Cali Kid Corals

Alex’s IM 150 EXT

phc567 said:
if you start with all smaller size. Say 3”.
Foxface will need to be rehome in 2.5 years. For sure. You know the spine on the foxface is venomous. Right.
Trigger in 5-6 years maybe.
bristletooth tang 8-10 years. Maybe never.
Click to expand...

So it looks like at least the Foxface is not a good fit at all, given how fast he grows - and yes, thank you, I am aware of the venomous spine. Quality Marine quotes a 70-gallon minimum tank size. https://www.qualitymarine.com/quality-marine/fish/rabbitfish/siganus/foxface-one-spot-27001/

Would another tang be a better idea then, keeping the idea of three? I believe it is not a good idea to mix tangs long term unless in very large tangs. Or another angel fish? Or only the trigger and the bristletooth?
 
I think you gotta ask yourself. What and why do I want this fish. Are you looking for fish that do work or fish that look good.
Foxface and bristletooth do work.
Blue throat look good. Triggers and tangs eat and poop a lot = higher phosphate and nitrates.
Two different types of fish.
I’m not saying your choices are bad. Just dunno if you know.
Btw. We will eventually have to rehome all or most of our fish or upgrade our aquarium. If your in this game long enough.
Lyretail angels are reef safe. Bellus is my favorite. Watanabi is great also. Mask Japanese swallowtail is awesome.
 
phc567 said:
if you start with all smaller size. Say 3”.
Foxface will need to be rehome in 2.5 years. For sure. You know the spine on the foxface is venomous. Right.
Trigger in 5-6 years maybe.
bristletooth tang 8-10 years. Maybe never.
Click to expand...
I have a bristletooth over 15 years
And foxfacecs over 7
These fish will live much longer than you think given their needs are met
 
The thing about the foxface getting”too large” for me is about swimming behavior and footprint of the tank. They don’t tend to swim all over a ton like many tangs ime so I don’t feel they need a huge tank necessarily even when they are big. Something like an Achilles I say needs as much swimming room as possible, regardless of the size of the fish.
 
I am in week three now, and there is no significant algae growth yet; there are some diatoms on the sand, I believe, starting with light from day one and corals.

My son and I did part of the aquascape with the glue master and Marco sand method, which bayarea_reef (Instagram) recommended to me and which seems to be a relatively easy way to do for beginners (left, picture). It looks better from the side as there is a broader arch, but I assume it's still an amateurish result (but we tried :)).

The right side of the aquascape was an attempt to use the live rocks to build a structure without gluing them. It seems solid, but I'm still not sure how to make this look good underwater and holding it into place.

Lastly, placed some corals without gluing them where I believe they should be. I put three toadstools in the back right, including one massive size that I got from @ReefSparky, and for which I am very grateful.

All is still in progress and not looking fantastic, and I might still make changes to the live rock formation and add more dry rock, which I still have. Yet, taking one step at a time as it is all more complex than anticipated despite advanced planning.

IMG_6225.jpeg


The plan is on the weekend to move all fish from my 26-gallon into this tank. Shortly after, I want to add a whitetail bristletooth tang from @under_water_ninja. I love how this fish looks.

IMG_1171.jpeg


I wanted to move all of my remaining rock from the 26-gallon tank into this, but a couple of them have hair algae, and I am not sure if the tang (and potentially another yellow tang) will be enough to clean this before it spreads?
 
Additional update:

I am also dosing very limited amounts of the following at this time:

- 50 ml Dinkins Live Phytoplankton daily.
- 3 days per week, 0.25g of Remedi8 from Reef Blueprint/Captiv8
- Once a week PNS Pro Bio 50 ml
- Once a week Aquaforest Life Source - 60g

Immediate next steps - dosing:

- Kalkwasser: I had some challenges finding a spot in the stand for the Versa dosing pump(s), which prevented me from dosing Kalkwasser. I bought the Ecotech Versa Base Station VXB (picture) and will mount this somewhere properly, which will give me the option to have four of these pumps installed. I also bought the Kalkwasser from Captiv8, and will stop using BRS Kalkwasser as I am not convinced this is super pure as I have the third ICP test (Triton) coming back with elevated Zinc for my nano tank, and I ruled out everything else - still, could be something else of course.

- Once I start dosing Kalkwasser, I will also start dosing the MT (minor trace) from Captiv8.
 

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I also bought a larger eshopps 10-gallon ATO from Neptune since my 5-gallon ATO had to be refilled rather often. It is probably not the greatest idea since this need will change when I start to dose kalkwasser.

