Cali Kid Corals

Max’s 30 gal

Leave it and just make this a gsp tank!!!
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I can not have 3 tanks up so this will be done down the road. I got it for an extra ATO or kalk tank but it is too nice for that. They went on sale for 50% off in December and I was a sucker

Plan would be low maintenance zoa and gsp tank that I would do big water changes on with old water from the main tank
 
Got some gsp held up by a magnet near the top of the back wall, and then I put a rock covered in gsp at the bottom of the back wall. I’m curious to see if it grows up faster than it grows down.
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Caught and transferred the cleaner shrimp over. I didn’t see it often cause it was always hiding under my frag racks, it isn’t so shrimpy anymore. It got big
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New tank is starting to get some grunge on the rocks. Hopefully my attempts to avoid getting diatoms worked. I’m really happy with this tank so far and am enjoying the larger viewing panel. Still got some rocks to adjust but almost everything is in. Gonna shut down the other tank in the next few days and see what I can do to salvage the top I got for it
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I’m starting to get coralline algae so I think it’s time to add some coral ;) I think I avoided diatoms by soaking my rock in a bucket and then doing water changes on that bucket for awhile before adding it to the tank. I’m starting to get color on the rocks but never dealt with the slime phase
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Here are some top down pictures. I’ve been taking a less overkill approach and it seems to be rewarding me with free time and happy corals.

I’ve had my automated tester offline since swapping tanks. I test and do water changes weekly, then feed a small bit of LRS daily.
I think I was getting too lost in the sauce and was trying to achieve a no variance tank. I got 72 hours of alk pinned at 8, but I believe that trying to be so stable resulted in bigger problems. I was microadjusting to balance nutrients and alk and I think it was a futile endevour. After seeing so many successful tanks with one time a day dosing or top off has made me wonder if it is better to just stay within a range, rather than targeting a specific value. I guess I finally have a better grasp on “don’t chase numbers”
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I added two urchins. I’m hoping they will eat the coralline. One came in pretty beat up with missing spines but I’m hoping it can recover. There were not spines in the bag so it lost them before shipping
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I've always thought an urchin would be cool to have, but avoided them due to not wanting a bunch of stuff knocked around. Do they knock stuff over?
To be determined. I was worried too, but figured most my coral encrusts so I should be safe.

One moved the single rock I have my red goni on, so I’ll just make it too big for them to push the rock. I haven’t seen them pickup corals yet. I am somewhat worried about the mushrooms I have but wanted to try.

They are super interesting to watch though so it may be worth it.
 
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