epleeds July 10, 2020 Share July 10, 2020 Those are one of my favorite ones. When the blues are on they look amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba July 24, 2020 Author Share July 24, 2020 New FTS! I have a problem with the coral purchases as you can tell... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheresTheReef July 24, 2020 Share July 24, 2020 Very nice! Looks like those corals you got from me found a good home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moga July 24, 2020 Share July 24, 2020 (edited) looks clean and nice aquascape!!!! I love Archie & Oscar Ester Aquarium Stand .. i am looking into this stand as well>! Edited July 24, 2020 by moga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba July 25, 2020 Author Share July 25, 2020 5 hours ago, WheresTheReef said: Very nice! Looks like those corals you got from me found a good home. Yeah they’re doing great, thanks again! 4 hours ago, moga said: looks clean and nice aquascape!!!! I love Archie & Oscar Ester Aquarium Stand .. i am looking into this stand as well>! Thanks! It’s worked out great so far. Very sturdy but easy to drill through when needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba July 31, 2020 Author Share July 31, 2020 It's so hard to capture the color of the orchid dottyback in pictures. At least I got the hiding/posing personality ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 2, 2020 Author Share August 2, 2020 Well when everyone tells you to rent a PAR meter to check your numbers, I now understand the truth in that and would highly recommend to anyone looking to keep SPS... I did a BRS PAR meter rental recently to be 100% confident of my numbers. I was running 50-60% on my Radion XR15 G5 blue which turned out to only be about 100 PAR at the top of that top rock which currently has the SPS frags. This would have been no where near enough for acros but did seem pretty bright to my eyes. Also, the places where you get high PAR is not intuitive (i.e. middle/center). For 100% on this fixture, the back glass about half way up is hitting 370 PAR even though the top of the SPS rock is 225. I assume this is from the reflection of the glass. Looks like I might be trying some magnetic mounts on the back glass if I can get some frags to take off. Needless to say, I have now switched to acclimation mode and will be working my way up to 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 3, 2020 Author Share August 3, 2020 Blahhh so I don't think the Sumpless ATO box is going to work out long term. I took it apart to change out the carbon over the weekend and did not get it back together perfectly and in the right spot. This means that the surface skimming basically becomes ineffective and no one likes looking at an oil sheen on top of the tank. It's also not easy to take apart and get to the carbon meaning I won't as good about changing out whatever media is in there. I'm thinking about going with the JBJ internal bio filter since it should be able to accommodate my minimal filtration and also hide the heater/probes which are currently exposed (hidden in the pictures by the ATO box). I was considering going with a Tunze comline filter but they are large and I don't think I could keep my existing ATO. Thoughts? New picture to hopefully track growth of the pocillopora and green tenius too ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImGoingCoastal August 4, 2020 Share August 4, 2020 Drain it down, drill it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 4, 2020 Author Share August 4, 2020 17 hours ago, ImGoingCoastal said: Drain it down, drill it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Hah I wish! That would require a new stand and I know the overflow noise would be too much for my wife given this tank is about 2 feet away from our couch... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime August 4, 2020 Share August 4, 2020 With the Bean Animal, it’s silent. Looks like you’ve done some coral shopping since my last check in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 5, 2020 Author Share August 5, 2020 23 hours ago, YHSublime said: With the Bean Animal, it’s silent. Looks like you’ve done some coral shopping since my last check in! Yeah... Maybe one day I’ll switch over. Like to see if I can pull it off with no sump/skimmer though. And I certainly have! Probably moving way too fast with the SPS purchases but the coralline algae growth has been great and I think the big hermit is really keeping all the algae at bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 14, 2020 Author Share August 14, 2020 Installed & calibrated the pH probe today. Looks to be running about 8.0-8.1 by 5pm. Curious to see what the overnight drop is... Also took an old nimble nano mag cleaner and attached a bit of shelf rock to it. I hope to eventually put SPS frags on them that turn into mini colonies. Should help to fill out the look and clear the frag rack out of the tank for awhile! I'm buying some more magnets to hopefully add some more of these DIY shelves. The back glass does have a nice PAR hot spot for SPS and will be right in the flow of the MP10. Starting to see some GHA growth so I switched from reef roids to Red Sea Reef Energy AB+. I was worried the GHA would catch the reef roids and only make the problem worse. I need to add something though to keep the phosphates off 0.00. Here's a shot of easily the brightest coral in the tank. When only the blues are on I swear it reflects the orange color on the rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba August 27, 2020 Author Share August 27, 2020 New FTS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moga August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 wow. that's nice castle in the sky look!!!. very clean look as well.