Cali Kid Corals

Randy's Red Sea Reefer 250

It was breaking. The power head was pointed at the surface and the output of the power head was place just below the surface.

I'll put in airstones in next time at any rate.

I floated the bag in the TTM tank and drip acclimated for 30 minutes.

A better practice would be to match salinity in the 1st tank to the water in the bag. You can ask for a small bag of the tank water to test while you are temp acclimating. Or bring in your refractometer.

When the temps are close, mix in 1/4 to 1/2 of the volume of the water in the bag to the bag, let the fish sit in it for a few minutes then scoop out and into tank. It's less stressful for the fish and since salinity is the same, there really is no need for long acclimation. Only real issue is PH which is the reason for the mixing of waters but it should be pretty close.

You can adjust the salinity in the next tank to be closer to what you are running and ultimately match your tanks salinity in the last transfer.


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If there wasn't enough gas exchange you should also see it in the pH if you tested for it before and after. (I probably wouldn't have tested for pH at all)
 
Day 94 - 2 weeks since last update and I discovered that Six-Line Wrasses and I may be incompatible fish/human buddies

Bad things the last 2 weeks
  • I've decided that me and six-line wrasses are not cool with each other. I like them, but them not so much me. So may need to take a small break from them. #1 - lost battle vs. circulation pump. #2 - decided to carpet (hardwood) surf while I was gone for the night. Found him crispy the next afternoon behind the tank.
  • I noticed ~2-3 weeks ago, that a few of my SPS I bought during the halloween sale at CRC were bleaching. I notched down my two Radion XR15w from 45% to 30% for a week and increased to 35% this Monday. Those SPS seem to be doing better (at least don't look worse) and everything else looks to be alright. Will keep at 35% for a while and see how things go.
Good things the last 2 weeks
  • Birth of my second baby - good test of tank auto-pilot. Aside from auto-top tank fills and feeding, the Reefer held up to ~2 weeks of mild neglect.
  • Growth of euphyllia, monti's, cyphestrea, chalices and zoas continue to move along nicely. Aside from the 3 pieces of bleaching SPS, I think I'm starting to see some growth at the base of most of the SPS and I'm hoping it'll start encrusting over super glue and rock soon.
  • Goodies from BRS' black Friday sale came in, I ended up getting a bio-pellet reactor, Hanna Phosphate & Alk checker, Salifert Nitrate test, and frag plugs. I bailed on a getting an Apex. I didn't think I had it in me for a rearrangement of equipment in sump and by the time I almost purchased it, the Apex was sold out at BRS. I took that as a sign.
  • Installed the bio-pellet reactor today and I am proving you can cram a lot of crap into a RedSea Reefer 250 (prolly too much). I did need to take out a 3/4" gate valve that was going to the dual reactor (GFO & Carbon) and replace with two 1/2" MurLock inline push connect ball valves. I just didn't have enough room to fit two gate valves in. I'm getting a good tumble with the pellets, but the valve is wide open right now, so I'm hoping the tumbling action stays good and doesn't need more flow due to clogging of the filter screen. I used a tad less than one cup (7/8th a cup?) of bio-pellets. BRS recommends 1 cup for 50 gallons.
    • I "swear" this is the last thing I put in this thing.
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Day 109

Tank has stayed unremarkable (in a good way). Water parameters have been pretty stable. Alk stays in the low-to-mid 9s throughout the day, CA around 420, Mg at 1380, pH typically in 8.15-8.3 range. Nitrates & phosphates are undetectable by API & Hanna, but it's there because I'm getting hair algae and cheato growth in the fuge. Interestingly enough, I figured I would have seen some sizable coralline algae growth on the rocks/glass by now, but I only see it on snail shells and euphyilla skeletons with some very tiny spattering on rocks. Maybe my urchin sniffs it out and nips it in the bud. Nothing to report on bio-pellets yet except that they're still tumbling, not clogging up the reactor screen with biofilm and have not done anything bad like cloud the water from a bacteria bloom.

Coral are growing well on everything except the sticks - the judgement is still pending on those. I'm pretty sure it was too much lighting initially that was the problem for me as the few pieces that were bleaching have stopped and seem to have improved very slightly. Those that weren't bleaching seem to have started some growth around the mount point. No new fish for now, but I added a few new corals - Cali Tort, light lavender/blue tipped millepora, orange monti cap, sunny d zoas, and mohawk zoas.

Some new pictures to share:

FTS
Day_0109_FTS.jpg


I've got babies! Banded trochus snail babies! If they live long enough and grow big enough, I may be having some snails to get rid of in the near future. Don't know how many, but I count at least 20 in sump and fuge.
Day_0109_trochus_babies.jpg


Sunny D Zoas (Taken under 7500K and color is not as "sunny d orange" as they are in person. 20,000K setting on LEDs wasn't playing well with my camera and the zoa for some reason).
Day_0109_sunny_d_zoa.jpg


Mohawk Zoas. Growing well. have 6 polyps from 3 after 3-4 weeks in the tank. (Thanks @Calde0920)
Day_0109_mohawk_zoa.jpg


A new millepora - my first mille was one of the partially bleached sticks that I'm hoping will recover. Got this one to make me feel better about other sticks. :)
Day_0109_millepora_blue_fade.jpg


Getting some good growth on this space invader chalice. It's probably doubled eye count and gone from 1/2"-3/4" or so in diameter to 1 1/4".
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Rainbow BTA still isn't inflating all the way and some of the tentacles still don't inflate at all, but it has at least stopped moving around for almost 4 weeks now.
Day_0109_rainbow_BTA.jpg


Ducan coral is doing well, but for some reason doesn't seem to have the insane growth it did in my 12G Fluval Edge. I do notice that my cleaner shrimp tend to bug this coral and the BTA the most (or at least I catch them the most doing so). Hope that's not the reason why.
Day_0109_duncan.jpg


This neon green candy cane came from the frag swap with two heads. It's splitting into 5 at the moment.
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Meteor shower cyphastrea has developed more new polyps than I want to count on the original frag and is encrusting the surrounding rock.
Day_0109_meteor_shower_cyphestrea.jpg
 
Everything looks good. The milliepora likes a lot of flow, much more than any of your other corals. Do you have it right in front of your pump?
 
Beautiful pics. Those are some nice size frags. I got a meteor shower too that I haven't placed yet. Can't seem to figure out a spot for it. High light mod flow?
 
Beautiful pics. Those are some nice size frags. I got a meteor shower too that I haven't placed yet. Can't seem to figure out a spot for it. High light mod flow?

Thanks!

I have mine pretty much on the sand bed with moderate flow. Probably getting somewhere between 80-100 par.
 
Wow, ok, was thinking it needed a lot of light. It's needing less than your monties?

I have my monti caps mounted around 5-6" higher and they seem to be doing alright and growing. I can measure out what Par they're getting later today if you're curious.
 
I need to find someone to drill my ato tank on my reefer 250. What return pump are you using for that?


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I use my vectra M1 pump for my return and to feed all my reactors and fuge.

Drilling a hole actually isn't that bad. My first time drilling a hole in glass was actually on this ATO. For me the thing I found most difficult was getting the hole started without the bit slipping. Starting the initial cut (it's actually more like a grinding action) seemed much easier if you start the hole saw bit at a 45 degree angle and go really, really slow with the drill. To cut three holes took me about 20-25 min.
 
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