Logan's 75g - It's been fun!!

The wife is the feeder, and she feeds a lot!! "I feel bad for them, so here you go," she puts a piece of silverside on the sand so the crabs can eat it! When she target feeds the RBTA, she feeds cleaner shrimps first so the RBTA doesnt get his food intercepted.

Anyways, that cyano cr4p is nasty! Sorry that you have to go through it... It never got that bad in our tank, but I f'ing hated it! You can cut back the light cycle but you have to find the source of PO4. In our case, it was the rocks leeching PO4, since the cyano was only on the Pukanis from BRS. I dont run GFO, but it would be a great help reducing PO4!

 

lol yeah my cleaner shrimp is a hog too! So the the hermit, I target fed him a chunk of food once and he went into his shell and chowed down for a good while


and you're right - it is some pretty nasty stuff. But I think I'm on the right track to beating it!

Like we know I replaced the bulbs, got gfo running, skimmer is tuned in, flow is good enough, I've always used RO/DI water and salt that isn't high in phosphates or no3. Been keeping up on ~15-20% water changes every 2 weeks. I just gotta feed less and possibly get a bigger CUC. It only consists of the electric blue hermit, cleaner shrimp, turbo snail, 4 cerith snails, and a sand sifting sea star.

 

Great build, I just read through all 19 pages lol and I love how you have progressed so quickly.

I would suggest to add more snails to the CuC. As close to 1 snail for every 2 gallons of water as you can get, with a variety of a few different types. I have 6 Trochus, 6 Astrea, and 6 Bumble Bee and they do a great job of cleaning up. I'll be ditching my hermits to the fuge because I'm not liking the way they "bulldog" everything in the DT, adding a few more snails into the mix.

GL and I'll be tagging along!

 

Thank you for taking the time to read through it all! That really means a lot!

I think I'm gonna take your advice and get some more snails in there. And I feel your pain on the bulldozers! I'm constantly getting frags on zoas knocked off rocks and I know it's my hermit and turbo snail

 

It is an interesting read, always seem to learn allot in a build thread.

Exactly, my hermits have already gotten 2 of my snails and countless frags knocked over in the mornings lol going to the fuge if I get a new tank setup soon

 

So I may be jumping the gun here, but I was just thinking / planning. I got started with softies. I've got various zoas, mushrooms, a kenya tree and pipe organ. I understand you don't really need to dose anything with these, so I've just been watching my levels and keeping up on water changes. Calcium has been at 420 and stable there, mag 1240, and pH is only 7.8-8.0 (hard to tell on API)

I'm starting to look at LPS's and really liking a lot of them! How do I know when I'm ready to add a few? Im buying an alk test soon, I was figuring I'll wait another month and keep testing my calc/alk/pH/mag, and if all stay stable where I want them, start adding some of the easier LPS?

I've come to understand that these corals will increase the demands on calc/alk levels. So this will probably be the time I'll need to look into a two-part dosing purchase if my water changes can't keep up with it.

Now I'm still learning - so is what I said making sense? Did I overlook anything? Or should I just slow the hell down and be patient

Any advice/suggestions are welcome

 

Should be alright imo. As long as you can keep your phosphates and nitrates low, which water changes do, you should be fine. keep an eye on your calcium, it should be a little higher but 420 isnt bad at all, if you want it to grow and thrive keeping that up is best. Try a torch coral, there pretty hardy and will be a great starter.

 

Thanks, I'm excited to give them a try in a few weeks I've been relying on liveaquaria for info on the corals

some LPS's they say are easier for beginners include:
lobo brain
favites brain
candy cane
long tentacle plate coral
cynarina button coral
scoly button coral

 

Get them all! lol
I really dont have a lot of corals in my tank at all, so I barely have to dose. All the thing you listed are relatively hardy corals, you'll be fine!
Hows the nasty cyano?

 

haha trust me I want to!

the nasty cyano is still, well, nasty. I just placed an order at reefcleaners for a CuC. (And also threw in a salifert alk test, chaeto, and pods ) Hopefully getting more snails and some scavengers to clean up any food that makes it to the sand will help. Also am only feeding 1/4 of a cube every other day to see if that helps.

Interesting note though: the cyano was very thick in my fuge sand also since it's low flow down there. I quit turning on the light overnight down there for a week and it's all gone now..