Himbo's Dragon Fantasy IM 40L AIO

[trophyhimbo]

White light spectrum has more spectrum than what corals can use. The more white you have the more algae will readily grow. Now that you have algae growing though, consider adding a Starry Blenny or (if you don't want SPS) go with a Black Sailfin Blenny. Either should be great with your Dragon Theme. The Starry gets bigger though I think. A Hector's Goby or Court Jester is another good option that stays smaller but may not fit with your desired theme as readily.

Ha thank you for thinking of the theme! Starry works for sure. I was actually looking at a Midas Blenny like @Blopple is seeing success with (dragons like gold right?). Any opinion on Midas vs Starry?

 

[tbrown]

Ha thank you for thinking of the theme! Starry works for sure. I was actually looking at a Midas Blenny like @Blopple is seeing success with (dragons like gold right?). Any opinion on Midas vs Starry?

Starry eats algae, Midas eats meat. You can have both successfully usually. Only thing with the Starry is they can be jerks.

 

[tbrown]

40l is probably way too small for a Starry long term. Mine is probably pushing 7".

 

[Blopple]

Ha thank you for thinking of the theme! Starry works for sure. I was actually looking at a Midas Blenny like @Blopple is seeing success with (dragons like gold right?). Any opinion on Midas vs Starry?

Big difference with the Midas blenny from what I understand is that they won't really help with algae control.

The lack of algae control is made up for by stunning good looks and character!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The Aquabiomics products look interesting but seems they are not readily available... Thoughts on this TSA product to increase biodiversity without introducing live rock?

https://topshelfaquatics.com/product/maxspect-nano-tech-pre-seeded-biospheres/

Description:
Jump start and speed cycle your marine aquarium with our pre-seeded bio spheres. Each item is matured in one of our long-standing cryptic raceways containing a diverse blend of natural live rock for a minimum of two months to supply you with an excellent base of various bacteria for nitrification and denitrification. As an added benefit, these will contain beneficial microfauna. Nano-Tech BioSpheres are a durable dense arrangement of smaller spheres creating an ultra-high surface area. Each Sphere has a surface area of 580 square feet and can stabilize 17 gallons. 10 Spheres is roughly equivalent to 20+ pounds of Live Rock. This is a must with today’s man made and base rock that are primarily used to start reef aquariums. Wild Reef Pre-Seeded Bio Media must be put in aquarium water upon arrival to maintain its live benefits.

edit: made separate post about it in general forum - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tsa-maxspect-nano-tech-pre-seeded-biospheres.986257/#post-11386595

I had no idea people were marketing a product like this. I sold bio media from stable, mature tanks back in 1982 through a mail order company I ran "Midwest Marine Life".

Jay

 

[trophyhimbo]

Back from vacation and nothing failed or exploded! Yay!

I apparently have gotten very good at growing algae Rocks are now all covered with green film algae. I can see a few bubble algae spheres too (surprisingly populating much of one of the ninja star snail's shell) with bits of red poking through the rocks. The dragon's breath macroalgae was knocked loose at some point while I was gone and doesn't seem to be doing great, hopefully it recovers.

Pre-vacation 05/17

Post-vacation 06/08

Inverts all seem to be doing great. Scarlet hermit crab has changed shells and is now much easier to spot, all snails are cruising along, shrimp is molting, and the conch is still interesting to watch.

Once a day feeding a small amount of pellets through auto-feeder and zero water changes over the last 2.5 weeks have made my phosphates go from 0.01 to 0.05ppm and nitrates go from 1.5 to 5.1ppm.

With no major future travel plans, the next few weeks/months will be fun stocking time! Ordered a few dragon-themed beginner corals (couple zoas, a mushroom, and an LPS), which I hope will introduce some competition for the green algae. Planning on either a starry blenny or a flame angelfish or both as algae eaters. Wrasse should be coming next week.

 

[Blopple]

Back from vacation and nothing failed or exploded! Yay!

I apparently have gotten very good at growing algae Rocks are now all covered with green film algae. I can see a few bubble algae spheres too (surprisingly populating much of one of the ninja star snail's shell) with bits of red poking through the rocks. The dragon's breath macroalgae was knocked loose at some point while I was gone and doesn't seem to be doing great, hopefully it recovers.

Pre-vacation 05/17

Post-vacation 06/08

Inverts all seem to be doing great. Scarlet hermit crab has changed shells and is now much easier to spot, all snails are cruising along, shrimp is molting, and the conch is still interesting to watch.

