Wild Caught Rocks

[jack_aubry]

I wanted to do a build thread, but I got almost all of my equipment as a set and it's an all-in-one. Pretty lame build thread. I also can't stand cliff hangers I see so many cool build threads on here and then get to the last page and its still a dry tank it's a big letdown (like finding a show you like an there is only one season). So to make it more interesting and for content bingers like me, I decided to wait until the tank was wet for 10 months to show the build and progress all at once.

This is my first reef tank and it's been so much fun I am hooked. The tank is doing well in large part because of the people on reef2reef and BRS. So Shout out to randyBRS and the whole BRS team for all of the incredibly helpful videos and thanks to so many people on reef2reef. I don't post a ton, but I troll this site quite a bit. Seeing successful reefers tanks on reef2reef is inspiring and reading the questions and answers to threads has really been key to my tank.

Equipment
Tank - IM 40
Light- Black box LED
Skimmer- AquaMax hang on
Return pump ?
Stand- two night stands
Power heads- 2 Hydor Koralia 1150gph w/wavemaker pointed at each other and set to alternate every 15 min
Fuge light- ACKE 12W
ATO- Tunze Osmolator nano
Heater- Cobalt Neo-therm
Doseing pump- Jeboa 4 head
Salt- Red Sea Blue
Alk/Ca+- Tropic Marin Carbo-Calcium

Fish
Royal gramma
Azure damsil
Starry Blennny

Inverts
5 Astraea snails
3 Cerith snails
2 Mexican turbo snails
1 Tuxedo urchin
3 Blue leg hermits

Rocks
18 lbs premium deco live rock https://gulfliverock.com/
20 lbs coralline algae live rock https://gulfliverock.com/

Compartments
Compartment 1 (first chamber on right overflow) Refugium (light on 12 hrs opposite dt)
Compartment 2 heater
Compartment 3 (main compartment) Ato sensor, ato line, Skimmer, return pump
Compartment 4 (Skimmer return)
Compartment 5 empty

Tank Birthday July 3rd 2019
live rock arrived in the mail
wanted to get rocks in the water as soon as possible so tank was prefilled and heated before rocks arrived
scape is a completely uninteresting rock pile (one of the problems of using life rock)
I was not happy with the scape at first, but it does have a ton of caves and crevices for fish and places to put coarls so I am ok with it now.

 

[LRT]

I wanted to do a build thread, but I got almost all of my equipment as a set and it's an all-in-one. Pretty lame build thread. I also can't stand cliff hangers I see so many cool build threads on here and then get to the last page and its still a dry tank it's a big letdown (like finding a show you like an there is only one season). So to make it more interesting and for content bingers like me, I decided to wait until the tank was wet for 10 months to show the build and progress all at once.

This is my first reef tank and it's been so much fun I am hooked. The tank is doing well in large part because of the people on reef2reef and BRS. So Shout out to randyBRS and the whole BRS team for all of the incredibly helpful videos and thanks to so many people on reef2reef. I don't post a ton, but I troll this site quite a bit. Seeing successful reefers tanks on reef2reef is inspiring and reading the questions and answers to threads has really been key to my tank.

Equipment
Tank - IM 40
Light- Black box LED
Skimmer- AquaMax hang on
Return pump ?
Stand- two night stands
Power heads- 2 Hydor Koralia 1150gph w/wavemaker pointed at each other and set to alternate every 15 min
Fuge light- ACKE 12W
ATO- Tunze Osmolator nano
Heater- Cobalt Neo-therm
Doseing pump- Jeboa 4 head
Salt- Red Sea Blue
Alk/Ca+- Tropic Marin Carbo-Calcium

Fish
Royal gramma
Azure damsil
Starry Blennny

Inverts
5 Astraea snails
3 Cerith snails
2 Mexican turbo snails
1 Tuxedo urchin
3 Blue leg hermits

Rocks
18 lbs premium deco live rock https://gulfliverock.com/
20 lbs coralline algae live rock https://gulfliverock.com/

Compartments
Compartment 1 (first chamber on right overflow) Refugium (light on 12 hrs opposite dt)
Compartment 2 heater
Compartment 3 (main compartment) Ato sensor, ato line, Skimmer, return pump
Compartment 4 (Skimmer return)
Compartment 5 empty

Tank Birthday July 3rd 2019
live rock arrived in the mail
wanted to get rocks in the water as soon as possible so tank was prefilled and heated before rocks arrived
scape is a completely uninteresting rock pile (one of the problems of using life rock)
I was not happy with the scape at first, but it does have a ton of caves and crevices for fish and places to put coarls so I am ok with it now.

