Sniperhank's UPGRADED 55 gal Build

[Jmkb02]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

Well, the clam is doing well. Sadly, some of my corals are not. My meteor shower, hexagon brain, open brain are all receding. No clue why. Phosphates are at .06. and alk is back at 76...can't keep the alk stable so I'm stopping dosing. It is about a week of recession, but these coral haven't been looking the best recently. Unsure why.

Sorry to hear, instead of dosing try to a water change maybe?? I swear by them. 10% weekly minimum. I'll do a 25% once a month to just kinda help a bit more, but it has always helped me. Hope it helps

[Sniperhank]

The weekly 10 and did some 20 to try to work on the alk that way and didn't do the trick unfortunately.

[Jmkb02]

Huh? Just outta curiosity, are you buying pre-mixed or mixing it yourself?

[Sniperhank]

Mix myself. Just switched from Kent over to Red Sea today.

[Dav3]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

Mix myself. Just switched from Kent over to Red Sea today.

Love Red Sea pro salt. Mixes fast. Not an overnight mix salt. In fact directions say not to mix more than 4 hours.

[Sniperhank]

Yeah. That was really nice and mixed up great. It just so happened that I need to remove algae from the top of a rock near my pocilopora. It's one of the macros that came out after awhile, but this one started smothering and I try to keep it trimmed. So while I did that I did another water change.

[Sniperhank]

Ok. The cobalt resins only last 15 days. Not worth the investment. But talking about good investments, should I get a blue spotted jawfish?

[Sniperhank]

Stumbled upon this little gem. What do you guys think about future upgrade?
150 gallon Marineland cube aquarium and stand

[Keithhjs]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

Stumbled upon this little gem. What do you guys think about future upgrade? 150 gallon Marineland cube aquarium and stand

Beautiful tank! That stand looks & sounds very nice too. Update us if you pull the trigger on it.....

[Sniperhank]

A beautiful tank I passed on. It was a rough decision, but I will find another when I'm ready. The 36 is still sitting with rock, sand, and water in it a year after decommission. Gross...but I made the mess just haven't cleaned it up. I don't want to break the giant rock in it either. I want to use it to cover the future overflow. Now back to dreaming of tanks and jawfish.

[Sniperhank]

Today was the weekly water change. Nothing really outrageous, just more algae control. I also changed out my filter media. The Cobalt media was great...until it was spent in 15 days. That isn't something they advertise. So, on to PhosGuard. I like Seachem's stuff as Purigen is the bomb. Kept the old Purigen in, changed out the ChemiPure Elite, and added some PhosGuard in their The Bag. The thought on this, as it was either that or putting it in pantyhose, to keep the media from getting clogged into the sponge pads. Had that issue with Purigen and it hurt the flow through the reactors. So, the flow is greatly improved through and am happy with it. Removed more algae and pushing on as best possible. There is more recession on some coral. Fight continues.

[Ronin77]

That 150 gal cube looks awesome, pretty good price.

[Sniperhank]

Well, a state of the tank. My red planet acro died off sadly. My pink pocilopora is trying to follow, it ended up with vermetid snails on it! I was content leaving the ones on the other side of the tank live, but I think their time is coming to an end. Smashed the ones into fish food on the pocilopora and hopefully it recovers, noticed when I got back from my weekend in Ohio.

When I got back, I obviously had to clean the glass. Covered in pods. I was quite excited. I didn't think my population was doing so well with the mandarin, but he'll be ok if he decides to stop eating mysis.

The open brain is still receding, but it has slowed down. There might be a chance at recovery. I was thinking about just abandoning it, but decided not to give out hope. The skeleton hasn't been taken over with algae like the others so I'll keep pressing on.

Algae. This stuff is pretty annoying. It made its way back when the cobalt resins were spent. Now with the phosguard going with chemipure elite and purigen it should square itself away again. Going to need to clean the power heads to get it off them and scrape what I can from the rocks.

I've also grown tired of my massive birds nest colony. It's too big for the tank now. That and several frags of it scattered around the tank. In early planning on what to do with it, but it needs to go for sure.

[Bearchumjs]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

Well, a state of the tank. My red planet acro died off sadly. My pink pocilopora is trying to follow, it ended up with vermetid snails on it! I was content leaving the ones on the other side of the tank live, but I think their time is coming to an end. Smashed the ones into fish food on the pocilopora and hopefully it recovers, noticed when I got back from my weekend in Ohio. When I got back, I obviously had to clean the glass. Covered in pods. I was quite excited. I didn't think my population was doing so well with the mandarin, but he'll be ok if he decides to stop eating mysis. The open brain is still receding, but it has slowed down. There might be a chance at recovery. I was thinking about just abandoning it, but decided not to give out hope. The skeleton hasn't been taken over with algae like the others so I'll keep pressing on. Algae. This stuff is pretty annoying. It made its way back when the cobalt resins were spent. Now with the phosguard going with chemipure elite and purigen it should square itself away again. Going to need to clean the power heads to get it off them and scrape what I can from the rocks. I've also grown tired of my massive birds nest colony. It's too big for the tank now. That and several frags of it scattered around the tank. In early planning on what to do with it, but it needs to go for sure.

I'm sorry to hear about the dead/dying coral and the pest snails. And you have been having the worst luck battling that algae! Just keep on keeping on. I'm glad to hear the pod population is doing so well! How are your other fish doing? Does the betta come out much?

[Sniperhank]

Everything fish wise is doing great. The betta is shy, but it is a shy fish. It comes out more but never when the lights are on and always stays in the caves and crevices. Typical betta behavior IMO. It's fun to see it, the engineer goby, and mandarin feed. It's crazy the luck I had with the mandarin, not even eating mysis but straight out of the water column with the rest of the fish.

[Keithhjs]

See now it's definitely time to cut that birdsnest up...,,.and ship it here lol.

[Sniperhank]

If I can't find anything local if be open for swaps if I can find a way to overnight and a styrofoam container big enough for it.

[Keithhjs]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

If I can't find anything local if be open for swaps if I can find a way to overnight and a styrofoam container big enough for it.

If that bad boy is still needling a home when I get all my tanks up then a swap would be cool. At this time I have zero real estate left lol!

[Sniperhank]

I think I could wait that out.

[Sniperhank]

Well, weekly maintenance day. Took out a ton of algae, from both the sump and display. Then went and murdered the vermetid snails. Found one in my montipora. The pink pocilopora is officially gone today due to those things...but sadly not the only issue.The green pocilopora isn't doing so well since the red hair algae swarmed it. I've fragged it twice to try and save it, one frag is doing ok...other isn't going to make it.
The brain corals are both receding now and the meteor shower is almost all gone. I've increased the amount of Phosguard being used as the Purigen looks spent and I'm out of prime to recharge it.

As for everything else, the fish are fat, clams are doing great, coco worm still quick to retract showing off its health.