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Marine Journal - Red Sea Max 130D


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#41 Jules

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 01:10 PM

Looks like an econophylia sp. or Chalice. Quite a hardy coral (I found) grows mint and encrusts things under the correct lighting and with a good calcium supply.



#42 Blakey

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 11:41 PM

Yeh was sold to me as green plate coral. Looks more like Chalice to me.<br />What's the purple stuff? It looks like a purple Xenia.<br /><br />Some of the coral growing on the live rock is going CRAZYYYY growing so fast and the colours under the moon lights are so fluorescent.<br /><br />Found more live animals tonight some kind of ornamental crab and a blue worm? Or slug of some sort.<br /><br />
Yeh was sold to me as green plate coral. Looks more like Chalice to me.<br />What's the purple stuff? It looks like a purple Xenia.<br /><br />Some of the coral growing on the live rock is going CRAZYYYY growing so fast and the colours under the moon lights are so fluorescent.<br /><br />Found more live animals tonight some kind of ornamental crab and a blue worm? Or slug of some sort.<br /><br />

#43 Dazzab

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Posted 23 September 2014 - 05:47 AM

Dont worry about the red sea abc powder your not ready to dose yet. Start dosing when your tanks using all your trace elements faster then what you water changes can supply them.

#44 MrLeifBeaver

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Posted 23 September 2014 - 01:35 PM

Dont worry about the red sea abc powder your not ready to dose yet. Start dosing when your tanks using all your trace elements faster then what you water changes can supply them.

 

Is there a good tank indicator to this happening other than having to measure for it?



#45 Blakey

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Posted 23 September 2014 - 05:37 PM

Yeh cause I only have a calcium test atm and this ABC powder does more than just that ? CA / sr / kh / mg / and Br.
On another note - Nitrate and Ammonia are now completely undetectable. Photo of tank attached.Attached File  ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411465013.540829.jpg   430KB   7 downloads lots of brown algae? Indication of high phosphate ?

#46 Riggers

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Posted 23 September 2014 - 10:37 PM

G'day mate just been reading through your thread, great tank so far! Brown algae is diatom algae, not bad, you want to watch for the dreaded red algae, not to be confused with coralline algae (purple looking). You'll get red algae if you have high heavy metals.
Pick up a master saltwater test kit does everything you'll need!!

Is the mantis still in there? I had one in some live rock too I ended up pulling the tank apart and flushing him out with soda water and he went to a LFS :) he was a beast but, I'd feed him prawn on a skewer and when he snapped you could feel it all the way up your hand!

I was using in the marine, and still using in fresh, the sicce voyager wave make from Vebas with the wave surfer controller, around $270 from memory but I highly recommend them!!

Love marine! Looking at yours makes me want to set up another one! :)

#47 Blakey

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Posted 24 September 2014 - 11:48 AM

Mantis is gone! I do get a weird red / purple algae but the snails love it and it never lasts longer than a day or two before being eaten. Yeh I have a master test kit but a few bits missing that I need to grab. This kit came with the tank was a Red Sea kit. But doesn't have any phosphates or heavy metals in it. Cheers for the comments pretty stoked this is only my first time doing marine and so far so good

#48 Riggers

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Posted 24 September 2014 - 11:34 PM

It's really nice so far, good tank :) I know what it's like to go to ocean reefs and want to buy everything in there!! Are you using RO water for fresh top ups?

#49 Blakey

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Posted 25 September 2014 - 09:24 AM

Riggermortis no I'm not. I'm using straight tap water at the moment. <br />An RO unit is on the to get list. Just trying to figure out how to store the water and what not.<br />

#50 Blakey

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Posted 27 September 2014 - 10:57 AM

Some healthy bits of my tank that are growing on the live rock. Also have heard of the dreaded red algae? Is this last photo the start of an outbreak? Attached File  ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411786551.035951.jpg   417.8KB   6 downloads.jpg]Attached File  ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411786575.585227.jpg   401.79KB   7 downloadsAttached File  ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411786602.369996.jpg   431.57KB   6 downloads

Attached Files



#51 Dazzab

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Posted 27 September 2014 - 02:44 PM

Your secind photo is gree hair algae can be really bad and the last is cyano bacteria also can get bad both due to nitrates and phosphates but also common with a new tank

