Rick's 80 Gallon SCA (+40b)

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Time for a build thread to keep track of progress. If I don't do it now I'll probably never remember.
I've been on and off in the hobby for close to 10 years. Gifted to me by my brother when I moved back to Georgia 5+ years ago; I had been luging this Biocube around with me whenever I moved. But enough was enough, I needed some salt back in my life.

January 22nd, 2022 I setup the Biocube. Almost as soon as it was cycled to my standards, I knew I had to go bigger.



February 19th, one month after water hit the cube, I decided I would get some tester SPS for this tank to see how well they would do before I went spend crazy on expensive frags. I picked up some beautiful frags from @fishyfishy for a fair price; Walt Disney and ASD Rainbow Milli. Maybe not what most people would choose as a tester SPS, but I felt confident. While picking up the frags I had a chance to check out his tank and thought to myself 'this is a really nice size tank, and the glass is so clear'. Lucky for me, fishyfishy was moving and I was able to buy the very tank I bought frags out of just 2 weeks before.



March 7th, now I have a bigger tank so it is time to come up with a plan. First thing first, the tank was dirty and needed a heavy scrubbing. I also knew I had to remake the stand; one of my favorite views of a reef is from the top down, and I didn't want to have to use a stool. Out came the scrub brush and tools. Busy with work and life in general, It took me 3 weeks to get this tank transfer ready to be able to happen all in a day.



April 1st, just 3 months after water hit the Biocube, now everything is moved to the SCA 80.

 

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1 week after the transfer, time to fill in the gaps. Special thanks to @jessezm @29BioDelMar and @qnducky for some good frags and great conversations.

 

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4 months after the SCA 80 was setup, I've lost 2 of my favorite LPS to them killing each other, and one bubble coral from me turning on additional powerheads and then not checking the tank again for 2 hours. Everything else is doing well, some things a little too well, as there is an algae trying to take over and fan worms have laid claim to my entire sand bed, as well as finding a small handful of aptasia trying to take root. I've gotten some F-Aptaisia and will also be ordering 5 peppermint shrimp, 3 emerald crabs, and a white tail tang, this should hopefully slow those problems down.




JF Fox Flame, April 24 - July 30


BC Aquatic Man, May 3 - July 30


No name green stick, May 3 - Jul 30

 

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Got a promotion and then got ridiculously busy. I haven't had the time to spend on my tank that I would want, but I've made sure that my Kalk bucket doesn't run dry. I'm filling up a barrel of water now to mix up some fresh salt, I would usually have my tank doing auto water changes every day but I haven't had time to mix new salt in nearly 2 months, so auto water changes have been turned off on the Apex for a while.

Last update I was having a takeover of this leafy brownish green algae, I believe a type of dictyota, a small naso tang mowed that all down in 2 weeks, but in my recent neglect I have had bubble algae sprout up on a lot of the rocks in some pretty thick patches of tiny tiny bubbles. The F-Aptasia was not a cure for me. It did kill all that I covered with it except 2. There were 2 aptaisa that had their foot angled upward into the rock, and although I used glue and frag plugs to make a shelf to hold the paste one them, they still were able to creep out and spread babies through the tank like wildfire. I got a filefish who would eat medium size and small ones, but he would leave little bits of the foot and they would grow back and kept spreading. I got a copper banded butterfly and a month later I only have 3 aptaisia in the display tank now, they are rather large and neither fish wants to eat them but they are keeping any new babies from showing up. Hopefully I'll get enough time to go in and try and kill the last 3 form the display, eventually. The copper banded also seems to have eaten all the tiny fan worms that had spread through my sand bed. Aptaisia eradication is now part of the maintenance when I have to change filter rolls, as they have sprouted like crazy in the reefmat, but I haven't found any in any other parts of the sump.

