Captain Jimmy's first ever build - RSR 425XL

[count krunk]

Be sure to be feeding the tank so your cuc doesn't starve.

Glad they replaced it for you. I've seen way to many issues with these $$$ powerheads to ever buy them.

 

[captain_jimmy]

Be sure to be feeding the tank so your cuc doesn't starve.

Glad they replaced it for you. I've seen way to many issues with these $$$ powerheads to ever buy them.

Yeah I was.pretty surprised given what I paid for them. It's made.me realise I should get some backup parts on hand in case stuff fails again.

I've been feeding Nori every couple of days and frozen mysis every week or so. The crabs went absolutely crazy for the Nori yesterday.

I haven't seen the pistol shrimp since we got him, hope he's still alive.

Fish and corals arrive this morning so I'll be feeding daily from now on.

 

[captain_jimmy]

It's been a long time since updating, the usual excuse is life but in this case it's also partly laziness.
The tank is chugging along nicely. It's got a load new corals and some more fish arriving soon.

I am going to do a few updates now that chronicle what has happened since April in my tank, I will do it stage by stage in order to avoid a massive info dump in one post.

My first fish/coral order arrived from TSM. I was pretty pleased with their condition. Acclimated them and added them to my DT without quarantining, that was the whole point of ordering from TSM.

My clownfish took up residence in the top front corner of the tank. He stays here for the entire day, barely venturing more than an inch or two away from the glass even to feed. At night he swims to the back of the tank and stays up the top sleeping near the surface.

My goby made a few different burrows before settling on his home. He's a bit of a menace, terrorizing hermit crabs by snatching them off the streets and stashing them in the back of his burrow. I caught him bullying corals too.

I really like my coco worm. It was very shy the first month or so, retreating into it's tube at the smallest shadow or water current. Now it's much more brave and I can gently feed it reef-roids etc which is pretty cool.

I was pleased to have some life in the tank in addition to the CUC.

Pistol shrimp still missing but I hear the occasional snapping sound so hold out hope it's still alive somewhere.

emerald crab and clownfish

FTS in late April

My Bubble coral the day after it arrived.

 

[captain_jimmy]

I would very much prefer to support LFS than online vendors that I can't have a face to face conversation with, I decided to go check out a few shops in local neighbourhood. There aren't that many options so I devoted an afternoon and took my wife and son with me to check them out.

I found one coral shop around 20 minutes drive away that was cool, they had a great selection of corals and frags. I left the store with a small haul of corals including a green tip torch, a hammer, a ricordia and a GSP.

Once I got home and had a thorough look at them all I realised they were riddled with pests, aptasia and red worms everywhere. I figured I could dip and get rid of most of it so went ahead and did that.

The GSP was beyond saving though, it had a whole bunch of aptasia riddled throughout it, I couldn't get them out reliably. I went and got some AptasiaX but decided it wasn't worth the risk and ditched the GSP.

I was a bit disappointed in the store's attitude tbh. When I went back to get the aptasia X the guys son was running the place and I told him the issues and he shrugged and said "eh aptasia and red worms are normal, just dip you'll be fine". I showed him the photo below of the GSP riddled with Aptasia and he laughed and said yeah fair enough you won't get rid of that but then he wouldn't give me a refund for it.

I won't be going back, it's disappointing as I liked the idea of going down every weekend with my son to let him choose some new corals. He's learned all about different types now and loves them.

Anyways, the other corals went into my DT after dipping and are all doing fine. I did find some aptasia on rocks recently so I guess I missed some.

GSP riddled with aptasia. there are more here not circled. This is what I showed the guy at the store and he started laughing.

some little hitchhikers I dipped off. I missed some unfortunately.

Corals from the LFS. I got rid of the GSP. I felt a bit bad about getting rid of a coral TBH as it's a living creature. Confusing.

Hammer and torch shortly after going in to the DT.