Hello again

bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
Ive been trolling on and off for a while but thought I'd stop in and say hello!
Hello!:hi:
I joined the site last year after having some struggles with new corals in my 55 gl tank. A year later, tank is still going but has seen some changes...all the corals I started with are no longer in it. I was pleasantly surprised on my birthday in January with a 180 gl tank and stand!
The 180 has been running since feb and transfer happened in late march. I'd love to say its been great, but I'm struggling with parameters at the moment. Definiltely this system has been a huge learning curve but lots of fun.
The 55 gl has mostly zoas, mushrooms, colt corals and palys, but I love it's simplicity.
Cheers
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
Fts of the 180
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A bit about each....
The 55 was neglected after the transfer but I kept it going. Was going to do a predator tank, so bought a snowflake eel, he was seriously cool, but he essentially highlighted our initial mistake when the 55 was set up. We left the fw gravel in and added the sand on top. Well the eel kicked it all up. I could not find a fu man chu lion and as the glass was getting greener by the day, I sold the eel, got rid of the sand and started over. I'm running the same lights, 2x54wt t5ho and the vertex led. Fluval canister filter, no skimmer. Tank has 2 chromis, 1 black and white clown and flameback angel, snails and crabs, lots of zoas, octospawn, torch, mushrooms, colts, and some palys. This tank is doing awesome, good growth on everything.
The 180... Well I got the tank and stand for my birthday. The stand is steel and not skinned. Won't be doing this until I get used to running a sump....so I've added a 85 gl sump, tank has 2 corner overflows so I'm running a herbie set up. 3 radion lights on a custom light stand made by a local guru here (he also built my stand), reef octopus 5000 skimmer, the thing is a beast.
I've just set up a doser and have a controller on order. 2 mp40s and a brs dual reactor running carbon and gfo.
The pics are from a couple months ago, I've lost a lot of corals and trying to get things stable. I've moved my button and wall frog back to the 55. My frog has been receding over the past few days, I do have someone who has offered to take it if it gets worse, don't want to lose this guy.
Fish list 2 clarkii clowns, radiant wrasse, hippo tang, male blue throat trigger, candy hogfish, royal gramma, tomini tang, yellow tang, bangtail cardinal (only original fish from set up last year) and a diamond goby. Typical cuc.
So that's about it.....I will be stopping in more, if anything, this forum is always entertaining...
:laughing:
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Oh boy...I hope you covered the top of the tank with mesh....those wrasses are prone to committing sushi. Once when I lifted the top edge to feed the fish...
I had one jump in the back of the tank where I couldn't reach it to even try to save it.... It was like he was just waiting for a chance to kill himself.
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
Thank you for the kind words.
The top isn't covered...funny enough, I my female clown was the first to jump, then my red velvet wrasse and my solar wrasse. No more wrasses till it gets covered. Have the stuff to do it, just need the time.
I'm going to rescape the 180 next week, may as well while there aren't a lot of corals in it. Will add updated photos once it's done.
Have a great day!
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
I want more of an "island" look, to break up the rock a bit. Plus its hard for coral placement the way it is, especially LPS in the rocks, so would like to create a shelf or 2. I found alot of the LPS ended up in the sand, which was fine, except my diamond goby would then make a cave under them and they'd end up on funny angles. I struggle with taking pictures of the 180 due to the LED's and haven't gound a good balance that correctly reflects the colors, so I have a zillion pics on my camera, but none that I'm happy with.
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
Thank you Siptang! I'm going to mess around with the tank this week. I set up my doser last Thursday, went away for the weekend, came home and tested expecting my parameters to be right....all way off (low) so have some things to figure out.
 
S

siptang

Guest
I used to dose 1ml per hour when I was using BRS dosers using Apex controller and it kept everything in check.
I sold the dosers after a incident of something getting caught and not dosing. I replaced the part, made it to work and sold it as is explaining that it may happen with dosers. Now I just use seachem 2 part dosing and I just dose it cap full of each every day and it has kept everything in check.
I love your rock work and selection of corals. It's coming along really nice!
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
I was using liquid mag and alk out of a bottle which worked great....as long as I remembered to do it. It was also expensive as I'd go through the big bottles in 2 weeks. Im running out today to pick up more bulk stuff and will then increase the dosing until its good.
We put a lot of faith into automating our set ups, but 2 people here have posted about total tank crashes in the last week. I'm nervous about it, but it does make a difference in the ease of looking after our little oceans. I'm changing salts, been using seachem stability for a year, changing to reef crystals to see if that helps.
Water change today....hate water change days....2 person job, have to wait til my lazy daughter drags her butt out of bed....teenagers...lol
My 55 is my fave tank ATM. It's filling up with zoas, have more coming today. Right now there's about 16 different ones, good thing they are all just frags. The tank is very pretty I think! Once I get the new frags, will post some updated photos!
 
S

siptang

Guest
Bubblegirl, I'm sending you a pm regarding what I'm using.
 
bubblegurl

bubblegurl

Member
Awesome Siptang, I appreciate the help. I have been struggling with this, I know people have crashes or lose corals and I wonder how they manage to keep going. Funny bec I joined this site a year ago when I was having issues with my bubble coral and I was frustrated then. The 180 has been running the same amount of time now as the 55 was then, so I'm trying to keep it in perspective, new tank, new challenges. The 55 really started to stabilize at the 9-10 month stage and is super simple now to look after. This dosing bit is all new to me.
 
S

siptang

Guest
Yea, dosing is relatively new to me too but I started to put ALOT of sps in my tank and they have been VERY demanding and since I do bi weekly water changes, I started dosing and it has kept my tank in check.
I have everything automatic now so I have some free time. Right when I come home from work, I dose the first part then right before I go to sleep, I dose the second part.
My calcium is at consistent 460
Alkaline 9-10 (I try to keep it around 10)
Mag 1350ish
It also keeps my PH in balance as well. I always had low PH in my tank and now it's very stable and I'm very satisfied.
 
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