Haggisman14's Oceanic Biocube 29

[Haggisman14]

For those following, just posted a question about my upcoming reactor:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/algae-reactor-cheato-to-control-cyno.392182/

 

[Haggisman14]

So looks like a cheato reactor might not be what my tank is needing right now. Currently my tank has 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates, which isn't that great. I think i might be underfeeding the tank, and skimming too much. I'm going to limit the skimmer to just nighttime use, and increase my overall feeding schedule. I'm going to start working in more reef frenzy and reef chili to increase those numbers.

Hopefully this makes for a better system!

 

[Haggisman14]

So...participated in the WWC Live sale, and snagged 4 pretty awesome corals! 2 nice zoa frags, a awesome shroom and a really cool neon hammer. I'm currently waiting on their auctions tonight. I can't decide if I want to go with a few more smaller frags, or score one larger frag (I think i'm going to go for multiple smaller ones), as I really want to work on filling out the tank.

I've just realized (looking back at the start of this thread) that my tank is ONLY 7 months old...for some reason I thought it was much older...but it's not. I've also come to the conclusion (after various peoples input that the reason for my cyano "might" be due to not enough feeding of the tank, and possibly due to not having enough corals/living organisms in the tank to take up the nutrients and create the good bacteria. I began to feed a bit more, and I'm also going to start introducing reef roids into my tank about twice a week. I will have a mixed diet coming up, flake food, LRS reef frenzy, BRS reef Chili, and Reef Roids. Hopefully the mix of all of this will start doing good things for the tank!

Currently winning on two favias, 2 zoasand 1 acro....we shall see what happens

My current Live Sale Haul


What I hope to come home with tonight...wish me luck!

 

[Oneforone]

Looking Good man! I missed out on the sale this weekend from WWC, but I only live like an hour from their store so maybe one weekend I will be able to sneak over there and snag a few goodies! I also started my cube at the end of november last year, it feels like it has been up for way longer. I can't wait for the new pictures once the corals arrive, I love zoas and euphyilla!

 

[Haggisman14]

Scored 2 more from the auctions. The Cherry Garcia chalice I"ve fallen in love with, and a "Moons of Uranus" favia.

Can't wait for my shipment to come tomorrow!

 

[Haggisman14]

Well I"m happy as can be. Got my order yesterday (after a royal FedEx screw up), and everything arrived healthy and happy. Did a little water change while acclimating my new corals, and got them all placed in my makeship frag rack. I must say @WWC was on it like white on rice when I called them to tell them that FedEx was giving me the run around (they claimed WWC called them and told them to ship my corals back to their facility!) I ended up snagging 4 from the LS, and 2 from eBay, and am very very happy!. I almost got the pink ******* chalice as their last $5 frag (i was paying for it when someone cleared payment first), but have been eyeing the Cherry Garcia for a long time too. Not that I should be surprised, but the Funny D zoa's really really really pop!

Until next time WWC!

I'll post some more pics once everything is placed in their final resting place. The Miami Hurricance shrrom is ALSO amazing!

 

[Haggisman14]

Hey everybody. So I got all of my frags mounted , and everyone is happy...with the exception of my "hurricane" mushroom. After it being in the tank for 5 days..my thin stripe hermit tore it to pieces! Other than that guy, everyone is doing great. I'm also including a pic of my tri-color that I had gotten from WWC back in January, which then almost died after a second prazipro treatment, but has bee coming back and encrusting really well on its base, and encrusting back over from the top down too.

In other annoying news, when I mounted everything, I also took my torch coral out b/c there were more polyclads on it. Did an out of tank dip on it with Prazi Pro, scrapped what looked to be eggs on the skeleton, and then remounted it. Last night I then saw another polyclad....turkey baster to the rescue...sucked that punk right out of the tank!

I also started feeding my tank reef Roids (going to be doing this about every 4 days, mixed with reef chili, and some Reef Frenzy from LRS.

I've also began dosing some Red Sea Reef Foundation ABC+

Tank is happy and looking good!

 

[Haggisman14]

Just a quick update. All is going nice and smooth with the tank. Cyano issue is pretty much at bay, it shows up a little on the sand, and a little on the back walls, but really isn't a problem anymore. All the corals are setting in really nice and doing well. It seems that my torch is finally (fingers crossed) polyclad free. After I added my last order of WWC, I took the torch out and did a prazipro specific dip with the torch, and a lot of little buggers fell off. There were also a good amount of eggs on the torch's skeleton that I scrapped off. A day later I did see one adult polyclad near the flesh, but I sucked him up with my turkey baster and haven't seen anything since. Torch has finally gone back to full extension which makes me happy!

