Rtm2017's 90 Gallon Build (MASSIVE Update!!!!)

+1. I agree

 

If its the hydriod they are toxic manually suck them out with a vac.
If they are stauro they sting corals and small fish or animals.

 

lol.they are the same creature.

 

Tank looks awesome! It's great how smooth your first saltwater tank is going for you.

 

Thanks for the help iding this new hitchhiker. Once agian 3reef impresses me! For now they stay, until i do some research in the morning

 

Alright!!! I’m Back 3Reef. Sorry everyone but the last few months have been challenging for my family, my fish, and for me. A shift change to midnights….A Inspection at work involving long hours and no days off…and a TDY to the other side of the state for 2 weeks. But everything has settled down and I have more time for my lovely fish tank!!!!!

So we have had a few accidents and lots of learning with the tank….2 power outages of at least 8 hours!! A broken heater that was blowing my circuit breaker when it heated up. Found out that a refractometer is not a set it and forget it measuring device. My fish tank had dropped all the way to 1.015, slowly at least. So I managed to bring it back up to 1.026 and now calibrate my refractometer weekly. Recovering from a MASSIVE cyano outbreak…at one point it was covering ALL the rock and even some of the coral…but we have changed our feeding habits and cleaned it repeatedly and it seems we have it under control for now.

We have had some losses… but we have had more success than we have had failure and for that I am grateful!!!! All of our fish and inverts have been successful and we have only lost coral. Most of the black Friday coral we got have not made it. The Acropora we got never opened and bleached fairly quickly. The frogspawn overcame to brown jelly disease shortly after. The tree coral never took root and blew around the fish tank till its death. The incorrectly sold GSP that turned out to be a flower pot coral died shortly after that after never fully opening. The Zoas closed for almost a month straight never opening and were the coral that led me to check my refractometer and identified my problem with the water. They survived and are now thriving, pics of them in a minute

Now for some of the better news!!! We have upgraded the LEDs. I added 16 more Royal blues and 8 Blues to the lighting and the wife and I really enjoy the new color. I have added a BRS dual chamber reactor for carbon and GFO. Added BRS clear screen netting to the top of the tank to keep our fish from jumping out. I also Re-scapped at least 3 times and removed several pieces of rock as I felt we really had too much.

We have added a few different types of food to the tank. MicroVore for filter feeders, Formula 2 pellets, green and red nori, cyclopeeze, and a LFS fish mush of every type of meaty and algae food combined. Everything pretty much eats everything and we try to mix it up as much as possible.


And now the new livestock and pictures!!!!!! all pictures are hi-res and clickable links. my camera doesn't do the colors justice, so just imagine them more colorful.


We got a diamond watchman goby because I loved watching the videos of him sift sand and build a den. It is even 10x cooler in person and it is a lot of fun to watch him throw sand everywhere and build holes. We got a tiger pistol shrimp to pair with him and he quickly disappeared into the goby’s den and has not been seen since . I believe he is still alive due to the amount of shells that move around at night, but I have not seen him in over 3 weeks.



We add a NPS Sun Coral. This guy was dying at a LFS. We decided to take him home and try and save him…I know a big no no, but we are both glad we did. When we got him he really couldn’t open at all and he was receded to the point where none of the heads were touching. This guy is now eating like a champ and takes full Mysis shrimp, several of the heads have reconnected and even some new ones have sprouted up. Not sure what is going to happen with his skeleton or how he will continue to grow, but time will show us.



This sun coral also came with a brittle star as a hitchhiker…like the tiger pistol shrimp he has not been seen since the day after we added the sun coral. But I was able to snap some pictures before he disappeared. It’s been over 2 months since these where taken.



I got my wife another Kenya tree and this time I made sure to keep him attached to his frag and glue the frag into the rock instead of trying to remove him. He has had a hard time and has been moved to every rock in this tank. I finally made a decision one night and started gluing all our frags down and making permanent homes for them. He has been doing great ever since and has doubled in size in a very short time.



We wanted to get a Blue Hippo Tang but after much research and shopping round. We decided that this would not be feasible in our area and that he would eventually outgrow the 90 gallon tank. We settled with a Yellow Tang and picked up this guy. He has been doing great and he even paired up with our diamond watchman goby following him everywhere. It was pretty awesome to watch.



We also went and added a GSP. This guy has been amazing from the day we got him and is easily the coral I am most proud of. Not only did he open the day we got him but he quickly attached to the rock and is already showing new growth and new polyps.



More recently I have added 2 more small Frogspawns which are doing much better than the last attempt. A brown digi SPS. A Pink lemonade coral( which has lost some browning and are gaining color) and a few caps of green monti with blue polyps that I love. All of them are showing good polyp extension and is confirming my belief that my DIY LED build is working.

The wife went to the LFS on her own and picked out this awesome Clown Fairy Wrasse. He has quickly become the center of our tank and is very entertaining to watch. He is easily the most expensive and largest fish we have ever owned.

Lastly we got a Green BTA this guy has been hanging out here for over a week and is still settling in. I’m hoping my clowns find him but if not he is still pretty cool.














Thanks everyone for Reading and hope you enjoy. More pics to come tomorrow when the lights come back on.

 

glad to hear you are back on track and everything is looking good! I have a request, i want to see a shot of the green cap with blue polyps!

 

i took several!!!! they all turned out white in the picture....ill try again tomorrow when i have more time before lights out. i was really sad i couldn't post a good one tonight.

 

Check your camera's manual on how to adjust your white balance setting.

 

Yeah! I was talking about your LED driver board to other 3reefer just now

It's good to hear that you recovered from some bumps on the road, and the tank looks great! The purple is here too!

Ive never had experience but the sun coral is non-photo, right? You might wanna place it somewhere a bit shady?