Fishfreak2009's Eheim 47 Gallon Rimless Setup

[Fishfreak2009]

Going to tempt fate a bit with this system and see how things go. The wifey picked out a pearlscale butterflyfish today, and it will be going in this system. I'm hoping it doesn't eat any of the corals. We can move corals out if it does decide it likes certain ones. We also picked up a trio of ORA pajama cardinals as well.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Just a couple pics from last night. Butterfly is in quarantine, water is tinged from Isochrysis galbana growing in there. Added some of the extra from my culture and it took off in the quarantine...

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Picked up a Rolland's damsel for the 47 gallon today. Now he just has to go through quarantine.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Fish are currently going through cupramine in quarantine. Everyone seems to be doing well, the butterfly now eats mysis along with the clams on the half shell.

Couple pics from quarantine:

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, the butterfly didn't make it. Went through copper treatment ok, then stopped eating and wasted away. Not going to replace it.

The rest of the fish are doing well. We moved the rollands damsel, the sharknose goby pair, and the trio of pajama cardinalfish into the tank yesterday. Today we mounted a bunch of frags in here that were growing on the frag rack in the 75 gallon, and picked up a new rhodactis mushroom and a new green goniopora for this setup.

I'll make sure to grab some pictures tomorrow!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Updated pics of the tank from today! Corals are doing really well, and we picked up a new Red goniopora for the tank as well. It is tiny, but has settled in well and fully extends and feeds well. And of course the coonhounds like sleeping in my lap on the couch next to the tank.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Tank is currently going through a horrible dinoflagellate bloom. The good news though is that it doesn't seem to be poisonous dinoflagellates as the 2 turbo snails are eating them. I added some sailfin mollies today to see if they will eat them as well, and plan on adding a few more turbo snails tomorrow. We did lose a couple of the frags due to the dinoflagellates smothering them. I had moved some Acropora over and all but 1 RTNd after the dino bloom, as did the monti cap. As far as SPS, 1 Acro and the red Montipora digitata seem unaffected by the dinoflagellates.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, it's still a dinoflagellate mess, but at least the remaining corals, all the fish, and the inverts seem to be doing ok. I'm cleaning off all the dinos I can twice daily for now. The Rolland's damsel was a little rough on the mollies at first, especially the male black molly, but seems to be ignoring them now.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Update:
Black molly was removed added to my Fluval evo (along with a new female black molly for him), as the damsel continued to harass it, even though it completely ignores the orange ones with black spots.

Added some other new fish as well:
5 Lyretail Damsel (Neopomacentrus cyanomos)
1 Royal Gramma (Gramma loreto)

These fish will basically complete the fish list for this tank, other than perhaps a sand sifting goby, and eventually after it is more mature, a ruby red scooter dragonet. I'm hoping with the heavier bioload, I can get the nitrates to go above 0 without having to dose them, so I can get the dinoflagellate bloom to go away. Some of corals continue to thrive and grow while others looked pretty upset, so we moved those upset corals to my wife's fluval evo while we take care of the dinoflagellate outbreak.

I am going to try and do a deep clean to remove as much as possible, then add a piece of sponge covered live rock from my 75 gallon to seed with a wider variety of bacteria. This will also move a rose bubbletip anemone clone into this tank as it's on the rock, which hopefully the clowns will choose as their home (they were living in the frogspawn until we moved that to my wife's Fluval EVO).

The fish stocklist now consists of:
1 Rolland's Damsel (Chrysiptera rollandi)
5 Lyretail Damsel (Neopomacentrus cyanomos)
2 Percularis Clownfish (Amphiprion percula x ocellaris)
1 Royal Gramma (Gramma loreto)
3 Pajama Cardinalfish (Sphaeramia nematoptera)
2 Sailfin Molly (Poecilia latipinna)
2 Green Banded Goby (Elacatinus puncticulatus)

I'll grab a few pics in the morning.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Some quick low quality pics from the tank today. You can see the dinoflagellate bloom is still going strong. I dosed nitrates today, as they are currently undetectable. Unsure why, but one Acropora, the red monti digi, the acan echinata, a christmas chalice, the kenya tree, a platygyra, and a baby blue favia seem completely unaffected. Full polyp extension, and continue to grow, even though I had to remove about 50% of the corals since they seemed to be doing poorly in here (even some other LPS like other favias and platygyras). I'll try re-adding them once I get the dinos under control.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Still battling dinoflagellates, but things seem to be improving. I've been doing large water changes, siphoning as much out as possible, and started running a UV sterilizer on this tank. I also moved over a well established rock from the 75 gallon to hopefully introduce some biodiversity and competition for the dinoflagellates. I will continue to do water changes and siphoning to try and eradicate them as quickly as possible.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Continuing to clean the dinos off basically whenever I walk past the tank. By doing this and running the UV sterilizer the dinos are slowly but surely going away. Honestly it isn't looking too bad. The corals in the tank (other than the gorgonian) continue to do well, and the Favia and red Montipora digitata have actually grown quite a bit. The rock flower anemones are doing well, but the red bubbletip clone we added from our 75 gallon melted away to nothing within a couple days.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Picked up a Biota captive bred aiptasia filefish for this tank today. He's only about 1.5" long and is already devouring aiptasia! Such an awesome little fish!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A few pics. Still battling dinoflagellates, but they are improving with twice daily cleaning off the rocks and sand. We ended up moving the rock flower anemones to my wife's evo, they're doing much better there. The corals in here continue to do ok and grow, and we added some green star polyp we trimmed off our colony in the 75 gallon. It seems to be doing fine in here as well.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Saw one of the green banded gobies today for the first time in over a month! Super fat and bigger than when we last saw it. Obviously has been doing well dining on copepods.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Ended up removing the caulerpa as the conchs kept ripping it up. Still battling dinoflagellates, but they seem to be improving slowly but surely. Snapped a few pics today.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A couple pics from tonight using the Orphek lenses.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Moved the helfrichi firefish and the yellow headed jawfish into here today. The damsels are harassing the helfrichi, but not horribly, so I sealed all the exits with press n seal, and will keep an eye on things. I think it will be fine once he settles in and finds his bolt hole.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Update: steadily winning the war against the dinoflagellates with frequent cleaning, UV sterilizer, and dosing live phyto and microbacter 7. Seeing my first spots of coralline algae as well, which is encouraging. All the fish continue to do well. And we came back from a 4 day trip up north to absolutely zero aiptasia left in the tank. Unsure if the filefish or the peppermint shrimp or both ate them, but they are gone.

I picked up a new splatter hammer from the LFS for this tank today, and added some coral frags from my 75 that were outgrowing their spots or I had accidentally broken off. I moved over a piece of bali green slimer acro, a piece of red planet acro, a sour apple acan echinata, a hairy green mushroom, a red rhodactis mushroom, a dragon soul favia, a gold hammer, and a green with gold tips frogspawn.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

A couple pics of some of my favorites in here, the helfrichi firefish and the yellow headed jawfish.