soggycookies

like snoopy hamburger said- preliminary algae like diatoms(brown and film/sheet-like) will likey grow on your rock(especially if other algae like green turf or coralline algae isn’t already established on it). depending on the light and flow in your tank it might grow on the glass and sandbed too, hence the ‘ugly phase’ moniker. unless they’re cyanobacteria or dinoflagellates(the former red and slime-like, the latter brownish like diatoms but create little stringy bubbles especially in low-flow conditions) diatoms usually aren’t harmful at all, just unsightly. they are food for a lot of creatures too. cyano and dinos on the contrary may be very annoying to get rid of once they gain a foothold in your tank, as not many things eat them. A particularly large population of them may be toxic in a smaller system, and some that are parasitic in nature(like velvet) are even more dangerous. green turf algae is usually what grows after the common brown film algae IME, and then if you keep tabs on overall system stability, coralline. just gotta get past that ugly phase first, particularly if you run longer lighting periods or more intense lighting. having really clean rock will probably make it look worse, but as long as it’s not a green hair algae, bryopsis or god forbid dino or cyano infestation- it should be fine. brown film algae is not a bad thing for the tank, just for your eyes maybe hahahaha. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

ideally yes. best to get an ato and run the salinity in the system as you would when established Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

And some shots of the mangroves when I first planted them, then 5 to 8 months later: Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

More photos! Went from a budget peaceful FOWLR when i first setup the 125gal: gradually began to keep some coral to a more standard-looking reef in the 300gal more recently: Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

1. not necessary at all 2. imo, when nitrate reading is in the 20~40ppm range Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Thanks bro. Glad that I could provide some insight. Curved glass on a larger system is not what I’ll be repeating in the future hahahaha Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

yes. just keep up the routine and the bacteria will continue to populate and not starve. then perhaps when the cb ends you could do a major water change and get all the benefits of a clean tank that’s ready for the first few fish Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

for rocks it really depends on what you want to go for- a minimalist scape with more room for fish to swim around in, more space for coral placement, or more rockwork to create more hiding places for sensitive fish or to house bacteria. and since you plan on going with a mixed reef- extra planning goes into where to put what sort of coral, and the sort of aquascape that best facilitates that- due to differing lighting and flow considerations. for sand i reckon 3inches all round from the base is good.. unless you wanna go old school with a deep sand bed with 8inches of sand which you almost never see anyone do these days(with all the marine pure and maxspect and brightwell misc media available now) the more media you have in your sump, the less rock and sand you’ll need in your DT in general. i wouldn’t have the exact figures how much i would put cause it’s pretty hard to accurately gauge without looking at the tank in person. for cycling the water i actually chopped fresh seafood like shrimp and squid up, mashed them in a bowl with water and fed fish in an established system the solid pieces and dumped the viscous liquid remains into the water with rocks i wanted to cycle. and yes, you can cycle/cure rocks in a separate bin and not in the tank itself. ideally you would want to make sure the salinity and temperature of the bin and your tank are as identical as possible when doing this. hope this helps, and all the best with your new setup! Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Posted! Thanks SRC for having this giveaway contest to spice up the cb a little Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Hello everyone, I’ve been keeping marine fish since the early 2000s, but only got into reefing proper in 2015. Thought I’d share some of my aquarium projects over the past few years. In the beginning, I got a secondhand tank from Iwarna. I wanted to go for a bigger display with initial plans for a FOWLR on a budget so this option seemed best at the time. Its basic specs were: - 58” x 24” x 24” - Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve-9 - Wavemakers: Jebao RW-20 & subsequently x2 Jebao RW-8s. - Return Pump: Sicce Syncra Silent 5.0 Here’s a photo of the tank in its early stages: I was keeping mostly fish in the beginning with a few anemones, but developed a newfound interest in corals when I noticed some stray GSP and goniopora on live rock I’d gotten from FreshnMarine growing unexpectedly. Eventually, I got better lighting, ran a few reactors and converted to a mixed reef-tank for a year or so. Regrettably, the tank ultimately crashed due to a thermal fracture(the tank was running at 25 degrees on a chiller but was located in my front porch which was generally hot most of the time) causing the already more prone curved glass on its sides to crack and I had to decommission the system immediately. While deciding what to do with the unfortunate situation, I experimented with a cube tank plumbed to the sump of my old 5footer and grew mangroves and some simple corals. Not too long after, I got a brand new system that was even bigger than the previous one from and couldn’t quite decide what I wanted to do with it at first- Fish-only or full-blown reeftank. I even messed around with cuttlefish and octopus at one point. This newer system went through a lot of changes in a couple of years but its initial specs were: - Dimensions: 72” x 36 “ x 30” - Skimmer: SkimZ Monzter SM207 DC - Wavemaker: Jebao RW-20 & x2 RW-8s from my previous system, and subsequently + x2 Maxspect Gyre xf-330s. - Lighting: x3 Maxspect R4z0r 160w and subsequently a Maxspect RSX R5-300 to go with the icv6 Ultimately(and quite recently) I decided to settle with a softie tank with a large fish stocking and plumbed a UV sterilizer for good measure. I kept the Mangrove system running for about a year and a half before it also had to be decommissioned due to renovation works next door. Couldn’t bear to see my mangroves go entirely so I managed to get some of them into another semi-outdoor 4ft system I had for while running on with leftover equipment from previous systems on a very tight budget(i more or less got that system for free from a reefer who decommissioned their tank and refurbished it myself) I hope everyone has been taking the time to care for and appreciate their tanks even more this circuitbreaker! Cheers & stay safe. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

