Mr Aqua 22 Long

[YHSublime]

Can’t wait to see!

[AlanM]

I am terrible at taking photos of the tank.  This is with an orange filter on the phone to try to prevent it from looking super blue.  I intentionally made just a bunch of rocks along the bottom so that the corals can grow up into the water volume.  It all looks miniature for now, heh.

 

[YHSublime]

Looks great, I see your vision! 

 

A lot of my torches were 2 heads about 2 years ago, and now they are 20+, some with trimming in that time! 

 

I think there's a Bubble Magus doser holder mounted to the top of the stand still

[howaboutme]

Looks great! Excellent room divider.

[AlanM]

5 hours ago, YHSublime said:

I think there's a Bubble Magus doser holder mounted to the top of the stand still

 

Yep.  I took it down for now, but the screws are still in there for when I need to start dosing.

[AlanM]

I noticed that my Alk was starting to decrease quickly between water changes, so I added a Neptune Dos which I'm now trying to dial in.  Testing Alk each morning to see where it's at and adjusting the dosing schedule.

 

I caught two more small white and pink gorilla crabs.  They're cute, but not good up in the display tank, so they went down into the sump.  They were pretty easy to catch but there was a bit of adrenaline each time.  I speared some LRS with a skewer and stuck it down on the sand and would swoop in to grab their body with the long tweezers to lift them out without killing them.  As soon as I put the food in there every hermit crab started running for it, so most of the activity was trying to keep hermit crabs away.  

 

The gorilla crabs can fight it out with the mantis in the sump.  I assume he's still doing well.  I drop some LRS in there for him every few days.  I have a huge crop of feather caluerpa growing in the sump now so it's hard to see.  I don't hear him snapping as much, so I hope he's just chilled out a bit rather than deceased.

 

[BowieReefer84]

Dang Alan. Can you slow down a little. I take a few months off and you're already up and running.

[AlanM]

1 hour ago, BowieReefer84 said:

Dang Alan. Can you slow down a little. I take a few months off and you're already up and running.

Hey, are you still local?

[YHSublime]

I was thinking about hooking up my DOS today, just cleaned up the old bubble magus dosers as well. 

[AlanM]

6 minutes ago, YHSublime said:

I was thinking about hooking up my DOS today, just cleaned up the old bubble magus dosers as well. 

 

Hit me up if you want to buy a really nice tray for them. 8)

[YHSublime]

5 hours ago, AlanM said:

 

Hit me up if you want to buy a really nice tray for them. 8)

well played

[AlanM]

Brand new hitchhiker today almost 2 months into the rocks.  I found a small black urchin just hanging out on the rocks.  

 

So I've had some issues with the aquacultured rock which was fairly dense and kind of full of gorilla crabs (2 so far in just 30 pounds total of rock) and mantis shrimp (2 so far), but it is honestly really fun to see new stuff popping up.  Snails I didn't add, porcelain crabs, bristleworms, limpets, macroalgae (seems like feather caluerpa) in both fuge and in main tank, and now a small black urchin.  

[howaboutme]

4 hours ago, AlanM said:

Brand new hitchhiker today almost 2 months into the rocks.  I found a small black urchin just hanging out on the rocks.  

 

So I've had some issues with the aquacultured rock which was fairly dense and kind of full of gorilla crabs (2 so far in just 30 pounds total of rock) and mantis shrimp (2 so far), but it is honestly really fun to see new stuff popping up.  Snails I didn't add, porcelain crabs, bristleworms, limpets, macroalgae (seems like feather caluerpa) in both fuge and in main tank, and now a small black urchin.  

 

You almost don't need fish!

[AlanM]

21 hours ago, howaboutme said:

 

You almost don't need fish!

 

Right! I kind of don't miss them yet. It's more casual to just feed the cleanup crew.

 

Just for my own reference I started seeing coralline algae on the plumbing Tuesday. It has been growing on the rocks for a while which came in with it already.

 

I'm not taking heroic measures against hair algae yet a side from physical removal in spots. In my experience once coralline grows on an area it pushes out the hair algae.

[AlanM]

Still just feeding the cleanup crew here.  The hair algae all went away on its own.  Coralline has started on powerheads and other areas so I assume that's what is happening.  I am still getting a layer of green cyano on all of the sand because I have very little stirring of it that happens.  As I add livestock and things to move it around a little more I bet that will subside.

