Cali Kid Corals

Patrick's 81G - the last dance

6 month update

The tank has been coming along. Everything stabilized for a good month until I had an unexpected nutrient spike.A couple weeks back and thought the little chaeto I had in the algae Rx was dying off. After checking things out, still had that golf ball sized chunk in there and was at a loss for a while. NO3 shot up to 20 and PO4 got to 0.18...after 3 water changes over a week and a small amount of GFO fixed things, then I began to pay closer attention to how it spiked.

I fed the tank the usual frozen food (rods original and PE cubes) and sat there to time how long it took the fish to finish everything. While observing a nassarius snail rise from the sand, my conch comes out of no where and get him in a full on headlock...I conducted a head count of some of my clean up crew and found that there were only 2 out of the 7 large turbo snails I originally had in there...the conch made quick work of the nas, and I believe is also responsible for the disappearing of the res of the clean up crew,, less the ones the carpet nem takes out.

Coral wise, things have been growing nicely. Since running the airline outside, PH peaks around 8.34 for most of the photo period and drops to 8.05 at its lowest.

April 2025
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July 1
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April
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July


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April
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July
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1 hour before lights out
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Has your tank been getting hot in the summer? That or lack of food tends to take out the turbos I've kept over the years.

With the conch, got any pictures? I've definitely heard of predatory Caribbean species.
 
Has your tank been getting hot in the summer? That or lack of food tends to take out the turbos I've kept over the years.

With the conch, got any pictures? I've definitely heard of predatory Caribbean species.
The temp has been pretty steady around 78-80. I think it hit 81 for a couple hours when the mini split didn't turn on. Lack of food may be possible. There hasn't been much algae to graze on compared to before. One i can confirm was a casualty to the carpen nem due it the shells proximity to it.

I'll shoot a Pic of the conch once I get home. It was sold as an Atlantic conch with the same shell seen that is sold to tourist, only smaller.

But man....when those things die, they're little nutrient bombs
 
Do you have any more room left for sticks? haha

Watch out for that sunset though, those encrusting montis are no fun when they get large.
Hahah...still got around 12 spots to add..one side of the scape is still pretty bare.

Good call out on the sunset..looking at it, it could be a major problem if it started encroaching on the areas with sticks..I think I'll move that to its own rock to be safe since Its a pretty fast grower
 
That looks more like a Stramontina sp. and they're generally predatory. Good for keeping vermetids in check though in my experience!

I'd stick to tiger conchs as they're very reef safe.
I knew something was up when I saw all of my hermits with a nassarius shell on lol. What are your thoughts on strombus alatus? From what I read, they'd stay mainly in the sandbed. Any experience with those taking out snails?
 
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