Mixed reef species guide - lessons learned from trial and error

[zzyz]

I have learnt a lot from all you professional reefers on R2R over the last years. Thank you very much for all your valuable opinions and insights, without which it is impossible to have built my current mixed reef tank. I just shot a video on mixed reef species selection in hope that this might help to shed some light on the niche. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

 

[Cory]

Nice tank. Great video! you must have spent a small fortune on that setup. Whats all your equipment? You beat dinos with ulva? I had ulva and beat dinos once but i wasnt sure if it was the ulva or raising nutrients or both.

 

[zzyz]

Nice tank. Great video! you must have spent a small fortune on that setup. Whats all your equipment? You beat dinos with ulva? I had ulva and beat dinos once but i wasnt sure if it was the ulva or raising nutrients or both.

Thank you Cory. Reef keeping is costly but rewarding, fun and well worth it.

I beat dinos by simply stopping carbon dosing and they were gone a week later. I did the experiment again and confirmed this finding. I suggest cutting the recommended daily dosage by half (if carbon dosing is still needed) and dinos will stay away.

I'm not sure if ulva inhibits dino growth via allelopathy, as I didn't have ulva in place upon dino breakout back then. But ulvas do curb cyano / diatom growth. Although one might not be able to eliminate nuisance algae by ulva alone, adding ulva does help a lot. A combination of tuxedo urchin, turbo snail, rabbit fish and lawnmower blenny will completely keep nuisance algae out of your main tank.

 

[chaostactics]

Ulva as in sea lettuce or something else?

Also how deep is your sand bed with that garden eel?

 

[zzyz]

Ulva as in sea lettuce or something else?

Also how deep is your sand bed with that garden eel?

I see most people use ulva and sea lettuce interchangeably.

My sand bed is 1.2-2.5 inch deep. I find that garden eels do not have high requirements for the depth of sand, even though some say 6 inch is optimal. But they do need very delicate acclimation before they are willing to eat.

 

[spschiebel]

Fantastic video and gorgeous tank! Thank you so much for sharing. I have a new benchmark to aspire to now. I'll be watching this again for sure.

 

[zzyz]

Fantastic video and gorgeous tank! Thank you so much for sharing. I have a new benchmark to aspire to now. I'll be watching this again for sure.

Thank you spschiebel. I wish you a great kick-off of your reefer journey soon! My tank is Red Sea 250. So I might be able to help in your thread If you’d like to know pros and cons of anything specific about Red Sea tanks.

 

[zzyz]

Btw, here are my parameters:

NO3: 6
PO4: 0
ALK: 10
Ca: 440
Mg: 1320
Sal: 1.024
Temp: 75.2

 

[G Santana]

Your tank is what most reefers aspire to.
Just about PERFECT!!!

 

[zzyz]

Your tank is what most reefers aspire to.
Just about PERFECT!!!

Thank you G Santana, much obliged! There is still a small problem that I have been racking my brains to find a solution, and that is how to prevent fish and inverts from stepping on the corals / anemones during feeding. Would be grateful if anyone can shed some light on this.