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Okay, I think I'm addicted. 

I added some more things today and yesterday. I am finding I really like just the clown fish and mostly corals. I want to add maybe just one or two more fish, but I am in no hurry since I really like the corals. Plus, I cannot really justify spending the cash I want for the fish I truly want. 

I need to find some zoa/palys next, but they are just so hard to find, at least, what I want.

Here is what I have added (I'm not exactly sure on the names):
Blue Tip Hammer
Candy Cane
Allie Eye Challice ?
Green Alveopora
Green Open Brain
Green Toadstool
Yellow/Most Orange Leptastrea

My tank is starting to have mostly green items, so I am after mostly blue colored items next time around.

Below are some iPhone (crappy) pictures. I keep telling myself I need to bring home my camera but keep forgetting, starting with my favorite:








Marcos


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Studboyt Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 24 2015 at 6:04pm
Lookin good man, those clowns are sweet. Maybe just let what you have settle in and make sure everything is good before adding more corals.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Molli Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 24 2015 at 6:05pm
Nice additions!  Have you started testing your alk, calc and mag yet.  You will be needing to do that soon if you aren't doing frequent water changes.  Your clowns might fall in love with your toadstool and use it as a host -- have seen that before.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bryce Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 25 2015 at 11:49am
I agree with the prior two posters. You just added some pretty expensive and not necessarily easy corals (other than that leather) to a tank that if I have read correctly has had water in it a month? I would wait 2 or 3 weeks minimum just to be sure you don't have an expensive lesson in patience and to be sure what you have adjusts well to the new environment you added them too.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 25 2015 at 5:39pm
Originally posted by Studboyt Studboyt wrote:

Lookin good man, those clowns are sweet. Maybe just let what you have settle in and make sure everything is good before adding more corals.

Hey man,

I agree. We are taking a break for a couple of weeks before we add anything else. I realize that the items in there may consume more than the weekly water changes add, i.e. trace elements, calcium, etc.

There is still a very small amount of stuff though, compared to the volume of the tank. It looks a little silly right now as its so sparse. 


Originally posted by Molly Molly wrote:

Nice additions!  Have you started testing your alk, calc and mag yet.  You will be needing to do that soon if you aren't doing frequent water changes.  Your clowns might fall in love with your toadstool and use it as a host -- have seen that before. 

Hi Molly,

Thanks for the recommendations! I actually ordered a basic reef kit since I only test/tested ammonia, nitrate, PH, nitrate. I agree I need to start testing for alk, calc, and mag which is the test I ordered. I do weekly water changes that should keep the alk, calc, and mag high enough until I add more, but I will still test to make sure. I really hope the clown host that toadstool; I personally dislike the way that thing looks but my wife loved it so its in there. :)



Originally posted by Bryce Bryce wrote:

I agree with the prior two posters. You just added some pretty expensive and not necessarily easy corals (other than that leather) to a tank that if I have read correctly has had water in it a month? I would wait 2 or 3 weeks minimum just to be sure you don't have an expensive lesson in patience and to be sure what you have adjusts well to the new environment you added them too.

Bryce,

I agree too! I am taking a break on adding more stuff and will start testing for alk, calc, and mag next week. You are correct, the tank has had water way less than a month. I realize I rush things but I have been testing daily to make sure I do not jeopardize the lives of the fish. I would be sad if I lost the corals, but really only care about the fish right now since they are more lifelike. I started with 50 lb. of live rock, 80 lb. of live rock, and treated with ammonia/bio stuff the first day. I had a spike in the first week and levels came down immediately. I have not had ammonia or nitrite since the first couple of days. I read that some people have short, 24 hr cycles, and hope that is my case. All seems well.

Thanks everyone for the info! 

I am hoping I continue to report life and not death.

Marcos

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote relethg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2015 at 12:05pm
Didn't want to hijack that other thread. I did use razor blade to remove the extre chambers in the sump. It was not hard and it took about 30 min. I added a piece of glass to the second decider from the left. This keeps the skimmer chamber the same height. I don't have ATO yet, just can't make my mind up on the way to go yet. If I had ATO would not have added the glass.

What heater(s) are you using. Are they in sump. Do you like them? What temp do you keep your system. I ask because I don't like my setup.

Thanks Glenn
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2015 at 12:19pm
Originally posted by relethg relethg wrote:

Didn't want to hijack that other thread. I did use razor blade to remove the extre chambers in the sump. It was not hard and it took about 30 min. I added a piece of glass to the second decider from the left. This keeps the skimmer chamber the same height. I don't have ATO yet, just can't make my mind up on the way to go yet. If I had ATO would not have added the glass.

What heater(s) are you using. Are they in sump. Do you like them? What temp do you keep your system. I ask because I don't like my setup.

Thanks Glenn

Hi Glenn,

Thank you for the razor blade suggestions. I will try it because that tiny partition, the one that came with the egg-crate, seems to be worthless. Most likely, it is designed to hold bags of carbon. I want to use house a couple of BRS reactors to run GFO and carbon. 

