Capt Billy's 300g Stony Reef

[Captain Billy]

More salt came today, I guess I'm committed to the E.S.V. for a little while! I think I'm going to be happy with it!

Going to use NSW on the garage systems to compare results. The main problem with using NSW is that even though I live in Florida and we have nice looking water, it's not always usable. After storms with big surf or heavy rains it may be weeks before it's clear enough for me to feel comfortable using it.

 

[AsphaltPays]

Love Esv !! Been using it for over 3 years and never looked back.. Amazing Tanks! Definitely following along

 

[Captain Billy]

Collecting seawater today at high tide just inside of Ponce de León inlet. This water is for the garage systems. The clarity is excellent this time of year and it's hard not to use it. Going to stick with the ESV inside to compare and contrast.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Jealous!

 

[Captain Billy]

An update on the system, overall it appears to be doing better. SPS coral health continues to improve overall, to the point I'm going to add several small corals from my frag system later tonight. Some zoas are still a little upset, opening but not looking as good as they should, but hopefully they will start to improve as the SPS has.

The main changes I've made were changing to ESV from TM salt and adding more flow. I also discovered that my Mg was around 1260, much lower than when I last tested. I corrected that and will be testing more frequently to monitor it.

Spent a few minutes this afternoon before doing a water change snapping quick photos of my fish to share.

The Gem tang is fat as ever, and it appears his HLLE is starting to heal, you can see it just above his eye. I changed the heater out and went through every inch of every wire in the tank, and have been giving him a several types of food daily, doing anything I can to solve this issue...monitoring it closely for now.

The Male watanabe, one of my favorite fish.

Had this guy about 4 years since he was literally half dollar sized. He's now roughly softball size with his fins out.

I always wanted a Desjardini, but this guy is a food hog, dominates the Gem tang and is slowly making me regret my decision. The Black tang doesn't bother the Gem tank, but he is dominant over the Sailfin.

I've always kept Bartletts, this is my first harem of Lyretails. Great little fish that seem to have very little conspecific bickering.

 

[Captain Billy]

And the FTS, nothing to brag about but progress is slowly being made!

 

[Dowtish]

Looks awesome! grow grow grow!

 

[Captain Billy]

New additions! I'll try to get some better shots once they are doing well in the display.

Also, what's everyone's thoughts on blue cloves? They snuck in on a piece of rock and I've been trying to kill them with kalk, but they just keep coming back and now they've spread around the system. I know fluke tabs or something like that kills them, but so far they seem harmless to all the coral they touch, moving out of the way as they grow. Are there any bad long term affects I'm overlooking for having this coral in your system?

 

[wowkingjames]

Man those are beautiful tangs and your tank is amazing.

 

[Captain Billy]

Thanks!

The cirrhilabrus wrasses have turned out to be quite a bit more aggressive towards the 8 line flasher pair than I expected. I knew they would probably have some minor conflict at first, but I'd hoped it wouldn't be anything more than a look. First the Lineatus looked him over, then the Solon. The Rhomboid who is the smallest was keeping his distance only to end up being the biggest problem out of the bunch after about 30 minutes. Hopefully they chill out and everyone can get along.

Fights are the worst part about adding fish once you already have a large population in the display...

 

[Captain Billy]

Crazy day today....Laying on the couch about 45 minutes ago and my girlfriend and I hear a loud spalsh. We both jump up and look to see what it was.

I hadn't seen the 8 line wrasse today so I instantly assumed that it was him being chased by the cirrhilabrus wrasses, as this is what I saw last as they interacted yesterday.

Looking behind the tank, I see a fish on the ground, and it has black and white stripes. The male watanabe somehow got over the back of the tank and fell 5 feet to the floor. I grab him and throw him back in, straight to the rocks he goes. 30 minutes later, he is out, acting normal and most importantly eating. I think he was chasing the female and somehow came out of the water. He dominates her through out the day but I've never had either of them come out of the water. I've had this fish for quite some time so I'm relieved that he is alright.

Also a positive, while feeding the tank both flasher wrasses came out to eat and are not being bothered or chased by the rhomboid or the other cirrhalibrus wrasses.

 

[skinz78]

Glad to hear you were there to make the save and all is well!

 

[Captain Billy]

Needless to say, a better system to prevent jumpers from heading out is in the works!

 

[Captain Billy]

Snapped a couple photos of the tank tonight, all the fish are doing well including the new pair of eight line flasher wrasses.

I cleaned my sand of old shells and larger pebbles with a net last night, moved some corals and it looks pretty good. Also rearranged the vortechs and adjusted the flow so they aren't moving sand anymore, I kept getting bare spots under the pumps and right at the middle of the front glass.

I really like the new E.S.V. salt, so far so good. I have still been battling one of my original issues, when I tested the NO3 last night I saw a little pink, which ended up being around .01. While this may sound insignificant, I still am having issues with a couple zoanthid colonies, as well as some brown on the sand. All stony corals are doing well, and the green and red cyano is essentially gone.

I also feel like an idiot, I write everything down and keep track of everything I do to the tank and when I test. Somehow I missed the membrane of my ro/di system, and it was pretty nasty. I also thought it was a Dow Filmtec, it was a hyrdron and really not sure how it got in there. I must have not been paying attention the last time I changed it. It's fixed now and won't be an issue in the future. After reefing all these years I hate how I still miss little things sometimes, I guess that's life!

I think I'm leaning towards running this tank with some type of ULN system. Maybe Prodibio or Zeovit, although my knowledge of how it works is fairly basic and I have never used this type of system, time to do some research I suppose! If anyone has any input it would be much appreciated!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Looks nice!

 

[J Rog]

Awesome tank! How do you like the radion pro's? I have the radion gen 1's and thinking about upgrading them to the gen 3 pro's. How do you sps seem happy under them?

 

[Captain Billy]

I like them, all the corals I've grown under them seem to do well with the light. They are powerful that's for sure. All around good lights, easy to program and control.

 

[J Rog]

Nice, sps in the past has hated my gen 1's..

 

[Captain Billy]

Snapped a couple shots today with my new port hole.

Also got an Avast Vibe 2.5L reactor to start zeovit. Unfortunately the reactor only holds 2.0L in reality so I hope the company will swap it out for the 4.0L model.