New 32 gal Oceanic Biocube Build

[NY_Caveman]

For all corals I do this

• Float bag for 15-20 minutes
• Dip in bowl #1 Bayer solution (Bayer is nasty stuff, consider Melafix as a better option)
• Rinse in bowl #2 tank water - I also squirt the coral with a turkey blaster and see if anything nasty comes off.
• Add to tank

I never drip acclimate corals like I do with fish and other mobile critters. I would never dip an anemone (including mushrooms).

Most common soft corals are VERY tolerant of tank parameters. They actually like the water a little dirty (Nitrate and Phosphate). Since they do not have skeletons like LPS and SPS, They are forgiving of Calcium and Alkalinity swings. One thing with soft corals though is they defend themselves through toxins. It is always good to have a bag of activated carbon in your filtration area to soak these up.

 

[Ranjib]

I do straight dip acclimation (for 30-46 minutes) followed by revive dip and then detach the plug from frag , and then the frag goes somewhere less light for a week or two. Then they are glued to their permanent location

 

[Judi M]

Wow! "Ask and you shall receive" lol you are all awesome!

For all corals I do this

• Float bag for 15-20 minutes
• Dip in bowl #1 Bayer solution (Bayer is nasty stuff, consider Melafix as a better option)
• Rinse in bowl #2 tank water - I also squirt the coral with a turkey blaster and see if anything nasty comes off.
• Add to tank

I never drip acclimate corals like I do with fish and other mobile critters. I would never dip an anemone (including mushrooms).

Most common soft corals are VERY tolerant of tank parameters. They actually like the water a little dirty (Nitrate and Phosphate). Since they do not have skeletons like LPS and SPS, They are forgiving of Calcium and Alkalinity swings. One thing with soft corals though is they defend themselves through toxins. It is always good to have a bag of activated carbon in your filtration area to soak these

So adding chemipure now would be a good idea?!
Any wait time needed between adding chemipure and adding these corals?

 

[12gallonsofhex]

Nah . Have patience.. my first year was full of these type of issues. Till the tank establishes.. and develops its own bacterial/micor fauna population you'll have some of these issue.. just keep chugging along and keep doing weekly water changes and only react if something really bad happens.. like something dies or you develop some persistent algae issue etc.
Unless you are very lucky, you are likey to hit diatom/dino/cyano one by one... but none of them should be unmanagable if you act promptly and act persistently by sustainable means (no heavy chemical use ..no sudden chemistry changes). my 2 cents

+1. Great advice imo

 

[Judi M]

Slow and steady is the key. If you do it right lay down a stocking plan. In between adding new additions you will have time to research and learn.
I have not moved into RFA's yet, I have always had BTA's. I never dip anenmomes. I can ping a couple of folks that have experience with them. @Ron Reefman @mta_morrow @Katrina71

Thank you for the help and tagging people familiar with these!

I love researching ( I'm a nerd) just wishing i had more free time.
And yes after this add of rfa and ricordia, I'm done for awhile, while i research coral compatibility, how not to have every coral on its own island, which ones won't take over tank etc.. Lil disappointed as i loved having kenya tree, pulsing zenia, frogspawn in my old 14g, but reading, sounds like they could easily take over.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I think a frogspawn would be a nice choice. But I like them.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I agree with @Ranjib. I always remove the frag plug. Most of the undesirable stuff comes in on those. I also do not like the look of frag plugs in my own tank. No offense to anyone else’s style.

 

[Ranjib]

Thank you for the help and tagging people familiar with these!