I added a Tunze ATO when I first set up my tank. I have it pulling from a 10G, cheap Petco tank, inside a cabinet. It burns through about 7-10 gallons a week so I am super glad to have it. It works like a champ too. I have tested it by turning off the entire system, letting the sump fill up, etc. It does not seem to pump water when its not needed and my SG stays at 1.024 all the time.

I am using two 150W Eheim Jager heaters. I am kind of paranoid/anal when it comes to things so I wanted to have two in there just in case. I have one set to 75 and the other set to 74. I am sure I will kill one eventually and wanted to have a failsafe. My water has been around 75.1 to about 75.8. It has been like that in the middle of the night, early morning, and in the evening. I know its kind of on the colder side, but I have been looking at a lot of the corals that I want, and fish, and they all seem to want it on the colder end. I know some people on here run them pretty hot around 80 (hot compared to where I am. I don't know what the ocean temp is and have no biology knowledge). I think that any temperature, within that range would work, as long as its consistent. I heat up my salt water when I do a water change, but I don't heat my ATO water. It just streams in and I have not seen it drop the water temp because it does maybe a 2 second stream every hour.

Thanks!

Marcos



Edited by Marcoss - January 29 2015 at 12:25pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote relethg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2015 at 12:31pm
Same heaters I have. Where do you have them?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2015 at 12:37pm
I have them in the sump. One by the skimmer and the other in the middle compartment, right before the return compartment. I have my temp gauge in the return compartment. Thats where I want to see what the temp is of the water going in. Not sure if thats right, but everything is alive so far.

Edited by Marcoss - January 29 2015 at 12:38pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2015 at 7:00pm
Update:

Added the following items:
1x Elegance Coral
2x Frogspawn
Sand Sifting Sea Star

The starfish is kind of boring. He spends a lot of his time outside of the sand and mostly disappears at night. I was hoping he would be away all day doing his sand thing.

Also, I am pretty sure my toadstool leather has died. I woke up and the candy cane coral was on it. I assume the candy cane fell from above and landed on it, and stung it to death.

As well, the candy cane has still not opened up since I brought it home. It was not even open at the store. The candy cane has been in the tank 9 days and it has not opened up. At night, tentacles come out to catch food but during the day it looks dead. Its still very bright green but its just not extending, if that makes sense. I have moved it from lower flow/less light areas to higher flow/more light areas. It performs the same in each spot. I have also fed it a few times brine shrimp/mysis. 

Any suggestions on meds to give it incase it has a decease?

Marcos

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My advice would be stop buying corals, im sure you do not want to hear that but if the candy canes have not done well even if they were not doing well when you bought them that adding even more picky corals like frogspawn and elegance is not going to work out but candy canes typically only extend tenticals at night. Leathers (toadstool) will shed, it is possible it looks dead but is just pissed off and gone into a shedding mode. Leathers are extremely tolerant coral that can be stung, ripped, cut to pieces and recover just fine. If not and its truely dead, I would remove the leather as you do not want that decomposing in your tank.

Edited by Bryce - February 01 2015 at 8:46pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote relethg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2015 at 9:04pm
Could we see some pictures; FTS and close ups of the corals?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2015 at 10:44pm
Originally posted by Bryce Bryce wrote:

My advice would be stop buying corals, I'm sure you do not want to hear that
In your thread about the red algae it says you are looking to add a Tang soon. IMO, that's not such a good idea right now. I would add some macroalgae and let it grow for a while. I'm in full agreement with Bryce. Try to slow down and be patient. In this hobby, patience is a virtue. We know whereof we speak because we have experienced it for ourselves. Dead My wife would like to strangle me for the incidents over the years where I killed animals because of my impatience.

Aloha,
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808-345-1049 text/call ahead

P.S.
There is an ancient but Good Book which gives the very basic steps for creating a reef aquarium:
land-water -> day-night -> plants -> animals
Smile


Edited by Mark Peterson - February 01 2015 at 11:03pm
Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks:
www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244
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What are your calcium alkalinity and mag levels. Did you read up on the starfish and realize they will eat all the good stuff in your sandbed. Also before adding a tang please do your research on what kind of tang can be happy in your size tank. Adding a tang that needs more swim room than your tank can provide will lead to aggression problems.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 02 2015 at 5:56pm
Originally posted by Bryce Bryce wrote:

My advice would be stop buying corals, im sure you do not want to hear that but if the candy canes have not done well even if they were not doing well when you bought them that adding even more picky corals like frogspawn and elegance is not going to work out but candy canes typically only extend tenticals at night. Leathers (toadstool) will shed, it is possible it looks dead but is just pissed off and gone into a shedding mode. Leathers are extremely tolerant coral that can be stung, ripped, cut to pieces and recover just fine. If not and its truely dead, I would remove the leather as you do not want that decomposing in your tank.

