Zero Nitrates
I love chalices
Beautiful reef!
That is the coolest rock ever. Nice find!
And the mandarin is amazing.
That is the coolest rock ever. Nice find!
And the mandarin is amazing.
Your Average Joe's 75g Mixed Reef
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ChrisOFL
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Delivery FINALLY came at 10pm (I hate my local UPS) and so I finally was able to get my copepod and phytoplankton cultures started. The copepod culture is a three species mix of Tigriopus, Tisbe, and Apocyclops from Algae Barn and the phytoplankton cultures are started from OceanMajik 4 Species Mix of Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, Isochrysis, and Thalassiosira. IF I end up with and overabundance of phytoplankton or copepods I may consider selling some locally to anyone interested. Here are a couple pictures of the setup. Lighting is a 24" T5 from Sunblaster (great horticulture products).
Daniel@R2R
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Cool! Keep us posted on how those cultures do for you.
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ChrisOFL
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I hope everyone following along had a merry christmas and that santa brought you something good 
An update on the tank: My mandarin did not survive unfortunately. Not from lack of food but rather he just would not hunt for pods (or eat anything for that matter). I tried decapped brine shrimp, arcti-pods, LRS Frenzy, and fish eggs but he never showed interest. I still have my cultures going however, I harvest the pods at least once a week and the phyto I am harvesting every 7-9 days. My tank is overflowing with pods but my clowns enjoy the easy snacks. I started dosing phytoplankton when I started my cultures and I am up to around 5oz daily now. I'm trying to determine if it can be an alternative to carbon dosing with the bonus of being an extra food source for corals, zooplankton, and copepods. I have seen a reduction in the cyano on my sandbed but it's too hard to determine if this is from the cyano eating up the nutrients that started it or if it is from the phytoplankton out-competing it.
For my christmas gift I replaced my TrueLumen Pro striplights with a 28 Cree LED custom lighting. I went with 18 of the new Cree XP-G3 royal blues, 5 hyper violets, and 5 violets. I also rewired my T5 tubes and got rid of the extra ballast. The LEDs are split into 4channels and controlled by a Storm controller from Coralux. The lights have been running for about a week, 50% violet and 33% for the blues, and the corals have been responding very well. I think having more violet light than my previous lighting setup is making a positive difference because the colors on my mushrooms have become more vibrant.
LED/T5 Layout:
ATI Blue+
- RB - RB - V - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - RB -
- RB - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - HV - RB - RB -
I'm also very proud of the growth Ive been able to achieve with my pocillipora because I have just had the worst luck with SPS over the life of this tank. All my other corals thrive but there has always been something about my water that the SPS did not like. This is right around 3 months of growth and it is showing no signs of slowing down. I'm hoping in maybe 6-8 months it will be big enough for me to get a pair of panda gobies.
I'll be doing a water change today and posting an updated FTS after I finish that. I'm planning on buying a nice Battlebox sometime in the future (maybe around tax time), but I really want to make sure I can continue having success with the SPS that I do have. My two acropora corals have been developing some nice colors and have great polyp extension so I'm hoping the water has become more suitable for SPS.
An update on the tank: My mandarin did not survive unfortunately. Not from lack of food but rather he just would not hunt for pods (or eat anything for that matter). I tried decapped brine shrimp, arcti-pods, LRS Frenzy, and fish eggs but he never showed interest. I still have my cultures going however, I harvest the pods at least once a week and the phyto I am harvesting every 7-9 days. My tank is overflowing with pods but my clowns enjoy the easy snacks. I started dosing phytoplankton when I started my cultures and I am up to around 5oz daily now. I'm trying to determine if it can be an alternative to carbon dosing with the bonus of being an extra food source for corals, zooplankton, and copepods. I have seen a reduction in the cyano on my sandbed but it's too hard to determine if this is from the cyano eating up the nutrients that started it or if it is from the phytoplankton out-competing it.
For my christmas gift I replaced my TrueLumen Pro striplights with a 28 Cree LED custom lighting. I went with 18 of the new Cree XP-G3 royal blues, 5 hyper violets, and 5 violets. I also rewired my T5 tubes and got rid of the extra ballast. The LEDs are split into 4channels and controlled by a Storm controller from Coralux. The lights have been running for about a week, 50% violet and 33% for the blues, and the corals have been responding very well. I think having more violet light than my previous lighting setup is making a positive difference because the colors on my mushrooms have become more vibrant.
LED/T5 Layout:
ATI Blue+
ATI Aquablue Special
- RB - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - RB - HV - RB - V - RB - HV - RB - RB -
ATI Coral+
ATI Blue+
ATI Blue+
I'm also very proud of the growth Ive been able to achieve with my pocillipora because I have just had the worst luck with SPS over the life of this tank. All my other corals thrive but there has always been something about my water that the SPS did not like. This is right around 3 months of growth and it is showing no signs of slowing down. I'm hoping in maybe 6-8 months it will be big enough for me to get a pair of panda gobies.
I'll be doing a water change today and posting an updated FTS after I finish that. I'm planning on buying a nice Battlebox sometime in the future (maybe around tax time), but I really want to make sure I can continue having success with the SPS that I do have. My two acropora corals have been developing some nice colors and have great polyp extension so I'm hoping the water has become more suitable for SPS.
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ChrisOFL
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Finished my water change and took a FTS and a short video of me feeding the fish. I see a lot of newer people always wondering how much to feed, what is considered overfeeding, etc. This is how much I feed almost daily with LRS Reef Frenzy. My glass is super dirty because I almost never scrape it, it's been so long coralline has started growing.
FTS 12/26/2017
Feeding Time
FTS 12/26/2017
Feeding Time
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ChrisOFL
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My clowns may be attempting to host my frogspawn and I'm not happy about this. My female was super aggressive with my BTA when she first hosted it. I thought she was going to kill it because she ripped of so many tentacles and I know a coral would not handle this the same. Unfortunately my BTA has been a white shriveled anemone for over 6 months now, I'm honestly not even sure how it is still alive but it is firmly attached to the rock. Hopefully my clowns don't kill my frogspawn, it's one of the first corals I ever purchased. Just felt like sharing my frustrations.
