28g JBJ HQI

[makana]

lol, yah. I usually give the cleaner shrimp a large piece of flake food to keep it busy while I feed the sun coral. Otherwise it will climb on it and pick all the food off. It's funny because the cleaner seems to know that its not allowed on the sun coral. When my hand is no longer in the tank the cleaner will sneak over towards the sun coral, but if I point then it will go back to its spot.

[makana]

Well I have moved over the rest of my livestock to the new tank. I put the K1 from the 10g into the new tank but it seems to beat the crap out of the bubble coral. I don't understand how it could have no problems in the 10g but be too powerful in a much larger tank. I have tried pointing it in all sorts of directions but can't find one that doesn't push the bubble coral right over. The stock pumps are only 260gph which roughly gives me only 10X turnover.

Any suggestions? Should I just stick to the stock pumps? 10X turnover seems a little low.

[makana]

I think maybe the rounded class is the problem. Nothing to disrupt the flow.

Should I use the K1 or just the stock pumps?

[Boomboy]

have you tried to move the coral around. i would keep the k1 as i have seen many who have one in their tanks.

[makana]

I tried moving it around a bit but I am trying to keep it low until it adjusts the the new light. I ran the K1 for a couple days now but the coral hasn't really expanded like I know it can, so I am going to run without it and see if it opens up.

I have also discovered that if the wavemaker is unplugged then plugged back in it leaves both pumps on full time until you adjust the controll knob. The problem is with both pumps on the water level in the sump goes way down. So if there isn't enough water in the sump for both pumps on then they will suck air and fill the tank with bubbles. So I had to spend a bit of time trying to find the exact right amount of water were the pumps didn't suck air when both on and the sump didn't fill up past the baffles with only one pump on.

I'm not really impressed with that design.

[makana]

Here are some updated photos. I managed to get the K1 pointed so that it doesn't cause too much issue for the bubble coral. The bubble cora hasn't opened up as big with it on but I think it will once it adjusts. I'm not sure what the green plant growing next to it is. It spring up out of the rock. I appear to be down to one hermit crab also. Not sure what happened to the others. They just vanished.

[BlueAbyss]

Looking very good, you're off to a great start! That hitchhiker macroalgae is Padina spp., I believe.

[makana]

Well its been a while since I updated this. I have been battling hair and cyano algea for weeks now. I am not sure what is causing it and I'm not making much headway at stopping it. All my inhabitants are doing well. I do need to get a proper sized cuc but the the lfs never seem to have anything. I was finally able to get the K1 positioned so that I can have it on and not bother the bubble coral.

[makana]

Well its time for a long overdue update. My bubble coral died (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=61551). I tried everything I could think of and nothing helped. Once it was gone what I thought was part of it's skeleton, moved and turned out to be a tiny clam.

I had a large battle with nitrates that I finally won. 3-4 water changes a week did nothing. I finally started dosing sugar and that worked slowly but as soon as I started cutting back the nitrates came back. I finally bought an eshops75 HOB skimmer and within a week I had 0 nitrates and have ever since.

I added a yellow watchman and a purple fire fish. I think that will pretty much be it fish in this tank.

I added pulsing xenia, an open brain, and some mushrooms. Most of the mushrooms died right away and the remaining ones don't look like they will make it. I can't find any cause, all I can think of is maybe shock from the MH light. I don't know if maybe I need to learn how to acclimate corals to the light. Half the xenia shriveled up and died as well when they were added. The other half looked good and then started to die as well. I moved it up to the top of the tank and it rebounded great and is doing well. Makes me wonder if the new 20k bulb is maybe not putting out.

I discovered IO salts shortcomings and started dosing it for my water changes. Right after that something began using up the calcium and alk at insane rates and I had a steep learning curve (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=66997). I added a JBJ ATO controller with an aqualifter pump using full strength kalk for top off water. This helped with stability but my alk still drops 1 dkh per week.

I'll add new pictures when I get a chance.

[makana]

Well it has been far too long since the last update. I bought a house and moved across town without any losses.

My sun coral slowly deteriorated and died. I'm pretty sure it was from the clown fish hosting it at night when it would open up to feed. Some of the tissue was gone from the skeleton and algae took hold on the bare spots. After that it stopped feeding and I could not get it back. I setup a hospital tank for it but I think by that time it was too late.

I had a serious algae outbreak and am still fighting remnants of it. I tried everything with minimal success. I finally removed half the rock and cooked it, then the second half and cooked that. I have cheato in the display and an ATS I'm trying to get going in the back chamber. In the middle of the battle my skimmer pump melted.

I had an aiptasia problem that I had been battling since day one and I finally picked up a peppermint shrimp that made short work of my problem. My cleaner died shortly after that. I'm not sure if the new shrimp had anything to do with that or not. Apparently they don't live that long so maybe it would have died anyway.