Red Sea Reefer 200xl build

[monti mike]

The Radion Gen 5 replacement part arrived. The light was making a popping sound because the bottom screws were over tightened and the plastic was slowly cracking. If you have a Gen 5 check the bottom for cracks and email Ecotech. They should send you a replacement bottom and the tool to replace it.

 

[monti mike]

Fixed! I timed myself to see how long it would take - only 8 minutes. Not too bad.

Before: (notice the cracks around the left screws

After:

 

[monti mike]

This conch may be my favorite invert. He cracks me ups and here he is tonight with his eyes poking out of the sand. He looks like a little alien.

 

[monti mike]

I’m going to try out Red Sea AB + It’ll be interesting to see if it has any impact on growth and color.

 

[monti mike]

I also re-homed my Pygmy dwarf angel, Lady Mary. I’ve had her for about 3 years and over the last 2 weeks she started getting extremely aggressive. She’s always nipped at polyps, but it never bothered me. It was never enough stress to the corals where I was concerned, so u let that slide. It’s also normal angelfish behavior, so I can’t fault her for being herself.

The aggression to all her other tank mates is new. She was biting , dive bombing, and harassing everyone. She would even circle my anemone island with the clowns in it like a shark circling. The aggression kept getting worse so I made the tough decision to bring her in to my LFS.

I really trust my LFS and I know they’ll find her a great home. I’ll miss that little fish. She was so much fun and brought so much personality to the tank.

Good luck Mary, you will be missed!

 

[monti mike]

A few tank pics from this evening:

 

[monti mike]

A few more

 

[mclayj]

I notice you are using the Radion mounting bracket. Would you be able to let me know how high off the water the Radion sits? I’ve searched online and can’t find an answer. Thanks!

 

[monti mike]

I notice you are using the Radion mounting bracket. Would you be able to let me know how high off the water the Radion sits? I’ve searched online and can’t find an answer. Thanks!

No problem. It’s 6.5” from the the bottom of the light to the top of my cheap egg crate lid. Then the top of the egg crate lid to the water line is 1.5”. So 8” from water line to the light.

 

[monti mike]

I wonder what this could be...?!

 

[monti mike]

It’s a mushroom! (Don’t really want it! Haha)

 

[monti mike]

I just got my order from indo pacific sea farms (IPSF) today. I didn’t use live rock for this build so I want to add some diversity. Yeah, I added some sand and rock from my 10 gallon, but I felt like it couldn’t hurt to add some variety.

 

[monti mike]

All the critters, snails and hermits made it. I was just looking at the rocks with a flashlight and there’s so much life!

I’m really curious what that bag of plankton will do. It looked pretty nasty in the bag but it didn’t have any weird smells. It may be alive but I know plankton usually won’t survive long enough to “grow up” without a special plankton friendly set up. Im assuming most of it will die, get eaten or be removed by the filtration. I removed the filter sock and turned off the skimmer to try to give it a chance. I’m doubtful anything will make it but who knows!

I guess time will tell! I’d recommend IPSF if you’re starting with dry rock and want to add some life that you’d get from live rock.

So far so good... no aiptasia *fingers are crossed and knocks on wood*

 

[monti mike]

It’s a mushroom! (Don’t really want it! Haha)

I gave away this mushroom, a green toadstool and some extra sunny D zoas to a local reefer. Am I already convincing myself I need a bigger tank?

 

[monti mike]

This brain coral is growing like crazy now!

3/7/2020:

4/25/2020:

 

[monti mike]

The tank has been wet for 2 months now. Coralline algae is already growing on the rocks, glass and and vortech pumps so that’s a good sign that things are progressing well. The corals are all looking pretty good and growing. Some of the acros are looking a little pale and I think that’s due to the newness of the system and low nutrients. Phosphates are still showing as 0.00 on the Hanna ULR phosphate test. I’m adding red sea AB+, phyto, oysterfeast and reef roids to add some nutrients into the system. I’ll just watch phosphates and nitrates closely and start cutting back if I need to.

Time to sit back, wait, and watch everything grow! I’m looking forward to the day when I can’t see any frag plugs!

 

[monti mike]

I’m doing a little night time feeding and found the emerald crab just hanging out on the scoly. I have my eyes on you Mr. Crab.... stick to algae and leftover food please

I know you’re already wanting a dendro update too (you’re probably not). The one remaining polyp is doing great and it’s fully extending. I haven’t had to take it out and feed it for probably 2 weeks now. I was removing it and putting it in a Tupperware container and putting one small piece of food on it to get it to eat and keep other creatures from stealing the food. If you have a coral that looks dead don’t give up on it! It may make a comeback!

I’m loving the polyp extension on this acro. And look who‘s making another cameo appearance... he moved here in the 5 min I spent typing this up!

 

[monti mike]

Don’t you just love how nerite snails get some fresh air

 

[monti mike]

I ordered a profilux controller yesterday. I was really on the fence between the 4e and 4. The 4e is more affordable and comes with the controller unit, ph probe, temperature probe and a power bar. That covers really everything that you’d need. The 4 costs more and has all the same equipment included with the 4e plus a conductivity and redox

I was thinking it through it through and decided if I’m going to spend the money I should just get the two extra probes. Conductivity and redox may be good as an insurance plan on the tank.

Conductivity probe for salinity-

I’m not planning on replacing the sump or auto top off, and the auto top off that comes with the reefer tank relies on a float switch. These can fail, so this is where the conductivity probe comes in. It can notify me if the salinity isn’t in the right range for whatever reason and I can make the necessary adjustments.

Redox probe -

For redox... it’s something that I never have thought about before, so that will be interesting to monitor. Im not going to chase a number with redox - I’ll just use it as data and look at trends over time. Could this help prevent “old tank syndrome”?

I’ll also be using the controller to run a reverse schedule chaeto reactor eventually. My phosphate and nitrate are too low to get it running now so when the time comes I’ll add the reactor and that should help with ph swings at night too.

 

[monti mike]

Looks like my emerald crab is expecting babies