Reef nutrition

New to me Reefer 250

It’s been a long time since I updated this thread. I’ll go with the good and bad things that have happened.

First the bad...
We had and overcame Zoa Pox...lost a few small frags but all colony’s survived. Some were never affected.
The fish got ich, but with heavy feeding selcon soaked food the fish look great.

The good...
Added a manderin, 6 line wrasse, and three bagnai cardinals for a total of 10 fish and 4 shrimp

Added lots of new frags including a few acros. Some acros are doing well some, just ok.

I’ve had lots of growth. I’ve gone from 15ml of bionic per day to 35ml per day to keep up in the last month alone.

Added some new equipment...
BRS mini reactor with carbon and a very small amount of GFO mixed in. This balances out the phosphate perfectly with my dosing of NOPOX.

Added another mp10 to make it 3 total...I want one more

Added a co2 scrubber because I want too much BRS investigates and I want to run a PH of 8.2-8.3 instead on 8. So far it’s raised my ph from a peak of 8.1 to 8.3. I’ve seen a higher uptake of alk with it. I figure I’ll do this for a year to get good growth then maybe take it down

Parameters as of today
No3 .02
Po4 .01
Alk 7.5 DKH
Cal 410
Mag 1335
Salinity 1.026
 
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Pictures of corals

Rainbow Monti, red setosa, Jedi mindtrick monti, unknown green Acro, Purple digi, Green digi
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Aussie Gold Torch
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Green digi and red or maybe forest fire or bubble gum digi are growing together
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Lots of coral
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Montipora spongdodes
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Green tyree toadstool
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Acans
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Purple Hornet
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Emeralds on Fire
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Utter Chaos
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Scolymia
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Jawbreaker
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BBB’s and Fire and ice zoas
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RR Pink Diamonds
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Cali Kid Buttkissers
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Jack o lantern lepto
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Quadra color bubble tip
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Cabinet is looking really packed and unorganized but it’s not too bad
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BRS mini reactor
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Co2 Scrubber
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Air intake for the co2 scrubber is hooked up to the skimmer cup to keep the media humid
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The good...The tank has fully recovered from red slime, ich and ZOA Pox.

Sps are growing like weeds right now. I had up up my dosing again to 50ml of each.

I’ve also had to lower my NOPOX dose by half because I was doing too good a job. I think the tank is finally all settled in as far as bacterial colony goes.

Latest round of testing
Salinity 1.026
Po4 .06
No3 1
Dkh 7.1
Cal 420
Mag 1275

Looking back out the first few pics I can’t believe how much growth I’ve had. The co2 reactor is keeping my ph in the 8.3-8.4 range and media is lasting over 2 weeks with it hooked up to my skimmer cup.

The bad...2 cardinals died and I think the mandarin is starving. I just don’t think my refugium is providing enough pods for it to eat. I feel bad seeing it’s stomach caving in. Maybe there’s hope, but I’m not optimistic.

Equipment...I added a reef octopus neck cleaner to my skimmer and a valve on the drain so I don’t have to take the cup off for at least a few months.

I also re-plumbed the refugium to have the drain not go through the filter cups in hopes of getting a bigger pod population

Maintenance...I cleaned the Red Sea diaphragm valve because I couldn’t keep the noise down. There were 12 snails and a ton of crud living in there.
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Very cool tank. Sucks about the mandarin. It seems like they can be really difficult since you need such a high pod population. I’m hoping I’ll be able to support one, as they’re on my must have fish list.
 
Cruz Mc5 said:
Very cool tank. Sucks about the mandarin. It seems like they can be really difficult since you need such a high pod population. I’m hoping I’ll be able to support one, as they’re on my must have fish list.
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Agreed. I had so many pods in the tank before I got it. I mean everywhere I looked there were pods crawling around. It cleaned them out quickly.
 
Honestly, I feed a mix of rods food, reef roids, pe mysis and selcon. I haven’t tried anything else. I was going to try frozen shrimp roe, but was unsuccessful finding any. Honestly though with how it’s stomach looks I don’t think it’ll pull through even if I tried.

Every time I’ve had a fish that wasn’t eating food they just wither away and die no matter what I try.

If you know where to get some better foods let me know. I will try them, but past experience tells me I’m wasting my time and money.
 
Rostato said:
Honestly, I feed a mix of rods food, reef roids, pe mysis and selcon. I haven’t tried anything else. I was going to try frozen shrimp roe, but was unsuccessful finding any. Honestly though with how it’s stomach looks I don’t think it’ll pull through even if I tried.

Every time I’ve had a fish that wasn’t eating food they just wither away and die no matter what I try.

If you know where to get some better foods let me know. I will try them, but past experience tells me I’m wasting my time and money.
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You can try to isolate it in a tank or bucket for a while to try to train it to feed on frozen/dry food so there's no competition and you can easily cut flow. I probably got lucky, but that's how I ended up getting a mandarin that eats frozen foods.
 
Do like Randy said no. Offer live foods if needed to fatten it up. I don t wanna be a dick, but you bought, likely knowing it's tough to keep. I feel like that is a commitment to do your best to keep it healthy/alive. Giving up seems not right to me. Try live brine at least?
 
The shrimp roe is called nutramar — have been successful mixing it into some masstick for my mandarins to get interested in frozen


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Coral reefer said:
Do like Randy said no. Offer live foods if needed to fatten it up. I don t wanna be a dick, but you bought, likely knowing it's tough to keep. I feel like that is a commitment to do your best to keep it healthy/alive. Giving up seems not right to me. Try live brine at least?
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No I get it. Your not being a dick at all. I have tried to catch it a couple times with no success. I’m not going to tear the whole tank down for 1 fish. I know that kinda seems dickish but it is what it is.

I have a separate frag tank I could put it in a feed like hell but I have been able to catch it. It’s always hiding. I see it maybe once a week.
 
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