~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraffitiSpotCorals October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 I like it with more acros for sure! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraffitiSpotCorals October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 Also that stinks the light isn’t getting correct spread. Hopefully everything does well with it turned up. The nicest led tanks I have seen using fixtures like that have always been at 100% and hung high to get good spread. How high is the fixture hung now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epleeds October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 Your tanks are always so freaking clean looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba October 6, 2020 Author Share October 6, 2020 Thanks guys! The fixture is at about 10-12” off the water right now. I think the fixture would be much more even spread for a cube and I do get a good amount of light spillage out the back since the tank is relatively narrow. Also, tank went through a minor case of Dino’s in which I tried treating at one point with TM Plus-NP. I underestimated the carbon dosing effect of that product and unfortunately crashed N&P as well as my pH levels. This led to the loss of many of the acros although a couple hung on. Things are starting to look better but it was quite a setback. On the positive side, the dinos are gone and the water has cleared up considerably after my last water change. I also think my dry rock reached a PO4 saturation point as I no longer need to dose to keep PO4 levels detectable. Hopefully turning a corner with this tank! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime October 27, 2020 Share October 27, 2020 Dang, sorry to hear about the loss, it can be tough for sure. Hows the rebound? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba December 7, 2020 Author Share December 7, 2020 Getting there! Kicked the dinos for sure but now I have GHA everywhere. I really should have waited out the uglies before buying so much coral... I think I’ve turned the corner on stability though because the orange monti cap and the anacropora have really started to take off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba February 13, 2021 Author Share February 13, 2021 Been a while.... Stick around for quite a long post but a good update on how the tank has been. After the problems I mentioned in the last couple posts, I added BM Neophos and Neonitro to keep the levels high enough so everything wouldn’t die off. I did this for a while until I had detectable PO4 consistently. This did help but unfortunately then led to GHA... That ran its course for a couple months and eventually my minimal clean up crew did it’s job and cleared that up as well. I’ve also dialed the XR15 way back and now run roughly 20% on the white spectrum colors and 100% on the blues. Somewhere in there, the purple dottyback got really beat up too, I don’t know if it was the large hermit or the clowns, but he didn’t look good and eventually passed. That was pretty tough especially with all the other problems going on. I don’t plan on replacing him though and think I’ll just stick with the two clowns. So for about the last two months I haven’t had any problems and have kept the parameters stable, which is paying off! I know the FTS doesn’t look like much, but I can say that the monti’s, pocillopora, and anacropora are really taking off and their color is great. Zoas have done well all throughout although certain ones are picky and either haven’t grown or have been on the edge of melting for a while. For some reason the purple torch and green hammer aren’t doing well, but the other torch and the SPS I mentioned are. Challenges of a mixed reef I guess... Bottom line is that starting with all dry rock is tough as I feel like all the BRS videos mention. I’m almost a year in and feel like just now things are really starting to take off. In prior tanks I kept transferring over my original live rock from my very first tank from 2010 so I think that always made things a lot easier. Didn’t have that this time so patience pays off I guess... I may start adding some new corals again over the next few months since things have finally settled down. Let me know what you think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Simpson February 15, 2021 Share February 15, 2021 Tank looks amazing! Did you decide to stick with the XP Aqua sumpless ATO? In a previous post, you mentioned it wasn’t easily cleaned and re-assembled. Thanks for sharing.Cheers,AlexSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime February 15, 2021 Share February 15, 2021 On 2/13/2021 at 12:25 PM, teamschreiba said: I may start adding some new corals again over the next few months since things have finally settled down. Let me know what you think! Phenomenal idea, in moderation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teamschreiba February 15, 2021 Author Share February 15, 2021 6 hours ago, Alex Simpson said: Tank looks amazing! Did you decide to stick with the XP Aqua sumpless ATO? In a previous post, you mentioned it wasn’t easily cleaned and re-assembled. Thanks for sharing. Cheers, Alex Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Thanks! Yeah I did actually. I find now that I just change out the filter floss on top. I also found some cuttable carbon pad that I put under the filter floss and change out every 2-3 weeks. This way there’s really no need to ever breakdown the XP Aqua Sumpless ATO. If you’re buying with the intention of taking it apart often, I might consider something else. 2 hours ago, YHSublime said: Phenomenal idea, in moderation Haha yeah definitely will this time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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