Wanted to give a quick update.
For the most part the tank has been doing very well. It was pretty hot here for a week earlier in the month and the tank was reaching 86 degrees. Most of my livestock seemed unaffected, except my Toadstool and gorgonians closed up, and the blastos weren't opening as large as usual. Regardless, 86 degrees is just too far out of my comfort zone. So I bought a small window air conditioner, just big enough to cool down the room the tank is in, so it's back to a relatively stable 80-82. And everything opened back up and seems happy again.
I also ran out if frozen food to feed my fish, so I was feeding exclusively nls marine fish formula pellets for a few days, right around the time that I noticed an outbreak of hair algae. I manually removed as much as I could, and switched back to frozen food exclusively for now. Since the switch back I haven't noticed any new algae growth, just the patches that i missed or can't easily reach, but I feel that it's under control.
Livestock wise, currently in the tank I have:
Earmuff wrasse (Muffins)
Hooded fairy wrasse (Sherbert)
2x Cinnamon Clownfish
2x Pearly Jawfish
5 different Torch corals
2 blastos
1 neon green Toadstool
2 small zoa frags
3 acans
3 gorgonians
1 chalice
1 favia
1 skunk cleaner shrimp
2 sand tiger conchs
1 scarlet hermit crab
2 red emerald crabs
Unknown number of Turbo, nassarius, and trochus snails
I am quite happy with my fish, the tank is already feeling very active, fish wise, which is a little concerning because I want about 10 more fish [emoji28]
The jawfish are extremely active which I'm thrilled about. The entire time they were in qt they were always scared, hardly ever left their burrow, but as soon as I put them in the tank they seemed a lot more confident and confortable. They shared a burrow for the first few days but now they have separate spots. During feeding time they swim all over the tank, they have no fear of the wrasses or Clownfish at all. At other times they are hovering outside their burrows. Awesome fish, I would highly recommend them.
The clownfish are also very cool, the larger one (assumed female) has been at my lfs for over a year and I felt bad so I decided to give her a good home. Ordered a smaller cinnamon and put them together in a 40 and they got along pretty well, the larger one would occasionally chase the smaller one but the smaller one would also follow her around and for the most part they hung out together. So after a few weeks I moved them into the display and they are great. They also swim all around, which is great, I was worried they would just stay in a corner like a lot of Clownfish do.
I am still looking for some more wrasses, trying to narrow down my list a little bit. I think I want a bipartitus Leopard for sure, and a Solorensis (fairy). Also considering a Lubbocks, a few different flashers, a Radiant, exquisite, and a few others. But I'm going to kind of play it by ear because the tank is already starting to look a little busy. I also want to make sure my filtration can keep up with my fish load.
I have been out of salt for the last month so it's been a while since I've done a water change and my maintenance in general has been slacking, mostly due to lack of funds. I need to start dosing 2 part and I think I'm gonna start nopox as well, but still need to purchase it as well as test kits. :/ I'm thinking of going with the red Sea kits for nitrate and phosphate, Hanna checker for alk, not sure yet for calcium and magnesium. I like the red Sea ones bit don't want to purchase the whole pack if I'm not going to use the alk, although I guess it is good as a backup.
I also want to get a tds meter to check my RODI water as I have a feeling it's not working at 100%.
Anddd, I need to glue my corals down as they are constantly falling over. I ran out of Epoxy, so I need more. All of these little expenses really start to add up. And as much as I want to buy more corals, I know it's probably more important to take better care of the ones I already have first. And while everything mostly looks good now, I haven't been seeing a lot of growth and haven't properly tested my water in months, and I'm not exactly new to reefing so I know I can only keep this facade up for so long before things start to crash.
That being said, here are some pictures.
(also my Instagram is devoted to tank pictures and I usually post there more often so of anyone would like to follow my tank there, my name is @amobsessed)