I'm still struggling with fish. In all the tanks I have had prior, I've never had fish problems; I guess I always got lucky. The fish would never fight, they were always healthy, I never had diseases to worry about. This tank on the other hand, I've lost way more fish than I would have ever expected and it's bummed me out a bunch. No visible diseases, and just one fish at a time. After some tough random losses in the tank's beginning I had developed a stable crew for a while, but then I added a white tail tang like I mentioned in my last post. The white tail was fine for a week I think, but then the white tail wasn't eating the nuisance algae I had so I added a small fox face, less than half the size of the white tail. They were fine with each other for about 30 minutes, just long enough for me to decide they were ok, but when I checked on them an hour later the fox face was hiding in a corner clearly from being bullied. I decided to add in some more rock I had around, to try and change the tank layout just a tiny bit, and also create more holes to hide and sleep. This did not work, so I jumped in the car and went to get a fish trap from my brother. Sadly, the fox face did not survive, I found him dead when I got home with the trap. I cursed a little but decided I would just find out another cure for my algae and keep my pretty white tail that I wanted so badly. Then things got worse. The white tail decided he now owned the whole tank and I didn't notice. When I woke up I saw that the white tail had went on a killing spree and took out 2 cardinals, a tailspot blenny, and a mandarin dragonet. My wrasse didn't come out of the sand for over a week after that. I changed my mind about having him and angrily and aggressively chased him into the fish trap. He lived in that little jail cell of a trap for a week until I had time to take him to my brother, who then threw him right in a tank with 4 or 5 other fish and he didn't bother any of them, not a single bit... I then got my first small naso, he lived for 2 weeks eating and acting fine, then I found him dead in a corner one morning. That naso was not eating the dictyota I had, but he was eating nori sheets and Rod's food. I still had algae taking over my tank so after a week or so I got another naso and another foxface, both about 2-2.5 inches. The new naso loved the dictyota but wouldn't touch the nori, and the foxface wouldn't eat the dictyota but it would eat the nori and also bubble algae. The naso lived in the tank for just at 2 months, but once the dictyota was gone he would still not eat the nori or the veggies that were in the Rod's. He was picking all the hair algae off of frags and the rocks all day, and he was still eating the meat from Rod's, plus I had an auto feeder going every 3 hours with a good mix of hikari greens and similar. I saw him laying on his side in the back corner one evening and new he wouldn't make it to the morning. There were no spots or anything visibly wrong, just him laying there barely breathing, like he had no energy. The foxface is fine but has grown to what I now feel is about the max size to humanely have him in my tank, so I'll be borrowing a fish trap again soon and swapping out with a small yellow or purple tang, and maybe a tiny blue hippo. I would kind of also like to get another small naso at the same time, but I am worried I'm jinxed with fish on this tank and would hate to see another fish die so soon before its time, fish should live for years, not weeks or months. Also thinking about swapping out my female melanurus wrasse for another smaller one or a yellow corris. The melanurus is a model citizen, but I notice some days she spends a lot of time swimming up and down the glass in the front corners, not like she is looking for food, but like she wants out, so I think she has outgrown my tank at this point, but I would hate to swap her out for a new wrasse and then have an unknown pest explosion or something because the new wrasse may not have the same tastes.

That is enough rambling for one post, here are some pictures of the tank as it sits now.

 

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I pulled the foxface out and took him to the LFS to re-home in a larger tank. Added a new Naso and he immediately went to work grazing. Went in for some manual removal of bubble algae clumps and accidently broke my fox flame off the rock work and had to glue it back. It ended up crooked compared to how it was, so hopefully it doesn't grow too funny because of it. I also cleaned off my UV's crystal tube for the first time since installing it and realized this is something I should probably be doing once a month. The tube had a white calcification over the whole thing; I'm certain my UV couldn't function properly in that condition. A quick spray with some vinegar and 20 seconds later it all wiped right off. Next task is to try and catch the wrasse and file fish. The file fish will be as easy as reaching in and plucking him out, but the wrasse burrows in sand at the first sign of danger, and when I was catching the fox face the wrasse seemed to avoid the fish trap pretty well. Crossing my fingers I can get lucky and catch her without destroying my tank.

 

[civics14]

Looking like some good growth there!

 

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Looking like some good growth there!

Thanks! I'm kicking myself for not seeing the R2R BC grow out contest in time to get in on it. I put this tank up the same time as BRS Ryan had WWC fill his 360, I'm really looking forward to seeing an update on that tank to compare. Cross your fingers for me, as I'm going to be screwing with my lights this month. Currently my hot spots top out at about 350 PAR with most acros sitting at 250-275. My hope is that I can get more growth with a slightly longer photo period, and better colors with my PAR a little higher, maybe 350-400 PAR for most. I'm going to ramp it up slowly over the next month.

 

[civics14]

I am doing the same amount of PAR you have currently, I always found that as a sweet spot in all my previous tanks. How long do you run your peak photoperiod?

 

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I am doing the same amount of PAR you have currently, I always found that as a sweet spot in all my previous tanks. How long do you run your peak photoperiod?

Simple answer: about 8.5 hours

Complicated answer:
Kessils do a ramp up from 8am to 9am that is just blue and violet, then another ramp up to a more "full spectrum" light by 9:30am, that is also when the T5s come on(4 Blue+). Kessils stay there until 1:30 and then they get a little more blue and turn down intensity a little. T5s turn off at 6pm as of today, used to be 5. Kessils go full blue and violet at about 175-200 Par from 6pm(previously 5) until 8pm when it is lights out. I use the lunar cycle thing on the kessil also, so I can see pretty things at night too. I am feeling ok with increasing duration based on my PH. I noticed my PH would always start to drop when the T5s turned off at 5. Looking at my apex now it looks like it held the PH until 6, although it didn't go as high. I'll continue to monitor assuming that PH correlates to photosynthesis, but I'm not a scientist I'm just guessing.

