Kassuns Reef

Started yesterday tearing out the rock wall. Took about 2 hours just to remove the corals , Rock and fish. I did a complete water change. The removal was pretty straight forward. Was able to get everyone back in just a few minuets ago. The unfortunate casuality was our cleaner shrimp passed away last night.

-- Kassun

Our Neon Dottyback of several years jumped out of the tank a week ago. It's a shame because he was one of our favorite fish. I am still battling hair algae, I believe it is from the installation of the foam rock wall. I use ro/di water with 0 TDS and feeding is kept to a minimum so the only way to explain the extra nutrients is from the egg crate. I have read that other people have had a similar problem and attribute it to the different types of egg crate. Our lawnmower Blenny is going full tilt and we are looking at the purchase of a second one.

Our clowns continue to spawn on a regular basis now; However, I haven't made any plans on rearing the young in a separate tank and raising them at this point in time. Maybe this winter when outdoor projects come to a stop.

Not much new. Since the weather has turned warm I spend most of my time out side so their haven't been any new expendures on the tank. The battle with the green hair algae is taking a turn in my favor. Our clowns have since laid a few more eggs up next to the flower pot. I plan on doing a 20% water change this weekend if time allows. The new protien skimmer is working flawlessly. I have to empty it roughly every few days. So far so good.

Clowns laid a new batch of eggs this morning. Same spot as last, with the exception of more eggs this time.

Our perc clowns caught my attention this evening. I looked over and saw what looked like orange polyps on our rock wall. Thought that was strange. So on closer inspection to my suprise they were eggs. Unfortunatley this was not planed for so the eggs will not be removed and raised in a seperate tank. However I will make preperations for the next laying of eggs.

Today was a sad day. Woke up to discover that are new anemone was puking it's guts up. That's never a good sign. Moved him to our quarenteen tank, but he passed away. :(

Success finally, the other clown has joined his partner in the anemone. Now it will me intresting to see which will become the female, since their both the same size.

Yellow Skunk Clown started hosting this evening. The other Skunk Clown has yet to host, but should just be a matter of time now. :)

Picked up a pair of Yellow Skunk Clowns yesterday from Petco. As much as I rather not support large mass pet stores, They were on sale for a good price, and didn't show any signs of disease.

We have been very fortunate that all of our fish get along very well with one another, despite some warnings that are associated with the different species of fish. We already have a pair of False Percula Clowns. I made sure that the Clowns that I purchased were smaller than the Perc's in our tank and that the teperment was the same or more timid. There are alot of people that will swear up and down that only one pair or Clowns should be in 75 gal reef, however it has been my positive experence that 2 different species can be housed in a 75 gal reef tank or larger. With that said I would discourage maroon clowns and a few others that have a good history of aggression. With that said enjoy the pictures, hopefully they will host with in a weeks time or less.

Did my routine 12 gallon water change yesterday evening. Woke up this morning and the flowerpot has finally opened up. I know it's only 1/2 extended, but I'll take it. Also it helps that I moved it up higher so the Clowns leave it alone. :)

Clowns still refusing to host with carpet anemone and choose to bother our flower pot coral instead.

We were getting worried once our starfish headed behind our rock wall a few weeks ago. Today while moving some rock and doing a water change he has been sighted with a leg poking out one of the cracks in the rock wall. Whoo hoo :). Later on today I was able to coax him out with some Mysis shrimp. Hopefully he will stay out from behind the rock wall now.

Star polyps still have yet to reopen.

A quick pick of our Lawnmower Blenny with a full belly of hair algae.

Stopped by my LFS this evening and purchased a sand sifter to clean up our sand bed. He has been hard at work since being acclimated & released into the display tank this evening.

Swapped out our carpet anemone for a long tentacle anemone & added a six line wrasse. Initially the neon dotty back was very territorial, but after a few days she has left the wrasse alone. I took out the 250w metal halide since we have t5's now. So our electricity bill should drop and I'll have a light when I start up a simple propagation tank. Well here are some pictures of the new tank mates.

Just had my appendix out on Wednesday. So not to much new happening around the reef. Out blenny and hawk fish have setteled in quite well. My wife has her eye on a six line wrasse this payday. So I'll have some picks of that up next week.