Once a day feeding a small amount of pellets through auto-feeder and zero water changes over the last 2.5 weeks have made my phosphates go from 0.01 to 0.05ppm and nitrates go from 1.5 to 5.1ppm.

With no major future travel plans, the next few weeks/months will be fun stocking time! Ordered a few dragon-themed beginner corals (couple zoas, a mushroom, and an LPS), which I hope will introduce some competition for the green algae. Planning on either a starry blenny or a flame angelfish or both as algae eaters. Wrasse should be coming next week.

He returns! Welcome back.

Lots of algae, but it doesn't suspiciously look like dinos anymore. Very excited to see the new fish and corals. It's been bare for too long!

 

[JoJosReef]

Didn't see the notification of your updates! Glad I happened on a "suggested link" that showed your build updated. If the bubble algae start getting out of control, I'm having some success with Fluconazole. Nasty stuff. Can't wait to see some stocking!

 

[tbrown]

Didn't see the notification of your updates! Glad I happened on a "suggested link" that showed your build updated. If the bubble algae start getting out of control, I'm having some success with Fluconazole. Nasty stuff. Can't wait to see some stocking!

Really? I'm on day 6 of Flux RX. Day 3 all bryopsis was gone - completely. Bubble algae might be getting thinner walled but it's still growing. It's crazy how different tanks have such different results.

 

[JoJosReef]

Really? I'm on day 6 of Flux RX. Day 3 all bryopsis was gone - completely. Bubble algae might be getting thinner walled but it's still growing. It's crazy how different tanks have such different results.

Takes well over a week to see the effects on bubble algae and that is at 4x concentration. I took my macros out and have them in a side tank meanwhile. Just the codium is withstanding the Flux, and all of the corals/fish/inverts seem fine.

 

[tbrown]

Takes well over a week to see the effects on bubble algae and that is at 4x concentration. I took my macros out and have them in a side tank meanwhile. Just the codium is withstanding the Flux, and all of the corals/fish/inverts seem fine.

I'm hoping it kills my macros. I've got a short, invasive form of Ulva that the Tang and Foxface won't touch. I've seen the Lawnmower pick at it but nothing else seems to. It looks like it's starting to shrink and disappear so I'm hopeful.

 

[trophyhimbo]

FIRST CORALS!!!! SO EXCITED

• Dragon Eye Zoanthid (Sunnyside Corals)
• Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoanthid (Tidal Gardens)
• Flaming Dragon Zoanthid (World Wide Corals)
• Gonzo Golden Dragon Mushroom (Sunnyside Corals)
• Dragon Soul Torch (Tidal Gardens)
• Dragon Soul Prism Goniastrea (World Wide Corals)
• Dragons Blood Lithophylion (World Wide Corals)

Keeping the theme significantly limited the amount of money I could blow in one sitting... but now I want to break the theme and order some random pretty things after seeing how colorful and opened these guys are (someone please stop me)! However, I had to take the plunge into LPS because I couldn't find enough dragon-themed softies. What should I be monitoring now in addition to water changes (which admittedly I'm getting lazy on)?

Good amount of algae, but I noticed I can't really scrub a lot of the green off and some of it is transitioning to purple/pink. Hoping this is coralline like the Arc Reef informational section suggests it might!

Still no fish. Wrasse got held up at Dr. Reef's because it had stopped eating. Ordered a flame angelfish but trying to space that out with the wrasse... Hopefully soon fishies

Other than that, inverts are trucking along and eating. They're all existing peacefully for now. Might order more clean up crew to deal with what's probably turf and hair algae. What do you guys think?

 

[Blopple]

FIRST CORALS!!!! SO EXCITED

• Dragon Eye Zoanthid (Sunnyside Corals)
• Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoanthid (Tidal Gardens)
• Flaming Dragon Zoanthid (World Wide Corals)
• Gonzo Golden Dragon Mushroom (Sunnyside Corals)
• Dragon Soul Torch (Tidal Gardens)
• Dragon Soul Prism Goniastrea (World Wide Corals)
• Dragons Blood Lithophylion (World Wide Corals)

Keeping the theme significantly limited the amount of money I could blow in one sitting... but now I want to break the theme and order some random pretty things after seeing how colorful and opened these guys are (someone please stop me)! However, I had to take the plunge into LPS because I couldn't find enough dragon-themed softies. What should I be monitoring now in addition to water changes (which admittedly I'm getting lazy on)?

Good amount of algae, but I noticed I can't really scrub a lot of the green off and some of it is transitioning to purple/pink. Hoping this is coralline like the Arc Reef informational section suggests it might!