This live rock is awesome but I hope you dipped it. Plenty of invasive critters come on this rock along with tons of beautiful corals.

 

[jack_aubry]

The first few weeks were absolutely fascinating. Seeing all of the things that survived shipping take hold and grow. It was a biologists wet dream (pun intended). I knew I would get a ton of pests (and I did), but felt like the good would outweigh the bad. It was crazy how fast things recovered. I waited two weeks for the tank to stabilize a bit after shipping then added the astreae snails, cerith snails, copepods from algae barn and some asterina starfish (I know that last one was dumb, but at the time seemed like a good idea that I didn't research at all).

I waited a month before adding a lantern basslet, a starry blenny, and a lace gorgonian

 

[jack_aubry]

Everything was doing ok in the tank new species of marco were popping up all the time. Parameters were stable. I waited a month before adding anything or doing anything else besides 5g weekly water changes.

9/3/2019
I cut the vinyl on the back and installed the fuge light. I also added a frogspawn, pink pocillopora and a platygyra.

I couldn't believe how fast the algae was growing. I really like the macro tank look it was really colorful and had great movement. I apologize for the terrible pics they get marginally better as the year goes on.

 

[jack_aubry]

By this time I stopped seeing as many new surprises from the live rock. I had over 30 spp. of macro algae (reds, greens, and browns), several tunicate spp., several sponge species, fan worms, several bivalve spp. some limpets and other arthropods and worms. I knew that many of these probably wouldn't survive long term, but ten months in I can't believe how many have made it and are still thriving (some are even reproducing. That's the good as for the bad I got a ton of that too aptaisia, bubble algae, limpets (turned out to have a taste for coral polyps), macro algae that nothing would touch, and three spp. of Caulerpa (I absolutely hate Caulerpa).

I decided I was moving two fast so I stopped adding things and just let the tank stabilize. I also started dosing carbo-calcium. I didn't need to start dosing the tanks calcification rate did not justify me starting dosing, but I did it anyway. More on that later.

10/3/2019

 

[jack_aubry]

11/3/2019
I was really proud of myself for waiting a month so I added a bunch of things to the tank. I also decided that I was wanted to start transitioning from a macro tank to a reef tank so I started trimming back the macro algae. Nothing extreme, just trimming back different sections when I did a weekly wc.
Additions
2 Azure damsels (one didn't survive the first 24 hrs)
a pink goniopora
(order from vivid aquariums)
a green and a orange Pavona maldivensis
Jack-o-lanturn Leptoseris
Bird of paradise Seriatopora
Purple stylo Stylophora
Darth maul Porites
Green Birdsnest Seriatopora
Montipora spongodes
Purple candalabra gorgonian

Of course because I added so many new calcifiers I should up my my carbo-calcium dosage right. Well since I should not have been dosing in the first place increasing the dose just shot the alk to 11 from 8. Thankfully I didn't lose anything from my incompetence, but the pink gonipora was really unhappy with me for about three weeks. After I caught my mistake I let the alk fall naturally back to 8 over the next few weeks.

11/3/2019

 

[jack_aubry]

12/3/2019
I fixed the alk spike, let the parameters stabilize, and got dosing dialed in. I also added a royal gramma, a tuxedo urchin, a single zoa polyp, staghorn acropora, and a trumpet. With all of the macro I had in the DT there was never any detectable N or P. I started to remove macro-algae more aggressively clearing it away from near frags cutting it back every WC.

 

[kyleinpdx]

Love the biodiversity! That will really help this tank thrive in the long run.

 

[jack_aubry]

1/3/2020
Sad times I lost the lanturn basslet he was my favorite fish even if he was a bit of a jerk. I didn't notice any change in behavior; he was eating well, not breathing heavy, not scratching against the rocks, no sign of ick or velvet, fins weren't frayed. Checked the tank in the morning and he was dead . Only fish I lost my only thought is maybe he caught something from the royal gramma. I really should qt my fish another one of those things that I have read a hundred times and still felt the need to learn the hard way.

Declared war on the marco algae and went to the lfs for two turbo snails also came back with a ricordia mushroom, because I think that's how lfs work. Tank was doing well definitely not every bodies cup of tea, but I still liked the marco look.