- Kassun

I got around to taking some new videos this weekend of our reef tank with the new T5 lighting. As you can see it is just a tad brighter.

Are flowerpot and green star polyps corals are still stressed and haven't been opening all the way. We have sporadic openings on our green star polyps and approximately 1/4 to 1/2 extension on the flower pot.

I did a 12 gall water change with Reef Crystals on Saturday evening after letting it mix for 24 hours. The skimmer is always a daily process to get it to work correctly. I am going to pick up an Aqua Roma HOB (hang on the back skimmer) within the next month and sell off the Seaclone skimmer.

Our new tank mate additions have setteled in very well. Our Yellow Tang was a bit stressed out, however the lawn mower salfin blenny has already stared grazing on our green hair algae. The neon dotty back likes to chase our Hawk fish around once and a while, but nothing to extensive that I should worry.

Was able to snap a quick picture this morning of our 2 new additions.

Added a lawn mower blenny yesterday to aid in the algae battle. And today on our way home from the twin cities we stopped off in forest lake and got a spotted hawk fish. Here are som pics.

Luck struck today when a local reefer that is into rc planes offered me a trade for his Marineland T5-48 Deluxe Strip Light Fixture for my rc engine. It's a total of 4 54w bulbs. The color difference in our reef is now insane. Colors are popping and our flowerpot and various other corals are extending. I also stopped by another guys house and picked up 2 maxi jet 1200's full of coraline algae and tunze like powerhead. I now have a total of 4 powerheads ruining in our tank and the flow is great. I had to restructure our hoods layout inside to make room, but the process went smooth and fast. I mounted the hallaide in front. Below are some pictures with our new light. If we want to go less white, we will probably switch out a 10k to a 20k bulb.

One of my projects for this weekend is to pick up a few used maxi jet 1200's and with some simple mods make the put out roughly 1800 gph. These to and my koralie powerhead should give me plenty of flow, especially behind my rocks against the rock wall. I'll post some pics and a link that I am using from someone elses mod.

Our carpet was pretty bleached when we took it home. Almost all his zoointhella was gone. We have been feeding him regulary and will be adding a vitamin such as Selcon and / or Garlic Extreme to fortify his food.

I have to pick up some reef crystals tomorrow and start up a fresh 10 gal water change. And then let it sit with an airstone and a power head to get the ph equalized and stable.

Fine tuned the skimmer this evening. The mods that I did the other night seam to be paying off. It's now finislly dry skimming instead of wet. Which means the the foam coming up is dry and not saturated with water. Hopefully it will continue to produce with weekly cleanings.
A local reefer has offered a great deal on a remora skimmer, that I may look into in the near future.

Met a local reefer that had a new pair of 250w 10k xm bulbs. Picked up a single bulb for $30.00. What a difference in spectrum from my last. Bulb. Brand name equals quality. Looks the way a 10k should.

Found pair, however not interested in relocation at this time.

Wanted pair of clown fish to host, no lease or deposit required

Nothing much happening today. I did a few mods to my seaclone skimmer that I bought several years ago. It is a huge pain to adjust, and I hope to build or purchase a different one soon. I shortened the inner tube to 3inches to give the venturi system more contact with the water. It seams to have made a slight difference, but nothing to jump around about. There is a DIY called the Kalkenstein that I what to build, however the pro skimmers are the way to go, due to the precise design and build quality. Well who knows we will have to see how motivated i am this weekend.

I do plan on adding one or two moded maxi streams to my system this Friday. I am going to soft plumb on some piping so I don't have to keep taking my top off kalk container down just to refill it ip. Automation is always faster and easier to save time.

Installed the final 2 segments last evening with my wife. The rockwall turned out great and fit perferctly. We moved all the fish and corals to a seperate cooler while we installed the wall and shifted the sand. We have a lot of live rock and have considered starting up another smaller nano tank, thus reducing the amount in our display tank give us more room to stack and showcasing more of the rock wall that we spent so much time building. The goal today is to finish the final touches on the aquascaping and leaving the rock alone so our corals can grow.

