Reefer

Photo journey of my progress in the reefing hobby.

[kratosbiat]

Updated foto of the Red Sea reefer 170 it is now six years old, many changes. Over the years and such changed rock scape, replaced equipment and so forth.

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Bubbletip anemone decided to move. Made itself a home by my algae scrapper.

[cristalplanetheart]

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[ashotasfireandasdeepastheocean1]

...the deep blue Sea 🌊 🐠🐡🐟 🐠🐡🐟 🌊

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[kratosbiat]

Like my other SPS colony the stn would randomly start on branches closest to power heads, damn never hand issue before what the hell. Parameters were all in ideal range except nitrates crept up to about 16 ppm from 12 ppm. Hard to tell with my test kit being slightly colored blind, it was my best guess. From past experience SPS will brown out in high nitrates, not stn, not lighting that would bleach out corals starting with the side closest to the light, this stn was opposite side/furthest from the light. I finally gave in and ordered an ICP test. I couldn’t figure it out. Now the long waiting.

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This is a toxic rhino stylophora this picture is mid January of 2021 before any stn. This colony was approximately 8”x4” not bad for just over one year of growth in my tank than in early May it started to stn.

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Coralline algae growth out of control, scraping 2-4 times a week just to keep it some what manageable. As my story continues all parameters were in check expect for these few weird things going on. In a few days, I noticed more stn on other corals this was driving me crazy. Reef keeping was never this hard for me even when I had four reef tanks going at the same time and no controllers what so ever. This was just beyond maddening.

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Pocillopora toxic green, suffering from stn. This coral started as a tiny two branch frag one of the few SPS corals I was able to have thrive in my tank until the end of February, 2021. I know sometimes poccis will do a polyp bail-out after spawning, I seen no spawning evens in my tank. I checked all parameters nothing really changed except a small Dino bloom, that was taken care of quickly, than I had a huge coralline algae outbreak. I never it seems it grow as fast as it did in this tank.

[kratosbiat]

Every reef hobbyist all have a type of coral they can not keep in their system, home are acans, some gonis, and some zoanthids. These issues can be solved usually taking a step back and looking at the basics parameters, flow and lighting. And the issues are some what easy to fix. Most reefers strive to keep SPS corals but they are the canary of the reef world, expensive one at that. With this build I truly struggle keeping any kind of sticks in my tank. Every time I think I fix said issue within my tank I try another frag or two and within a day or two they RTN. However, about last September that changed my tank just started to find its groove, I hadn’t really changed anything just started to maintain, instead of always tinkering. (Stability was missing ingredient) easier said than done with a nano tank. To shorten up this story in the end of February my tank started having issues with first my newly acquired SPS pieces some would stn. Not a issue just cut off the part of coral that would stn and glue to plug. Than I started having my bigger colonies start to stn also. Those pics to follow.

[kratosbiat]

After a recent power outage/internet outage, I had no way to monitor my apex, I found myself in need of adding the Apex module. Also, in picture is the Fire Table.

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I wanted more flow in my tank so I picked up a icecap gyre 2k. As you can see it was moving my sand.

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Elegance coral has a new mate.

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Here is the new scrubber operating. Looking forward to algae growth.

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After removing the small refugium I plumed with a small sicce pump and flex hose with a two little fishes ball value for water flow control. I hard plum the “1 drain and 1/2” emergency drain with blue pvc pipes and Schedule 80 90* fittings. Neither drains were glued to allow access to the filter sock holder underneath the scrubber. This was all done on the one year anniversary of the tank April 20, 2020.

[kratosbiat]

Sorry for the lack of updates due too the craziness over the last year and being a essential worker and all left little time for regular life stuff let alone a blog. With that being said I’ll only post stuff that were major events or changes in the reef until I get caught up to today. In this picture I’m removing my small Refugium as my nitrates and phosphates were starting to rise as my chaetomorpha died. I heard great things about algae reactors, this was my chance to install one, Clearwater CW-50.

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This is space monster alvepora. This was another lose due to shipping and accumulation.

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Orange Montipora capricornis is by far favorite coral. Loved the light correcting affect in this image.