Hi Bryce,

Thanks for the advice. We have stopped buying stuff and the few things I added were because I read that they were hardy. I know a lot of people have opinions about what will live and what does really bad. I could be wrong, but I have bought a few things that looked like crap at the LFS and I brought them home and they do better. But it could be luck. I have seen several systems that are all run so different, yet, they all perform perfectly on all levels. I bought an acan that looked very nice and I am pretty sure its on the brink of death. What is confusing to me is most sites will classify stuff like easy/medium and others hard/expert yet some new tanks have stuff that is expert and lives and easy stuff that dies. After seeing what so many people have in their tanks, I see its not as black and white as I thought. I have not yet seen Mark's but his systems seem to be run different than most, however, they appear to run just as well.

I cannot figure out the candy cane and I am going to keep dipping it for a few days to see what happens. I am not worried if it dies since it does not have a brain, I mostly care about the fish. The tentacles come out at night and are pretty long, maybe .5". 

I exaggerated about the leather. It looked "dead" but it was not dead. I was looking at images of dead ones and they curl up and shrink. I think it was stung by something because there are two new spots on it but for the most part the main part is doing better. The tentacles are out now on most of it.

Long story short, thanks for the advice. I have postponed adding more living things to the tank (except for one fish) while I concentrate on fine tuning the elements. I said that last week too but things are too damn hard to resist. I am pretty sure I won't add anything else for a long time though.

Thanks!

Marcos

Originally posted by </span>relethg<span style=line-height: 16.7999992370605px;> relethg wrote:

Could we see some pictures; FTS and close ups of the corals?

Hey Glenn,

I forgot my camera again, so I will upload crappy iPhone pics in a moment. What is an FTS?

Marcos

Originally posted by </span>Mark Peterson<span style=line-height: 16.7999992370605px;> Mark Peterson wrote:

In your thread about the red algae it says you are looking to add a Tang soon. IMO, that's not such a good idea right now. I would add some macroalgae and let it grow for a while. I'm in full agreement with Bryce. Try to slow down and be patient. In this hobby, patience is a virtue. We know whereof we speak because we have experienced it for ourselves. Dead My wife would like to strangle me for the incidents over the years where I killed animals because of my impatience.

Aloha,
Mark  Hug
808-345-1049 text/call ahead

P.S.
There is an ancient but Good Book which gives the very basic steps for creating a reef aquarium:
land-water -> day-night -> plants -> animals
Smile

Hi Mark,

Thank you. I agree on slowing down but its so hard to stop. I think I will just stay away from the LFS so I am not tempted. Maybe next time I will do a fish only system as they seem to get going a little quicker.

I am going to hold off on the fish for this week. I was supposed to pick him up tonight but will wait until Saturday. That should buy an extra week.

I plan on growing some cheetos once I get a chance to redo my sump. It has a couple of compartments that should really be one.

Thanks!

Marcos


Originally posted by </span>Molli<span style=line-height: 16.7999992370605px;> Molli wrote:

What are your calcium alkalinity and mag levels. Did you read up on the starfish and realize they will eat all the good stuff in your sandbed. Also before adding a tang please do your research on what kind of tang can be happy in your size tank. Adding a tang that needs more swim room than your tank can provide will lead to aggression problems.

Hi Molli

Thanks for your message. I did research the tang and the starfish. The starfish is a tricky one. There are a ton of people who say don't add one, a ton who say to add one. Tons of sites say they eat the good bacteria, tons say they eat detritus only, and tons say they will eat leftover food. I am trying to find a scientific site that talks about what they eat, what damage they cause, ect. I plan on only having the startfish a short time. Enough to just eat all the detritus I have and then its gone. Whats your opinion on it?

I am leaning towards giving it away sooner than later since its already cleaned up and I don't want to over clean.

The tang I research a lot. Its probably the smaller tang, compared to a blue or yellow. The kole eye tang needs about 70G versus a hippo or yellow needing hundreds. Of course, you could add a baby sized one and always give it away when its almost too big.

Calc is 390 PPM
dkh is 7.8
Mag is 1400

I am not dosing and only getting that from water changes. 

Marcos


Edited by Marcoss - February 02 2015 at 5:57pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 02 2015 at 6:04pm
Some images.

The toadstool is recovering from the sting (I am guessing its a sting)



Chalice:


Frogspawn:


Hammer:


Elegance:


Brain:


I forgot what this is:


Pain in the arse candy cane (this is what it looks like until night. At night it looks like this but with tentacles):


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FTS = full tank shot.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 02 2015 at 6:45pm
Pardon the mess, still gathering art and furniture for this room.




You can see what I am calling the tentacles sticking out here:

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Candy canes look fine to me, leather looks like its going to shed/molt and should be fine, the hammer doesn't look too happy but not anything critical.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 02 2015 at 7:09pm
Originally posted by Bryce Bryce wrote:

Candy canes look fine to me, leather looks like its going to shed/molt and should be fine, the hammer doesn't look too happy but not anything critical.


Thanks man! I appreciate your honesty. The hammer actually came with two of those things missing. It has like four trunks and only two were alive

Marcos
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