New Fluval 52l - Next steps?

[zerozero]

Just a quick update
Hand fed the Duncans today. Got some pellets moist and went on a bombing run over the corals. Got a direct hit on each head after the pellets got past the clowns.

The diatoms have started to go down. There's noticeably less build up on the sand bed and glass. Still there but easy to deal with. I realised I'd inadvertently extended my diatom bloom by adding extra CaribSea Life rock (dry) to my sump, to prop up some frags to stop the hermits knocking them over on the sand bed and a couple of islands in preparation for new corals. Live and learn.

NO3 went down to 0.02 and PO4 had never been above 0.03 before I started increasing feeding. Currently:

NO3 0.02 -> 5.0
PO4 0.03 -> 0.1
Alk 8 -> 9

I throttled back the feeding a little after losing one of my hermits. There's just the beginnings of algae film starting to appear on surfaces, so the way forward for me is to tackle the algae by biological means (as suggested by Ollie76).

New CUC

• 2x Nassarius
• 3X Banded Trochus
• 1X Orange lipped Conch
• 3X Electric Blue legged hermits (small ones)

and...

• 1x Red Fire Shrimp (possibly)

I realise I've been a bit under-CUCed because initially I didn't want the inverts to starve, but haven't kept up with where the tank is at now. Lesson learned. I think the mix of CUC should have my bases covered with film algae, GHA, dinos and cyano before they take hold.

New inhabitants
These have all been spotted in the past week:

• Stomatella snail (well over an inch)
• 5 or 6 new tiny feather dusters (where did they come from?)
• A small star fish (quite dark)
• A "white ant" trolling across the glass. Assume it was an amphipod

Copepods & Rotifers
I've finally found an online seller that sells the above with Phytoplankton in a package. They will be another part of biological algae control and food for any inverts. As I feed phyto, I think the UV steriliser won't really be an option unless things get out of hand.

If there any errors in my thinking, please let me know. Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

 

[zerozero]

Update
We wanted to go to the Aquatic Design Centre in Balham, not my local LFS, but the best in London at the weekend. Sadly my son wasn't feeling very well so I had to make a solo trip.

I picked up three Trochus snails, a couple of corals...


and...


My son was insanely happy when I brought it home. He's a little shy and hangs out in his cave, but he's started to settle in and comes out when we feed the tank. I'm still sticking with feeding twice a day and the NO3 is still reading 5.0 and the PO4 0.05.


The whole family wants to get a torch and as the Duncans were doing well I thought our time had come. The guy in the LFS insisted I wait a bit longer (appreciate this) and I got a hammer instead.

It's a really nice specimen and has five tiny heads on the stem.

One of the Trochus snails didn't move at all when we put it in and the next morning the hermit appeared to be feeding on it. It didn't react when touched and smelled bad so I took it out. As I couldn't get all the CUC I was planning to get, I have a conch, 2x nassarius snails and two more electric blue legged hermits on the way.

I also have the copepods on the way and will put them in the tank after lights out.

 

[tbrown]

Update
We wanted to go to the Aquatic Design Centre in Balham, not my local LFS, but the best in London at the weekend. Sadly my son wasn't feeling very well so I had to make a solo trip.

I picked up three Trochus snails, a couple of corals...


and...


My son was insanely happy when I brought it home. He's a little shy and hangs out in his cave, but he's started to settle in and comes out when we feed the tank. I'm still sticking with feeding twice a day and the NO3 is still reading 5.0 and the PO4 0.05.


The whole family wants to get a torch and as the Duncans were doing well I thought our time had come. The guy in the LFS insisted I wait a bit longer (appreciate this) and I got a hammer instead.

It's a really nice specimen and has five tiny heads on the stem.

One of the Trochus snails didn't move at all when we put it in and the next more the hermit appeared to be feeding on it. It didn't react when touched and smelled bad so I took it out. As I couldn't get all the CUC I was planning to get, I have a conch, 2x nassarius snails and two more electric blue legged hermits on the way.

