90g living room reef

Schnizzle · Dec 27, 2019

Thank you! I agree. I get out there occasionally when I'm working in the field. I've been a desk jockey too much lately.

Schnizzle · Dec 27, 2019

Full tank shot with all my latest corals placed.

Now for the details.

Fireworks Clove Polyps and Green Star Polyps. I really want the GSP to run up the back wall. I find the clove polyps so beautiful that I think I am going to crack this rock in half and move the clove polyps up from somewhere.

Various acans up front. Flamethrower Favia to the left under the Royal Gramma photo-bomber. Forest Fire Digitata to the right.

Xenia. Grows like a weed. It has been pretty easy to contain. For the most part it pinches off and floats away, which is easy to remove. Occasionally some will pop up on the rocks in random places, AiptasiaX works good here. My starfish and Porcelain Anemone Crab like hanging out in this.

Flamethrower Favia again.

Forest Fire Digitata again with the Burning Banana Stylocoeniella recovering to the right of it.

Looking down the right end of the tank with the Toxic Splatter Hammer in focus.

Rock Flower Anemone. This one decided to stay exactly where I placed it so far. I have to say, getting this one suddenly made me want many more. I think it's the feeding response and available colors.

My favorite. The Space Invader Pectinia. I almost killed it but I learned from it and this one is thriving now.

Radioactive Dragon Eyes on a stand alone rock.

Ricordia Florida I believe? It really enjoyed a feeding of Reef Roids. It seems to ignore chunks of meat.

The Birdsnest. I'm looking forward to seeing this recover and grow into a colony.

Sorry for the plaid glare. haha The Candy Cane, Caulastrea furcata. This recently survived overnight contact with the pectinia. Someone knocked it off it's spot. Luckily the pectinia was deflated and the sweepers were not out.

Mystic Sunset Montipora

Tubs Stellata Montipora

Bizarro Cyphastrea. I didn't realize how much this had been growing until I saw the picture from when I purchased it.

WWC Grafted Monti Cap. It's finally recovered and growing. Now I would just like to see some plating out of it.

The Zoa garden. I have a thread on this specifically titled "I'm Joining the Club" over in Club Zoa

Walking Dendro. Every time I get concerned that the worm has died I see a trail behind it proving me wrong.

The lower is my Fifth Element Blastmussa. I'm pretty sure the upper is the same thing? My original one is sprouting babies all under its top.

Red plating Montipora up top. A softball sized Tubipora Musica or "Peter Piper" Pipe Organ. A stick of Red Digitata. My original Duncan, the second coral I ever got that has ALWAYS been happy. Finally, alongside the large Duncan is a new Duncan that is quickly blowing up in size. I'm interested to see how the colors settle. Currently there is more purple and shorter tentacles.

So here we are. I'm sure I'll end up like many others and try to find room for much more. Currently the plan is to add a piece of Aussie Echniata and either Spyro the Dragon or Fox Flame Acro. I really want a colorful, not green, Acanthophyllia as well but they are pretty hard to come across now.

Maxx · Dec 27, 2019

Looks great man!
Bulk Reef Supply rents PAR meters, so you dont need to buy one. They have stated the MQ-510 is more accurate than the MQ-210 for LED's, but in their own testing it's not enough of a difference to justify the $10 cost difference.

As far as the hood goes....
You could easily just build a wooden "wrap" that goes around the lights to cut down on the spillover. That could be as intricate and tricked out as you like, or as simple as 4 sides of thin plywood with vinyl wrapped cable supporting it over the lights.

I'm not a fan of the light spilling over myself, but it's your tank and if it doesnt bother you....

Schnizzle · Dec 27, 2019

Maxx said:
Looks great man!
Bulk Reef Supply rents PAR meters, so you dont need to buy one. They have stated the MQ-510 is more accurate than the MQ-210 for LED's, but in their own testing it's not enough of a difference to justify the $10 cost difference.

As far as the hood goes....
You could easily just build a wooden "wrap" that goes around the lights to cut down on the spillover. That could be as intricate and tricked out as you like, or as simple as 4 sides of thin plywood with vinyl wrapped cable supporting it over the lights.

I'm not a fan of the light spilling over myself, but it's your tank and if it doesnt bother you....

Thank for the tips! A lot of good info there.

Schnizzle · Dec 28, 2019

There’s been an incident and I’d like to talk about it. (Letterkenny fans might catch that one. Haha)

In a series of events involving a pencil urchin, trumpet coral and my fat hand the Forest Fire Digi was snapped off.

I suppose the silver lining is that I now have two of them. Just peeved I broke it.

Paulie069 · Dec 28, 2019

Schnizzle said:
There’s been an incident and I’d like to talk about it. (Letterkenny fans might catch that one. Haha)

In a series of events involving a pencil urchin, trumpet coral and my fat hand the Forest Fire Digi was snapped off.

I suppose the silver lining is that I now have two of them. Just peeved I broke it.

Careful with those ham hock hands. Gorrila

Paulie069 · Dec 28, 2019

Equalizer069 said:
Careful with those ham hock hands. Gorrila

Life is hard when u have big paws instead of normal size hands wind up breaking lots of stuff

Schnizzle · Jan 1, 2020

While looking over everything today I noticed the Green Star Polyps were really growing well. While that made me happy, it also caused some worry. I believe I mentioned before that I really like the Fireworks Clove Polyps that shared the same rock.

I pulled out the surgical tools and went to work. I really need to get better at taking pictures during these processes. I was thrilled with how well I managed to direct the fracturing of the rock with bone cutters. I made a clean break perfectly separating the two species.

At this point I moved my frag rack over so that I can keep the GSP against the middle of the back panel.