 

The big news in our house is that I'm now ready for fish.  I got a Clearview lid delivered today made by Adam (formerly Artfully Acrylic).  It fits absolutely perfectly with about a 1/16" gap on both sides of the frame, so I don't have to worry about jumpers (or nerite snails) on the floor.  It even has a cutout for the overflow box top that still lets me access it.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

 

 

[YHSublime]

Looks great! 

[howaboutme]

Nice! Is Adam's shop still at the Balls Ford Road location?

[AlanM]

I'm not sure. I did it all online. He has a system where you send measurements and drawings and then someone contacts you and sends a CAD file for you to approve.

[AlanM]

After struggling for a month with daily sessions with the turkey baster to get green cyano off the rocks and sand I broke down and added the recommended dose of chemi-clean yesterday afternoon.  

 

I'm not doing a blackout, but did dim the lights way down.  As of today nearly all of the green cyano is gone.  Nothing else seems affected.  I took the cup off the skimmer and opened the valve all the way and even with that it's still rising up and spilling out of the body.  I also opened the gate valve on my drain all the way so that there's a bunch of agitation as the water descends from the pumps and turned the vortech powerheads up higher.  The ORP plummeted through the night but seems to have stabilized today.  It's not decreasing anymore.

 

Tomorrow evening will be 48 hours.  I have 20 gallons of water prepared for my 30 gallons of total water.  I'll do a few 20% water changes one per day and then see where I'm at with the cyano.

 

Fingers crossed, but so far it looks pretty good.

[howaboutme]

Sucks you had to go down that route. I find it interesting that, even w/ all of the live rock and the biodiversity that comes with it, you still have issues w/ the cyano phase. Good luck!

[YHSublime]

I've heard that if you use chemiclean correctly (which it sounds like you did) that it works well. 

 

I'm with Jack, though. It sucks going the natural route and then still have to tank your diversity. 

[AlanM]

Yeah, I don't know what all the Erythromycin will take out.  At least that seems to be the consensus for what chemiclean is.

 

So far all of the (visible) inverts are fine including zoas, LPS and SPS corals, sponges, bristleworms, porcelain crabs, hermit crabs, one remaining gorilla crab (just saw him months after I thought they were all gone), cleaner shrimp, urchin, nassarius, cerith, astrea snails, etc.  And the clowns seem like they don't notice either. 

 

I don't think lots of bio diversity can prevent the cyano bloom.  Honestly the TBS liverock was pretty dirty and surely had a lot of die-off and is much more full of nutrients than "clean" dry rock would have.   It does add some fun fauna and gives you a jump start on a variety of aspects of the new tank cycle, but it doesn't create a pristine healthy environment to immediately start having success.  It's possible that I could have worked it out over time with some combo of what people try to prevent it: live phyto, MB7, low-dose peroxide, lanthanum, tons of flow, blackouts, UV, constant siphoning out for months, the list goes on. 

 

 

[AlanM]

I did a 30% water change last night and added carbon.  The water is beautiful today and the sand and rocks are very clean.  So far no visible losses.  Now to see if the clean rocks last. 8)  

 

I'll do another large water change this weekend just because I have it.  I made up 50g of water before doing the chemiclean just in case.

 

I keep considering adding a display refugium next to it to put the mantis shrimp in with some macro algae and rocks  to get it out of my sump so I could actually see it.  Aqueon makes inexpensive 14g frameless cubes that would fit right on an end table I have which could look nice.  I'd drill it for an overflow, put the supply over the edge, and light it with a daylight spectrum planted tank light.

[AlanM]

I've added two more fish.  I got a tailspot blenny from Reef Escape and a royal gramma from monkiboy at ERC.  Both are doing great.  Both are a little cryptic and like their caves, but I'll try to get a shot soon when everyone is out.

 

I think that's about it for fish.

 

The clownfish seem to have paired up and decided to share the same bubble-tip anemone.  They spend a lot of time in it and as a result the nem is getting bigger and looks happier.  Less bubbly and more spread out, though.  

[YHSublime]

I think one more addition, an ERC Gem Tang!