I also have the copepods on the way and will put them in the tank after lights out.

Wait wait wait... Your son has a cave to hang out in????

 

[zerozero]

Wait wait wait... Your son has a cave to hang out in????

Ha ha, that was badly phrased.

Just noticed today that one of the Duncan's tentacles actually has some texture.

 

[tbrown]

Ha ha, that was badly phrased.

Just noticed today that one of the Duncan's tentacles actually has some texture.

Mine get all twisty and ugly upclose.

 

[tbrown]

And I knew you were talking about the shrimp, it's just fun to take things out of context sometimes.

 

[zerozero]

Mine get all twisty and ugly upclose.

They look amazing! Ours only have two heads each. Early days but my favourite corals at the moment.

 

[tbrown]

They look amazing! Ours only have two heads each. Early days but my favourite corals at the moment.

They once they settle in they start to take off. You'll start seeing little nubs around the base, then those nubs will start getting little lashes, then more nubs, then the base will expand and more nubs and then you'll have a colony! (Colony wanted to autocorrect to colonoscopy... I'm not that old yet Google!)

 

[zerozero]

They once they settle in they start to take off. You'll start seeing little nubs around the base, then those nubs will start getting little lashes, then more nubs, then the base will expand and more nubs and then you'll have a colony! (Colony wanted to autocorrect to colonoscopy... I'm not that old yet Google!)

Just had a check; no sign of any nubs at this point. I'm really enjoying watching the tank develop. There's something new to see every day.

(And if a colonoscopy was a part of reef keeping that's a privilege I'd defer to the boy. It is his tank after all)

 

[zerozero]

Testing

I’ve been testing about every three days because a) I deliberately fed heavy on Sunday to help the fire shrimp settle in and b) I was sold a Salifert Phosphate testing kit in July which expires in January 2025 (thanks for that). The aim is to keep NO3 <10 and PO4 <0.1.

2/10/24 results:
NO3 5.0 -> 6.5
PO4 0.05 -> 0.07
ALK 8.3 -> 8.6

And because I found a couple of uneaten pellets in the filter floss for the first time, I tested ammonia too. NH3 is still reading 0.0.

I can see that the tank’s rockscape leaves a couple of dead spots so I was mulling over getting a nano DC waver maker. I'm always mindful of a vid from BRSTV where they said that the biggest hindrance to finding stability in new tankers was the new reefers constantly tweaking their new setup. As I put new corals in on Saturday I'm going to hold off for two weeks before changing anything.

Each day the fire shrimp gets just a little more active and bold at feeding time.

Thankfully it's doing its' job wonderfully, dispatching four stray pellets with style.

I saw the the stomatella snail spawning last night. A small puff of smoke into the water column. Really like it as it spends so much time on the rockscape.

 

[zerozero]

Friday is water change day. Really glad my son loves that sort of thing.

This morning I spotted two sets of antenna waving at me. I showed it to my son and he just looked amazed; looked at the empty shell, looked at the shrimp, looked back at the shell with a "What is going on"" look on his face

 

[zerozero]

They once they settle in they start to take off. You'll start seeing little nubs around the base, then those nubs will start getting little lashes, then more nubs, then the base will expand and more nubs and then you'll have a colony!

September 7th

Last night (Apologies for the images uploading sideways)

Is this the nub I'm looking for? It appears to be part of "stalk". Very exciting if it is.

In other news, we get about one aipastasia a month. We had to pull the rockscape it was on out and then dealt with it with extreme prejudice by covering it with superglue and then some reef putty for good measure.

 

[tbrown]

September 7th

Last night (Apologies for the images uploading sideways)

Is this the nub I'm looking for? It appears to be part of "stalk". Very exciting if it is.

In other news, we get about one aipastasia a month. We had to pull the rockscape it was on out and then dealt with it with extreme prejudice by covering it with superglue and then some reef putty for good measure.

And it begins! Yep, that's the nub.