 

[jack_aubry]

2/3/2020
I had my lights set too high and the corals at the top of the rock work were losing color and I wanted to win the war on macros so I cut the white light by 10% throughout the day. Continued macro removal, 5g WC every week, and slight adjustments to dosing to keep up with increased demand.

 

[jack_aubry]

3/3/2020
Got an emerald crab. He did a great job eating algae and was a lot of fun to watch, but he would not leave the gonipora or the lace gorgonian alone. After a week he went back to the lfs in exchange for three blue legged hermits. They don't eat much algae, but they are still fun to watch and they don't bother the gonipora. Had really starting winning the macro war and weekly maintenance was getting easier and more routine. The war on macros was not universal left a lot of the sargassum alone it is still one of my favorite things in the tank great movement and I love the translucent golden color.
also added three acropora
ORA red planet (that's what it was sold as anyway)
and two that I don't have names for

 

[littlefishy]

Love that mixture of macro/coral on 1/30. How did you deal with the bubble algae? I wanted the macro that were growing on my keys live rock, but had to get an emerald crab due to the number of tiny bubble algae popping up. He ate everything, and a mushroom, too.

 

[jack_aubry]

4/3/2020
Added some berghia nudibranchs to deal with the aptaisia. I see them every once in a while they have gotten big. I do notice a decrease in aptaisia and I have seen a few egg whorls so hopefully in the next month or so the aptaisia will be under control. Now I have to scrape coralline algae off the glass and equipment I guess it's a good problem to have. I do like the bare bottom a lot more now that it is covered in coralline algae.

 

[jack_aubry]

5/3/2020
Today is WC day but here are some shots of the reef before.
Thanks for checking it out.

Tank still has a ways to go, but I am having a blast looking thru all these old photos. Seeing how fast the reef changed over 10 months.

 

[jack_aubry]

Love that mixture of macro/coral on 1/30. How did you deal with the bubble algae? I wanted the macro that were growing on my keys live rock, but had to get an emerald crab due to the number of tiny bubble algae popping up. He ate everything, and a mushroom, too.

Thanks. In the end I just endied up pulling it out with tweezers. Still have some, but it is not taking over.

 

[jack_aubry]

Love the biodiversity! That will really help this tank thrive in the long run.

Totally agree there is no way I would not have crashed this tank if I had tried dry rock. With good live rock this tank was pretty forgiving of a lot of my newbie reefer mistakes.

 

[jack_aubry]

This live rock is awesome but I hope you dipped it. Plenty of invasive critters come on this rock along with tons of beautiful corals.

Honestly besides the Caulerpa and one of the macros nothing will eat the stuff that came in on the rock has not been that bad. The worst pests came in on frags. I was really over-confidant that the biodiversity would keep pests from taking over, and stupidly thought I already have all of the common pests I don't need to be careful about hitchhikers. The stuff that is adapted to tank life was so much more of a pain than the stuff that came in on the rocks

 

[TriggerFinger]

Honestly besides the Caulerpa and one of the macros nothing will eat the stuff that came in on the rock has not been that bad. The worst pests came in on frags. I was really over-confidant that the biodiversity would keep pests from taking over, and stupidly thought I already have all of the common pests I don't need to be careful about hitchhikers. The stuff that is adapted to tank life was so much more of a pain than the stuff that came in on the rocks

What pests did you get from the rocks and the frags? Do you mean the caulerpa and bubble algae?

 

[jack_aubry]

What pests did you get from the rocks and the frags? Do you mean the caulerpa and bubble algae?

I left out some of my mistakes to preserve some dignity. The first frag I added was a gorgonian on a small piece of rock rubble. That came with a different species of bubble algae and aptaisia. The bubble algae was much more aggressive and more difficult to remove. I don't know much about aptaisia to tell if it is a different sp. or not, but the frag aptaisia spread quickly. The aptaisia that came on the rock really didn't spread it just got bigger (at least until I tried aptaisia x then it did spread).

Also added montipora eating nudis with my montipora. After that I learned and started dipping and removing frag plugs whenever possible.

Finally, I added red bugs with one of the acros, which the dip doesn't kill.

Getting rid of those was more involved than the pests that came on the rock.

 

[TriggerFinger]

I understand preserving dignity and I appreciate the mistakes too, it helps others learn. Thank you! Your tank looks great despite a few minor mishaps I’ve got quite a few of my own