never been there myself Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

if you can make the trip, coral farm is good for the most affordable beginner corals like zoas, mushrooms, xenia and gsp Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Now that the hobby has come far enough to keep difficult lps or sps with relative ease(some even formerly impossible to maintain), I’ve noticed the dip in soft coral interest- resulting in the misidentification of many leather corals. Rarer softies seem to be more easily overlooked or mistaken for more common fare and vice versa. For e.g. this leather that was in a recent shipment at a LFS here (photo taken with my phone cam) What appears to be a standard green nepthea or mislabeled a sinularia turned out to be a Japanese lemnalia coral, which is rarely heard of(probably due to the generalisation of many tree corals in the hobby as kenya tree neptheas). Notice how the polyps in the first photo as compared to the one below are uniformly green instead of brown like the more common kenya trees we’re used to seeing around: (photo taken from internet) Besides being green all around, the former also has more odd star-shaped polyps than the latter that has brown-tipped polyps that are less star-shaped and more stubbly/feathery. After much internet digging, I’ve come to the conclusion that the frag I chances upon at our local LFS was indeed a Japanese Lemnalia rather than a Japanese Nepthea. The shipment also labeled them as “nepthea and sinularia from Japan”, so my suspicions were confirmed. It was probably lumped in as a nepthea from Japan as well since it is technically a closely related family species. This is the photo I found online(from GTA Reef’s webstore) that convinced me: a larger example of a Japanese Lemnalia frag. Notice the similarity in structure of the branches and the star-like polyps(7-pronged) that are green all over, pretty much like the one in the first photo: Perhaps I’m wrong and it’s a Japanese Nepthea variant after all, but it would be a truly interesting find if it were a Lemnalia(because I’ve never seen them here before this). I also noticed it was the only frag there that didn’t look similar to the several other frags available from the same shipment that were also labelled ‘Japan nepthea/sinularia’, which I could tell were frags of the same species from probably the same mother colony- except this particular one. It piqued my interest so I just thought I’d share all of this on the forums. Am curious to see if anyone might a bigger colony of the same coral and photos shared(of any nepthea/sinularia/capnella leather coral families) would be much appreciated. Cheers and stay safe everybody. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