Still no fish. Wrasse got held up at Dr. Reef's because it had stopped eating. Ordered a flame angelfish but trying to space that out with the wrasse... Hopefully soon fishies

Other than that, inverts are trucking along and eating. They're all existing peacefully for now. Might order more clean up crew to deal with what's probably turf and hair algae. What do you guys think?

Yessss, finally corals! The mushroom and the flaming dragons look awesome. I can't believe you were able to find even that much stuff on theme haha.

With the LPS I would definitely be testing alk. I've only got like... 3 LPS a cyphastrea and monti frags and my alk is already a concern. Even with the water change I am concerned I am going to have to start dosing. Last I tested was 6.4, eek!

 

[trophyhimbo]

An update! So much family and friend activities going on now that it's summer, it's been difficult enough to find time to take care of the tank and also post on here.

Purchased a recommended 30 gallon clean up crew from Reef Cleaners. Much needed entertainment for the tank. Flame angelfish has been in for a few weeks, seems healthy, hangs out with the fire shrimp mostly, and seems pretty shy.

Corals are doing great, however I noticed some pulsing xenia hitchhikers on the Dragon Eye Zoanthid which I did not want in the tank, so that had to go. Mushroom coral split so now I have two of them!

I was having persistent dino outbreaks no matter how much I fed the tank. It was really bad, but I was able to identify it as a strain that releases into the water column at night. Installed a UV Sterilizer and about a week later, BAM no more dinos! Full success story with that thing. I can see a lot more coralline algae growing over the rocks and no more nasty brown snot.

However, now I have a massive green hair algae outbreak! I was away for the last couple weeks with an auto-feeder going for the fish and it probably was too much. Long green hair algae everywhere that I will have to now manually remove. Time for a few water changes too.

Any tips on green hair algae? It's long and billowy and I honestly don't mind the look on certain parts of the tank, but it does seem to be taking over...

 

[JoJosReef]

Welcome back!

How are the nitrates and phosphates?

GHA is a long slog unless you go nuclear. CUC only goes for the short stuff, not the long billowy stuff. Once it's short, CUC holds it at bay. CUC dies eventually and needs to be replaced. In chess terms:
Pawns: nerites, astraeas, trochus, ceriths, dwarf ceriths (buy a billion)...
Bishops: conches
Knights: turbo snails
Rooks: urchins
Queen: You
King: coraline (moves slowly but actually quite powerful)

Did the reefcleaners package come with a conch or turbos?

No-rock removal strategy that works for me:
1. Load up on CUC (1 urchin, 2 turbos, 2 conches + pawns)
2. Drain the water as low as possible to get to the bottom of the GHA line (can reuse water, just need water level down)--remove fish/inverts to tuppers if needed
3. Trash can, roll of paper towels, spray bottle hydrogen peroxide
4. Use paper towels to liberally grab chunks of GHA and straight to trash. Don't brush, just gets GHA everywhere. Grab, pull, grab, pull.
5. Occasionally drip tank water onto exposed corals/nems.
6. When all the stringy stuff is gone, spray top of rocks/affected area with H2O2. Important to just hit the surface, not saturate the rocks. Let it sit for a couple minutes.
7. Refill water without causing sandstorm -- I use a piece of filter floss sitting on the rocks to break the flow/splashing. Can reuse tank water, but I'd pour it through a filter sock.
8. Then let the CUC do their work.

Kind of a variation on the rip clean method. If you can remove rocks easily, then that is better, but I've never had easily removable rocks.

Also great to know you're not alone!

 

[tbrown]

Phosphates. I'm guessing you've got high nitrates and 0 phosphates. Try to maintain 0 of both or low amounts of phosphates (0.05-0.10ish) and bring the nitrates down?

Lawnmower Blenny or Starry Blenny eat GHA and Hector's or Court Jester gobies eat GHA but they don't fit the theme...

 

[trophyhimbo]

Thanks guys! Currently nitrates and phosphates are testing at zero, but I'm assuming it's all locked up in the GHA. I have stopped the auto feeder so should be inputting a ton less nutrients. I've started plucking away at the GHA with the much decreased feeding and will measure parameters once the algae isn't growing so robustly and taking it all up.

I can safely remove about a third of the rocks for cleaning, which I'm working my way through. Actually pretty convenient because the majority of the GHA is growing on the top rocks, which are not attached. Figured I will take one rock out at a time, dry it in the sun and kill all the GHA, manually remove the algae, spray with hydrogen peroxide, and then put back into the tank. Repeat with next rock. I wanted to make sure I wasn't disturbing the system too much all at once and removing all the rocks at once... is this too overcautious?

