Tim's Reef Journal

[drawman]

Hi everyone thought it would be time to document my 250L reef. My goal has been to keep a relatively easy to keep mixed reef while in residency. Thankfully I brought all my equipment and established rock with me when I moved to Nebraska from Minnesota so the startup was relatively easy.

Equipment:
Red Sea Reefer 250
2 Radion XR30 Gen 4 (non pros)
MP40
Eheim Auto Feeder
Sicce 2.0 Return Pump
Apex Classic
BRS Dosing Pumps
Tank is currently skimmerless but I have a Deltec skimmer ready to throw in when I'm ready.

Current Fish:
Hawaiian Yellow Eye Kole Tang - was happy to snatch this guy up right after the full ban took place

Corals:
Blue Ricordea
Green/Splatter Hammer
Gold Hammer
Blue tipped Torch
Green Tipped Torch
Elegance Coral
Bubble Coral
Lobophyllia

Acros:
ORA Frogskin Acro
JF Homewrecker
CB Maleficent
SC Orange Passion
Purple Bonsai
A. suharsonoi
RMF Psychoberry
TSA Princess Peach
BC Ultimate Table

 

[Humblefish]

Let's see some pics!

 

[Wrangy]

Woohoo! Looking forward to seeing the pics

 

[drawman]

Let's see some pics!

Woohoo! Looking forward to seeing the pics

So this thread will be a little bit of a slow burn. Just needs things to grow out. Had a chance to take a quick pic and play around with lightroom though! Need to do a deep clean algae is taking over and I think it's time to start up the skimmer. Hopefully I can get a couple more acros soon too.

 

[drawman]

Quick Update: Urchins have gone rogue! Also not sure who needs to hear this but Lobophyllias pack a punch! Went back to Minnesota for a half week while on break and came back to my hammer coral awfully close to my lobophyllia and half torched from it. Urchins definitely moved things around then today decides to wear my one acro as a hat. Looks like I need to start using larger frag tiles.

Have a continual hair algae problem so hopefully can get some scrubbing done and hook up the skimmer this weekend.

Did some testing as well. Hopefully clearing out the algae and getting grazers to work their magic will help me creep that Nitrate up a bit.
Ca 415ppm, Alk 6.5dKH, NO3 0.2ppm

 

[drawman]

Sunday night Elegance coral bump!

 

[Wrangy]

Very nice!

 

[drawman]

Very nice!

Thank you sir! Love me some elegance coral it will be fun to see how big I can grow this guy out over time.

 

[OZ_SPS]

Following. Beautiful!

 

[drawman]

Following. Beautiful!

Thank you!

 

[drawman]

My hammer coral that lost the battle with the neighboring lobophyllia has had some pretty cool regrowth. I wish I would've taken progressive pictures. I would say about 3/4 to 5/6 of one head was completely destroyed which can be seen by a pic in post #5 Tim's Residency Reef. Over the following weeks I could see translucent growth move over the dead skeleton (kind of like an advancing ameoba). This growth eventually turned brown which you will see in the pic below and now is showing green tips (I'll need to take an updated pic). It was really cool to see up close it reminds me of healing via secondary intention (scar formation).

Also added two new acro additions including a very small sized JF Homewrecker that I got a really good deal on from @Dugless from the other forum. Pretty excited to see it grow out!

 

[Wrangy]

Happy days seeing the regrowth!

We need Dugless here he has stunning sps! lol

 

[drawman]

Happy days seeing the regrowth!

We need Dugless here he has stunning sps! lol

Absolutely! Nice guy too there are a few others that should definitely get on over here to start threads.

 

[najer]

Nice regrowth, following.

 

[Count Krunk]

Fts please good sir

 

[drawman]

Fts please good sir

It may be a while I'm pretty embarrassed by a turf/hair algae issue at the moment. My three tuxedo urchins are pretty lazy about the bigger strands so I'm hoping to bring in some reinforcements with some chestnut turbo snails soon (and hopefully some elbow grease from me). I still haven't added the skimmer so I know I'm dancing with the devil a bit.

Love the screen name btw!

 

[Count Krunk]

No shame in algae! It's good to post so you can see how far you've come.

You can also remove and scrub the rocks. I have scrubbed all the rocks in my current tank twice. I have one problem rock I scrub once a month or so.

 

[drawman]

Another update on the regrowth. You can see full blow hammer bubbles back with green color now and it's completely taken back the lost skeleton. Was cool to see this in real time every day. Tank has been running smoothly next steps will be placing another snail order and possibly an acro order. Need to get more coral in the tank!

 

[drawman]

Here's the aggressor btw. Honestly has more of a rainbow appearance with some deep orange than this picture shows. Now just need it to grow out for another 10 years!

 

[Max_nano]

It may be a while I'm pretty embarrassed by a turf/hair algae issue at the moment. My three tuxedo urchins are pretty lazy about the bigger strands so I'm hoping to bring in some reinforcements with some chestnut turbo snails soon (and hopefully some elbow grease from me). I still haven't added the skimmer so I know I'm dancing with the devil a bit.

how’s the battle going? I found manual removal and addition of CUC to be helpful in my fight. I think that the CUC have a limit so it can be hard for them to counteract an outbreak. But once it clears up they seem to keep it in check.