duncans are probably among the easiest lps to keep. other than that, the various euphyllia, though torches(especially those extra-long tentacled ones can be a bit more tricky Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

aaron’s aquarium and melev’s reef are pretty good too. fishofhex is a very no-nonsense guy but his videos are also informative for more advanced reefing Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

if you want to fill up immediately without adding corals that might take over a small system like xenia or gsp i’d go with a nice medium sized green sinularia leather. adds movement to the tank and a generally hardy coral too Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

looking to trade a new tunze care magnet strong+ (purchased on 1st April ‘20) for a flipper max(preferably a relatively new one) reason for trade: tunze magnet is too strong and traps black sand with magnetic properties too easily Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

up $85 Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

personally i gave up on quarantining new fish after switching to keeping more coral. cause one day i added a few new corals(they were only frags too) and bam a few days later i saw white spots on my quarantined fish. bottomline is anything new you add into your tank will have a chance to introduce it to your system if not quarantined, not just fish. also in my experience stuff like polyplab medic while effective to a degree, if used carelessly in the main display will irritate corals and especially anemones. i had an anemone bleach out from constant stress of the medic peroxide particles getting blown onto it. after that experience i always dissolve the medic in a container of tankwater before adding it in. they are reef safe but with all additives, there will always be some sort of effect on the system imo. best is to monitor before just continuing to dose. Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

you’re welcome! but i have not dosed for a long time. i used to do it on my previous system that didn’t have the best refugium so i dosed vinegar as an alternative for nutrient control. yes i would suggest stopping for a couple of days to see if the bloom clears. then resume with half the original dose and see if it gets better Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

up Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

from my experience carbon dosing, typically if the tank gets cloudy and doesn’t clear up the next day i take it as i dosed a bit too much and cut down on the dosage after stopping for a day or 2. overdosing can cause a cyanobacteria/dinoflagellate outbreak which could be dangerous if your system is not well oxygenated(cause they rapidly strip the water of oxygen). another thing you could do is place your wavemaker(s) or return line closer to the water surface to create more water agitation for better oxygen exchange. i don’t know about you but some opt to turn their skimmers off for a while when they carbon dose which would reduce oxygenation throughout the system too. imo this is unnecessary but everyone has their own preference so it’s understandable Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Back when I had a FOWLR tank I was definitely quarantining all my fish before adding them to the main display. For a full blown reeftank quarantine gets a lot harder cause if I really wanted to be sure ich/velvet doesn’t get into my system I’d ideally quarantine my corals and even cuc too. Not everyone has the space/$ investment to essentially set up more or less 2 of the same systems to quarantine both their fish and coral. Plus you’d technically have to set up 2 QT systems instead of 1- a separate one for fish and another for corals and inverts(cause copper treatment). that’s a whole lot of cost(coral QT tanks prolly also require a chiller, suitable reef standard lighting, ATO and all the standard reef thingamabobbbers(even worse if you’re keeping stuff like sps and some sensitive lps/softies) Now instead of a full quarantine I go with preventative dips/baths(paraguard/formalin/fw dip) accompanied by polyplab medic dosing if I know I’m gonna add a few new fish or even coral frags and snails to my main display. Won’t guarantee that it stays out of your system but i’ve been practising this for about 1 and a half years now(the dips and bath part) and so far there have only been 1 or 2 ich outbreaks, and thankfully nothing died from it. As for room for improvement i’m thinking of plumbing a uv sterilizer directly to the main tank to manage these parasites even further. it’s not impossible to keep ich and velvet out of a system but i wouldn’t say it’s easy. quarantine is straightforward but not all of us are willing to adhere strictly to it. i’m no exception hahahaha. why wait 4-12 weeks to put in coral/fish when you want to see it right now?!? Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

up Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

if you want cleaner water for more sensitive coral, yes otherwise not a must especially if you’re going all softies or fish-only Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app