Maroun.c 400 G build thread

[drernesto]

Finally the long waited update to this thread.

 

[maroun.c]

The awaited update would be pics of a full tank

 

[maroun.c]

Further to this the tank took a turn for the worse and went into a 4-5 month cycle of Algae and then Cyano which heavy water changes and the usual fixes didn’t even affect.
After that the hair algae resolved on its own. Leaching was not the suspected scenario at this stage as tank was at the 2 years mark.
I followed with a Zeo protocol (Zeobac, Coral Snow, Zeozyme and zeostart 3) which took care of the cyano but was too expensive to maintain on the large volume so stopped it 4 months later and cyano came back with a vengeance. At that stage any SPS I would add would look dry starting day 3-4 and turn into a skeleton without tissue sloughing or STN RTN. Softies and LPS were doing fine.
After that around a year ago I accidently discovered while cross testing with a friend that my Po4 was at at 0.9. Verified it in a lab test and it matched. So I switched to Hana from Salifert since then. I had previously tested with many PO4 testkits and for some reason they were only giving me a perfect 0 and my nitrate was on the rise up to 10-15 which tricked me into thinking PO4 was limiting nitrate reduction so I stopped the PO4 reactor making things worse. So several KGs of PO4 and hundreds of gallons changed and I got the PO4 down to where it should be. This resulted in immediate disappearance of the Cyano and a couple of frags that I thought dead coming back to life!.
The Irony was 3-4 tiny frags (couple of polyps each) made it through all the dilemma while I was burning my SPS collection and any new addition.

I normally thought that was the end of the ordeal and started adding corals only to have the same outcome even with controlled PO4 at 0.03-0.05. At this time I got in touch with several LFS and people that maintain tanks worldwide and also luckily was introduced to a team of specialists that were visiting a public display with a 10 m long Coral reef tank that was struggling with similar issues.
We went through a huge list of things: Chloramine, PH spikes or dips, O2 levels, contaminants, Pesticides, switched chillers in a row to make sure my 2 chillers were not leaching anything, change of salt, change of my RO unit and additional filters (1 Micron carbon, and 0.09 sediment) with frequent replacement, checking tank, frags and sumps with a magnet to make sure no metallic things have dropped there, air purifier in filtration room, lights change, slow acclimation process, leaving tank with no corals for weeks to make sure there was no pests and dipping corals randomly to make sure they were clean, adding established corals to avoid stressed ones. Corals were doing fine in the Quarantine tank but would dry off few days in DT.
No matter what I did Result was the same with any new addition and to make things worst the tiny remaining frags were still there completely brown.
At this stage the only logical next step was to restart the tank which wasn’t an option as I wasn’t going to go through another cycle with no warranty that whatever was wrong will happen again after a restart.
Went on for few more months with a regular maintenance method and not making any changes to address anything and few weeks back I started seeing colors on the survivor frags and a couple more I thought dead came back to life and since then the tank has looked better every day with growth and colors sign.
Since then I have started adding corals in batches and luckily things look good, Pics to come

 

[maroun.c]

Fish wise I have been doing well relatively. Struggled with jumpers although my tank was closed expect from sides, vertical acrylic sheets also failed as I had a couple of losses through a tiny area left uncovered… Ended up adding a screen for the first time on my tanks and It’s been graet since then except the annoyance each time I need to reach in the tank or feed.

I also had some flesh eating disease,that I thought I cured in quarantine, reappear even after 6 weeks observation in an introduction tank. Disease came on a couple of yellow eye kole tangs which I thought I had cured in quarantine. It reappeared 2-3 weeks after moving them to DT even after a 5-6 weeks observation period after treatment. It not only killed the yellow eye kole tangs but also infested and killed the following from my fish.

-Achilles tang that was kept in a friends tank for around 4 years before and 5-6 months in my tank.

-Blotchy Anthia 6 months in the tank.

-Pair of Sunburst 6 months in the tank.

-Mated Pair of Red Sea Octotaenia that I had for 2 years.

Again had to be the nicest and hardest to replace fish. One interesting behavior was my Melanurus female which stuck by the Achilles and was cleaning it all day, couldn’t catch to treat till it was very sick and it died after 2 days treatment in Prazipro.

Since then I have implemented a more strict Quarantine approach and haven’t faced this or any other issues in the DT.

 

[drernesto]

Great come back of this thread and for the tank! But of course we need pics!

 

[maroun.c]

Now for some positive stuff starting with fish.
My current fish list is the following:
-Hippo tang had him for 8 years and rules the tank and has grown beautifully.

