The sad day has come. I've listed my reef tank for sale.

https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/reefer-xl-300-aquarium-inklusive-zubehoer-fuer-reef-hobby/2555371076-313-16362

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Fighting cyano. Also adjusted lighting schedule, lighting intensity, and started feeding less. Hopefully the problem will slowly fade in the first months of 2023.

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Dosing is a lot easier with a proper container. Well worth it.

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I caught a fish!

As in after a day of waiting I was finally able to lure him into fish trap and remove him from main tank. Setting up a quarantine tank for this clown fish with an inflamed eye.

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Hard Coral Genus Identification Guide by Zoe Richards super nice.

https://museum.wa.gov.au/kimberley/sites/default/files/WA%20Coral%20CompactusV2_May2018.pdf

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Magnesium dropped from 1300ppm to 1200ppm, just inside the recommended range. I think because of the new lights, more coral growth, and since I do less water changes. Added Red Foundation C to my auto dosing setup. Hopefully it will recover to 1300 over the next month.


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How I fight Aiptasia:

1. Prepare clean work station / put on gloves.
2. Meld a small ball of D-D AquaScape Korallenkleber together, ~4min.
3. Load a tiny bit of Red Sea Aiptasia-X into the syringe.
4. Have Masha begin a syphon directly over the Aiptasia to suck up any spores that may still escape.
5. Dose the Aiptasia-X giving 2-5 seconds for the Aiptasia to ingest it and start dying.
6. Press in ball of Korallenkleber into the rock completely covering the area.
7. Continue to siphon off water from area.


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First upgrade to my reef tank of 2022!

Goal: Increase the light reaching the coral to improve growth. Making the change very slowly to avoid any bleaching.

New setup: Now my two AI primes LED lights have been integrated with a Giesemann Steller T5 bulb light fixture. Hybrid T5 + LED provides a more even illumination while maintaining shimmer.

The Giesemann was sourced from the Munich Reef Aquarist What’s App chat group. Then I shortened it with a manufacture kit. After added the LEDs and hanging it on my existing ceiling cables all that is left is hooking it up to my DIY controller.

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During our trip to Alonissos my dosing containers ran dry. Without alkalinity or calcium stock solution my parameters plummeted. Even after slowly bring them back up I lost a few coral. ☹️ .

Happy to say now thing are back to normal and corals are growing again. Not exactly sure how to prevent this problem in the future but for now I've just set reminders on my phone to check the dosing containers more often.


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Blog post in the works on flow and tidal simulation in my reef tank. Creating a 3D model of my aquarium to illustrate flow patterns.

Fun to dip back into subdivision surface modeling after a long time.


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#3D

Tough day on the reef. My large Orange Montipora plate and Strawberry Shortcake Acropora decided to go thermonuclear and kill each other. Flesh on both melted away in 42hrs. 💀🤯. As a result of the chaos a stylo frag also died. Removed what was left from the tank and refreshed my carbon reactor. Hopefully everything will be fine. Will follow up with a water chance once I get more salt.

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Nori time. 🌱🥗
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Starting copper treatment in QT tank. Ивана, Ivana, the brown Scopas Tang has shown no signs of disease/parasites but can’t be to carful.

Original plan was two weeks of copper medication but thinking of reducing that to one as she is so healthy. She is eating pellet food and nori without issue.

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Someone in the Munich Reef Hobbyist WhatApp chat asked about coral glue. This is the one I use: Microbe-Lift Reef Scraper. Rather than a glue it is more of a plastic that melts at ~55°C. Applications is pretty easy:

- heat some water in the tea kettle to ~63°C
- put in a pinch of the plastic beads or an old chunk from the aquarium. (Yes it is reusable)
- let sit for few min
- it will be nearly translucent when it is ready to set
- wrap the base of your coral and place it on your rock structure holding it in place for ~3-5min. This takes bit of patience, but once it's set it holds incredibly well.
- wait another 10min before turning flow pumps back on to give it time to completely set.

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Post on my aquarium controller, Sewa, with pictures as promised: https://travisshears.com/blog/sewa-reef-controller/

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Brought the Fungia up to the frag rack for closer inspection. Turns out those intruder polyps are more Fungia! Three more! Confirmed with other hobbyist.

I'll place them somewhere else in the rockscape and let them grow out. False alarm.

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Intruder alert. 🚨 Intruder alert 🚨

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Say hello to and awesome gift from my wife, Brown Scopas Tang.

He’s now in quarantine tank learning how to eat normally before I start copper treatment. Estimate date to add to made tank is February 26th. 🤞

Really committed good health in QT this time with daily 10% water chances.

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One of my 2022 goals for the reef is to upgrade the lighting. Surprisingly my 2 AI Primes are capable of growing Acropora and Montipora near the surface but things are far from optimal. Adding a third light to the mix, like a row of T5 bulbs, could really help even the spread out and reach some shady spots.

Judging which light to buy hinges on what I currently have and without PAR measurements it’s just guessing. After researching I found the Apogee sensor for ~450 EUR and the less accurate Senseye ~150 EUR 💶💶. Cost prohibitive measuring led me to give up on measuring, that is until today!

This morning in the German speaking saltwater reef tank friends what’s app chat 💬 they were discussing PAR and I asked about renting a meter come someone and learned about meerwasser-hardware.de renting the Apogee sensor out! Finally an avenue to figuring out my lighting.


https://www.meerwasser-hardware.de/produkte/test-it/1376/apogee-par/quantummeter-mq-510-test-it-testgeraet


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The styloforest is under construction. Last night got a huge stylophora milka tree in but it broke so now I'm pivoting to using the frags. Plan is to create a dense forest out of the pieces.

Also got a cool deep purple acropora frag and traded for a piece of bubble gum montipora.

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