Cleaners package came with turbos and I had one conch already. No urchin yet though. I'll check them out but I don't want them moving my stuff haha

Actually ordered a Starry Blenny from Dr. Reef from a previous suggestion but taking a few weeks to come in! Star dragons sound super cool.

I'm assuming with the UV the dinos won't come back if I lower the nutrients, correct?

In other news, AquaBiomics Gulf Live Reef Rubble and Live Reef Sand (Link) are back in stock so I ordered one of each and will come in a couple weeks!!

 

[tbrown]

Thanks guys! Currently nitrates and phosphates are testing at zero, but I'm assuming it's all locked up in the GHA. I have stopped the auto feeder so should be inputting a ton less nutrients. I've started plucking away at the GHA with the much decreased feeding and will measure parameters once the algae isn't growing so robustly and taking it all up.

I can safely remove about a third of the rocks for cleaning, which I'm working my way through. Actually pretty convenient because the majority of the GHA is growing on the top rocks, which are not attached. Figured I will take one rock out at a time, dry it in the sun and kill all the GHA, manually remove the algae, spray with hydrogen peroxide, and then put back into the tank. Repeat with next rock. I wanted to make sure I wasn't disturbing the system too much all at once and removing all the rocks at once... is this too overcautious?

Cleaners package came with turbos and I had one conch already. No urchin yet though. I'll check them out but I don't want them moving my stuff haha

Actually ordered a Starry Blenny from Dr. Reef from a previous suggestion but taking a few weeks to come in! Star dragons sound super cool.

I'm assuming with the UV the dinos won't come back if I lower the nutrients, correct?

In other news, AquaBiomics Gulf Live Reef Rubble and Live Reef Sand (Link) are back in stock so I ordered one of each and will come in a couple weeks!!

Personally I try to keep nutrients in my tank, just low. 0 can cause problems as easily as too high. I also have Acros which uptake phosphates.

Iron is another thing you can check? Any rust on exposed metal or magnets can be leaching into your tank and causing iron spikes which algae LOVES. I had a magnetic glass scraper in my old tank and I had a huge outbreak of hair algae. Nothing would touch it and I was removing handfuls daily. As soon as I removed the magnet it started dying off and my tank was clear within a week or two.

Not necessarily your problem, but always something to check for. High iron is great algae food.

 

[tautog83]

geez its such a shame they charge so much for that stuff .. need to find a local friend and drop a bax of matrix or rubble in their sump for a month . youre doing the right thing , the uv will help with that the green hue to the rocks is normal since it was dry rock. keep scrubbing the hair algae off , once you get coralline to take over youll be in a better spot

 

[JoJosReef]

Thanks guys! Currently nitrates and phosphates are testing at zero, but I'm assuming it's all locked up in the GHA. I have stopped the auto feeder so should be inputting a ton less nutrients. I've started plucking away at the GHA with the much decreased feeding and will measure parameters once the algae isn't growing so robustly and taking it all up.

I can safely remove about a third of the rocks for cleaning, which I'm working my way through. Actually pretty convenient because the majority of the GHA is growing on the top rocks, which are not attached. Figured I will take one rock out at a time, dry it in the sun and kill all the GHA, manually remove the algae, spray with hydrogen peroxide, and then put back into the tank. Repeat with next rock. I wanted to make sure I wasn't disturbing the system too much all at once and removing all the rocks at once... is this too overcautious?

Cleaners package came with turbos and I had one conch already. No urchin yet though. I'll check them out but I don't want them moving my stuff haha

Actually ordered a Starry Blenny from Dr. Reef from a previous suggestion but taking a few weeks to come in! Star dragons sound super cool.

I'm assuming with the UV the dinos won't come back if I lower the nutrients, correct?

In other news, AquaBiomics Gulf Live Reef Rubble and Live Reef Sand (Link) are back in stock so I ordered one of each and will come in a couple weeks!!

Drying the rocks in the sun might be overcautious or possibly detrimental. Not sure the impact on the rock microbiome, but could result in some die-off inside the rocks. Even getting the rocks back to Zero isn't going to prevent the GHA from coming back fairly quickly--filaments floating around will happily root to the newly clean rock surface. Pulling wet, removing all GHA and surface spray with peroxide will likely get you to the same place while preserving the internal rock microbiome. Then those turbos will get to work!