Other Walking Coral Reef + Frag

[Walking Coral]

Walking Coral Reef + Frag (est. 2/8/21)​

Walking Coral Reef (Updated 7/9/22	Total Water Volume: ~60G
Tank	Aqueon 40B
Frag Area:	Rubbermaid Tub
Sump	Trigger Systems Crystal Sump 30
Lights	4x AI Prime 16HD, Fuge Light
Heater	2x BRS 100W Heater
Skimmer	Bubble Magus Curve 5
Pumps	Sicce Syncra (every pump in tank)
UV Sterilizer	Lifegard 55 Watt Pro Max
Dosing Pumps	1x Hydros and 1x Kamoer Doser
Controller	Coral Vue Hydros Controller (+accessories) and Strip
Additives	4mL All-for-Reef Daily

(2/8/21) Day #1- I was absolutely clueless at this point.

(7/9/22) Day #??- Still clueless.

If you are enjoying the journey with me or if you notice somewhere I can improve, don't be afraid to drop a comment!

 

[John Reefer Vermont]

Being absolutely clueless the first day makes you an expert

 

[Walking Coral]

Tested today: Alk 8.4 DKH, PO4 .03 PPM

It's been a while since I've updated so here I go! Tank had a brief battle with hair algae that bottomed out nutrients, which stressed a few corals out but all is well! About half way through the recovery stage just waiting for everything to color back up. In the mean time I began breaking down my other smaller tank until I move into a house and consolidating the fish, shrimp and coral into the 40B. The oldest pair of clowns were growing too large for their tank so it was a good time to swap them and rehome the younger pair. Thankfully during this time I haven't lost any fish or coral, in fact I'm on the longest streak since I've been in the hobby of 8 months without losing anything except a snail.

Adding some macro algae and increased husbandry has gone a long way towards combatting the hair and bubble algae. Removed my socks a few days ago and I'm debating putting them back on. They did do a great job at keeping the sump clean!

Gonna spend some time cleaning up these frag plugs now that everything is rebounding and just wait while they all recover. If no one local ends up claiming anything after they recover I may just throw together a frag pack to whoever pays the shipping or do a trade. Just gotta find someone who likes playing Russian roulette with bubble algae! Some of these frags were sitting at the bottom of the other tank and parameters were way off, thankfully they are recovering nicely in this system! Oh yeah, I'm going to be fragging the hammers and frogspawn soon so I definitely need to make room!

Still gotta figure out why all the pictures come out so white and sometimes so blue with my camera! Agghhh!

 

[Walking Coral]

Still trying to figure out how to get accurate colors with this damn camera, I'm getting closer.

 

[Walking Coral]

Did weekly water change and spent some time trying to take better photos.

Still a bit of hair and bubble algae but that'll be cut down tomorrow with a toothbrush, dentil pick and a net. I'll make sure to post after pics! Tried my best to create little islands for different coral but I didn't 100% care exactly how it turned out as long as they were happy.

Here you can begin to see the affects of the nutrients bottoming out. The birdsnest lost coloration but it is generally one of the first to fully rebound and show why I should keep my together, that orange stuff growing all over the rock (no idea what it is) lost coloration and is rebounding and the hammers are retracted and pail.

Just fragged some of the GSP recently and dropped it off at the LFS. So easy to frag when it grows on it's own little island. In the back you can see the hammers and frogspawn beginning to rebound.

Here is a quick side shot I took. Sorry it's a little blurry, I forgot to clean the glass before taking any of the glass before taking any of these pics.

And a bonus shot because why not! Here is what it looks like from beneath the tank looking back up under a Japanese Snapping Shrimp! It just recently had its home remodeled when I tossed a couple flat frag tiles under the GSP to give it some extra room and structural stability.

 

[Walking Coral]

ALK 9.0
PO4 .03
NO3 <5PPM (zero without dosing)
CA ??
MAG ??
pH 8.43 (as of 8PM)
SAL 34 PPT

For the sake of not being too long winded, everything has been going well as I continue to combat this algae and raise nutrients. Source of the problem was a failing RODI filter that was a lot easier to address than this algae. I've began dosing acro power this week in hopes in this low nutrient environment it may do the trick in keeping the coral feed. Fingers crossed it works!Coral are still recovering nicely with stable parameters and hopefully in a few weeks I'll have a nice tank again. Thankfully I didn't nuke everything adding a third light in the middle of all this. Tomorrow is the fourth algae removal session and should be one of the final large and dramatic ones. Below are a few photos I took with all the lights on for the sake of documenting progress as accurately as I can. P.S. I still suck at taking photos.

Obviously there is still a ton of work to do but I believe I'm headed down the right path. Just realized some cyano blew onto the kenya tree. They are the most dramatic coral I've encountered so far.

Here is the tiny frag area with all lights on. Smooth skin acro is turning green! Small chunk of digitita, neon green acro and asd mili are making a return as well Can't believe all of these coral are alive and returning. It's truly amazing to see how resilient coral can be including SPS! Most of these coral came from the small cube and were in terrible condition.

 

[Count Krunk]

looks nice.

 

[Dierks]

Oh man, I didn't know you switched it over. Glad you said something so I can follow along.

 

[Walking Coral]

looks nice.

Thank you CK!

Oh man, I didn't know you switched it over. Glad you said something so I can follow along.

Figured it would be easier to follow. Happy to see you here Dierks! Hope all is well with you.

 

[Walking Coral]

About the only perk of having the tank parked near a window.

 

[Dierks]

View attachment 74556

About the only perk of having the tank parked near a window.

So you run at 8.4 pretty much 24 hours a day! DId your old tank run that high too? My tank also runs pretty high but swings from 8.3 to 8.0

 

[Walking Coral]

So you run at 8.4 pretty much 24 hours a day! DId your old tank run that high too? My tank also runs pretty high but swings from 8.3 to 8.0

No, this tank certainly is the highest and most stable. Pretty thankful because I was running a scrubber for a bit and was pulling my hair out trying to remember to keep up with it. There was a point where I doubted the probe until I turned on the air conditioner for a few days and watched the pH free fall. I do run reverse daylight over some algae in the sump and route the skimmer outside but I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference. The tank is literally 6 inches from the window LOL