Sniperhank's Red Sea S-series 500

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From lighting back to food. I really like masstick. I was finally able to witness it being feasted on. I was able to grab a quick video of it. The sailfin eats it too, but it isn’t the biggest fan of anyone being near the tank. I’ll toss the video up when I find a way too with the changes to image hosting and such.
 
Had to look that up and very interesting food concept. I haven't seen it before.

Even though I have smaller SW inhabitants looks like they could eat it too.

Recently I got a frozen food. The fish and coral have been loving the little bitty bits of the Cobalt Vitamin Enriched Coral Food, my Boraras Brigittae absolutely go crazy for it too! Plus they seemed to have brightened up and become more sociable.
 
Good to hear.
If it wasn't for the aiptasia and this brown algae, things would be perfect.
Today I even noticed that the marshall island latana is coming back. Its blue polyps swaying in the breeze. I thought it was a goner, but this firms up my statement that even a dead coral should never be removed. Monti are extremely hardy.
 
I sure am doing a terrible job of keeping up with my thread with this new work schedule.
As it stands, I have ordered more Masstick. I have decided it will be the primary food in the system. I am putting in a small chunk the size of a ball bearing in...not even every day...and the fish are both fat. I was once concerned about the sailfin tang being skinny due to him not liking to eat from the algae holder. This is no longer the case. I haven't been adding algae in the system at all and he has plumped up. Copperband also fat.
The Masstick stated they wouldn't be bringing excess nutrients into the system. I was skeptical. Anything going in food wise is a nurtient. It would simply be concentrated. I'm pretty sold. Algae is going down. I used to scrub it off my frag tray and it is now algae free. This will be a huge help as the two frags up there were pretty beat on before being moved from algae overwhelming them.
So, I ordered more Masstick today along with a new tunze magnet scraper since I haven't been able to locate my other one since moving into the new house. Small amounts of calcium based algae building up on the front glass that the mag float simply isn't getting, probably because it is an old relic from the 55 setup. As for the large amount of Masstick, It took me almost a month to move through the small pack. I'll most likely mix the stuff up and roll it into daily size balls to get frozen. If I remember correctly the life span refridgerated is 5 weeks and extended pretty far frozen.
 
I might try that mass tick when I have Fish again. When I had my first tank a lfs opened in my local town (which was awesome as the next closest one is 30 miles away) and the guy from there sold me something similar. It was a paste you stuck on the glass. It was already mixed though and he said he gave me that when I told him I had a phosphate issue.

Did you finally get rid of the dinos? After using the Dino X things looked promising for me so I added new sand an LR but yesterday I seen what looked like dinos growing on y new rock. I got my reactor set up and am currently using bio pellets to try and take out the excess nutrients. Hopefully this along with manual removal will address the issue but it just looks like I’m about to have an outbreak again.

My corals still haven’t really perked up since using the Dino X either.
 
At the end of the day, I continue to question my own ID on whatever it is. The more I did it almost seemed like the worse it got. So I stopped thinking about it and treated the system like I normally would. Things are improving. The sandbed is still where most of it resides and I've been stirring it up during water changes, which I have been quite poor about doing with my 12 hour shifts.
I did put in the larger powerhead to get more flow going and it appears to have helped things all around along with the masstick being primary food source.
 
I’m pretty sure it is dinos I have. Bubbly snotty stuff. My snails are not dying though but I have read there are different types of dinos (toxic and non toxic) I will see if my reactor makes a difference. I have only added a quarter of the recommended bio pellets at the moment as I read too much too fast can be bad for the system.

Looks like my target of getting Fish at the end of this month is slowly slipping away [emoji22]

It actually seems to get worse with water changes which makes me think there must be excess nutrients in my ro water. I have ordered a hand held tds meter but my online one is usually 3 sometimes 4ppm. I might add another di pod to bring it down.

My sand bed is also where it gets bad fast.
 
Well, those TDS numbers could be anything going into the system. Even then that is a high number. You should really aim for 0 to make sure nothing is going into the system. My old tank was basically run off of distilled water from the store. Always had algae, nothing you can get away from it.
 
I was sad for you having to use distilled water. That sucked. Glad you have some better results now. There is always something. It is really hard to accomplish everything you need to, should or could do with tanks with a brutal work life, or demanding schedule.

Sounds amazing that the Masstick is being eaten with such enthusiasm, and fat fish -WOW. I see so many skinny SW fish everywhere. Sounds worth looking into, even more so now.
 
I really wish I knew how to post videos now with all the photosharing changes. I was going to get some anthias as well, until I dropped my car keys and the plow truck took them for a ride. I'm sure I'll find them in spring, but until then a new one is pretty costly. If I can get around it, anthias grouping...trio maybe. We'll see.
 
Ouch, that's a tough break.

The Anthias are really pretty. If I end up setting up the 90G Sw tank in my garage, a little group of fish sounds nice, these might be a good option. Was also looking at the Chromis.

Wow, I just gave the Anthias a look on LA - and never realized there were so many varieties.

LiveAquaria says the (lyretail 5" fish) need a 125G tank, why would that be?

When it is said they are semi-aggressive, would they get along with Chromis?
 
Anthias do best in groups of odd numbers. Just like chromis...but they won't kill each other off like chromis do. Anthias schools of one male and a couple females is typical.
 
I ended up ordering the anthias anyway. Toss some of that Christmas money around right? Threw in a small blue linkia that I've always wanted. It'll be a big chunk of color to the system.
 
Sniperhank said:
I ended up ordering the anthias anyway. Toss some of that Christmas money around right? Threw in a small blue linkia that I've always wanted. It'll be a big chunk of color to the system.
Click to expand...

That sounds like some bright color, and the Blue Linkia - wow! Really nice. The blue starfish is stunner. Any strategies for trying to keep it alive? Most people lose them rather soon. A few years back I had a orange red one but it did not last very long. I was hugely disappointed and sad for the little guy not making it. Inexperience, though I thought I was going to be fine with it. Love fish store sales people.
 
The biggest issue with linkia in general is that it isn't known what they actually eat. It is something that would grow as a filament in our system, but what exactly isn't known. This is a small one, so we'll see. Always wanted to try one.
 
Shipment delayed until tomorrow. Things should be fine, but not thrilled.
A good note is I found an inactive spare key. 40 dollars is better than almost 300. That’s more fish money.
 
I think things will be just find with the masstick. This stuff is pretty amazing. Just need to remember to throw some in tomorrow to get things started after work.
 
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