Araziza's Red Sea 200XL build

[Gumbies R Us]

Thanks! Im still pretty happy with my aquascape, although I sort of wish I’d gone a bit higher to make a better plateau for SPS.

This past year was about stability and chemistry, I’m targeting growth, hopefully, this coming year.

I’d like to add a doser with a few heads so I can automate the calcium and dose Kalk overnight, and eventually I’d like to add the reefbright add in to my Radion (and turn the Radion down a bit) to spread out the par.

If I can get the Slimer to take off, im hoping to try a Millepora again (now that the flow should be more what the SPS are looking for). I’m mostly good for corals, although I have my sights on a couple of unusual pieces of leather coral from a LFS, and a really nice rainbow Acan with some yellow in it.

Oooo yah a rainbow acan would be a nice one to get for the tank. I think stability and chemistry are always the vital starts; afterward, it's about filling the tank with what you want and turning it into your dream tank!

 

[araziza]

Guess I’m going for a yearly update. Tank is still running despite the alk dump a couple months ago. I’ve had basically no casualties, with the exception of the rainbow chalice. It’s possible that even that may bounce back over time, as it looks like I have a couple of mouths that didn’t die. Anyways, here’s the tank 2 years in!

You can see some decent growth in a number of corals, including most prominently the hammers (which are now at about 30 and 15 heads respectively), toadstools (close to dinner plate size), acans (about 14 heads), forest fire rhodactis (from one polyp to 6), utter chaos zoas (around30 or 40 heads and self fragging) and anemones (4 total).

Other corals are not quite as obvious, but my blastos have gone from 3 heads to 20 or so, the gorgonian has grown a bit, Nepthea has about quadrupled in size as well.

I still have basically no real growth on the SPS corals. No death either, and they both based out considerably (as seen in the photos), but no new branches or upwards growth. I’m optimistic though, the tank has been cruising along, if a bit slowly, and I think eventually I’ll figure out the SPS corals. The original torch coral is still exactly the same as it was two years ago with effectively no growth. Go figure.

I have added some new corals, including astraeopora, a rainbow Acan which hasn’t quite gotten situated, a nice pink Gonipora with green tips that’s doing quite well, a nice pink and green blasto.

I have made a few equipment upgrades. Both Nero 3s crapped out, and after some research I found that although this seems to be common with the 3s, the 5s are much more stable, so i upgraded to those (at reduced power). I also added a Red Sea reef dose, which I’m using for my ESV 2 part as well as Tropic Marin A and K elements. Going to run an ICP test in a week to see how that’s changed things. Other than this I’ve really just been going for stability. Here’s hoping next year’s shot looks even more filled in, with some noticeable SPS growth.

 

[araziza]

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but I got lucky enough to notice my clownfish spawning. I’ve seen eggs before, but never actually witnessed them being laid. I managed to get a good clip of the event. Maybe someone will find it interesting.

Edit: Rats, no idea how to get this to work. Won’t seem to upload the video properly. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[araziza]

Well, never thought it would happen to me, but I hit one of those pivotal reefing catastrophes. On Monday night, my daughter rushed into the kitchen yelling "DADDY, THERE'S A HOLE IN THE FISH TANK!!!". Sure enough, my reefer had blown a seam and was gushing water out near the top. I put my whole weight against the front glass to close off the seal while my wife ran to get the buckets and syphon. We had to drain the tank, I rushed out to get a Rubbermaid to hold all the rock and livestock, and am now running everything in the Rubbermaid. Red Sea agreed to replace the whole system, so I should be getting a new G2 reefer, but it will take time to get it shipped from Texas to the Canadian distributor and then delivered to me. So now I have to manage the tank without an Trident running, a skimmer/CO2 scrubber, or a good eye level visual on all the livestock, and no good way to mount the light at an appropriate height (so it's like 3 times the height from the water it was before). I hope I don't lose too much.