ReeferFulton's most SPECTACULARLY AWESOMEST tank build(s) EVAHHH!!!!

[Rice Reef]

We want an update...

[Bblinks]

Yes please! Pictures pictures pictures!

[reeferfulton]

You guys are right.
I will put one together soon.

Thanks for the poke

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by reeferfulton

So far the only thing that seems odd when following Randy's recipe is i seem to use way more Mg then what randy said i would

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread ...

What salt do you use ?

I find with my IO I don't need to dose Mag, but that'll change soon as I'm going to use 2-part very soon, instead of Seachem powders, which have trace amounts of Mag and others

[reeferfulton]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread ...

What salt do you use ?

I use IO.
I started with 50 lbs of dry rock so maybe I am still playing catchup .

OK finally an update .
I have had really good growth over the last few months . But I have not had really good colors. Actually really poor color.
I have noticed that I really only get polyp extension on a few of my corals as well.

Talking with Brad and Wayne it seems unanimous that i needed to reduce my feeding to try and color up my sps . Which besides green are all roughly shades of browny red.

So I cut way back on my feeding. Well when i did this I quickly noticed that my flame angel likes picking at almost all of my coral LOL. never spotted it before , but now that he is hungry it was obvious.

Also talking with Wayne I have come to the conclusion that my lighting program on the mitras was way off for optimum color .

So now week 2 after my recent changes I have noticed a slight improvement in color i think.. Some of my browny corals are showing signs of green i think lol. And the new growth tips are a light shade of the right color they are supposed to be .

I have also increased my weekly water changes from 10 gallons up to 20 gallons each week.
I no longer run GFO for the last month . As the biopellets seem to be holding there own on the phosphate front.






So I went on the mission to catch the flame angel .. Probably the most shy fish in my tank FYI .
1. Tried just netting him.. .. lol not a chance . cant even look at the net and he would bolt to the back corner.
2.tried the home made trap useing a coke bottle .. Caught my sailfin tang ....
3. Got a really big clear poly back , built a structure out of rodi tubing and sewed fishing line around the edge to form a pull string to sinch the bag up .. Again caught the sailfin Tang.....lol
4.tried moving what rock i could. This damn fish would hide in the most difficult place . i could not even see him..
5. Tried turning the lights on full boar in the middle of the night.. Nope .. didnt work.
6 . Borrowed an official trap from Brad. Day one every fish in the tank was in it but the flame.
day 2 again every fish . multiples at a time even.
later in day 2 , i put in a new era algae grazer on the suction cup.. this peaked his interest at least . all the fish were in and out but him.. Then after around 1.5 hrs . he went in and i was ready ..



It felt so damn good to finally catch him.. I will be trading him in for a wrasse of some sort tomorrow i hope ..

Noticed as of late (with my reduced feeding ) that my skimmer is pulling in less. infact I have turned it more towards wet as i was no longer pulling anything .. So

I will give it another few weeks and see if my colors continue to improve .
And hopefully i will start to have more PE with the angel gone .
wish me luck

[gregzz4]

Good luck with the dosing, and great catch
I'll bet if you weren't after him, he would have been in every trap you tried

[Rice Reef]

Originally Posted by reeferfulton

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Jon, congrats in catching the lil' bugger! After all the headaches and stress I think you should kick back with a nice cold brewsky!

Hope you can trade it in and get a nice fairy wrasse for your tank.

[Bblinks]

Hey John, great update and i love the pictures. One thing I want to mention about the paleness of your sps is it might not just be you over feeding. I have always believe in feeding, because of my laziness I do it mostly through broadcast and with the amount of fish that I have they also get an alternative "feeding", plus i dose coral aminos when I see some of the more sensitive species becoming "unhappy". if I were you I probably start by checking the 3 parameters and make sure they are in check then move on to phosphate and nitrate. If everything checks out good then I would inspect them for pests, a quick dip or flash light at night will reveal some telltale signs of either red bug or aefw bite marks. Let's just say you are pest free, the third step will be feeding your corals and or dose some sps amino acid to see how they react. Most of the time some amino acid once a week will do wonders for those sticks. Anyways kee up the good work and I'll see you at the frag swap.

Rich

[reeferfulton]

thanks guys

Rich
Do you have a specific amino acid supplement you would reccomend . I have never really done any reading on the matter.

.
current stock
sailfin
yellow tang
2 clowns
yellow corris wrasse
lawnmower blenny
shrimp

Is there any wrasse that would NOT be reccomended for my tank

thanks

[tang daddy]

I recently started to dose amino acid from salifert because I had some left, you get good polyp response from the sps and the feeder tends to stay out longer. I was speaking to Wheelman Jess and he dosed his tank with the zeovit Lps amino and his Zoas and palys were healthy and big, also all his Lps were super puffed up. I took the plunge and got some zeo Lps amino, I notice all the corals in my tank react well to it when dosed and when I feed the tank I turn off the return pump, dose the zeo then feed the fish and corals at the same time. I usually leave the tank for 3 hrs with the powerheads circulating the food. I do this 2 x weekly and the rest of the week just feed normally. I don't know if there is a real difference for Lps amino versus regular amino but the sps seem to like it too. The reason why I keep the return off is so there is time for the Lps amino to interact with the corals rather than just going into the filter sock and maybe being skimmed out. I also use brightwells reef snow and phyto gold, phytoplankton and another one at the same time as the amino.

I strongly suggest trying the zeo Lps amino if you're going to get amino. Btw I only use this zeo product for now and no others because of costs, but may try a few others later on once I burn through my 10 bottles of brightwells....