Neptune Aquatics

Dan's Red Sea Reefer 425 XL Mixed Reef

dandemeyere said:
I ended up selling the monster toadstool on the left to create a new SPS bommie so the full tank shot won't look that great :( I also have a bunch of frag racks in the display right now too :rolleyes: Once the left side of the tank starts to grow in, I'll take a new FTS and share it.


I dose 4L of fully saturated kalkwasser as my base Alk/Calcium additive and I've experimented with All-For-Reef and ESV for the supplemental needs on top of that. I liked All-For-Reef because I thought it would enable me to switch from 3 dosers & dosing containers (ESV Alk, ESV Calc, ESV Mag) to one. I also liked that All-For-Reef comes dry and can be made into solution at home. I quickly realized my Mag needs were higher than the base All-For-Reef recipe so I went back to dosing AFR + ESV Mag. Then I topped out the max daily dose of AFR and needed to dose ESV Alk/Calc to further supplement my consumption needs. The reason I dosed both for a while is that AFR and ESV have different trace elements they add to their solutions and I thought both would give better coverage for trace elements more broadly. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any benefits to dosing both so I took the AFR offline. Right now my daily consumption is 4L of kalkwasser plus 100ml of ESV Alk, 100ml of ESV Calc, and 30ml of ESV Mag.

In other news, my wife and I have a son arriving in May and given our house is relatively small, I'll be moving my office & fish tank into the garage once I finish insulating it. I'm a bit nervous to move the tank and disrupt the system, but there's a chance I'll be able to upgrade (or potentially plumb in another system) as part of this which definitely excites me.
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thanks for the detailed info and good luck with the move!
 
Congrats on the upcoming baby! Got any close up photos of that smaller clam? Curious how much PAR it's getting. That green slimer is nuts too, so much growth! Looks like it's growing out of the tank already.
 
DaddyHook said:
Congratulations on the new little one!
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Thanks! My two year old daughter loves to look at the tank so here's to hoping my son does as well.
Coral reefer said:
Get some help and the move will be fine. I know a guy or two…
Sounds like a great chance to add a frag tank!
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Definitely. There are a few reefers here in North Marin (shout out to @SepToob) so when the time comes, I think the help will be there.

As for the new tank, I'm torn between doing something like a IM 50 lagoon as a frag tank or going bigger with an IM 100 EXT lagoon. Its dimensions are shallow like a frag tank (30" x 47.3" x 16.1") so it would be easy to work in, but it's big enough to have tangs & a proper utilitarian fish crew. Either way I'd want to plumb it into my existing system so I only have to worry about one setup for dosing, automated testing, heating, etc. I'm thinking I'd do something similar to Coral Euphoria where it acts as a SPS grow out tank while looking more like a display vs. a tank with racks of frags:
Screen Shot 2022-12-07 at 4.47.46 AM.png

Zumareef said:
thanks for the detailed info and good luck with the move!
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Thanks! I did a move across town a few years ago that went without a hitch and I've had a move that was only 10 feet away in the same room that ended up re-cycling the tank and killing all my SPS so I plan to be careful with how I plan out the move this time.
Darkxerox said:
Congrats on the upcoming baby! Got any close up photos of that smaller clam? Curious how much PAR it's getting. That green slimer is nuts too, so much growth! Looks like it's growing out of the tank already.
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I haven't down top down photos in a while so I don't have a recent picture, but I'll try to snap one in the next week or two. I have a PAR meter so I know the maxima is getting around 300-350 PAR. Not as fast of a grower as the derasa though.
 
dandemeyere said:
Thanks! I did a move across town a few years ago that went without a hitch and I've had a move that was only 10 feet away in the same room that ended up re-cycling the tank and killing all my SPS so I plan to be careful with how I plan out the move this time.
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Very similar experience moving my reef as well; moved it to a larger tank and then back to a smaller tank with no problems but most recently down sized to a smaller tank for temporary holding purposes and lost most of my sps too!
 
Darkxerox said:
Congrats on the upcoming baby! Got any close up photos of that smaller clam? Curious how much PAR it's getting. That green slimer is nuts too, so much growth! Looks like it's growing out of the tank already.
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I was doing a water change today and snapped a top down photo of the maxima for you :)
B5cBdn7.jpg


The TSA Bill Murray is really getting big too! :cool:
2RQIg8u.jpg


I added a New York Knicks torch to go alongside my Dragon Soul torch colony that's growing really well but still isn't ready to be fragged (tissue still goes down to the base making no obvious places to cut the branching heads):
NyD2HPl.jpg
 
dandemeyere said:
I was doing a water change today and snapped a top down photo of the maxima for you :)
B5cBdn7.jpg


The TSA Bill Murray is really getting big too! :cool:
2RQIg8u.jpg


I added a New York Knicks torch to go alongside my Dragon Soul torch colony that's growing really well but still isn't ready to be fragged (tissue still goes down to the base making no obvious places to cut the branching heads):
NyD2HPl.jpg
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Looks awesome! The lighter colored streaks with dots are a really nice combo. That dragon soul is a BEAST. DBTC perhaps? haha
 
I'm not exactly sure what is the cause of it, but the tank has been steadily improving for the past month or two in terms of coloration & growth rate. I changed salts from Tropic Marin Pro to Red Sea Blue Bucket and I've been doing large, 20% weekly water changes so I imagine one of those two changes is playing a big role.

Anyway, I snapped some pics yesterday I wanted to share. Here are a few of my favorite corals that are finally starting to take off:

Pengs Blue Monster
yKwHVfc.jpg


WWC Yoda
Swr4PnR.jpg


New York Knicks Torch (top left)
rUeOqGV.jpg
 
Coral reefer said:
Any not even a speck of green? Looks nice from the top!
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When I first got it, it was more-so white/green with hints of red. But when it grew out, it turned pure red. My frags still turn white/green after I cut them and they encrust, but the bigger the frags get, the more and more red they become.
 
dandemeyere said:
When I first got it, it was more-so white/green with hints of red. But when it grew out, it turned pure red. My frags still turn white/green after I cut them and they encrust, but the bigger the frags get, the more and more red they become.
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I always saw more red with more intense light. Maybe it was just in my head
 
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