I got me a 40

mikez104 · Dec 19, 2020

count krunk said:
Glad you got it figured out. I was going to recommend the fijicube overflow box that you ended up getting!

I have the same one on my 40b and it's pretty awesome

Yeah, I'm really happy I redid the tank now while it's just new. The overflow works flawlessly. I can easily match the flow with wherever I set my pump. Three thumbs up.

mikez104 · Dec 22, 2020

So the tank has been back up for a while and I couldn't resist picking up a new coral. I know I should wait be yeah, you know how that goes. It's an Alviopora. I used to have one many years ago. I did a dip and stuck it in. It seems pretty happy now and I can see it grab food particles when I feed the fish. Looks like a bunch of hands reaching up. Weird. I love this stuff.

TatorTaco · May 4, 2021

How's the tank doing nowadays?

mikez104 · May 4, 2021

Well thanks for asking kind sir. The tank has been fine and is mostly the same. I have a few new critters

OG
Alviopora - doing well and growing
Leather - doing well and I did not notice the growth until I looked at the original pics. Actually grew well.
Torch - doing well and I think it is growing.
Clowns - weird as always

Cleaner shrimp - growth slowed down. Keeps getting berried up then drops the eggs.

New
A Dalmatian Molly that I converted to full salt water. It turned totally black with little blue specs... Weird
Frag 1 - no clue what it is. Some kind of green encrusting stuff that has these little orange dots. Very pretty
Frag 2 - again, no clue what it is. Blue with greenish polyps.
I'll try to get some better pics of the frags. Maybe someone knows what the heck they are.

The Molly looked like this when I bought it (not my pic)

and you can see what it looks like now in this video
I still get diatoms and a bit of cyano. Can't seem to grow coraline algae either. I did start with all dry rock though so I'm sure that has something to do with it.

mikez104 · May 4, 2021

These are the ones I have no ID for. This one is blue base green polyps. Really hard to photo.

And not a clue what this is either. But I like it

mikez104 · Aug 26, 2021

Sad update. RIP Alviopora, green with red dot frag, clownfish, molly and probably torch. First clown somehow got into the overflow and stuck in the gate valve. Second clown just went carpet surfing and I found him too late. I have a different thread to try and ID if I have dinos. I think that may be what is killing the coral. Sometime I think I should just take it down.

Johnboy3886 · Aug 27, 2021

Sorry to hear. The harder it gets the better it feels when you turn it around. We all go threw it. Keep your head up. I just got home to find a frogspawn frag bailing out. Last week is was stoked because it has 2 baby heads. Do the best you can, don’t over react, and be patient. You will figure it out

mikez104 · Aug 27, 2021

Johnboy3886 said:
Sorry to hear. The harder it gets the better it feels when you turn it around. We all go threw it. Keep your head up. I just got home to find a frogspawn frag bailing out. Last week is was stoked because it has 2 baby heads. Do the best you can, don’t over react, and be patient. You will figure it out

Thanks man. With help from some fine people here, I have a plan to move forward and hopefully kill this crap. I hope your frogspawn makes it. I hate when you see something all the sudden start going south. Good luck!

Sebastiancrab · Aug 27, 2021

Sorry to hear Mike. I have had losses too but mostly from bringing home diseased fish. I had one clown tile surf. Got a lid after that. I made one from a Walmart window frame kit and ordered the mesh from BRS. Easy to put together.
On the dinos, had that also. I turned off the red and green lights, lowered the rest for several days and then ramped them back up. I turned off the skimmer at times and siphoned and scrubbed with the water changes. It has worked. Hang in there.

fishface NJ · Aug 27, 2021

I had dinos with my 40B (not my current tank). The old 40B had developed a crack on the black frame. So after getting a new tank which wasn't easy last year due to covid supplies, I decided to bleach some of my rocks and I order some ocean cured rocks from KP Aquatics. Good luck!

mikez104 · Aug 27, 2021

fishface NJ said:
I had dinos with my 40B (not my current tank). The old 40B had developed a crack on the black frame. So after getting a new tank which wasn't easy last year due to covid supplies, I decided to bleach some of my rocks and I order some ocean cured rocks from KP Aquatics. Good luck!

I think if I did it again, I'd go with liverock like that. I chose dryrock because of the aptasia that took me out of the hobby years ago but I think the lack of biodiversity? makes things harder in the end.

fishface NJ · Aug 27, 2021

I do think it does make it harder

Sebastiancrab · Aug 27, 2021

fishface NJ said:
I do think it does make it harder

Me neither. It helps if you have live sand and get a bit of live rock to start with.

mikez104 · Feb 5, 2022

Decided to do an update as I see the last update was late August when I was battling the dinos. Well, I got a UV sterilizer and that wiped out the ones that migrate to the water column at night in short order. After that I found that I also have the ones that migrate into the substrate at night. UV didn't work for that. Some steps that I tried to get rid of them.

Removed as much as I could which also removed a lot of the substrate
Stopped water changes
Turned off skimmer
Dosed phosphates and other additives
Dosed bacteria
Increased feeding

None of these seemed to do the trick then someone mentioned dosing silicates so I figured I'd try it. It is supposed to create a diatom bloom which smothers the dinos. It worked! I finally beat that crap or at least made it manageable.

Here are some pics of my current inhabitants.

Royal Gramma has grown up