Cali Kid Corals

Dave’s 230 Gallon Reef

ddrueckh said:
I added moulding to the canopy and stained it. I still need to add a couple coats of finish. I also added an electric panel to the stand. My plumbing supplies will be here at the end of the week. Once plumbed I will do a water test. I also ordered a Life Reef Skimmer for the System.

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I took woodshop in High School, why couldn't I make anything that looks like this?

Looks amazing!

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It has been a little while since I posted. I finished my plumbing, filled the tank and added live rock from KP Aquatics. They were great to work with. They collected the rock on a Sunday, shipped it on Tuesday and I had it Wednesday morning. It was very fresh. After collecting it, the rock was kept in water. The tank is cycling. I’m in no rush to add any livestock.

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Chromis said:
That live rock looks really nice, did you notice anything interesting crawl out of it yet?
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There was a pencil urchin that I put in my refugium and a crab that didn’t look Reef safe that I also put in the refugium. Other than that a couple of snails, macro algae, sponges and stuff. No mantis shrimp or other surprises yet.
 
As my rock cures in the display, my fuge is up and running. I have a ball of Chaeto, an elevated tray 4” deep with Reborn carx media and a Kessil H160 to light it. I am currently running the fuge light 14 hours a day at about 50%. I have been slowly raising the percentage so I don’t burn the Chaeto. I only run two T5 bulbs for 2 hours a day in the display. My goal is to get the Chaeto growing well so it outcompetes any nuisance algae in the display once I turn all the lights on. I hope I can find a balance between the fuge light and the display lights so it keeps nuisance algae out of the display.

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ddrueckh said:
As my rock cures in the display, my fuge is up and running. I have a ball of Chaeto, an elevated tray 4” deep with Reborn carx media and a Kessil H160 to light it. I am currently running the fuge light 14 hours a day at about 50%. I have been slowly raising the percentage so I don’t burn the Chaeto. I only run two T5 bulbs for 2 hours a day in the display. My goal is to get the Chaeto growing well so it outcompetes any nuisance algae in the display once I turn all the lights on. I hope I can find a balance between the fuge light and the display lights so it keeps nuisance algae out of the display.

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It’s not so much about finding a balance, it’s more about having the light in the fuge much stronger (as strong as possible) vs that in the tank.

Also in my experience you don’t need to slowly increase the light on chaeto like you would coral. You can increase to max pretty quickly and then extend the hours.

What is the CaRx bed for? Just more surface area like a MarinePure block?
 
JVU said:
What is the CaRx bed for? Just more surface area like a MarinePure block?
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Yes. I wanted more surface area, but also feel the openness of the media will allow a good pod population to live within it. Something I don’t think MarinePure is good for. I can easily move the box around to clean under it and should be able to blow any detritus out of it with a powerhead. I raised it to allow detritus to fall through the bottom.
 
JVU said:
It’s not so much about finding a balance, it’s more about having the light in the fuge much stronger (as strong as possible) vs that in the tank.

Also in my experience you don’t need to slowly increase the light on chaeto like you would coral. You can increase to max pretty quickly and then extend the hours.

What is the CaRx bed for? Just more surface area like a MarinePure block?
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I didn’t have any problem blasting it with light either, but like coral, it does need nutrients that may be limited in a new build.

ddrueckh said:
Yes. I wanted more surface area, but also feel the openness of the media will allow a good pod population to live within it. Something I don’t think MarinePure is good for. I can easily move the box around to clean under it and should be able to blow any detritus out of it with a powerhead. I raised it to allow detritus to fall through the bottom.
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I like this idea. It will be a great place for pod propagation. It will also add surface area, although probably not as much as the mp block. Also you likely won’t have any of the anaerobic benefits either because it’s too open.
 
question on your sump light. Is it better to run the kessil you are using instead of just any ordinary light you would use in an garage? The reason I ask is that Ive been running an ordinary light for my sump and cant keep chaeto at all
 
Having a powerful spectrum-appropriate grow light is the single most important thing for refugium success in my opinion. I have the Kessil H380, and it works dramatically better than a variety of less expensive lights I’ve tried before. I have to feed a lot to keep my nutrients from being undetectable. I think if you switched from a regular light to a grow light you would see a big difference. Just like how you’d see a big difference switching from a regular light to a reef light for coral.

I’ve not had any problems with it burning the chaeto, but it grows so fast when some gets pushed up above the water line, that part dies and turns white, and needs to be removed.
 
Good choice with the KP live rock, I too added about 30lbs of it to my tank and sometimes I find myself more interested in the life on the LR as opposed to the macro corals!
 
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