37 gal column conversion to AIO with foam/rock wall

[Cubeman]

More of a progress report than anything this week. The CUC has done its job and taken care of the algae on the rocks. I am still getting a generous green film on the glass that needs to be cleaned daily but this too shall pass.

One of my scarlet hermits crawled out of the water and sat on top of the rock wall until he dessicated. Literally within an inch of the waters edge and he chose to sit still and die. The intelligence of hermits went down a notch in my estimation with this event. Anyway I pulled him out of his shell and fed the cleaner shrimps with it. This may not have been a smart thing to do as now the larger shrimp is grabbing at the remaining living hermit thinking it would make a good meal. I'm guessing the shrimp will give up once he loses a leg.

Slowly getting a handle on how much Calcium and Alk to add to my two fresh water top offs so that the levels remain constant. The worst part about this dialing in stage is the time it takes to do multiple water tests each week as you track the changes you make in concentration against the results.

I have close to 20 sps frags in the tank now, 9 from my other systems and 11 that are new. I have another 7 being shipped in on Friday from Fragalot. Other than 2 encrusting monti's that bleached under the LED's and haven't regained their colour the rest are doing fantastic. Couldn't be happier with the colour and polyp extension.

The rock wall is no longer gleaming white and sterile but it has not gained any coralline to speak of yet. The live rocks however are purpling up nicely. The wall is however home to a magnificent number of organisms that come out under the moon lights.

I'll end with a FTS just so I can mark the progress of the tank. I should call this one "How to hide 20 frags in a 37 gallon tank"

[Cubeman]

Received some frags through overnight shipping today (thanks Thomas). I ordered 7 and received 2 extras so that was a pretty nice surprise.


One almost DOA was a purple hairy acropora that had fouled its water badly - man did it smell rank. I gave it a quick acclimation and dip and it shed about 80 percent of its flesh - into the shade with it and we'll see if it recovers at all. Also one montipora had this nasty little bugger with it and a second one dropped out during the dip.


Also upgraded the skimmer today from the Prizm Pro which was just too noisy to remain in the front room to the Tunze 9004. So far so good on its performance but it has only been running for a couple of hours - it is definitely almost silent though which was the main reason for the change.

[neven]

Looks great! I've done two rock walls, a 2.5 nano with carved styrofoam, and a 10 gallon nub reef tank. Used the foam method as you did for my reef tank, but i didn't use the epoxy sand stage unfortunately. In the end it was a mess of algae due to inexperience and imbalanced light so i ripped it out. look forward to seeing more FTS when its done

[H2o2]

Just in case u should check that monti for eggs cause that looks like a monti eating nudi

[Cubeman]

Originally Posted by neven

Looks great! I've done two rock walls, a 2.5 nano with carved styrofoam, and a 10 gallon nub reef tank. Used the foam method as you did for my reef tank, but i didn't use the epoxy sand stage unfortunately. In the end it was a mess of algae due to inexperience and imbalanced light so i ripped it out. look forward to seeing more FTS when its done

Thanks neven - I've never really had an algae problem in any of my previous tanks so if I get overrun by algae in this one I'll deduce that the wall had something to do with it.

[Cubeman]

Originally Posted by H2o2

Just in case u should check that monti for eggs cause that looks like a monti eating nudi

Yes, good eyes, that's what it was alright; that's why I pulled out the glasses and toothbrush. The frag was quite small so it was pretty easy to check.

[Cubeman]

Lost 4 frags in that last shipment (1 DOA and 3 due to the monti eating nudi's). Rest of the tank is doing well but am beginning to think I will not be turning the light up past 50 percent as there is significant coral colour lightening occurring for anything not in the shade regardless of where it is height wise. I will leave the "white" channel at 50 percent and play with the blue channel to gain a blend that is pleasing to my eye.

My Tunze 9004 skimmer has reacted badly only once and overflowed but other than that has behaved admirably for a small skimmer. Within 2 days of it running I stopped getting daily algae on the glass and am now having to use the cleaning magnet 1-2 times per week instead of every day. Still giving me some microbubbles but not a lot of tweaking can be done with this model so am hoping it sorts itself out as it matures. If anyone with the same model has any advice please chime up!

No fish yet but I added a couple of porcelain crabs this week. One was the standard colour and the other is a blue/purple colour. I've only seen the regular one a couple of times but the blue one is out in the open all the time actively straining the water column so I snapped this picture today.