This is probably a good point to mention something else I am doing as well. A while back I stopped cleaning my back panels. I feel like this offers two things. First, in my opinion, it looks more natural. Second, it gives all the critters a grazing area.
When I beat the major algae outbreak previously I noticed that there was NO algae left for my clean up crew. I was feeding full sheets of LRS seaweed to keep my hermits and snails alive. I noticed the Lawnmower Blenny Hanging out on the gyre pumps eating the algae I couldn’t scrape. Watching a few videos I noticed a couple other people have done the same so I felt better about my decision to let the algae go.
Now that I’ve rambled off on that side bar, back to the topic at hand. I took the chunk of rock with the clove polyps on it and glued it to a larger rock. This is now seated in its now home in the front corner of the tank allowing much better visibility and room for unimpeded growth.

Hopefully they’ll open up nicely before lights out tonight and I can post up some better photos.

Schnizzle · Jan 1, 2020

Just in time for some last minute photos.

The GSP opened up a good bit. The new growth can really be seen from this angle.

The new position of the segment the clove polyps are on allowed it’s newer polyps to get some light. I can’t wait to see these grow into a colony.

I find both of these really interesting in their growth. The way the mat creeps along and a polyp will pop up somewhere along the way.

Schnizzle · Jan 3, 2020

I am not impressed at the rate my Peppermint Shrimp are working on Aiptasia. I have four in the tank and one or two in the refugium. I'm still having to use AptasiaX regularly. I follow the instructions and the ones I get do die. It's just that more show up.

That being said I always wanted a Copperband Butterfly. However, I do find Filefish interesting. Does anyone want to chime in on which is more likely to eat the Aiptasia while being less likely to eat my coral? Everything I can find seems to suggests its just a lottery.

Berghia Nudis are out of the questions because of my shrimps and wrasse.

Schnizzle · Jan 3, 2020

Random observation of the night. As I sit here with my carrot cake Oreos and lactose free milk, I discovered that the firefish enjoys eating the skin that comes off the foxface when he darts off after eating dinner.
It amuses me how the foxface looks like it leaves its soul behind when it takes off. I’m not sure how I feel about the firefish eating it...

Schnizzle · Jan 8, 2020

Tonight I discovered that a couple of my fish are using the Xenia patch as a dumping ground. :/ No wonder it grows so well.

Big weekend coming up for the tanks.

Friday I have some CUC refreshments coming in. Hopefully they’ll take out the small GHA patches popping up. I also got an alert that a fish I really want is in stock, c. Rubeus. I tried one before but it ended up with some sort of swim bladder disorder and didn’t make it. I was bummed because that little fish had a big personality. Seeing as I was paying for shipping I decided to roll the dice and get a filefish for the aiptasia as well. Maybe I can cash in some good karma and it won’t eat my corals.

Saturday I’ll be doing water tests before the water change to get an idea on my consumption rates. I have enough corals now that I might entertain the idea of starting up my dosing pump again if they are depleted enough.

That’s all for now. Next post should be consumption rates and new critters.

Schnizzle · Jan 10, 2020

Linking to this here as it is technically part of the build process. Haha

LiveAquaria Fish

I work in a thankless profession. Usually by the time I enter the picture the customer is HEATED. When I fix the problem, it’s just “expected”. There’s not often gratitude. That being said, I try to express my gratitude where I can. I have been trying since I started my tank to get a...

www.reef2reef.com

Schnizzle · Jan 16, 2020

I am dying to put my new fish in the tank! Ironically, now that I have a filefish in QT, it seems the Peppermint Shrimp have started eating Aiptasia. That's the way it goes I suppose. I did a refugium check and my random sponge is thriving! Here's a quick video.

Also, a video of my new duo in the QT having some breakfast. As the description notes, I feed heavy in QT. I want to make sure they find something they want to eat until they get used to eating whatever I provide at the time.

Sorry for the sideways vids. The refugium is extremely difficult to see inside, let alone film. I'm not really sure why I filmed the QT this way.

Schnizzle · Jan 16, 2020

The CUC got hung up at a USPS location and ended up taking three days to arrive. This was not a good thing for the larger snails. They ended up as food for the current CUC. The new crabs and conch made out good, but overall a disappointing event. I'm not a real fan of USPS with shipping livestock.

Schnizzle · Jan 16, 2020

I just found this link while browsing some corals. If you’re looking to get something For the first time from @WWC we can help each other out. You get 10% and I get some points. I got all my zoas, pipe organ, blasto and a few others from them. Everything always looks great and is packaged perfectly.

Here's a 10% off coupon for your first order at World Wide Corals. To accept, use my referral link:
http://i.refs.cc/X7Nu0rOJ?smile_ref...hbSIsInNtaWxlX2N1c3RvbWVyX2lkIjoyNjMxOTgzMTJ9

Schnizzle · Feb 6, 2020

USPS strikes again. I’m done with them. I’m just not meant to have a Chiton in my tank. In the mean time, I’m hoping to start getting monthly videos of the tank. I forgot to mute the audio on the first one so I’m trying to figure that out now.

Schnizzle · Feb 7, 2020

Finally! Success on YouTube. On another note, my Duncans closed up Wednesday and haven’t opened back up yet. When I got home today I was inspecting things and it looks like my sea lettuce is dying off in the refugium. I leave again Monday and return Friday. I suppose I need to rework things in there for better flow or something. Maybe it’s time to try chaeto again?

Anyway, enjoy the video.

Schnizzle · Feb 19, 2020

I'll be focusing on the Zoa Garden here but I figured I would post something here again as well for anyone interested in that. I lost the Rising Sun but everything else is doing quite well. If anyone has some Pikachu Zoas for sale or trade let me know as I would really like some yellow in here.