My Shallow Reef

[hbrochs]

I never did a build thread, but stumbled on some old photos and thought I'd make a thread. As a post-grad student I had a 20 gallon long fish with live rock tank, and really enjoyed it until I graduated. Then two years ago I stumbled into the local fish store, and this Innovative Marine 80 gallon shallow tank was on major sale. Think I started out with like 50lbs of live sand and 50 lbs of live rock. They found me a really cool arched rock that is the center of the tank. They rocks are just balanced on top of each other.

Who knew back then that I'd later consider green star polyp a pest, lol.
Not sure I'd put Xenia in a display tank again, but I do feel like it helps with nutrients and is cool to look at. I harvest Xenia every month.





That single polyp of calaustrea (candy cane has grow to softball size.



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[hbrochs]

edit

[hbrochs]

[QUOTE=hbrochs;24819104]I struggled with green hair algae that first year, and ran gfo to knock down the phosphates. I'd tamp back the algae, and near kill my corals. Not a ton of stability the first year.

I did buy an established pair of clownfish from the lfs. They were from a customer's tank, black and white Darwin female and orange and white ocellaris male. They started laying eggs, and my 13 year old daughter talked me into learning how to raise them. I have another thread in the breeding forum on this.


"First Ocellaris Fry"

I went to Reef a palooza in New Jersey last year, and got this cool Milka stylophora there.



It's grown the best over the last year.








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[hbrochs]

In retrospect, my first improvement in stability was getting a good ATO hooked up (Tunze). I bought a 13 gallon container from Advanced Acrylics. The next bump in stability was getting a dosing pump. I went with GHL and I'm very happy with it. Has a nice app so that I can tweak the program with my phone.




The clownfish tanks generate a ton of nitrate and I do pretty big weekly water changes. I finally bought a couple 25 gallon containers for rodi and mixing saltwater.










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[Charley Diesing]

love it!

[hbrochs]

Thanks!



Torch coral was one of my first frags.
It's gotten so big its stinging neighboring corals. Not sure what to do about this problem.



Jason Fox Psammocora



Orange ricordia



Pink boobies, fromia star (rest in peace) and money shot monti (WWC)



Reef Raft rainbow chalice, maybe my favorite coral.




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[hbrochs]

ORA montipora Lantana in May



October




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[choss]

Originally Posted by hbrochs

Thanks!



Torch coral was one of my first frags.
It's gotten so big its stinging neighboring corals. Not sure what to do about this problem.



Jason Fox Psammocora



Orange ricordia



Pink boobies, fromia star (rest in peace) and money shot monti (WWC)



Reef Raft rainbow chalice, maybe my favorite coral.




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Wait a second - I recognize that hand. Everyone should have a buddy who swings by to rescue corals that mysteriously dive into some deep crevice while you are on vacation!

[hbrochs]

Ha Ha, no lie!!

I was away for the weekend and my mom was at the house, I ask her to send me a few tank photos, and I notice my chalice is not where it's supposed to be.
My buddy Chris comes to the rescue, think he had to put on full scuba gear to find it, lol.


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[MrDaniel]

That reefraft rainbow chalice is awesome. Does it grow quickly for you?

[hbrochs]

Originally Posted by MrDaniel

That reefraft rainbow chalice is awesome. Does it grow quickly for you?

Thanks, I love that chalice! Its really hard to capture how stunning it is in a photo, looks a lot better in person. It did not grow very much at all for the first four or five months. Then it got comfortable and doubled in size over the last 3-4 months. I do feed a mix of fine food combo to my lps once or twice a week.
Combo of oyster feast, fine frozed fish eggs (Larry's), cyclopeeze, coral delight powder, and calanus. I use a long turkey baster. If I feed this food too often, I'll get cyano outbreak. Also notice that since I've been feeding the fine foods, Yellow sponge has been growing in the rockwork. Pretty cool.

[choss]

How about some updated pics?