Sorry about the Aiptasia. If you find more a d it's not near any coral, you can try injecting it with boiling water. I've had better luck with that than with Kalk or Lemon Juice. Sometimes super glue works, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[zerozero]

And it begins! Yep, that's the nub.

Sorry about the Aiptasia. If you find more a d it's not near any coral, you can try injecting it with boiling water. I've had better luck with that than with Kalk or Lemon Juice. Sometimes super glue works, sometimes it doesn't.

I found another one today because it looks I didn't put the rock back in exactly the same position. We had do to another extraction and we used superglue and reef putty.

I'm really excited about the nub. If you hadn't told me I would never have known what to look for.

I'm greatly appreciative of the time you and many other experienced reefers spend on this forum sharing your knowledge and advice.

 

[zerozero]

Small update
Things are going smoothly so far (famous last words). I finally received my new cuc, so the tank has 3x Electric blue legged hermits, 4x Nassarius snails, 2x Trochus snails, a strawberry lipped conch, the stomatella snail hitchhiker and...

After checking on here I decided to keep it as there's been no sign of predation on our zoas.

We added copepods a couple of weeks ago because of all the benefits they would bring to the tank, and though I've never seen them there has ben an explosion in amphipods. At least that's what I think they are. We added some more copepods last night after lights out.


The clove polyp colony has been probably our most successful softy. Recently the growth had slowed a little and it began to droop more than before.

Then I found this lurking in the centre of the colony.

My usual superglue and reef putty strategy wouldn't work here so I attacked it with boiling water and a hypodermic syringe. Then I pulled the remains out with tweezers.

Natural light spectrum.. Why do we use these so much blue lights?

Good morning everyone. Below are some photos taken by a friend (yesterday and the day before yesterday) in the tropics while snorkeling.. (1 - 3 meters deep) As you can see the light spectrum in the Reefs is completely different from that of more than 90-95% of the event in our aquariums. Our...

www.reef2reef.com

I read this interesting thread on natural light spectrum. It made me re-think the lighting on the tank. I realise that with the Noopsyche Pro 3 light I have our tank will never look like the gorgeous tanks of the month we see here, but I wanted the tank to have a more natural look when the whites, reds and greens come on.

And whilst the corals would have a period of adjustment I added a nano wavemaker because I wasn't sure the hammer was getting enough flow. It's a nothing fancy, just a reasonably priced wm from TMC. It has a mode that gently ramps up flow and down again. So impressed with it. The clove polyps suddenly looked far more perky and the clown enjoy surfing around too.

 

[tbrown]

Yeah, I max out my blues a then blend tires, whites, and greens into the mix until it's pleasing to my eyes.

 

[zerozero]

I'd removed all reds and greens because I was concerned with algae growth. With the extra CUC in place I thought it was okay to bring them back in. Only 15% during the three hour daylight period.

 

[zerozero]

Well, today is the four month mark from when we first put salt water in our Evo. Things are going well; the Duncan's heads look massive (underestimated how big each head would grow), the clove polyps continue to put out runners to conquer their rock.

The zoas are doing alright. The heads have got bigger but most of them are yet to expand with new heads.

We had one week where we couldn't get live food (thank you Brexit) and PO4 dropped to 0.03. So, I deliberately fed heavy and today's result was 0.12. I think the Salifert test is a bit of a joke, so I'm going to get my hands on a second hand Hanna Phosphate ULR when I can.

(Apologies for the wonky image)
Just as @tbrown said, the eyelashes have arrived, and after getting two direct hits on the two existing heads one morning whilst feeding the clowns, I think there's two more nubs on the way.

 

[zerozero]

More biodiversity:

Today's hitchhiker:

I was removing what looked like bubble algae from the macro algae when I found this!

 

[tbrown]

More biodiversity:

Today's hitchhiker:

I was removing what looked like bubble algae from the macro algae when I found this!

I keep trying to get those hitchhikers. I love Micro Brittle Stars (but my wrasses eat them) and Stomatellas (but my wrasses eat them too).