the loop i was with your progress mate, awesome to hear everything is well under way and going well so far

'Biggles is a master at subtle public shaming' - i have no idea where you get that idea Matt, if i was like that i'd be pointing out the barren pictureless screen i'm staring at on this journal page............ but that's not the way i roll

[renevilleneuve]

rolling on the floor

[markalot]

I was glad to see some pics anyway!

[shih87]

Wow!!! you have heavy duty light system...

Have you completed the cycle?

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

FYI if you need interceptor(Spectrum) in the future, i.e. if the Bayer missed anything, try "Pet Shed". Its a pet supply place out of Australia that will sell you Spectrum without a prescription. For 40 bucks I have the equivalent of 9 doses for my system.

Thanks, Matt. I got my hands on some. If the little buggers come back I'll nuke the tank.. Although i really hate killing off all the little good bugs in a system..

[mhucasey]

After nuking mine I expected that I'd need to add copepods back to it, but about two weeks later the glass was swarming with copepods and I've seen amphiopods as well. No sign of the redbugs as well.

[reefmutt]

Good to hear!

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by biggles

Pretty sure you just put some kinda weird French hex on me Matt......

I'm super jealous of your purple tang and that dragon acro. Never seen one of those in a shop, what species are those true dragon acros Matt. I assume yours is the same species as Greg's green dragon (i want that so bad )
Turdinaria's are one coral i never took a liking to, they look a bit like cactus leaves to me lol. That acan looks yummy as does the torch and that smooth skin acro.
I didn't realise how far out of the loop i was with your progress mate, awesome to hear everything is well under way and going well so far

'Biggles is a master at subtle public shaming' - i have no idea where you get that idea Matt, if i was like that i'd be pointing out the barren pictureless screen i'm staring at on this journal page............ but that's not the way i roll

The French hex! Indeed. Il faut venir ou Quebec pour avoir le vrais hex! Mais ca vaut la paine!
I have some photos for you Biggles. I need to take a lesson from you on proper editing. But I have these shots a real 'app wooping' to remove some of the blue but they are far from perfect..

A new fish addition.. He's besting the hell out of my poor dwarf golden angel..



I know. Lots of green. But I'm hoping they don't stay green..

[reefmutt]

Here's a before and after app wooping:

After..

This is Darryl Vanaker's pearlberry.

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by shih87

Wow!!! you have heavy duty light system...

Have you completed the cycle?

Shih! Thanks for dropping in!
I'm hoping to get the benefits of the t5 and mh but use the leds for the basic structure of my sunrise apex and sunset.
One of the things that frustrated me when I was only using leds was that I would buy a frag from a store that had the coral under mh or t5 and when I got it home and put in my tank, it didn't look exactly the same. It was either missing some of the subtle color tones or it just didn't have the same sheen to it. Since adding the t5/mh, I now bring a coral home and see in it what I saw at the store.. I'm much happier..
Heres a couple more shots..

[reefmutt]

Ok Biggles. One last shot for you. Very soon I will be knocking (figuratively) on Grag's door for some frags and that green dragon will be at the top of my list.

[cugly]

Looks great Matt like the deep water acros

[sh8g8delik]

You are well on your way to another lovely tank Matt! I will be learning a lot from your thread! Can't wait to start getting into the corals you are acquiring. First gotta deal with my pesky algae.....

[biggles]

Love those pics mate, good work on the colors

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Ok Biggles. One last shot for you. Very soon I will be knocking (figuratively) on Greg's door for some frags and that green dragon will be at the top of my list.

That red one is super cool, i can't wait to see some of Greg's green dragon in your tank Matt............ #@$#@ canadian dragon hogs.

[mhucasey]

Ooooh I like! I think if I would ever do a specialty tank it would be all smooth skinned("deep water") acros. There is something just mesmerizing about the shapes that they grow into and how fine-branched they get. Congrats on getting the corals going in the tank!!!

[ajcanale]

Looking very good but you were really rolling the dice adding those dwarf angels.


That old 300 looked amazing.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

After nuking mine I expected that I'd need to add copepods back to it, but about two weeks later the glass was swarming with copepods and I've seen amphiopods as well. No sign of the redbugs as well.

Same happened in my tank. I saw loads of pods floating about after Interceptor Spectrum was dosed in my tank. Many weeks after there was loads of little pods and even the large Amphipods.

[mhucasey]

Looks like its getting close to that easy with the in-tank flatworm treatment...In a few years hopefully AEWSs and red bugs will be easily dealt with.

After doing my interceptor treatment I added carbon per protocol but never did the 20% water change either, my blood shrimp survived in the tank through the treatment, and with all the good bugs coming back Interceptor apparently was removed/neutralized by skimming and carbon.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

Looks like its getting close to that easy with the in-tank flatworm treatment...In a few years hopefully AEWSs and red bugs will be easily dealt with.

After doing my interceptor treatment I added carbon per protocol but never did the 20% water change either, my blood shrimp survived in the tank through the treatment, and with all the good bugs coming back Interceptor apparently was removed/neutralized by skimming and carbon.

I hope an in tank AEFW treatment will be here soon and will be as easy as the Redbug treament is now.

My Blood shrimpp survived too.