[hbrochs]

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[hbrochs]

I put my ATI Powermodule up for sale. I've been using 6 tube ATI Sunpower for about 6 weeks and the tank seems to like the Sunpower better. Ordered two royal blue led bars to add onto the Sunpower.


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[hbrochs]

I got some Black Friday stuff in today. New acrylic top took almost two months, but it came out really nice.

Also got two led bars from SB Reefs, they're Cree royal blue. The tank looks electric with the blues on!


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[hbrochs]

Had a great time at the Manhattan Reef Frag Swap.
Nice fragging demos, great vendors, and fun talking reefing with everyone. Took some top down shots after I got my purchases settled in.

This unnamed tenius on the right is from Jason Fox, was sitting right next to Home Wreaker


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[choss]

Things are looking great! What camera are you using for your top down shots. Really loving the last three photos in particular.

[Lilmatty5dimes]

Wow tank looks great. You've got a great sps collection.

[hbrochs]

Originally Posted by Lilmatty5dimes

Wow tank looks great. You've got a great sps collection.

Thank you, I feel like I'm constantly learning new things.


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[hbrochs]

Originally Posted by choss

Things are looking great! What camera are you using for your top down shots. Really loving the last three photos in particular.

I have a clear plastic rectangular Tupperware container that my iPhone fits in. I use an orange gel filter to take out some of the blue. Works pretty well, as long as my wife doesn't find out, lol.


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[hbrochs]

I've been target feeding my lps and chalices more frequently lately. I make a mix of half a cube of calanus, squirt of oyster feast, and a powdered Hikari product called coral delight. I add some tank water to this and target with a turkey baster. This in combination with my new SB led bars has caused some red cyano algae and some brown algae on the sandbed and glass. I dosed some Chemiclean yesterday and took two hours off the photoperiod. Took the carbon bag out of the sump per directions from Chemiclean, and added a line with airstone to the sump to provide extra oxygenation per instructions. Will do a 10% water change tomorrow and let you know how it goes.

Also had a surprise a couple of days ago. Somehow I had the brilliant idea of doing a quick water change right before I left for work, and after I siphoned a couple of gallons out. I heard a water trickle sound. Crap. Looked around, and then I see a really thin stream of water shooting five feet up in the air coming out of my sump!! #@!*#!!

I guess there is a hole in my return pump tubing, but didnt notice when its covered by water. When I siphoned some off, it shot up in the air! I dumped my fresh salt water in and that stopped the Geyser. Crazy.

Its always something.

[hbrochs]

When I first started the tank, I put in frags of green star polyp and xenia. Not really knowing any better, and not realizing that they could take over your tank.
The green star polyp completely took over the big arched rock in the center. After awhile, I realized that the green star polyp was sitting on the best sps real estate in the tank and I tried removing it manually. I've been doing this for about a year, and not really winning the battle. The xenia was also all over the place, but I felt that was actually helping with nutrient removal and its easier to remove manually. Then Eric "ReefWreak" on Reef Central wrote in his thread about using Fluke Tabs to eradicate Green Star Polyp. Eric had success, and he was kind enough to give me some of the left over Fluke Tab dust. I mixed a small amount of the Fluke Tab dust in with some tank water and poured it into the return pump areas. Over the next three days the GSP closed up and is hopefully gone forever. The xenia has also melted away, maybe 90%. I removed my carbon bag when I put the Fluke Tab in, then three days later I did 10% water change and put a fresh bag of carbon in the sump. I also changed my filter socks more frequently because there was some xenia debris getting sucked up. I believe Fluke Tab can be toxic to shrimp, but I don't have any shrimp. Overall its been super successfull fix for something I've been struggling with for a long time.

Thank You Eric!!!!

Howard

[hbrochs]

Took a few top down shots today in the middle of a water change.


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[Patrick.S]

What is that bright orange... Monti??? It's beyond belief.

[hbrochs]

Yup, that's a Montipora Setosa and it's electric!

Thanks


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