 

[project1004]

For catching your difficult fishes, I would suggest that you just drain the tank as much as you can so you can simply scup up the fishes when water line gets low. Probably the easiest and quickest way. Loving your tank as it is similar to mine .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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My copperband has not eaten anything since I pulled out the foxface. He's just been hanging out in the cave the foxface used to chill in and hasn't moved. Doesn't look sick, no labored breathing, just chilling, swimming in one spot in the cave not going anywhere. Hopefully he perks back up soon. He's been in the tank for over a month taking care of aiptasia and eating Rod's. I'm hoping the stress wasn't too much for him. Anyone else ever think they've had fish get sad from losing a tank mate before?

 

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Took the time to try and eradicate the larger aiptasia from the tank that the CB and filefish weren't eating. CB still chilling in the cave not eating :\
Since I had to have the pumps off I decided it was a good time to do some spot feeding of corals.

 

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[jcusmarine]

Great coral selection


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[civics14]

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Looking good!

 

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My NO3 and PO4 were pretty high the past month, topping out at 32 and .23, but it didn't seem to have any negative effects so I was only slowly bringing it back down with my normal water changes and feeding half as much. I'm thinking some of my corals colors don't seem quite as bright as they did last week with some of the reds and pinks fading back out, so maybe there is a correlation. I sent out my regular ICP test the other week, so I should get the results any day now. If everything seems in order aside from my nutrients then I might consider trying some carbon dosing for a bit. I've never tried carbon dosing before so I've got my research ahead of me. Thinking maybe NO3-PO4-X, or NP-Bacto-Balance?

 

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A little night time polyp action on the Fox Flame.

 

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Got my ICP in and did some corrective dosing through the week to potassium, bromine, and boron. Reds are popping again and the pinks are more pink and less purple, my Stan Lee nub is even starting to get some of the color in it's polyps. NO3 is at 24.3 and PO4 is 0.21, no visible negative effects.

Basically gambling at this point; Nemo's had a borbonius anthias for a price too good to pass up. I've wanted one of these guys since I first started in the hobby and saw one in a store display back in Colorado. Even though I've had some back luck with fish in this tank I'm taking a shot, hope I don't regret it in 2 months. That being said, I've done aquabiomics tests and they don't show anything that would effect fish, and my wrasse and clowns have been in the tank for just about the whole time it has been setup, fat and happy. I probably just have a bad eye for picking healthy tangs.

I also had a real head scratcher at the beginning of the week with my PH. Before the weekend came I replaced the CO2 scrubbing media on my skimmer(not recirculating, and only runs at night), I had to go out of state and I wanted to know it was working while I was gone. All was normal through the weekend I was gone and then Tuesday it began dropping more than usual at night; ok not a big deal, I open a window Wednesday. PH never got up to 8.4 that day and I start thinking 'that's not normal'. I kept checking everything, even looked at my CO2 scrubber media and it was all still white. Friday rolled around and I couldn't figure it out so as a soft hail marry I decided to change the CO2 media and just turn the skimmer to ON instead of AUTO, and sure enough the PH started going up. I guess that one batch of CO2 media was bad/different. It never changed color, and I usually get 3 weeks out of a refill, just change it when its purple about 3/4 the way up, this one refill I only got 4 days. Hopefully this is just a one time thing and I can go back to having a refill last 3 weeks.

 

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I hate having rocks up against the back wall, but it seemed that my new borbonius anthias wasn't liking any of the existing open housing. So I did some rearranging and moved one of the rocks to give him his own spaces. Now he's coming out swimming all over the tank during feeding time and seems to get along well with everything else in the tank. Even though I'm not completely happy with it, and I'm still telling myself its temporary, it is kind of a blessing in disguise. I picked up a 3rd kessil because I wanted to get a little bit more light on the sides of the tank while not dropping the par in the center, but in doing so I'm really pushing the corners of the tank where I had my indophylia. Well, moving that rock and rearranging all the hammers gave me a nice dim spot to put the indo so it doesn't cook, so that I am happy about. I spent a good while re-testing PAR before adding the 3rd kessil to make sure I knew where the corals were at first. Added the 3rd kessil and checked PAR again, showed to add just about 100 par all around after repositioning the lights. I then set the kessil light acclimation mode down to where all the numbers were where they sat with the 2 lights and would slowly add that extra 100 over 30 days, hoping this will be slow enough and not too aggressive, we'll see.