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I’m going talk like your to the hobby. So excuse me if you already know. I’ve been following your thread.
Set up a new aquarium. Seeded with live rock. Minimum corals. Just do water changes and testing. Water changes will take you a long ways. No need for Kalk at this stage in the game. Keep it extremely simple. When testing shows you need more as you add more corals and corals grow. Then put the Kalk on line. Then the Kalk will take you extremely far. At that point. You should have a pretty nice reef. Then testing will show that numbers are dropping. Then add a calcium or 2 part dos.
People always get ahead of themselves. Including myself.
Sorry if I’m out of line or talking out of my arse. It’s gonna be baby steps for the win.
 
phc567 said:
I’m going talk like your to the hobby. So excuse me if you already know. I’ve been following your thread.
Set up a new aquarium. Seeded with live rock. Minimum corals. Just do water changes and testing. Water changes will take you a long ways. No need for Kalk at this stage in the game. Keep it extremely simple. When testing shows you need more as you add more corals and corals grow. Then put the Kalk on line. Then the Kalk will take you extremely far. At that point. You should have a pretty nice reef. Then testing will show that numbers are dropping. Then add a calcium or 2 part dos.
People always get ahead of themselves. Including myself.
Sorry if I’m out of line or talking out of my arse. It’s gonna be baby steps for the win.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing this. I understand what you mean and I would prefer to take your approach.

A couple of concerns, one is in relation to the gonies I will need to move from my other tank (and some other corals). PH, Alk and Calcium is on point there (or rather as I would like it, i.e., PH 8.2 / Alk 9 / Calcium 440). ICP shows manganese as depleted, but I dose this weekly, and since then, all gonies I bought did very well (before two or three died). Second, I have not yet tested any water parameters of the new tank, except Ammonia, PH, and Temp. PH is around 7.8 only (partially due to cold weather/closed windows/CO2 around 800-900 when we are all in the house). Therefore, I have been very eager to start Kalk to get the PH higher.

In summary, I would like to dose trace elements as since I have been dosing them (currently all minor elements individually weekly), no coral died, and Kalk, due to the PH impact and the growth I have seen in several of them when it hovers between 8.2 and 8.3.

But I agree, it makes this potentially too complicated at this early stage and my experience with Saltwater is super limited/short, 16 months or so only, so everything I am saying above is only from the tiny amount of knowledge and experience I gathered since then.
 
Alexander1312 said:
I am in week three now, and there is no significant algae growth yet; there are some diatoms on the sand, I believe, starting with light from day one and corals.

My son and I did part of the aquascape with the glue master and Marco sand method, which bayarea_reef (Instagram) recommended to me and which seems to be a relatively easy way to do for beginners (left, picture). It looks better from the side as there is a broader arch, but I assume it's still an amateurish result (but we tried :)).

The right side of the aquascape was an attempt to use the live rocks to build a structure without gluing them. It seems solid, but I'm still not sure how to make this look good underwater and holding it into place.

Lastly, placed some corals without gluing them where I believe they should be. I put three toadstools in the back right, including one massive size that I got from @ReefSparky, and for which I am very grateful.

All is still in progress and not looking fantastic, and I might still make changes to the live rock formation and add more dry rock, which I still have. Yet, taking one step at a time as it is all more complex than anticipated despite advanced planning.

View attachment 51221

The plan is on the weekend to move all fish from my 26-gallon into this tank. Shortly after, I want to add a whitetail bristletooth tang from @under_water_ninja. I love how this fish looks.

View attachment 51222

I wanted to move all of my remaining rock from the 26-gallon tank into this, but a couple of them have hair algae, and I am not sure if the tang (and potentially another yellow tang) will be enough to clean this before it spreads?
Click to expand...


Love those tangs! Aquarium is looking good!
 
I don’t keep gonis but I read a lot and research a lot. I ran across an article by Julian sprung saying gonis need manganese to survive. Manganese might be one of the elements that don’t stay around very long. Dunno
 
If your other aquarium is doing fine. Leave it for now. Grow your foundation in your 150 first. If you move over sensitive corals or fish. The foundation isn’t set yet. They will suffer or die. If you want to move corals. Move hardy ones. Like mushrooms and stuff like that. Slow and steady. The pros say. When you can grow coralline algae. Then you can start to grow corals.
Oh if you’re doing weekly water changes. You should be good on trace elements. Unless you keep something that requires the elements needed that goes away quickly ie: gonis. lol.
 
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phc567 said:
I’m going talk like your to the hobby. So excuse me if you already know. I’ve been following your thread.
Set up a new aquarium. Seeded with live rock. Minimum corals. Just do water changes and testing. Water changes will take you a long ways. No need for Kalk at this stage in the game. Keep it extremely simple. When testing shows you need more as you add more corals and corals grow. Then put the Kalk on line. Then the Kalk will take you extremely far. At that point. You should have a pretty nice reef. Then testing will show that numbers are dropping. Then add a calcium or 2 part dos.
People always get ahead of themselves. Including myself.
Sorry if I’m out of line or talking out of my arse. It’s gonna be baby steps for the win.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing, you are sure dosing a lot of stuff already!

Alexander1312 said:
- 3 days per week, 0.25g of Remedi8 from Reef Blueprint/Captiv8
- Once a week PNS Pro Bio 50 ml
- Once a week Aquaforest Life Source - 60g
Click to expand...

What does all this stuff do?

I am with @phc567 - that’s a lot of products into a very new tank!

It seems like you’re being very thoughtful about everything and the build looks great though. Just wanted to +1 the keep things simple, especially early on.
 
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