I love researching ( I'm a nerd) just wishing i had more free time.
And yes after this add of rfa and ricordia, I'm done for awhile, while i research coral compatibility, how not to have every coral on its own island, which ones won't take over tank etc.. Lil disappointed as i loved having kenya tree, pulsing zenia, frogspawn in my old 14g, but reading, sounds like they could easily take over.

dont keep xenia (or blue xenia), clove polyp , gsp. They encrust rock, which is why its hard to get rid of them. Frogspawn, hammer etc may grow fast, but if you want, its relatively easy to frag them off. They grow big, which is the main reason I would hesitate to keep them , since I dont want to relocate corals in my tank for several years, and I also want space for other things.
Zoa's are good choice, can lords are good choice, there are some cyphastrea and leptoseris that will be good. Remember, other than your isolated island, you can also your rockscape the kinda segregate the corals, they all avoid shaded places, so wherever you have two rock faces separated by a shaded place, they are perfect to keep separate fast growing corals.
Another point to consider is that you can keep some smaller polyp softies, like some zoa or cloves or some monties that are encrusting on the base , while grow some branching hard corals on the same rock, its very much like you have a big tree (branching coral) and grass/shrubs in the ground (encrusting corals, cloves/zoas). This work out becuase the shade produced by the branching corals inhibit the encrusting coral to grow towards its base and encrusting itself. You have to rememver to add the branching coral first, and then introduce the encrusting one later, and the whole thing needs to be done in a way that considers those corals growth rates.

Anyway.. dont want to side track the thread , but I think rockscaping and coral placement is a very involved thing and I was only able to understand some aspects of it after couple of years of reef keeping when I realized how individual corals grow and how flow, light & rockscape controls their direction of growth/sweeper tentacles etc.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hi Judi. Welcome back into the hobby. I can feel your enthusiasm in your writing! I'm an early riser and just saw Jay's 'ping' for me.

I love your rockscape even though it's VERY different than mine. BTW, I have a 40g cube that I built and it's full of zoas and Rock Flower Anemones (RFAs). You may find some ideas in my build thread (link down below in my signature). BTW, I drilled holes in all my rocks so frag plugs would fit in them snugly before I put the rocks in the tank. That way they are easy to move around before they grow off the plug and onto the rocks. My tank is full of frag plugs, but you really don't see them for long.

There is also a link to a thread about RFAs. They are pretty easy to keep, but I'll advise you to take your time adding new specimens to your tank too soon.

You have a new set up and you've made it through the nitrogen cycle, which is key. But now you'll have some time, maybe a couple of months, that you'll have outbreaks of diatom algae (mostly on the glass) and maybe even a bacteria bloom. Don't get overly concerned about them. Just do your best to keep things cleaned up of the glass and use a turkey baster to blow stuff off the rocks and any corals you have. These are very normal phases that almost all new tanks go through.

Again, take your time and don't rush the process. Maybe you've heard the old saying, "Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank!" BTW, I'm not into using chemicals to treat issues. My system has a 30g refugium/sump and my entire filtration system is just a filter sock, the macro algae in the small fuge and a skimmer. I have a reactor and GFO, carbon, Chemipure and more at the ready if something should get out of hand. But I almost never use any of them and certainly none of them as a regular part or even long term part of my system.

 

[Judi M]

Any idea if this is a good or bad starfish? 1/ 2 inch hitchhiker from corals

 

[NY_Caveman]

It looks like a ministar and I have probably 100 in my little tank. Very beneficial. They get into every nook and cranny and clean up.

 

[Judi M]

The place I rcvd the coral from said it was a baby bristle star and good too!
Acclimated rock flower anemone and ricordia (one of the RFA keeps moving around still the others seem happy where they are. I used the float, then drip method (and salinity matched).
Meanwhile, our female clown kept jumping at us and TWICE landed on the floor during placement! Not sure if it was territorial or is now associating fingers with food (may need to rethink the idea of allowing them to take pellets from fingers). Turned wavemaker & powerhead on for a few minutes here and there and now 4 hrs later they are back on. Have lights off till tmrw. and covered front of tank from indirect light from windows.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Judi, nice little star!

So how big is your RFA? And I assume you have a sandy bottom? How deep in the sand?

