labnjab's 75 Gallon Reef Build

[Ashurbarnipal]

Ah. Did you spot feed them using cliff's method? (I'm curious cause my crocea is really only 3 inches and I kinda want a maxima myself, but the only affordable ones are under 2 inches)

[labnjab]

I did not feed it and have never fed any of our clams. Feeding clams, even small ones, is beneficial, but not necessary. When buying one 2 inches or under its kind of a dice roll if it lives for very long. Our very 1st clam was a maxima just under 2 inches, and we fed it a few times, but it only lasted a week. It looked great one day and I found the CUC finishing it off the next. The store gave us a 3 inch dersa as a replacement and its now approaching 9 inches and we haven't ever fed it

[labnjab]

Wow, its been a long time since I've updated and since I've been on the forum. I've had a long busy summer and haven't had much time for the reef. Been focused on my new computer and folding at home team competition hobby.

I've been doing water changes every 3 weeks and its taken a toll on the reef. No losses other then a clam (which got buried by my pistol shrimp) The reef just has a lot of algae (haven't changed gfo in months) and aiptasia (on going problem). I had even put it up for sale earlier in the summer but have since decided to keep it.

Summers over, things have slowed down, so I'm gonna start putting more effort into the reef to turn it back around. Gonna order up more gfo and several Mexican turbos on payday to take care of the algae. I never got a file fish from my local fish store so I'm gonna break down and buy one from live aquaria soon ($70 shipped ) so hopefully I can get rid of the aiptasia once in for all. Hopefully I can have the reef back in tip top shape in a few months.

Despite the lack of care most of my SPS have done surprisingly well and most of my frags are growing off the plug and onto the frag rack I've also had a few colonies start to grow back that I thought were long gone, so other then the algae and aiptasia its not doing half bad

[Cliff]

Glad to hear it's not all that bad.

I'm also glad to see you back here

[hockeyhead019]

Happens to the best of us... others things come up and sometimes that leads to neglect of our tanks lol glad to hear you're back though!

[labnjab]

Thank you. 1st order of business is getting rid of the alage. My glass is 3/4ths coraline, lol.

Yeah I'm shocked its actually not doing half bad. I also found out I have another 3 or 4 BTA's for a total of like 8 and one is about to get evicted because its settled in on the back side of my large strawberry fields cap colony

[Cliff]

LOL, if your RBTAs are splitting like that, you sure are doing something right. They only seam to split when well cared for in good water quality

[labnjab]

Long time no see After my last post, last summer, we pretty much gave up on the 75 gallon because of the endless aiptasia fight. I couldn't find a filefish or copperbanded butterfly. Anything I did just made the aiptasia worse so I just gave up. I stopped changeing gfo, stopped cleaning glass and alage and even stopped fragging and pretty much did a water change every 3-4 weeks and fed and that was it. I was just sick of fighting a loosing battle.

Over the last 8 months the tank didn't do too bad despite lack of maintance. Most of the sps still did well. We only lost 1 fish, a foxface rabbit, and we lost both our our clams. The aiptasia were everywhere. Last week we decided to get back in the game and try one more time. So I ripped out all the bad rock and sand out of the display and replaced it with dry rock and new aragonite sand. Our frag tank and sump had several pounds of rock that didnt have aiptasia, so we used those to the new rock. I also left the sump and frag tank alone to help preserve the pod population

Here is the tank specs as it stands now
all tanks are still tied together
75 gallon drilled display
20 long drilled frag tank
30 gallon sump
Roughly 120 lbs of rock and 50lbs sand
2 mp 40s in the display1 mp10 in the frag tank
2 apollo reef led fixtures on the display
1 apollo reef led fixture on the frag tank
Reef Octopus Skimmer
Reef Octopus calcium reactor
2 150 watt visa therm heaters
Reef Keeper lite lvl 3 controller with ATO
Mag 9.5 return feeding both tanks
BRS gfo reactor
Current Stock in the 75 gallon
2 false percula clownfish
1 pink bta
1 yellow corris wrasse
1 yellow watchman goby
1 tiger pistol shrimp
6 peppermint shrimp
1 Red Mandarin
1 yellow tang
1 orchid dottyback
1 royal gramma
1 brittle star and 2 serpent stars
20 long stock
1 falco hawkfish
1 darwin clown

We have still have primarily sps with a few softies and lps. I also just ordered a few bags of live pods to help jump start the pod population to keep our mandarin healthy

[labnjab]

Here is the most recent FTS



and a short video

[Crispy]

welcome back! looks pretty decent for being so neglected.