All other new corals are doing well. The one 2 polyp pink zoas I got have 2 little baby heads, the Funny D's have great coverage on the plug so I feel they'll start shooing up some new heads soon, the neon hammer although the skeleton was rather small is very full, and the moons of uranus favia has great color, and has really filled out since placing in my tank..

Plans for the summer...not really sure. I really want to finally add some sticks to the tank from @Battlecorals. I might do a small battle box, or more specifically Adam has put together some really nice packages lately that I might jump on. After that I want to get some more lps and zoas from WWC. My tank is at the point now where I have a good amount of coverage when you look at the tank straight ahead, but I want this to be filled up on the sides, etc, I"ve got plans for the sides, just need to make it happen.

Onto the pics!

 

[Haggisman14]

Just a quick update. All is going nice and smooth with the tank. Cyano issue is pretty much at bay, it shows up a little on the sand, and a little on the back walls, but really isn't a problem anymore. All the corals are setting in really nice and doing well. It seems that my torch is finally (fingers crossed) polyclad free. After I added my last order of WWC, I took the torch out and did a prazipro specific dip with the torch, and a lot of little buggers fell off. There were also a good amount of eggs on the torch's skeleton that I scrapped off. A day later I did see one adult polyclad near the flesh, but I sucked him up with my turkey baster and haven't seen anything since. Torch has finally gone back to full extension which makes me happy!

All other new corals are doing well. The one 2 polyp pink zoas I got have 2 little baby heads, the Funny D's have great coverage on the plug so I feel they'll start shooing up some new heads soon, the neon hammer although the skeleton was rather small is very full, and the moons of uranus favia has great color, and has really filled out since placing in my tank..

Plans for the summer...not really sure. I really want to finally add some sticks to the tank from @Battlecorals. I might do a small battle box, or more specifically Adam has put together some really nice packages lately that I might jump on. After that I want to get some more lps and zoas from WWC. My tank is at the point now where I have a good amount of coverage when you look at the tank straight ahead, but I want this to be filled up on the sides, etc, I"ve got plans for the sides, just need to make it happen.

Onto the pics!

 

[Haggisman14]

To all my loyal followers (ha), a quick update. Tank is doing really well. It seems upping the amount of feeding flake, LRS, reef chili and reef roids has worked at keeping my cyano at bay, as well as cycling my skimmer on every other day, and only at night time. I do have some green hair algae that is growing, but it's manageable right now and nothing too bad. All the corals form the WWC Live sale are doing really well, my one pink zoa frag already sprouted 2 babies, the base of my funny d's is starting to encrust on its base so I'm sure that will sprout some new heads soon, the favia has really plumped up and seems to be expanding its flesh to the bottom of it's plug, and everyone is happy.

In other kick butt news...I just won a raffle on R2R for $250 towards a vendor of my choice. That vendor is @Battlecorals and this is the pack of my choice:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...t-growers-the-ultimate-beginners-pack.365720/

I'm hoping to receive my order this Friday. I'll keep y'all updated with pics!

Thanks for looking!

 

[Oneforone]

Congrats on winning the raffle! Tanks looking good, my cube recently started growing gha in one spot, every other day I pluck out what I can. I even tried taking that rock out and scrubbing that little area with peroxide but it still comes back. I recently went and got some hermits and 2 small emerald crabs which should help picking up the waste around the tank,I originally only had smalls as my cuc. I look forward to the picture updates once you get your battlecorals shipment

 

[Haggisman14]

The rumors are true...@Battlecorals corals do come out of the box with polyps out! I honestly can't say thank you enough!

There was a base pack that Adam had offered previously that I loved, but I wanted to work in two substitutions. We got everything worked out, and the package was shipped.

It arrived at my office at 10:08, and I was home by 10:30 and began acclimating. I was blown away by the size of the frags, and was honestly shocked that these SPS corals had their polyps out while still in the bag. Adam did a great job as always as naming all the frags, and his double bagging method was meticulous!

All the frags were in amazing shape, and the colors really are fantastic!

