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Seaslugteam Tank Journal

Tank Updates:
I lost 3 sps this week. One of my circulation pump died so I ordered a new pump, however I did not expect the sps to lose tissue so quickly. It should have occurred to me to move the second pump over to where the sps was since they are more sensitive to water movement. In either case, I think I should start stocking an extra circulation pumps and return pump for situations like this. Hopefully, I will not lose more of the coral before the swap since the reason I purchased these was to bring to the swap.
 
Tank Updates:
Sighs. Another 3 more sps died. Seems like they are all acropora. The montipora seems to be fine. I think my tank is simply not ready for acropora in general. At least, it's a lesson learned before the frag swap. It is sad though because I wanted to bring those acropora to the swap, now we only have about 7 frags which is barely enough.
 
Sorry to hear that. Yea, I tend to avoid acros for that reason. I love my monti's though and most have done well despite my nano not being the most stable environment (a virtue of being a nano in an unairconditioned apartment). However, I've recently been keep really happy with my little zoa collection that I'm gradually accumulation MUHAHAHA (while finicky, I've had better luck with zoas then almost any other coral group) You'll find plenty of awesome other non-acro to take home from the swap including many zoas that Ender and I are bringing. 7 is plenty of frags to bring to the swap and if you didn't have enough I'd be happy to help out :) This frag swap is gonna awesome!!!
 
Tank Updates:
I purchased the tunze 3155 ato from BRS this weekend. I was manually topping off my tank which was extremely tiresome since it goes through about 15 gallon of topoff per week (I was using a drip system so it wasn’t that bad but still needed some adjustments). I was looking to design an ATO system using a Keyence FS-V11 as a photo sensor for the water level and having either an ultrasonic sensor or a float switch as the backup. After looking at the tunze 3155, it seems like they have a similar fiber optic system. I figured I would have to spend about 100$ on parts anyway so might as well use the commercial product and save myself some time. I’m excited for it since this is a commercial product where I think it was very well designed. The only issue that I have with it is that the included DC pump seems to be unreliable.

Thoughts:
I think the wife and I have very different ideas of the reef aquarium. I wanted a reef tank that grows coral because I think of it as a science experiment. I think she wants a good looking tank with live rocks and sand and all those things. She wins so I’ll eventually add some live rock/sand to the tank. I guess I’ll do it slowly over the next few months since I’m only live rock in 10 gallon buckets. The good news is maybe I can convince her to let me get a frag tank on the side.

Lessons since previous posts:
Very cool thread started by Nav (Your first reef tank (and mistakes)).
 
Tank Updates:
I installed a ATO and dosing pump this weekend. This should give me more time. On a relate note, I went out and purchased a 40G breeder from Petco. This will be a very long all-in-one project over the next 6 months. I hope to get other reefers input on what features to add in this tank.
Speaking of things that I need to fix, @Coral reefer noticed the algae in my tank. How embarrassing! I guess getting the tank to be more beautiful is the next step.
I also got a cool DBTC from @Ahruk and got to see their cool tanks. Hopefully, the pink zipper will have many babies that can be pass on.

Thoughts:
Coral sure have some very stupid names. Way too many ‘unique’ names from way too many stores. Someone should go and fix that.

Lessons since previous posts:
Mixing baking soda is hard work. Using a higher water volume makes it way easier (1 cup per gallon instead of 2). Just dose a higher volume.
 
The trick to mixing baking soda, is to mix little by little at a time to the brs jug you are using. I like to fill the BRS jug about a third full, before putting in about a cup of the baking soda and mix vigorously. I continue this until I've got it all mixed up to a gallon. I can use this mix immediately.

I probably wouldn't put any acros in a tank until you can stabilize all parameters.
 
That's an interesting trick. Maybe I'll try that next time. Although that might be a few months away.

Also, too late on the acros. I lost about 6 acro/millepora frags over the last 6 months. I think I'll just avoid them forever now. I like LPS better than those fuzzy stick anyway.
 
My first 3 acros RTNd despite good parameters. My tank was only a few months old and I didnt learn where my tanks stability was.

Now i have about 4 acros that have good color but polyp extension is poor. One of the blue tenuis is STNing but the others are okay.

If and when you want to test your tanks ability to keep acro you should start with Acropora valida the tricolor one. Its a cool looking dark purple with green polyps acro. Usually recommended as a starter. If you cant keep this alive, you aint ready for acro yet. :)

That being said my tank is mostly lps and zoas.
 
Interesting tank.

It's always fun to see how people approach reefing in a wide variety of ways. I find the "science experiment micromanagement" tanks to be completely baffling sometimes. Its the complete opposite approach from mine, I'm more like your wife in the sense that I want beauty, but don't need to feel that I understand every detail.

Acropora can be notoriously fickle, in the old days the advice used to be that the tank should run for a year before any sps were added. Reefers would freely admit that they didn't understand the exact mechanisms, but mature tanks were more successful.

Science is fun, and it will probably be the mad scientist style tanks that develop next year's technology.
 
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