Surprise, Another SPS Tank (1 Viewer)

[spsick]

Reporting back in my crackpot idea:

Made a little sand siphon filter assembly to work on detritus and not have to burn through 20gal of new water in the process.

Hooked up a Sicce 1.5 to a 1/2” threaded RO canister with a 5 micron sediment filter spilling into a bucket. Worked very well at pulling the detritus and keeping the water output perfectly clean.

Downsides:

-hard to get siphon going as the pump creates no vacuum. Had to fill the canister and still suck start it which was precarious.

-clogged the filter by the time I had ran about 5 gallons. Perhaps I can wash and reuse.

Ultimately the juice was not worth the squeeze. If I had a bigger tank I would work harder on this but honestly it was more work that it was worth to save some gallons worth of salt.

 

[spsick]

I can never capture just how cool this coral is. The baby blue base, navy blue corallites, and green tips.

 

[Livestuff]

Love this tank. I still have no plans for sticks but I do love the look..

 

[spsick]

Made a few subtle changes that turned out to wake up a few stagnant corals nicely. I know better, as 1 change at a time tells you what works and what causes issues. Pretty minor stiff no changes in method so I felt pretty confident.

-made a DIY feeding ring as I haven’t had one since the magnet rusted on the cheapo TLF one. Now all the pellets go into the tank vs 40% floating straight to the overflow. Just used a magnet and glued a slice of 3” PVC to it. I added a feeding so it does 3 small ones throughout the day

-added an hour to my all bulbs on period so now I’m at 7hrs all and 10hrs for 2.

-stopped dosing Acropower and started feeding frozen mysis a few times a week.

-upped AWC from 7g/week to 10g- my feeling is this probably had the most impact being my relatively small tank is packed with sps and depletes elements quickly.

All things must be working as my Alk dipped to 6.7, Cal to 380, nitrate to 0.0 and Phosphate to 0.3 so corals are sucking everything up even though I’m feeding MORE. I have a baby 2” purple tang in QT to hopefully feed the corals more and I’m dosing Nitrate to keep it off zero as my corals are a bit pale.

 

[spsick]

I cut 2 branches off here for Carl in July and have a solid 2”+ of growth on the 2 sprouts that came out of the cut location. I may need to frag this thing more to encourage growth on the stagnant parts of the colony.

Sorry the color is washed out from the surrounding corals and crappy iPhone.

 

[Jake]

I cut 2 branches off here for Carl in July and have a solid 2”+ of growth on the 2 sprouts that came out of the cut location. I may need to frag this thing more to encourage growth on the stagnant parts of the colony.

Sorry the color is washed out from the surrounding corals and crappy iPhone.

Let it grow, let it grow

 

[spsick]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Baby purple tang graduated QT Friday and after a day in the acclimation box I let him loose. He immediately circled the Kole tang 3 times his size and then started schooling with him haha.

Some pics:

 

[Jake]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Baby purple tang graduated QT Friday and after a day in the acclimation box I let him loose. He immediately circled the Kole tang 3 times his size and then started schooling with him haha.

Some pics:

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Corals look great. Is that some sort of blue sponge? Looks very nice

 

[spsick]

Corals look great. Is that some sort of blue sponge? Looks very nice

Yeah it’s blue collospongia. Looks cool from above but more of a soft lavender from the viewing panes. It’s pretty invasive and grows right over healthy Sps. You can never scrub it all off, kinda like Xenia. Would not recommend.

 

[Jake]

Yeah it’s blue collospongia. Looks cool from above but more of a soft lavender from the viewing panes. It’s pretty invasive and grows right over healthy Sps. You can never scrub it all off, kinda like Xenia. Would not recommend.

Did you put it in there on purpose? My upcoming tank is going to be SPS dominant so I will keep that in mind. Too bad it’s aggressive cause it looks good against the other colors

 

[spsick]

Did you put it in there on purpose? My upcoming tank is going to be SPS dominant so I will keep that in mind. Too bad it’s aggressive cause it looks good against the other colors

Yep it is circulating around the club. Bought it years ago because WOW COOL A PHOTOSYNTHETIC SPONGE hahaha

 

[Jonty]

Great looking tank, I used to love the blue sponge, I never had it close to SPS to see the growth over everything behavior, great info to know!

 

[Fishfoo]

iPhone FTS today
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Hawkins I was able to replace a while back picking up steam although color could be better.
I run a very white spectrum which is probably part of it but I’m still not in the groove with this tank. Not sure what I’m missing but overall coral health is not what I know the be optimal. Not much nighttime PE or encrusting and a number of acros not growing at all (while Oregon Tort grows fast haha). Maybe it’s the bubble algae outcompeting coral for nutrients. Maybe my skimmer is too big. Not sure but it’s kinda driving me crazy that I can’t figure it out. Basically just trying to recreate the magic my 40gal had and everything is essentially the same.
View attachment 59316

BC Bubblebath Unicorn starting to grow
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Flashlight just glowing and somehow the fasting growing acro in my tank. Maybe I need to get more smoothies.
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Flashlight grew like a weed for myself as well! Very underrated coral for both color and growth pattern

 

[spsick]

Purple Tang is algae eating bubble algae!! Thanks @Davy Jones for the suggestion!!

 

[Pico bam]

Purple Tang is algae eating bubble algae!! Thanks @Davy Jones for the suggestion!!

I was thinking of buying like 4-5 fox faces. Just to see if I could get a couple to eat bubble algea. Now that I think about it my purple tang eats bubble algea too. But the fish is far to big for my frag tanks. Are purple tangs eating bubble algea a thing?

 

[spsick]

I was thinking of buying like 4-5 fox faces. Just to see if I could get a couple to eat bubble algea. Now that I think about it my purple tang eats bubble algea too. But the fish is far to big for my frag tanks. Are purple tangs eating bubble algea a thing?

I guess, when presented for 1 major form of algae and not given nori to get lazy?

 

[spsick]

Solar flare millie really hit the ground running! Couple weeks ago when I mounted it and today:

 

[Jake]

Solar flare millie really hit the ground running! Couple weeks ago when I mounted it and today:

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Millies are my favorite used to have a beautiful red one. Once my tank is up and running hoping for a millie dominant tank.

 

[spsick]

I guess I should do something about this dang monti taking up 20% of my tank but I just love mature colonies

 

[Jake]

I guess I should do something about this dang monti taking up 20% of my tank but I just love mature colonies

View attachment 60796

Awesome