Adam has earned a lifelong SPS customer. I"ll be going back whenever I need some new frags, and especially in a few years when I get a bigger tank and need to stock that!

Battle Corals for Life!

And now what you all want...the pictures! I usually keep my Kessil 160W at 50% spectrum, and 75% intensity during the day. Since these just shipped yesterday I have dropped the spectrum down to all blue for the rest of today, and intensity at 40%. I"ll ramp up to some more white light and intensity over the next few days.

Enjoy everyone, and big shoutout to @revhtree for hosting this amazing contest, and to @Battlecorals for keeping some killer SPS corals, and for his amazing customer service!


Obligatory corals all lined up!

My make-shift frag rack and my haul!

Fox Flame!

Forest Fire Digi

Orange Tipped Stag

Garf Bonsai

SWK Invalida

Poletti Yellow Tip Austera

BC Xmas

PC Rainbow

 

[Haggisman14]

Mounting some frags tonight! Wohoo!

 

[Haggisman14]

All corals are now in their final resting place. I feel good where they're all at, some up high, some down low, but with my Kessil 160 only 4" from the water, I think everything will have more then enough light. I took everything off of their plugs with the exception of the SWK Invalida b/c that one was truly encrusted on its plug.

These pictures are all under blues as I turned the lights down as I was mounting them. I"ll take some better pics tonight. I'm also including a top down pic prior to mounting all the frags..i think the first I've ever done. For the next few months I'm going to keep everything moving along with just maintenance. I'll probably jump on another WWC live sale in september or november for some more zoa frags, and some encrusters like some chalaices for some of my shaded and lower flow areas. I'll also try and take monthly pictures of these new SPS corals as I'd really like to track their growth in my little cube.

Once again, big shoutout to Adam @Battlecorals. He was amazing to work with, and whenever I want to add more SPS to my collection, there's no doubt where I'm going!

First Top Down

Under Blues

Names Corals

Left Side

Right Side

 

[Haggisman14]

Got some pics on my lunch break with my daylights back on.

All corals are happy and in place!

 

[Just_Pete]

Looks great!

 

[Haggisman14]

thanks! Since I'm doing a mixed reef, I'm trying to plan placement in advance to all corals can grow out nicely!

 

[Haggisman14]

Next Tank addition (2 weeks)

So i've got some various hair algae growing in my tank, and my hermits and snails aren't getting the job done...after a lot of reading I see a lot of people use blue tuxedo urchins. I"ll be away from the tank for the next week, and since i hear they can start carrying things on their back, i'm going to wait until I get home, but looking forward to these things taking care of my hair algae issue!

 

[Haggisman14]

A quick update on the tank. I was away for a quick vacation last week, and just got back last night. Overall the tank is in great shape, I had a loss that I knew was coming, one that I didn't, and otherwise everything is okay.

My female clownfish died on me. About a month or two ago she started swimming horizontally, and would constantly have her mouth open. Of course while on vacation she kicked the bucket, and my father called me up saying..."I think your hermit crabs killed your clownfish!" Safe to say the hermits had a feast until my father pulled her from the tank.

Next I had a pair of WWC Armour of the God Zoa's die on me. They look almost like they bleached out, but I'm thinking something tried to eat them. All other zoa's in my tank were un touched. I'm leaving them where they are in hopes they will recover, but I'm pretty sure they're a lost cause.

As for everything else, things are great! All SPS from @Battlecorals are doing very well. They've been in the tank in their "glued" location for just over a week now so I'm not seeing any new encrusting just yet, but I know it can take awhile for the initial encrusting to begin.

This weekend I"ll be heading to the LFS to look into picking up a new clownfish, and some more fresh RO water. I've got one just of saltwater from my LFS, and will then be making the switch over to Red Sea Coral Pro reef salt. Just going to keep up with my 5 gallon weekly changes. I think i'll get some better growth as I won't be storing the water mixed in the jugs for 2-6 weeks without using it.

That's all for now!

Thanks for looking!

 

[Haggisman14]

Ah yes..how could I forget...POLYCLAD WORMS ARE BACK! These suckers just WON'T DIE!

I treated the tank twice, the they just keep coming back, and coming back again! They're still ONLY eating my torch. Part of me wants to just take out the torch and hopefully these things will die out. My concern would be if I remove the torch, they'll then go over and start eating on my hammers. Any suggestions?

Thanks!