#52 Blakey

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 11:16 AM

So I was bad. I needed to add more cleanup crew and ended up getting two more smaller pieces of live rock to fill in a couple of gaps I had. I really wanted a cucumber so got a burn sausage cucumber, 5 little hermit crabs (which are awesome clean ups) couple more snails, my missus couldn't resist the furry red starfish and I got a blue tang who is also doing an awesome job at cleaning. Probably overloaded it a little but testing twice daily and no ammonia, nitrates or phosphates still. Tank is pretty well scaped how I want it with rock and already have an idea of coral placements. Next addition will be peppermint shrimp . And before anyone says the tang will outgrow the tank, I am well aware and it is a temporary addition as part of the grazing crew. I assumed they would be one of the hardier easy to keep fish as a starter . It will eventually be traded in and I will be going for some rarer fish and gobies and what not. This tank I really want to keep as 'micro' as possible. Small fish, small shrimp just a tiny little micro Eco system.Attached File  ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411960416.524533.jpg   475.96KB   6 downloads

#53 Dazzab

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 03:18 PM

Keep a close eye on the tang for ich luckily iv only had it once amd didnt change a thing just keep the fish happy. Once it grows up id gladly buy it off you if I can sell my orange shoulder tang haha

#54 Blakey

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 08:42 AM

Massive Updates

- RO unit today
- tunze 9002 I get Saturday

- nitrates, ammonia and phosphate held steady for 2 weeks so I have introduced some Corals.
2 x Small ZOA clusters
1 x Hammer Coral
1 x Orange Mushroom (single Head)

My Green plate is fine now and my purple xenia is going great guns. A whole bunch of other corals have grown on the like rock I got.

Inhabitants now are
Clean Up Crew
7 x hermit crabs
5 x Turbo Snails
3 x Strombus Snails
1 x Burnt Sausage Cucumber
1 x Red Furry Starfish
5 x peppermint Shrimp

1 x Blue Tang (Temporary)
1 x blue Chromis
1 x Firefish

- notes

My clean up crew rocks. I had massive problems with the algae for a bit and was stressing (mainly on the sand bed) so the Strombs fixed it all up. The tank is absolutely immaculate and I am now feeding every couple of days and leaving the lights on much longer than I was as the CUC manages the algae and sediment.
There is a few ornamental looking crabs in there, a pistol shrimp a couple of abalone all small and hiding in the live rock that I got.
The tank looks absolutely amazing and I'm sure will get better with the change to RO water.

I had one Chromis kill the other 2. Pecked them to death so they went in the bin. I added a blue tang to graze the coral for the time being and it has done exactly what I needed it too.
Added the Firefish yesterday.

Got lots of little pieces of coral instead of one big pieces, so I can learn about a few different pieces at one time and experiment with them. Apparently my green plate coral is a little more difficult to keep than I thought but it is doing great now and feeding well so these new additions should be a breeze.

I got tons of photos but I can't post them from my phone (in app or via the mobile site or full site) just keeps coming up with an error.

#55 Blakey

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 02:39 PM

New fire fish dead.
Was fine this morning - death by powerhead. Stuck on the outside of the casing for my powerhead.
Looks like he had only been cause on it for a few minutes. Bugger!!! Was such a beautiful fish. My first loss - cut me to my core.

Will get another one on the weekend.

Just retested parameters everything checks out fine.

#56 Dazzab

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 05:44 PM

Must have been sock or stressed very unusual for a healthy fish to get stuck to a power head

#57 Blakey

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 10:55 PM

Daz I heard Fire fish are pretty frazzled for a week or so after being introduced. I wouldn't know since I killed mine in 24 hours but I'm blaming it on the fish. Toughen up if your name has fire in it.

#58 Dazzab

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 02:20 PM

Hahahaha love your thinking bro wimpy fish.

#59 Blakey

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 12:04 PM

Just looked back at my first photos and I can't believe how far it has come in such a short amount of time.

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#60 Blakey

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Posted 13 October 2014 - 10:10 AM

Now have an RO Unit and using Red Sea Pro Salt.
It's pretty expensive but has a good list of ingredients and being a beginner I think it's good to establish the tank with quality salts. It's only small as well so top ups and water changes are minimal.

I also have a Tunze 9002 I got for $100 what a steal. Will be ordering the Steve T Media Rack and Cup next pay. I know people debate the necessity of this addition but for me it's all about getting the temperature down and the noise down.

Also ordered two new fans for the good that produce 4 times more air turn over again I don't want to add a chiller unit to the tank so another measure to keep the temperature down.

Right now it sits stable at 26-27

New tannk mates

Decora Fire Fish
6 Line Wrasse

- Note : Had another episode of the brown goo on the chalice. Literally over night in a matter of 12 hours it had gone ape sh*t on it. I had, the day before, remover the skimmer and gave the back a good clean out to get rid of any crap laying in there and may have disturbed or encouraged it to come back.
I gave it a very hard treatment of the eye drops and it blew all the gunk off with a syringe. It seems to be good again now but I had really shaken up the xenia a bit and it isn't fully extending again yet.

I am finding it hard to just leave the tank alone so I am thinking of taping the lid shut for a while so I can stop fiddling.




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