-2 yellow tangs

-Purple tang

-Yellow eye kole.

-2 Platinum clowns not yet a pair and only one hosting the BTA.

- 7Lyretail anthias at around the 4 years mark with an undisturbed hierarchy since the dominant female turned male soon after intro.

 

[maroun.c]

Gramma Loretto

-1 firefish

-2 Purple Firefish

-7 Blue eye Cardinal (apogon leptacanthus) down from 15 I started with around 3 years ago

- Midas Blenny

Copperband Butterfly

-Yellow Cories Wrass as big as it gets and with a hooked spine both vertical and horizontally.

Red scooter blenny

Mandarin

 

[drernesto]

Beautiful pictures!

 

[maroun.c]

- Mated pair of Melanurus a favorite as the male switched in tank and they paired up and display mating behavior every night.

Courting

-2 ornatus wrasses yet to pair up.

-1 Meleagris wrass

-1 teminicky wrass

1-Radiant Wrass

 

[maroun.c]

-1 adornatus wrass

-1Exquisite Wrass

Lubbocks Wrass

-3 flasher wrasses

 

[philfree]

Wow, you have an impressive collection of fish!
Hopefully the worst is behind you. Good job, brother!

 

[maroun.c]

I hope the same as well! Thanks.

 

[maroun.c]

For Coral pics.
Again nothing to be proud of at the 3-4 years mark but as I just started loading the system it made sense to post these for some growth comparison in a year from now.

Softies.

 

[maroun.c]

 

[maroun.c]

LPS:

Chalices a long time addiction and not so easy to score nice specimens in this part of the world:

Please do give ID suggestions as I haven’t IDd most of these yet

An Aussy Chalice I scored from Dubai a while back.

Another one I got bleached and which healed nicely.

Psychedelic chalice I got at 1 eye frag few months back.

Another new addition which is still coloring up.

One I got from an LFS here. Pictures don’t capture the pink in it.

Elegance.

A brown Cynarina I got which keeps getting closer to red

Blastos never made it in my tanks but this single head one has been there for the last 2 years and have gotten 2 new heads recently.

Might sound crazy but I like Galaxea and have a small frag left from my huge colony in my previous tank. Its on its own island in the back. Still not sure if I’ll keep it when I see sweepers.

 

[drernesto]

Amazing comeback for this thread!

 

[maroun.c]

Acans For some reason lost a few in the DT but their doing great in my nano cube most probably the flow was too much in my DT.

Duncans

2 single head frag I got, one sitting there and the other has grown 3 new heads go figure

Euphilia Garden

 

[maroun.c]

SPS

Frags
To begin with a few frags that have gone the whole ordeal (2-3 years where other corals wouldn't last more than 10 days in the tank) with browning or lack of PE or growth. and have just started coloring up and showing some growth. Was a great feeling when I saw these small, insignificant frags come back to life, Color up and grow.

Couple of pocilloporas:
Green and pink (so far brownish) poci with a digitata that has just recovered its green.

We don't get green montis frequently here. And this green and the red one were in my old tank and distributed heavily in Lebanon, Saudi and Dubai... till they became Maroun Red and Green Montis
Recovered a couple of frags from couple of reefers from saudi and UAE (as most others had lost them) and they were infected with Nudis, So they spent 3 months in Quarantine with weekly dips till they were clean and made it back to the DT.

Ponape Birdnest
Starting to recover its color and get growth tips.

Pavona

Ora Green Birdnest

Blue Matrix :
Was fully brown and looks totally dry and dead. its now nearly back to it's amazing dark blue.

Red digitata after 3 years looking brown with no growth or pe. In front of it a green tabling accro frag.

Blue Oregon Tort
All dead but couple of coralites...

 

[maroun.c]

Undata making a nice Come back and a setosa frag that went through some bad times in the tank always looking great.

Another Undata I was about to take out when I noticed a few living polyps which are coming back great

Purple haze also coming back.

Pink birdnest
Browned out post shipping

Another Frag that got mixed and browned out Not sure if this is a tricolor valida

Purple accro

Setosa I got from my last trip to US
Still looks like a blob from excessive fragging but this will change soon

And few nameless accros I’ve added. Feel free to suggest IDs.

 

[maroun.c]

Green Efflo? Coralites look a bit different

Red Spongoides?

This one was brown with a hint of blue. Getting bluer every day

Any id on this one it’s a nice green with a light pink and white near the growth tips

My clam collection has been reduced to the follwoing two and I'm on the look for a few more interesting specimens to add.

And finally my blue Linkia at 2 yrs mark