Jeff's 150 Build - The Salt Box

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Looking good bro!

 

[CastAway]

Looking good bro!

Thank you Sir.

(If anyone has an ID on the little zoa, I'm very curios...)

 

[CastAway]

I think I'm in all the right ranges, let me know.
Sg - 1.0255
Temp - 79.8
pH - 8.2
dKH - 11.5
Ca - 440
Mg - 1340
PO4 - .03
NO3 - 0.0

These are consistently my numbers. If anything the dKH may be trending up...

Running a calcium reactor, using Red Sea Coral Pro salt, not dosing, barely feeding, manually topping off w RODI about two gallons per day...

 

[TJ's Reef]

Numbers look good Jeff, I'll be sending you stuff to mess them all up.....lol


Cheers, Todd

 

[CastAway]

Numbers look good Jeff, I'll be sending you stuff to mess them all up.....lol Cheers, Todd

Yeah, I'm in a panic about it - geared up and excited though. The numbers may be good, but this dang GHA is wearing on me. Was thinking about darkening the tank out to see it it made a diff. Snails have gone lethargic it seems, went crazy for a day and made a big dent, but now are just, well, not doing anything. I'm not really sure running the GFO reactor is going to affect the GHA growth if the PO4 is not in the water column but bound in the rock surface. We'll see.

 

[CastAway]

Picked up a midas blenny - one of my all time favorites! Red sea variety they told me.

 

[CastAway]

Crappy video, but, beautiful fish. [video=youtube_share;j6265cHDhrE]http://youtu.be/j6265cHDhrE[/video]

 

[CastAway]

Nerve racking first mod. I made a step-by-step plan, laid everything out in my living room, and hacked into my main return line. I cut in a new 1-1/2" tee with a valve and union for my new NextReef reactor. Half way through it really hit me that I had no back-up plan, no alternative, no going back easily. It went quickly, no hitches, no leaks - now gently tumbling about eight tablespoons of GFO.

 

[CastAway]

I’m seeing some growth on my “Candy Apple Birdsnest” (Seriatopora caliendrum perhaps?), which was gifted to me on May 16th from OldMan (Thanks again Buddy!). At least one of the tips is definitely splitting, and developing new branches! Where there was one easily discernible single bright white tip beneath the polyps, there are now four. Easy to see, hard to photograph. The plug is just resting on top of a rock, and a couple times now it’s fallen due to the flow in my tank. I’d really like to glue it to a spot I have picked out, but don’t know how to do that yet. I’ve been thinking to use a tiny portion of the TLF two part epoxy stick I have, combined with a tiny bit of CA gel. Does one touch the coral with your hands however, or should I find and use some forceps? I’d hate to damage it, even a little. Can it all happen under water, as I cannot remove the large piece of rock easily?

 

[spspirate]

Follow the directions for the epoxy. Then take some epoxy and put about a marble size of it some where compatible to where it is now or if you like it there. Grab the frag plug and twist a little and push down the coral to the epoxy until you feel it lock on there. Try not to touch the coral because it could stress it out.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Hey Jeff, once you decide on a good location clean area on LR with a toothbrush. Then you can easily just break or cut off the frag from plug, holding with wet fingers pat the bottom end dry with a towel place a 1/8" to 3/16" blob of CA gel glue on the end and somewhat firmly place and lightly twist on and off a couple of times transferring some of the glue to the LR. Then remove frag from water one last time to reapply a little more glue and simply twist into position, hold there for 10-15 seconds or so....... Ta Da!
The coral is fairly resilient to handling this way as long as your hands are not dry or have chemicals of some type on them. For fuzzy sticks like Birdsnests, Cats Paws and Millis you can wave or flush water with your hand to help polyps retract first before handling.

Cheers, Todd

 

[CastAway]

Thanks guys! Bought the gel tonight. Going to try this weekend I think.

Just want to say how much fun I'm having - 77 days running now. For fish I have a sapphire damsel, two clowns, a starry blenny, a midas blenny, and a very small yellow tang (not a fan of the yellow tang myself, but when my wife wants to buy a fish, I'm all for it!)

Parameters look good I think, the last bit of algae is fading away. I've lost several turbo snails, and am a little concerned about that. I have not seen my emerald crab in over a month - assuming the worst there. My fire shrimp is actually showing himself the last couple days, and it looked to be a little beat up actually - it had a little discolored section on it's tail and carapace. Hope it does well, it's really a favorite of mine.

The Caulerpa has gone absolutely crazy, and it a real pain to trim back - I dread it. It's impossible to keep it confined, and has pretty much ruled out my hope of keeping a variety of different macros at this point - I really wanted mostly reds.

All in all though, having a blast - just fascinated with it.

 

[CastAway]

Found this ricordea, a yuma I think, in the bargain section at my lfs. It was not attached to anything so I placed it under some perforated plastic on a shell hoping that it will attach. I've watched it eat, and although it's a little deflated today, I hope it does well. I think this one is in the process of splitting. There's at least one other mouth (not shown) and what appears to be a second disk, but still connected. I plan a small ricordea garden, cliché I know, but I like it.

 

[Rob.D]

Ricordia gardens are awesome, nice buy!

 

[CastAway]

Thanks Rob! So excited to be picking up a piece here and there. So far, a green monti cap, three polyps of unidentified zoas, that frag of candy apple birdsnest the Buddy gave me, a small alveopora and now this mushroom. :smile:

 

[CastAway]

Not much to post lately. Added a dozen tiny blue legged hermits, cleaned half the sump, changed my light - increased the blues, decreased the whites. Really wondering when the coralline might start to take hold. Have several large chips laying on the bottom, wondering if I should pulverize and scatter it.

 

[CastAway]

106 days running.
Dealing with high alk - running my Ca reactor with not enough consumption I think.
Trying to get my NO3 up - just a little, .5 would be nice.
Picked up several nice $10 zoa frags - I'm sure they have names, but I don't really care what they are.
Lost some turbo's - starved them to death.
Picked up a hippo tang - screwed up my stocking plan/order.
Still tuning my whites down and blues up - dialing in.

Carry on.....

 

[ifrizk]

wow impressed, is this your first build? If so, this is a job well done.

 

[ifrizk]

Went back over the first page, first time through just looking at pictures. But I see it is "This is my first build. I’ve made a lot of mistakes already, erroneous assumptions and so on, but press on. Please, feel free to comment. Be gentle." Great job CastAway.

 

[CastAway]

Well thanks ifrizk! It's been a long road. First build, first SW tank.