:: A SIDE NOTE::

Their are some decent plans out on the net for making all in one tanks. So I think I am coin to purchase a 20 long and dedicate a six inch section for a place that will hold the macro algae, heater, powerhead, Ect... I will post some different designs later this week.

When wife asks to aqua scape, it's best to not keep saying, that piece of rock would look great over there instead :)

Epoxy resin and argonite all applied. Now just have to wait for it to cure and cut a small section out to be able to fit it in our reef tank.

I believe our carpet ate our blue tang this evening while we were out shopping. We knew the risk of adding a carpet to our reef tank. In the past we had great sucess with them & without a loss to our fish. Aparently this one has a stomach for live fish. We will know by tomorrow if the tang is just hiding or if it became a snack.

Started on the 2nd and final section of our rockwall this evening. We will let the foam setup over night and cure. Then tomorrow I will apply the epoxy and arganite to the foam. I will be installing it in our tank on Sunday.

A simple drip setup. I used a penguin power head mount and a sea weed clip to hold it in place.

Finially got around to setting up a gravity fed auto top off with kalk this evening. Nothing fancy, just a 2 gallon water container that I used a long piece of rigid airline tube and regular air line tubing with a air valve at the bottom that I can open and close to regulate the amount of water that drops into our tank. It will take a few days to get the amounts of drip to keep up with our evaporation rate which is roughly a gallon + per day.

We also added an Anemone Crab and 3 snails to fight our green hair algae out break.

Checked and tested my 1st batch of two 12 gallon water changes this evening. All parameters with in acceptable limits, so I switched out 12 gallons of water. Our Blue Tang finally moved from behind out carpet anemone to the right side of the tank in the rock work. Peppermint shrimp is running out and about our rock work, but mostly sticking to the rock wall on the right side of our tank. Still no luck with the clown and our anemone, it may take some time, but no guarantee. Fingers crossed.

I sent a complaint to Omega Star regarding the intense yellow from my 10k bulb a few days ago. Today I received two emails back.

The first apologized and said to take the bulb back to my local fish store that I had bought it from.

The second email said to disregard the first email and send the bulb in and they would test it for me and send me a replacement bulb. I was very happy with the second email and the fact that they are committed to customer satisfaction. They agreed that it should be more white than yellow. I have an email reply asking what to do about not having a halide bulb or light for that matter over my tank while they examined my bulb. Because my SPS and Carpet Anemone can't go a long period of time not having light.

Thought I'd share a link to a phytoplankton culturing setup. The start up cost isn't that much, and I will be able to harvest more than enough for my reef tank and sell the extra to local reef owners. Below are a few links to some plans:

Reef Keeping DIY culture station

Shawn Carlson's culture station (photo featured above)

Took some time this evening to do some reaqua-scaping and move some of my soft & lps corals around. Hoping to get them closer to my anemone and get my clowns to show some intrest in our carpet anemone. Instead of the clowns trying to host I'm our flower pot and frog spawn. I goto bed with fingers crossed this evening.

Our brine shrimp hatched today. After putting a light at the bottom for a several minuets, I sucked the empty shells out with a turkey baster and fed my sump and tank.

I will be starting up a phytoplankton culture next week with some DT's as a starter culture. To try and save some money by culturing my own.

Tested my water this evening. Amonia, nitrates & nitrites are high. Phosphates are high as well. I use ro/ di water and my Tds meter reads ok. So I am to assume that because of the rock wall Installation a week or so ago, & the major disturbance of my deep sand bed, that I am going through a small cycle. I will be performing two 10 gallon water changes over the next few days. This should help decrease the high levels.

Our scopas tang passed away today. When we bought him a week ago he was in poor health & we hoped to rehabilate him and turn his health around. Despite our efforts he did not make it. This is the second fish we have lost over the past 5 years, the 1st was our goby that was eaten by our carpet anemone a few days ago.

After a few days of hiding our new sea urchin came out from behind the rock work. He has a nice velvet blue inbetween his spines.

-- Kassun

Found a great article on line regarding snails in a reef tank. The link can be found by Clicking Here

Here is where our crabs meet up every day on our DIY rockwall. At night they start off at the bottom of our reef tank and slowly one by one they form a train climbing up to the top. It's pretty hilarious to watch. I'll try and grab a photo of the journey tonight.