75 gallon rebuild

feh

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I'm highly considering setting up a 26 gal bow front I've had sitting around since 2010 as a small FOWLR with the rock I've been cooking in a 10 gallon tank since early Feb. Just need to pick up a small bag of sand. I'm either going to use a Aquaclear HOB to create a fuge and one of the mp10s from the 75 gallon once I get the mp40(s) for flow and pop a heater in there. I'm not sure what kind of skimmer yet. I also have a gift cert to an online place I won a while back called clown-fish depot and may pop something from there in the tank along with the blenny. For the most part I'm going to keep things simple with this tank so no automation other than maybe an ATO. I might consider later adding coral but for now I'm not too worried about that plus I don't want to invest in a fixture for it right now.

Anyway here are some pics of replacements for the blenny which is still doing fine in the sump. I was considering tossing him in the 10 gallon but figured it would be easier and less stressful to just move him to the sump for a while. The goby is still quite small so I decided against getting a pistol shrimp. I may get one later on. So far he just hangs around on the sand bed in the front of the tank. Hasn't found him a home yet. He's eating though.

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feh

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So after battling with cyano and finally seeing 2 days with no signs of it. I come home from work yesterday to hear my skimmer making a lot of racket. So I shut down the pump and investigate. What do I find? The blenny... poor guy got sucked into the pump. So I got him out of the pump, put it back together, start it back up let it work for a little bit and did a water change. Hopefully this won't set me back any with the cyano. In the meantime we'll call that lesson learned on fish in the sump.
 

feh

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Checked the tank when I got home yesterday - not a trace of cyano any where. I did see a tiny bit show up Sunday when looking the tank over after finding the blenny. I guess the 5 gal water change and skimmer did the trick. The little bit I did see I scrubbed off Sunday with a brush. So maybe I've finally beaten this stuff. I'll give things until Friday to say for sure.
 

feh

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Seems the cyano issue is over. So I got some new eye candy ordered and picked up a kole tang. He's in QT now, just finished acclimating it. Spose after the summer I'm going to pick up the final fish and shrimp. A flame wrasse and still pondering the pistol shrimp. I think with a Kole tang, yellow watchman goby, a skumk cleaner, flame wrasse, and 2 clowns I should be pretty much stocked and I may consider a smaller wrasse. So the flame isn't set in stone. I also ordered 3 chalice frags and a really nice acan boweri. If I have space for them I still want to get 1 more colony of acan lords, some duncans, and then start on getting some sticks in the top of the tank. I think I'm going to leave things alone for the summer. Not too keen on shipping in hot weather. Especially high dollar animals.

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feh

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Can't see much from a FTS yet, but I did snap one today.
I won't get the new stuff for a week or so... need time to heal after being cut.

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I'll try to get some pics of the frags tomorrow when the lights are on.
The 3 frags the blenny got a hold of are recoving slowly. Seeing new flesh on the spots damaged on the platy and the favia and chalice are both regaining color.
I've been running without GFO for 2 weeks and PO4 is testing at around 0.01 with very little algae aside from the coralline.
Current parms as of today were 1.026 salinity, Alk 174, Ca 437, Mg 1500 (always is. I never dose this), PO4 0.01, ammonia, nitrite, nitrates all undetectable. pH seems to be around 8.2 durring the day when I'm not here and when I'm here around 8.0 unless I breathe too much or use the oven.
 
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feh

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New frags came today. The chalice frags were about 2.5 times bigger than expected. I was expecting 1". They came on 2" disks. The acans are nice... prolly could have used a little more healing time, but they're doing good for now. Anyway here's some pics. I'm going to move the chalices a little further apart just incase someone doesn't like their neighbor and the favia and boweri acans also. I think the acans will color up nicely in time but they're looking pretty decent now. The pic seems to make the pink look a little more pale than it really is.

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feh

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Growth comparison of Micromussa I picked up in March.

In March. I'm not sure if the color really morphed or if its the different lighting.
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Today
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Left C

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That sure is some beautiful eye candy!!!!

What are those little pointed snails? Are they MTS like we have in our planted tanks?

I'm terribly sorry about the Blenny.
 

feh

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They're dwarf ceriths and florida ceriths. I also have some nassarius and nerites. I think I have way too many dwarf ceriths though.
 

feh

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So first time out of town since starting this tank no mishaps. Pheew... its hard to want to leave a tank after you get it finally thriving. I couldn't help it. I even turned around after getting 30 mins away cuz I fed the tank and came back made sure i had controller configured for auto. I wasn't sure I set it to auto or off when i killed the lights after feeding the fish. Ya know I've kept fish for long time, and got into planted tanks and what not. But never... never have I seen fish that actually acted like they were happy to see me. I came home today, laid all my stuff down after getting back in town and checked on tank. Clowns all chasing their tails like dogs and tang all like "well i see you finally found your way home. now how about feed me ya bastidge." I think even the corals missed me... heh. They perked up when I peeked into the tank... lights weren't even on yet.
 

feh

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So much for the blastos. Received email from the vendor I ordered them that all the frags crapped out after they fragged the colony. That was the main ones I wanted. Now I'm bummed. :(
 

Whiskey

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Oh man! I know why your bummed, I love blastos.
Good looking tank you have there, that candycane on the right will get huge for you! I had one in my 180, got it as a single head, years later even after repeated fragging and some tank problems it was far bigger than a softball. Under the atinics it drew more attention than neon lights.

Whiskey
 

feh

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I'll find some nice ones eventually. The candycane will get to be a nice size as long as it and the lobo in front don't get too close. The lobo is already baseball sized. Just got some sticks for the tank Tuesday. So far they seem to be doing well but I'm having to change how I do water changes temporary to prevent any huge Alk swing. I mix my water to 1.026 and my Alk comes out at around 200ppm and Ca around 450. Don't really want to switch salt mixes so I'm thinking about mixing up some around 1.025 just to see if it brings things down closer to where I keep my parms. If not then I'm probably going to cut my water changes in half and do them twice a week to minimize that. Anyway I picked up a nice 2" Matt's purple polyp tort, a green/purple two tone tort with green polyps, tyree monti undata, and a nice green milli to play with. Also won a free chunky frag of WWC fireball chalice when I picked up the SPS. Things haven't been too much headache considering I started with dry rock other than about 2lbs of rubble to seed with. May need to make adjustments to lighting though to keep everything happy, but we'll see. So far all my LPS and zoas have been very happy except some Joe's mayan sunset palys.