Ritter's 75 Gallon Reef

I'm jealous...one day ...one day...

Reiley I know what you mean, if you've seen Grim's tank, you will feel the same way too.

Tank is looking great Gabe. Let me know when u get ready to replace your monti caps. I have red, green, purple smoke, purple rimmed, and another I am not sure what it is called though. Think I am gonna try to build my frag tank a stand in the next week or so. Then gonna set up some frags to grow out a little. So Should have the caps ready soon.


Thanks Ian for the props on the 120.

Thanks everyone.

If you guys saw my first reef tank you'd realize you're way ahead of the curve.

Tony. Thanks for the offer. I'm still having some monti issues I can't figure out. The encrusting montis and the setosa are doing good and growing but the digitatas and caps aren't surving for some reason. I got a frag of that purple smoke from Jason and so far it's doing well.

Gabe tell me about Monti's! I got some lovely pieces off Tony, including one with 3 pieces on one plug. The one piece bleached out in about 2 days, the other 2 faded, but then struggled back, and are now showing me just how colourful they can be. 3 on one plug, so all in same environment, 1 died, 2 lived. Beats me.

A lot of people say they're a great starter sps but I actually disagree. They're cheap and don't require as much light, but they seem quite touchy considering all that I've read.

Seems in my tank when there is an issue the montis are the first to go, then the birdsnests. My acros are doing well and I've always heard that acros were more touchy than montis.

I know bad parameters caused my montis do die last time but the survivors had recovered. My problem now looks like some kind of infection, possibly chemical war?. I have two rocks covered in blue snowflake polyps that have been there for years. I suddenly they are starting die off and it's like a domino effect. Every day there is another inch or two missing from the large patch like they are being mowed down a little each day. I lost of patch of orange monti that had started to grow back from my kalk problems. One day it started to look like it was receding on one end and then slowly a brown slime took over the rest of the small coral. It took several days but the monti is gone for good now. There's a piece of the same monti growing in a patch of blue snowflakes that looks fine but the snowflakes around it haven't died off yet so I'm watching that to see if the dying snowflakes are taking out the montis with it. Same thing happened with a brown digitata growing in a patch of blue snowflakes but I didn't see it happen. I came back from vacation and the monti was bleached white and all the snowflakes were gone.

I've had the blue snowflakes in my tank for almost 4 years and never seen a mass die off like that or them harming any other corals. SPS usually bulldoze the little polyps right out of the way. They are in the xenia family and xenia sometimes will crash for no reason we can explain. I still have smaller patches in my tank that look fine but I'll keep watching them.

Tell me if you need some snowflake, I have a spreading colony from some frags I was given by a nice guy I know.

Yeti wrote:Tell me if you need some snowflake, I have a spreading colony from some frags I was given by a nice guy I know.

I know that guy too but he's a real A-hole.

Thanks for the offer. I still have a tank full of them right now it won't hurt for a few patches to die off I just don't want to lose them all.

It's been a while since I've done this so I broke down the entire sump today and cleaned it. YUCK. I drained all the water, rinsed the chaeto, rinsed all the rocks, vacuumed every scrap of detritus. I added a filter sock to catch some of that mess that ends up down in the sump. Maybe a good cleaning will help increase the growth a bit. I'm going to try be a bit more aggressive from now on removing detritus. I'm not running the GFO for now but I've added chaeto, filter sock, carbon and I'm skimming a little wetter than before. To me all that will be safer and easier than trying to use phosphate removing media.

Awww yeah... that's the good stuff! :-)

Gabe I'm interested in the filter sock, and use of carbon in the sump. I know many folks say it can lead to a sudden release of stuff back into the tank if it's to old, but would think changing the carbon would just be another thing to do on a regular basis.
Do you have any links I could look at that you've found useful? Thanks.

I don't have any links, just my theories. You can search the Internet and get about 50/50, for and against filter socks and carbon. I've kept tanks with skimming, carbon, filter socks, etc. and tanks without and my tanks with aggressive nutrient removal are far healthier than those without even with aggressive water changes.

I think whatever goes in the tank, food/waste needs to come out. There are several ways to remove it; skimming, water changes, GFO, macroalgae, etc. The more nutrients exported from the water, without stripping it completely, the better for coral health and growth. Phosphates are the biggest inhibitor of stony coral growth. You can crush a reef tank with light but if the phosphates are high the corals won't grow. Skimming will remove waste to keep nitrates down but does nothing to remove the dissolved organics which carbon will remove. GFO is VERY effective at removing phosphates but to me the threat of stripping the water too clean isn't worth it.

Basically the filter sock catches the larger particles before they have a chance to break down into waste. The carbon will remove the dissolved organics that skimming and macroalgae can't. Another benefit is clearer water which increases light penetration. I notice the shimmer lines from my lighting much better using carbon and filter socks.

I'm sure if the sock isn't cleaned and the carbon never replaced it could dump nutrients back into the tank but if they aren't used at all the same waste and nutrients just float around in your tank.

IMO all that mess about how some corals like "dirty" water is bull. There may be corals that can tolerate dirty water but it doesn't mean it's optimal for their health. Aggressive removal of as much waste as possible without over stripping the water, (like with GFO), is ideal no matter what corals you keep.

Sorry for the long post. Just my opinion.

Something like the 100 micron ones from what I've read? And half the price of marinedepot for double the depth.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-filter-bags/=g41ckv

Yeti wrote:Something like the 100 micron ones from what I've read? And half the price of marinedepot for double the depth.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-filter-bags/=g41ckv

I discovered a site called filterbag.com yesterday also. Cheap but you have to order a minimum of 25. I may go that route and just wash a whole load of filter bags at once instead of washing 3 at a time.

Update on a rescue coral I got from Petco a while back. They were using this coral as liverock and had made a little "bridge" with it as one of the legs. There was a large piece of liverock just sitting on the coral. They were asking $50 or $60 for it I think I paid $20.

Then


and now. Almost completely healed over.

Sweet turnaround!

Nice rescue Gabe, and a lovely looking coral.....especially for $20

After all that talk yesterday in Siberman's thread about netting...

I was leaving for work this morning and while walking by the tank I heard a very faint splash and a small thud.



If it had not been dead silent in the house and I wasn't walking out at that exact time, I would never had known the fish jumped out. He looked dazed for a few seconds when I put him back in the tank and went right back to doing what clownfish do.

Removed all the GFO from the reactor and just running carbon now. Back to good old Chaeto in the fuge and a ton of live rock. Another reason for the filter sock, since I have so much live rock down there the filter sock will help keep detritus from building up in the live rock and chaeto. It's doing fine so far. I'm getting steady growth from the sps.

LEDs can grow chaeto also.

New addition from Lone Star Aquariums.

Ohhhhh. Sexy!

That is nice Gabe, love the color!

ritter678 wrote:New addition from Lone Star Aquariums.

That is NICE!!!

What a great colour, and contrasts nicely with the other.