I've taken many of my bigger ones and put them in a PVC pipe end cap. BTW PVC end caps are cheap and can easily be cut shorter if your sand isn't deep enough. They come in different sizes so you can find one that's about the correct size for the foot to fit into and have a bit of room to grow. After the RFA is attached to the bottom inside of the end cap, you can place it in the sand and push the end cap in until it almost disappears. If left like that for a couple of weeks, it's very unlikely the RFA will move. They like being in the sand and having their foot in a hard hole they can hide in. After a 2 or 3 weeks, I can push the end cap all the way into the sand so it really can't be seen and every RFA I've done this to has stayed in place. Even when pulled back out of the sand and moved to a different tank! There is a bit more about the idea in the RFA discussion linked in the signature at the bottom of this post.

 

[Abdullah Al Faruq]

The colours are awesome. I think a zoa garden would look great in there. The only thing we need now is some patience.

 

[Ron Reefman]

The colours are awesome. I think a zoa garden would look great in there. The only thing we need now is some patience.

A zoa garden? You mean kind of like this?

 

[RobW]

@Judi M! Love your tank. I'm building a 280 g right now but, my son who is just two and a half years old wants this tank like right now. I was thinking about getting a 50 gallon SC Aquarium just to keep him occupied while I'm doing this build. I must say that these smaller reef tanks are quite cool!

 

[Judi M]

Judi, nice little star!

So how big is your RFA? And I assume you have a sandy bottom? How deep in the sand?

I've taken many of my bigger ones and put them in a PVC pipe end cap. BTW PVC end caps are cheap and can easily be cut shorter if your sand isn't deep enough. They come in different sizes so you can find one that's about the correct size for the foot to fit into and have a bit of room to grow. After the RFA is attached to the bottom inside of the end cap, you can place it in the sand and push the end cap in until it almost disappears. If left like that for a couple of weeks, it's very unlikely the RFA will move. They like being in the sand and having their foot in a hard hole they can hide in. After a 2 or 3 weeks, I can push the end cap all the way into the sand so it really can't be seen and every RFA I've done this to has stayed in place. Even when pulled back out of the sand and moved to a different tank! There is a bit more about the idea in the RFA discussion linked in the signature at the bottom of this post.

Everyone looks happy this morning, the lil wanderer decided it wants the back of tank so fine! Lol. 3 on side of rocks (1 shaded, over hang, 2 at rock base), and 1 in back in crevice between rocks.

 

[Judi M]

March 28 parameters

Ammonia Salifert=0 api=.025
Calcium= 420
Alk= 8.6
Mg= 1110
Nitrate= 3ppm
Phosphate= .02
Salinity= 1.023 or 1.024

Added 2 ricordea and 4 rfa yesterday march 29 and 1/4 cap of phytoplankton

Water change later today or tmrw
(Adding for my own records back up until i also get excel sheet going)

 

[mta_morrow]

Judi, nice little star!

So how big is your RFA? And I assume you have a sandy bottom? How deep in the sand?

I've taken many of my bigger ones and put them in a PVC pipe end cap. BTW PVC end caps are cheap and can easily be cut shorter if your sand isn't deep enough. They come in different sizes so you can find one that's about the correct size for the foot to fit into and have a bit of room to grow. After the RFA is attached to the bottom inside of the end cap, you can place it in the sand and push the end cap in until it almost disappears. If left like that for a couple of weeks, it's very unlikely the RFA will move. They like being in the sand and having their foot in a hard hole they can hide in. After a 2 or 3 weeks, I can push the end cap all the way into the sand so it really can't be seen and every RFA I've done this to has stayed in place. Even when pulled back out of the sand and moved to a different tank! There is a bit more about the idea in the RFA discussion linked in the signature at the bottom of this post.

I used this method and it’s genius!

I’ve moved 2 of my 3 several times.

 

[Judi M]

I forgot to mention/ ask: yesterday when adding coral, our female clown ( from our bonded pair) kept attacking my husband, jumping up at him, head butting, and twice landed on the floor. She seems fine (despite 4 ft drop) but how do we prevent this everytime we clean and do water changes? Never had this when i kept clowns years ago. :-(